Tickets for the popular and diverse Orkney International Science Festival are now on sale. The Festival has a wide range of events and talks taking place from 4 to 10 September.
Islands from near and far are featured in the 35th Orkney International Science Festival programme. Amongst a glittering range of activities – including travelling robots, a planetarium, and topics spanning 13 billion years – there are speakers from Faroe and Iceland, Barra and Berneray, and from the North Sea island of Helgoland.
Helgoland, no larger than Graemsay, played a part in the discovery of quantum theory a century ago when a young German physicist went to help his hay fever in a windswept setting. Today, the core of the theory remains a challenge – to which several speakers will respond, with the help of a poet and musicians too, and Helgoland will be the theme of a concert in St Magnus Cathedral.
Islands with native sheep are coming together at the festival, as the result of an initiative from North Ronaldsay. Currently expanding its wool mill and developing a meat larder, it has reached out to other islands with native flocks to highlight new ways in which their wool and meat can be used today.
There will be stories of the revival of traditional Faroese sweaters, ways of cooking Icelandic lamb, the weaving of a traditional weatherproof Norse cloak, and using computer-aided systems for knitting in the Aran Islands.
The festival will also feature the remarkable story of how Sanday’s knitters broke through to the world of high fashion. The bicentenary of the island’s great folklorist Walter Traill Dennison will be marked by several talks connecting science with folklore – from the submerged forest in Otterswick Bay to the sounds of the aurora – and a display of family items in the Orkney Museum.
Tiny Pacific island states with white sands and coral reefs, such as Kiribati and Tuvalu, are among the distant places photographed by Belgian explorer Christian Clauwers. He will speak of travels from pole to pole, and his wildlife images and scenes of fragile landscapes will be featured at the Ship of Fools gallery.
The challenges for Orkney ahead amidst climate uncertainties will be tackled in a one-day Orkney Climate COP, with four sessions highlighting fresh ideas for practical action that can improve the lives of people and communities – on Energy, Food from the Land, Housing, and Transport. The day will be opened by Prof. Tim Lang, author of a recent national report on food security.
Carrots are the latest crop to be featured in the Festival’s ongoing trials on potential soil improvements with rock dust, and UHI’s Agronomy and Agriculture Institute will host an event on options old and new for protected crop growing.
Other speakers will include Prof. Mark Cooper from the University of Washington who has worked for many years on the question of how Neolithic seafarers could have built ships strong enough to withstand northern tides and weather. Also from the US will be Prof. John Baez from California, speaking about the massive catastrophes that life on Earth has come through over billions of years, including the asteroid impact that shattered the world of the dinosaurs.
A new geological film to be premiered at the Festival sweeps out panoramas across the north in an exploration of geological time, going far back to the time when the hill behind Stromness was a granite island in an ancient lake, and even further back to the forming of the mountains of the north. Talks on astronomy will include images from the James Webb Space Telescope of the earliest known stars and galaxies, as well as unusual aspects of the Northern Lights. The astronomy events are brought by visiting members of the British Astronomical Association who are coming to hold a meeting in Orkney for the first time.
Other visitors will include a choir from the Mearns whose members promote singing for health and wellbeing, and the composer Dr John Purser, whose BBC Radio Scotland series Scotland’s Music is rightly regarded as one of the greatest achievements of modern broadcasting. He will speak on the use of number patterns in music by composers in medieval times and today.
One of the world’s leading number theorists, Prof. Minhyong Kim, will explain what a pure mathematician does and why. He is the founder of the Mathematics for Humanity project, aimed at supporting mathematical projects that make the world a better place, and his latest book is a colourful cartoon adventure for children.
The closing day of the Festival will have historical and archaeological themes, with the story of the excavations at Blomuir in Holm and a look at astronomy in ancient Babylon; and then on to the centenary of television and the story of how it came to Orkney.
The day will round off with the story of the Golden Slipper, where a past generation of young Orcadians would gather after Friday night dances for Orkney crisps, bottles of Sunjoy, and hot pies on a biscuit tin lid from the Victress stove.
The programme brochures will be appearing in public places from early August, and the programme can be seen online at www.oisf.org.
