"Connections with James Burke" In the Net

1 00:00:00,186 --> 00:00:04,800 Enjoy! 2 00:00:04,800 --> 00:00:06,330 In the next 20 years, 3 00:00:06,330 --> 00:00:08,130 we're about to see what may turn out 4 00:00:08,130 --> 00:00:09,540 to be the biggest changes 5 00:00:09,540 --> 00:00:12,720 to the way we live in human history. 6 00:00:19,890 --> 00:00:21,480 I'm James Burke 7 00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:24,060 and I'm gonna take you on a journey through time, 8 00:00:24,060 --> 00:00:26,790 joining up the dots in about 10 connections, 9 00:00:26,790 --> 00:00:29,460 charting the people, objects, and ideas 10 00:00:29,460 --> 00:00:32,675 that change history in the most surprising ways. 11 00:00:36,455 --> 00:00:39,397 To tell you the incredible story of how we got here 12 00:00:41,872 --> 00:00:43,736 and where we're going next. 13 00:00:47,760 --> 00:00:51,180 This series is about the process of change 14 00:00:51,180 --> 00:00:54,100 and why the future is being shaped by everything we do 15 00:00:55,156 --> 00:00:57,291 and is not going to be what we expect. 16 00:00:58,620 --> 00:01:00,870 Because that's the way change happens. 17 00:01:00,870 --> 00:01:03,270 Cause and effect. 18 00:01:03,270 --> 00:01:05,730 You innovate to solve a problem 19 00:01:05,730 --> 00:01:07,470 and even if you succeed, 20 00:01:07,470 --> 00:01:09,300 there's always an unexpected outcome 21 00:01:09,300 --> 00:01:13,045 that triggers the need for another innovation and so on. 22 00:01:14,940 --> 00:01:16,680 That's why nobody in the past knew 23 00:01:16,680 --> 00:01:18,363 what was coming next. 24 00:01:19,844 --> 00:01:20,798 Nor will you. 25 00:01:22,090 --> 00:01:25,230 The sequence of connections leads like a falling set 26 00:01:25,230 --> 00:01:26,970 of dominoes to an innovation 27 00:01:26,970 --> 00:01:29,043 that's set to transform humankind. 28 00:01:30,690 --> 00:01:32,580 So where do we want to go from here? 29 00:01:32,580 --> 00:01:34,053 What's the next connection? 30 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:42,074 Watch Online Movies and Series for FREE www.osdb.link/lm 31 00:01:50,880 --> 00:01:52,950 So this is where we are heading, 32 00:01:52,950 --> 00:01:57,273 a future where humans finally merge with the internet. 33 00:01:58,230 --> 00:01:59,760 Because the way things are going, 34 00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:02,430 the present human-to-computer interface, 35 00:02:02,430 --> 00:02:05,610 things like keyboards, voice control, 36 00:02:05,610 --> 00:02:07,890 and even the computer itself as we know it 37 00:02:07,890 --> 00:02:08,973 is on the way out. 38 00:02:10,740 --> 00:02:14,370 Replacing it will likely be embedded microchips 39 00:02:14,370 --> 00:02:17,490 in your eyes, your ears, and your brain, 40 00:02:17,490 --> 00:02:22,490 connecting you to an online world of augmented reality. 41 00:02:23,610 --> 00:02:26,040 Instant access to all the knowledge in the world 42 00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:29,103 just by looking, hearing, and thinking. 43 00:02:30,390 --> 00:02:33,450 The journey to this augmented future 44 00:02:33,450 --> 00:02:38,450 begins over 300 years ago with this, a conch shell. 45 00:02:44,070 --> 00:02:47,190 Basically the shell of a large sea snail. 46 00:02:47,190 --> 00:02:49,740 It's made from mostly calcium carbonate, 47 00:02:49,740 --> 00:02:51,690 absorbed from the minerals in the sea 48 00:02:51,690 --> 00:02:53,340 where the snail lives, 49 00:02:53,340 --> 00:02:56,703 and the snails take about four or five years to grow. 50 00:02:57,570 --> 00:02:58,830 Amazing, right? 51 00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:02,040 Now, back in the 18th century, 52 00:03:02,040 --> 00:03:05,070 these conch shells are an exciting new discovery 53 00:03:05,070 --> 00:03:06,770 and they become a collectors item. 54 00:03:08,010 --> 00:03:11,790 One type of snail shell, the rare sea cone, 55 00:03:11,790 --> 00:03:13,383 sells for thousands of dollars. 56 00:03:15,420 --> 00:03:17,970 So people well heeled enough to have a collection 57 00:03:17,970 --> 00:03:20,700 that includes a shell like that would want somewhere 58 00:03:20,700 --> 00:03:23,402 to show off their rare and valuable stuff. 59 00:03:31,110 --> 00:03:36,060 Which leads me to this place: a cabinet of curiosities. 60 00:03:36,060 --> 00:03:36,893 This is, I suppose, 61 00:03:36,893 --> 00:03:39,544 the 18th-century equivalent of the internet. 62 00:03:42,510 --> 00:03:44,640 They first appeared in 16th-century Europe 63 00:03:44,640 --> 00:03:46,710 and they're really more of a room 64 00:03:46,710 --> 00:03:48,993 than what we would now think of as a cabinet. 65 00:03:50,130 --> 00:03:51,660 By the time of the colonial era, 66 00:03:51,660 --> 00:03:54,330 say around the mid 1700s, 67 00:03:54,330 --> 00:03:56,220 these cabinets are often filled 68 00:03:56,220 --> 00:03:59,340 with the stuff rich collectors or their servants 69 00:03:59,340 --> 00:04:01,203 have pinched from all over the world. 70 00:04:02,160 --> 00:04:04,680 So that back home at your next dinner party, 71 00:04:04,680 --> 00:04:06,720 you can knock the socks off your guests 72 00:04:06,720 --> 00:04:09,740 with your curiosities, like the conch shell. 73 00:04:15,300 --> 00:04:18,210 In a world without the internet and travel and TV 74 00:04:18,210 --> 00:04:21,030 and everything that lays the world open to us today, 75 00:04:21,030 --> 00:04:23,643 places like this one bring the world to you. 76 00:04:24,510 --> 00:04:26,370 And the plan with all this? 77 00:04:26,370 --> 00:04:27,780 There's no plan. 78 00:04:27,780 --> 00:04:31,410 Any one of these cabinets is a crazy mix of art, science, 79 00:04:31,410 --> 00:04:34,320 natural history, artifacts, animal and plant life, 80 00:04:34,320 --> 00:04:37,410 and bits of the past, like the Elgin Marble collection 81 00:04:37,410 --> 00:04:41,700 lifted from the Parthenon in Greece by a British aristocrat. 82 00:04:41,700 --> 00:04:43,410 And as I'm sure you've already noticed, 83 00:04:43,410 --> 00:04:45,180 some of these curiosity collections are 84 00:04:45,180 --> 00:04:46,923 like museums waiting to happen, 85 00:04:48,120 --> 00:04:49,982 which, well, they are. 86 00:04:51,990 --> 00:04:55,620 One giant collection in particular belonging to this guy, 87 00:04:55,620 --> 00:04:59,640 Hans Sloane, actually becomes the British Museum, 88 00:04:59,640 --> 00:05:01,857 so don't knock a cabinet of curiosities. 89 00:05:03,630 --> 00:05:06,240 What matters to all the collectors is the reaction 90 00:05:06,240 --> 00:05:07,347 of anybody seeing it. 91 00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:11,087 Wow! What is that? 92 00:05:11,087 --> 00:05:13,800 Of course, what impresses people most 93 00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:16,290 is also that the collector can talk his head off 94 00:05:16,290 --> 00:05:18,390 about it all endlessly. 95 00:05:18,390 --> 00:05:20,490 What an extraordinary noise! 96 00:05:21,570 --> 00:05:22,920 The collecting bug catches hold 97 00:05:22,920 --> 00:05:24,630 of many a well-heeled gent 98 00:05:24,630 --> 00:05:26,520 and the race is on between collectors 99 00:05:26,520 --> 00:05:28,710 to get the biggest and most exotic things 100 00:05:28,710 --> 00:05:30,504 the world has to offer. 101 00:05:32,700 --> 00:05:34,110 And it's a great example 102 00:05:34,110 --> 00:05:37,500 of the many totally unexpected reasons things change, 103 00:05:37,500 --> 00:05:39,180 because in the 18th century 104 00:05:39,180 --> 00:05:42,150 this fascination with stuff triggers the beginnings 105 00:05:42,150 --> 00:05:44,682 of a new more revolutionary idea. 106 00:05:46,980 --> 00:05:48,663 To classify the chaos. 107 00:05:50,070 --> 00:05:53,493 So studying the conch shell became known as conchology, 108 00:05:54,330 --> 00:05:56,790 studying insects, entomology, 109 00:05:56,790 --> 00:05:58,981 and butterflies, lepidopterology. 110 00:06:00,090 --> 00:06:02,890 This is also when all the scientific societies start up. 111 00:06:04,890 --> 00:06:06,333 The entomological society, 112 00:06:07,980 --> 00:06:09,423 the antiquarian society, 113 00:06:10,560 --> 00:06:13,500 the astronomical society, and so on. 114 00:06:17,130 --> 00:06:18,960 Then comes the moment to gladden the heart 115 00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:20,973 of anybody with a collecting bug. 116 00:06:22,410 --> 00:06:24,120 The collector I'm thinking about 117 00:06:24,120 --> 00:06:27,210 is a guy called Dru Drury. 