Royal Institution Christmas Lectures Royal Institution Christmas Lectures The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are a series of lectures on a single topic each, which have been held at the Royal Institution in London each year since 1825, missing 1939–42 because of the Second World War. The lectures present scientific subjects to a general audience, including young people, in an informative and entertaining manner. Michael Faraday initiated the first Christmas Lecture series in 1825. This came at a time when organised education for young people was scarce. Faraday presented a total of nineteen series in all. The Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures were first held in
Humphry Davy criticized. In after years Davy regretted he had ever published these immature hypotheses, which he subsequently designated "the dreams of misemployed genius which the light of experiment and observation has never conducted to truth." These criticisms, however, led Davy to refine and improve his experimental techniques, spending his later time at the institution increasingly in experimentation. In 1800, Davy informed Gilbert that he had been "repeating the galvanic experiments with success" in the intervals of the experiments on the gases, which "almost incessantly occupied him from January to April." In 1800, Davy published his "Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning