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00:07To be continued...
00:37Welcome to the annual 24-hour race at the Le Mans circuit in France.
00:45This programme is about how one of the strange ways history connects things
00:49is going to affect the way this race will end 24 hours from now.
01:00Because every year at Le Mans, the winner gets his picture taken as he crosses the line.
01:12And because of the weird way history has of turning things on their heads,
01:16that's why he's going to win.
01:20The winner is photograph winning because he's photographed winning.
01:24So in more senses than one, when this is all over, it's going to be a photo finish.
01:39A hundred years ago, the race to put photography into everybody's hands got off to a rough start.
01:45The buckets of chemicals you needed to develop your holiday snaps.
01:49That tour when you tried to get them off the developer.
01:52Then came a breakthrough.
01:54A guy called George Eastman put film emulsion on some flexible stuff that had just been invented in 1895.
02:01Eastman then packaged this flexible stuff into rolls that you could easily load into his new pocket camera
02:08that would revolutionise the business of holiday snaps.
02:11Called the Kodak.
02:14And by the strangest coincidence, the clue to where that new flexible stuff came from
02:19is in one of the first pictures shot with it.
02:22During a different kind of shoot.
02:27Now, all those Eastman photos of all those great white hunters up the jungle
02:32were only possible because of what the great white hunters were doing up the jungle.
02:37Causing the great disappearing elephant scare of 1867.
02:41The reason?
02:42The market for ivory.
02:44It had tripled in the previous 30 years.
02:47England alone took one million pounds of ivory a year.
02:50Work it out.
02:51Sixty pounds a tusk.
02:52Two tusks an animal.
02:54That's 8,333 and a bit dead elephants a year for England for fun.
03:01This kind of fun.
03:03Now, a good billiard ball was hard to find.
03:06You had to knock off quite a few elephants to get the right stuff.
03:08Because a really good ball came from the centre line of a perfect elephant tusk.
03:14So, the news out of Africa was not good for playboys of the Western world.
03:18Never mind the elephants.
03:22Then, in 1869, a couple of printers from Albany, New York, called Hyatt, came up with a substitute.
03:29It was cheap, it was indistinguishable from the original, and it eventually got used for this.
03:36Because the ivory substitute was celluloid.
03:39One other celluloid product will give you a clue as to where it came from.
03:43The Hyatts also manufactured celluloid false teeth, which on occasion, as per the New York Times of 1875, tended to
03:52explode.
04:02What was causing all the bangs, and which, when heated, squeezed, and mixed with camphor, turned into celluloid, was gun
04:09cotton.
04:10Specially treated cotton that made really good explosions.
04:14In the late 19th century, the new way to get more bang for your buck.
04:18So, from then on, a lot more shooting went on.
04:23Now, it was a well-known mystery at the time, that for those few a bullet just missed, you heard
04:28two bangs.
04:29One, the gun firing.
04:31The other, well, nobody knew.
04:36So, a Viennese gent called Ernst Mach decided to find out.
04:40He used the way turbulent air affects any light shining through it, to photograph a bullet in a high-speed
04:46airstream.
04:47And he saw what looked like a bow wave coming off the bullet's nose.
04:52Mach worked out that this shock wave propagated outwards faster than the speed of sound.
04:58So, the first bang you heard was the sound of the shock wave.
05:02The second was the sound of the gun.
05:08Two big deal things came out of Mark's amazing pictures.
05:12The first was the modern science of aerodynamics, without which these cars wouldn't look the way they do, move the
05:18way they do, maybe even stay on the track the way they do.
05:22The second was noisier even than this place, because once Mark had a photograph of shock waves, he could look
05:28at how explosives happen, how the shock wave propagates, how the force is shaped.
05:33Which meant, of course, that you could now, for the first time, plan an efficient explosion.
05:40Mark's shock wave mathematics helped make the atom bomb work.
05:45Now, the reason Mark had photographed shock waves was so he could see them.
05:50Physical evidence was the only reality you could trust, he said.
05:53And even then, the way you described experience would still be relative to the context you were in at the
06:00time.
