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00:02You
00:19Know what this is
00:21Invisible technology well, it is isn't it? I mean something you hardly think about and yet what extraordinary connections this
00:28humdrum stuff has
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06:51I'll do just one more bit of art gallery stuff and then we're off to exotic foreign locations on this
06:56trail that started with cling wrap
06:5850 years before Chevrolet gobelin tapestry design suddenly went very subtle because they started working with a new kind of
07:05interlocking stitch so you could weave very subtle designs so the then boss hired a couple of painters to design
07:13this kind of pattern
07:18Subtle
07:19Subtle needlework right
07:20But you've probably already guessed you're not looking at a European design
07:28And these Chinese figures are a clue to why the world famous gobelin factory didn't begin life as a tapestry
07:34factory at all
07:35The reason was
07:36The reason was that back in the early 17th century the west had rediscovered the mysterious east
07:41And in spite of the fact that getting out here involved months at sea in leaky boats with rotten food
07:47and scurvy people were lining up for the privilege
07:51Because the marketplaces of China and Japan were full of the kind of stuff that would make any European antiques
07:57dealer seriously rich seriously quick
08:05That's because in the early part of the 18th century the hot stuff for doing up your house was anything
08:12from the Far East
08:13Rugs silks porcelain and the one thing the market turned up that was to turn out to be a real
08:19craze
08:19And the reason the gobelin factory was set up in the first place not to make tapestries at all
08:25To make fake lacquer furniture
08:29The real lacquer work stuff was turning up in Europe from out here by 1610
08:33But it was such a smash hit prices went through the roof
08:36So the French cornered the market with cheap imitations
08:41Of course
08:43It wasn't just furniture that cost a lot
08:45A dealer could make 150% on pretty much anything he wanted to bring back from the Far East
08:50And there was one particular bunch of Europeans who could never resist the opportunity to make that kind of profit
08:56The Dutch
08:57By the 17th century Europe's number one mail order company
09:01We will get you anything they said from anywhere
09:04For the right price
09:06Which is why they were among the first to rendezvous out here in South East Asia
09:10With the trading junks bringing cargoes of lacquered furniture and all kinds of other profitable goodies out of China
09:27Unfortunately, right from the start, the Dutch had a small problem with actually getting to the rendezvous
09:34Take a look at this map
09:36We are here
09:37Now at the time there's only two ways to get here from Holland
09:41This way south and across the Pacific
09:43And this way south around Africa
09:47This route is sewn up by the Portuguese
09:48And this route by the Spanish
09:51You try either way
09:52And you got blown out of the water
09:55Which wasn't going to stop the Dutch
09:56All the explorers and investors from the six main Dutch ports got together
10:01Set up a joint venture called the Dutch East India Company
10:04And started looking at ways around this minor problem
10:07Of how to get all that profit out east
10:09And once they'd started really thinking about the problem
10:12The solution appeared to be idiotically simple
10:15If you couldn't go south, go north
10:19You're smiling because you know what they didn't
10:21Because it wasn't on their maps
10:23Because they didn't know it existed
10:37This
10:37The polar ice pack
10:39Still, ignorance is bliss
10:40So on April the 23rd, 1607
10:44It was off out here to meet these junks
10:46For an English captain called Henry Hudson
10:48That the Dutch had hired
10:50And, as it was to turn out
10:52Sent in the wrong direction
10:57Now in the modern world
10:59We're so used to going straight where we want to go
11:01That you might be amused at the way Hudson went about it
11:05Here's his mission
11:06To find a north-west passage through here
11:09To get to the far east
11:10So, over four months, thanks to the pack ice
11:13Here's what Henry did
11:14London
11:16London
11:16Checkland
11:18Iceland
11:19Greenland
11:21Spitsbergen
11:24Spitsbergen
11:26Spitsbergen
11:27Spitsbergen
11:29Greenland
11:30Greenland
11:31Give up and go home
11:33Failure?
11:35Not a bit of it
11:36Because all that bumping into Spitsbergen
11:38Meant he charted the place pretty well
11:40So when he got back
11:41He was at least able to tell his Dutch bosses
11:43Where to land their whales
11:44Because up north, apart from ice
11:47All he'd seen was whales
11:49At that time
11:50The most financially rewarding thing float
11:53This side of a Spanish treasure ship
11:57A whale is basically bone, blubber and oil
12:01They used whale bone anywhere we'd use plastic today
12:04Blubber went into candles and soap
12:06And the oil lit lamps
12:08So you could get very rich
12:10By just doing this
12:20Arctic whaling lasted 300 years
12:22And it's a perfect example of the strange way history works
12:26Because Henry Hudson wouldn't have even had a bad map
12:29If it hadn't been for a fellow here in Belgium
12:31Who sold French underwear, fancy leather, wine, mirrors and holy books
12:39This was his printing shop in Antwerp
12:42And he was the hottest publisher in the 16th century
12:47And his name was Christopher Planting
12:53Why he was such a big shot
12:55Is because he took himself into the biggest print job ever
13:03Over a thousand copies of what his sales pitch referred to as
13:07An amazing new scientific version of the Bible
13:10Eight volumes in all five biblical languages
13:13And of course copiously illustrated
13:16And costing a fortune
13:18Planting's client was so impressed by the scientific angle
13:21He promptly ordered a lot of other sacred books as well
13:2540,000 copies
13:27What a client he was
13:34Philip II of Spain
13:35The kind of client every publisher dreams of
13:40And how all this got Henry Hudson to Spitzbergen
13:44Has to do with the scientific spin Planting put on his proposition
13:48This was going to be a Bible, he said, with a database attached
13:52Something in the Bible you wanted to know more about
13:54Here it was in an appendix
13:57Plantin pulled in experts to write these appendices
14:01Linguists, zoologists, historians, draftsmen, bankers
14:04And of course, cartographers to do the all-important maps of the Holy Land
14:10And when they'd done their stuff for Plantin
14:12They went out and set up for themselves
14:15Caused a kind of knowledge fallout
14:18That in a way helped to kick off what we in the modern world call science
14:22One of these fallout people was a Calvinist minister called Planches
14:26Who was a pupil of the great map maker Mercator
14:29Who was also published here
14:30So Planches was very keen on things nautical
14:34And it was Planches who persuaded the Dutch East India Company
14:38To hire Henry Hudson
14:39And it was Planches who thought up the northerly route to China
14:43That got Henry Hudson nowhere but Spitzbergen
14:50And that's how the printing press ended up doing for the poor old whales
14:54That's history for you
14:56And remember, we got here from cling wrap
14:59But why here?
15:01Why did Philip II need so many holy books?
15:10Because the Catholic Church was in trouble
15:13In mid-16th century, Luther was persuading Catholics to go Protestant in droves
15:20In 1565, after a top-level meeting, Rome decided
15:24One, get the crowds back with music and decor like this
15:27Two, get people like Plantin to publish standardised holy texts
15:33Three, start a Jesuit crackdown
15:35Four, discourage free thinking with a list of prohibited books
15:44One of the first books on that list was written by a Pole called Copernicus
15:49Who reckoned that the Earth wasn't the centre of the universe
15:53Which Rome said it was
15:56Now nobody much took what Copernicus had said seriously
16:01Until 1610
16:02When here, just outside Florence, an Italian math professor called Garileo
16:07Living in the nearby village of Arcetri
16:10Published descriptions of what he'd seen the previous year
16:13When he'd looked up at the sky through an amazing new Dutch gizmo
16:31It was called a telescope
16:33Now, being a helpful chap, Garileo drew pictures of what he'd seen through it
16:38Shocking pictures
16:40I mean, that little circle is Jupiter
16:43And those little X's on either side of it
16:46Are Jupiter's moons
16:48Now, if the church was right
16:50And the Earth really was the centre of everything
16:53Then what business had those little moons going round anything else?
16:57Well, that put Galileo's work on the Pope's hit list right off
17:00Because he was seeing things in the sky
17:02He weren't supposed to see
17:05Like mountains on the moon
17:07That the church said
17:08Was supposed to be a perfect, featureless, heavenly body
17:13Meanwhile, back at Earth
17:15What got most ordinary people all excited
17:18Wasn't that theological stuff
17:20It was the fact that telescopes had now improved enough
17:22For you to get really good fixes on stars
17:25Great news for ship's captains
17:28Take a star you want to fix on
17:30Okay, using a good telescope
17:32You find the angle of the star is at up in the sky
17:35Then you look that angle up in your book of star tables
17:38And they tell you
17:39Where on Earth you have to be
17:41To see the star at that angle
17:42At that time
17:45Trouble was, the star tables were based on the Earth being a perfect sphere
17:50But if it wasn't
17:52You could be miles away from where you thought you were
17:57If the Earth were a perfect sphere
17:59A one degree difference in a star fix would be seen from points on Earth
18:03Let me exaggerate to make the point
18:05This far apart
18:07And wherever you went on Earth
18:09That distance would be the same
18:12Well in 1763
18:13A bunch of French scientists took some extremely precise star fix measurements
18:18Up in Lapland to check this out
18:21And they discovered that the Earth was a flattened sphere
18:24Because up North, thanks to the accuracy with which they did their star fixes
18:30At precisely the same time each night
18:32They found the one degree difference here
18:35Was a mile longer than down at the equator
18:40They managed to do all that precision work
18:42Because they had one of the latest measuring instruments with them
18:45Which took metalworking to new heights
18:54This is the miracle machine, George Graham's clock
18:58Most accurate ever built till then
19:00Because of the way Graham had shaped the pallet arms
19:03That's one moving in and out of the drive wheel teeth, see?
19:07Its special shape means it releases the wheel at a very precise moment
19:12So, since the two pallet arms are rigidly fixed to the pendulum behind
19:17The drive wheel is caught and released by one arm or the other
19:20With every swing of the pendulum
19:28Well, that was fine
19:30As long as the drive wheels worked okay
19:33Which they don't always
19:34Especially when they are here
19:36At the top of a tower
19:42Where the clocks can get covered in bat droppings, old grease, ice, snow
19:47That kind of gunk
19:48Which everybody knew was going to be a problem with this particular clock
19:54A lawyer called Grimshaw saved the day
19:57Here's one of the pallet arms
19:59Now, instead of being fixed to the pendulum like the Graham clock
20:03It only touches it via those two horizontal rods bottom left
20:08So that lets the pallet arm fall back
20:11To capture the drive wheel under its own weight
20:13So there's no fixed connection to mess things up
20:17So, it's fail safe
20:19Which is why what you're going to hear next
20:22Is accurate to within one fifth of a second
20:51So, I expect you know the clock I was talking about
20:54This one
20:54So, I expect you know the clock I was talking about
20:55Big Ben on the Houses of Parliament
20:57Thanks to plastic film
20:58Well, I suppose it's high time
21:01I wrap this one up
21:03Bye!
21:26Bye!
21:27Bye!
21:55Bye!
21:55Bye!
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