Dorothy Hodgkin is one of 10 outstanding Fellows of the Royal Society commemorated in a new series of stamps.
2010 is the 350th anniversary of
the foundation of the Royal Society
On November 30th 1660 a dozen men gathered to hear the young Christopher Wren give a lecture on astronomy. In the discussion that followed they decided to form a society for the study of the new and still controversial Experimental Philosophy. Two years later Charles II made it his Royal Society and in the 350 years since it was founded, its Fellows have given us gravity, evolution, the electron, the double helix, the internet and a large part of the modern world. In 2010 we celebrate 350 years of scientific brilliance and fearless doubt.
| Calendar | Books | TV & Radio | Journals | Science | Miscellany |
2010 Events
Calendar
The Royal Society's anniversary will be celebrated all over the country in events ranging from tiny local exhibitions to the enormous See Further Festival of Science and Art in June. Our events calendar is already filling with lectures, exhibitions, discussions and outings suitable for all the family.
Join us on Saturday 20 March, when the Royal Society and Tate Modern bring together scientists and artists in a symposium to imagine the social and psychological impacts of climate change. It includes presentations, discussions, work in groups and a public forum debate. All are invited to come and join an emininent panel that includes Sir Brian Hoskins FRS, Lucy Orta, Tomás Saraceno, Steve Rayner, Agnes Denes and Corinne Le Queré. The event will be launched with a Friday night screening of the Age of Stupid followed by Q&A with special guests. You can book tickets online.
Seeing Further
Edited and introduced by Bill Bryson, with contributions from Richard Dawkins, Margaret Atwood, Richard Holmes, Martin Rees, Richard Fortey, Steve Jones, James Gleick and Neal Stephenson amongst others, this beautiful, lavishly illustrated book tells the story of science and the Royal Society, from 1660 to the present. 'Seeing Further' celebrates its momentous history and achievements, bringing together the very best of science writing. Filled with illustrations of treasures from the Society's archives, this is a unique, ground-breaking and beautiful volume, and a suitable reflection of the immense achievements of science.
Seeing Further is available at Amazon and all good bookshops.
World of Wonder
The BBC has designated 2010 its ‘year of science’ and there will be special programmes all year under the banner World of Wonder. From the sublime to the joyfully ridiculous, they will take to the whole country the idea that science is not a subject but a state of mind. Highlights include The Story of Science and Seven Wonders of the Solar System on BBC2, Richard Hammond going beyond the visible on BBC1, an in-depth look at the discovery of the elements on BBC4 and the even more volatile Bang goes the Theory.
Radio 4 will add a wide range of programming, including Richard Dawkins’ series The Age of the Genome, the national talent search So You Want To Be A Scientist and the Reith Lectures, which this year are to be delivered by Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society. Melvyn Bragg has already devoted four episodes of In Our Time to the long and sometimes turbulent history of the Royal Society.
in Seven Wonders of the Solar System, physicist Brian Cox travels to some of the most extreme locations on earth and uses them to evoke the even greater wonders we are finding on the other planets of the solar system.
in Chemistry: A Volatile History, Jim Al Khalili traces the discovery and ordering of the elements from the earliest alchemical speculations through a great many tangents and explosions.
Journals in 2010
The Royal Society has published special editions of Philosophical Transactions, the world’s oldest continuing scientific journal. Leading scientists provide personal perspectives on the current state of science and future developments in both the physical and biological sciences – these are freely accessible online to scientists and the general reader alike.
We have also produced Trailblazing, an online, interactive timeline for everybody with an interest in science. It showcases sixty interesting and groundbreaking scientific articles drawn from our vast journal archive of 68,000 articles dating back to 1665.
Trailblazing was compiled by scientists, science communicators and historians under the guidance of Professor Michael Thompson FRS.
Science in 2010
The Royal Society will expand its series of discussion meetings in 2010 to raise and address the major scientific questions of the 21st century. The meetings will provide a scientific backbone to the 350th anniversary celebrations and they will help us to set the agenda for the next generation. Each meeting bring together hundreds of world-leading researchers to tackle interdisciplinary topics and problems with global impact. They will reach broadly, both to map out the future of the most vital research fields and to bring home their growing importance to a wider audience.
The Scientific Century is a new report bringing together leading figures from politics, industry and science to assess the role of science in any long-term strategy for economic growth. It warns that the UK faces decades of slow economic decline unless it invests heavily in scientific research.
Latest additions
25 February: Royal Mail today launches a series of 10 stamps commemorating past Fellows of the Royal Society and their enormous contributions to modern science. You can see them all here, and the BBC has a slideshow with narration by Stephen Cox, Executive Secretary of the Society, introducing each of the scientists and explaining why they've been chosen.
The scientists featured are Robert Boyle, founder of modern chemistry; Sir Isaac Newton, physicist and optical pioneer; Benjamin Franklin, inventor of the lightning conductor; Edward Jenner, inventor of vaccination; Charles Babbage, developer of programmable computers; Alfred Russell Wallace, pioneer of evolution theory; Joseph Lister, inventor of antiseptic surgery; Ernest Rutherford (shown), founding father of nuclear physics; Dorothy Hodgkin, inventor of x-ray crystallography and Sir Nicholas Shackleton, pioneer of climate research.
