Ideas Roadshow

Freeman Dyson (IAS) looks back on his illustrious career in both science and writing.

Scott Tremaine (IAS) discusses comets, Pluto, planetary rings, shepherding satellites, exoplanets, chaos theory, and how our solar system was formed.

SETI astronomer Jill Tarter discusses her life-long passion for the science of detecting signals of possible extraterrestrial life.

2003 Nobel Laureate Tony Leggett (University of Illinois) gives us an update on what has changed since he wrote his popular book The Problems of Physics in 1987.

David Politzer (Caltech) describes some of the intriguing aspects associated with the physics of banjos, including the ocarina effect, string-stretching, and the subtleties of how we hear pitch.

Harvard historian David Armitage, discusses how there is more to the concept of 'civil war' than you might initially have thought, in keeping with his recent book, "Civil Wars: A History in Ideas"

Elyn Saks (USC) discusses the legal implications surrounding mental health and candidly shares her personal experiences with schizophrenia.

Carol Dweck (Stanford) details her long-standing work on mindsets: how different ways of thinking influence learning ability and success.

Quentin Skinner (QMUL) details the important distinction between the modern view of freedom and the so-called neo-Roman view.

Primatologist Frans de Waal (Emory) gives us his take on "bottom-up morality", based on a lifetime's research of chimpanzees, bonobos and his fellow humans.

In part 1 of this double-issue with Carol Padden (UC San Diego), we discuss American Sign Language, identity, co-speech gesturing, embodiment and more.

Elizabeth Loftus (UC Irvine) discusses her ground-breaking work on the misinformation effect, false memories and her battles with "repressed memory" advocates.

Physicist Paul Steinhardt (Princeton) takes us on a fascinating ride of the physics of materials, from theory to the laboratory, to discover a new state of matter.

Improving Human Rights – A Conversation with Emilie Hafner-Burton by Ideas Roadshow

Nita Farahany (Duke University) explores the growing impact of modern neuroscience on both the law and society at large.

Renowned Stanford University psychologist Philip Zimbardo relates his intriguing life history and the impact that it has had on his psychological research, including his infamous 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment.

In part 1 of our two-part conversation with Roger Penrose (Oxford), he discusses his public science writings, his longstanding puzzlement with the particular state of entropy at the big bang, and his new theory of cosmology.

Ellen Bialystok (York University) discusses her research on the psychology of bilingualism, describing bilingualism's effects on our brains on a verbal and non-verbal level.