118 00:06:27,210 --> 00:06:30,240 What's bugging him is that he's seen a new bug 119 00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:32,340 that he really wants to get his hands on. 120 00:06:32,340 --> 00:06:33,990 Well, not just new, 121 00:06:33,990 --> 00:06:37,080 but super colossal, amazing one and only new! 122 00:06:37,080 --> 00:06:40,830 This, a beetle found floating in the mouth of a river 123 00:06:40,830 --> 00:06:42,600 in Gabon, West Africa, 124 00:06:42,600 --> 00:06:45,240 and scooped up by a passing merchant ship. 125 00:06:45,240 --> 00:06:48,960 Turns out it's only the world's biggest insect at the time. 126 00:06:48,960 --> 00:06:52,290 Some of these beauties are over four inches long 127 00:06:52,290 --> 00:06:57,290 and it hums and it can lift up to 850 times its own weight 128 00:06:57,540 --> 00:07:00,870 and no surprise, it becomes known as, what else? 129 00:07:00,870 --> 00:07:02,760 The Goliath beetle, 130 00:07:02,760 --> 00:07:05,850 which causes a lot of excitement among the rich collectors, 131 00:07:05,850 --> 00:07:07,110 desperate to grab one 132 00:07:07,110 --> 00:07:09,140 for their cabinets filled with curiosities. 133 00:07:10,277 --> 00:07:11,450 It's gigantic! Amazing! 134 00:07:11,450 --> 00:07:14,940 So this special creepy crawley is a new must have. 135 00:07:14,940 --> 00:07:16,050 Like the sea cone, 136 00:07:16,050 --> 00:07:17,790 the first beetles to arrive in England 137 00:07:17,790 --> 00:07:20,420 will change hands for big bucks. 138 00:07:22,866 --> 00:07:24,900 Now, remember, we're back at a time 139 00:07:24,900 --> 00:07:27,240 when much of the natural world is still unexplored 140 00:07:27,240 --> 00:07:28,623 by European travelers. 141 00:07:30,180 --> 00:07:32,670 So people are going out and scooping up beetles 142 00:07:32,670 --> 00:07:34,440 and anything else scoopable. 143 00:07:34,440 --> 00:07:36,313 (birds chirping) 144 00:07:36,313 --> 00:07:37,593 A real free for all. 145 00:07:41,430 --> 00:07:44,100 So Dru Drury, our collector so desperate 146 00:07:44,100 --> 00:07:45,870 for a giant beetle of his own, 147 00:07:45,870 --> 00:07:48,990 decides to organize an expedition to West Africa 148 00:07:48,990 --> 00:07:50,975 to find more Goliath beetles. 149 00:07:56,700 --> 00:07:59,430 Okay, so where are we on our journey towards the future 150 00:07:59,430 --> 00:08:01,201 where we are part of the internet? 151 00:08:02,790 --> 00:08:05,730 Well-heeled collectors want conch shells, 152 00:08:05,730 --> 00:08:08,190 which they put in cabinets of curiosity, 153 00:08:08,190 --> 00:08:10,350 which are prototype museums 154 00:08:10,350 --> 00:08:13,560 inspiring the birth of all kinds of scientific societies 155 00:08:13,560 --> 00:08:16,830 wanting to categorize all this stuff. 156 00:08:16,830 --> 00:08:20,310 The new must-have insect is a Goliath beetle, 157 00:08:20,310 --> 00:08:22,800 which inspires collector, Dru Drury, 158 00:08:22,800 --> 00:08:24,660 to organize an expedition to West Africa 159 00:08:24,660 --> 00:08:26,043 to find one for him. 160 00:08:29,010 --> 00:08:31,200 Chief scooper on this trip is going 161 00:08:31,200 --> 00:08:33,633 to be a fellow called Henry Smeathman, 162 00:08:35,760 --> 00:08:39,450 an insect freak who travels on a ship called the Fly, 163 00:08:39,450 --> 00:08:40,860 believe it or not. 164 00:08:40,860 --> 00:08:44,880 His voyage takes him to the Banana Islands in West Africa 165 00:08:44,880 --> 00:08:47,850 where he finds a Goliath beetle for Drury 166 00:08:47,850 --> 00:08:49,977 and learns a lot about insect colonies. 167 00:08:53,207 --> 00:08:57,510 In 1775, Smeathman and his newfound insect expertise 168 00:08:57,510 --> 00:09:00,600 follows the trade winds to the Caribbean colonies 169 00:09:00,600 --> 00:09:01,981 where he comes across this. 170 00:09:03,390 --> 00:09:04,223 Sugar. 171 00:09:07,140 --> 00:09:09,780 Sweet-tooth Europeans go crazy for sugar, 172 00:09:09,780 --> 00:09:13,713 so it's a really profitable crop for the plantation owners. 173 00:09:15,810 --> 00:09:18,810 But it's also the favorite diet of ants, 174 00:09:18,810 --> 00:09:22,440 now stripping the sugar cane fields bare. 175 00:09:22,440 --> 00:09:25,770 So the sugar cane plantation owners invite Smeathman 176 00:09:25,770 --> 00:09:28,863 to work out a way to tackle these ant infestations. 177 00:09:29,914 --> 00:09:32,550 Smeathman soon comes to the conclusion 178 00:09:32,550 --> 00:09:35,460 that it's not the crops that need his protection, 179 00:09:35,460 --> 00:09:37,349 but the people working on them. 180 00:09:40,020 --> 00:09:42,060 See, the sugar industry is dependent 181 00:09:42,060 --> 00:09:45,990 on thousands of slaves abducted from their homes in Africa 182 00:09:45,990 --> 00:09:48,030 and forced to work for nothing. 183 00:09:48,030 --> 00:09:51,063 And as for the idea of human rights, forget it. 184 00:09:51,960 --> 00:09:53,640 Wanting to put a stop to this, 185 00:09:53,640 --> 00:09:54,960 Smeathman draws sketches 186 00:09:54,960 --> 00:09:57,030 to show the terrible things he's seen. 187 00:10:02,790 --> 00:10:06,150 So in 1779, Smeathman heads back to London 188 00:10:06,150 --> 00:10:08,070 and tries to find a publishing house ready 189 00:10:08,070 --> 00:10:09,210 to print his story, 190 00:10:09,210 --> 00:10:13,110 which will tell his tale of exploring wildlife in Africa 191 00:10:13,110 --> 00:10:15,813 and of the horrors of slavery in the Caribbean. 192 00:10:17,100 --> 00:10:18,090 But more important, 193 00:10:18,090 --> 00:10:20,010 Smeathman's book will also spread the word 194 00:10:20,010 --> 00:10:22,150 about a really new idea of his 195 00:10:23,910 --> 00:10:27,330 to take slaves, like the ones that shook him so much, 196 00:10:27,330 --> 00:10:31,014 back to Africa and start a new colony of free people. 197 00:10:36,985 --> 00:10:39,900 Smeathman wants to start by settling 198 00:10:39,900 --> 00:10:42,990 the area he already knows around the Banana River, 199 00:10:42,990 --> 00:10:46,620 an area already known locally as Serra Lyoa, 200 00:10:46,620 --> 00:10:49,083 named after the nearby Lion Mountains. 201 00:10:49,950 --> 00:10:53,100 We now know it as Sierra Leone. 202 00:10:53,100 --> 00:10:53,938 How about that? 203 00:10:55,200 --> 00:10:57,570 Well, his book never gets published, 204 00:10:57,570 --> 00:10:58,923 but he spreads the word. 205 00:11:00,450 --> 00:11:03,120 The only thing missing in Smeathman's grand plan 206 00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:06,870 is, well, new Sierra Leone citizens. 207 00:11:06,870 --> 00:11:08,430 No problem, says Smeathman. 208 00:11:08,430 --> 00:11:11,100 Citizens for his new country will easily be found 209 00:11:11,100 --> 00:11:12,330 in other colonies. 210 00:11:12,330 --> 00:11:15,150 Former slaves who will go for a new country 211 00:11:15,150 --> 00:11:18,060 with attractions like, say, guaranteed freedom 212 00:11:18,060 --> 00:11:19,920 and individual rights. 213 00:11:19,920 --> 00:11:22,410 Smeathman believes these people deserve a new country 214 00:11:22,410 --> 00:11:25,587 to live in that will guarantee their newfound liberty. 215 00:11:25,587 --> 00:11:28,914 And he hopes that this can be Sierra Leone. 216 00:11:31,680 --> 00:11:33,780 The fact that it's going to be a British colony 217 00:11:33,780 --> 00:11:34,613 and they're all gonna be run 218 00:11:34,613 --> 00:11:38,070 by the Sierra Leone Company of London doesn't matter. 219 00:11:38,070 --> 00:11:41,304 In his mind, they're going to be free. 220 00:11:47,340 --> 00:11:51,150 He hears about a group of escaped slaves holed up in Canada 221 00:11:51,150 --> 00:11:52,473 and decides to help them. 222 00:11:53,490 --> 00:11:56,400 He manages to raise over a quarter of a million dollars 223 00:11:56,400 --> 00:11:58,650 in today's money and charters a fleet 224 00:11:58,650 --> 00:11:59,800 to go and pick them up. 225 00:12:01,316 --> 00:12:06,193 And in January, 1792, off they sail in 15 ships to Africa 226 00:12:07,080 --> 00:12:08,550 and a bright new future 227 00:12:08,550 --> 00:12:12,900 in a bright new town called what else? Freetown! 228 00:12:12,900 --> 00:12:15,465 Built on land bought from the local chieftains. 229 00:12:18,300 --> 00:12:19,620 Within a few years, 230 00:12:19,620 --> 00:12:21,720 Freetown has several hundred houses 231 00:12:21,720 --> 00:12:24,846 and, on the surface, things appear to be going to plan. 232 00:12:24,846 --> 00:12:26,610 Who's that? 233 00:12:26,610 --> 00:12:28,500 But arguments are already breaking out 234 00:12:28,500 --> 00:12:32,730 among the organizers about how to run a new free country. 235 00:12:32,730 --> 00:12:34,560 For this experiment to work, 236 00:12:34,560 --> 00:12:36,101 they need to get themselves together. 237 00:12:38,095 --> 00:12:40,890 And this is where the story gets really interesting because, 238 00:12:40,890 --> 00:12:44,310 of all the challenges facing the fledgling new country, 239 00:12:44,310 --> 00:12:47,247 the biggest challenge of all is cash. 240 00:12:50,010 --> 00:12:53,790 Smeathman's new colony needs money, a reliable currency, 241 00:12:53,790 --> 00:12:57,430 which fact is going to take us somewhere rather unexpected 242 00:12:58,410 --> 00:13:01,650 because the man hired to make Sierra Leone's currency 243 00:13:01,650 --> 00:13:03,821 is this chap, Matthew Boulton. 244 00:13:05,970 --> 00:13:07,620 First of all, he's in Birmingham, 245 00:13:07,620 --> 00:13:09,327 the metalworking center of England, 246 00:13:09,327 --> 00:13:11,790 and up to his eyes in metal everything. 247 00:13:11,790 --> 00:13:14,640 Candlesticks, jugs, tureens and cups, 248 00:13:14,640 --> 00:13:17,610 sterling silverware, shoe buckles, telescope tubes, 249 00:13:17,610 --> 00:13:19,743 and, above all, metal buttons. 250 00:13:21,600 --> 00:13:23,760 All easier to manufacture than actual money. 251 00:13:23,760 --> 00:13:25,560 You see, at this time, 252 00:13:25,560 --> 00:13:28,530 currency all over the world is a bit of a mess. 253 00:13:28,530 --> 00:13:31,800 Coins are made with minting machines worked by hand. 254 00:13:31,800 --> 00:13:35,040 Every coin they make is irregular. 255 00:13:35,040 --> 00:13:36,660 No two coins look the same, 256 00:13:36,660 --> 00:13:39,261 making them very easy to counterfeit. 257 00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:48,200 Boulton is stumped, but the answer is hiding in plain sight. 258 00:13:48,210 --> 00:13:49,830 See, his friend and colleague, 259 00:13:49,830 --> 00:13:52,920 a Scottish engineer called James Watt, 260 00:13:52,920 --> 00:13:55,290 has, by chance, been fiddling 261 00:13:55,290 --> 00:13:58,023 with a primitive steam engine used to drain mines. 262 00:14:00,480 --> 00:14:03,081 Trouble is it doesn't work very well. 263 00:14:05,970 --> 00:14:08,070 You put hot steam in a cylinder, 264 00:14:08,070 --> 00:14:10,170 then cool it down to condense the steam 265 00:14:10,170 --> 00:14:13,200 and create a vacuum which pulls the piston down. 266 00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:15,540 You use loads of coal to create the steam 267 00:14:15,540 --> 00:14:19,817 and then you waste that by cooling it down. 268 00:14:19,817 --> 00:14:20,910 And on it goes, 269 00:14:20,910 --> 00:14:23,446 each time costing you a lot of coal. 270 00:14:29,370 --> 00:14:31,023 See how inefficient this is? 271 00:14:32,520 --> 00:14:35,820 James Watt realizes that the key is to create a vacuum 272 00:14:35,820 --> 00:14:38,940 in the cylinder without cooling it down. 273 00:14:38,940 --> 00:14:43,140 So he adds a separate chamber that he calls a condenser 274 00:14:43,140 --> 00:14:46,293 where the steam can be cooled down away from the cylinder. 275 00:14:48,390 --> 00:14:49,860 Now it's hot all the time, 276 00:14:49,860 --> 00:14:53,940 uses far less coal, and produces much more power. 277 00:14:53,940 --> 00:14:56,400 Watt's modified engine has harnessed 278 00:14:56,400 --> 00:14:57,975 the full power of steam. 279 00:15:02,310 --> 00:15:05,640 Boulton and Watt start a business to exploit the new machine 280 00:15:05,640 --> 00:15:08,511 and the two of them literally cash in. 281 00:15:13,290 --> 00:15:16,680 Together, they design a steam-powered minting machine 282 00:15:16,680 --> 00:15:18,990 that can rapidly make lots of coins 283 00:15:18,990 --> 00:15:20,760 not only uniform in shape, 284 00:15:20,760 --> 00:15:23,657 but with features that make them very hard to copy. 285 00:15:28,435 --> 00:15:31,680 The new coin-stamping machinery in Birmingham 286 00:15:31,680 --> 00:15:33,600 is soon working overtime making cash 287 00:15:33,600 --> 00:15:36,720 for places like the new Sierra Leone colony. 288 00:15:36,720 --> 00:15:39,900 And thanks to his work for colonies like Sierra Leone, 289 00:15:39,900 --> 00:15:41,970 Boulton goes on to get the contract 290 00:15:41,970 --> 00:15:43,680 to make money for Britain 291 00:15:43,680 --> 00:15:46,110 and end the counterfeit problem. 292 00:15:46,110 --> 00:15:49,140 And the world gets precision machinery capable 293 00:15:49,140 --> 00:15:51,360 of making reliable money. 294 00:15:51,360 --> 00:15:52,579 But it doesn't end here. 295 00:15:54,090 --> 00:15:56,400 The effect Watt's new machine has, 296 00:15:56,400 --> 00:15:58,050 which becomes known because it uses steam 297 00:15:58,050 --> 00:16:00,180 as the steam engine, 298 00:16:00,180 --> 00:16:03,783 could be modestly described as only cataclysmic. 299 00:16:05,790 --> 00:16:09,480 For the first time, society has a compact, reliable machine 300 00:16:09,480 --> 00:16:11,880 that can efficiently convert the energy 301 00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:15,108 in fossil fuels like coal into mechanical energy. 302 00:16:16,830 --> 00:16:19,350 It totally removes the shackles on business. 303 00:16:19,350 --> 00:16:20,730 No need to find a river you can use 304 00:16:20,730 --> 00:16:22,530 as a power source for manufacturing. 305 00:16:23,940 --> 00:16:24,930 With a steam engine, 306 00:16:24,930 --> 00:16:27,480 you can get your power anywhere you want to put the building 307 00:16:27,480 --> 00:16:30,780 like near the living quarters for the factory workers. 308 00:16:30,780 --> 00:16:31,999 Even in a city. 309 00:16:35,280 --> 00:16:36,933 Nothing will ever be the same. 310 00:16:39,780 --> 00:16:43,050 Okay, where are we on our journey towards living 311 00:16:43,050 --> 00:16:44,283 in the internet? 312 00:16:45,360 --> 00:16:48,180 Conch shells and cabinets of curiosity, 313 00:16:48,180 --> 00:16:51,420 Dru Drury and his desire for a Goliath beetle, 314 00:16:51,420 --> 00:16:53,610 Henry Smeathman finds him one 315 00:16:53,610 --> 00:16:56,310 and discovers the horrors of the slave trade. 316 00:16:56,310 --> 00:16:59,553 He sets up Sierra Leone as a refuge for free people, 317 00:17:00,540 --> 00:17:02,490 which needs a reliable currency, 318 00:17:02,490 --> 00:17:04,240 which takes him to Matthew Boulton. 319 00:17:05,250 --> 00:17:06,930 Boulton's business partner, James Watt, 320 00:17:06,930 --> 00:17:09,990 invents a new highly-efficient steam engine 321 00:17:09,990 --> 00:17:13,143 which they use to make a steam-powered minting machine, 322 00:17:14,580 --> 00:17:17,643 which provides high quality cash for Sierra Leone. 323 00:17:19,560 --> 00:17:20,393 As well as making himself 324 00:17:20,393 --> 00:17:22,170 and his pal, Boulton, extremely rich, 325 00:17:22,170 --> 00:17:23,880 Watt's neat trick with the steam engine 326 00:17:23,880 --> 00:17:27,173 triggers what we call the Industrial Revolution. 327 00:17:31,050 --> 00:17:32,625 Coal and iron and steel 328 00:17:32,625 --> 00:17:34,051 are the means of industry, 329 00:17:34,051 --> 00:17:35,711 for transport, for speed. 330 00:17:38,963 --> 00:17:40,530 And now another example 331 00:17:40,530 --> 00:17:43,923 of multiple connections going off in multiple directions. 332 00:17:48,780 --> 00:17:51,720 You see, Watt and Boulton were friends 333 00:17:51,720 --> 00:17:56,130 with a precocious young Frenchman called Joseph Montgolfier 334 00:17:56,130 --> 00:17:59,670 who shared their passion for inventing clever new machines. 335 00:17:59,670 --> 00:18:02,662 And who you could say has uplifting thoughts. 336 00:18:05,130 --> 00:18:06,803 With his hot air balloon. 337 00:18:12,660 --> 00:18:13,660 Beautiful, isn't it? 338 00:18:15,150 --> 00:18:16,860 The balloon envelope is silk, 339 00:18:16,860 --> 00:18:19,380 but it's covered with printed paper. 340 00:18:19,380 --> 00:18:20,340 Why? 341 00:18:20,340 --> 00:18:23,223 Because guess what the Montgolfier family firm makes? 342 00:18:24,240 --> 00:18:25,120 Paper! 343 00:18:30,330 --> 00:18:33,150 Guess who the guy plastered all around it is? 344 00:18:33,150 --> 00:18:35,433 Yep, King Louis XVI. 345 00:18:36,600 --> 00:18:39,450 And why does the balloon have the king's picture on it? 346 00:18:39,450 --> 00:18:41,460 Well, he's the king of course, 347 00:18:41,460 --> 00:18:43,780 and everybody either loves King Louis XVI 348 00:18:45,030 --> 00:18:45,863 or hates him, 349 00:18:47,130 --> 00:18:48,727 but they'll still look up at him. 350 00:18:50,820 --> 00:18:52,710 This is a fun intersection on our journey 351 00:18:52,710 --> 00:18:54,310 to a future inside the internet. 