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Alchemy, the dream of
turning base metals into gold,

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used to be an offence punishable
with a long prison sentence.

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But here at one of the most advanced

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nuclear research facilities in
the world

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they're attempting a new type
of alchemy.

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They're trying to command
the extreme forces of nature

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and make one element change
into another brand new element.

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This is the latest chapter in the
extraordinary story of

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scientists' battle to control the
building blocks

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that make up our universe.

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The elements.

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I'm Jim Al-Khalili.

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As a nuclear physicist my life's
work wouldn't have been possible

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without the pioneering chemists

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who first explored the mysteries
of matter.

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It's beautiful.

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I've seen how they laboured
to discover hidden elements and

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crack the secret code of the natural
world to create the periodic table.

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Now the story turns to the
scientists who unlocked

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the potential of the 92 elements
which made up our planet.

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I'll discover
how they endeavoured to combine them

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and create our modern world.

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Their mission to control nature is a
tale of struggle and serendipity,

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of accident meeting design.

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And of the power of
the elements harnessed

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to release unimaginable forces.

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Everything around me has been
created as the result

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of chemical reactions unlocking the
power of the elements

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and turning them into compounds.

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The element iron fortified
with chromium, carbon and nickel

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makes the stainless steel
cladding around this building.

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Its glass is a union
of silicon and oxygen.

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Just 92 elements created our planet.

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Our quest to combine them
spans centuries.

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People had been mixing, muddling

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and making compounds
from prehistoric times.

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Inspired by the alchemists,
early experimenters added

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all sorts of chemicals together
just to see what happened.

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But it was more cooking than
a real science,

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what you might call
"bucket chemistry".

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Unsurprisingly some of
the earliest breakthroughs

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were made entirely by chance.

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One discovery by a German chemist,

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Heinrich Diesbach, was a
milestone in the paint industry.

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Science historian
Professor Allan Chapman

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is going to show me how Diesbach
stumbled across the ingredients

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of the first synthetic paint.

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Hello, Allan. Good to see you.

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Wonderful engine isn't she?
Fantastic.

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The development of the paint that
goes onto these engines

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which we call
Brunswick Green was itself a mixture

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of two artificially developed
paint compounds in the 18th

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and early 19th century.

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The first of these was Prussian Blue,

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developed in the 18th century,
a deep beautiful, rich blue.

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And mix that with another chemical
substance, chrome yellow,

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then you
produce these wonderful colours

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which Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his
successors painted on these gorgeous

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Great Western railway engines.

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Before the discovery of
Prussian Blue, most pigments

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were derived from nature.

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The best blue pigments came from
rare lapus lazuli.

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Allan Chapman is going to try
to recreate Diesbach's discovery.

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He's starting with one
unusual ingredient

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that ended up
in the recipe by accident.

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First of all, take your blood.

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Take your blood.

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And pour it into the crucible.

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And then we take the potash, and the
potash is the alkaline material

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which we now call
potassium carbonate.

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Diesbach was trying to make
red paint, not blue,

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but he had no idea his potash
had been contaminated.

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And we think of course that it was
the blood that formed the contaminant

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that changed the reaction
of the colour

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and produced a blue
rather than a red.

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Heating blood alters its proteins,
enabling them to combine with

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the iron in blood cells and the
potassium carbonate, or potash.

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What's happening in the reaction now
is that the carbonate is reacting

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with the haemoglobin

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and other structures in the blood
to produce this extraordinary, thick,

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what might best be
simply called a gunge.

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After heating the gunge to an ash
and then filtering and diluting it,

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Diesbach added green vitriol,

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what we now call iron sulphate,
unaware he was about to create

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a complex iron compound, Ferric
ferrocyanide, or Prussian Blue.

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Now, watch this carefully,

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it will effervesce and might
effervesce violently. So watch this.

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Look at that!

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And notice the very nice green
beginning to emerge.

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Now for the final solution,
it says to add the spirit of salt.

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This acid should help
draw out the Prussian Blue.

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And shut the cupboard down

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because it will throw off
all sorts of toxic gases.

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There we are. Now, you're talking.
There's a real deep one!

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Almost caught the bottle.
Look at that.

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Now that is
Prussian blue, that's brilliant.

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That's lovely, isn't it? The very
first ever synthetic pigment,

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and dry that out and pulverise it

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and mix it up as a powder
and you have a paint.

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Diesbach's chance encounter with
blood had given the world synthetic

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Prussian Blue paint
from a compound of iron.

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Iron is the Earth's
most abundant element.

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Our planet is essentially a
vast sphere with an iron core.

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Though it's a silvery,
lustrous metal,

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contact with damp
air sees it quickly rust.

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The planet Mars is thought to be red
due to iron oxide.

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Adding just 1.7% of carbon makes
iron into the more durable steel,

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which helped launch
the Industrial Revolution.

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Diesbach had glimpsed the
potential of making compounds.

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But scientists' understanding of how
elements combined

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and could be
controlled was still hazy.

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In a bid to master the elements, one
German chemist, Justus von Liebig,

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became obsessed with
creating explosive combinations.

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His passion was sparked when,
as a child in Darmstadt,

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he saw a
peddler letting off fireworks.

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They were
powered by silver fulminate,

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the same chemicals found in bangers.

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Liebig had found his vocation.

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But it was as much
Liebig's personality

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as his love for explosives which
powered his great breakthrough.

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It was said that he was arrogant,
irascible, pugnacious and pigheaded.

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Not a man to cross you might think.

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So when German chemist
Friedrich Wohler got an

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angry letter from Liebig in 1825,
you can imagine his heart sinking.

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Liebig had read a
paper written by Wohler

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about a compound he had made called
silver cyanate. This is its formula.

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It's made in equal
parts from the elements

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silver, carbon, nitrogen
and oxygen.

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Wohler described it
as harmless and stable.

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Liebig saw silver, carbon,
nitrogen and oxygen and exploded

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because this was exactly what
made up HIS silver fulminate.

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How could two substances
that were apparently made of

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the same amounts of the same
elements, behave so differently?

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True to character, Liebig decided

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there was only one answer,
that Wohler was wrong.

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He dashed off a furious letter
to Wohler

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slamming him as a
hopeless analyst.

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Well,
Wohler wasn't having any of that.

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He challenged Liebig to make Silver
cyanate and test it for himself.

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Dr Andrea Sella has studied 19th
century chemistry

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and is attempting
to create Wohler's silver cyanate.

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The rules of chemistry really said
that the only thing that counted was

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what in your material,
what its composition was.

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And, so here we have
this lovely white powder

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which we're now going to filter off

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and according to the then
rules of chemistry,

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this should be absolutely identical
to Liebig's material.

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And what would Liebig have expected
to happen?

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Liebig expected something
really quite nasty.

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I actually made a small amount of
it earlier

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and we'll put it here on
this little piece of aluminium foil.

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You take a match...

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If this was Liebig's material then
something interesting should happen.

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Why don't you have a go?
I'll step back.

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Thank you very much(!)

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Are you sure about this? Should I...

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Go for it.

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Be a chemist.

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HE LAUGHS

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Nothing. Nothing.

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Now this would have been totally
shocking to Liebig

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because Liebig
was expecting that something which

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had silver, carbon, nitrogen and
oxygen in it would be explosive.

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And yet here was
something with the same composition

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and yet it didn't go bang.

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So, same ingredients, same elements
in the same proportions. Absolutely.

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But they had to be two
different compounds.

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They were two
totally different compounds.

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Liebig and Wohler had discovered a
fundamental characteristic

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of the elements.

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One which would in time
explain how just 92 elements

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could give rise to the extraordinary
complexity of the modern world.

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They'd stumbled on what would later
be called "isomers".

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What made their compounds different

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was the way that the
elements were connected.

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If I take these building
blocks I can use them to make...

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a space shuttle...

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..or a plane...

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..or a boat.

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It all depends how I
fit the pieces together.

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The same is true with the elements.

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Like the explosive fulminate
or the calm cyanate.

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It seems that the same elements
combined together in different ways

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will give rise to different
compounds with different properties.

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Chemists began to suspect that
the key to designing new compounds

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was in understanding how the
elements combined.

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And this was all down to atoms.

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Atoms are infinitesimally
small particles of matter.

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The image of these silicon atoms

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is magnified more than
10 million times.

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These are gold atoms. At the start
of the 19th century,

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science first began to consider

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that all elements may be
composed of atoms.

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What scientists now realised
was that the arrangement of

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the atoms, the way they were
connected together, was crucial.

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And by studying the element carbon

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hey made one of chemistry's great
breakthroughs.

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In 1796 Yorkshire chemist, Smithson
Tennant, was investigating what

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diamonds were made of,
when he decided to burn one.

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Now he used sunlight and a
magnifying lens to heat the diamond.

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But I'm going to speed things up
and use a glass blowing torch

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and I have some liquid oxygen.

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Now if I hold this then in
the flame and heat it up...

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And there we have it
whizzing around, that's beautiful.

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The bubbles coming off were
collected by Smithson Tennant,

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they're pure carbon dioxide.

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Now, he knew that he'd started with
just two ingredients -

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diamond and oxygen.

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And what he produced was a gas
made up of just carbon and oxygen.

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So, he knew that diamond
had to be carbon.

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Now that's almost disappeared.

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It's gone.
That diamond doesn't exist any more,

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it's in the air that I'm breathing.
It's turned into carbon dioxide.

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So, unfortunately
diamonds aren't forever.

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00:15:35,360 --> 00:15:39,840
Tennant's revelation
left scientists with a conundrum.

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They knew carbon already,

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as graphite, one of the softest
elements on the planet.

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So how could it be the same element
as the hardest substance, diamond?

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What was carbon's secret?

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At the end of the 18th century,
Tennant didn't yet know that

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elements were made of atoms,
so he was unable to find the answer.

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00:16:06,960 --> 00:16:10,640
It would be another half century
before a young Scotsman

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called Archibald Scott Couper
took up the challenge.

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Couper was a rising
star in chemistry.

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In 1856 when he was 27,
he went to Paris to work with one of

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the eminent chemists of the day,
Charles-Adolphe Wurtz.

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Couper was fascinated by the way

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carbon atoms
combined with other atoms.

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And he came up with the idea of
bonds, links between the atoms

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to explain how the elements
join with each other.

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This is Couper's paper,
written in June 1858.

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The ideas in here
would spark a revolution

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in the way we interpret chemistry.

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And this is Couper's picture
of the way the atoms are connected.

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The C stands for Carbon
and the H for hydrogen,

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and these lines are Couper's bonds

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that explain how he thought

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the atoms all joined together.

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00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:22,480
And this is the real genius,

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somehow Couper realised that
carbon doesn't just have one link,

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but four.

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Because of its four bonds, it can
attach with different strengths

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00:17:35,280 --> 00:17:40,600
to other carbon atoms, that's why
it can exist in two extreme forms.

244
00:17:40,600 --> 00:17:44,920
In diamond, all four bonds are
connected to other carbon atoms in

245
00:17:44,920 --> 00:17:48,560
three dimensions, that's
why diamond is so hard.

246
00:17:48,560 --> 00:17:52,560
But in graphite, only three of the
bonds are connected to other carbon

247
00:17:52,560 --> 00:17:57,480
atoms in a single plane, making the
connections weaker,

248
00:17:57,480 --> 00:18:00,520
which is why
graphite is a much softer material.

249
00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:07,280
Carbon's four bonds give it another
extraordinary property.

250
00:18:07,280 --> 00:18:10,720
Imagine I am a carbon atom.

251
00:18:10,720 --> 00:18:13,840
I can use one hand to link
to another atom and my other hand

252
00:18:13,840 --> 00:18:18,640
to link to a second, leaving
my feet free to make more links.

253
00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:26,400
So, carbon's four bonds means
it can combine

254
00:18:26,400 --> 00:18:29,000
with lots of other atoms.

255
00:18:30,200 --> 00:18:34,320
It can form rings and long chains,

256
00:18:34,320 --> 00:18:38,760
something that makes it
rare amongst the elements.

257
00:18:43,080 --> 00:18:48,760
Carbon. It has us in its nurturing
grasp from our birth to our death.

258
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:54,120
It's found in everything
from a whale's backbone

259
00:18:54,120 --> 00:18:56,160
to the smallest virus.

260
00:18:57,360 --> 00:19:02,960
Carbon is in DNA, cellulose, fat,
sugar.

261
00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:08,360
Daily, each of us takes in
300g of it.

262
00:19:09,880 --> 00:19:12,320
Earth's carbon,
like most other elements,

263
00:19:12,320 --> 00:19:16,440
was ejected from dying stars
which means

264
00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:19,360
we're all made of stardust.

265
00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:29,040
Couper had solved a
fundamental puzzle.

266
00:19:29,040 --> 00:19:34,000
He'd explained why carbon could
be found in so many compounds,

267
00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:37,120
why it made up so much
of the natural world.

268
00:19:37,120 --> 00:19:42,680
Now, he just had to publish his
findings to claim the credit.

269
00:19:42,680 --> 00:19:44,320
But a German chemist,

270
00:19:44,320 --> 00:19:49,640
Friedrich Kekule had hit
upon exactly the same idea.

271
00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:55,080
Kekule spent time studying in
London, and it was apparently whilst

272
00:19:55,080 --> 00:20:01,160
on a London bus that he claimed
he'd had a flash of inspiration.

273
00:20:01,160 --> 00:20:05,600
Most of us sit on the bus dreaming
about Leeds United, what we're going

274
00:20:05,600 --> 00:20:09,240
to have for supper when we get
home, or what's on the telly.

275
00:20:09,240 --> 00:20:11,880
But
Kekule claimed he dreamt of

276
00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:15,480
whirling atoms
embracing in a giddy dance.

277
00:20:15,480 --> 00:20:17,680
He saw them uniting into chains,

278
00:20:17,680 --> 00:20:20,480
pulling more atoms together.

279
00:20:20,480 --> 00:20:23,720
Suddenly the
conductor shouted, "Clapham"

280
00:20:23,720 --> 00:20:30,280
and Kekule came to with new ideas
of structure formed in his mind.

281
00:20:30,280 --> 00:20:33,520
Kekule raced to get
his concept into print.

282
00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:37,880
Couper's boss had been slow
to get his paper published,

283
00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:40,320
so Kekule took all the credit.

284
00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:47,560
And in science there's no
prize for second place.

285
00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:52,120
Despite having been the
first to unravel carbon's secrets,

286
00:20:52,120 --> 00:20:54,400
Couper got none of the glory.

287
00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:58,160
When he discovered that his
boss, Adolphe Wurtz had somehow

288
00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:00,120
delayed in sending his paper,

289
00:21:00,120 --> 00:21:05,160
he flew into a rage at Wurtz, who
promptly expelled him from the lab.

290
00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:09,120
From there, he disappeared
completely from chemical history.

291
00:21:09,120 --> 00:21:14,520
No scientific papers, no letters to
journals, no experiments, nothing.

292
00:21:20,200 --> 00:21:23,040
Couper missed out on his chance
for recognition

293
00:21:23,040 --> 00:21:26,800
and soon after lost his mind.

294
00:21:26,800 --> 00:21:30,160
He would spend years in an asylum.

295
00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:39,680
But once carbon's secrets had
been revealed,

296
00:21:39,680 --> 00:21:43,360
a world of opportunity
beckoned for many others.

297
00:21:43,360 --> 00:21:47,400
There are more known compounds
of carbon

298
00:21:47,400 --> 00:21:49,520
than of any other element,

299
00:21:49,520 --> 00:21:53,640
so understanding how it could
combine gave us the means

300
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:56,240
of creating compounds by design.

301
00:21:56,240 --> 00:22:00,200
Suddenly it seems everyone was
manipulating the elements

302
00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:02,520
so it wasn't long before industry

303
00:22:02,520 --> 00:22:05,440
was cashing in on this new
found certainty,

304
00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:09,080
and modern,
industrial chemistry was born.

305
00:22:15,800 --> 00:22:19,600
Combining elements into new
compounds would not only offer

306
00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:23,000
the prospect of building fortunes,

307
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:28,600
science's mastery of carbon
chemistry began to shape our lives.

308
00:22:28,600 --> 00:22:32,880
It's hard to imagine a world
without plastics today.

309
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:37,160
One, invented in 1907
had the catchy title of

310
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:43,480
polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride
better known as Bakelite.

311
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:50,600
It soon appeared almost everywhere.

312
00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:56,200
The wonder material could be moulded
into a myriad of different shapes.

313
00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:59,240
New discoveries came thick and fast.

314
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:05,120
In the 1930s, American Chemist,
Wallace Carothers

315
00:23:05,120 --> 00:23:07,760
tapped into a mass market.

316
00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:11,680
He converted carbon chemistry
into cash

317
00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:14,800
when he invented what's in here.

318
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:19,840
It looks a bit like a cocktail,
at the bottom is a carbon chain,

319
00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:24,440
hexamethylenediamin.
That's "hexa" for hexagon.

320
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:26,720
Six carbon atoms.

321
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:30,120
And floating above it is
another carbon chain,

322
00:23:30,120 --> 00:23:32,080
decanedioyl dichloride.

323
00:23:32,080 --> 00:23:35,160
And on the boundary between
the two chemicals

324
00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:38,040
they're reacting
together to form bonds.

325
00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:41,600
So if I pull out this glass rod,

326
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:45,440
I make a string which is more and
more of the chemicals

327
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:48,440
bonding together
into very long chains.

328
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:55,400
I'm going to make use of this device
as a spinning wheel.

329
00:23:58,760 --> 00:24:01,800
With just a few elements, carbon,

330
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:07,640
nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen,
found in coal, water and air,

331
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:09,440
Carothers had designed

332
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:11,480
his very own unique fibre.

333
00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:14,800
It could be spun as fine
as a spider's web,

334
00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:17,120
but had the strength of steel.

335
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:20,600
It was called Nylon.

336
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:27,080
When nylon stockings first went on
sale in America,

337
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:31,640
the entire stock of
5 million was sold in a day.

338
00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:36,320
Nylon began a revolution in
synthetic chemistry,

339
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:39,680
but Carothers
didn't live to see its success.

340
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:41,480
He suffered from depression

341
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:45,840
and just three weeks after the basic
patent for Nylon had been filed,

342
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:48,640
at the age of 41, he committed
suicide

343
00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:53,880
by slipping a carbon compound,
potassium cyanide, into his drink.

344
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:05,800
Nylon became a global phenomenon,
progress appeared unstoppable.

345
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:08,160
But inevitably, perhaps,

346
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:13,880
our increasing control of the
elements brought new dilemmas.

347
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:23,240
The automobile was just 35 years old

348
00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:28,640
when Thomas Midgley Junior, an
engineer with General Motors,

349
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:31,240
found a chemical remedy to help
its engine

350
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,560
run smoothly and more
efficiently.

351
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:36,400
Cars at that time had
terrible trouble

352
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:39,640
with their
engines knocking and misfiring.

353
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:43,560
Midgely had tried to solve this by
experimenting,

354
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:46,640
it's said,
with everything from butter

355
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:51,320
and camphor to ethyl acetate
and aluminium chloride.

356
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:56,440
Success finally came
with a lead compound,

357
00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:00,480
tetra-ethyl lead, known as TEL.

358
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:04,040
It worked brilliantly,
nothing else came close.

359
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:08,200
By the 1970s, the US alone

360
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:14,440
was adding around 200,000 tonnes of
lead to its petrol every year.

361
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:21,680
But research was emerging
to suggest that it was causing harm,

362
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:23,640
both to humans and the environment.

363
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:29,400
In 1983 a Royal Commission
questioned whether

364
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:32,240
"any part of the Earth's surface

365
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:36,200
"or any form of life remains
uncontaminated".

366
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:41,520
Midgley's compound
began to be phased out.

367
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:46,560
Today almost all of the world's
petrol supplies are unleaded.

368
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:52,840
Lead.

369
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:56,080
The alchemists thought it was the
oldest metal.

370
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:01,480
The Romans were the
first to use it on a large scale.

371
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:07,640
It is so stable that Roman lead
pipes still survive to this day.

372
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:13,120
Our word "plumbing" comes from
the Latin word for lead, plumbum.

373
00:27:15,360 --> 00:27:19,360
Lead is toxic to humans
as it deactivates the enzymes

374
00:27:19,360 --> 00:27:21,840
that make haemoglobin in blood.

375
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:26,720
Although no longer used in petrol,

376
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:32,640
much of the lead produced each year
still ends up in cars, in batteries.

377
00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:39,120
Lead may have forced scientists to
face difficult questions,

378
00:27:39,120 --> 00:27:41,280
but it didn't stop them
forging ahead

379
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:46,880
in their bid to control
and manipulate the natural world.

380
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:50,600
And their work with one group
of elements was to spark a

381
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:57,920
revolutionary idea - the prospect of
creating new, manmade elements.

382
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:03,040
It was a concept that would shake
the foundations of chemistry...

383
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,080
EXPLOSION
..to its core.

384
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:10,760
At its heart,
were the radioactive elements.

385
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:20,400
In 1896, French scientist
Henri Becquerel

386
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:24,240
was working with uranium crystals

387
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,600
and found ultraviolet light
made them glow.

388
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:29,440
It looks eerie.

389
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:32,080
He left uranium salts overnight

390
00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:37,200
on a photographic plate that
had never been exposed to light.

391
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:40,240
In the morning,
he found a dark shadow on it

392
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:44,240
and realised that the uranium salts
must have been the source of energy.

393
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:48,320
Bequerel had discovered
radioactivity.

394
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:53,440
Scientists began to investigate.

395
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:57,920
One was a young
Polish chemist, Marie Curie.

396
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:03,480
Marie began collecting uranium ore,
called pitchblende.

397
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:04,840
CLICKING

398
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:07,200
Testing it with an electrometer,

399
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:10,440
she found...
RAPID CLICKING

400
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:14,280
..that it was four times more
radioactive than pure uranium.

401
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:17,920
She checked it 20 times.
What could be going on?

402
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:20,160
Then she had a brainwave,
she decided there was

403
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:24,160
something else in the pitchblende
that was boosting its radioactivity.

404
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:27,360
Something more radioactive
than uranium.

405
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:30,840
But what? Could it be a new element?

406
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:35,320
Marie Curie didn't have a
well-equipped lab,

407
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:36,960
it was far more basic.

408
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:38,960
A bit like this.

409
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:47,760
One chemist called it a cross
between a horse stable

410
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:49,000
and a potato cellar.

411
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:53,840
She had a tonne of pitchblende,
some say 10 tonnes,

412
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:56,840
delivered by horse and cart.

413
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,600
And then with just
basic equipment like this,

414
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:02,600
she attempted to isolate
her mystery elements.

415
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:12,240
Her experiments had a myriad of
complex stages, including

416
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:17,800
potentially lethal processes
using highly flammable hydrogen gas.

417
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:28,960
But all her hard work was worth it.

418
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:31,040
With just her primitive kit,

419
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:34,880
Marie Curie discovered
two radioactive elements.

420
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:38,000
Polonium, named after
her native Poland

421
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:42,480
and another that would
launch an entire industry, radium.

422
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:50,400
Radium was once the key
component in luminous paint.

423
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:52,640
It's intensely radioactive.

424
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:58,360
The world fell in love with radium,

425
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:02,600
assuming its invisible energy
must be good for you.

426
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:06,120
The French slapped on
Radium face powder.

427
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:09,000
The Germans ate Radium chocolate.

428
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:14,960
The Americans
wore Radium branded condoms.

429
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:19,080
But the magic faded
when doctors realised

430
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:24,640
that far from boosting health,
it triggered cancers.

431
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:28,320
Marie Curie didn't live to see
the amazing journey

432
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:31,520
the radioactive elements
would take us on.

433
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:34,920
Because whilst they're
naturally occurring elements,

434
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:39,520
they would take man one step closer
to a seemingly impossible dream.

