Monday
UCL kicks off the new season of university events with a debate entitled A Scholar’s Life for Me? The Changing Landscape of Work in Higher Education Professor Malcolm Grant, Provost of UCL, Ed Howker, Spectator journalist and author and Dr Gill Samuels, Chair of the Global Forum for Health Research look at changes in life expectancy, globalisation and technology and consider how they affect academia as a career choice. 6 – 7:30pm, Gower Street; free but book.
Meanwhile FictionLab, the bookclub for the scientifically minded, returns to the RI: this month’s book is Einstein’s Dreams’ by Alan Lightman, so get reading quickly if you want to go! 7pm, free, no need to register.
Tuesday
My personal choice of the week: The Science of Secrecy at Imperial features speakers Dr Simon Singh, Dr Martin Knight, Chairman of Imperial Innovations, Professor Richard Aldrich, Professor of International Security at the University of Warwick and Professor Sir Peter Knight FRS, President elect of the Institute of Physics, for a tour of cryptography through the ages. 5:30 – 7pm at South Ken; free but you must book.
Wednesday
2011 is IBM’s Centennial year and in this special event at UCL, Stephen Leonard, Chief Executive UK & Ireland, IBM will look at what 100 years has taught IBM about driving progress in business, technology and society. 6:30 – 9pm at Gordon Street. Free but limited seating; first come, first served.
Thursday
Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You … or so Manjit Kumar Marcus Chown claim at the Royal Institution tonight in their tour of the people who developed quantum theory, from Einstein to Schrodinger, with a crash course in understanding it yourself. 7 – 8:30pm; £10.
For something slightly less perplexing (for the brain, if not the stomach), the Wellcome Collection’s autumn season begins with Gut Reactions, with all you need to know about appetite and the chemistry behind it. 7 – 8:30pm: free but book.
Meanwhile, the Dana Centre returns with My Beautiful Genome asking whether our destiny is written in our genes, and if so, do we want to know? 7pm: free but book.
Friday
In an afternoon lecture at Imperial, guest lecturer Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon University looks at the privacy of social networks and the implications of combining publicly available Web 2.0 images with off-the-shelf face recognition technology, for the purpose of large-scale, automated individual re-identification. 2:30 – 3:30pm, free but email to book and for venue info.
Saturday
Open House Weekend in London: hundreds of buildings across the capital open their doors for two days only, including plenty of scientific establishments.
Sunday
Open House Weekend continues.
This is only a selection of events in London. You can follow the Nature Network London Google calendar of events in London at https://blogs.nature.com/london/2011/05/17/scientific-events-calendar. Updated daily.