Lecture: What is Life?

Speaker:

Sir Paul Maxime Nurse CH FRS FMedSci HonFREng HonFBA MAE

2001 Nobel Prize winner for Physiology or Medicine

Sir Paul Nurse is one of the most distinguished scientists in the world and arguably Norfolk’s most celebrated son. He was born in Norwich and completed his PhD at the UEA in 1973. He is a past President of the Royal Society, was awarded the French Legion d’Honneur in 2002 and is currently Director and CEO of the Francis Crick Institute. He has received over 70 honorary degrees and fellowships from universities around the world.

Lecture:

What is Life? is the title of a celebrated book written by Erwin Schrödinger, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, published in 1944. The book was one of the inspirations behind Sir Paul becoming a geneticist and after a lifetime of extraordinary achievement, he has authored a book with the same title, published in 2021. Sir Paul’s book has been described by Bill Bryson as an early perfect guide to the wonder and complexity of existence.

What separates life from non-life and enables three-dimensional organisations of atoms to create consciousness and pass on genetic information from one generation to the next? Erwin Schrödinger asked those questions eighty years ago and Sir Paul Nurse has spent a lifetime pursuing the answers. In this Fifteenth Norfolk Cambridge Society Lecture, Sir Paul will illuminate five great ideas that underpin biology – the Cell, the Gene, Evolution by Natural Selection, Life as Chemistry and Life as Information. He will introduce the scientists who made the most important advances, and, using his personal experiences in and out of the lab, he will share with us the challenges, the lucky breaks, and the thrilling eureka moments of discovery. He will also consider the implications regarding our uniqueness as human beings and whether we drive the laws of physics or whether they drive us.

The lecture will be followed by refreshments.

Tickets:

£15, discounted to £12 for all purchases completed by 30th November 2022, £10 for senior citizens and £5 for sixth formers and teachers accompanying them.

Please note that tickets can only be bought by adults. If you are a sixth former, please arrange for your parents or a teacher to buy the tickets on your behalf, as you must be accompanied by an adult at the lecture. If this is not possible for you, we can arrange for a Norwich School staff member attending the lecture to act in loco parentis. Please contact us using the ‘Contact the event organiser’ button if you need this to happen or if you have any other questions.

The Norfolk Cambridge Society public lectures celebrate the rigorous pursuit and dissemination of truth by leading academics and distinguished others. They are open to all adults and sixth formers and anyone is welcome to invite guests