Big Ideas (Video)

Robert Adams, author of A Love of Reading, discusses the novel Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry.

Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great, on The Three New Commandments.

Robert Adams, author of A Love of Reading, discusses the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

Hazel Carby looks at the historic relationship between England and Jamaica, including the history of the slave trade in Bristol and the complex question of identity for those of mixed British and West Indian heritage.

Robert Adams, author of A Love of Reading, discusses the novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie.

Thomas Merritt, Canada Research Chair in Genomics and Bio-informatics at Laurentian University 19s department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, on the extent to which our genetic makeup is responsible for our talents and aptitudes.

The editor of Skeptic Magazine, Michael Shermer, delivers a lecture on his book Why People Believe Weird Things.

Michael Fullan of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education delivers a lecture entitled Schools in Need of Re-Education

Christopher Hitchens voices his opinion on the subject of the Hart House Debating Club debate: Be it resolved: Freedom of speech includes the freedom to hate.

Michael Ruse is professor of the philosophy of biology at Florida State University. In this lecture he addresses the question Is Darwinism Past its Sell-by Date?

Daniel Gottesman of the Perimeter Institute discusses quantum computing and the cryptographic protocols that use quantum physics, and that one day will protect all that which we would want to stay secret.

Robert Adams, author of A Love of Reading, discusses the 1964 novel Herzog by Saul Bellow.

The author of Struck by Lightning - and the statistician who crunched the numbers to reveal that a statistically improbable number of lottery retailers were winning major prizes in Ontario - Jeffrey Rosenthal guides us through the maze of numbers and percentages to show us to how calculate correct probabilities.

Simon Winchester on his book A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906.

Janna Levin on her book Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, the story of two great mathematicians, Kurt Godel and Alan Turing. They were men who had the capacity to think about the most abstract of mathematical truths but had very limited abilities when it came to confronting the mundane aspects of life. Both committed suicide.

Robert Adams, author of A Love of Reading, discusses the novel No Great Mischief by Alastair MacLeod.

Kevin Dutton on his book The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success.

Robert Adams, author of A Love of Reading, discusses the novel The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.

Nima Arkani-Hamed on the Large Hadron Collider and the Future of Fundamental Physics. Located on the Swiss-French border, the Large Hadron Collider is a circular tunnel 27 km in circumference. It will allow physicists to probe the constituent parts of the proton, looking for new forms of matter and insights into the formation of the universe.

Ecological footprint is an idea originated by William Rees, an environmental economist from the University of British Columbia. If you need a primer in environmental economics, this lecture is for you.

Salmon Akhtar on The Trauma of Geographical Dislocation, how immigration can affect a person's mental health.

Harvard University psychology professor, Steven Pinker, dicusses his book The Blank Slate.

Marc Abrahams, editor of The Annals of Improbably Research and one of the organizers of the annual Ig-Nobel Prize ceremonies at Harvard University, discusses the work of scientists and academics that, "first makes you laugh, and then makes you think".

Maude Barlow, National Chair of the citizens' advocacy organization The Council of Canadians, on Water: The Most Pressing Women's Issue of All.

Ken Cramer - Psychology, University of Windsor -on Alfred Adler: The Most Famous Personality Theorist You Likely Never Heard Of

Kwame McKenzie on Immigration Sickness. What psychological and social attributes help us predict who will be a good at being an immigrant?

University of Toronto English professor, Nick Mount, explores T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.

University of Toronto Zoology researcher, Susannah Varmuza, discusses the evolving field of Epigenetics and what research into such things as mouse coat colour is telling scientists about the age-old "nature versus nurture" debate.

Jordan Peterson on Slaying the Dragon Within Us. Peterson, a University of Toronto professor of psychology, talks about fear of the unknown and fear of dealing with problems.

Clare Hasenkampf of the Biology Department at University of Toronto Scarborough presents her lecture Chromosomes Dividing: How It Is Done and Why It Matters.

Clare Hasenkampf from the Biology Department at University of Toronto Scarborough is profiled. Hasenkampf's plant biology research and her passion for New Orleans cooking are featured.

Lieutenant General (retired) Andrew Leslie, the Former Chief of Transformation for the Canadian Armed Forces, discusses the lessons that can be learned from the Canadian military mission in Afghanistan. He explores how these lessons need to be applied to the Canadian Force's priorities in the face of future budget cuts.

Neurologist and best-selling author, Oliver Sacks, discusses his book Musicophilia. and the ways our brains interact with and understand music.

American author and political activist, Noam Chomsky, speking at a benefit for Canadian Dimension Magazine, delivers a talk entitled The Imperial Presidency. Recorded at University of Toronto on Nov 21/04.

Focusing on the work of Galileo, Newton, Descartes and Einstein, Harvey Brown examines the evolution of thinking about the surprisingly difficult concepts of time and motion.

Science writer Philip Ball on his book Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything. Ball explores how the history of science was influenced by the cultural accetance or rejection of human curiosity.

Philip Ball - Question and Answer session following the lecture based on his book, Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything

Samantha Nutt, Founder and Executive Director of War Child, is interviewed by Carol Off following her talk at the Grandest Challenge symposium.

Stephen Lewis of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, is interviewed by Gillian Findlay following his talk at the Grandest Challenge symposium.

Jordan Peterson on Music and the Patterns of the Mind and World. Peterson, a University of Toronto professor of psychology, discusses the way in which music is perceived by humans. He compares the way we respond to visual arts, particularly the paintings of Picasso, to our perceptions of music in an effort to show how our brains respond differently to varied art forms.

Dr. Jill Tarter, Director at the Centre for SETI Research, discusses the ongoing Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence and how new tools including the Allen Telescope Array and the Keplar Spacecraft are helping to make the search much more likely to succeed.

Stephen Lewis, social sciences scholar in residence at McMaster University, delivers a talk entitled, Climate Change; the New Big Thing.