Strange Ice

This talk is a highly personal journey into the world of the strange solid that all of us know and love and yet which conceals deep mysteries and dark prophecies about shared future. We will travel from a glass of water to the skies above our heads, from the Alps to the winters of Poland and up to the Arctic, stopping to look at a variety of other ices, both crystalline and amorphous, and asking questions about chemistry, physics, psychology, disinformation and politics. Ice speaks. Can we learn to listen?

Andrea Sella is a chemist and broadcaster based at University College London where he is a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry. His main research is on rare-earth metals and he collaborates with several research groups on hydrogen storage, carbonitrides, and nanotube insertion chemistry. He has been involved in numerous television documentaries, including the 2010 BBC documentary ‘Chemistry: A Volatile History’, which was nominated for the 2010 British Academy Television Awards. In 2014 he presented ‘My Family and other Ibex’ and ‘Urine Trouble: What's in our Water’ on BBC Radio 4. He has been a guest on Melvyn Bragg's ‘In Our Time’ and appeared regularly on radio programmes like Start the Week, Weekend, Newshour, the Today Programme and the Infinite Monkey Cage. He has been a consultant and contributor for the BBC World Service's series ‘Elemental Economics’ presented by Justin Rowlatt.