What the Archive contains – a Brief Description

The recordings which the Archive contains date back over nearly 40 years. They are recordings of seminars, conferences, lectures, courses, interviews and other oral material in Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy, particularly Philosophy of Science.  The bulk of the recordings from the period 1971 to the late 1990s are of events which took place in the UK, chiefly in London, Oxford and Cambridge.

The material recorded was chosen chiefly for its bearing on broadly foundational questions and conceptual issues.

Although a proportion of the recordings from the earlier years are of events in other countries – chiefly Germany and Italy from 1996 an increasing proportion are of events in locations outside the UK – chiefly throughout Europe, the USA and Canada. In recent years events in China, Russia and Egypt have also beeen recorded. Since 2000 an increasing proportion of material in languages other than English has been added (chiefly French, but also Italian, German and Russian. In addition, the Archive has also recently acquired important older material recorded prior to 1973 and hopes to acquire more. This includes items such as recordings of discussions between Dirac, Wigner and Wheeler made in 1971, and (a recent major discovery) a set of  135 recordings of 3 lecture courses given (in English) by the great French mathematician,  Alexandre Grothendieck,  in the United States in 1973.

Today the Archive houses over 35, 000 recordings, including around 2, 500 video recordings.  In addition to the recordings themselves there are some 150  large document boxes containing supporting documentation connected to the Interviews, Lectures and Seminars, such as overheads, handouts,  some transcripts and detailed contemporary notes and photographs.

An expanding network of voluntary helpers are today continuing to record important Conferences, Lectures, Seminars and Interviews in several countries and new material is added every week.