Local Heroes S03E08 · North West

Overview

Adam Hart-Davis takes a ferry across the Mersey to celebrate the work of the North West's unsung heroes of science in the last of the current series. He relives his childhood love of Meccano, invented by Frank Hornby, before moving on to celebrate the work of other scientists and innovators, including Arthur Doodson, who perfected a way to predict the tides; Alastair Pilkington, who invented a way of producing flawless glass; and Jeremiah Horrocks, the founder of English astronomy, who was the first to track the orbit of Venus and revolutionised how astronomers consider the universe.

Torrents

Subtitles

Episodes

1. 1 1. Devon and Cornwall1998-03-02First of an eight-part series in which Adam Hart-Davis cycles around the country in search of the unsung heroes of science. He visits south-west England, where his subjects includ
2. 2 2. London1998-03-09Adam Hart-Davis cycles around the country in search of the unsung heroes of science. This week he visits London, where he builds his own submarine to illustrate the achievements o
3. 3 3. Egypt1998-03-16In the first of two programmes to mark Science Week, Adam Hart-Davis travels to Egypt in search of the earliest heroes of science. Using a drinks can and a stove, he recreates Hero
4. 4 4. Sicily1998-03-19In the second programme for Science Week that traces the origins of modern science, Adam Hart-Davis visits southern Italy, home to the greatest scientists of the ancient world. I
5. 5 5. South1998-03-23Adam Hart-Davis continues his search for unsung heroes of science when he cycles around the south of England. On a stop-off in Surrey, he uses a tin of tuna to explain the physics
6. 6 6. Ireland1998-03-26Adam Hart-Davis cycles around Ireland to rediscover some scientific milestones. He looks at how John Tyndall found the sky was blue, how Charles Parsons used a telescope to see spi
7. 7 7. N & W Birmingham1998-03-30Adam Hart-Davis searches for unsung heroes of science on a trip to the Potteries, Staffordshire. Using a few pipes, a ribbon and an air pump, he demonstrates the early ideas for a
8. 8 8. North West1998-04-06Adam Hart-Davis takes a ferry across the Mersey to celebrate the work of the North West's unsung heroes of science in the last of the current series. He relives his childhood love
9. 9 9. South of England1998-09-07Adam Hart Davis begins another cycling tour in search of more tales of pioneering inventors in an eight-part fourth series. Hart-Davis begins by exploding balloons of hydrogen and
10. 10 10. Edinburgh1998-09-14This week Hart-Davis makes the journey to Elgin, re-creating the moment when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, and to the site where James Watt carried out his work on
11. 11 11. The Netherlands1998-09-21In Delft, Hart-Davis profiles the draper who was the first person to see bacteria through a microscope and the book-keeper whose gravity experiments predated Galileo's by four year
12. 12 12. North of England1998-09-28Adam Hart-Davis recalls William Sturgeon's inventing the electric motor and James Nasmyth's steam hammer; he also sees Joseph Paxton's inspiration for Crystal Palace and looks at t
13. 13 13. Gloucestershire1998-10-05Adam Hart-Davis recalls the work of Edwin Beard Budding, who invented the lawnmower, and focuses on William Henry Fox Talbot, the father of modern photography. Plus James Bradley,
14. 14 14. Heroines1998-10-12
15. 15 15. East Midlands1998-10-19Adam Hart-Davis cycles to Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire to find out about this week's heroes. They include Frank Whittle, who invented the jet engine, and Robert Bakewell, the
16. 16 16. West of Scotland1998-10-26Adam Hart-Davis concludes the series by visiting western Scotland. There he learns about John Logie Baird, inventor of the television, Lord Kelvin, who established absolute zero, a