The Royal Institution Courses

How to Take and Develop Your Own Photos - Szydlo's At Home Science

Follow the rapid 1960s newspaper workflow from medium-format camera and light-meter setup through film development, negative enlargement, and a finished print.

• YouTube
• 52 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Free Video

The End of Everything - With Katie Mack

Explores how dark energy, quantum tunneling, and other uncertainties in physics could lead to radically different endings for the universe.

• YouTube
• 54 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Free Video

The Million Dollar Equations - With Tom Crawford

An overview of four Millennium Prize problems—Riemann, P vs NP, Poincaré, and Navier–Stokes—and why they remain unsolved.

• YouTube
• 1 hour 12 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Free Video

The Curious World of Springs - Szydlo's At Home Science

Explore how springs store energy and serve in watches, toys, and vehicle suspension through spring steel, metallurgy, and mechanical investigations.

• YouTube
• 37 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Free Video

The Science of Light and Lasers - Szydlo's At Home Science

A historical journey from Newton’s prism and wave theory to atomic excitation, metastability, and the workings of a modern gas laser.

• YouTube
• 58 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Free Video

Cancer, Evolution and the Science of Life – With Kat Arney

Explore cancer as an evolutionary process, from ancient tumors and cheating cells to mutation, clonal expansion, treatment resistance, and possible solutions.

• YouTube
• 1 hour 14 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Free Video

What's the Real Meaning of Quantum Mechanics? - With Jim Baggott

A conceptual exploration of quantum mechanics, examining competing interpretations of reality through wavefunctions, the EPR experiment, and Bell’s inequality.

• YouTube
• 1 hour
• Self-Paced
• Free Video

The Archimedes Principle - Szydlo's At Home Science

Explore Archimedes' principle through demonstrations of buoyancy, hydrostatic balance, and the behavior of liquids and compressible gases.

• YouTube
• 36 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Free Video

The Maths of Contagion: Why Things Spread and Why They Stop - With Adam Kucharski

Explore how mathematical models explain the spread and stopping of diseases, fake news, and internet memes.

• YouTube
• 55 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Free Video

A Tour Through the History of Photography - Szydlo's At Home Science

Explore photography’s evolution from pinhole cameras to digital imaging, with vintage cameras and a demonstration of photogram chemistry.

• YouTube
• 41 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Free Video

Observing the Birth of the Universe - With Lyman Page

Learn how tiny variations in the cosmic microwave background reveal the universe’s age, geometry, expansion, and the origins of cosmic structure.

• YouTube
• 56 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Free Video

The Chemistry of Coins - Szydlo's At Home Science

See how copper coins reveal chemical composition through tests for purity and the formation of complex copper ions.

• YouTube
• 31 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Free Video

Chemical Electricity - Szydlo's At Home Science

Explore how chemical reactions generate electricity, from Volta’s early cells and the reactivity series to the chemistry of car batteries.

• YouTube
• 39 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Free Video

Science Experiments with Potassium Permanganate - Szydlo's At Home Science

Explore the chemistry of potassium permanganate through redox reactions, striking colour changes, dilutions, complex ions, oxygen combustion, and phosphorus.

• YouTube
• 45 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Free Video

How Einstein Abolished the Aether - With John Spence

Trace how experiments on light, fields, and the aether led physicists from early measurements to Einstein’s revolutionary insight.

• YouTube
• 1 hour
• Self-Paced
• Free Video