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00:00:00,666 --> 00:00:04,565
[gear noises]

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00:00:32,556 --> 00:00:33,687
What you're looking at

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00:00:33,687 --> 00:00:35,763
is a bit of paper
with holes in it.

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00:00:35,956 --> 00:00:38,447
How's that for a spectacular
way to start a program?

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00:00:38,575 --> 00:00:40,823
But, this may be
the most important

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00:00:40,957 --> 00:00:42,320
bit of paper
with holes in it

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since the hole was invented.

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It's a punch card,

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00:00:46,161 --> 00:00:48,324
and it stands for
one of the most

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00:00:48,324 --> 00:00:51,622
meaningful inventions man
has ever given himself:
the computer.

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00:00:51,764 --> 00:00:53,867
In most people's everyday life,

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the computer isn't much more
than a very fast adding machine.

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It tends to send you bills,

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but it is very much
more than that.

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The modern world could not
function without computers,

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00:01:03,722 --> 00:01:05,336
because they operate
everything

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00:01:05,336 --> 00:01:07,942
from production lines
to telephone exchanges,

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00:01:07,942 --> 00:01:10,497
to traffic systems,
to international finance.

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00:01:11,540 --> 00:01:13,775
But the main reason why
computers matter to you and me,

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00:01:13,775 --> 00:01:17,601
and our future, is because
they have perfect memories.

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They never forget
anything they're told

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about you and me.

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The kind of data, say,
you have to give somebody

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if you want a bank account,
or credit,

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or to be able to vote,
or buy a house,

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or if you've been accused
of a crime.

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And that's why computers
contain the future within them.

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If you tell a computer
everything

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about a group of people,
it'll juggle the mix

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and come up with the one factor
that is most likely

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to affect the decision
that group will make

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about something,
one way or the other.

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Knowing that
is knowing the future,

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and that is power;
but in whose hands?

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This computer has
a particulary spectacular

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kind of memory of the past,

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and knowledge of the future,
in its databanks.

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[typewriter keys clattering]

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Watch this.

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This computer
runs a planetarium,

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and so it handles, as a matter
of simple routine,

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the universe,
as far forward in time

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as you like, or back.

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How would you like
the beginning of everything?

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Or, here's one full turn
of the Earth,
tomorrow in 15 seconds.

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Now, the reason I'm showing you
all this fun and games

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is not because i'm
some kind of astronomy freak.

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It's because
the very first time

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mankind gained the power
to see into the future,

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like the computer can now,

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that power was in the hands
of the priest astronomers

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over 3.000 years ago,

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and look what that led to.

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First, the Moon.

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Roughly every 12 times
you saw this happen,

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the waxing and waning
of the Moon,

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you were back
where you started

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in terms of planting,
or harvesting,

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or irrigation,
once a year.

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So the priest astronomers
were able to tell the farmers,

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"plant now."

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Now, the more
they looked up at the Moon,

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the more they learned
about the stars.

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And so by, the fifth century, B.C.,

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they had identified and named
most of the major constellations.

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Twelve of them stretching
across the sky:

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00:05:06,624 --> 00:05:19,207
aries, taurus, gemini, cancer,
leo, virgo, libra,scorpio,

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sagittarius, capricorn,
aquarius, and pisces.

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So they divided the sky
in 12 sections,

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six in one hemisphere,
six in the other.

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They called these sections,
houses,

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and gave the houses
power over life, health,

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money, love, and so on.

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So, which house
a constellation was in

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affected life on Earth they said.

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Now, the more this astrology stuff,
became popular,

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the more astronomers saw.

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They saw, for instance,
that besides the Sun and the Moon,

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there were five other things
in the sky

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00:05:59,152 --> 00:06:00,900
that moved - like this:

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00:06:01,822 --> 00:06:03,902
so they called them the wanderers.

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00:06:04,042 --> 00:06:06,885
In greek, planeta: planets.

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So, by the second century A.D.,
this is the kind of stuff

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the astronomers
were turning out.

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It's a copy of a bit of
an astronomical bestseller

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by a fellow called
Claudius Ptolemy.

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It's a star table.

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There's the name of the star,
which constellation it's in,

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how many degrees
up in the sky,

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00:06:24,075 --> 00:06:25,706
which hemisphere,
how bright.

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And he did that for 1.022 stars.

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But it was still the old magic
that got he crowds on their feet,

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especially the magic
of being able to predict

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something like this.

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So, by the middle ages,

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they thought they got
a pretty clear idea

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of the kind of universe
they'd got.

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I say "they."
We didn't.

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Up here in cold, windy
northern Europe,

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we were too busy just trying to
get through the dark ages
in one piece.

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But the arabs did,
and they'd learned it

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00:07:01,776 --> 00:07:03,324
from the persians
and the indians.

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00:07:03,821 --> 00:07:04,953
Take a look at this.

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This is a mechanical version
of an arabic universe

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we built so we could
crank it around.

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First, for very obvious reasons,
they thought the Earth,

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here where I am now,
was at the center of everything.

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All around it, out in space,
was a gigantic crystal sphere

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carrying the constellations,
and rotating slowly.

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Inside that were another
seven crystal spheres,

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also rotating,

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each one carrying
a different planet.

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Closest to the Earth,
they thought, was the Moon,

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then Mercury, then Venus,
then came the Sun,

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and beyond that Mars
and then Jupiter,

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and finally Saturn.

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If you were an arab,
all this was vital,

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because it told you
in which direction

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Mecca, the holy city, lay,
and it told you what time it was

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so that you could pray
when you should,

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because they had this.

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It's a kind of heavenly computer
called an astrolabe.

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Each one of these little points
represents a star,

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and you can move the whole lot
so that you can reproduce

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what you see in the sky
on a particular night.

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And when you've done that,

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the astrolabe will tel you
what the date is.

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On the other side, there are
these two little sites.

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You line the sites up
on a star,

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then you read the angle
off there,

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and you look that angle up
on your star tables,

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and they tell you
that the star

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will be at that angle
at a certain time of night,

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accurate to within a minute.

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And, of course, if you know
what direction the stars is in,

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you can work out
where Mecca is.

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So, the arabs
were able to say

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where everything
in the sky would be,

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throughout the year
at any time, day or night.

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I mean, take, for example,

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dawn on september the 14th,
714, A.D.

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At that point, Venus would
have been up in the third house.

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Let's get it up there.

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Mercury would have been
in the second house.

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And everybody else
would have been clustered

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in the first house,

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together with the constellation virgo;

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except for Jupiter,
which would have been

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down below the horizon
in the 12 house.

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00:09:09,020 --> 00:09:11,529
So since this vast universe
was so powerful -

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I mean, the Sun
made plants grow,

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00:09:13,718 --> 00:09:15,455
and the stars changed
the seasons -

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everybody reckones that the sky
ruled all life on Earth.

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So, if you got sick, say,
a great deal hung

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on what was in the sky
when you were born.

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And that's why dawn
on september the 14th, 714,

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matters so much.

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It was the birthday of
the caliph Al-Mansur,

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00:09:33,391 --> 00:09:36,965
the founder of Baghdad,
who in 765,

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got as sick as a dog,
and couldn't be cured.

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And what happened because of that

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is one of the most
extraordinary accidents in history.

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You see, up in the mountains,
a few hundred miles away,

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at a place called
Jundi-Shapur,

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there was a monastery that
that had a medical school.

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and, finally, in desperation,

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the director of the medical
school was invited down,

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and he promptly
cured the caliph,

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and he probably
used astrology to do it.

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See, astrologers reproduced
what was in the sky

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on a chart,
very much like the ones

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in your daily paper.

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Each planet or constellation
was supposed to have power

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00:10:09,602 --> 00:10:15,489
over metals, plants, medicine,
your career, your live, desease.

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You name it, they ruled.

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So, any medical astrologer
looking

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at the caliph's
birth horoscope would have said,

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"wow, look at this lot here
in one influential grouping
in the house of life."

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I mean, virgo gives you
stomach trouble.

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Saturn gives you a hernia,
Mars gives you ulcers.

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And the moon
makes you vomit.

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So, diagnosis would have been
a piece of cake.

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Now, you may think
that's a lot of garbage.

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00:10:35,985 --> 00:10:37,356
So do I.

