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Networks: The Internet and Beyond

Networks were seen as a rather arcane and dull area in computer science. Then along came the internet, and everything changed for ever.

Cyber War Crimes

Cyberwar is not waged on physical battlefields following rules of engagement. Aggressors worry less about collateral damage, in part because they aren’t forced to confront the sight of an enemy bleeding to death before their eyes.

Darwin‘s Troubled Legacy

Darwin’s Descent of Man was dominated by the theory of sexual selection, which Darwin used to explain peacock’s tails, but also to argue that white people were as superior to black ones as men were to women.

Computers: A History

Even the most humdrum of electrical devices nowadays contains at least one computer; yet surprisingly few people are aware of their history, their form or function. In this talk we will see that not only is the history of computers rich and diverse, their architecture likewise.

The Secrets of Darwin’s Greenhouse

Despite the controversy, evolution was widely accepted by many naturalists within a few years of the Origin’s appearance. An important reason for this rapid triumph was Darwin’s botanical works. Seen through evolutionary eyes, plants proved to be mobile, carnivorous, sensitive – even crafty.

An Introduction to Programs

Niklaus Wirth said Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs. But programs are more than that. They are ubiquitous in modern life, but only a tiny minority of the population know how to program.

Will Computers Outsmart Mathematicians?

Humans use computers to do gigantic calculations which would be impossible to do by hand – for example, weather prediction. But could an AI go beyond that and come up with a proof of a theorem which has stumped humankind?

Making a Monkey out of Darwin

When Darwin finally published the On the Origin of Species, he tried to avoid controversy by ignoring human origins. Yet evolution was soon being attacked as the godless ‘monkey theory’.

Data: The Past, the Present and the Future

Data structures are the critical ingredient of all good information systems. Poor data structures lead to horrendous problems of interoperability and nightmarish complexity; good ones can make the ‘uncomputable’ computable.

Understanding the Universe with AI

Over the last 30 years, digital technology produced an exponential increase in astronomical data. Within our lifetime, the entirety of the visible universe will have been mapped out: we will have seen everything there is to see. The question will then be: what does it all mean?

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