Connections (1978)
Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention, Connections explores an "Alternative View of Change" that rejects the conventional linear and teleological view of historical progress. To demonstrate this view, Burke begins each episode with a particular event or innovation in the past (usually ancient or medieval) and traces a path from that event through a series of connections to a fundamental and essential aspect of the modern world.
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Episodes
- 1 1. Feedback1997-01-01 · 52mElectronic agents on the internet and wartime guns use feedback techniques discovered in the first place by Claude Bernard, whose vivisection experiments kick off animal rights mov
- 2 2. What's in a Name1997-01-01 · 52mRemember the cornflakes from last episode? Because corncobs make adhesives to bond carborundum discovered by Edward Goodrich Acheson, otherwise known as silicon carbide, to grindin
- 3 3. Drop the Apple1997-01-01 · 52mAt the Smithsonian, we learn of electric crystals that help Pierre and Marie Curie discover what they call radium, and then Langevin uses the piezoelectric crystal to develop sonar
- 4 4. An Invisible Object1997-01-01 · 52mBlack holes in space, seen by the Hubble Telescope, brought into space with hydrazine fuel, which was a byproduct of fungicides for French vines, fuelled by quarantine conventions
- 5 5. Life is No Picnic1997-01-01 · 52mInstant coffee gets off the ground in World War II and Jeeps lead to nylons and stocking machines smashed by Luddites, who were defended by Lord Byron, who meets John Galt in Turke
- 6 6. Elementary Stuff1997-01-01 · 52mAlfred Russel Wallace, who studied beetles, Oliver Lodge and telegraphy, a radio designed by Reginald Fessenden, which was used by banana growers, studied by Augustin Pyramus de Ca
- 7 7. A Special Place1997-01-01 · 52mProfessor Sir Alec Jeffries of Leicester University in England develops DNA profiling and schlieren photography used by Theodore von Karman to study aerodynamics and Anthony Fokker
- 8 8. Fire from the Sky1997-01-01 · 52mDue to continental drift and Alfred Wegener's passion for mirages, magic images from the sister of King Arthur, whose chivalry supposedly triggers the medieval courtly love answers
- 9 9. Hit the Water1997-01-01 · 52mThanks to napalm, made with palm oil, also used for margarine, stiffened with a process using kieselguhr that comes from plankton living in currents studied by Ballot before observ
- 10 10. In Touch1997-01-01 · 52mStarting from an attempt for cheaper fusion power using superconductivity, which was discovered by Onnes, with liquid gas provided by Louis-Paul Cailletet, who carried out experime
Cast
James BurkeSelf - PresenterImages
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