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But history records
that Al-Mansur

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actually did have
stomach trouble.

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Well, he was up and about
in no time,

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00:10:44,834 --> 00:10:47,274
and Jundi-Shapur became
a very popular place.

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00:10:47,419 --> 00:10:49,050
And that's when it happened.

190
00:10:49,190 --> 00:10:51,321
Because when the arabs
turned up for a look around,

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00:10:51,321 --> 00:10:53,535
they found it stuffed full
of manuscripts

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00:10:53,535 --> 00:10:55,688
containing a vast amount
of ancient greek knowledge,

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which they jumped at
and started translating,

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00:10:59,092 --> 00:11:01,665
knowledge that might have
been lost to us forever,

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00:11:01,665 --> 00:11:03,327
if Al-Mansur hadn't gone sick.

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00:11:03,470 --> 00:11:05,878
Because, as arab civilization
moved west

197
00:11:06,006 --> 00:11:08,602
across the Mediterranean
it took that knowledge with it,

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00:11:08,602 --> 00:11:11,186
and a belief
in a mechanical universe,

199
00:11:11,186 --> 00:11:12,831
whose science could be read

200
00:11:12,831 --> 00:11:16,776
for the benefit of mankind,
trapped inside it.

201
00:11:28,555 --> 00:11:30,508
The new knowledge
was to take us out

202
00:11:30,508 --> 00:11:33,055
of the treadmill of ignorance,
and put us in charge

203
00:11:33,055 --> 00:11:35,502
of our lives in a way
we'd never been before,

204
00:11:36,292 --> 00:11:38,942
especially when the amazing
new arab translations

205
00:11:38,942 --> 00:11:41,857
and medical stuff
got to pox-ridden Europe.

206
00:11:44,092 --> 00:11:46,235
The first european medical unit

207
00:11:46,235 --> 00:11:48,710
was set up at Salerno in Italy
in the 11th century,

208
00:11:50,570 --> 00:11:53,813
complete with do-it-yourself
instruction manuals like this lot.

209
00:11:58,155 --> 00:12:01,356
Salerno had its first big
success as a medieval mash,

210
00:12:01,356 --> 00:12:03,642
you know, crusaders
stopping off on their way back

211
00:12:03,642 --> 00:12:05,494
for repairs,
and then moving on

212
00:12:05,494 --> 00:12:06,556
to tell the folks at home

213
00:12:06,556 --> 00:12:09,937
all about this amazing, new
thing called 'curing people'.

214
00:12:13,695 --> 00:12:17,007
Well, to the europeans,
so short on medical knowledge,

215
00:12:17,007 --> 00:12:19,553
that with any disease,
you tended to get seriously dead,

216
00:12:19,553 --> 00:12:21,740
this was something
they had to have.

217
00:12:22,295 --> 00:12:24,855
And in their new universities,
one of the two

218
00:12:24,855 --> 00:12:28,338
really avant-garde things
to study became doctoring.

219
00:12:34,629 --> 00:12:37,508
The other academic turn-on
was also due to the muslims.

220
00:12:37,660 --> 00:12:39,758
When the christians
took Toledo back

221
00:12:39,892 --> 00:12:41,804
from the spanish arabs
in 1105,

222
00:12:41,942 --> 00:12:44,807
they found libraries
stacked with astronomy books,

223
00:12:44,945 --> 00:12:46,972
which the king
promptly ordered translated.

224
00:12:47,731 --> 00:12:49,056
You could hear
the sound of scribbling

225
00:12:49,056 --> 00:12:50,235
and excitement all over Europe.

226
00:12:50,380 --> 00:12:52,627
Remember those star tables
of Ptolemy's?

227
00:12:52,757 --> 00:12:54,540
That sort of stuff
was turning up.

228
00:12:54,694 --> 00:12:57,815
Well, by the 13th century,
anybody studying

229
00:12:57,815 --> 00:13:00,253
the new medicine and astronomy
was into what we would call

230
00:13:00,253 --> 00:13:03,305
scientific investigation,
a hard-nosed approach

231
00:13:03,305 --> 00:13:05,133
to things that definitely
underwhelmed

232
00:13:05,133 --> 00:13:07,041
one very heavy bunch of people.

233
00:13:08,343 --> 00:13:10,154
[man speaking latin]

234
00:13:15,924 --> 00:13:18,956
See, these were the days
of the great clerical carve-up

235
00:13:18,956 --> 00:13:20,838
between the traditionalists
in the church,

236
00:13:21,187 --> 00:13:23,045
and the new thinkers
who got turned on

237
00:13:23,045 --> 00:13:23,851
by the new science.

238
00:13:25,747 --> 00:13:27,033
[man speaking latin]

239
00:13:32,938 --> 00:13:36,132
On the one hand,
the traditionalists who said,

240
00:13:36,132 --> 00:13:37,390
"listen, all you has to do
is to believe,

241
00:13:37,390 --> 00:13:39,308
and whatever the early
church fathers wrote,

242
00:13:39,308 --> 00:13:40,782
that's the horse's mouth."

243
00:13:43,572 --> 00:13:45,851
And on the other
the new thinkers

244
00:13:45,851 --> 00:13:48,013
who reckoned that if something
didn't stand up to analysis

245
00:13:48,013 --> 00:13:49,771
and argument, then
you couldn't trust it,

246
00:13:49,771 --> 00:13:50,789
no matter who it was.

247
00:13:51,193 --> 00:13:53,718
Well, that kind of made
the traditionalists

248
00:13:53,718 --> 00:13:54,729
foam at the mouth.

249
00:13:55,240 --> 00:13:57,548
To them, it was
revolutionary clap trap,

250
00:13:58,103 --> 00:14:00,033
though, to us,
this new new view is obvious.

251
00:14:00,228 --> 00:14:02,688
If you could examine
the sky and the human body,

252
00:14:02,688 --> 00:14:04,122
and find out how they worked,

253
00:14:04,122 --> 00:14:06,477
whas there any limit
to what you could do?

254
00:14:06,922 --> 00:14:09,032
Why believe anything,
unless you could prove it?

255
00:14:09,548 --> 00:14:11,727
Our modern approach
to learning starts here.

256
00:14:11,885 --> 00:14:14,829
But what drove
the traditionalists bananas

257
00:14:14,829 --> 00:14:17,021
was that these guys
were even suggesting

258
00:14:17,021 --> 00:14:19,280
you could apply the same
experimental approach

259
00:14:19,280 --> 00:14:21,019
to what god was.

260
00:14:21,768 --> 00:14:23,803
[men speaking latin]

261
00:14:27,470 --> 00:14:29,509
Worst of all, they said this:

262
00:14:29,480 --> 00:14:32,908
"you compare one holy writer
with another on some crucial point,

263
00:14:32,908 --> 00:14:34,488
and they don't agree."

264
00:14:38,613 --> 00:14:40,286
Put yourself
in the pope's position,

265
00:14:40,286 --> 00:14:41,675
with all these guys
rocking the boat.

266
00:14:42,110 --> 00:14:43,246
There was
only one thing to do:

267
00:14:43,246 --> 00:14:44,912
invent the inquisition.

268
00:14:45,204 --> 00:14:46,839
And we all know
what that got up to:

269
00:14:46,839 --> 00:14:48,304
very nasty stuff.

270
00:15:00,786 --> 00:15:06,339
Now, while some of the knowledge
coming in via the arabs

271
00:15:06,339 --> 00:15:08,171
was causing the church
a little trouble,

272
00:15:08,171 --> 00:15:12,655
some of it was about to help
solve a really serious problem.

273
00:15:12,789 --> 00:15:15,414
The problem the church had,
was telling the time.

274
00:15:16,462 --> 00:15:19,087
You see, the church had rules
that if you were a monk,

275
00:15:19,087 --> 00:15:20,846
you had to say certain prayers
at certain hours

276
00:15:20,846 --> 00:15:21,865
of the day and night.

277
00:15:22,223 --> 00:15:24,030
And as a monk,
your salvation depended

278
00:15:24,030 --> 00:15:25,116
on doing that properly.

279
00:15:25,116 --> 00:15:26,815
So, knowing what time it was,
was vital.

280
00:15:27,164 --> 00:15:29,864
Now, in the Mediterranean,
in the south,

281
00:15:29,864 --> 00:15:32,978
they had sundials,
and they had candles.

282
00:15:32,978 --> 00:15:35,278
Now, they had both up here
in northern Europe, too,

283
00:15:35,278 --> 00:15:37,222
but the problem with the
sundial in northern Europe

284
00:15:37,222 --> 00:15:39,194
is that there's not
very much sun.

285
00:15:39,194 --> 00:15:40,761
It's cloudy
a lot of the time.

286
00:15:40,761 --> 00:15:42,932
And as for candles,
well, at the time,

287
00:15:42,932 --> 00:15:43,777
they were very expensive,

288
00:15:43,777 --> 00:15:46,729
and they did sometimes
tend to burn places down.

289
00:15:47,389 --> 00:15:50,195
Now, the only way we know
how they solved the problem

290
00:15:50,195 --> 00:15:52,759
of getting the prayer right
at the right time

291
00:15:52,759 --> 00:15:54,219
was because of a chronicle

292
00:15:54,219 --> 00:15:56,804
written by a monk called
Jocelin de Brakelond.

293
00:15:56,957 --> 00:15:59,260
And he lived in
the abbey church

294
00:15:59,260 --> 00:16:00,906
of Bury St. Edmonds
in England,

295
00:16:00,906 --> 00:16:02,848
where the body of St. Edmond
was buried.

296
00:16:02,848 --> 00:16:04,008
So it was a very important
church.

297
00:16:04,008 --> 00:16:08,572
Anyway, he says that one night,
june 23rd, 1198,

298
00:16:08,922 --> 00:16:10,857
everybody in the abby
was awakened

299
00:16:10,857 --> 00:16:13,587
by the sound of
the most gigantic fire.

300
00:16:13,587 --> 00:16:15,925
And they raced out, terrified,
and sure enough,

301
00:16:15,925 --> 00:16:16,979
the whole place
was going up in smoke,

302
00:16:16,979 --> 00:16:18,129
it was a major catastrophe.

303
00:16:18,291 --> 00:16:20,699
And he says,
"the young men among us ran,

304
00:16:20,699 --> 00:16:23,613
some to the well
and some to the clock."

305
00:16:24,320 --> 00:16:26,405
Now, the reason
they ran to the clock

306
00:16:26,405 --> 00:16:27,660
to put the fire out

307
00:16:27,660 --> 00:16:30,072
was because they were using
a water clock,

308
00:16:30,072 --> 00:16:34,358
and that's fine by day,
but who wakes you up at night

309
00:16:34,358 --> 00:16:35,757
and says, "excuse me,
it's 5:00,

310
00:16:35,757 --> 00:16:37,364
and you've got to do
that particular prayer."

311
00:16:37,934 --> 00:16:39,629
Now, we haven't known
for centuries

312
00:16:39,629 --> 00:16:41,603
how they solved
the problem of waking up
in the middle of the night,

313
00:16:41,603 --> 00:16:46,172
until recently, when a fragment
of an 11th century manuscript

314
00:16:46,172 --> 00:16:48,374
was discovered in a monastery
in the Pyrenees.

315
00:16:48,995 --> 00:16:51,249
And in this fragment -
it said in latin, of course -

316
00:16:51,249 --> 00:16:54,259
"this is how you build
a water-powered alarm clock."

317
00:16:55,099 --> 00:16:55,864
So we did.

318
00:16:56,598 --> 00:16:57,738
We think it's the only one
in the world.

319
00:16:58,353 --> 00:16:59,276
And you know what?

320
00:16:59,973 --> 00:17:00,669
It works.

321
00:17:01,211 --> 00:17:03,132
I think it's fantastic.

322
00:17:03,540 --> 00:17:04,762
Here's the reservoir of water,

323
00:17:04,762 --> 00:17:06,715
running water
coming down here

324
00:17:06,715 --> 00:17:08,597
at a very carefully
controlled speed,

325
00:17:08,597 --> 00:17:10,326
fills the reservoir here.

326
00:17:10,326 --> 00:17:11,967
Weel, there's a float
down in there,

327
00:17:11,967 --> 00:17:13,407
and top of the float
is this shaft,

328
00:17:13,407 --> 00:17:15,213
and on the shaft,
there are teeth.

