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00:21I'll see you next time.
00:40I don't know.
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07:19I don't know the shock to the poor old horse.
07:21The only answer was a stronger horse that could take all that punishment.
07:27And rearing big horses as anybody who knows will tell you ain't cheap.
07:34Now keeping a man like that supplied with the latest weaponry and horses in a period when there was very
07:40little money in circulation needed the kind of wealth that could only come from land and peasants working it.
07:45So, as you'll see, the coming of the night changed the basic structure of society.
07:50It also gave birth to the tournament.
07:53Now, in all the books, they're shown like that.
07:56But in reality, they were very different.
08:05Early on, the tournament was a kind of cross between the circus coming to town and a wild free-for
08:11-all,
08:12where half the time, things ended in absolute shambles with whole towns getting burnt down.
08:17Things got so out of hand, even the Pope tried to ban the fun and games.
08:25Yes, these were definitely not the days of courtly manners and fair play.
08:32But behind all the chicanery and dirty tricks, there were two very good reasons for these affairs,
08:37and they both had to do with fighting on horseback.
08:40See, the idea of cavalry was a whole new thing,
08:43and you needed all the training you could get to use the lance right.
08:54The other reason had to do with the prizes you won.
08:57You knocked a guy off his horse at a tournament, and you took everything.
09:00His armour, his saddle, his horse, the lot.
09:03And that was as good as a free ticket to the upper classes,
09:06because it was only when you possessed all the right equipment and the horses that you got into the big
09:10league.
09:25By 1250, the big league was a very exclusive club only the very rich could join,
09:30thanks in the first place to the stirrup,
09:32and the way it had led to the fully armoured knight on his massive war horse.
09:37The aristocrats now made sure the club stayed exclusive.
09:40They made knighthood hereditary and took on permanent family names instead of just being son of somebody.
09:46And because the armour covered their faces,
09:49they needed identification marks to show who they were in battle,
09:53so they didn't get clobbered by their own men.
09:54These heraldic symbols completed the separation of the aristocrats from the rest.
10:01Immensely powerful and immensely rich,
10:04the armour-plated upper crust must have felt that they had absolutely got it made.
10:31By the 14th century, the knight was a massive, expensive, complex, two-ton war machine,
10:37and at full gallop he would annihilate anything coming the other way,
10:40except, of course, another knight.
10:42And then, from out of the valleys of South Wales,
10:45came something that was to take away from the armoured knight his four centuries of domination, like that.
10:52We few, we happy few,
10:58we band of brothers,
11:02for he today that sheds his blood with me
11:05shall be my brother,
11:08be he ne'er so vile.
11:11This day shall gentle his condition,
11:15and gentle men in England now abed
11:19shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
11:23and hold their manhoods cheap,
11:25while then he speaks that fought with us
11:29upon St. Crispin's Day.
11:33That was the Shakespearean version of this man,
11:36Henry V,
11:37talking about the day when everybody discovered
11:40that it was never going to be the same again
11:41for the knight on horseback,
11:44at the Battle of Agincourt,
11:45in northern France,
11:47between Henry and the French,
11:49on the morning of October the 25th,
11:521415.
11:55It's funny, isn't it,
11:56how we all seem to need big-time heroes like Henry,
11:59and yet you read the Shakespeare,
12:01the heavy stuff,
12:02and you come here to Westminster Abbey,
12:04and you see the king lying on his tomb,
12:07and the sword he used in the battle,
12:09and you totally lose sight of the fact
12:11that as a young man of 28,
12:14well, Henry may have been a dab hand with the magic words,
12:16but he would have been nowhere in that battle
12:19if it hadn't been for the one thing he had,
12:20and his French enemy didn't.
12:22And I don't mean his princely sex appeal.
12:25Let me tell you what happened.
12:26Henry here had, oh, about 8,000 men
12:30knocked out with fatigue from marching non-stop
12:32for 17 days in the rain.
12:34About a mile away,
12:36across a battlefield of mud,
12:38there were 30,000 Frenchmen,
12:40half of them fully armoured aristocrats,
12:43who'd been up the previous night
12:45because they'd slept in their saddles
12:46because they didn't want to get their lovely armour dirty.
12:49They were an arrogant, overbearing, effete lot,
12:52full of death or glory and me first.
12:56So when, at about 11 o'clock in the morning,
12:59Henry had some arrows shot at this mob
13:02in order to get them to do something,
13:04anything,
13:04because they'd been standing around arguing the toss
13:06about who should be running the French army
13:08since 7 in the morning,
13:10they suddenly upped and charged
13:13straight at Henry,
13:14straight across a sea of mud,
13:16straight onto the stakes
13:17that the English had put
13:19point up in their path.
13:23And that was when Henry
13:24played his trump card.
13:25Didn't you?
13:27He called up the secret weapon
13:28his grandfather had discovered
13:30in the mountains of Wales.
13:32And when it came into action,
13:34the slaughter was unimaginable.
13:45That weapon was the Welsh longbow
13:47and Henry had over 1,000 of them
13:49in the hands of a master
13:51the longbow would kill
13:52at 400 yards
13:53and in three bloody hours
13:56the French were massacred.
14:09Many of the French knights
14:10had their horses shot from under them
14:12to fall in the mud and suffocate
14:14as the bodies of their dead companions
14:16piled on top of them.
14:18When it was all over,
14:19the English had lost
14:20maybe 500 men,
14:21the French 10,000,
14:24most of them buried here
14:25in a common grave
14:26under my feet.
14:28The longbow did most of that.
14:30It was a terrifying weapon.
14:32And yet,
14:34a generation after Agincourt,
14:36they couldn't find enough archers
14:37to muster a company,
14:38let alone an army.
14:40The reason?
14:42Well,
14:43because that's the way things go.
14:45The reason has nothing to do
14:47with Agincourt
14:47or war
14:48or weapons.
14:55It had to do with food
14:57and it had to do
14:58with the fields the food came from
14:59and the way the people
15:00worked the fields,
15:01like these peasants
15:02in the Duke de Berry's
15:03Book of Hours.
15:07With 90% of the population on the land,
15:10any development in agricultural technology
15:12would affect everybody.
15:14And in the 7th century,
15:16700 years before Agincourt,
15:18three agricultural inventions came,
15:20one after the other,
15:21to fundamentally change people's lives.
15:24The first was a new kind of plough.
15:26You see,
15:27up till then,
15:28the plough in general use
15:29had been little more
15:30than a digging stick
15:31pulled by oxen.
15:33It came from the Mediterranean,
15:34where it's still in use today
15:35in the Middle East,
15:35and it was good enough
15:36for the job
15:37of turning over the light soil
15:39in that area.
15:40But up here in Northern Europe,
15:42it got you nowhere.
15:45Soil's too thick.
15:46So,
15:47when around 700 AD
15:50this came along,
15:51it made a very big impression.
15:53It had wheels,
15:54it had a knife
15:55to cut through the sod,
15:56and the ploughshare
15:58had a curved board
15:59attached to it.
16:00This new plough
16:01would cut through anything.
16:04Look.
16:08Hey!
16:13You see what the knife does?
16:15It cuts open the sod
16:16and makes it easier
16:17for the ploughshare that follows.
16:19And then,
16:20the curved board
16:21throws the soil
16:22up and away to one side,
16:24leaving a clean furrow.
16:26With a team of, say,
16:27eight oxen in front of this,
16:29you could farm
16:30the thick, rich land up here
16:31that no earlier plough
16:32could ever have done.
16:34It was bloody hard work,
16:35but it could be done.
16:38So by about 900 AD,
16:40this plough was
16:40opening up the north
16:41really fast,
16:42clearing the forests,
16:44producing more food.
16:45And in consequence,
16:47the population was rising.
16:50whoo!
16:51Now,
16:52in those days,
16:53this would have had
16:54a team of oxen up front,
16:56not a horse.
16:57The plough and the oxen
16:58were very expensive.
16:59Few peasant farmers
17:00could afford the whole deal.
17:02So they formed cooperatives,
17:04each man bringing what he could.
17:05And as they began to
17:07work close together,
17:08they began to live close together
17:10in big groups,
17:11villages.
17:12That's why villages happened.
17:19So the first invention
17:20was the plough.
17:22The second came
17:24towards the end
17:24of the 9th century.
17:26The situation was that
17:27up till then they were using
17:28oxen in front of the plough,
17:29and if you put an ox harness
17:31on a horse,
17:31it cuts across under the neck
17:33and strangles the animal.
17:35The horse collar,
17:37that was the second invention,
17:38spread the load
17:39on the horse's shoulders,
17:40and so now you could use a horse.
17:42Now a horse will do
17:43twice as much work
17:44as an ox
17:44because it does it faster.
17:46So production doubled,
17:47and the population rose again.
17:50The third invention
17:51took them and their horses
17:53further afield.
18:04Yes, it was the horseshoe.
18:07See, with a shoe,
18:08you can use a horse
18:09in all weathers
18:09over rough countryside,
18:11and it'll carry heavier loads further.
18:14So now you had a work animal
18:16and a transport animal,
18:17and by this time
18:18there was plenty to transport
18:19because they were producing so much
18:21they had a surplus.
18:24You see,
18:25at the same time as all this,
18:27a new crop system came in,
18:28the idea of using three fields,
18:31the idea of using three fields,
18:32the three crop rotation system,
18:33it's called.
18:34One field is fallow,
18:35so the animals can graze on it
18:37and drop manure on it.
18:38One field is sown in the autumn
18:40with cereals like oats,
18:42for example,
18:42to feed the horses,
18:43and one field is sown in the spring
18:45with legumes,
18:47peas,
18:47beans,
18:49carbohydrates,
18:50vegetable protein.
18:52This was why
18:53they dropped the longbow,
18:55because when you have enough food
18:56to sell the surplus for cash,
18:58you've got better things
18:59to do on a Sunday
18:59than obey the law
19:00and practice archery.
19:01People went into business,
19:03they opened taverns,
19:04they even played games.
19:05That's why they couldn't
19:06find any archers.
19:07Nobody was practicing.
19:08They were too full of beans.
19:22Now, this may look very simple
19:25and rustic to you,
19:26but what you're looking at
19:28is the medieval peasant equivalent
19:29of thank God it's Friday.
19:31All the more so,
19:33because they'd never had one before.
19:34A day off, I mean.
19:37Thanks to the agricultural revolution
19:39and the opening up
19:40of new land with the plough,
19:41there were actually spare goodies
19:43a peasant could take to market
19:44and sell,
19:45for that amazing new stuff,
19:47money.
19:48All over Europe,
19:50the medieval lower classes
19:51started doing something
19:52absolutely unheard of.
19:54They started enjoying themselves.
19:56Some of them even started washing.
19:59The reason for all this dynamic activity
20:01was because,
20:02as Europe recovered
20:03from the chaos and confusion
20:04of the 10th century,
20:06prosperity,
20:07if I could just have your
20:08attention for a moment,
20:09prosperity encouraged trade
20:11and merchants began to travel around
20:13selling anything
20:13they could get people to buy.
20:15Between 1150 and 1300,
20:17the population tripled.
20:18Towns grew up.
20:20So did the number
20:20of craftsmen and professions.
20:22And so did the paperwork
20:23and the bureaucracy.
20:28If you think about it,
20:30these must have been
20:31great days for most of them.
20:33Uncash to buy things with,
20:34paying the landlord rent
20:36instead of forced labour.
20:38Justice, perhaps,
20:39at the new village law courts.
20:41Even a little personalised medical treatment.
20:43May have been a bit rough,
20:44but it was better than nothing.
20:46Well, almost.
20:51OK, so a peasant couldn't get to be a prince,
20:54but he could expect his kids
20:55to grow up to a better life.
21:00Meanwhile,
21:00as the rustic rollicking continued,
21:02in the king's palace,
21:03it was lead balloon time.
21:05I mean,
21:06here were all these hayseeds
21:07committing the unforgivable sin
21:09of not doing their duty,
21:10which was to work till they dropped
21:12and practise the longbow on Sundays.
21:14Remember the longbow?
21:16It took a lot of practice
21:17to make a good archer
21:18who'd go out
21:18and get himself slaughtered for you,
21:20and these idiots
21:21weren't getting the practice.
21:23It began to look
21:24to the kings and princes
21:26as if you couldn't go out
21:27and have yourself
21:28a nice old-fashioned war anymore.
21:36And then good old human ingenuity
21:38came up with
21:39a less demanding way
21:40to kill people.
21:41Now, to be fair to the Europeans,
21:43they didn't actually invent it,
21:44but they took to its
21:45immense destructive potential
21:47with all the gay abandon
21:48of an alcoholic in a brewery.
21:51And in case you're wondering
21:52why I'm telling you all this
21:53with my pig friends here,
21:55it's because
21:56one of the first places
21:57they found
21:58the principal ingredient
21:58for the new terror weapon
22:00was in a pigsty.
22:01Why?
22:02Well, you see,
22:03a pig's home
22:04is also his toilet,
22:06and you make
22:07gunpowder
22:08from urine and dung.
22:16using that kind of muck
22:18to get to this
22:19lethal powder
22:20involved going through
22:21a bit of chemistry first.
22:23The urine became ammonia
22:25and the bacteria in the dung
22:27turned the ammonia
22:28into a nitrate.
22:35Having mixed the mess
22:36with wood ash
22:37and then filtered water
22:39through it all,
22:40boiling that water
22:41produced saltpeter crystals.
22:45This powder
22:46is a mixture of saltpeter,
22:48sulphur,
22:49and charcoal.
22:50All you do now
22:51is apply a flame,
22:53stand very far back,
22:56and...
23:09Gunpowder was a Chinese invention,
23:11and they had it
23:12maybe 700 years
23:13before we in the West
23:14got our hands on it.
23:15and it's very probable
23:17we only got it
23:18because the Arabs
23:19picked it up in China
23:20and brought it back with them,
23:22like they did
23:22with so many Chinese ideas.
23:24It's very likely
23:25that whoever it was
23:27who invented gunpowder,
23:28he was one of their
23:29philosopher-chemists,
23:30actually searching
23:31for the secret recipe
23:32for immortality.
23:34Ironic, isn't it?
23:48In the main,
23:49apart from the odd
23:50rocket or grenade,
23:52that was how
23:53the Chinese used
23:54their gunpowder
23:55for fireworks
23:56in religious rituals.
24:16Which brings us,
24:17for a minute or two,
24:19to the business
24:19about the Chinese
24:20inventing everything,
24:21and yet not using it
24:23the way we did.
24:25This is part of the reason,
24:26their view of life.
24:47The thing that surprises us
24:49in the West,
24:50because we use
24:51everything we can get hold of
24:53to cause change to happen,
24:55is that the Chinese
24:57had so much
24:58and changed so little.
25:08What I mean by
25:09so much
25:11is this.
25:13They had gunpowder,
25:14you saw,
25:15and look what we did
25:16with that.
25:17And then 2,000 years ago,
25:19they used to spin
25:20magnetic spoons
25:21on pictures of the earth
25:22and the sky,
25:23and depending
25:24which way the spoon
25:26pointed when it stopped,
25:27they made a political prediction.
25:29When we got hold of that
25:30in the form of
25:31the compass needle,
25:32we used it
25:33to conquer the world,
25:34to set up empire,
25:36aided in our voyages
25:38by a Chinese rudder.
25:40Chinese looms,
25:42capable of making
25:43complex patterns like that,
25:45helped to set up
25:45the great 13th century
25:47European textile industries.
25:50A thousand years before us,
25:52the Chinese had
25:52blast furnaces,
25:54steel,
25:55pistons,
25:56cranks,
25:56and this,
25:58paper.
26:01Part of the reason
26:02why,
26:02in spite of all this,
26:04change didn't come in China
26:05the way it did
26:06when all this came
26:06to the West,
26:07was this.
26:09Not printing,
26:10although they invented
26:11that too.
26:12No.
26:13This word.
26:17Tau.
26:22Tau.
26:23It means
26:24was the universal way,
26:26the fundamental order
26:28of nature.
26:29The Taoist scholars
26:31were a group
26:32who looked for
26:33some rational order
26:34in things
26:34to see how
26:35the universe worked.
26:37And because of
26:38their investigations,
26:39gave China
26:40what we would call
26:41technology.
27:03technology.
27:04And yet,
27:05explosive change,
27:06the kind we in the West
27:08went through
27:08when we got hold
27:09of what China
27:10had invented,
27:11didn't happen here.
27:13And to explain why,
27:15I'm going to have to
27:15hit you with a bit more
27:16of inscrutable
27:17Chinese philosophy.
27:18You see,
27:19the Chinese believed
27:20that the universe
27:21was filled with
27:22Shen,
27:23a spirit that was
27:24in everything,
27:25and that all you could
27:26do was contemplate it.
27:28Trees,
27:28mountains,
27:29birds,
27:29rivers,
27:30were all one,
27:32and so you couldn't
27:33reproduce a model
27:34of the bit of the universe
27:35and examine it
27:36because you couldn't
27:37fill it with Shen.
27:39Now,
27:39in the Christian West,
27:40we reckoned that
27:42the universe was made
27:43of rational bits and pieces
27:44by a rational God,
27:45and if you were
27:47a rational human being,
27:47you could make a model
27:49of a bit of the universe
27:49and then take it apart
27:51to see how it worked
27:52and use what you learned.
27:55The other fundamental reason
27:56why change didn't happen
27:57here in China
27:59was that,
28:01water.
28:02You see,
28:03about 5,000 years ago,
28:05the very first
28:06great civilised act
28:07of the Chinese
28:08was irrigation
28:09on a vast scale,
28:11and that needed
28:12centralised planning
28:13and that needed
28:14a bureaucracy,
28:15and what a bureaucracy.
28:17They pigeonholed everybody,
28:19and you stayed
28:20in your pigeonhole.
28:21I mean,
28:21you were a merchant,
28:22you saw a bit of technology
28:24and you thought,
28:24this will give me
28:25a lead over the other fella,
28:26I'll rise in the world.
28:28No way.
28:29You were not permitted
28:30to rise in the world,
28:31so you didn't bother.
28:33No incentive,
28:35no change.
28:37Whereas in the medieval West,
28:39you had a little money,
28:40you got ahead.
28:42Profit motive,
28:43you know?
28:43And that is why
28:45we were able to do
28:46with technology
28:47what the Chinese
28:47could never have done.
28:49Like,
28:50for instance,
28:51putting gunpowder
28:52into one of these.
28:55Or,
28:56to be more accurate,
28:57one of those.
29:01The fact that bell-making
29:03was a peaceful,
29:04religious business
29:05didn't stop 13th century
29:06Europeans from grabbing
29:07the idea.
29:09Look how easy
29:10it was to adapt.
29:11And the bell
29:12becomes a bombard.
29:13Instant artillery.
29:15For the princes
29:15and generals,
29:16happily,
29:17it was business as usual,
29:18once more.
29:31This picturesque little town
29:33called Cividale,
29:35near the Yugoslav border,
29:36was one of the first places
29:38where the exciting new way
29:39of killing people
29:40was tried out
29:40in 1327
29:42by a bunch
29:43of passing Germans.
29:44Now,
29:45early on,
29:46the new guns
29:47made more bang
29:48and smoke
29:48than real destruction,
29:49and each cannon
29:50could only be fired
29:51about ten times a day.
29:53But a mere mention
29:54that guns were on their way
29:55was enough
29:55to make a town surrender.
30:01Well,
30:01what more could you ask?
30:02In no time at all,
30:04everybody wanted
30:05one to play with.
30:11Which is why
30:12our story brings us here
30:13to a place called
30:14Jakimov
30:15in the mountains
30:16of northern Czechoslovakia.
30:20It was the growing mania
30:21everybody had for cannons
30:22that built this place
30:24and turned it
30:25into the 16th century
30:26Fort Knox of Europe.
30:29You see,
30:29few inventions
30:30have ever been more
30:31greedily seized on
30:32than the cannon.
30:33And in consequence
30:34the business of making war,
30:36became ruinously expensive.
30:37Not in terms of men.
30:39They were cheap.
30:40In terms of money.
30:41And all the way
30:42through the late Middle Ages
30:43that was the one thing
30:44that they were short of.
30:45Cash.
30:46Until in 1516,
30:48here in Joachimsthal,
30:50as it was called
30:51at the time,
30:51the biggest silver strike
30:53in history was made
30:54out there in the valley.
30:55At its peak,
30:57Joachimsthal
30:57was turning out
30:58something like
30:58three million ounces
31:00of pure silver a year.
31:02And they were minting these
31:03here in this building
31:04as fast as the stamping machines
31:06would make them.
31:07They were called
31:08after a shortened form
31:09of the name of the town,
31:10Joachimsthal.
31:11Talers.
31:12The modern word dollar
31:13comes from taler.
31:14And just like the dollar today,
31:16in their time,
31:17these talers would buy you
31:18anything you wanted,
31:20anywhere you went.
31:22Well, you can guess
31:22what happened.
31:23From all over Europe,
31:24miners and speculators
31:25flooded into this place,
31:27seeking their fortune
31:28up there among the pine trees.
31:38In these mountains,
31:39the prospectors found
31:40no less than 134
31:42separate silver veins,
31:44each one richer
31:45in the precious ore
31:46than the last.
31:47Some of the mines
31:48had tunnels running
31:49seven miles long
31:50and shafts going down
31:51to 1,200 feet.
31:53The cost of the mining operations
31:54and water-powered machinery
31:56to crush the ore
31:57and smelt it
31:57was so great
31:58that no one individual
31:59could afford it.
32:00So Joachimsthal
32:01became the first
32:02great capitalist venture,
32:03with shareholders
32:04forming companies
32:05to run the place.
32:06And as the water flowed,
32:07the mill wheels roared
32:09and the hammers pounded,
32:10the owners of these
32:12lonely mountain mining villages
32:13made money hand over fist.
32:21Ever occurred to you
32:22why so much mining
32:23so often took place
32:24in these high, cold,
32:26wet mountain valleys.
32:28Trees is one reason.
32:30They built everything
32:31from trees.
32:31The trees provided the fuel
32:33for the blast furnaces.
32:34And then when it poured
32:36or snowed,
32:36which it very often does here,
32:38the mountain streams
32:39would turn the water wheels
32:41that operated
32:41every single bit of machinery
32:43a mining engineer needed.
32:44And the reason we know
32:46what kind of machinery
32:47they used is this.
32:50It's a book written
32:51by the local Joachimsthal
32:52town doctor,
32:53a fellow called George Bauer.
32:54He wrote it under the pen name
32:55of Agricola.
32:56It's called De Re Metallica,
32:59About Metal.
33:00And it was the miner's Bible
33:02for 200 years
33:03after it was published
33:03in 1556.
33:05Look,
33:06it talks about everything.
33:09It talks about everything.
33:09Above all,
33:09it talks about how you get
33:10water out of a mine.
33:12Because as they went
33:13deeper and deeper,
33:13the problem of flooding
33:14became a nightmare.
33:16Oh,
33:16they had water-powered systems
33:17to handle it.
33:18But at the lowest levels,
33:20the water was pouring in
33:22as fast as they drained it.
33:29They had three principal ways
33:31of getting it out.
33:32One was to use a chain
33:33with balls of cloth on it
33:35and the cloth would soak
33:35the water up at the bottom
33:36and they'd squeeze it out
33:37at the top.
33:38The other way was to
33:39use a standard system
33:41of buckets.
33:42The third and most efficient
33:43way was this.
33:45See,
33:45here's the water wheel
33:46operating either on the surface
33:48or down in the mine
33:49and using a system
33:50of cranks
33:51to pull piston rods
33:52up and down.
33:53It's a suction pump.
33:54But look how they had
33:55to do it
33:56in three different sections.
33:59Now,
33:59that was because
34:00for some mysterious reason
34:01they couldn't get the water
34:02further up than 32 feet.
34:04It would go that far
34:05and then it would stop.
34:06Now,
34:06with that amount
34:07of silver at stake,
34:08everybody wanted
34:09to find out why.
34:10So,
34:11finally,
34:11somebody wrote to Galileo
34:13and Galileo put his pupil
34:14Torricelli onto it
34:15and Torricelli cracked it.
34:17He reckoned that it
34:18had something to do
34:18with the fact
34:19that the air
34:20above the surface
34:22of the water
34:22down in the mine
34:23wasn't heavy enough
34:25to, so to speak,
34:26help the water up the tube.
34:27And he reckoned
34:28that if you built yourself
34:29a mini model
34:30using heavy mercury
34:31in a small tube
34:32to represent
34:33the real thing,
34:3432 foot tube
34:35tonne of water,
34:36you could study
34:37the thing scientifically.
34:38So,
34:39he wrote all this out
34:40in a letter
34:41which he sent
34:41to his friend Ricci
34:42who lived in Rome.
34:44Diagrams,
34:44details,
34:44a lot.
34:45Now,
34:45Ricci knew
34:47that whatever it was
34:48it involved
34:49the investigation
34:49of the vacuum.
34:51And Rome
34:52was far too close
34:53to the Pope
34:54for that kind of thing.
34:55The church said
34:56there was no such thing
34:56as a vacuum
34:57and if you did,
34:58then you could find yourself
34:59suddenly dead.
35:01So, Ricci,
35:02clever lad,
35:02copies out
35:03the one section
35:04of the letter
35:04that has to do
35:05with the guts of it
35:06and sends it
35:07via a French friend
35:08to somebody
35:08who is in a position
35:09to talk about the vacuum.
35:12The letter was sent
35:13to Father Marin Mersenne
35:16in Paris
35:17and Mersenne
35:18was exactly
35:19the right man
35:19to send it to.
35:29First of all,
35:30because he was in Paris
35:31and a long way
35:31from the Pope
35:32and second of all
35:33because he was
35:33a scientific monk
35:34with the biggest address book
35:36in the 17th century.
35:38With his contacts,
35:39he wanted something fixed,
35:40he fixed it.
35:41He was known
35:42as the postbox of Europe
35:43because everybody
35:44would write to him
35:45with their ideas
35:46and he'd spread the word around.
35:47In this case,
35:49he mentioned the matter
35:50to a friend of his
35:50who was going to be
35:51passing through
35:51the town of Rouen.
35:54Interesting,
35:55the business of communications,
35:56we take it so much
35:56for granted today.
35:58I mean,
35:58this French postal van,
36:00it's so common a site
36:01as to be almost invisible.
36:03And yet,
36:04it's because we can
36:05communicate so easily
36:06that change happens so fast.
36:07Something new,
36:08television tells everybody.
36:10And in Mersenne's time
36:11in the 17th century,
36:12the new postal services
36:14made a real impact
36:15on the spread of ideas
36:16and the changes
36:17that happened
36:17because people
36:18could contact each other.
36:19Like in this case,
36:21for example.
36:29The message finally got
36:31to Rouen in northwest France
36:33to a certain Blaise Pascal
36:34who went out immediately
36:36to the nearest glass factory
36:38and carried out
36:39Torricelli's experiment.
36:40He took a glass tube
36:41filled with mercury
36:42and he put his finger
36:43over the open end
36:44and then he inverted
36:45the tube
36:46and put the open end
36:47into a dish of mercury
36:49and when it was in it,
36:50he took his finger away.
36:54And there,
36:55inside the tube,
36:56was the thing the church
36:57said couldn't exist.
36:58A vacuum.
37:00What's more,
37:01Pascal agreed with Torricelli
37:03that the weight of the air
37:03pressing on that mercury there
37:05must be the same
37:06as the weight of the mercury
37:07in the glass tube
37:08to keep it standing up here
37:09like that.
37:10So,
37:11if air pressure
37:12really existed,
37:13was it the same everywhere?
37:14He looked around
37:15for a mountain
37:16and there are no mountains
37:17in Rouen.
37:18But his brother-in-law
37:19lived here
37:20where I am now
37:21in Clermont-Ferrand
37:22in the centre of France
37:23where there are tons of mountains.
37:25So,
37:25Pascal wrote another letter.
37:27And finally,
37:28in September 1648,
37:30his brother-in-law
37:30did as he'd been asked.
37:31He took this lot
37:324,000 feet up
37:34to the top of a mountain
37:34called Puy-de-Dôme.
37:37After marking the level,
37:38of course,
38:06at the top,
38:08he observed the tube
38:10in fog like this
38:12in rain,
38:13in shine,
38:14indoors and out.
38:15And in each place,
38:16the level stayed
38:17stubbornly the same,
38:19about three inches
38:19below what it had been
38:20at the bottom of the hill.
38:21So the air pressure
38:22up here
38:23on the dish of mercury
38:24was less
38:25because it would only
38:26support that much mercury
38:27instead of that much.
38:30Everybody was delighted
38:31they'd invented
38:31the barometer.
38:34This is one of those
38:35moments in history
38:35when,
38:36because this has happened,
38:37the field's wide open.
38:38You can go in any direction.
38:39Vacuum research,
38:41meteorology,
38:42investigation of gases.
38:44But the route
38:44we're going to take
38:45happened because
38:46a man
38:46was on the night shift.
38:53This is a foggy night
38:54in Gay-Paris,
38:551675,
38:56and this is a foggy
38:57French astronomer,
38:58Jean Picard.
39:04On his way home
39:06from his observatory,
39:06Picard was jauntily
39:07swinging his new barometer
39:09when suddenly...
39:21Picard was stunned.
39:23Zut, hallo,
39:23he thought,
39:24and told everybody,
39:25and kicked off
39:26a century
39:26of international insanity.
39:28In England,
39:29Francis Hawksby
39:30cranked a glass globe
39:31round and round
39:32and got...
39:33this.
39:37The more he rubbed
39:39his glass balls,
39:39the weirder things got.
39:41They became
39:42strangely attractive.
39:43In 1709,
39:44he told everybody,
39:45so they all
39:46started doing it.
39:51Around 1720,
39:52Stephen Gray
39:53was rubbing a glass tube
39:54to make it attractive.
39:55Well, why not?
39:57When he saw
39:57that the attraction
39:58went down a thread
39:59attached to the tube.
40:04In 1745,
40:06somebody found a way
40:06to store up
40:07the mysterious force
40:08in a jar full of
40:09water.
40:10Electricity
40:11was now portable.
40:14There was no holding
40:15the intrepid investigators.
40:16The big question now was,
40:18what exciting things
40:19could you do
40:20with sparks?
40:25German ladies
40:26of evident charms
40:27were placed
40:28in special chairs
40:29connected to
40:30a Hawksby machine.
40:32and when a good stiff charge
40:34had been cranked up,
40:38young men were invited
40:39to try their luck.
40:53a fat German investigator
40:55called Hausen
40:56used the same machine
40:57to do similarly
40:58electrical things
40:59to small suspended boys.
41:14A flamboyant French friar
41:15called Nollet,
41:16who gave private courses
41:18in electricity
41:18to beautiful women
41:19and couldn't get out
41:20of the habit,
41:21decided to run a charge
41:22through multiple monks
41:23to see if the effect
41:24would produce
41:25an uplifting experience.
41:27It did.
41:41Well, it seemed obvious
41:42that electricity
41:43was good for you,
41:44and in 1780,
41:45the famous
41:45Temple of Electrical Health
41:47opened in London.
41:48Star of the show,
41:50the Magnetico-Electrico-Celestial Bed,
41:53where,
41:53accompanied by an orchestra,
41:55electrified couples
41:56who couldn't have children
41:57could,
41:58thanks to the inevitable
41:59cranking of the Hawksby generator.
42:01You wanted ringside seats?
42:02You bought tickets.
42:13In spite of all the ballyhoo,
42:15the bed failed,
42:16and its owner went off
42:17and sold mudbaths.
42:18Still,
42:19others persevered.
42:25Around 1783,
42:26an Italian called Luigi Galvani
42:28was poking around
42:29with a metal scalpel one day.
42:31It's all right,
42:31it's only frog's legs.
42:32I guess he was fond of it.
42:33Frog's.
42:34When suddenly,
42:35the leg lying on a metal plate,
42:37jerked.
42:40Galvanised by this discovery,
42:42Galvani announced
42:42animals made electricity.
42:44In 1800,
42:45another Italian,
42:46with the electrical name of Volta,
42:48got it right.
42:50That's your den.
42:51Volta saw that the electricity
42:52came from reaction
42:53between Galvani's scalpel
42:54and the metal in the plate
42:55under the frog.
42:56So he built a pile
42:57of differing metal plates
42:59and got electricity.
43:00Called it his pile.
43:03Well,
43:04now our loonies had Volta's pile
43:06to give them constant electricity,
43:07there was no stopping them.
43:09Various attempts were made
43:11to send current down wires
43:12which would cause
43:13pith balls to swing.
43:15Each wire and ball
43:17represented a letter
43:18and the message
43:19could be read off
43:19the other end.
43:20They actually got it
43:21going between Madrid
43:22and a town
43:2326 miles away.
43:25Then came
43:26a really zany one.
43:28If you put
43:29an electrified wire
43:30into water,
43:31it makes bubbles.
43:32So yes,
43:33you've guessed it.
43:34A German doctor
43:34used the bubbles
43:35to send messages.
43:37Things ended
43:37in typical chaos
43:38when somebody tried
43:39electricity
43:40with gunpowder.
43:50By the beginning
43:52of the 19th century,
43:53things became
43:54very much more purposeful
43:55than that.
43:56And although
43:57an awful lot of
43:58innovation and change
44:00comes about
44:01by accident,
44:02by mistake,
44:04cheating,
44:05fooling around,
44:06it sometimes happens
44:07because people
44:09find something out
44:09that sets them thinking.
44:12And that's what
44:12happened in this case.
44:17In 1820,
44:19a rather dull Dane
44:20called Ørsted
44:21was teaching his students
44:23that an electric current
44:24going down a wire
44:25shouldn't have any effect
44:26whatsoever
44:27on a compass needle.
44:28When, to his utter chagrin,
44:30it did.
44:32Well, no fool he.
44:33Ørsted immediately
44:34made it known
44:35that if an electric current
44:37going down a wire
44:37caused a compass needle
44:38to swing,
44:39it had to be generating
44:41a magnetic field
44:42and moving a needle.
44:44Poor old Ørsted.
44:45I mean,
44:46who's ever heard of him?
44:47Michelangelo, yes.
44:49Ørsted?
44:51And yet,
44:52the fact that
44:53an electric current
44:54generates a magnetic field
44:55is fundamental
44:56to the way
44:57the world is run today.
44:58I mean,
44:59take just one thing
45:00that happened
45:00because of Ørsted.
45:01Ørsted.
45:02If you wind a live wire
45:04round and round
45:05a bit of iron,
45:06the magnetic field
45:07generated by the current
45:08causes the iron
45:10to become a magnet,
45:11an electromagnet.
45:12Now, somebody did that
45:13in England in 1825.
45:15In 1857,
45:16a German took
45:17a tuning fork
45:18and put it next
45:19to an electromagnet,
45:20turned it on and off,
45:21turned the magnetic field
45:22on and off,
45:23and caused
45:23the tuning fork
45:24to vibrate.
45:25And then,
45:26in 1870,
45:28a Frenchman
45:29living in America
45:30took a diaphragm,
45:31put a bristle
45:32on the end of it,
45:32and then yelled
45:33into the diaphragm
45:34to make it vibrate.
45:35And the bristle
45:36jiggled up and down
45:37and made a pattern
45:38on smoked glass.
45:40And the pattern
45:41was always the same
45:42for the same word.
45:44Now,
45:45I say all this
45:46because the brilliant
45:47invention that came out of it,
45:49and it was
45:49a brilliant invention,
45:51was really no more
45:52than putting all those
45:53bits and pieces together.
45:55Like this.
45:56You yell
45:57into that cone.
45:58That causes
45:59a metal diaphragm
46:01here to vibrate.
46:02Now,
46:02that metal diaphragm
46:04is within
46:04this magnetic field,
46:06and as it vibrates,
46:07it kind of drains it,
46:08causing the current
46:09in the live wire
46:10to fluctuate.
46:12This fluctuating current
46:13fluctuates along a wire
46:15until it reaches
46:16an identical setup,
46:17where because
46:18it's a fluctuating current,
46:19it makes a fluctuating
46:21magnetic field.
46:22And that causes
46:23another metal diaphragm
46:25to vibrate
46:25in exactly the same pattern
46:27as the first one.
46:28And when it does that,
46:30it makes a noise
46:31in that cone.
46:33So,
46:34what you yell in here
46:36comes out there.
46:39Now,
46:39that basic idea
46:40occurred to two men
46:41at the same time.
46:43Only one of them,
46:44a Scotsman
46:45living in Boston
46:46in 1875,
46:47teaching deaf mutes,
46:49got to the patent office
46:50two hours ahead
46:51of the other fella.
46:52And that
46:53two-hour difference
46:54is why we say
46:56that the telephone
46:57was invented
46:57by Alexander Graham Bell.
46:59The telephone
47:00was only one result
47:01of Earth's accident
47:03with that compass needle.
47:05Another
47:05is our ability
47:06to scan the universe
47:07with this giant antenna,
47:09suspended above
47:10a reflector
47:10that covers
47:11an entire valley
47:12500 feet below.
47:38Another
47:39is the way
47:40this programme
47:40has been broadcast,
47:42on Radio Waves.
47:43or the way
47:44we defend ourselves
47:45against attack
47:46from incoming missiles
47:47with radar.
47:48Because both
47:49radio
47:50and radar
47:51work by sending out
47:53and receiving
47:54electromagnetic signals.
47:56And it was
47:56Oersted
47:57who found
47:57that connection
47:58between electricity
47:59and magnetism.
48:04It's ironic
48:06that this programme
48:07should have begun
48:07with war,
48:09with the bomb
48:10in the suitcase
48:10and the stirrup,
48:11remember?
48:12And end
48:13with the means
48:14of preventing war
48:15through the use
48:16of telecommunications,
48:17perhaps to bring
48:19the peoples of the world
48:20closer together
48:21into one community.
48:25And finally,
48:26perhaps,
48:27to discover
48:27that we are part
48:28of an infinitely
48:28larger community
48:29on the day
48:31when a transmitter
48:32receiver like this one
48:33in Arecibo,
48:35in Puerto Rico,
48:35makes contact
48:36contact with the
48:38galactic civilisations
48:39that are almost
48:40certainly out there
48:41in space.
48:53Meanwhile,
48:54as we wait for
48:55the great encounter
48:56at a more
48:57down-to-earth level,
48:58what will the capacity
49:00that telecommunications
49:01provides
49:02of organising people
49:04do
49:05to us?
49:06the but
49:13the
49:18of
49:19is
49:20in the
49:20who is
49:28there?
49:32The
49:32who is
49:32The
49:34who is
49:36And what will
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