352 00:18:55,230 --> 00:18:57,060 We could follow the connections 353 00:18:57,060 --> 00:18:58,860 that lead to mass advertising, 354 00:18:58,860 --> 00:19:01,140 the billboards we see today 355 00:19:01,140 --> 00:19:03,750 selling us everything from soap to cars. 356 00:19:03,750 --> 00:19:06,240 But instead, let's stick with France 357 00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:08,070 and see what happens next 358 00:19:08,070 --> 00:19:09,780 because there's a problem looming 359 00:19:09,780 --> 00:19:12,213 and one with unintended consequences. 360 00:19:13,710 --> 00:19:17,160 See, paper making is a labor-intensive business. 361 00:19:17,160 --> 00:19:19,560 You remember how I said some people hate the king? 362 00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:22,560 Well, the French Revolution is about to happen. 363 00:19:22,560 --> 00:19:24,718 The French monarchy gets overthrown 364 00:19:25,890 --> 00:19:27,330 and heads roll. 365 00:19:27,330 --> 00:19:30,390 Mass social upheaval takes workers out of the factories 366 00:19:30,390 --> 00:19:31,920 and onto the streets. 367 00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:35,176 So who's going to make the paper now? 368 00:19:39,390 --> 00:19:40,620 One paper-making company 369 00:19:40,620 --> 00:19:42,720 with this kind of worker shortage problem 370 00:19:42,720 --> 00:19:46,260 has just hired a technical type, Nicolas Louis Robert, 371 00:19:46,260 --> 00:19:49,290 who offers them his solution to the lack of workers, 372 00:19:49,290 --> 00:19:51,180 make paper without them 373 00:19:51,180 --> 00:19:53,253 with his paper-making machine. 374 00:19:54,630 --> 00:19:55,900 First of its kind. 375 00:20:01,350 --> 00:20:03,510 Scoop up paper pulp made of a slurry 376 00:20:03,510 --> 00:20:06,559 of wood and vegetable fiber onto a mesh belt. 377 00:20:16,950 --> 00:20:19,410 Then run the damp pulp between hot rollers 378 00:20:19,410 --> 00:20:20,560 that flatten and dry it 379 00:20:26,790 --> 00:20:29,829 so it comes out the other end as finished product. 380 00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:35,853 This produces very long sheets of paper in a roll. 381 00:20:40,380 --> 00:20:41,490 For some crazy reason, 382 00:20:41,490 --> 00:20:43,020 the boss doesn't think Robert's idea 383 00:20:43,020 --> 00:20:44,280 will solve his problem. 384 00:20:44,280 --> 00:20:46,920 So in 1802, he mentioned the paper-making machine 385 00:20:46,920 --> 00:20:49,380 to his brother-in-law, an Englishman, 386 00:20:49,380 --> 00:20:52,050 who promptly takes the idea back to the UK 387 00:20:52,050 --> 00:20:54,960 where it's picked up by a guy called Donkin 388 00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:57,060 and two brothers named Hall 389 00:20:57,060 --> 00:20:59,138 who jump at the paper making idea. 390 00:21:04,290 --> 00:21:05,490 So with other investors, 391 00:21:05,490 --> 00:21:07,260 Donkin and the Halls put a ton of money 392 00:21:07,260 --> 00:21:09,120 into a big machine that will be able 393 00:21:09,120 --> 00:21:11,763 to make very long continuous rolls of paper. 394 00:21:13,738 --> 00:21:16,710 And this will change the daily life of millions 395 00:21:16,710 --> 00:21:19,380 of Industrial Revolution workers and the future with it. 396 00:21:19,380 --> 00:21:21,390 Because two of the things you can make 397 00:21:21,390 --> 00:21:24,960 with long rolls of paper are newspapers, 398 00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:27,330 rolled off by the thousand in printing presses, 399 00:21:27,330 --> 00:21:30,449 and rolls of enough paper to stick on the walls. 400 00:21:36,360 --> 00:21:39,840 See, thousands live Industrial Revolution lives 401 00:21:39,840 --> 00:21:42,600 of drab industrial dullness 402 00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:45,810 and wallpaper helps to jazz up their existence. 403 00:21:45,810 --> 00:21:48,488 Now, everybody but the destitute can afford it. 404 00:21:49,860 --> 00:21:54,681 So many of the walls back then go from this to this. 405 00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:07,530 Now they can read their new daily newspaper surrounded 406 00:22:07,530 --> 00:22:08,703 by color and design. 407 00:22:09,630 --> 00:22:11,187 We take this for granted now, 408 00:22:11,187 --> 00:22:14,430 but back then it was a social game changer. 409 00:22:14,430 --> 00:22:18,780 Commoners living like royalty thanks to automated wallpaper 410 00:22:18,780 --> 00:22:21,754 whose cost has dropped to a penny for four yards. 411 00:22:34,159 --> 00:22:36,270 Okay, here we are at another one 412 00:22:36,270 --> 00:22:37,740 of those crossroads in history. 413 00:22:37,740 --> 00:22:40,770 I mean, Donkin would go on to work with a man 414 00:22:40,770 --> 00:22:42,900 who designed the first-ever computer. 415 00:22:42,900 --> 00:22:44,640 He would also partner the man 416 00:22:44,640 --> 00:22:46,323 who designed Congreve rockets. 417 00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:50,010 But aside from Donkin, there were also, 418 00:22:50,010 --> 00:22:53,335 you remember, his colleagues, the two Hall brothers. 419 00:22:55,230 --> 00:22:56,370 Now they lead us to something 420 00:22:56,370 --> 00:22:58,590 that will inadvertently change the course 421 00:22:58,590 --> 00:23:00,652 of our journey through history. 422 00:23:03,660 --> 00:23:05,790 Sometime in 1846, 423 00:23:05,790 --> 00:23:09,480 John Hall's son wants to branch out from the paper business 424 00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:11,760 to manufacture a new kind of gun powder. 425 00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:13,578 Always in demand, right? 426 00:23:13,578 --> 00:23:15,240 And to explain what happens next, 427 00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:19,195 first, sorry, we need a brief chemistry lesson. 428 00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:22,290 Take fine cotton, 429 00:23:22,290 --> 00:23:25,083 put it in a bath of half sulfuric and half nitric acid. 430 00:23:26,310 --> 00:23:27,143 After two minutes, 431 00:23:27,143 --> 00:23:29,313 take cotton out and wash it in cold water. 432 00:23:30,570 --> 00:23:34,143 Then dry it very slowly at below 40 degrees Celsius. 433 00:23:36,990 --> 00:23:40,470 What you have now is a product that looks like cotton wool 434 00:23:40,470 --> 00:23:41,880 with the unusual characteristic 435 00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:45,450 that the slightest spark will cause it to explode 436 00:23:45,450 --> 00:23:47,443 with a serious amount of bang, 437 00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:50,400 which is why the military love the stuff 438 00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:54,150 and why it's going to make the Hall family oodles of boodle. 439 00:23:54,150 --> 00:23:55,967 Well, that's the plan. 440 00:23:58,650 --> 00:24:00,630 Key sentence in the plan, 441 00:24:00,630 --> 00:24:02,220 unless you are extremely careful 442 00:24:02,220 --> 00:24:03,990 with manufacturer and storage, 443 00:24:03,990 --> 00:24:07,470 gun cotton is so volatile you can get what happens 444 00:24:07,470 --> 00:24:09,810 to Hall's factory the following year. 445 00:24:09,810 --> 00:24:10,950 A spark. 446 00:24:10,950 --> 00:24:13,999 And lots of gun cotton goes up with a humongous explosion 447 00:24:18,420 --> 00:24:20,920 destroying the entire factory and everybody in it. 448 00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:30,720 Now this is where connections, even failed ones, 449 00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:34,020 change the course of history because, thanks to that mishap, 450 00:24:34,020 --> 00:24:36,177 the Hall family go back to safer work. 451 00:24:38,730 --> 00:24:41,940 In 1884, they buy the right to a new gizmo, 452 00:24:41,940 --> 00:24:44,643 which they install in a London office block. 453 00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:49,350 This innovation will help people in tall buildings, 454 00:24:49,350 --> 00:24:51,000 of which there is an increasing number 455 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:53,583 as building land in cities becomes more expensive. 456 00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:56,100 The new answer to climbing stairs 457 00:24:56,100 --> 00:24:59,100 in tall buildings, is guess what? An elevator. 458 00:24:59,100 --> 00:25:01,113 But no ordinary elevator. 459 00:25:02,910 --> 00:25:05,523 First, this elevator is powered by steam. 460 00:25:06,690 --> 00:25:09,270 And second of all, it has no doors 461 00:25:09,270 --> 00:25:10,770 and no stopping on your floor. 462 00:25:17,250 --> 00:25:19,140 And as it reaches your floor, 463 00:25:19,140 --> 00:25:22,080 you use it on the hop-on-hop-off principle. 464 00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:23,428 Here's one of them at work. 465 00:25:24,660 --> 00:25:25,650 As you can see, 466 00:25:25,650 --> 00:25:27,600 it keeps moving and you just get on 467 00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:29,370 and get off as it suits you. 468 00:25:29,370 --> 00:25:32,673 And if you miss, just wait a sec for the next chance. 469 00:25:37,770 --> 00:25:39,890 Not sure if this very slight feeling of taking your life 470 00:25:39,890 --> 00:25:43,050 in your hands when you use it gives your rise to its name. 471 00:25:43,050 --> 00:25:44,400 Paternoster. 472 00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:47,190 Because paternoster are the first two words 473 00:25:47,190 --> 00:25:49,290 in the Latin version of the Lord's Prayer. 474 00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:54,750 The Halls' new lift catches on quickly 475 00:25:54,750 --> 00:25:58,550 in this new era of high-rise buildings, like in Vienna. 476 00:26:01,770 --> 00:26:03,840 And in Vienna where there's a building boom going on 477 00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:04,673 at the time, 478 00:26:05,550 --> 00:26:07,710 paternosters are being commercialized 479 00:26:07,710 --> 00:26:10,053 by an engineer called Anton Freissler. 480 00:26:14,850 --> 00:26:17,430 See, Freissler's real talent lies 481 00:26:17,430 --> 00:26:19,650 in exploiting other people's ideas, 482 00:26:19,650 --> 00:26:22,053 like that of using electric power. 483 00:26:24,300 --> 00:26:26,490 Faster, more reliable and powerful paternosters 484 00:26:26,490 --> 00:26:29,896 sell like hotcakes throughout Austria and Europe. 485 00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:32,370 As a result of all this, 486 00:26:32,370 --> 00:26:33,300 the Austrian emperor 487 00:26:33,300 --> 00:26:36,483 makes Freissler imperial machine supplier. 488 00:26:37,980 --> 00:26:40,650 A paternoster he installed in 1910 Vienna 489 00:26:40,650 --> 00:26:42,840 is still running to this day. 490 00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:46,834 And his company was making elevators well into the 1970s. 491 00:26:47,700 --> 00:26:50,913 His success is really all down to electricity. 492 00:26:54,150 --> 00:26:56,400 And the people responsible for bringing electricity 493 00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:59,040 into general use are a family full 494 00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:01,602 of inventive talent called Siemens. 495 00:27:03,930 --> 00:27:05,290 A family with big ideas 496 00:27:07,710 --> 00:27:09,550 that will eventually lead to a world 497 00:27:10,500 --> 00:27:12,810 in which human society is part 498 00:27:12,810 --> 00:27:15,060 of an unimaginably large network 499 00:27:15,060 --> 00:27:18,627 of interconnected machines making our lives easier. 500 00:27:19,620 --> 00:27:22,620 Because while Freissler is focused on elevators, 501 00:27:22,620 --> 00:27:24,420 the Siemens are thinking really big. 502 00:27:26,310 --> 00:27:30,540 In 1848, they lay a 416-mile telegraph cable 503 00:27:30,540 --> 00:27:32,370 between Berlin and Frankfurt. 504 00:27:32,370 --> 00:27:36,430 The first long-distance communications line in Europe. 505 00:27:40,740 --> 00:27:42,960 But that's just a warmup. 506 00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:44,640 In 1874, they set off 507 00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:48,420 and lay the cable from New Hampshire to Nova Scotia. 508 00:27:48,420 --> 00:27:51,960 Then in August, the serious transatlantic bit starts 509 00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:54,516 going from Nova Scotia to Ireland. 510 00:27:57,090 --> 00:27:58,920 By September, 1875, 511 00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:02,850 they've laid a cable that's over 3,000 miles in length 512 00:28:02,850 --> 00:28:04,199 and it's a great success. 513 00:28:06,450 --> 00:28:08,670 The new Siemens cable gets messages 514 00:28:08,670 --> 00:28:11,370 to the New York Stock Exchange and back 515 00:28:11,370 --> 00:28:13,080 at what is, back then, 516 00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:18,080 the supersonic speed of 16 words both ways every minute. 517 00:28:18,180 --> 00:28:20,310 Then they go even further and lay a line 518 00:28:20,310 --> 00:28:21,450 from London to Calcutta. 519 00:28:21,450 --> 00:28:23,798 That's over 6,800 miles. 520 00:28:29,190 --> 00:28:30,660 But innovation wise, 521 00:28:30,660 --> 00:28:33,210 the Siemens' family business is still not finished. 522 00:28:34,170 --> 00:28:37,650 In 1882, to the amazement of Berliners, 523 00:28:37,650 --> 00:28:39,840 horse drawn everything is replaced 524 00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:43,776 by a Siemens trolley car running on an overhead power line. 525 00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:51,480 So where are we on our journey to a future 526 00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:53,433 where we live partially inside the web? 527 00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:59,340 Conch shells, cabinets of curiosity, 528 00:28:59,340 --> 00:29:02,010 Dru Drury and his Goliath beetle. 529 00:29:02,010 --> 00:29:04,530 Henry Smeathman, Sierra Leone, 530 00:29:04,530 --> 00:29:06,690 and the need for reliable currency. 531 00:29:06,690 --> 00:29:08,700 Matthew Boulton, James Watt, 532 00:29:08,700 --> 00:29:10,170 and his steam engine 533 00:29:10,170 --> 00:29:13,500 together give us steam-powered coin minting. 534 00:29:13,500 --> 00:29:15,660 Their friend, Joseph Montgolfier, 535 00:29:15,660 --> 00:29:17,880 makes hot air balloons with paper. 536 00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:20,760 Another Frenchman invents a paper-making machine, 537 00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:24,210 which only finds success in England in the hands of Donkin 538 00:29:24,210 --> 00:29:25,530 and the Hall Brothers, 539 00:29:25,530 --> 00:29:29,460 giving rise to mass-produced newspapers and wallpaper. 540 00:29:29,460 --> 00:29:32,460 The Hall family business then makes gun cotton 541 00:29:32,460 --> 00:29:34,770 and steam-powered paternosters. 542 00:29:34,770 --> 00:29:38,670 Anton Freissler makes paternosters powered by electricity, 543 00:29:38,670 --> 00:29:39,870 which is only possible 544 00:29:39,870 --> 00:29:42,453 because of the ambition of the Siemens family. 545 00:29:46,980 --> 00:29:48,150 Here's another bright spark 546 00:29:48,150 --> 00:29:50,100 back then in the new world of electrical everything 547 00:29:50,100 --> 00:29:52,703 is a colleague of Siemens, Emil Rathenau, 548 00:29:54,870 --> 00:29:57,520 who sees Edison's electric light at an exhibition 549 00:29:58,590 --> 00:30:01,739 and is turned on to an all-electric future. 550 00:30:02,580 --> 00:30:04,740 His big idea is to suggest 551 00:30:04,740 --> 00:30:06,990 the first nationwide telephone network 552 00:30:06,990 --> 00:30:09,600 to the German post office who go for it, 553 00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:12,273 and then pull out after he's set up the infrastructure. 554 00:30:14,250 --> 00:30:16,770 But now he has wires strung up everywhere 555 00:30:16,770 --> 00:30:19,740 and has bought all the rights to Edison's patents. 556 00:30:19,740 --> 00:30:23,460 So guess what? How about electric lighting everywhere? 557 00:30:23,460 --> 00:30:25,170 Well, there's only one way to achieve that. 558 00:30:25,170 --> 00:30:26,190 A deal with his friends 559 00:30:26,190 --> 00:30:28,320 and business competitors, the Siemens. 560 00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:31,350 So between them, Siemens and Rathenau corner 561 00:30:31,350 --> 00:30:33,240 the German power market. 562 00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:35,430 The Siemens Company generates the power 563 00:30:35,430 --> 00:30:37,950 and it's sent to light bulbs all over Berlin 564 00:30:37,950 --> 00:30:39,764 through Rathenau's wires. 565 00:30:44,220 --> 00:30:46,746 A marriage made in heaven, right? 566 00:30:47,790 --> 00:30:49,920 And this is one of those shape-the-future moments 567 00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:52,873 with knobs on because 100 years later, by 2000, 568 00:30:52,873 --> 00:30:55,830 Rathenau's company ends up as AEG 569 00:30:55,830 --> 00:30:58,065 and Siemens is a giant conglomerate. 570 00:30:59,940 --> 00:31:02,880 And probably some bit of technology you've got today 571 00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:04,503 has the name Siemens on it. 572 00:31:05,730 --> 00:31:07,540 See what I meant about a marriage made in heaven? 573 00:31:09,060 --> 00:31:11,040 And, as I'm sure you're expecting, 574 00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:13,203 heaven is where the story goes next. 575 00:31:14,670 --> 00:31:15,780 Because Rathenau's ability 576 00:31:15,780 --> 00:31:17,520 to send electricity a long distance, 577 00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:18,540 which he does, 578 00:31:18,540 --> 00:31:22,050 encourages one of his company directors, Oskar von Miller, 579 00:31:22,050 --> 00:31:24,270 who has a flair for the spectacular, 580 00:31:24,270 --> 00:31:27,900 to power a seven-foot-high waterfall in Munich 581 00:31:27,900 --> 00:31:31,353 from an electricity generator 35 miles away. 582 00:31:32,370 --> 00:31:35,651 The public impact is nothing short of thought provoking. 583 00:31:38,070 --> 00:31:40,710 Even Friedrich Engels writes to Karl Marx 584 00:31:40,710 --> 00:31:44,760 about it creating a new world united by electric power. 585 00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:46,560 A world being gradually illuminated 586 00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:49,516 using connected cables linked to machines. 587 00:31:51,900 --> 00:31:54,273 Oskar then moves on to a slightly bigger idea, 588 00:31:57,300 --> 00:32:01,113 a museum dedicated to his favorite thing, technology. 589 00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:05,160 It's the German equivalent of the Smithsonian. 590 00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:06,420 Another museum descendant 591 00:32:06,420 --> 00:32:08,170 of the curiosity cabinet, remember? 592 00:32:09,210 --> 00:32:11,850 And one of his advisors on the project is Rathenau, 593 00:32:11,850 --> 00:32:15,071 who's also obsessed with how machines can help society. 594 00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:19,020 Oskar's German museum, 595 00:32:19,020 --> 00:32:21,240 the Deutsches Museum in Munich, 596 00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:23,640 end up the largest technological museum 597 00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:25,260 of its kind in the world. 598 00:32:25,260 --> 00:32:29,040 The aim is to show the marvels of the innovative past 599 00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:29,873 and to teach people 600 00:32:29,873 --> 00:32:32,550 about the future-making social effects of science, 601 00:32:32,550 --> 00:32:35,026 how it changes people's lives. 602 00:32:37,260 --> 00:32:39,570 The museum houses the first automobile, 603 00:32:39,570 --> 00:32:41,250 the first electric dynamo, 604 00:32:41,250 --> 00:32:42,750 the first diesel engine, 605 00:32:42,750 --> 00:32:45,213 and the lab bench where the atom was first split. 606 00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:49,860 And the largest hall in the museum is air and space. 607 00:32:49,860 --> 00:32:53,100 Oh, and a great restaurant and museum shop. 608 00:32:53,100 --> 00:32:55,342 You name it, it's in Oskar's museum. 609 00:32:57,870 --> 00:33:00,150 Including the reference I just made to heaven 610 00:33:00,150 --> 00:33:01,560 because one of the marvels Oskar wants 611 00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:02,910 to present to the public 612 00:33:02,910 --> 00:33:05,373 is something nobody's ever seen before. 613 00:33:08,550 --> 00:33:10,233 A panoramic view of heaven. 614 00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:13,803 Well, the night sky. 615 00:33:16,260 --> 00:33:18,613 You can even get it speeded up if you wish. 616 00:33:25,620 --> 00:33:27,450 How do you recreate the heavens? 617 00:33:27,450 --> 00:33:29,970 It can't be 2D projected onto a screen. 618 00:33:29,970 --> 00:33:33,630 They wanted to mirror the 3D space of the night sky. 619 00:33:33,630 --> 00:33:37,350 And here comes an engineer called William Bauersfeld 620 00:33:37,350 --> 00:33:39,630 of the ZEISS Optical Company 621 00:33:39,630 --> 00:33:41,610 who thinks of a way to build a large dome 622 00:33:41,610 --> 00:33:44,130 without the need for any kind of central support 623 00:33:44,130 --> 00:33:47,040 that would block an interior view of the dome. 624 00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:49,140 So over a period of 10 years, 625 00:33:49,140 --> 00:33:51,930 William and his team at ZEISS build a projector 626 00:33:51,930 --> 00:33:54,720 that will shine an image onto the interior 627 00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:56,816 of an unobstructed white-painted dome. 628 00:34:02,940 --> 00:34:05,160 The image will be that of the night sky, 629 00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:07,320 which, at the opening in 1925, 630 00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:10,593 totals the planets and 4,500 stars. 631 00:34:13,230 --> 00:34:14,700 You sit back in your reclining seat 632 00:34:14,700 --> 00:34:16,080 to avoid a crick in the neck 633 00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:19,569 and stare up in the world's first planetarium. 634 00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:25,350 As I said, 635 00:34:25,350 --> 00:34:28,920 the big gee whiz thing about the planetarium is the dome. 636 00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:30,600 William Bauersfeld comes up with a dome 637 00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:33,210 that can stand by itself without support 638 00:34:33,210 --> 00:34:35,700 because it's made up of thousands of triangles. 639 00:34:35,700 --> 00:34:36,960 In techno speak, 640 00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:39,450 the shape of the dome is called an icosahedron. 641 00:34:39,450 --> 00:34:42,420 And because of all the little triangles sharing the load, 642 00:34:42,420 --> 00:34:45,240 so to speak, the dome, however big, 643 00:34:45,240 --> 00:34:46,773 can also take any stress. 644 00:34:48,240 --> 00:34:49,740 Between World War I and II, 645 00:34:49,740 --> 00:34:52,620 this new planetarium dome is successfully set up 646 00:34:52,620 --> 00:34:54,150 and attracting big audiences 647 00:34:54,150 --> 00:34:56,910 in Berlin, Dusseldorf, Rome, Paris, 648 00:34:56,910 --> 00:34:59,340 Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. 649 00:35:00,810 --> 00:35:04,500 But this dome is more than an astronomical curiosity. 650 00:35:04,500 --> 00:35:08,220 It's key to our journey towards the future connected world 651 00:35:08,220 --> 00:35:10,320 where machines will integrate with humans. 652 00:35:13,170 --> 00:35:14,591 By the early 1950s, 653 00:35:14,591 --> 00:35:18,060 a dome like Bauersfeld's that can take a lot of stress 654 00:35:18,060 --> 00:35:20,160 also captures the attention of a bunch of people 655 00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:22,050 who happen to think, like everybody else, 656 00:35:22,050 --> 00:35:23,880 that it's an American invention 657 00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:26,490 by a man named Buckminster Fuller, 658 00:35:26,490 --> 00:35:28,320 who has, in fact, reinvented the idea 659 00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:30,298 and called it a geodesic dome. 660 00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:34,740 This bunch of interested people want the geodesic dome 661 00:35:34,740 --> 00:35:37,869 because what they have in mind is Arctic weather. 662 00:35:42,156 --> 00:35:44,460 The people are the U.S. Defense Department 663 00:35:44,460 --> 00:35:47,370 and the Arctic weather is hindering a key element 664 00:35:47,370 --> 00:35:50,400 in the successful defense of the United States. 665 00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:52,410 Think about what happens to Northern Canadian weather 666 00:35:52,410 --> 00:35:53,610 for much of the year. 667 00:35:53,610 --> 00:35:57,450 It tends to be blizzards, raging gales and ice storms 668 00:35:57,450 --> 00:35:59,730 that will knock down anything you put up, 669 00:35:59,730 --> 00:36:03,930 especially relatively fragile and rotating radar antenna, 670 00:36:03,930 --> 00:36:05,340 which you need to put up 671 00:36:05,340 --> 00:36:07,740 in order to spot any nuclear bombers heading 672 00:36:07,740 --> 00:36:10,677 from Russia across the pole to attack America. 673 00:36:12,595 --> 00:36:15,150 But a dome could protect the antenna. 674 00:36:15,150 --> 00:36:16,950 A theory they test when they leave one 675 00:36:16,950 --> 00:36:18,960 on top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire 676 00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:22,440 where you get some of the highest wind speeds on earth, 677 00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:24,030 and it survives. 678 00:36:24,030 --> 00:36:26,790 And remember, by this time, 1951, 679 00:36:26,790 --> 00:36:29,070 we are in the grip of the Cold War 680 00:36:29,070 --> 00:36:31,415 and potential atomic Armageddon. 681 00:36:35,010 --> 00:36:38,070 So they built a series of these radar-protecting domes, 682 00:36:38,070 --> 00:36:41,460 spaced out to give total radar coverage all 683 00:36:41,460 --> 00:36:43,980 in a line across the north of Canada, 684 00:36:43,980 --> 00:36:45,900 giving you up to four hours warning time 685 00:36:45,900 --> 00:36:47,261 of impending doom. 686 00:36:49,110 --> 00:36:51,540 Which is why this chain of stations becomes known 687 00:36:51,540 --> 00:36:56,373 as the Distant Early Warning line or DEW Line for short. 688 00:36:57,540 --> 00:36:59,880 We virtually surrounded the continent 689 00:36:59,880 --> 00:37:02,130 with an electronic barrier to defend us 690 00:37:02,130 --> 00:37:05,703 against an attempted surprise attack by manned bombers. 691 00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:09,660 This string of stations finally stretches 692 00:37:09,660 --> 00:37:11,670 from one side of Canada to the other, 693 00:37:11,670 --> 00:37:13,980 using radar domes capable 694 00:37:13,980 --> 00:37:17,523 of surviving 120-mile-an-hour winter gales. 695 00:37:18,690 --> 00:37:21,961 Connected machines built to last and protect people. 696 00:37:21,961 --> 00:37:25,544 (dramatic music continues) 697 00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:30,150 Which leaves only one last problem. 698 00:37:30,150 --> 00:37:33,300 What is each of the 63 reporting radar stations supposed 699 00:37:33,300 --> 00:37:36,390 to do with the incoming bomber data it picks up? 700 00:37:36,390 --> 00:37:37,863 Hopefully none, of course. 701 00:37:39,030 --> 00:37:40,680 It need to command center, 702 00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:43,495 a brain to control this very nervous system. 703 00:37:50,250 --> 00:37:52,080 So in 1967, a base is built 704 00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:55,440 into the side of Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs 705 00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:59,580 to house the North American Aerospace Defense Command, 706 00:37:59,580 --> 00:38:00,870 NORAD for short, 707 00:38:00,870 --> 00:38:03,000 where all the radar data on aircraft tracks 708 00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:05,100 will be collected, analyzed, 709 00:38:05,100 --> 00:38:07,800 and presented on a giant screen, 710 00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:11,617 showing the whole DEW Line setup live 24/7. 711 00:38:19,260 --> 00:38:21,900 But they soon realize that a centralized command system 712 00:38:21,900 --> 00:38:23,880 is seriously flawed. 713 00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:26,880 What if NORAD itself got destroyed? 714 00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:28,590 How would the machines protect us? 715 00:38:28,590 --> 00:38:30,720 What was needed was a defense network 716 00:38:30,720 --> 00:38:32,950 with no central command point. 717 00:38:35,460 --> 00:38:36,870 If one site were destroyed, 718 00:38:36,870 --> 00:38:37,860 it wouldn't matter 719 00:38:37,860 --> 00:38:39,690 because all the surviving sites 720 00:38:39,690 --> 00:38:41,948 would still be able to communicate with each other. 721 00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:47,094 This was called a distributed network. 722 00:38:47,094 --> 00:38:47,927 And to build it 723 00:38:47,927 --> 00:38:50,550 would need a totally new future-changing generation 724 00:38:50,550 --> 00:38:52,570 of computing and communications technology. 725 00:38:55,770 --> 00:38:57,930 The first network of interconnected computers 726 00:38:57,930 --> 00:39:02,130 to be built for the U.S. airborne defense is called SAGE, 727 00:39:02,130 --> 00:39:05,659 which stands for Semi-Automatic Ground Environment. 728 00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:10,920 At more than 20 air force bases across the US and Canada, 729 00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:15,060 large hardened buildings contained gigantic computers 730 00:39:15,060 --> 00:39:17,830 that would share information on any nuclear attack 731 00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:22,145 and help people to decide how to respond. 732 00:39:26,801 --> 00:39:28,051 Jet deployed. 733 00:39:31,407 --> 00:39:33,660 Now a nuclear response needs to be instant 734 00:39:33,660 --> 00:39:34,493 if you think about it. 735 00:39:34,493 --> 00:39:38,550 So from 1960, the instant idea for what to do 736 00:39:38,550 --> 00:39:39,960 in the event of 737 00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:43,870 is called a Single Integrated Operational Plan. 738 00:39:48,030 --> 00:39:51,180 In essence, the rule is, use them or lose them. 739 00:39:51,180 --> 00:39:53,400 Them being nuclear weapons. 740 00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:54,690 To be used, it says here, 741 00:39:54,690 --> 00:39:56,460 immediately when you get a warning 742 00:39:56,460 --> 00:39:57,810 of what might be an attack. 743 00:39:57,810 --> 00:39:59,520 So at that moment, 744 00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,223 you strike because you won't get a second chance. 745 00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:06,930 The terrifying prospect is, 746 00:40:06,930 --> 00:40:09,750 at least until new systems come along 30 years later, 747 00:40:09,750 --> 00:40:13,620 that the end of the world might happen by accident. 748 00:40:13,620 --> 00:40:15,420 Like one memorable occasion 749 00:40:15,420 --> 00:40:17,490 when a fleet of incoming bombers is spotted 750 00:40:17,490 --> 00:40:21,120 and then turns out to be the moon coming up over Norway. 751 00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:23,160 Flocks of birds and the odd solar flare 752 00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:25,410 caused confusion as well. 753 00:40:25,410 --> 00:40:29,310 And worst of all, on one super memorable occasion, 754 00:40:29,310 --> 00:40:31,980 an operator loads a practice attack scenario tape 755 00:40:31,980 --> 00:40:35,250 onto the system and everybody thinks it's real. 756 00:40:36,930 --> 00:40:39,300 Meanwhile, in an effort to avoid disaster 757 00:40:39,300 --> 00:40:40,800 by technological glitch, 758 00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:43,077 more and more tech stuff is being added to the system. 759 00:40:43,077 --> 00:40:44,665 (upbeat music) 760 00:40:44,665 --> 00:40:46,920 And more and more U.S. defense contractors, 761 00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:48,270 particularly universities, 762 00:40:48,270 --> 00:40:50,040 are being added to the network 763 00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:51,546 and it's starting to look familiar. 764 00:40:53,250 --> 00:40:58,250 By the 1970s, there's keyboards, mice, modems, routers, 765 00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:01,315 packet switching, ethernet cables, and the rest. 766 00:41:09,450 --> 00:41:11,910 So what do we have and how does all this lead us 767 00:41:11,910 --> 00:41:15,093 to a future where we all end up inside the internet? 768 00:41:16,290 --> 00:41:20,010 Conch shells, cabinets of curiosity, Dru Drury, 769 00:41:20,010 --> 00:41:22,800 Goliath beetles, Henry Smeathman, 770 00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:25,350 the slave trade and Sierra Leone, 771 00:41:25,350 --> 00:41:28,380 Matthew Boulton, James Watt, the steam engine, 772 00:41:28,380 --> 00:41:30,690 and their new minting machine. 