435
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:43,440
To create entirely new elements.

436
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:52,200
Ernest Rutherford was working
with radioactivity to investigate

437
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:58,640
the subatomic world, when he
made an astonishing discovery.

438
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:00,640
At the beginning of
the 20th century,

439
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:03,960
it was widely believed
that atoms never change.

440
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:08,760
That carbon atoms will always be
carbon atoms, gold always gold.

441
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:10,720
Well, Rutherford
overturned this idea

442
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:14,760
by taking a great leap forward
in scientific thinking.

443
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:19,480
I'm surrounded by some
of the original equipment used by

444
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:24,320
Rutherford and the early pioneers
to unlock the secrets of the atom.

445
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:30,000
Rutherford had concluded that
the atom was mostly empty space,

446
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:36,200
with tiny electrons buzzing around a
central nucleus containing protons,

447
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:38,920
positively charged particles.

448
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:42,640
Protons are vital to
an atom's identity.

449
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:46,960
The number of protons
gives an element its uniqueness.

450
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:50,280
Carbon atoms have six protons
in their nucleus.

451
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:53,560
Seven means nitrogen.

452
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:57,040
Rutherford came to the
shattering conclusion

453
00:32:57,040 --> 00:33:01,520
that the number of protons in the
nucleus of a radioactive element

454
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:03,880
could change because it decayed.

455
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:11,280
Rutherford realised some of
the mysterious radioactivity

456
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:16,240
was actually miniscule fragments
of atoms containing protons,

457
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:19,480
which were being fired
out of the nucleus.

458
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,280
He named them alpha particles.

459
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:27,080
Much as life forms
break up and decay,

460
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:32,520
so some elements themselves
break up, radioactive decay.

461
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:39,720
As the tiny chips of the atom,
the alpha particles, fly off,

462
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:42,160
its nucleus shrinks.

463
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:48,080
Rutherford realised that as
the nucleus loses protons,

464
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:50,440
the atom's identity changes.

465
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:54,080
It turns from one element
into another.

466
00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:01,240
We can glimpse radioactive decay
in a cloud chamber.

467
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:09,520
If you look carefully,
you can see trails of vapour

468
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:12,280
which are caused by alpha particles

469
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:14,480
being spat out from the source.

470
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:16,520
Now they are incredibly tiny,

471
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:19,920
they're a hundred thousandth
of the width of a single atom.

472
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:23,600
They show radioactive decay.

473
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:30,640
Rutherford was studying this when he
suddenly realised

474
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:33,200
that it could transform the
atom of one element

475
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:34,560
into the atom of another.

476
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:37,240
So if that happened naturally,

477
00:34:37,240 --> 00:34:41,320
could it also be made
to happen artificially?

478
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:45,520
Could Rutherford deliberately
create one element from another?

479
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:48,800
Rutherford loved simplicity,

480
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:53,800
and this simple piece
of kit was his basic apparatus.

481
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,920
He introduced a
radioactive source at this end

482
00:34:56,920 --> 00:35:01,000
which blasted alpha particles
toward the screen on the far end.

483
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:05,960
When he filled the
chamber with nitrogen,

484
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:08,920
he saw flashes that
weren't from the alpha particles.

485
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:14,800
Rutherford suspected that
a change was taking place.

486
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:18,120
Now, the nucleus of nitrogen
contains seven protons,

487
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:22,520
whereas an oxygen nucleus
has eight protons.

488
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:26,120
Now, in Rutherford's experiment
he was firing alpha particles,

489
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:28,040
each one containing two protons,

490
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:31,000
and these alphas
were colliding with the nitrogen.

491
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:33,840
This is where the
alchemy takes place.

492
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:37,360
Because the collision knocks out
a single proton,

493
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:40,640
these were what were causing
the flashes on the screen.

494
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:45,040
But what's left behind
is now no longer nitrogen.

495
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:50,480
The extra proton it's gained means
that it has transmuted into oxygen.

496
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,240
The small flashes on
Rutherford's apparatus

497
00:35:56,240 --> 00:35:59,280
proved an explosive
moment in science.

498
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:03,320
Turning nitrogen into oxygen
was as weird as stroking a cat

499
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:06,000
and having it suddenly
turn into a dog.

500
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:11,400
A fire can reveal how
different these two elements are.

501
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:15,960
This is liquid nitrogen.

502
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:20,600
See what happens when
I pour it on the fire.

503
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:29,360
The fire goes out.

504
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:32,440
This is liquid oxygen.

505
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:42,120
It burns much more brightly.

506
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:48,600
Rutherford had turned one element
into a completely different one.

507
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:53,840
Scientists had previously believed

508
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:56,080
elements were fixed
and unchangeable.

509
00:36:56,080 --> 00:37:00,080
Now, Rutherford had proved that
they could be transformed.

510
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:04,480
This suggested another
intriguing possibility.

511
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:11,040
Rutherford's work, turning one
known element into another,

512
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:14,360
gave scientists hope that they
could turn an element

513
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:16,080
into a completely new one.

514
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:18,400
For many years
progress was very slow

515
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:21,760
because they simply didn't
know enough about the atom.

516
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:28,360
Then in 1932, here in Cambridge, a
crucial part of the atom was found.

517
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:31,440
James Chadwick discovered neutrons.

518
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:39,160
These are particles without an
overall positive or negative charge,

519
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:44,520
that along with positively charged
protons, make up the nucleus,

520
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:46,360
the heart of the atom.

521
00:37:48,720 --> 00:37:53,640
Italian scientist, Enrico Fermi,
saw the potential of the neutron

522
00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:57,400
in the quest to make
brand new elements.

523
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:00,560
The team who worked with him
thought he was infallible

524
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:03,040
and nicknamed him "The Pope".

525
00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:06,920
Fermi's big idea was to
create a new element,

526
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:09,360
one beyond the
end of the periodic table.

527
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:12,680
Further up even than uranium,

528
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:16,880
the heaviest naturally
occurring element on Earth.

529
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:21,040
If Rutherford could turn
nitrogen into oxygen,

530
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:26,280
Fermi wondered what would happen if
uranium was made heavier still,

531
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:28,440
by adding more protons
to its nucleus.

532
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:34,600
Could he go beyond nature
and create a new element?

533
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:37,080
Fermi experimented on uranium

534
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:40,800
using Rutherford's technique of
pounding the nucleus.

535
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:46,200
Others had also tried using
positively charged alpha particles,

536
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:50,080
but so far no-one had succeeded
in creating new elements.

537
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:54,720
Then one day when Fermi
was playing tennis,

538
00:38:54,720 --> 00:38:58,480
he realised where the
other scientists were going wrong.

539
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:00,920
He was hammering away at
the tennis balls

540
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:03,600
when he suddenly had a moment
of true clarity.

541
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:09,840
He knew that the nucleus of
the atom is positively charged

542
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:11,920
as are the alpha particles.

543
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:16,240
So they tend to repel one another
making it highly unlikely

544
00:39:16,240 --> 00:39:19,560
for the alphas to enter
the nucleus. But then,

545
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:23,280
it occurred to Fermi
that if he used neutrons,

546
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:24,920
particles with no charge,

547
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:27,280
then the nucleus
wouldn't repel them,

548
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:31,480
making it much more likely that
they would be able to penetrate it.

549
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:38,480
So in 1934,
Fermi began to experiment

550
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:43,040
by shooting neutrons
at the nucleus of uranium.

551
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:51,240
Fermi was hoping that when the
neutron entered the uranium nucleus,

552
00:39:51,240 --> 00:39:53,560
it would make the whole
thing unstable.

553
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:57,760
The nucleus likes to be balanced, so
if it has too many neutrons,

554
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:00,400
it will convert one of
them into a proton,

555
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:02,200
spitting out an electron.

556
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:07,240
Fermi reasoned that this would
increase the number of protons,

557
00:40:07,240 --> 00:40:09,240
giving him a brand new element.

558
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:15,920
As he ran the experiment, Fermi
found elements he didn't recognise.

559
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:17,080
So what were they?

560
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:22,320
He worked his way down the periodic
table, checking for known elements.

561
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:27,800
He tested for radon, actinium,
polonium, all the way down to lead.

562
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:32,040
The new elements were none of these.

563
00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:37,680
So in 1934 the man
they called the Pope

564
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:40,680
made a leap of faith.

565
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:43,680
He proclaimed to
the scientific world

566
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:48,320
that he'd created elements
heavier than uranium.

567
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:55,120
Scientists were electrified and
began to investigate Fermi's claim.

568
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:15,600
In 1938, a team of German scientists
led by chemist Otto Hahn

569
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:19,000
decided to repeat Fermi's work.

570
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:20,640
Only they quickly found

571
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:24,440
that his claim to have created
a new element was wrong.

572
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:30,200
They identified
one of his elements as barium

573
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:33,080
which has 56 protons in its nucleus

574
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:37,840
compared with the uranium
he started with which has 92.

575
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:39,640
Hahn was intrigued.

576
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:43,200
It's as though uranium
had been split in two.

577
00:41:53,560 --> 00:41:57,360
Hahn wrote of his confusion to
a colleague, Lise Meitner,

578
00:41:57,360 --> 00:41:59,880
who was working
in Sweden at the time.

579
00:41:59,880 --> 00:42:03,640
As an Austrian Jew, Meitner
had recently fled Nazi Germany

580
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:06,480
and was spending Christmas 1938

581
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:10,480
at the seaside with
her nephew, Otto Frisch.

582
00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:13,000
Meitner puzzled over the mystery

583
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:17,880
and together with Frisch
she considered the uranium nucleus.

584
00:42:17,880 --> 00:42:21,840
Because it's a relative giant
it must be quite unstable.

585
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:26,040
Then they started to think
about water droplets,

586
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:29,200
and Meitner imagined
the uranium nucleus

587
00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:31,920
like a very wobbly, unstable drop

588
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:36,120
ready to divide with the impact
of a single neutron.

589
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:05,080
She suddenly realised that the
uranium's nucleus had split in two.

590
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:10,400
Both Fermi and Hahn had witnessed
what we now know as nuclear fission.

591
00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:16,920
Then Meitner worked
through the calculations.

592
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:20,320
She reckoned that the combined mass
of the two fragments

593
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:25,000
was slightly less than the mass of
the original uranium nucleus

594
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:27,600
by about a
fifth of one proton.

595
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:31,560
She wondered what had
happened to this missing mass.

596
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:34,080
Then it slowly dawned on her.

597
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:38,480
Einstein's famous equation e=mc2.

598
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:43,600
The missing mass had been converted
into pure energy.

599
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:55,840
Meitner's flash of insight heralded
the creation of the nuclear age,

600
00:43:55,840 --> 00:43:59,960
where exciting possibilities for a
new form of energy

601
00:43:59,960 --> 00:44:02,880
would be countered
by its potential for weaponry.

602
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:14,520
This site at Orford Ness used
to be a military testing ground,

603
00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:18,600
one of the most secret
places in Britain.

604
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:25,360
Back in 1939, Lise Meitner's work
on nuclear fission

605
00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:29,760
was published as war cast
a long shadow across Europe.

606
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:33,480
It shook not just the
scientific community,

607
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:36,560
governments who stood on
the brink of conflict

608
00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:39,120
became aware of the
extraordinary power

609
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:41,960
that could now be wrought
from an element.

610
00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:46,920
On both sides of the Atlantic,
scientists were scrambled to

611
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:50,200
investigate the potential
of this new discovery.

612
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:53,520
The result was the
US led Manhattan project.

613
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:58,640
Its aim was to produce
the first atomic bomb.

614
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:01,080
Using scientists from America,

615
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:06,520
Canada and Europe, the 2 billion
project's rapid progress

616
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:09,040
was fuelled by fears
that Nazi Germany

617
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:12,080
was investigating
nuclear weapons of its own.

618
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:20,440
Both the Germans and the Allies knew
that the uranium nucleus could be

619
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:25,480
split by bombarding it with neutrons
to release a huge amount of energy.

620
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:27,040
But to be effective,

621
00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:31,120
that energy needed to be
released almost instantly,

622
00:45:31,120 --> 00:45:35,440
a slow reaction would
produce a uranium fire but no bomb.

623
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:40,080
So both sides poured their efforts
into perfecting

624
00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:43,680
the key to a rapid energy release
on a grand scale.

625
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:46,080
A chain reaction.

626
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:51,560
Imagine this ping-pong
ball is a neutron,

627
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:56,640
flying towards an unstable
uranium nucleus, a mousetrap.

628
00:45:56,640 --> 00:45:58,040
It sets off the mouse trap

629
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:03,240
which in turn forces a
new neutron into the air.

630
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:11,960
Now in a chain reaction,
this is what would happen.

631
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:14,200
One neutron to set it off,

632
00:46:14,200 --> 00:46:19,080
but loads of mousetraps of
uranium primed and ready.

633
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:29,720
Now imagine each mousetrap
of uranium releases a

634
00:46:29,720 --> 00:46:33,880
blast of energy, that same energy
that Lise Meitner had calculated.

635
00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:36,840
The resulting blast
would be enormous.

636
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:58,400
In 1942, Italian physicist,
Enrico Fermi, now living in America,

637
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:03,520
became the first man
to unleash uranium's chain reaction.

638
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:07,520
Uranium.

639
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:11,920
It harbours the power
not only to win wars

640
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:16,840
but to electrify millions of homes.

641
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:20,000
Before its radioactive
secrets were revealed,

642
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:23,400
this element's glow
under ultraviolet light

643
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:27,960
made uranium glass
a desirable asset.

644
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:33,040
About seven weeks worth
of your year's electricity

645
00:47:33,040 --> 00:47:37,520
comes from nuclear fission
part fuelled by uranium.

646
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:39,680
And it's used in tank shells

647
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:44,080
as its great weight allows
it to drive through armour.

648
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:54,680
But processing uranium for bombs
was both difficult and costly.

649
00:47:54,680 --> 00:47:58,160
America would need to come up
with a suitable alternative

650
00:47:58,160 --> 00:48:00,080
to create its nuclear arsenal.

651
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:08,320
In California, scientists were
focussing on trying to create

652
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:10,640
a new element heavier
than uranium.

653
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:18,600
The key to this was a
machine called a cyclotron

654
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:23,000
which gave rise to
this giant machine, a synchrotron.

655
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:26,200
Both machines
operate on the same principle.

656
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:31,320
They use huge magnets to steer
charged atoms round and round,

657
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:33,040
faster and faster.

658
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:37,400
The magnets are so powerful
that if one of them was switched on,

659
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:41,360
it could rip a sledgehammer
straight out of my hands.

660
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:44,880
Now, the way to make
a new element is to

661
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:49,680
increase the numbers of protons in
a nucleus of an existing element.

662
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:53,080
And in a cyclotron,
the way this was done,

663
00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:55,240
was that when the charged atoms

664
00:48:55,240 --> 00:48:57,880
reached a tenth of
the speed of light,

665
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:02,000
they were steered and smashed
into a metal target,

666
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:04,560
with the potential
to create a new element.

667
00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:12,200
Finally, man's dream of
creating a building block from

668
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:18,640
beyond the end of the periodic table
was about to be realised.

669
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:23,280
American physicists,
Edwin McMillan and Philip Abelson,

670
00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:28,680
blasted uranium with a beam of
particles to create element 93.

671
00:49:35,720 --> 00:49:37,800
They named it Neptunium.

672
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:43,200
The first element heavier than
uranium to be created by man.

673
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:51,160
Chemists were once limited to
using the elements nature provided.

674
00:49:51,160 --> 00:49:56,720
Now science breached this frontier,
creating synthetic elements.

675
00:49:56,720 --> 00:50:01,760
And, with this new power
would come new dilemmas.

676
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:08,440
In 1941, the next element to
be forged by mankind

677
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:11,360
would become infamous...

678
00:50:11,360 --> 00:50:14,080
it was called plutonium.

679
00:50:16,560 --> 00:50:19,160
Scientists quickly realised that

680
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:23,400
plutonium was capable of
undergoing nuclear fission

681
00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:27,080
in a way that could fuel an
explosive chain reaction

682
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:30,840
and it was soon
being made into a bomb.

683
00:50:30,840 --> 00:50:36,080
The discovery of nuclear fission to
the creation of the first atom bombs

684
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:39,080
took less than 7 years.

685
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:41,040
And on August 6th, 1945

686
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:47,000
the full accuracy of Lise Meitner's
scribbled calculations was revealed.

687
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:52,960
1,900 feet over
the Japanese city of Hiroshima,

688
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:57,520
one piece of Uranium 235
was fired into another,

689
00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:00,680
causing a rapid chain reaction.

690
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:05,200
Just over half a gram of mass
was converted into energy,

691
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:08,320
that's one tenth of a 10p coin.

692
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:15,080
But it exploded with a force equal
to about 13,000 tonnes of TNT.

693
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:26,840
Three days later, Nagasaki
was hit by a plutonium bomb,

694
00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:33,160
bringing the death toll from the
two bombs to an estimated 200,000.

695
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:48,800
Plutonium.

696
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,440
It was named after the planet Pluto

697
00:51:51,440 --> 00:51:56,200
and also shares its name with
the Roman god of the underworld.

698
00:51:57,760 --> 00:52:05,000
Bombarding Uranium 238 with neutrons
creates this powerful element.

699
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:10,120
A gram of plutonium
has same energy as a tonne of oil.

700
00:52:10,120 --> 00:52:16,040
Many of the Cold War's 
nuclear bombs contain plutonium.

701
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:21,400
The first man made objects destined
to leave our solar system,

702
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:23,840
the two Voyager space probes,

703
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:25,720
are powered by plutonium.

704
00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:34,440
The dream of turning lead into gold
is what drove the early alchemists.

705
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:40,280
And the dark race to create the atom
bomb was a kind of modern alchemy.

706
00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:45,280
The war had revealed the frightening
power of these unstable elements.

