Supercharged: Fuelling the future by Professor Saiful Islam
Started by Michael Faraday in 1825, and now broadcast on UK national television every year, the Royal Institution’s Christmas Lectures are firmly established as the UK’s flagship science series. This year the Royal Institution has commissioned a series of lecutures on the theme of ‘energy’.
Supercharged
The series of related lectures – Supercharged: Fuelling the future – has already been recorded and we are promised that we will be led on an ‘incredible journey through the invisible presence that drives everything around us’. Ostensibly aimed at stimulating young minds these lectures may offer new insights for those of us a little longer in the tooth also, and with the Christmas holidays upon us why not take the time out to learn more about our energy future?
‘Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it just transforms from one form to another – the challenge is whether we can harness and use it for our own purposes when it changes from one form to another. The three Lectures will take us on an incredible journey through these powerful transformations to inspire the next-generation of scientists’.
In each lecture, Professor Islam will address a particular question – ‘what is energy and where does it come from, how can we best make use of it, and how can we store energy to use later on?’
Along the way we will learn about ‘the energy that powers our homes, the energy that powers our cars and see how the most important machine of them all, the human body, compares to all the gadgets we carry around with us’.
Professor Saiful Islam
Saiful Islam, Professor of Materials Chemistry at the University of Bath.
Saiful is Professor of Materials Chemistry at the University of Bath.
Having completed a Chemistry degree and PhD at University College London, a postdoctoral fellowship in Rochester, New York, USA, and a lectureship at the University of Surrey, his research interests include computer modelling of new materials for lithium and sodium batteries, solid oxide fuel cells and perovskite solar cells.
Saiful’s research is supported by the EPSRC, and he has received several awards including the Wolfson Research Merit Award from the Royal Society and the Sustainable Energy Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry. He has presented more than 60 invited talks at international conferences, and has around 180 publications.
He sits on the Diversity Committee of the Royal Society and is a member of the British Humanist Association.
(Photo credit: University of Bath)
Broadcast dates
The 2016 Christmas Lectures will be broadcast on BBC Four at 8pm on 26, 27 and 28 December.
If you can’t wait until the broadcasts you can find more information here, including an interview with Prof. Islam and a Thermodynamics themed Advent Calendar.
Merry Xmas!
