Video and audio

History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge
An introduction to HPS at Cambridge, with contributions from students and members of staff.

Virtual Conversations
Recordings of online discussions from Easter Term 2020.

Scientific Pluralism and the Mission of History and Philosophy of Science
What is HPS for? Why do we need such a professional academic discipline? Hasok Chang considers these questions in his inaugural lecture, given in October 2012.

The 'Flying Scientist' Who Chased Spores
Ruth Horry tells the story of the Cambridge mycologist who used an airship to trap fungal spores.

Skulls in Print: Scientific Racism in the Transatlantic World
James Poskett shows how racist ideas and images circulated between the United States and Europe in the 19th century.

The World Inside a Spanish Globe
Seb Falk lifts the lid on an early 20th-century educational toy, which can be seen in the Whipple Museum's globes exhibition.

Cambridge

CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities)

• Disciplines and Disorientation
  Simon Schaffer's contribution to the conference The Future University.
• Field Notes
  Recordings of the seminar series that encourages interdisciplinary discussion about the histories of archaeology and anthropology.
• Global Science
  Recordings of the research group that explores the relationship between global history and science studies.
• PhDcasts: Katy Barrett
  Katy Barrett discusses her PhD research on the cultural history of the longitude problem in the 18th century.
• PhDcasts: Michelle Wallis
  Michelle Wallis discusses her PhD research on cheap print and medical advertising in early modern England.
• Things: Early Modern Material Cultures
  Recordings of the seminar series in which objects are considered from different perspectives.

Darwin College

• Darwin College Lecture Series 2009: Global Darwin
  Jim Secord on the international significance of Charles Darwin's work.

Darwin Correspondence Project

• Darwin and Religion
  Paul White interviews Tim Lewens about the role of Darwin in modern science and the implications of evolution for religious belief.

Fitzwilliam Museum

• Darwin and the Ancient Earth
  In a podcast to complement the 2009 exhibition Endless Forms, Jim Secord explains why the young Darwin's fascination with geology was so important for his later work.

Generation to Reproduction

• Henry VIII: The Quest for an Heir
  In the first of two lectures on royal births in Tudor and Stuart England, Peter Jones (King's College, Cambridge) looks at Henry VIII's anxieties about fertility, and the resources – medical, religious, political – on which he drew to secure a male heir.
• Mary of Modena: A Royal Scandal
  Mary Fissell (Johns Hopkins University) examines the sensational tales told about the so-called 'warming-pan baby', the child born to James II and Mary of Modena in 1688.

Sidney Sussex College

• Sidney Greats Lecture Series 2012: Newton
  Patricia Fara introduces the life and thought of Sir Isaac Newton, placing his great Principia Mathematica in context.
• Sidney Greats Lecture Series 2012: Darwin
  Tim Lewens reflects on Darwin's On the Origin of Species and its relationship to modern Darwinism.
• Sidney Greats Lecture Series 2014: Freud
  John Forrester provides an introduction to Freud's On the Interpretation of Dreams.

Trinity College

• Tarner Lectures 2010
  Simon Schaffer gives a series of four lectures on 'When the stars threw down their spears: histories of astronomy and empire'.

External

BBC Arts

• New Generation Thinkers: Joshua Nall
  Josh explains how the spectroscope prompted debates about extraterrestrial life and transformed the way people thought about the universe.
• New Generation Thinkers: Seb Falk
  Seb shows how a medieval astrolabe works by making one of his own and taking it to sea.

BBC Radio 3

• The Essay: Monks, Models and Medieval Time
  Seb Falk opens up the world of the 14th-century monks who studied astronomy.