707
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:47,840
But they had offered a
tantalising glimpse

708
00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:50,040
into their infinite possibilities.

709
00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:55,440
The lure of scientific discovery,
of creating entirely new elements

710
00:52:55,440 --> 00:52:59,480
at the extremes of the periodic
table had proven irresistible.

711
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:05,880
The thirst to create yet more
elements drives the physicists

712
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:09,080
at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for
heavy ion research

713
00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:11,760
in Darmstadt, Germany.

714
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:17,080
Their mission
is to reach the limit of chemistry,

715
00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:19,800
to find the ultimate element

716
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:22,840
which will stretch the laws
of physics to their boundaries.

717
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:27,600
So far, they have
made six new elements.

718
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:33,800
The latest confirmed is element 112,
which they've named Copernicium,

719
00:53:33,800 --> 00:53:36,840
after the astronomer Copernicus.

720
00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:41,160
And this is where it all starts,

721
00:53:41,160 --> 00:53:45,800
in one of the world's most
powerful nuclear accelerators.

722
00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:52,160
Scientists are using
the high-tech equipment

723
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:54,000
behind this 70 tonne lead door

724
00:53:54,000 --> 00:53:58,920
not only to make some of
the heaviest elements ever created,

725
00:53:58,920 --> 00:54:00,920
but to study their properties,

726
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:04,680
to try and understand their
characteristics if you like.

727
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:06,960
They're attempting to
finish the work

728
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:09,680
that chemists like Mendeleev started

729
00:54:09,680 --> 00:54:14,440
and to discover the secrets at the
outposts of the periodic table.

730
00:54:14,440 --> 00:54:17,760
But they first have to
create the new elements.

731
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:25,280
This is the control centre
for the giant accelerator,

732
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:30,640
which is essentially a gun for
firing one element into another.

733
00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:32,200
This small piece of zinc

734
00:54:32,200 --> 00:54:35,720
is identical to the sample
used in the accelerator.

735
00:54:35,720 --> 00:54:40,440
Charged atoms of zinc are
fired towards a lead target.

736
00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:43,200
Nearly 50 million volts
of electricity

737
00:54:43,200 --> 00:54:48,880
accelerate these atoms towards the
target so that when they collide,

738
00:54:48,880 --> 00:54:52,840
they are travelling
at 67 million miles an hour.

739
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:56,240
That's nearly 4,000 times
faster than the space shuttle.

740
00:54:56,240 --> 00:54:58,520
The idea is that at this speed

741
00:54:58,520 --> 00:55:02,360
there's a chance the atoms might
fuse together,

742
00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:05,160
creating an atom of a new element.

743
00:55:05,160 --> 00:55:09,000
In this case, element 112.

744
00:55:19,240 --> 00:55:23,320
But it's obviously not
as simple as it sounds.

745
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:26,760
Too much energy and the
colliding atoms break up

746
00:55:26,760 --> 00:55:30,760
too little and the new
element isn't created at all.

747
00:55:30,760 --> 00:55:33,400
In fact, even with the
perfect energy

748
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:35,680
the chances of union are remote.

749
00:55:35,680 --> 00:55:38,760
It's a bit like you
winning the lottery

750
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:43,040
with 3,000 balls to
choose from rather than just 50.

751
00:55:48,120 --> 00:55:49,920
Beating these enormous odds,

752
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:54,040
scientists have
created new, single atoms,

753
00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:58,080
so unstable they
only exist for seconds.

754
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:04,720
But that's still long enough to
determine some of their properties.

755
00:56:04,720 --> 00:56:10,000
In tests, element 112 has
proven volatile and unstable

756
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:13,560
and it reacts a
little like mercury.

757
00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:18,560
It would be liquid at room
temperature if enough were made.

758
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:23,120
Because of that similarity
its creators realised it should be

759
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:27,720
positioned just beneath Mercury
on the periodic table.

760
00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:33,080
Physicists here are
becoming the new chemists.

761
00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:38,360
Soon they'll be attempting
to create element 120.

762
00:56:38,360 --> 00:56:44,600
The discoveries made here at GSI
may seem distant, even arcane

763
00:56:44,600 --> 00:56:48,680
but it's vital to push the
periodic table to its limits.

764
00:56:48,680 --> 00:56:52,960
Without studying these man made,
highly unstable elements

765
00:56:52,960 --> 00:56:57,240
we may never fully understand
the story of our universe.

766
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:11,320
My journey began with those
alchemists whose daring experiments

767
00:57:11,320 --> 00:57:14,240
led to the discovery
of many of the elements.

768
00:57:14,240 --> 00:57:17,000
They paved the way for
the early chemists

769
00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:20,720
whose mission to find out
what the world is made of led to

770
00:57:20,720 --> 00:57:25,840
them splitting matter and bringing
order to the seemingly random chaos

771
00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:31,080
of the elements, culminating in
the creation of the periodic table.

772
00:57:31,080 --> 00:57:35,160
Scientists were able to
use these discoveries

773
00:57:35,160 --> 00:57:40,360
and the ordering of the elements
to build the modern world.

774
00:57:40,360 --> 00:57:45,120
Finally, they could command nature's
building blocks to their will.

775
00:57:46,640 --> 00:57:50,280
But our story is still
far from finished.

776
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:52,320
The fleeting glimpse we've had

777
00:57:52,320 --> 00:57:55,320
of the exotic outposts
of the periodic table

778
00:57:55,320 --> 00:58:00,520
gives a hint to what the
story of the elements may yet hold.

779
00:58:00,520 --> 00:58:02,520
Their possible reactions,

780
00:58:02,520 --> 00:58:06,200
their properties,
their unimagined potential.

781
00:58:06,200 --> 00:58:10,360
And that is what scientists
now have to work on,

782
00:58:10,360 --> 00:58:15,400
to reveal the secrets the elements
have so far refused to surrender.

783
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:21,440
What's so exciting is that no-one
knows where that part of this

784
00:58:21,440 --> 00:58:24,960
astonishing story may yet take us.

785
00:58:34,960 --> 00:58:38,480
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

786
00:58:38,480 --> 00:58:42,160
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk