If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. - Antoine de Saint Exupery
THE ROAD OF DREAMS AND PASSION
That's the description of the process of science that came from the Romanian-born psychologist Serge Moscovici. He painted a picture of science as a journey of exploration for us all.
'Science has become involved in this adventure, our adventure, in order to renew everything it touches and warm all that it penetrates,' he said. At each turn of the road, he continued, we hear from science 'the voice of rebirth and beginning'.
'That is why the great discoveries are not revealed on a deathbed like that of Copernicus, but offered like Kepler's on the road of dreams and passion.'
And for the main theme of the 20th Festival we're taking the role of science as a process of exploration and adventure. we'll have speakers from several countries, including some of the world's leading science communicators.
DAILY FESTIVAL NEWS UPDATE
Thursday 2 September
Urgent update
More tickets available for Murder, Mystery & Microscopes on Monday 6th
Due to very heavy demand for tickets for the Monday evening event Murder Mystery & Microscopes, facilities have been extended so that the evening will be in two parts, first a book signing by the author Anne Cleeves in Kirkwall Sheriff Court and then the event itself in the King Street Hall.
Anne Cleeves will be available in the Sheriff Court from 6.45 onwards, to sign books, and then the event itself will get under way at 7.45 in the King Street Hall.
Some additional tickets have been made available through the Tourist Office and online.
HUNTERS MAY HOLD THE KEY
The global environmental crisis could be tackled by taking inspiration from the ancient hunter-gatherers who populated Britain until 6000 years ago, according to an archaeologist who will be speaking in this year’s Festival.
In a new book to be launched on the Festival’s opening day, Caroline Wickham-Jones suggests the energy challenges we face in the 21st century can be traced back to the introduction of farming around 4000BC.
“Up until this time – and for several hundred thousand years before that – hunter-gathers populated the entire country. These people very much lived at one with the world around them and worked alongside its natural cycle.
“With the introduction of farming came a fundamental change in people’s relationship with the world. Rather than living with the land, they began to control and manage it.
“As farming developed so did technology, and over time the need for better and better sources of energy to power this technology led to wider developments – from the hand-drawn ards of prehistory and oxen-led ploughs of the medieval period, to steam in the 18th century and then the emerging dominance of oil as a fuel in the 19th century.
“Today oil continues to play a dominate role in our lives from the obvious – providing fuel for our cars – to the less apparent part it plays in producing the majority of everyday items from food products to medicine.
“This is not an argument to say we should have remained as hunter-gatherers. Farming was an inevitable step in human history and the development of society in Britain and it brought with it many positive changes including more control over our food supply, allowing the population to settle and develop into larger groups.
“But the dependence on energy which was sparked by this change marks the beginning of a trap, into which we are now well and truly caught, of using more and more energy. Over the centuries this has culminated in the crisis we are now experiencing.
“Essentially my book is not looking to provide answers as to how we tackle the present environmental crisis but I want to re-awaken interest in our hunter-gatherer past, and inspire a re-examination of their lifestyle and the changes that they faced in order to help us get to the roots of the issues that concern us today.”
Caroline Wickham-Jones will give a talk entitled The Hunter Takes a Farm at the St Magnus Centre in Kirkwall at 5.15pm on Thursday 2 September.
We have more details on our News page and a review in our Books section.
HISTORIC SETTINGS FOR THIS YEAR'S FESTIVAL
Highlights this year include an expanded food and drink programme, and a range of historic settings including Skaill House. We're going to the Drawing Room for a Sunday afternoon event focusing on the late 18th century, and a chain of events linking Jane Austen with an Orkney novelist, Mary Brunton and with revolutions in science and society. There is an 18th-century tea to follow, with beetroot pancakes and caraway shortbread, prepared by Liz Ashworth who is coordinating all the food events, and then the opportunity to see more of the house itself.
Other venues this year include Kirkwall Sheriff Court, for a crime fiction event featuring forensic science experts from the Macaulay Institute plus crime write Ann Cleeves, author of the crime series The Shetland Quartet and the forthcoming Vera Stanhope series on ITV. The Eunson Room of the Highland Park Distillery is the setting for a Miniature Whisky School given by three top industry experts, and St Magnus Cathedral will feature a concert by the Mayfield Singers and other local musicians, with works by Bach and a commentary on the composer's use of numbers and mathematical patterns.
THE THIRD CLUE
Our pre-Festival competition is under way, with this year one clue being given each day. There will be four clues, each linked to our theme of 'Explorers', and on the fifth day we will tell you how to combine the answers of the four clues to form the overall solution.
For the third clue today: Through which doorway did Magnus Spence see the winter light?
And a reminder of the first clue from yesterday: Name the house in which the Arctic explorer John Rae was born.
And the second one was: Which craigs did Aald Jeems o' Quoys set his lapster-creels aroond?
GET YOUR TICKETS ONLINE!
Thanks to an innovative Moray-based company we're able for the first time to make tickets available online. This is in addition to the direct sales through VisitOrkney at the Kirkwall Tourist Office.
The online booking systems of e-availability are used throughout the UK – for everything from doctors' appointments and holiday bookings through to cabin crew accommodation reservations and Belgian chocolate making events. They have kindly set up a system for us as sponsorship for the Festival. You can access it via the Tickets page of the site – or from here:
And just to celebrate the occasion of the 20th Festival, we still have several free LecturePasses (worth £32 each) to give away, to make up our total of 20 people aged under 20. All you have to do is email us at science@orkney.org with your name, address and date of birth.
NOW YOU CAN HEAR US TOO!
We're starting an experiment with internet radio. Our aim is to record some reports and interviews from Festival events, and also to provide some previews in advance. The software's been installed and as a first step, we're trying out the system with some music. All being well, you should be able to hear it through the link here.
DISCUSSION FORUM
Our new discussion forum is now online. We've been able to find a new user-friendly system, and we hope that we find it good to use. The first topic, on physics in education, continues, and three more are on the way. One is about the boundaries of science, another is on helping communities make use of high-tech, and we will also ask about the factors that produce particular features of food and drink.
CONTACTING US
Our email address has changed, following the closure of the orkney.com server. We liked our science@orkney address, and Orknet have come to our rescue, providing us with one that is very close to our previous one: we are now science@orkney.org
Generate your own wave energy, recycle a bottle into a flower, make your own porridge, create an electronic friend – there's fun for all ages at Orkney International Science Festival's Family Day.