BBC Radio 4

• In Our Time: Absolute Zero
  Simon Schaffer discusses the lowest conceivable temperature.
• In Our Time: Alchemy
  Lauren Kassell is among the guests discussing the ancient science of transformations.
• In Our Time: Astronomy and Empire
  Simon Schaffer discusses the relationship between astronomy and the British Empire.
• In Our Time: Automata
  Simon Schaffer discusses machines that imitate living creatures.
• In Our Time: Bacon
  Patricia Fara takes part in a discussion about Francis Bacon and his Baconian Method.
• In Our Time: Boyle
  Simon Schaffer discusses the life and work of Robert Boyle, one of the first natural philosophers to conduct rigorous experiments.
• In Our Time: Calculus
  Patricia Fara and Simon Schaffer discuss the feud between Newton and Leibniz.
• In Our Time: The Cavendish Family in Science
  Patricia Fara and Simon Schaffer on how members of the Cavendish family contributed to science.
• In Our Time: The Curies
  Patricia Fara discusses the scientific achievements of Marie and Pierre Curie, their daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, and her husband, Frédéric Joliot-Curie.
• In Our Time: Edison
  Simon Schaffer discusses the innovations and influence of Thomas Edison, one of the architects of the modern age.
• In Our Time: Electrickery
  Patricia Fara and Simon Schaffer on why the development of electricity in the 18th and 19th centuries was politically contentious.
• In Our Time: The Eye
  Patricia Fara considers the history of human understanding of eyes.
• In Our Time: Franklin
  Patricia Fara discusses the life and work of Benjamin Franklin, one of the most remarkable individuals of the 18th century.
• In Our Time: Goethe and the Science of the Enlightenment
  Simon Schaffer explains how the poet and dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was also a scientist.
• In Our Time: Heat
  Hasok Chang and Simon Schaffer explore the complex history of scientific ideas about heat.
• In Our Time: Hooke
  Patricia Fara discusses the life and work of Robert Hooke.
• In Our Time: Humboldt
  Patricia Fara and Jim Secord discuss the life of 'the greatest scientific traveller who ever lived', Alexander Von Humboldt.
• In Our Time: The Laws of Motion
  Simon Schaffer takes part in a discussion about Isaac Newton's three laws of motion.
• In Our Time: Linnaeus
  Staffan Müller-Wille on the life, ideas and legacy of the pioneering Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus.
• In Our Time: Longitude
  Simon Schaffer on the 18th-century search for ways to calculate longitude at sea.
• In Our Time: Lovelace
  Patrica Fara discusses the work of Ada Lovelace, the 19th-century mathematician considered to be the first computer programmer.
• In Our Time: The Lunar Society
  Simon Schaffer on how a small group of friends had an extraordinary influence on science, technology and industry.
• In Our Time: Maxwell
  Simon Schaffer discusses the life and ideas of James Clerk Maxwell.
• In Our Time: Meteorology
  Liba Taub takes part in a discussion about the history of meteorology from the ancient world to the 18th century.
• In Our Time: Oceanography
  Simon Schaffer is among the guests discussing how we understand the sea.
• In Our Time: Optics
  Simon Schaffer discusses the history of seeing the world through a lens.
• In Our Time: Oxygen
  Hasok Chang and Simon Schaffer examine the dispute between Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier.
• In Our Time: Photography
  Simon Schaffer discusses the development of photographic techniques in the 1830s.
• In Our Time: Pliny's Natural History
  Liba Taub takes part in a discussion about Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia.
• In Our Time: Ptolemy and Ancient Astronomy
  Liba Taub discusses Ptolemy's geocentric theory of the universe.
• In Our Time: Radio
  Simon Schaffer takes part in a discussion about the invention of radio.
• In Our Time: Renaissance Astrology
  Lauren Kassell explains why astrological ideas flourished during the Renaissance.
• In Our Time: Rutherford
  Patricia Fara and Simon Schaffer discuss the Cambridge nuclear physicist Ernest Rutherford.
• In Our Time: The Scientific Method
  Simon Schaffer discusses the evolution of a systematic and analytical approach to scientific thought.
• In Our Time: The Scientist
  Patricia Fara considers how the notion of 'the scientist' has evolved.
• In Our Time: The Time Machine
  Simon Schaffer on H.G. Wells' story of time travel, evolution and a planet unfit for humans.
• In Our Time: Turing
  Simon Schaffer on the life and ideas of Alan Turing, the founder of computer science.
• In Our Time: The Unicorn
  Lauren Kassell takes part in a discussion about the mythical creature once thought to be real.
• In Our Time: Vitalism
  Patricia Fara considers the quest for the spark of life in the 18th and 19th centuries.
• In Our Time: The Voyages of James Cook
  Simon Schaffer considers the scientific advances made in the three voyages of Captain Cook.
• In Our Time: Water
  Hasok Chang discusses water – a simple molecule with extraordinary properties.
• In Our Time: Women and Enlightenment Science
  Patricia Fara considers the role played by women in Enlightenment science.
• The Making of Modern Medicine
  In a 30-part series broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007, Andrew Cunningham traces the history of western medicine from Hippocrates and Galen to the first heart transplant.

BioViews

• Minds in the Deep: Octopuses as Conscious Exotica
  Marta Halina explains how octopuses can help us understand consciousness and intelligence in systems that are very different from ourselves.

YouTube

• The Longitude Problem
  Simon Schaffer introduces a video about the project 'The Board of Longitude 1714–1828: Science, Innovation and Empire in the Georgian World'.
• A Tour Round the Old Cavendish Laboratory
  Simon Schaffer on the founding of the University's Cavendish Laboratory.