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00:05BIRDS CHIRP
00:42I would say it was a pretty safe bet that the one magic wish most people would like to be
00:46granted would be to be able to see into the future.
00:49I mean, think what it would mean, backing the right horse.
00:52But we can't.
00:54We have to guess about tomorrow and we have to act on that guess and it's never been any different.
00:58And that's why following the trail from the past up to the emergence of the modern technology that surrounds us
01:06in our daily lives and affects our lives is rather like a detective story.
01:10Because at no time in the past did anybody who had anything to do with the business of inventing or
01:15changing things ever know what the full effects of his actions would be.
01:19He just went ahead and did what he did for his own reasons, like we do.
01:24That's how change comes about.
01:27And it's like a detective story because if you follow the trail from the past up to a modern man
01:34-made object,
01:35the story is full of sudden twists and false clues and guesswork.
01:39And you never know where the story is heading until the very last minute.
02:01This detective story starts in the eastern Mediterranean about 2,500 years ago.
02:07And it starts with a subject dear to most people's hearts, money.
02:11And because that's the way things go in history, it will end, as will all these programmes, with something totally
02:18different.
02:18In this case, a modern day invention that affects the life of every man, woman and child on earth.
02:30Take yourself back, then, to a time when the Mediterranean was practically empty,
02:35when the ancient Greeks had only just turned up, and together with the Phoenicians and the Egyptians were about all
02:40there was,
02:41living in cities we would call villages.
02:44When, if you wanted to trade with somebody, it was a case of,
02:48meet me in the market square and I'll give you my vegetables if you give me your cloth.
02:51You bartered because there was no such thing as cash.
03:00And the reason we've come looking for clues in this particular city on the Mediterranean
03:05has to do with how cash was invented and what happened as a result.
03:09The way it happened shows how change comes, as much as anything, by accident.
03:20Some time around 700 BC, in a place called Lydia, what is now modern Turkey,
03:27there was a river that washed gold down from the local mountains.
03:31And the local people used to pan it and melt it down for religious objects, jewellery, that kind of stuff.
03:36And then, in the riverbed, somebody came across this.
03:41It's called a touchstone.
03:43And if you rub gold onto it, you get a streak.
03:47But if you rub gold mixed with silver or something else,
03:52you get a different kind of streak.
03:55See what that means?
03:56If that streak is pure gold, and somebody's trying to offload garbage onto you,
04:01well, you take what he calls gold and you rub it on the touchstone
04:03and you can see immediately that what he says is gold isn't up to your standard.
04:07Well, the Lydians went immediately into the business of standardising their precious metals.
04:12And over the next 300 years or so,
04:14all over the eastern Mediterranean and in Persia,
04:17the habit spread of accepting metal instead of goods as payment,
04:21because now you could trust the value of the metal.
04:23After that point, in any state or empire that had a mint making coins,
04:29the new money really stimulated trade.
04:40By the time Alexander the Great was running everything from India to Italy,
04:44his coinage was accepted everywhere,
04:46and his world was like one giant marketplace.
04:50Well, in 331 BC, he decided to build a big commercial centre
04:54to handle the flood of goods crisscrossing his empire.
04:57This was it, named after him, Alexandria.
05:01You could do two things here,
05:03get very rich and get yourself the best education in the world.
05:08You see, Alexandria had a library.
05:12And what a library.
05:15Its opening hours went on for maybe a thousand years.
05:19At its height, it had more than a half a million books.
05:23And that was it.
05:24I mean, if it wasn't here, it wasn't worth knowing about.
05:28And then, in the end, somebody burnt every single book.
05:31Nobody knows who.
05:33Fanatical Christians, fanatical Arabs.
05:36Take your pick.
05:37Religion at work.
05:39Left nothing.
05:42Well, almost nothing.
05:45Because the next clue in this particular historical detective story
05:49takes us down a hole.
05:52Of course, this was no ordinary hole.
05:55It led down to a kind of extra backup library.
06:01And since it wasn't above ground to be destroyed,
06:04it's still here.
06:06It's a real honeycomb of tunnels down here,
06:10like a literary rabbit warren.
06:14Now, all the books were stored and catalogued,
06:17just like we do today, according to subject heading,
06:19and placed in niches like these.
06:22Of course, being a big seaport,
06:24the main interest was in nautical things,
06:25like maps, geography books, aids to navigation,
06:28that sort of thing.
06:29And they were all written in ink on papyrus
06:32made from slivers of reed stuck flat together.
06:35And they came out like this, in the form of scrolls.
06:38Now, they got these scrolls either because the local scholars wrote them,
06:41or because they had a rather crafty law.
06:44You see, if you came to Alexandria on a boat and you owned a book,
06:48you had to lend it to the library to be copied.
06:50And sometimes the copies were so good,
06:52the owners went off with the fakes and the library kept the original.
06:56This is a copy of one of the library's bestsellers.
06:59Author, Claudius Ptolemy, title,
07:02All You Ever Wanted to Know About Calculation.
07:04Thirteen volumes, all the astronomy that was known at the time.
07:08One of the volumes was a star catalogue containing 1,022 stars.
07:13Look.
07:17Here's the name of the star.
07:19Here's the zodiac sign it's in, Gemini, Sagittarius.
07:22Here's where it is in that zodiac.
07:25Is it northern or southern hemisphere?
07:27How many degrees east or west on the sky is it?
07:30And how bright is it?
07:36Ptolemy did these squiggles about 150 A.D.
07:40And they're one of the great examples of an idea ahead of its time.
07:43Because one of the ways this was to be used by sailors to open up the world,
07:48in a way you're going to see happening later in this programme,
07:51wasn't going to come for over 1,400 years.
07:55And as for the sailors pouring in and out of Alexandria in Ptolemy's time,
07:59well, they just weren't interested in charts of the sky.
