To Bend or to Break?  — new views on the hardening of metals

G.I. Taylor Lecture

Professor Lindsay Greer

• 3 February 2025, 18:00 – 19:00
• Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre

Kipling’s “Iron‒Cold Iron‒is master of them all” captures the familiar importance of metals as structural materials.  Yet common metals are not necessarily hard; they can become so when deformed.  This phenomenon, strain hardening, was first explained by G. I. Taylor in 1934.  Ninety years on from this pioneering work on dislocation theory, we explore the deformation of metals when dislocations do not exist, that is when the metals are non-crystalline.  These amorphous metals have record-breaking combinations of properties.  They behave very differently from the metals that Taylor studied, but we do find phenomena for which his work (in a dramatically different context) is directly relevant.

Why there’s no such thing as “the” scientific advice

Professor Stephen John

• 17 February 2025, 18:00 – 19:00
• Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre

During the Covid-19 pandemic, U.K. policy-makers claimed to be "following the science". Many commentators objected that the government did not live up to this aim. Others worried that policy-makers ought not blindly "follow" science, because this involves an abdication of responsibility. In this talk, I consider a third, even more fundamental concern: that there is no such thing as "the" science. Drawing on the case of adolescent vaccination against Covid-19, I argue that the best that any scientific advisory group can do is to offer a partial perspective on reality. In turn, this has important implications for how we think about science and politics. 

05 December 2024

Job Vacancy - Administrative Assistant

We are seeking a skilled Administrative Assistant to support various activities run by the Society. Closing date 18 December 2024.

24 September 2024

Department of Plant Sciences help re-create a 10th Century incense recipe

CPS Council member Professor John Carr helps to re-create a 10th Century recipe for incense from the collection of the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College.