Talks, lectures and presentations by Philip Ball, freelance science writer and consultant editor for the international scientific journal Nature...

TALKS & PRESENTATIONS

Philip has given invited talks and lectures to the public and the scientific community worldwide.

During 2007 and continuing in 2008 I have been aiming to reduce my travelling commitments for delivering talks, for family reasons. So please note that, while I am always happy to receive invitations, there is a stronger chance at present that I might have to decline them.

'Water: life's matrix'. Opening address at the first international conference on astrobiology, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffat Field, California, April 2000.

'Bright Earth: the invention of colour'. Evening discourse at the Royal Institution, London, March 2001. Repeated at the RI for a public audience during Chemistry Week, November 2001. This talk provided the inspiration for a poem by Lavinia Greenlaw in the poetry collection 'Discourses' published by the RI (2002). Also available on CD.

'The age of molecular engineering.' Plenary talk at STM'01, international conference on microscopy and nanoscience, Vancouver, July 2001.

'The age of molecular engineering.' Plenary talk in Symposium X, 'Frontiers of Materials Science', at the Materials Research Society Fall annual meeting, Boston, December 2001.

'Bright Earth: the invention of colour'. Special public event at the Edinburgh Science Festival, April 2002.

'Colour: art and science'. Talk at the 'Colour Through Time' workshop, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, October 2002.

'Pattern formation in nature', talk presented in Limerick, Belfast and Dublin for the Irish branch of the Institute of Physics, February 2003.

'Utopia Theory: the search for a physics of society'. Presented at the Royal Institution, London, on 12 February 2004, and at the Cheltenham Science Festival on 13 June 2004.

'The history of social physics'. Plenary talk at the International Conference on Complexity Science, Boston, 16 May 2004.

'Nanotechnology in the Firing Line'. Special presentation at the International Conference on Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing, Royal Society, 15 December 2003. Available online at http://www.nanotechweb.org/articles/society/2/12/1/1

'Chemistry in 20th Century Literature'. Talk at Public Images of Chemistry in the Twentieth Century, Paris, 17-18 September 2004. See http://www.hyle.org/service/chmc2004/

'How chemists invented colour.' Dove Memorial Lecture, University of Toronto, 14 October 2004.

'Colour through the eyes of a scientist', public lecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 29 March 2005.

'Utopia theory: the search for a physics of society', Northwestern University, Illinois, 31 March 2005.

'Synthetic biology for nanotechnology', Northwestern University, Illinois, 1 April 2005. (Both given as part of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems Distinguished Lecturer series.)