06:04So, a 24-hour race would really only be a reference to what time meant on this planet, spinning on
06:10this axis, doing this sunset.
06:12Elsewhere, who knows?
06:14So, even time and space would be constrained by your perception of it.
06:18You'll see what Mark was getting at if you take that kind of look at what's happening here.
06:23Oh, and I'm presuming you're not a racing driver.
06:30What I want to try and show you is how this looks relative to different experience.
06:36A pit stop and a wheel change is, for a professional driver, the slowest thing that happens at Le Mans.
06:42But if you were doing this, the whole thing would be just a blur of activity.
06:47It was, for me, filming this in the pits for the first time.
06:54What seems to be happening is that you and I are processing the data coming in from this experience the
07:00only way we can, based on our normal modes of operation, which affect how we perceive the business of travelling
07:07on a racetrack at up to 150 miles an hour.
07:09However, we get overload. Everything's coming too fast at you to process.
07:14And on top of it all, you're doing it in the dark.
07:17So, basically, you perceive everything happening faster than it really is.
07:24But for the professional racing driver, the effect is exactly the opposite.
07:30Distance measurement becomes extremely precise.
07:33Car in front.
07:35Car in front.
07:36Turn left.
07:40Turn left again.
07:42Now turn right.
07:43Time appears to slow down.
07:46He sees things we wouldn't.
07:48This is the world as perceived by the professional driver relative to his experience in races.
07:58Well, it's 3.30 in the morning here, and they've been at it for nearly 12 hours.
08:02Meanwhile, I presume all this talk about relativity means you know who was about to pick up on Mark's idea.
08:07But there was no such thing as absolute space and time that would be the same for everybody everywhere in
08:12the universe.
08:12He was a chap who would have said that as these car drivers went faster and faster, time for them
08:18really did slow down.
08:22Einstein, thanks to whom, thanks to whom, you can hear all this stuff.
08:26Because in 1900, he heard about sunlight falling on a new metal called selenium and making it give off electrons,
08:34that is, electricity, as if the sunlight were knocking the electrons out of the selenium, which is basically how modern
08:40solar energy systems work.
08:42But back in 1900, light wasn't supposed to be able to do that, because light was a wave, everybody thought.
08:49Till Einstein.
08:51Light, he said, blowing physics apart, was a wave and a particle.
08:57Einstein used to explain to people who didn't understand relativity and such, most of us, that light could be both
09:04waves and particles, the same way that beer could be both beer and pints.
09:10Now, whether or not that observation leads you to a closer understanding of the dual nature of light, I won't
09:16presume to ask, but it was good enough for Einstein.
09:19There was, however, at the time, one bunch of people who got very worked up at this discovery, that light
09:25could behave like particles.
09:27But they weren't exactly physicists.
09:31They were the kind of people who'd been turning up to the party at Le Mans, or the PGA, or
09:36the Oscars, or whatever, since the 1920s.
09:41Celebrities.
09:42Hollywood people.
09:43But it wasn't the dual nature of light that turned them on, but because the way selenium made electricity from
09:49light meant only one thing.
09:52Well, what are we waiting for?
09:53Waiting for sound.
09:54Come along, sound. We're waiting for you.
09:56Come on, sound.
09:57Yes, sound on film.
09:59Because if selenium were exposed to a varying light, produced by a varying current, produced by a microphone membrane vibrating
10:07from a sound going up and down,
10:09then the varying light could expose film negative varyingly, like this, making a sound track on the film.
10:16When you projected the movie, light shining on the soundtrack, down the side, came through the pattern in varying amounts.
10:23That varying light hit more selenium, that generated varying current, that ended up vibrating the membrane on a loudspeaker to
10:31reproduce the original sound.
10:33Hooray for Hollywood?
10:34Wrong.
10:35Listen.
10:37There still wasn't enough sound for a cinema audience to hear, until an accident happened that gave a chap called
10:44Lee de Forest an idea.
10:48Here's a vacuum tube, with a filament down this end, and a positive base plate at the other.
10:54Electricity will make the filament give off negative electrons that will be attracted to the positive base plate.
10:59OK?
11:00Now, remember that weak signal too small to hear on the film?
11:04You want to boost it.
11:06So, you put a negatively charged grid in.
11:09This will repel the negative filament electrons.
11:13But through that top wire, a varyingly positive input coming onto the grid will make the grid varyingly positive,
11:19attracting the electrons from the filament in surges through to the base plate.
11:24Those surges are a boosted reproduction of your input signal.
11:29But you ought to sit early on Sunday...
11:33Thanks to that accident I mentioned, and Lee de Forest, you could hear all the Hollywood stars on the movies.
11:39Or your grandmother long distance, now phone signals could be amplified too.
11:44Or big band swing on the radio for the same reason, because radio signals got amplified too.
11:55Which was also the same reason you can hear what I'm saying now, too, of course.
12:04Lee de Forest's Audion signal booster made possible contact between people, no matter how far apart they were.
12:11At first, with wireless and cable.
12:13And then, finally, all this.
12:16The incredible shrinking world of TV and satellite communications.
12:20Instant Le Mans all over the planet.
12:22Thanks to Lee de Forest, it's a very talkative world.
12:26You remember I said that de Forest's invention happened because of an accident.
12:29The strange thing is, the accident didn't happen to de Forest.
12:34It had happened to Thomas Edison.
12:37Back in 1883, he was playing around with the invention he'd just come up with, his light bulb,
12:42when he saw smutty carbon deposits all around the bottom of the bulb,
12:46where he'd sealed it with a small metal base plate.
12:49With typical modesty, Edison called this strange phenomenon the Edison Effect,
12:54and added it to his growing list of patents, and forgot it.
13:01By this time, of course, Edison was already world famous for all the inventions he'd thought up
13:07while he was working on the railroads.
13:09Railroads that he'd helped to make so successful,
13:13they were about to trigger the first American eco-crisis.
13:21And you don't have to look very hard at this picture
13:24to see what kind of crisis I'm talking about.
13:35You see, back in the 19th century, America was made of wood.
13:39And with the whole of the country still to open up,
13:41it was a case of plenty more where that came from.
13:45But, although it takes a good few years to grow a tree,
13:49it doesn't take very long to do this to it.
14:01Unlike the people in the lumber business today,
14:04back then, nobody had ever heard of sustainability.
14:07Why should they have?
14:09Well, thanks to the railroads, they were about to.
14:14The problem was really very simple.
14:16The wooden bits holding the rails together.
14:19No big deal, I suppose, if you just say it like that.
14:21But think about what was happening to railroads by Edison's time in 1890.
14:27They were expanding like crazy.
14:29Ten new miles of track a day.
14:32Now, ten miles of track takes 20,000 wooden tires.
14:36That's 500 trees.
14:38A day.
14:43And that's not counting the wood for wagons and workers' accommodation.
14:47The wooden towns that mushroomed alongside the railroads.
14:50The wooden fuel the locomotives used.
14:53And the bridges, one of which could take a million feet of timber.
14:56And then there were the telegraph poles.
14:58They made a fortune for the fellow who got the contracts from Western Union
15:01to put them up alongside every railroad track in America.
15:05I give up on how many trees that took.
15:07But it made him a lot of money.
15:09Enough to found a university and end up naming it after himself.
15:15Cornell.
15:20So, the railroads used up a lot of wood.
15:22But back then, America had plenty.
15:24So, who cared?
15:26True.
15:28But since the average bit of lumber left out in the open lasts about seven years
15:32and then needs to be replaced,
15:34well, you get the point.
15:36Maybe there were going to be railroads all over America,
15:38but maybe there weren't going to be any trees.
15:41And then, at a stroke, America was saved.
15:51By gaslight.
15:52Burning the gas you got by cooking coal.
15:55By the 1830s, gaslight was all the rage.
16:18Gaslight changed everybody's life.
16:20People started going out in the evenings for the first time.
16:23To the new night shift work at the factories,
16:26evening classes, gentlemen's clubs.
16:28Above all, to the excitement and bright lights
16:31of the new rave musical shows like this one.
16:35There are many sad and weary in this pleasant world of ours
16:43Crying every night so dreary
16:48Hold you by, my pretty applause
16:53Now, the trouble with gaslight was the by-product, coal tar.
16:58A black, foul-smelling muck
17:00and an eco-crisis waiting to happen
17:02because all they did was chuck it in the nearest river
17:04and get back to morally uplifting songs.
17:09Then, German chemists with a recycling turn of mine
17:12started distilling the black muck
17:14and got all sorts of amazing things
17:15Brilliant artificial dyes
17:17Chemicals to make aspirin
17:19And something that would preserve wooden railroad ties for 30 years
17:23and save America from that eco-crisis
17:27Creosote
17:27There are many sad and weary
17:32In this pleasant world of ours
17:37Crying every night so dreary
17:41Hold you by, my pretty applause
17:55Meanwhile, you'll be riveted to know
17:58that the coal tar story continues
18:00I'll just wait till I'm on the ground
18:05It's an extraordinary turn of fate
18:07that even while German interest in coal tar
18:10was saving the railroads with creosote
18:12that same interest would soon ruin the railroads
18:15thanks to war
18:16and the weather
18:22First, the weather
18:24It rains a lot in Britain
18:26So, in the early part of the 19th century
18:28when a Scotsman called Macintosh
18:30discovered that another by-product of coal tar
18:33called naphtha
18:34would turn rubber into a solution
18:36he knew he was going to be rich
18:38because when he spread the rubber
18:40between two sheets of cotton
18:42he produced the waterproof raincoat
18:44that we still call Macintosh today
18:46So in 1854, the Crimean War
18:49and all those wet troops
18:51made Macintosh a million
18:52in spite of the fact
18:54that in summer heat
18:55his coats stank
18:57and in winter ice
18:59they cracked
19:03and the reason for this Goodyear blimp
19:05is because that's who solved Macintosh's problem
19:07because by that time
19:09Charles Goodyear's amazing new vulcanised rubber
19:12was available
19:13thanks to another accident Goodyear had
19:16when he dropped some rubber mixed with sulphur
19:18onto a hot stove
19:19and out came a new rubber
19:20that was perfect for Macintosh
19:22and for ground sheets for troops in the Civil War
19:25which turned rubber manufacture
19:26into really big business
19:28and speaking of civil wars
19:30in 1863
19:32a German military type
19:34was sent to America
19:35to observe the use of balloons
19:36by the Northern Army
19:37and he got so excited
19:39he went home
19:39and invented the kind of balloon
19:41that would bring airborne warfare
19:42to civilian populations
19:44for the first time
19:45he named the airship
19:47after himself
19:48the Zeppelin
19:48its propellers
19:50driven by the new gasoline engines
19:52that would also fit
19:53into another invention
19:54that would one day
19:55eventually ruin the railroads
19:57and make possible
19:58the 24-hour race
19:59at Le Mans
20:02the automobile
20:04one last twist
20:06you remember coal tar
20:07where one of its by-products
20:09was a synthetic dye
20:10called aniline
20:11turned out
20:12if you added aniline to rubber
20:13it speeded up
20:14the vulcanizing process
20:15for tires
20:16and made the tire
20:17immensely more hard-wearing
20:26hard-wearing enough
20:27to handle the 24 hours
20:29of punishment
20:29it has to take
20:30on the car
20:31that crosses
20:32the finishing line
20:33first
20:51well there you have it
20:52the end of another Le Mans
20:53and the end of another program
20:55and as I promised
20:56thanks to the strange
20:57historical pathway
20:58that linked tires
21:00back through gaslight
21:01railroads
21:02relativity
21:03and bullets
21:04to celluloid
21:05here at Le Mans
21:06where I took all these
21:07happy snaps
21:09the winner is photographed winning
21:10because he's photographed winning
21:14that's what I thought I said
21:15there is a few
21:15it has to do
21:15that's what I thought I told you
21:19didn't want to know
21:22I don't know
21:22I don't know
21:24how can I do
21:29I'll know
21:31you
21:31I'll know
21:31I'll know
21:31you
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