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Documentary, connections theongchainree-1-03 by Burke, James, 1936-; British Broadcasting Corporation; Time-Life Films
"The Long Chain" is the seventh episode of the original 1978 documentary television series Connections, created, written, and presented by science historian James Burke. The series and episode are based on the premise of exploring the unexpected links between various historical events, inventions, and people that led to the development of modern technology.
Summary of "The Long Chain"
This episode traces a technological path from 17th-century mercantile competition to modern synthetic materials like nylon.
The key connections explored include:
Mercantile Competition and Ship Hulls: The need for a way to protect wooden ship hulls from rot and barnacles in the 17th century led to experiments with various coatings.
Coal Tar Pitch and Waterproofing: The development of a specific coal-tar pitch as a sealant and preservative for ships led to related innovations in using similar materials for waterproofing other items, such as clothing.
Gas Lighting: Byproducts from the production of this coal-tar material were eventually refined and utilized in the development of the first gas lighting systems for cities.
Synthetic Dyes and Plastics: Further chemical exploration of coal-tar derivatives later led to the accidental discovery of the first synthetic dyes by William Perkin, which in turn opened the door to the synthetic organic chemical industry, eventually including the creation of plastics and materials like nylon.
Burke highlights how the seemingly unrelated drive to keep ships at sea for longer periods ultimately resulted in the creation of many modern materials we use today.
"The Long Chain" is the seventh episode of the original 1978 documentary television series Connections, created, written, and presented by science historian James Burke. The series and episode are based on the premise of exploring the unexpected links between various historical events, inventions, and people that led to the development of modern technology.
Summary of "The Long Chain"
This episode traces a technological path from 17th-century mercantile competition to modern synthetic materials like nylon.
The key connections explored include:
Mercantile Competition and Ship Hulls: The need for a way to protect wooden ship hulls from rot and barnacles in the 17th century led to experiments with various coatings.
Coal Tar Pitch and Waterproofing: The development of a specific coal-tar pitch as a sealant and preservative for ships led to related innovations in using similar materials for waterproofing other items, such as clothing.
Gas Lighting: Byproducts from the production of this coal-tar material were eventually refined and utilized in the development of the first gas lighting systems for cities.
Synthetic Dyes and Plastics: Further chemical exploration of coal-tar derivatives later led to the accidental discovery of the first synthetic dyes by William Perkin, which in turn opened the door to the synthetic organic chemical industry, eventually including the creation of plastics and materials like nylon.
Burke highlights how the seemingly unrelated drive to keep ships at sea for longer periods ultimately resulted in the creation of many modern materials we use today.
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LearningTranscript
00:00I
00:30At a time when a lot of people were being sent to the ends of the earth, when the average
00:41Brit got to a place like this, the island of Penang off the coast of Malaya, he really
00:47cared a good deal less about culture and things like that temple of the 10,000 Buddhas than
00:52he did about the stuff that surrounded it, the jungle, out of which the British were
00:58hacking themselves an empire, and getting themselves in quite a sweat, and not just because of the
01:05steamy climate.
01:17Let me explain. You see, this place is absolutely full of nutmeg plantations. Here's a nutmeg.
01:26See, nutmegs were one of the reasons why Europeans came out here to the Far East in the first
01:36place, to look for spices. Oh, nutmegs, cinnamon, ginger, pepper, that stuff. And by 1852, the
01:44Brits out here were doing really rather well, thanks to cheap local labour and all those raw
01:50materials lying around places like India and Ceylon and Malaya and various other imperial
01:56hot spots. Now, most of the imperial goodies came from plantations. And if you want to get
02:03a plantation going, you've got to do one thing first. You've got to hack the jungle down.
02:10Now, what that gives you, apart from a heart attack, is a lot of clear ground to do your
02:29planting and a lot of water exposed to sunlight. So you get your sugar or your cotton plantation
02:37going. And the Anopheles mosquito gets a warm and wonderful place to do its reproductive thing.
02:44Because its babies love warm water and that's just what you've given them.
02:49Now, the Anopheles mosquito is a simple soul. The most it wants out of life is to be able
02:58to give you and me malaria and the feverish sweat that go with it. And by 1852, that's just what
03:05it was doing. All over the British Imperial Far East.
03:08Now, that gave everybody a bit of a problem because you try running the trains on time or keeping the army
03:27on its feet or the thousand and one other things that the Imperial Administration demands with malaria everywhere
03:33and you've got a job. Life expectancy out here was about half what it was back in England because
03:40although you may not die from malaria, it'll weaken you to the point where you'll die from practically anything else.
03:46So the stiff upper lip colonial service chaps are dropping like flies, if that's the right phrase to use.
04:01Now, about all you could do to help to prevent malaria was to try to get down out of the jungle to get regular supplies
04:09of a rather nasty white powder, like that, made from the bark of a tree called the Kinchona.