773 00:41:30,690 --> 00:41:33,093 Joseph Montgolfier and his hot air balloons, 774 00:41:34,140 --> 00:41:35,730 paper-making machines built in England 775 00:41:35,730 --> 00:41:37,680 by Donkin and the Halls, 776 00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:41,040 who also make gun cotton and build paternosters. 777 00:41:41,040 --> 00:41:45,390 As does Freissler with electric power provided by Siemens 778 00:41:45,390 --> 00:41:47,040 who lay telegraph lines 779 00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:48,660 and help open the German museum 780 00:41:48,660 --> 00:41:51,510 with its planetarium geodesic dome, 781 00:41:51,510 --> 00:41:53,310 which makes possible DEW Line 782 00:41:53,310 --> 00:41:56,160 and the answer to its network communications problem, 783 00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:59,730 a distributed network connecting machines 784 00:41:59,730 --> 00:42:01,323 that then connect to us. 785 00:42:03,318 --> 00:42:05,901 (gentle music) 786 00:42:07,020 --> 00:42:08,280 Well, by now you'll have guessed 787 00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:10,140 which future we're heading for in this program 788 00:42:10,140 --> 00:42:13,350 since all this stuff adds up to the other thing 789 00:42:13,350 --> 00:42:14,700 that comes out of DEW Line. 790 00:42:16,770 --> 00:42:19,110 The solution originally designed 791 00:42:19,110 --> 00:42:21,120 to connect all those radar stations 792 00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:23,309 and which becomes the internet. 793 00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:28,200 The internet is the single greatest advance 794 00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:30,630 in making information and communication available 795 00:42:30,630 --> 00:42:33,510 on the widest scale to the most people 796 00:42:33,510 --> 00:42:36,660 since perhaps the invention of print. 797 00:42:36,660 --> 00:42:39,780 Containing vast amounts of information about our world, 798 00:42:39,780 --> 00:42:42,080 like the mother of all cabinets of curiosity. 799 00:42:47,340 --> 00:42:49,623 And we have taken to it like a fish to water. 800 00:42:50,970 --> 00:42:53,010 Already we take for granted billions 801 00:42:53,010 --> 00:42:55,710 of people-to-people contact online. 802 00:42:55,710 --> 00:42:57,660 The internet is totally accessible, 803 00:42:57,660 --> 00:42:59,970 it facilitates constant innovation, 804 00:42:59,970 --> 00:43:02,013 and it adapts instantly to change. 805 00:43:03,420 --> 00:43:05,670 And as a distributed network, 806 00:43:05,670 --> 00:43:08,130 it weakens the old centralizing command structure 807 00:43:08,130 --> 00:43:09,540 of the institutions 808 00:43:09,540 --> 00:43:11,793 with us since the Industrial Revolution. 809 00:43:12,750 --> 00:43:15,330 It questions all our old value systems, 810 00:43:15,330 --> 00:43:17,583 the one-size-fits all nature of education, 811 00:43:18,450 --> 00:43:21,663 the relevance of so-called represented political processes, 812 00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:24,090 the nine-to-five office routine 813 00:43:24,090 --> 00:43:25,833 followed by the obedient majority, 814 00:43:27,270 --> 00:43:30,371 the old organized community we used to conform to. 815 00:43:30,371 --> 00:43:33,954 (dramatic music continues) 816 00:43:35,250 --> 00:43:37,050 But the reason above all we need urgently 817 00:43:37,050 --> 00:43:39,510 to think about our internet future 818 00:43:39,510 --> 00:43:43,770 is because already the internet enables every machine 819 00:43:43,770 --> 00:43:46,320 to talk directly to every other machine 820 00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:48,105 to make everybody's life easier. 821 00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:54,450 Come home at the end of the day to a house 822 00:43:54,450 --> 00:43:57,273 operating machine to machine intelligently. 823 00:43:58,500 --> 00:44:00,330 It knows when you left the office, 824 00:44:00,330 --> 00:44:03,750 so it's warm, the lights are on where you want them, 825 00:44:03,750 --> 00:44:05,610 your food order has been delivered, 826 00:44:05,610 --> 00:44:09,030 phone calls have been answered, appointments scheduled. 827 00:44:09,030 --> 00:44:12,123 Your TV is ready to show you your favorite programs. 828 00:44:12,990 --> 00:44:15,240 And everything this intelligent house can do, 829 00:44:15,240 --> 00:44:17,190 it does in response to your voice. 830 00:44:17,190 --> 00:44:18,360 Just talk to it. 831 00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:19,835 Lights on. 832 00:44:21,060 --> 00:44:23,370 And you may not even need to do that. 833 00:44:23,370 --> 00:44:25,920 Researchers at Brown University in Rhode Island 834 00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:27,720 have conducted a wide range of tests 835 00:44:27,720 --> 00:44:30,240 involving people with paralysis. 836 00:44:30,240 --> 00:44:34,470 Using devices attached to the motor cortex of their brains, 837 00:44:34,470 --> 00:44:37,710 participants in the BrainGate clinical trials 838 00:44:37,710 --> 00:44:42,030 are able to control computers with their thoughts. 839 00:44:42,030 --> 00:44:46,170 In 2018, volunteers were able to chat to one another 840 00:44:46,170 --> 00:44:49,385 and even to play notes on an electronic piano. 841 00:44:51,090 --> 00:44:52,390 That's where we are today. 842 00:44:53,700 --> 00:44:55,533 But where is all this taking us? 843 00:44:57,060 --> 00:44:59,800 How about a future where there is no more disease 844 00:45:01,110 --> 00:45:03,210 because implants are administering drugs 845 00:45:03,210 --> 00:45:04,770 to keep you healthy? 846 00:45:04,770 --> 00:45:05,940 And mental health? 847 00:45:05,940 --> 00:45:08,487 Above all, you want to feel good, go for it. 848 00:45:08,487 --> 00:45:12,180 Get your sensors to monitor and control your mindset. 849 00:45:12,180 --> 00:45:14,670 So implants release antidepressants. 850 00:45:14,670 --> 00:45:17,163 So you are a permanently happy bunny. 851 00:45:18,480 --> 00:45:19,421 But why not? 852 00:45:24,060 --> 00:45:28,080 As we slip deeper into an augmented world with the internet, 853 00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:30,990 cochlear implants might control what we hear, 854 00:45:30,990 --> 00:45:32,670 sensing the sounds around us, 855 00:45:32,670 --> 00:45:35,610 and adjusting what we hear and how we hear it. 856 00:45:35,610 --> 00:45:37,830 Contact lenses or even eye implants 857 00:45:37,830 --> 00:45:40,020 will give us real-time directions 858 00:45:40,020 --> 00:45:43,860 or identify anything we look at by accessing the internet. 859 00:45:43,860 --> 00:45:46,380 What about that suit or dress? 860 00:45:46,380 --> 00:45:48,540 Or how about those shoes? 861 00:45:48,540 --> 00:45:50,163 Here's the shop and the price. 862 00:45:51,300 --> 00:45:52,920 Who's that walking past? 863 00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:55,260 Here's their name and contact details. 864 00:45:55,260 --> 00:45:56,640 Getting forgetful? 865 00:45:56,640 --> 00:45:59,280 How about an implant to download your memories 866 00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:02,070 and a way to upload new memories directly 867 00:46:02,070 --> 00:46:04,860 from the internet to your hippocampus, 868 00:46:04,860 --> 00:46:06,431 the brain's memory center? 869 00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:13,923 All these things are already in development. 870 00:46:21,450 --> 00:46:23,970 But in a future when all the machines talk 871 00:46:23,970 --> 00:46:25,890 to all the other machines 872 00:46:25,890 --> 00:46:28,203 and the ones inside our own bodies, 873 00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:30,930 what will life be like 874 00:46:30,930 --> 00:46:33,406 when there's literally nothing we have to do? 875 00:46:36,510 --> 00:46:38,310 One small matter left to consider, 876 00:46:38,310 --> 00:46:40,470 who programs all the sensors? 877 00:46:40,470 --> 00:46:41,303 A machine? 878 00:46:43,453 --> 00:46:47,010 And will all of us end up just part of the machine? 879 00:46:47,010 --> 00:46:49,070 Are we in the net? 880 00:47:22,209 --> 00:47:26,447 Good gracious! 880 00:47:27,305 --> 00:48:27,184 Do you want subtitles for any video? -=[ ai.OpenSubtitles.com ]=-