Synopsis
Big Ideas offers lectures on a variety of thought-provoking topics which range across politics, culture, economics, art history, science.... By nature of its lecture format, pacing and inquisitive approach, it is the antithesis of the prevailing sound-bite television norm. The simple, bold concept is a victory of substance over style. Big Ideas airs Saturdays and Sundays at 5:00 PM EST on TVO - Canada's largest educational broadcaster.
Episodes
-
Michael Persinger on Psychotropic Drugs
06/10/2012 Duration: 41minDr. Michael Persinger, (Laurentian University - Neuroscience) winner of the 2007 Best Lecturer Competition, on Psychotropic Drugs.
-
Andrew Coyne Q & A
29/09/2012 Duration: 16minFollowing his lecture on Post-Economic Politics in Canada, National Post columnist Andrew Coyne fields questions from the audience. This event was produced in collaboration with the Literary Review of Canada (LRC).
-
Chris Turner on How to Thrive in the Sustainable Economy
29/09/2012 Duration: 55minChris Turner discusses his book The Leap: How to Survive and Thrive in the Sustainable Economy. Citing German energy policy and business examples such as Walmart, Turner explains how sustainability makes excellent business sense.
-
Leon Kass on Why Not Immortality?
22/09/2012 Duration: 50minDr. Leon Kass, Chair of the President's Council on Bioethics, examines the ethical dilemmas surrounding stem cell research. Dr. Kass addresses the philosophical question: Why not immortality?
-
Arthur Herman: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World
15/09/2012 Duration: 44minArthur Herman on his book "To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World".
-
Leroy Hood: From Reactive to Proactive Medicine
08/09/2012 Duration: 54minLeroy Hood, of the Institute for Systems Biology, on Emerging Technologies and the Transformation from Reactive to Proactive Medicine.
-
Liam Kennedy on The Irish Famine and the Jewish Holocaust
01/09/2012 Duration: 41minLiam Kennedy of the School of History at Queen's University (Belfast) delivers a lecture entitled, Cry Holocaust: The Great Irish Famine and the Jewish Holocaust.
-
Vaclav Smil on Energy Transitions
25/08/2012 Duration: 27minVaclav Smil of the Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Manitoba, discusses Energy Transitions in this lecture which was part of the Waterloo Global Science Initiative (WGSI)Equinox Summit, hosted by the Perimeter Institute.
-
Jane Goodall on Chimpanzee and Human Emotions
18/08/2012 Duration: 55minPrimatologist Jane Goodall delivers a lecture on the similarities between chimpanzee and human emotions, preserving the environment, and hope.
-
Nick Mount on Nabokov's "Lolita"
11/08/2012 Duration: 50minUniversity of Toronto English Professor Nick Mount on Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita". The lecture was part of his Literature for Our Time series and was delivered at Innis Town Hall, University of Toronto, on Feb. 12th, 2009.
-
H. Jay Melosh on What Killed the Dinosaurs
04/08/2012 Duration: 54minWhat killed the dinosaurs? And is humanity headed for a similar fate? These questions are addressed by H. Jay Melosh, a Professor of Theoretical Geophysics at the University of Arizona, in this lecture entitled, Death of the Dinos: Giant Impacts and Biological Crises. With the help of sophisticated computer simulations Melosh presents his "hot" new theory on the KT extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago.
-
Ian Buruma on Death of Metropolis
04/08/2012 Duration: 33minWriter and academic, Ian Buruma on Death of Metropolis: Why are Some Hostile to Cities?
-
Natalia Toro on Fundamental Physics at the LHC
28/07/2012 Duration: 47minNatalia Toro explains how complex collision data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is being digested and examined and how it may set the course for the science of the future. Her lecture was delivered at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, on September 18, 2011.
-
Seth Lloyd on Programming the Universe
21/07/2012 Duration: 51minSeth Llyod is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His talk, "Programming the Universe", is about the computational power of atoms, electrons, and elementary particles.
-
Adam Gopnik on Christian Writers and Liberal Readers
14/07/2012 Duration: 01h06minAdam Gopnik, staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, discusses W. H. Auden, William Emerson and Lewis Carroll in a lecture entitled, The Morning Star is the Evening Star: Christian Writers and Liberal Readers.
-
Alain de Botton on Status Anxiety
07/07/2012 Duration: 39minAlain de Botton discusses his book Status Anxiety which examines our fears over what others think about us and about how we are judged to be either a success or failure.
-
Robert Morrison on Islam and Science
30/06/2012 Duration: 43minRobert Morrison, Associate Professor of Religion at Bowdoin College, on Islam, Science and the Importance of History. Morrison cites Islamic religious scholars from historical times and from the present in order to show how Islam and science are compatable.
-
Paul Steinhardt on Impossible Crystals
23/06/2012 Duration: 54minPhysicist Paul Steinhardt discusses the creation of "Impossible crystals": quasi-crystals with five-fold symmetry previously believed impossible.
-
Andrew Coyne on Post-Economic Politics in Canada
16/06/2012 Duration: 40minNational Post columnist, Andrew Coyne, presents a lecture entitled Post-Economic Politics in Canada. In Coyne's opinion, the state of the economy, contrary to popular belief, will not be the defining issue in our public policy debates. His lecture was produced in collaboration with the Literary Review of Canada and was delivered at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto on May 14th, 2012.
-
Simon Winchester on his book The Meaning of Everything
09/06/2012 Duration: 01h02minSimon Winchester discusses his book The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary.