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.


Read More
Image:Sign-up for the next Research Café on Sustainability

12 September
2024

Sign-up for the next Research Café on Sustainability

CPS Vice-President Dr. Claire Barlow to give keynote address at the next Research Café on Sustainability


Image:Down House Visit

11 June
2024

Down House Visit

CPS members visit Down House, home to Charles Darwin where he wrote On the Origin of Species.

Image:Human Anatomy Centre Visit

30 May
2024

Human Anatomy Centre Visit

Society members visit the Human Anatomy Centre at the University of Cambridge

Image:Gaia: Mapping the Stars

03 April
2024

Gaia: Mapping the Stars

Dr Giorgia Busso talks about her work on the Gaia Mission at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge.

Image:Upcoming Research Café event on Climate Change

01 April
2024

Event

Upcoming Research Café event on Climate Change

The Research Cafe at West Hub is holding an event on Climate Change on Wenesday, 24th April 2024 with keynote by Professor Lord Martin Rees

Image:CPS supports The Cambridge University Herbarium videos for the Cambridge Festival 2024

14 March
2024

YouTube

CPS supports The Cambridge University Herbarium videos for the Cambridge Festival 2024

CPS supports the production of Cambridge University Herbarium videos for the Cambridge Festival 2024

Upcoming Events

Show All

03

02

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

Professor Lindsay Greer

  • 18:00 - 19:00 Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre Lent Term G.I. Taylor Lecture

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.

View Details

17

02

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

Professor Stephen John

  • 18:00 - 19:00 Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre Lent Term

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. 

View Details

Publications

Discover our Journals & Books

From Darwin’s paper on evolution to the development of stem cell research, publications from the Society continue to shape the scientific landscape.

Membership

Join the Cambridge Philosophical Society

Become a Fellow of the Society and enjoy the benefits that membership brings. Membership costs £20 per year.

Join today