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YOYP 2018
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YOYP 2018

YOYP 2018

OISF 2018

We had a new look for the Year of Young People. Generous support from the Year of Young People Event Fund gave the programme an added freshness and originality.

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MUSIC EVENTS
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MUSIC EVENTS

MUSIC EVENTS

OISF 2018

BUT OH MY LOVE! THE CHAIN OF TIME The story was that of the Irish mathematician Sir William

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM EVENTS 2018
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM EVENTS 2018

HIGHLIGHTS FROM EVENTS 2018

OISF 2018

One of the highlights was Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse (2001, Physiology/Medicine) in conversation with Dave Gray of BBC

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2018 FAMILY DAY
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2018 FAMILY DAY

HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2018 FAMILY DAY

Family days, OISF 2018

How far can a model car run on hydrogen? You start by connecting up the leads and seeing the

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The Selkie’s New Clothes
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The Selkie’s New Clothes

The Selkie’s New Clothes

Exhibitions, OISF 2018

Are inspired by the selkie folklore, shape-shifting beings and their transformative powers. In order to shapeshift they had to cast off their sealskins. Within these magical skins lay the transformative power to return to seal form, and therefore to the sea.

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Like the Corn Cut Down by the River
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Like the Corn Cut Down by the River

Like the Corn Cut Down by the River

Music Channel, OISF 2018

Sung by Sheena Wellington and the composer, Lorcán Mac Mathúna, The Walls of Dublin rounded off Like the Corn Cut Down by the River, the story of the battle of Clontarf...

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ABOUT OISF FESTIVAL 2018
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ABOUT OISF FESTIVAL 2018

ABOUT OISF FESTIVAL 2018

OISF 2018

Orkney International Science Festival 2018 This was the year when the numbers took off further than ever.

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Year of Young People to boost Festival
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Year of Young People to boost Festival

Year of Young People to boost Festival

Festival Archive, OISF 2018

Music from Ireland, astronomy from Uzbekistan, newly created art and design, and young people to the fore – these will all be features of this year’s Orkney International Science Festival in a special package for the Year of Young People 2018.

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Food Events 2018
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Food Events 2018

Food Events 2018

OISF 2018

There’s an opening lunch of Orkney seafood to follow the session on sustainable fisheries research, and the afternoon looks at further aspects of the sea for the future.

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM EVENTS 2017
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM EVENTS 2017

HIGHLIGHTS FROM EVENTS 2017

OISF 2017

One of the highlights was Prof. Peter Higgs In Conversation with his former mathematical physics student Dennis Canavan. The

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ABOUT OISF FESTIVAL 2017
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ABOUT OISF FESTIVAL 2017

ABOUT OISF FESTIVAL 2017

OISF 2017

Orkney International Science

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2017 FAMILY DAY
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2017 FAMILY DAY

HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2017 FAMILY DAY

Family days, OISF 2017

You could make a cloud chamber and see particles from outer space. You could write in runes, or study

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From childhood tinkering to gravitational waves
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From childhood tinkering to gravitational waves

From childhood tinkering to gravitational waves

OISF 2017, Play OISF Video, Video 2017

Had Prof. Ron Drever lived just a few more months this year, he would almost certainly have been awarded a share of this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics, for his part in one of the greatest scientific achievements of all time, the discovery of gravitational waves.

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Alamein
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Alamein

Alamein

Music Channel, OISF 2017, Play OISF Video, Video 2017

From the story of 'Big Bill and the Guns of Alamein' in the 2017 Orkney International Science Festival comes

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Big Bill and the Guns of Alamein
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Big Bill and the Guns of Alamein

Big Bill and the Guns of Alamein

OISF 2017, Play OISF Video, Video 2017

At the second battle of el-Alamein, where the Allied artillery was the only protection for the slow infantry advance

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Pepperwort and Parsley, Beeswax and Fulmar Oil
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Pepperwort and Parsley, Beeswax and Fulmar Oil

Pepperwort and Parsley, Beeswax and Fulmar Oil

OISF 2017, Play OISF Video, Video 2017

Mary Beith was known as a lecturer and researcher of great clarity on the traditional medicines of the Highlands.

