The Yorkshire Speakers Directory
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| Subject Areas: | Woodland Trust, Natural History, History, Science, Countryside | |
| Name, Speaker Location & Areas covered: | Mr Alan HUNTON  | Escrick :: All Yorkshire covered |
| Contact & Website: | w: None | |
| Subjects: | 1) 'Ancient Trees and Ancient Woodland in Yorkshire': In this talk we will introduce the work of the Woodland Trust which includes the creation of new woodland and the restoration of damaged sites. We shall discuss the value of preserving our critically important ancient woodland and understanding how important our ancient trees are for wildlife. The talk will be illustrated with examples of specific woods and trees in Yorkshire. 2) 'Treescapes after the Ice Age' (A History of Trees): We will see how Britain was transformed once the ice sheets had disappeared approximately 16000 years ago. As the climate warmed trees moved north from Southern Europe but each species moved at a different pace so the landscape continually changed. The meaning of the terms 'native tree', 'naturalised tree' and 'introduced tree' will be discussed. We will also see the impact that mankind has had on our treescapes as we move towards modern times. 3) 'Serendipity': Serendipity is a phenomenon which describes a beneficial outcome achieved purely by chance. We will see that a significant number of scientific discoveries throughout history have been made by mistake; such that the intended result failed but the unintended consequence turned out to have phenomenal advantages to society. In this talk we will look at up to ten different Eureka moments in history. A well-known example is that of the work of Alexander Fleming who had the foresight to realise that the mouldy formation that appeared in a petri dish that he had forgotten to clean could be useful. At the time he was not studying antibiotics but he understood the potential and penicillin has since saved millions of lives. 4) 'History of Crude Oil - from Mesopotamian Origins to Colonel Drake': The discovery of crude oil and bitumen can be traced back to the Neanderthals but more widespread use started in Mesopotamia around 8000 BP. Ziggurats were made secure by oil bitumen mortar and Nebuchadnezzar allegedly waterproofed his hanging gardens with bitumen. Unlikely medicinal uses were found and it was not long before the flammable properties of crude were exploited the Byzantines who made oil grenades as a naval warfare weapon. We will see that in North America the native Indians were using crude oil as an insecticide and for skin treatments long before the famous sinking of Drake's Well in Pennsylvania in 1861. 5) 'Breadfruit and Banks, Blyth and the Bounty' - The Breadfruit tree had been spotted by James Cook and Joseph Banks in Tahiti in the year 1769 and it was Banks who then played a pivotal role in events that followed. In the final decades of the slave trade there was a perceived risk of food shortages in Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. Banks had reasoned that breadfruit could be the answer but the plant was only known on a number of Pacific islands. We will learn that William Blyth was dispatched to Tahiti twenty years later in HMS Bounty to collect breadfruit. After enjoying 6 months ashore we will try to understand some of the reasons why the return journey ended in mutiny. It did not end well for the mutineers but despite being cast adrift Blyth made it back to London only to be court martialed and told to go back to Tahiti to finish his task. 6) 'John Flamsteed - The First Astronomer Royal and the Search for Longitude': John Flamsteed was a hugely influential astronomer and mathematician at the end of the 17th Century but why is it that he is so little known? Flamsteed was appointed by Charles II as Englands first Astronomer Royal and an observatory at Greenwich was built that was expected to provide an answer to the search for longitude. Isaac Newton was a contemporary and he needed Flamsteeds meticulous observational data to confirm his laws of gravity. Initial correspondence was friendly but distrust led to a 30-year long feud. We will see how this tempestuous relationship played out and how Edmund Halley (of Comet fame) made matters worse. Brian Cox would never behave this badly! 7) The Earth is Not Flat! (Or How We learnt the facts about our Planet) - Ancient civilisations had little understanding of our planet and the general opinion was that it was flat or saucer shaped. All the heavenly bodies appeared to revolve around the Earth. Pythagoras and other Greek philosophers working in Alexandria in Egypt during the first millennium BC disproved the flat Earth theory and within a short period of time had discovered the size of the Earth and Moon and the distances between them. The influence of Aristotle and Ptolemy and the teachings of the Church stalled any further progress and it was not until the seventeenth century that Kepler and Galileo could show beyond doubt that the planets went round the Sun using the earliest telescopes as aids. We will also discover that in the 18th Century, Nevil Maskelyne found a way of 'weighing' the Earth by taking a very large plumb line on a series of rambles in the Scottish Highlands.  |
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| Availability & Fee: | Anytime | £40.00 |
| Requirements: | S, T, Back-up projector useful, max travel 1hr drive from York | Click for requirements explanation |
| Virtual Talk Offered: | Yes | All talks can be delivered by the internet, such as Zoom. |
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