Uploaded January 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Evenings with an Author hosted Astronomer Royal Martin Rees in conversation with Alice McCrum. Filmed on 18/01/23 with a live audience on Zoom.
As humanity encounters an increasing number of threats, an increased public understanding of science will be crucial to our continued existence.
In a time of unprecedented climate crisis, as faith in channels of communication erodes and systems of knowledge fracture, the development of a public scientific consciousness has never been more urgent. In new work If Science is to Save Us, Astronomer Royal Martin Rees demonstrates the extreme importance of science in confronting humanity’s most pressing challenges, and the social framework which needs to accompany this. Scientific progress must take social good as its object; simultaneously, the public needs to develop a scientific register which allows them to participate in major scientific decisions. In an online conversation with the American Library in Paris, he discusses the vitality of scientific funding, training, and research in the fight for the future of humankind.
About the speaker:
Martin Rees is the UK’s Astronomer Royal. He is based at Cambridge University where he is a Former Master of Trinity College. He is a former President of the Royal Society, co-founder of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risks at Cambridge University (CSER), and has served on many bodies connected with education, space research, arms control and international collaboration in science. In addition to his research publications he has written many general articles and ten books.
Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.
Evenings with an Author hosted Astronomer Royal Martin Rees in conversation with Alice McCrum. Filmed on 18/01/23 with a live audience on Zoom.
As humanity encounters an increasing number of threats, an increased public understanding of science will be crucial to our continued existence.
In a time of unprecedented climate crisis, as faith in channels of communication erodes and systems of knowledge fracture, the development of a public scientific consciousness has never been more urgent. In new work If Science is to Save Us, Astronomer Royal Martin Rees demonstrates the extreme importance of science in confronting humanity’s most pressing challenges, and the social framework which needs to accompany this. Scientific progress must take social good as its object; simultaneously, the public needs to develop a scientific register which allows them to participate in major scientific decisions. In an online conversation with the American Library in Paris, he discusses the vitality of scientific funding, training, and research in the fight for the future of humankind.
About the speaker:
Martin Rees is the UK’s Astronomer Royal. He is based at Cambridge University where he is a Former Master of Trinity College. He is a former President of the Royal Society, co-founder of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risks at Cambridge University (CSER), and has served on many bodies connected with education, space research, arms control and international collaboration in science. In addition to his research publications he has written many general articles and ten books.
Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.