04:16Now, rather unfortunately, the Kinchona was only grown in South America and Java,
04:23neither of which belonged to the British. So the British colonial government was playing through the nose for this stuff.
04:30Very bad form.
04:32Still, every cloud has a silver lining and at least one good thing was to come out of the mess.
04:43You see, they used to put the powder into water that had a bit of sugar in it for taste
04:49and they got themselves quinine water because the white powder was quinine.
04:54Still tasted pretty foul, until somebody had the bright idea of putting a drop of gin in it.
05:00And that's why the gin and tonic was invented, for medicinal purposes.
05:07Well, back to the problem.
05:10In 1852, the Governor General of India sent a rather stiff note back home,
05:15saying, now look here, my botanists tell me that we ought to be able to grow Kinchona here.
05:22And that's why the experts at Kew Gardens in London turned down the rubber plantation idea, remember?
05:28They were working themselves into a lather about the feverish Far East
05:31and the fact that if they didn't manage to come up with a healthy Kinchona plant
05:35they could take off to India and stick in the ground so the Governor General would get what he asked for,
05:40they'd be, so to speak, in the manure.
05:43The trouble was, the more they learnt about Kinchona, the less likely it looked to survive a transplant.
05:57Heart failure all round.
05:59And then, out of the blue, the new Royal College of Chemistry suggested having a go at making quinine artificial.
06:05So, a young 18-year-old called William Perkin was asked to get on with it.
06:12And in 1856, he was playing around with a by-product of our old friend coal tar.
06:18When he came up with a load of muck that very definitely wasn't the quinine he was trying to make,
06:22it was very close, only a few molecules different.
06:25But everybody should have that kind of accident.
06:28Because when William Perkin chucked this muck away into some water,
06:32he got very rich.
06:34And the world got...
06:40the first artificial dye.
06:43Perkin's new mauve was an instant and raving success.
07:02In the exhibition of 1862, most of the huffing and puffing wasn't coming from the machines on show.
07:08It was from the reporters who'd seen the new colour miracle from coal tar.
07:13They, and the thousands of others who came to the show,
07:16went away harrumphing pompously about how Britain was going to become the greatest colour exporting country in the world.
07:23In 1862, most of these well-fed, complacent, middle-class Victorians regarded themselves and their country
07:30as the rightful guardians of anybody on earth they could muscle in on, militarily or economically,
07:36to save them from themselves, of course.
07:39The new artificial dye was just one more example of how British genius was that much better than any other variety.
07:45That's what made Great Britain great.
07:48Unfortunately, when it came to putting money into the new colour chemistry,
08:03the investors preferred the easier profits to be had from the colonies.
08:07There was no point in taking risks with the new infant science nobody knew about.
08:11Most of the investors didn't even know what chemistry was.
08:18And as for actually training chemists, well, I mean, that was quite out of the question.
08:22I mean, a chap who went to university just didn't do that sort of thing.
08:26To have actually trained for a career would have been unspeakably lower class.
08:31That's why Perkins' teacher in London had been a German.
08:35See, they were awfully good at the rather sordid business of opening universities and technical schools
08:42and actually letting anybody in on merit, never mind their family background.
08:46And they actually encouraged links between university and industry,
08:51the kind of thing that made the early Victorian intellectual mind boggle.
08:55So, let me ask you what you think the British did with that head start
09:00that William Perkin had given them in colour chemistry, ahead of all their rivals.
09:04A clear opportunity to grab and hang on to a lead in one of the most profitable new industries for a hundred years.
09:11Yes.
09:13They blew it.
09:18And you know who put them in the shade? The wrong kind.
09:23The Germans did.
09:26By 1870, in colour chemistry, the Germans were calling the tune.
09:45And the great German chemical industries were going full blast.
09:49BASF, Herkst, Agfa, Bayer.
09:53Thanks to their university contacts, they were turning out dozens of colours a year.
09:58Suddenly, it was a colourful world.
10:00And every time they looked at coal tar, there was another colour to write home about.
10:04On colour postcards.
10:06See, the Germans had realised, but the British hadn't.
10:10That there was a great deal more to colour than colour.
10:13There was all that chemical knowledge you learned from making orange or blue or green or whatever.
10:18So, by the 1870s, they were selling colour everywhere.
10:22And when I say colour, I mean pretty well every colour in the rainbow.
10:27Now, all this success with colour went right to the Germans' heads.
10:33Suddenly, there was nothing to be but a true dyed-in-the-wool German.
10:37Their composers even wrote colourful tunes.
10:40Here's a catchy little number that I think you'll find will set your feet tapping.
10:46Or your fingers itching or your head throbbing or something.
11:10I can't think why this piece isn't better known in the concert repertoire.
11:13Well, maybe I can.
11:30Well, back to the story.
11:32One of the Germans' biggest hits was this particular green,
11:35which a crafty French silk dyer got the Empress EugΓ©nie to wear to the opera.
11:40Look out success. Everybody wanted it.
11:50And if this programme's giving you a headache, thank the German colour industry.
11:54Painkillers came out of their labs too.
11:56Success after success.
11:58And then, out of nowhere, came something that looked as if it would stop the German industrial machine dead.
12:05company that would rush back toaucoup Dannels.
12:07Produced to trΓͺn opΓ©t.
12:081
12:12Portrait.
12:22China
12:23And then, back to theΡΠ΅ savent.
12:25So, at this time it is a maximumε₯½ε ofΠ°ΠΉΡΠ΅ΡΡ.
12:29So, but ΡΠ΅ΠΏΠ΅ΡΡ...
12:30you care about the Pakistanians' strength!
12:31This is one of those stories that doesn't make sense even when you've heard it twice.
12:40Let me try it on you.
12:44Combine harvester, invented by an American, McCormack, a few years before that German
12:49colour business.
12:51Because of it, by the 1870s, America's got wheat coming out of its ears, so the price
12:56drops.
12:57They're practically giving bread away.
12:59Good idea, no?
13:01See, in Germany, they eat this black rye bread grown in Prussia by a bunch of aristocrats
13:08called the Junkers.
13:10Very big deal people.
13:12The Junkers?
13:13They've got the government in their pocket.
13:16So, none of that cheap American wheat gets into Germany, where the population is rocketing
13:22and they need food.
13:23Okay, everybody can eat rye.
13:25Uh-uh.
13:26The Junkers are exporting it all to make money.
13:30Now, let me see if that confuses you as much as it confuses me.
13:35You've got lots of rye, but you export it so you're short of food.
13:40Never mind, foreign wheat is cheap, so you don't import it.
13:47That's what I thought I said.
13:48But that's what they did.
13:49So, in desperation, somebody started trying to boost wheat growing in Germany.
13:54And when they did, they ran slap bang into a brick wall.
13:58No fertilizer.
13:59They had to bring it in from Chile at colossal expense.
14:02And they just didn't have that kind of bread.
14:04What am I saying?
14:05They didn't have any kind of bread.
14:07What happens next involves the curious way things sometimes get kind of half done and
14:15left hanging in mid-air till they're picked up and used later on when the time is right.
14:20So, if you're ready for a bit of that, here goes.
14:23Germany was in a fix because she'd got no fertilizer.
14:32By the 1890s, down on the farm, things were pretty desperate.
14:36Industry might be making loads of money, but all of it was going on imported food and especially fertilizer.
14:43The way the fertilizer problem got licked, and because of that caused many more things to happen
14:50than just increased food production, is a bit of a chemistry lesson.
14:54Although it does have a sting in the tail.
14:56So, I hope you'll forgive me if I give it to you rather straight.
15:00About 1900, thanks to their experience making all those fantastic colors,
15:05German chemists were among the best in the world.
15:08And one of them was a fellow called Fritz Haber, who decided quite consciously to try and make fertilizer.
15:16And this is what he ended up with, although in reality it would be on a vast industrial scale.
15:22This is what he did.
15:24In that long vessel there, he made very high pressure, 200 times normal air pressure,
15:29and a temperature of about 600 degrees centigrade.
15:32And into that vessel he sent a mixture of hydrogen and nitrogen.
15:36And as the gases went through the vessel, they passed through a mesh made of a particular kind of metal
15:42that would cause the gases to react and produce ammonia.
15:45And that's what comes out the bottom end.
15:47Now all the rest of this equipment is for cleaning and filtering and making the ammonia pure.
15:53Okay, there's one more stage to go.
15:57You make the ammonia a gas and you put it into another hot oven, this one.
16:01Only this time, you put it in with air.
16:04And as the gases come through once again, they go through wire mesh.
16:08Here's some.
16:09And that causes the gases to react.
16:11And this time, what goes out the other end is nitrous oxide.
16:15Now if you mix nitrous oxide with water, you get nitric acid.
16:19And if you mix nitric acid then with soda, you get sodium nitrate.
16:23And sodium nitrate is a fertilizer.
16:25By 1909, Fritz Haber and a colleague he worked on this with called Bosch,
16:32which is why it's called the Haber-Bosch process.
16:34Well, they were in a position to build factories that would produce thousands of tons of fertilizer a year.
16:40Great idea, the Haber-Bosch process.
16:43Never got anywhere, of course, because this is one of those galling moments in history
16:47when some other fellow working somewhere else on something totally unconnected with this
16:51has himself an accident and ruins everything.
16:54The accident happened here in Gay-Paris, which is where the other fellow was at the time,
17:06where everybody was moving it up having themselves the gay nineties.
17:15Then, as now, of course, diamonds were a girl's best insurance.
17:19Not that our boring friend Henri Moisson...
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