08:05Some sailing astronomers might have used them in order to find out their position.
08:09Because, you see, if the tables told you that at a certain time
08:13a star should be in that position in the sky,
08:15and you actually saw it in that position,
08:18you could work backwards, so to speak,
08:19to find out what position you'd have to be in
08:21in order to see it at that different angle.
08:24But the sailors stuck to their maps and their winds.
08:27Because, from the very beginning,
08:29they'd used ships with a kind of sail
08:31that makes it hard to get into serious navigational problems.
08:34A square sail that only takes you the way the wind's blowing.
08:39Which is what they did right through the Roman period,
08:41with bigger ships and richer cargoes.
08:44Until suddenly, around 700 A.D.
08:54The newly arrived Arab pirates gave one simple order.
08:58Open your wallet and repeat after me,
09:00help yourself.
09:03You didn't?
09:04They took it anyway.
09:10It became clear to even the dumbest merchant
09:13that the quickest way to lose a fortune
09:14was to put it all in one big, fat cargo ship
09:17so the Arabs could take the lot.
09:19Everybody started spreading the risk in smaller ships,
09:23less to be plundered in one go.
09:35That switch to the use of smaller ships
09:38brought into general use something
09:40that would help Europeans colonise America centuries later.
09:43The very earliest picture we have of it
09:46comes from a manuscript written in the 9th century in Byzantium.
09:49It was a sail,
09:50the kind of sail that had previously only been used on smaller ships.
09:54And the kind of sail that you can find
09:55on a modern Arab dhow like this one today.
09:58Look at the shape.
10:00It's triangular.
10:01Now that is a Latin sail.
10:03And what you could do with a Latin sail
10:05was something you could never have done
10:06with the old Roman square sail.
10:08Look, suppose the wind is coming in this direction.
10:10With a Latin sail,
10:11you can sail in any direction
10:13right up until you're almost sailing against the wind
10:15on either side of it.
10:16So on a long journey,
10:17they would go,
10:18take the wind from this side,
10:20then they would tack and take the wind from this side,
10:22then they would tack again,
10:23and take the wind again from this side.
10:25Mind you,
10:26it wasn't something they enjoyed doing too much.
10:28I mean, look what it involves.
10:34Apart from the fact
10:35that with the tonne of tackle you needed
10:36and a lot more crew to handle it,
10:38the worst bit came
10:39when the ship was just about to cross the wind,
10:41at which point you had to lift the spar
10:44right over the top of the mast.
10:46And doing that in rough weather was no picnic.
10:48Still,
10:49it was a lot better
10:50than going in the wrong direction.
11:08Now,
11:08if you're not a sailing buff,
11:10you may not be turned on by the Latin sail.
11:13But as you'll see,
11:14it means a great deal more to you than you might think.
11:17See,
11:17although it was nice to be able to zigzag everywhere,
11:20sailing like that
11:21wasn't the only thing that happened
11:23because of this canvas triangle.
11:26The Latin sail permitted one other thing.
11:30With it,
11:30you could leave port pretty well when you wanted to,
11:33without having to wait for a wind
11:34that was going in the same direction you were.
11:35Now,
11:36that meant
11:37you would leave port more often.
11:38That meant there was more cargo on the move,
11:40more trade,
11:41more prosperity.
11:43It's probable that the Arabs
11:44introduced the Latin sail into Western Europe
11:46just about in time
11:48to play a major role
11:49in the recovery
11:49of the European economy
11:51after the chaos and confusion
11:52of the so-called Dark Ages.
11:56However,
11:57by about
11:581200,
11:59there was so much bulk cargo
12:01like grain
12:02or
12:02crusaders going to the Holy Land,
12:04so much bulk cargo on the move
12:05that the ships had got very much bigger.
12:07And then they ran into another problem,
12:09the problem of steering.
12:10You see,
12:11up until that point,
12:12you steered with a couple of oars,
12:14one off either side of the stern.
12:16But by about 1200,
12:17the ships were so big
12:18that those oars
12:19just really weren't feasible anymore.
12:21Which is why
12:22they probably picked up an idea
12:24from the Chinese
12:25that solved the problem.
12:27This.
12:28The sternpost rudder.
12:30With the sternpost rudder,
12:31you could handle a ship
12:32of almost any size
12:33in almost any sea condition.
12:36So,
12:37by the 13th century,
12:38the Europeans
12:38had all the technology,
12:40the
12:40Latin sail,
12:41the old square sail,
12:43the sternpost rudder,
12:43to go anywhere they wanted to.
12:45They didn't need to use it
12:47until
12:481453,
12:49when Constantinople
12:50fell to the Turks.
12:51And after that,
12:52it was,
12:53if you wanted something
12:53from the Far East,
12:54it was either pay the price
12:56the Turks wanted
12:56for letting it come through
12:57their territory,
12:58or go get it yourself.
12:59which is just
13:01what the Europeans did
13:01in the great
13:0216th century
13:03voyages of discovery.
13:08MUSIC PLAYS
13:18And it was now
13:19that the mariners
13:20began to use
13:21those star charts
13:22prepared in such detail
13:23by Claudius Ptolemy
13:2414 centuries before.
13:30This is the Golden Hind,
13:32the ship that carried
13:33Sir Francis Drake
13:34around the world.
13:35It's not unlike
13:36the earlier caravels
13:38that sailed
13:38with the great
13:39Portuguese navigators
13:40down round the
13:41southern tip of Africa,
13:42and then out across
13:44the Atlantic
13:44with Columbus in 1492.
13:46So, what was it
13:48about these ships
13:48that meant that
13:49you could sail them
13:50at will
13:50to the ends of the earth?
13:52Well,
13:54look at the rigging.
13:57Now, I know
13:58it looks like
13:58a confused mass of ropes,
13:59but if you look carefully,
14:00you'll see the old
14:01square sail there
14:03on the front mast.
14:04Now, some of these ships
14:05had one, some two,
14:06sometimes even three masts
14:08carrying the square sails,
14:09but on the back end
14:11there was a mast
14:12with the familiar
14:12triangle shape
14:13of the Latine,
14:14and it was this mixture
14:15of sail that allowed
14:16you to cross an ocean
14:18any time you wanted to.
14:19Look, here's Spain,
14:22and here's the northern
14:23part of Africa,
14:24and over here
14:25there's America
14:25and the Gulf
14:26and then South America.
14:28Now, in the area here
14:29off the coast,
14:30you get winds going
14:31in all sorts of directions,
14:32very variable,
14:32so you use a Latine sail
14:34to tack yourself
14:35into a position
14:36where the steady
14:38northeasterly trade winds,
14:39which you can pick up
14:40on the square sails,
14:41will take you
14:41straight across the Atlantic.
14:42When you want to come home,
14:43you do the same thing
14:44the other way around.
14:44You tack through
14:45the variable winds
14:46until you pick up
14:46the westerlies,
14:47you put up the square sails,
14:49and the westerlies
14:49bring you all the way home.
14:57Most of the maps
14:59they used at the time
15:00were made in Mallorca,
15:01and by the 14th century
15:03they were turning out
15:06portal and charts
15:07and updating them
15:08as explorers came back
15:09with more information.
15:10Now, the charts contained
15:11only what a sailor
15:12needed to know,
15:13no inland detail at all,
15:15just details of the coastline,
15:17the names of the harbours,
15:18and these lines
15:19showing the directions
15:20of the major and minor winds
15:22along which you steered.
15:23The charts were very precise,
15:25and because of the aim
15:26of the people using them
15:27as profit,
15:28they were also very secret.
15:31But the thing
15:32that really gave Europe
15:33the world on a plate
15:34was that.
15:35The first reference
15:36we have to it
15:37is by an English monk
15:38around about 1200.
15:39It probably came from China
15:41via the Arabs to Europe,
15:42and early on
15:43they would have used it
15:44like this.
15:46And the magnetised needle
15:48stuck through the straw
15:50would point north.
15:52And then,
15:52around about 1300,
15:54somebody probably
15:55in the Maritime Republic
15:56of Amalfi,
15:57south of Naples,
15:58hit in the idea
15:59of mounting the needle
16:00and putting a card on it,
16:02and on the card
16:03putting the wind directions
16:04and putting the whole thing
16:05in a box.
16:06The effect of the compass
16:08was electric
16:09in more ways than one,
16:10as you'll see.
16:12Firstly,
16:13it meant that you could
16:14go out sailing
16:15under cloudy skies
16:16because you no longer
16:17needed the stars
16:18or the sun to steer by,
16:19and the immediate effect
16:20of that was to double
16:21the number of voyages
16:22because now you could
16:23sail in the winter.
16:25So,
16:26silk and spices
16:27from India
16:28and gold and silver
16:30from America
16:30began to pour into Europe.
16:33And it wasn't until
16:34enough men had sailed
16:35to enough places
16:36that they realised
16:37that the faithful compass
16:38was lying.
16:40There was true north,
16:42the north of the Pole Star,
16:44and there was
16:44the magnetic north,
16:46and depending where
16:47on earth you were,
16:48that varied.
16:49And for a great
16:50mercantile empire
16:51like England,
16:52that was very bad news.
17:14I suppose Shakespeare
17:16and the travel agents
17:17have done more
17:18than anybody else
17:18to give us our
17:19technicolour view
17:20of Elizabethan England,
17:22starring the Queen herself
17:23as a kind of swashbuckler
17:24in pearls.
17:26Fact is,
17:26about all she had time for
17:27was bookkeeping.
17:28When she took the place
17:29over in 1558,
17:31it was National Disaster Week.
17:33The money was worthless.
17:34There was no money.
17:35There was plague.
17:36The cities were packed
17:37and stinking.
17:39Elizabeth appealed
17:40to the decent English
17:41middle class,
17:42with their healthy desire
17:43for prestige,
17:44power,
17:45fun and games,
17:46and cash.
17:47Soon,
17:48anybody who wanted
17:49to be anybody
17:50was on the make.
17:51And none more
17:53than that famous bunch
17:54of privateering sea dogs
17:55led by Drake,
17:57Raleigh and Hawkins,
17:58who sailed the Atlantic
17:59looking for new
18:00American trade opportunities
18:01for England,
18:02setting up colonies,
18:03knocking off
18:04Spanish galleons,
18:05and doing it all
18:06with a kind of gutsy
18:07disregard for convention
18:08that we describe today
18:09as criminal.
18:25the privateers
18:26would bring back
18:27everything they could
18:28lay their hands on,
18:29even Eskimos.
18:31Don't you touch me!
18:33And somewhere,
18:34in among the hustle
18:35and bustle
18:35and talk of adventure
18:36during the great feast days
18:37at places like Hampton Court,
18:39there must always have been
18:40some bore saying,
18:42hey, listen,
18:43you'll never guess
18:44what happened
18:44to my compass needle
18:45last week.
18:47Touch on!
19:17The End
19:35MUSIC PLAYS
19:42Now, the reason why all those pushy, ambitious, high-living, upper-middle-class Elizabethans
19:48gave a damn about which way a compass needle pointed
19:51was because there were fantastic profits to be had on overseas trade.
19:55And if your needle let you down and you went off course,
19:58well, there was a pretty good chance you wouldn't get home with all the lovely money.
20:02See, the problem with the needle was really quite simple.
20:04It didn't always point in the same direction.
20:07And people had been saying that since 1492,
20:09when Columbus, on his way across to America, got to about here and panicked
20:14because suddenly he realised that his needle wasn't pointing at the North Star.
20:18And then, in 1580, when Sir Francis Drake got back from his round-the-world trip,
20:24with enough gold and jewels,
20:25pinched from one Spanish ship on its way home from Peru
20:29to give his backers 4,700% profit,
20:32well, it was obviously time to do something about it
20:35because if his needle had let him down, look what they would have all lost.
20:39So in 1581, a compass maker called Robert Norman decided to look into the matter
20:44and he did this and he saw nothing happening, which was very odd.
20:50I mean, for a start, he said, if the needle is supposed to be attracted to the North,
20:53why doesn't it move to the North instead of sitting in the middle of the bowl doing nothing?
20:59Well, Norman's remarks attracted the interest of a certain William Gilbert,
21:02who wasn't a sailor, who wasn't a merchant.
21:05As a matter of fact, he was a well-heeled society doctor,
21:08eventually to become physician to the Queen.
21:11Now, like most other medics at the time,
21:14Gilbert knew a bit about magnetism
21:15because his profession was very much into metals.
21:18They had recently stopped an epidemic of syphilis
21:21by treating it with mercury in the form of mercuric oxide,
21:24this red powder.
21:26And magnetic metal was recommended for treating people with
21:29because it was supposed to bring the disease out of them.
21:32So, over a period of about 18 years,
21:36Gilbert went home at the end of every day
21:37and fiddled around with natural magnets made of lodestone.
21:41And since the name of the game was to find out
21:43why the compass needle varied as it went around the Earth,
21:45he made his little magnets in the form of the Earth.
21:48And when he'd got plenty of them ready,
21:50he started his experiments
21:51and brought anything he could think of
21:53in contact with his magnets,
21:55including, of course, a compass needle,
21:58which behaved exactly as he said it should.
22:01Wherever he moved it,
22:02the needle pointed at the north pole of his tiny magnet.
22:05So he reckoned that the Earth itself
22:06had to be a giant magnet with a magnetic north pole.
22:10And it was that that the compass pointed at,
22:12not the North Star.
22:14What's more, he said,
22:15if you leave one of these things alone,
22:17it turns once in a day.
22:19And therefore,
22:21the Earth must do exactly the same thing.
22:23And, he said,
22:24if the Earth is a magnet,
22:25that's why what goes up must come down,
22:27because it's attracted.
22:28In 1600, he wrote down everything he discovered
22:31in a vast book.
22:33And in doing so,
22:34he set in motion a train of events
22:36that would one day lead
22:36to one of the most frightening bits of technology
22:38in the modern world.
22:40He called his book
22:41De Magnete,
22:43about the magnet.
22:55Gilbert's book was practically
22:57an overnight success in Europe.
22:59I mean, for a start,
22:59he was writing in Latin,
23:00so he didn't have any translation problems.
23:02Most of the intellectuals around
23:04used Latin to work with.
23:05And then,
23:06look what he was saying,
23:08that the Earth is a giant magnet
23:10spinning in space,
23:11holding the moon with its power,
23:12surrounded by the vacuum
23:14of interplanetary space,
23:15and out there in that vacuum,
23:17there are thousands and millions
23:18of unseen stars and planets,
23:19and he's saying it's in 1600?
23:22I mean, no wonder everybody
23:23went bananas about it.
23:24And the reason our detective story
23:26takes us next to this small town
23:29on the Danube in southern Germany
23:30is because of one man
23:32who got very excited
23:33by what Gilbert had said.
23:34His name was Otto Gerica,
23:36and in 1653 he was here
23:39in Regensburg,
23:40commanded by the emperor
23:41to attend the coronation
23:43of his son.
23:44The coronation was the occasion
23:46for a great imperial shindig
23:48in the town,
23:48with dancing and drinking
23:49and singing
23:50and generally whooping it up.
23:52Rather like the annual
23:53Regensburg brawl
23:55going on here today.
24:06In Regensburg,
24:07some of the more meaningful traditions
24:08haven't changed a bit
24:09in hundreds of years.
24:27The sober citizens of Regensburg
24:29claim that it was here
24:30in 1653
24:31that Otto Gerica
24:33did something quite amazing
24:35as a result of reading
24:36what Gilbert had said
24:37about the nothingness
24:38in interplanetary space.
24:40Here in Regensburg,
24:41they say,
24:42he took a hollow ball
24:43made of two hemispheres
24:45that fitted together,
24:46harnessed horses
24:47to each side of the ball,
24:48and however hard they pulled,
24:50the ball refused to come apart,
24:52although the two halves
24:53were not held together
24:54by any kind of join.
24:56What kept them united
24:57was a mysterious force
24:58so powerful
24:59that horsies couldn't break it.
25:05They say that
25:06after the experiment was over,
25:08Gerica went on
25:09to astound the onlookers
25:10by opening a tiny hole
25:12in the ball,
25:12at which point it fell apart
25:14with a twist of his hands.
25:19Now, whether or not
25:20that actually happened
25:21in Regensburg
25:22is neither here nor there.
25:23The fact is,
25:23it caused a tremendous stir
25:25all over Europe
25:26because the mysterious force
25:27holding those hemispheres together
25:29is what Gilbert
25:30had been theorising about
25:32in 1600
25:33and what in 1654
25:35had only just been discovered,
25:36the vacuum.
25:38Put inside those hemispheres
25:40by the newly invented
25:41vacuum pump
25:42invented by Otto Gerica,
25:45or rather adapted
25:46by Otto Gerica,
25:47because what he did
25:48was adapted one of these.
25:50you know what that is?
25:52It's what you have to have handy
25:53if most of your buildings
25:54are made of wood.
25:55It's a fire extinguisher.
25:58See?
26:03And Gerica adapted it
26:04to suck air
26:05instead of water.
26:07And it was a very big hit
26:09with him.
26:10Ferdinand III,
26:11Holy Roman Emperor.
26:19Ferdinand
26:20had taken the opportunity
26:22of his son's coronation
26:23to invite all the princes
26:26and bishops
26:26and barons
26:28and city representatives
26:29from all over Germany
26:30to come here
26:31to this Reichstag Hall
26:33for several months
26:34of discussions
26:35on things like
26:36taxation and war
26:38and economic policy.
26:39Now,
26:40they all sat in these benches
26:41and Ferdinand,
26:43of course being emperor,
26:44sat up there
26:45on his throne.
26:47Anyway,
26:48towards the end
26:49of the sessions
26:49in 1654,
26:52Ferdinand asked
26:53Otto Gerica,
26:54who was here
26:54because he was mayor
26:55of Magdeburg,
26:55if he, Gerica,
26:57would do some of the tricks
26:57that the emperor
26:58had heard he could do.
27:00And Gerica,
27:01in this hall,
27:02obligingly used
27:03his vacuum pump
27:04to make vacuums
27:05in glass spheres.
27:06And then he amazed
27:07the assembled company
27:08by showing them
27:09that mice suffocated
27:10in the vacuum,
27:11candles went out in it,
27:12if you rang a bell in it
27:13you couldn't hear the bell,
27:14and all sorts of other goodies.
27:16Ferdinand was so tickled
27:17by the whole thing
27:18that when it was over
27:19he asked if he could
27:19have all the apparatus.
27:21And being emperor,
27:22of course,
27:22he got it.
27:24Still,
27:24he did have the whole thing
27:25written up,
27:26which is how the rest
27:27of Europe got to hear
27:28about the vacuum pump.
27:32Gerica was a real dabbler.
27:36And he got very intrigued
27:37by one other thing
27:38he read in Gilbert's book,
27:40the bit about some substances
27:42like sulphur
27:43attracting things.
27:44So Gerica quite solemnly
27:46built himself
27:47this rather silly
27:48sulphur ball on a stick.
27:50and he spun it
27:51and when he was spinning it
27:52he rubbed it
27:52with his hand
27:53like this.
27:57Now the reason he did that
27:58is because he was looking
28:00for evidence
28:00of what we today
28:01would call gravity,
28:02why things stuck to the earth
28:04and didn't fly off
28:04into space.
28:05So when he wrote
28:06this experiment up
28:07he went into great detail
28:09about things like
28:09the ball would attract
28:11a piece of thread
28:12and when the thread
28:12was in contact
28:13with the ball
28:13the thread would attract things.
28:16fortunately
28:16he also mentioned
28:18something else
28:18about which he entirely
28:20missed the point.
28:21He said
28:22if you spin the ball
28:23and rub it
28:24and then take it out
28:25and hold it next to your ear
28:26you hear a crack
28:27and if you do it in the dark
28:29the ball glows.
28:32Now I said that was fortunate
28:33that he mentioned it
28:33because his half-interested comments
28:36kicked off investigation
28:36into why the crack
28:38and the glow occurred
28:39and that turned out
28:40to be electricity.
28:46You know the fascinating thing
28:47about moments like this
28:48in history
28:49is that they lead
28:50to so many places at once.
28:53We could for instance
28:54go forward
28:55from the vacuum pump
28:56to the investigation of air
28:58to the discovery of oxygen
29:00to finding out
29:01how the human lungs work
29:03to modern respiratory medicine.
29:06Or we could go
29:07vacuum pump
29:09steam engine
29:11locomotive.
29:12Or we could go
29:14vacuum pump
29:15investigation of gases
29:18sending electric sparks
29:19through them
29:19to see what would happen
29:20the cathode ray tube
29:22modern radar.
29:25Or take the globe
29:26the sulfur globe.
29:27The fact that the thread
29:29when it was attached
29:30you remember
29:31carried the mysterious force away
29:33down the thread
29:33led to people
29:35trying to do that deliberately
29:36to send the force down wire
29:39that in turn
29:40led to the telegraph
29:41and that in turn
29:42led to the telephone.
29:44But for our purposes
29:46let's take the route
29:47that leads to
29:48one of modern society's
29:50most horrifying inventions.
29:52And the next step
29:53on that route
29:54from this 17th century
29:56government meeting
29:57forward into the future
29:58takes us into the area
30:00of the Englishman's
30:01favourite topic of conversation.
30:04The weather.
30:07There was obviously
30:08some connection
30:09between Garicca's spark
30:10and lightning
30:11so people got all excited
30:12about atmospheric electricity
30:14in general.
30:15Was there gunpowder in clouds?
30:16Was Irish fog
30:17more electric
30:18than other kinds?
30:20Interest centred
30:21on the unfortunate
30:22church bell rings
30:23who, now you mentioned it,
30:25did tend to get electrocuted
30:26with monotonous regularity
30:28because one of their jobs
30:29was to ring the bell
30:30during storms.
30:37But lightning got taken
30:39really seriously
30:40only when they realised
30:41it was doing
30:41this little trick.
30:48Gunpowder stores
30:49kept on doing this.
30:53Now this was serious.
30:54It wasn't just costing lives
30:56it was costing money.
30:57It was these explosions
30:59that brought to public attention
31:00the ideas of the 15th sun
31:02of an American soap maker
31:04who flew his kite
31:05in a storm
31:06to prove his point.
31:07Franklin reckoned
31:08the key solution
31:09was lightning rods
31:10that would attract
31:11the negative electricity
31:12to their positive metal.
31:15Ships' masts
31:16were like lightning rods
31:17and it was a disgruntled navy
31:19that finally got the subject
31:20widened
31:20to include storms in general
31:22when this happened.
31:34In an attempt to warn
31:35their ships of storms
31:36the Royal Navy started
31:37taking weather reports
31:38from them
31:38as well as readings
31:39from their barometers.
31:40When the first of these
31:42collections was put together
31:43in 1861
31:44they had the world's first
31:45weather chart
31:46of an Atlantic depression
31:47looking remarkably modern.
31:50On land
31:51the same thing started
31:52with stations reporting
31:53via the new telegraph.
31:55Now fortunately
31:56all this seriousness
31:58was tinged with
31:59some of the peculiar
32:00insanity of the period
32:01by the eagerness
32:02with which people
32:03now took to an amazing
32:04new invention
32:05described just after
32:06it came out
32:07as infinitely
32:08the most extraordinary
32:09and magnificent discovery
32:11perhaps since creation.
32:12Now you may feel
32:13that's a bit exaggerated
32:14but you can understand
32:16why people got so
32:17very lightheaded about it.
32:18It's one of the symptoms
32:20you suffer from
32:20when you use it.
32:37going up in a balloon
32:38makes you feel like
32:39doing all sorts
32:39of daft things.
32:55By the middle
32:56of the 19th century
32:57the balloon enjoyed
32:58the same kind
32:59of reputation
32:59the backseat
33:00of the motor car
33:01did in the 1940s.
33:02It was rather often
33:03used for purposes
33:04for which it had not
33:05been originally designed.
33:06I mean Frenchmen
33:07in particular
33:07would cruise along
33:08with their girlfriends
33:11dropping empty
33:12champagne bottles
33:13on the gaping peasants
33:14below
33:15and returning to earth
33:16to announce
33:17their engagement.
33:19Mind you
33:19some of it
33:20was all serious science.
33:22They took up
33:22barometers and thermometers
33:23and cats and dogs
33:25and geese and ducks
33:25and sheep
33:26and 200 pound ladies
33:27to observe their effect
33:28on the weather
33:29and vice versa.
33:30And these intrepid
33:31pioneers enjoyed
33:32all the privileges
33:33of going to high
33:34altitude without oxygen
33:35bleeding at the ears
33:37and eyes
33:37nausea, vomiting
33:38swelling of the head
33:39and passing out.
33:41Mind you
33:41in spite of all that
33:42they did learn things
33:43they never would have
33:44if they'd stayed
33:44on the ground
33:45like the temperature
33:47does not decrease steadily
33:48as you rise in the sky
33:49and nor does the air pressure.
33:52Some of them
33:52stayed up for days
33:53drifting along
33:54enjoying the view
33:55dropping notes
33:56by parachute
33:57that never seemed
33:58to say much other than
33:59everything going
34:00remarkably well
34:01including those
34:02who were never seen again.
34:12by the late 19th century
34:14what with all these
34:15airborne anemometers
34:16and reports from shipping
34:17and stations on the ground
34:18using the new
34:19electric telegraph
34:20you could pick up
34:21a copy of your times
34:22in the morning
34:22and get almost as good
34:24a forecast as you can
34:25today.
34:27The only disadvantage
34:28to all this high altitude
34:30information
34:30which by now
34:31they regarded as vital
34:32was that sooner or later
34:34when you ran out of hot air
34:35or hydrogen
34:36or food
34:37or champagne
34:38you had to come down.
34:40What they needed
34:41was some way of staying
34:41at high altitude
34:42for as long as they liked
34:44which is why our story
34:45next takes us
34:46to a place
34:46you'd imagine
34:47they would have thought
34:47of long before
34:48a place where you can
34:50stay at high altitude
34:51for as long as you like
34:53the highlands of Scotland.
35:12On October 17th, 1883
35:15this ancestral home
35:16at the bottom of a mountain
35:17was the venue
35:18for a get-together
35:19by the cream
35:20of enlightened
35:20Scottish gentility.
35:22To mark the grand opening
35:23of a new weather station
35:24on top of the highest
35:25highland in the highlands
35:26Ben Nevis.
35:28Refreshments were offered
35:29to the guests
35:30and provisions were loaded
35:32for the journey to come
35:32by numerous factors
35:34and gillies
35:34and other members
35:35of the unpronounceable
35:36Scottish lower orders.
35:40Ladies and gentlemen
35:41could we have you
35:42on the lawn
35:43for the commemorative photograph
35:44please?
35:45I think the commemorative photograph
35:46It was a grand
35:47ludicrous
35:47overdone affair
35:48in the way that all
35:49philanthropic
35:50Victorian public occasions were.
35:52In any other country
35:53in the world
35:54they'd have dropped
35:54the whole thing
35:55till the rain stopped
35:55but this
35:56was 19th century Scotland
35:58and they were bent
35:59on serious matters
36:00so they gritted
36:01their teeth
36:02and cheerfully
36:03did their duty
36:03as the rain
36:04filled up their bagpipes.
36:11after all
36:12was the whole thing
36:12not being recorded
36:13for posterity.
36:14A little bit further in
36:16thank you
36:17this is really up
36:18hold
36:19hold it
36:34the really nice thing
36:35about what science
36:36did to the Victorians
36:37was that it made them
36:38all lunatic
36:39in the same way
36:39so the townspeople
36:41of Fort William
36:42also did their duty
36:43as the procession passed
36:44by getting soaked
36:45and waving silly flags
36:47as they were supposed to.
36:55At 9am
36:56the party began their trek
36:57up the mountain
36:58led by a single piper
36:59busking a catchy little Celtic number
37:01called
37:02L'Ajil Zawar de France
37:03why I've never been able
37:05to find out
37:05and the rain
37:06obligingly turned to sleet
37:08so everybody could have
37:10what one was supposed to have
37:11when doing one's duty
37:12a thoroughly rotten time.
37:20As more and more stations
37:21like Ben Nevis
37:22were set up
37:23and people could sit
37:23and look at the weather
37:24as it shifted and changed
37:26they noticed that it made
37:27distinct patterns
37:28so in good Victorian style
37:30they catalogued them
37:31and in the 1890s
37:33came up
37:33with an official
37:34international cloud atlas
37:36which gave clouds
37:37the names
37:37by which they're known today.
37:46And this catalogue of clouds
37:48is the next clue
37:49in our detective story
37:51because clouds caused
37:52something strange
37:53to happen
37:54at Ben Nevis.
37:55You see
37:56from the moment it opened
37:57the station observers
37:58worked 24 hours a day
37:59each shift
38:00would send off
38:01regular reports
38:01on temperature
38:02pressure
38:02rain and so on
38:04and one of the reports
38:05they had to file
38:06would be about the clouds
38:07and if you were
38:08on the dawn shift
38:09you'd sometimes see
38:10the clouds in the valley
38:11do something very weird
38:13to your shadow.
38:21This is called
38:22a glory
38:23and the strange thing
38:24about it
38:25is that the colours
38:26that appear in the halo
38:26don't appear
38:27in the order they do
38:28in the rainbow
38:29but the other way round.
38:37At this point
38:38events took the most
38:39extraordinary twist
38:40for the very mundane
38:41reason that the Ben Nevis
38:42Observatory
38:43was short of cash
38:44and so
38:45because of that
38:46they used to take on
38:48university students
38:49during their vacation
38:50to act as temporary
38:52unpaid observers
38:53while their own staff
38:54was on holiday
38:54and in September 1894
38:57one of those young men
38:58was a Cambridge physics
39:00graduate called
39:01Charles Wilson
39:01this is him
39:02in much later life
39:04and
39:06one morning
39:06on Ben Nevis
39:07Wilson saw a glory
39:09and it turned him on
39:10so much
39:11that he decided
39:12to go back to Cambridge
39:13and make one for himself
39:14to find out
39:14how they worked
39:15and that's why
39:17our detective story
39:17brings us here
39:21because the way
39:22Wilson did it
39:23and how in the long run
39:25what he did
39:25came to affect
39:26the lives of
39:27every man, woman
39:28and child on earth
39:28is illustrated
39:30in every museum
39:31of any size
39:32in the world
39:33this one's
39:34the Science Museum
39:35in London
39:36and Wilson's machine
39:37is here
39:38hidden away
39:39among the
39:39thousands of other
39:41clues to mankind's
39:42inventive genius
39:52you know
39:53considering the
39:54amazing thing
39:54it was to help
39:55give birth to
39:56Wilson's machine
39:57is really a rather
39:59unimpressive looking object
40:01and although you'd expect
40:02to find it in the
40:03weather section
40:04you know
40:04because of the glory
40:05business and all that
40:06that's not where
40:07they put it
40:09usually
40:09the first thing
40:10you see
40:11is what the machine
40:11actually did
40:13take a look in here
40:16see those tiny
40:17cloud formations
40:25now Wilson
40:26wanted to make
40:26himself clouds
40:27because he wanted
40:28to make himself
40:28a glory to work on
40:30so he built himself
40:31a cloud chamber
40:32in 1895
40:33this is a later version
40:35but the principle
40:36is the same
40:37here is a
40:38sealed glass container
40:40and fitting into
40:41the container
40:42below it
40:42there's a piston
40:43inside that cylinder
40:44there
40:44and underneath the piston
40:46there's a gap
40:46and leading from that gap
40:48is a tube
40:49through to this container
40:52in which there's a vacuum
40:53now if you open the valve
40:56on that tube
40:57the air underneath the piston
40:59whistles in here
41:00to fill the vacuum
41:00that causes the piston
41:02to be jerked down
41:03very fast
41:04and then this air up here
41:06has more space to fill
41:07which it does
41:08so it gets thinner
41:08so it's air pressure drops
41:10and clouds form
41:11in here
41:13now at that time
41:15everybody thought
41:15clouds formed
41:16because the tiny droplets
41:17of moisture
41:17condensed on little specks
41:19of dust in the air
41:20but when Wilson
41:21cleared all the dust
41:22out of his machine
41:23he still got clouds
41:25well he reckoned
41:26it had to be something
41:27like radiation
41:27because there wasn't
41:28anything else
41:29so in 1896
41:30he took some of the
41:32newly discovered x-rays
41:33and beamed them
41:33into his cloud chamber
41:35and sure enough
41:36they made clouds
41:37but they made them
41:39in tiny streaks
41:41well thought
41:42Wilson
41:43I've established
41:44a relationship
41:44between radiation
41:45and cloud
41:46and that's good enough
41:47for me
41:47so he dropped his work
41:48on the cloud chamber
41:49and went happily
41:50back to meteorology
41:52and what he didn't realize
41:53was that inside
41:55that cloud chamber
41:56he had triggered
41:57a scientific
41:58time bomb
42:04over the next few years
42:06Wilson the magic cloud maker
42:07got really turned on
42:09by really bad weather
42:10and in particular
42:12thunderstorms
42:12and in very particular
42:13the situations
42:15where things got
42:15really spectacularly bad
42:17and so he was to be seen
42:18risking life and limb
42:20by poking his instruments
42:22as close as possible
42:23to gigantic lightning strikes
42:25in order to find out
42:26how much power
42:27they gave off
42:29and if you're wondering
42:31why I am telling you
42:33all this
42:33in the front end
42:35of a wartime B-29 bomber
42:37well
42:38one of the reasons
42:40is that
42:40as a result of Wilson
42:42being so interested
42:43in lightning
42:44wartime flying
42:45was safer
42:47if that's the right word
42:48to use
42:53you see
42:54when he found out
42:56what lightning was doing
42:58he promptly told
42:59a friend of his
42:59called Edward Appleton
43:00now in 1915
43:02what Appleton
43:03was trying to do
43:03was to find out
43:04why when you turned
43:06on your new miracle
43:07machine called radio
43:08what you got
43:09in your ear
43:10often instead of
43:11long distance communication
43:12was this
43:16so Appleton
43:17decided to take a look
43:18at what the atmosphere
43:19did to radio waves
43:20and in 1924
43:22he finally
43:23shot some radio waves
43:25up in the sky
43:26whereupon
43:26they promptly
43:27bounced back down
43:28again to the earth
43:29so he measured
43:30how long it took
43:31them to bounce back
43:31and he said
43:32hey listen
43:32there is a layer
43:33of something
43:34100 kilometres up there
43:36I know because
43:36I measured it
43:37that reflects radio waves
43:39now
43:40all this measurement bit
43:42may seem just a touch
43:43dull to you
43:44but it was music
43:45to the ears
43:46of another weatherman
43:47called Watson Watt
43:48who at the time
43:49was trying to find out
43:50if he could use radio
43:52to locate storms
43:53which of course
43:54now he could do
43:55so he did it
43:56by using two
43:57radio transmitters
43:58so that one
43:59would tell you
43:59a storm was
44:00in that direction
44:01so many miles
44:02and another would tell you
44:04it was in that direction
44:05so many miles
44:05and so you knew
44:07where the storm was
44:09okay
44:10I hear you say
44:11what has this got to do
44:12with an obsolete
44:13wartime bomber
44:15well all this
44:16radio wave
44:17super scientific stuff
44:18got the military
44:19very worked up
44:20and in 1935
44:22the British air ministry
44:23asked Watson Watt
44:24if he could make them
44:25a death ray
44:26you know
44:26destroy enemy planes
44:27in the sky
44:29no he said
44:30but if radio waves
44:32will bounce off storms
44:33they'll also bounce off
44:34aircraft
44:34so what about me
44:35giving you something
44:36that helps you find
44:37enemy aircraft
44:38in the sky
44:38tell you how far away
44:40they are
44:40and in what direction
44:41we could call it
44:42radio detection
44:44and ranging
44:44or R-A-D-A-R
44:46for short
44:49we could also get
44:50the returning echo
44:51from the aircraft
44:51to cause a beam
44:52of electrons
44:53going down
44:53a cathode ray tube
44:54to make a blip
44:55on a screen
44:56that had a range scale
44:57on it
44:58so you could see
44:58the aeroplane
44:59and you could see
44:59where it was
45:01great idea
45:02they said
45:02and this was the result
45:06the radar
45:07that was used
45:07during the second
45:08world war
45:10today
45:11because of radar
45:12your holiday jet
45:13gets to its destination
45:14in safety
45:14missing the storms
45:16and other holiday jets
45:18and so we come
45:19almost to the end
45:20of our detective story
45:24you remember
45:25how it all started
45:252,700 years ago
45:27when the touchstone
45:28told you
45:29you could trust
45:30somebody's gold
45:31and how that got
45:32all the merchants
45:32racing around the
45:33Mediterranean
45:34and up to Russia
45:34and out to India
45:35and how at the
45:36great trading port
45:37of Alexandria
45:39the star tables
45:41got written
45:41but not used
45:42by navigators
45:43until a new sail
45:44and rudder
45:45got things moving
45:45again in the Middle Ages
45:46by which time
45:47they knew
45:48where they were going
45:48thanks to the compass
45:50which however
45:51let them down
45:52so William Gilbert
45:53tried to find out
45:54why using his
45:55magnetic models
45:55of the earth
45:56that attracted everything
45:57and how
45:58Gerica in Regensburg
46:00got so excited
46:01by attraction
46:01he tried a spinning
46:02sulphur ball
46:03and how the
46:04sulphur ball
46:04caused sparks
46:05and got everybody
46:06into atmospheric
46:07electricity
46:07and the weather
46:08and how
46:09at the weather station
46:10on Ben Nevis
46:11Wilson decided
46:12to make his cloud chamber
46:13then got interested
46:14in storms
46:15and helped to make
46:16radar happen
46:17I said we were almost
46:18at the end of our
46:19detective story
46:20not quite
46:23the other reason
46:24we're on board
46:24a B-29
46:25is because one of
46:26those bombers
46:27also carried
46:27the other child
46:29of Wilson's cloud chamber
46:31do you remember
46:31I told you
46:32that he'd set off
46:33a scientific time bomb
46:34well he did that
46:35because back in 1911
46:36he took this photograph
46:37of his little cloud streaks
46:39and he showed it
46:40to a physicist
46:40called Ernest Rutherford
46:42who said
46:43my god
46:43do you know
46:44what that is
46:45that is a photograph
46:46of radiation particles
46:48knocking bits off an atom
46:49and that means
46:50we can see what we're doing
46:51when we try to split the atom
46:53so Wilson's photograph
46:55made it infinitely easier
46:56to produce a modern invention
46:58that helps us
46:59to cure one of the most
47:00deadly diseases
47:00known to mankind
47:02or if we choose
47:03to wipe out
47:04all life
47:05on the face of the earth
47:07that invention
47:08was dropped
47:08by a B-29
47:09at 9.15
47:10on a sunny August morning
47:12in 1945
47:13on Hiroshima
47:14it was the atomic bomb
47:17of the fishes
47:34who was
47:34the rain
47:34that״
47:34they're
47:34and they're
47:35and they're
47:37from the
47:37and this
47:44and the
47:47Oh, my God.
48:21Today, the nuclear bomb is like a sword of Damocles hanging over us.
48:26Will it fall again?
48:55Let them fall again.
49:11You
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