Please note that the lecture proper begins at the 5:00 minute point in the video.

Lord Rees, Astronomer Royal and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, delivers the inaugural Madingley Lecture on 10 January 2011 at the Institute of Continuing Education (www.ice.cam.ac.uk ).

The lecture is chaired by Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and introduced by Dr Rebecca Lingwood, Director of Continuing Education.

We have come to understand how, starting from some mysterious 'beginning' about 13.7 billion years ago, the first atoms, stars and planets emerged - and how, on at least one planet around at least one star, life began and a complex biosphere evolved. What were the key stages in this process? How did the laws of nature allow such complexity to emerge, and what can we infer about the overall scale and structure of the cosmos? And what lies in the far future? Will life from Earth spread far beyond? Or is life already widespread?