10 June 2026
7:00pm - 8:30pm
Friends’ Meeting House
Mount Street, Manchester M2 5NS
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£15.00 General Admission / £6.00 Students / Members book for FREE
Wheelchair accessible
Overview
Why are most gases invisible, odourless and tasteless? Why do some poison us and others make us laugh? And why do some explode while others are content just to make drinks fizzy? Taking us back to that exhilarating, and often dangerous, moment when scientists tried to work out exactly what they had discovered, Mark Miodownik shows that gases are the formative substances of our modern world, each with its own weird and wonderful personality. We see how seventeenth-century laughing gas parties led to the first use of anaesthetics in surgery, how the invention of the air valve in musical instruments gave us bicycles, cars and trainers, and how gases made us masters of the sea (by huge steamships) and skies (via extremely flammable balloons). This talk reveals the immense importance of gases to modern civilisation.
Practical Information
The talk includes a Q&A session.
Booking is essential. Lit&Phil members: we recommend logging into the website to make booking your free member ticket quicker and easier.
Accessibility Information
The venue is wheelchair accessible with an accessible toilet on the ground floor. Please contact us regarding any specific accessibility requirements you may have by emailing events@manlitphil.ac.uk
Image Credits
Upper Left – A person playing a saxophone in a dark room – Nice M Nshuti – Unsplash
Upper Right – Zeppelin-ramp de Hindenburg / Hindenburg zeppelin disaster – By Sam Shere – Public Domain
Lower Left – ISAF Headquarters Public Affairs Office, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Upper Right – Zeppelin-ramp de Hindenburg / Hindenburg zeppelin disaster – By Sam Shere – Public Domain
Professor Mark Miodownik
Mark Miodownik is Professor of Materials & Society at University College London. He received his Ph.D in turbine jet engine alloys from Oxford University, and has worked as a materials scientist in the USA, Ireland and the UK. For more than twenty years he has championed materials science research that links to the arts and humanities, medicine, and society. This culminated in the establishment of the UCL Institute of Making, where he is a director and runs the research programme. In 2019 Mark set up the Plastic Waste Innovation Hub to carry our research into solving the environmental catastrophe of plastic waste dealing with topics such as biodegradable plastics and product reuse and repairability. Mark is the multi-award winning author of New York Times bestselling book Stuff Matters. He regularly presents BBC TV and radio programmes on materials science and engineering. In 2014 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2018 he was awarded an MBE for services to materials science, engineering and broadcasting. In 2025 he was appointed the Royal Society Professor of Public Engagement with Science.