329
00:17:15,213 --> 00:17:17,895
Now, as the float rises slowly,
these teeth engage

330
00:17:17,895 --> 00:17:20,629
in this cog system here
on the face of the clock.

331
00:17:20,629 --> 00:17:22,847
And that turns the clock
very slowly.

332
00:17:22,847 --> 00:17:24,818
And for daytime,
there's your clock,

333
00:17:24,818 --> 00:17:25,671
you know what time it is.

334
00:17:25,671 --> 00:17:27,235
Now, for your alarm call
at night,

335
00:17:27,235 --> 00:17:30,188
you take a little sliver
of metal like that,

336
00:17:30,188 --> 00:17:32,309
and you stick it
in one of these slits

337
00:17:32,309 --> 00:17:33,498
around the outside
of the clock face,

338
00:17:33,498 --> 00:17:34,877
depending on what time
you want, like,

339
00:17:34,877 --> 00:17:35,932
say, 3:00 in the morning.

340
00:17:35,932 --> 00:17:37,991
And when 3:00 in the morning
comes around

341
00:17:37,991 --> 00:17:40,825
that little metal sliver
rises just -

342
00:17:40,825 --> 00:17:43,546
and it touches this ledge here
and trips it,

343
00:17:43,546 --> 00:17:46,071
as it goes by,
causing this tiny weight

344
00:17:46,071 --> 00:17:49,702
to swing down here,
pulling this noose off

345
00:17:49,702 --> 00:17:50,757
that restraining arm.

346
00:17:50,757 --> 00:17:52,850
Now, once the noos is off
that restraining arm,

347
00:17:52,850 --> 00:17:54,731
this shaft here spins
round and round.

348
00:17:54,731 --> 00:17:57,010
Now, it does that,
because in here,

349
00:17:57,010 --> 00:17:59,125
it's got rope wound
round and round it,

350
00:17:59,125 --> 00:18:00,806
and that rope's attached
to some very heavy weights.

351
00:18:00,806 --> 00:18:02,805
So when the shaft is free,
the weight fall,

352
00:18:02,805 --> 00:18:04,167
and the shaft spins.

353
00:18:04,167 --> 00:18:07,047
And when it does,
this bit here goes forward

354
00:18:07,047 --> 00:18:09,118
and hit the bell,
and that's your alarm call.

355
00:18:09,869 --> 00:18:10,894
And who said
genius was simple?

356
00:18:10,894 --> 00:18:12,478
Look at it in action.

357
00:18:44,909 --> 00:18:47,139
Great showbiz.
But the trouble was,

358
00:18:47,139 --> 00:18:48,533
in winter,
the water still froze.

359
00:18:49,126 --> 00:18:51,697
So it wasn't until
about 1280

360
00:18:51,697 --> 00:18:53,082
that somebody came up
with a brilliant idea

361
00:18:53,082 --> 00:18:55,658
of getting rid of the water
completely,

362
00:18:55,658 --> 00:18:57,579
and using only the weight
to power the clock.

363
00:18:58,193 --> 00:19:00,208
The system that made
that idea feasible

364
00:19:00,208 --> 00:19:02,838
was probably one of
the greatest inventions

365
00:19:02,838 --> 00:19:06,651
in the history of mankind:
the verge and foliot.

366
00:19:14,770 --> 00:19:15,834
This is it.

367
00:19:16,448 --> 00:19:17,995
You see, this wheel
with teeth in it,

368
00:19:17,995 --> 00:19:21,829
well, it's being turned
by a weight and a piece of rope

369
00:19:21,829 --> 00:19:22,832
wrapped around a shaft,

370
00:19:22,832 --> 00:19:24,006
just like the one
in the alarm clock.

371
00:19:24,006 --> 00:19:25,987
It's not whizzing around
so fast,

372
00:19:25,987 --> 00:19:27,764
because is beiong
held in check

373
00:19:27,764 --> 00:19:29,760
by the verge and the foliot system
I told you about.

374
00:19:29,760 --> 00:19:30,092
Look.

