University of Cambridge: 800th anniversary at Hay

This year the University of Cambridge is celebrating its 800th anniversary in an extensive series of events. In October it is staging its own festival to discuss the future of ideas in science, morality or the arts. Many of the speakers lined up for that festival are first appearing at Hay. The list includes Gilian Beer on Darwin, Martin Rees on extraterrestrial life, Chris Lowe on biosensors, Simon Blackburn on Hume’s philosophy of religion, Stefan Collini on the new reading publics, and Sabine Bahn on neuropsychiatry and mental illness.

The series is well attended – usually filling the ‘Guardian Stage’ capacity of 800– and attracts an informed and well read public. After talking about ongoing research on extraterrestrial life, Martin Rees is asked for his opinions on various science fiction theories (like wormholes), but also for explanations of the big bang, parallel universes as postulated by string theory and the distance between the sun and the earth. On the other hand, Simon Blackburn, who restages Hume’s dialogue between Cleanthes, Philo and Demea on the existence of God, is quizzed about his views of Descartes and Kant.