Nerd Nite London at Stoke Newington Literary Festival – June 8th 2019
Nerd Nite London is a monthly event where three speakers give 18-21 minute fun-yet-informative talks across all disciplines, while the audience drinks along.
Address: Library Gallery, 184 Stoke Newington Church Street, N160JS
Details: Saturday June 8th 2019, Event starts at 8.30pm
Tickets: Tickets: £6. Tickets available here
Nerd Nite London is delighted to return to Stoke Newington Literary Festival – join us to learn about the history buried in the shores of the Thames, who won the transfermium wars, and how pigeons helped one man rekindle a sense of home – all while drinking beer. Be there and be square.
The art of seeking: Mudlarking in the Thames
Long heralded as a city treasure herself, expert mudlarker Lara Maiklem is uniquely trained in the art of seeking. Tirelessly trekking across miles of the Thames’ muddy shores, where others only see the detritus of city life, Lara unearths evidence of England’s captivating, if sometimes murky, history, with some objects dating back to 43 AD, when London was but an outpost of the Roman Empire. From medieval mail worn by warriors on English battlefields to nineteenth-century glass marbles mass-produced for the nation’s first soda bottles. Lara will reveal to us the objects we leave in our wake, and the stories they can reveal if only we take a moment to look
Superheavy
Welcome to the world of the superheavy elements: a realm where scientists use giant machines and spend years trying to make a single atom of mysterious artefacts that have never existed on Earth.
From the first elements past uranium and their role in the atomic bomb to the latest discoveries stretching our chemical world, Kit Chapman will reveal the hidden stories lurking at the edges of the periodic table. Why did the US Air Force fly planes into mushroom clouds? Who won the transfermium wars? How did an earthquake help give Japan its first element? And what happened when Superman almost spilled nuclear secrets?
Rat of the sky or symbol of peace?
As a boy, Jon Day was fascinated by pigeons, which he used to rescue from the streets of London. Twenty years later he moved away from the city centre to the suburbs to start a family. But in moving house, he began to lose a sense of what it meant to feel at home.
Returning to his childhood obsession with the birds, he built a coop in his garden and joined a local pigeon racing club. Over the next few years, as he made a home with his young family in Leyton, he learned to train and race his pigeons, hoping that they might teach him to feel homed.
Having lived closely with humans for tens of thousands of years, pigeons have become powerful symbols of peace and domesticity. But they are also much-maligned, and nowadays most people think of these birds, if they do so at all, as vermin.
All proceeds from Nerd Nite London go to charity. During Stoke Newington Literary Festival, all proceeds go towards literacy projects in Hackney. More information about Nerd Nite London can be found by following us on Twitter @nerdnitelondon, liking us on Facebook www.facebook.com/NerdNiteLondon or visiting www.london.nerdnite.com.