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Maxwell’s Light
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Maxwell’s Light

Maxwell’s Light

OISF 2014, Play OISF Video

Images from two of the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell's favourite walks, near Parton in Galloway, where the Lair

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Highlights from Events 2016
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Highlights from Events 2016

Highlights from Events 2016

OISF 2016

Marty Jopson of The One Show got the Festival off to a flying start, followed next day by a highly dynamic show on the science of everyday life.

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About OISF Festival 2016
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About OISF Festival 2016

About OISF Festival 2016

OISF 2016

The sea surged through the Festival, in a year when the world looked back a century to the battle of Jutland and forward to the potential of tidal power.

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Highlights from 2016 Family Day
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Highlights from 2016 Family Day

Highlights from 2016 Family Day

Family days, OISF 2016

You could find out about living in space, or operate a robot arm. You could make a noisy drawing or a porridge poultice, an ancient animal or a modern molecule.

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Fashion the Future!
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Fashion the Future!

Fashion the Future!

Exhibitions, Exhibitions 2016, OISF 2016

The window of a former Orkney clothing shop is back in action with costumes this week. Aislin, Nyx, Nehalennia and Calypso were specially created for the Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design.

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Highlights from Events 2015
Gallery

Highlights from Events 2015

Highlights from Events 2015

OISF 2015

It started with a seafood opening lunch, and over the next seven days more than 60 events followed. Topics ranged from astronomy to Arab science fiction, black holes to beremeal, relativity to early radio, new light on MS to hopes for hydrogen power.

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Highlights from 2015 Family Day
Gallery

Highlights from 2015 Family Day

Highlights from 2015 Family Day

Family days, OISF 2015

There were lanterns to light and spectra to study. There were rocks to recognise and molecules to make. You could find out about flowers for native bumblebees, or make a foam fossil fish.

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OISF Food Events 2015
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OISF Food Events 2015

OISF Food Events 2015

OISF 2015

Skaill House was the venue for a tribute to the remarkable Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and pioneer of the principles upon which modern computing is based.

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OISF Opening Lunch 2015
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OISF Opening Lunch 2015

OISF Opening Lunch 2015

OISF 2015

The harvest of the sea was to the fore in the 2015 Festival’s opening event. News of the latest research on sustaining local crab and lobster stocks was accompanied by a seafood lunch provided by Orkney Fishermen’s Society, with additional support from several sources.

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About OISF Festival 2015
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About OISF Festival 2015

About OISF Festival 2015

OISF 2015

Nobel laureate Peter Higgs was in conversation with fellow physicist Frank Close, the venue the impressive new Orkney Theatre in Kirkwall Grammar School. The school also hosted the exhibition From Maxwell to Higgs, brought north by a team from Edinburgh University.

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Particle Physics for Scottish Schools
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Particle Physics for Scottish Schools

Particle Physics for Scottish Schools

OISF 2015, Schools

From Maxwell to Higgs The Particle Physics for Scottish Schools exhibition comes to Orkney for the first time

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Maxwell Torch
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Maxwell Torch

Maxwell Torch

More Events, OISF 2015

The Maxwell Torch was specially created for events throughout Scotland in 2015, the International Year of Light. The International Year of Light celebrates the 150th anniversary of James Clerk Maxwell’s papers...

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About OISF Festival 2014
Gallery

About OISF Festival 2014

About OISF Festival 2014

OISF 2014

Vistas of earth, sea and sky opened up in 2014, with a look into Orkney’s geological past as a great lake in Devonian times, and then a look further back in time to the origins of the universe and of life itself with one of the great astrophysicists of our time, Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe.

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Sailing with Clipperton
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Sailing with Clipperton

Sailing with Clipperton

OISF 2014

Make it Egilsay, said Howard Buxton from New Zealand. Sail with the Selkie to the island where St Magnus was executed and explore.

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ABOUT OISF

A science festival has a radical role in developing a creative climate for a region. Here is the story of how it began, and how Orkney was involved from an early stage in the concept.

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