What We'll Never Know
The Reith Lectures
BBC
4.2 • 770 Ratings
🗓️ 15 June 2010
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
3. What We'll Never Know
In the third of this year's Reith Lectures, recorded at the Royal Society during its 350th anniversary year, its President Martin Rees continues to explore the challenges facing science in the 21st century. He stresses there are things that will always lie beyond our sphere of comprehension and we should accept these limits to our knowledge. On the other hand, there are things we've never even dreamt of that will one day be ours to explore and understand. The outcome of the quest for alien life will revolutionise our sense of self in the next two decades. But some things -- like travelling back in time -- will never happen.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Sue Lawley. Thank you for downloading this podcast of the 2010 Reith Lectures from the BBC. |
| 0:07.6 | You can find out more, listen again, read transcripts and subscribe to the podcast at BBC.co.com. |
| 0:14.7 | U.K. forward slash wreath lectures. |
| 0:19.7 | Hello and welcome to the Royal Society in London for the third of our Reith Lectures. Hello and welcome to the Royal Society in London for the third of our Reith lectures. |
| 0:24.8 | This year the Royal Society celebrates its 350th anniversary. |
| 0:29.6 | It was founded in the first year of the reign of Charles II during the scientific revolution |
| 0:34.6 | of the 17th century. |
| 0:36.4 | Isaac Newton was one of its earliest members, later Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein |
| 0:41.1 | joined its ranks. So it's appropriate that our lecturer this year is its current president, |
| 0:47.7 | a man who believes every bit as much in the revolutionary capabilities of science as his |
| 0:52.9 | society's founding members. |
| 0:55.3 | He lives in hope that we will discover life beyond our own planet. |
| 1:00.1 | Human beings, he says, may not be the culmination of the evolutionary tree. |
| 1:05.2 | And in the spirit of ceaseless exploration that characterizes this institution, |
| 1:11.9 | he calls this lecture, what we'll never know. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the BBC Reith Lecturer 2010, |
| 1:19.0 | Martin Rees. |
| 1:33.5 | Martin, a couple of questions just before you deliver your lecture. |
| 1:39.0 | You cease to be president of the Royal Society here in November, I think, at the end of a five-year stint. The great literary critic F.R. Levis once dismissed C.P. Snow, who'd been standing up for science, as a PR man for the scientific establishment. Do you sometimes feel that's the role you've been cast in? |
| 1:51.6 | If that's my role, I've certainly failed at that, I suspect, but I do see my role as being not only to promote excellent science, but to encourage engagement with the public, with politicians, |
| 2:03.2 | and with the educational process generally. But you're not the kind of man who likes spare time, |
| 2:08.6 | and you're presumably going to have a lot more of it when you finish here in November? |
| 2:12.3 | Well, I think I'll have a backlog of things that I will catch up with and spend more time |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.