Wednesday 25 June 2014

Blog Seven - 2014

Seventh Blog - June 2014

What with the Summer Solstice over and England out of the World Cup I thought I had better start on my latest thoughts as regards to all things Big Historical...

First things first, we in the UK finally caught up with the Big History TV series on the H2 Channel (which started in April). Sixteen half hour Little Big Histories and then a mammoth two hour programme on thbe Big History of Everything. Strange how the first twelve episodes (shown at Easter) were available on HD but not the remaining five including the grand finale! Still it was great to finally catch up with the USA and watch a really good TV series.

If you missed any of the series try looking here for the episodes you want to see:- http://watchserieshd.eu/category/big-history
And you can see the final two hour episode here:- http://watchserieshd.eu/2013/12/big-history-s01e17-the-big-history-of-everything.html

One minor criticism, and it is only minor, is that it is assumed that you are already well versed in history/science. As The Big History Project are involved that means the age group targeted already have a degree of knowledge in this area. I personally would love to see something that could interest, entertain (and educate) everyone on the subject of Big History.

On another topic, while it is great to see the International Big History Association and Big History UK organisations wouldn't it be nice to see a European Big History association. Headed by Fred Spier would give it the icing on the cake.

With Big History activity in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland and Russia as well as the Netherlands and UK. I would love to see these countries coming together (with others like France and Sweden showing an interest) and forming a European Big History movement affiliated to the IBHA.

This would give Big History a little strength in depth and the Big History community another outlet in spreading the good word.

Thanks for reading.


'Til September



Chris Oddy



Big History UK
http://www.bighistory.org.uk/

Big History Leeds
Blog -
http://bighistoryleeds.blogspot.co.uk
Facebook - http://m.facebook.com/BigHistoryLeeds?
MySpace - https://myspace.com/bighistoryleeds
Twitter - https://mobile.twitter.com/bighistoryleeds
YouTube - http://m.youtube.com/#/user/BigHistoryLeeds?


Thursday 20 March 2014

Blog Six - 2014

Sixth Blog - March 2014


St. Patrick's Day brought us back into the argument of God verses science. Following BICEP 2's cosmic microwave background telescope on the South Pole and its potential discovery of evidence proving cosmic inflation and gravitational waves from the Big Bang. We have now entered the era of the multiverse and the Higgs Boson "God particle" ...
The next 20 years could be interesting.
BICEP TWO data can be found here:-
BICEP TWO Facebook discussion page here:- 



Meanwhile back in the UK, Big History UK were pleased to announce in February that David Christian had agreed to become their first ever Honorary President.

H2 Channel in the UK are to show the series broadcast in the USA last year on Big History. Expect the series to include Big Histories of the Horse / Salt / Cold / Gold / megastructures / gravity / weapons / caffeine / cellphones / mountains / DNA / meteors / sun / carnivores / silver / H2O / Big History of Everything... 
It should be fun. This series starts on Easter Sunday, April 20th at 5pm UK summertime.

The BBC have finished their consultation review period. An update to everything is here:-



In Leeds, we have started a consultation of our own. On January 7th there was a meeting held at Leeds Town Hall to discuss any possible interest in Leeds challenging for the European City of Culture in 2023. Once again there is a lot of work to be done, though a large majority  of people at the meeting were in favour of this. So hopefully, with lots of consultations with the locals, not just the council elite, we may know more over the next six to nine months. If you wish to join the 
debate, and are on Twitter, use the #Leeds2023 hashtag and have your say.



Till June then...



TTFN