375
00:19:30,092 --> 00:19:32,611
This is the verge bit,
and it has a blade in there

376
00:19:32,611 --> 00:19:33,890
which comes, and it
catches the teeth,

377
00:19:33,890 --> 00:19:36,169
and stop the wheel moving
for a second like that.

378
00:19:36,169 --> 00:19:39,269
Now, every time it does that,
fit's then kicked away

379
00:19:39,269 --> 00:19:41,415
by the wheel, because the wheel
is being pulled by the main weight.

380
00:19:41,415 --> 00:19:43,731
And when that happened, another
blade down at the bottom

381
00:19:43,731 --> 00:19:46,689
catches in the teeth
and holds the wheel

382
00:19:46,689 --> 00:19:49,465
for another split second
before it, too, is kicked away.

383
00:19:49,465 --> 00:19:51,759
And the two blades
alternate between them,

384
00:19:51,759 --> 00:19:53,692
back and forth, holding the wheel
back all the time.

385
00:19:53,692 --> 00:19:57,129
And as they operate,
you can hear the sound

386
00:19:57,129 --> 00:19:59,364
with which the world
has become familiar

387
00:19:59,364 --> 00:20:00,431
over the last 700 years,

388
00:20:00,431 --> 00:20:05,102
the sound of tick-tock,
tick-tock.

389
00:20:17,964 --> 00:20:21,711
By 1400, what had started
as a machine to tell people

390
00:20:21,711 --> 00:20:23,625
when to pray,
had become a machine

391
00:20:23,625 --> 00:20:25,325
for telling people
when to work.

392
00:20:44,753 --> 00:20:46,868
Towns all over Europe
got clocks,

393
00:20:46,868 --> 00:20:49,457
and when they rang,
you moved, and you moved

394
00:20:49,457 --> 00:20:51,821
until they rang again,
when you stopped.

395
00:20:52,499 --> 00:20:53,558
Does that idea ring a bell?

396
00:20:59,560 --> 00:21:02,491
This was also when we got
our 12-hour clock,

397
00:21:02,491 --> 00:21:05,219
because striking 24
for one of these monster

398
00:21:05,219 --> 00:21:06,226
was much too complicated.

399
00:21:09,147 --> 00:21:11,088
The new clocks made the towns
more efficient,

400
00:21:11,088 --> 00:21:12,583
and production went up.

401
00:21:13,792 --> 00:21:17,026
Okay, put yourself back then,
say, in the position

402
00:21:17,026 --> 00:21:18,841
of a successful merchant
or businessman,

403
00:21:18,841 --> 00:21:22,839
riding high on the late
medieval economic boom.

404
00:21:23,261 --> 00:21:25,572
All around you, towns
are running their businesses

405
00:21:25,572 --> 00:21:28,083
with clocks like these
in their towers.

406
00:21:28,604 --> 00:21:30,594
Time is becoming money.

407
00:21:30,594 --> 00:21:31,614
So what do you want?

408
00:21:31,614 --> 00:21:34,597
You want time, but you don't
want it like that at the tower.

409
00:21:34,597 --> 00:21:35,656
You want it
in your pocket.

410
00:21:36,300 --> 00:21:38,329
So there must have been
a very ready market around

411
00:21:38,329 --> 00:21:40,192
when some craftsman,
i don't know,

412
00:21:40,192 --> 00:21:43,421
around about 1450, 1460,
made the next great step.

413
00:21:44,360 --> 00:21:46,372
He might even have been,
say, a locksmith.

414
00:21:46,667 --> 00:21:48,712
Because if you look
at the locks of the time,

415
00:21:48,712 --> 00:21:49,993
you see that they work -

416
00:21:49,993 --> 00:21:51,554
they stay open
or stay closed -

417
00:21:51,554 --> 00:21:54,663
because of the power
of that - bending metal.

418
00:21:54,791 --> 00:21:57,873
So, the spring is the concept
i'm talking about.

419
00:21:58,248 --> 00:22:00,363
But it was what you do
with the spring

420
00:22:00,363 --> 00:22:01,505
that was really clever.

421
00:22:01,658 --> 00:22:03,725
You see, a spring
has problems.

422
00:22:03,876 --> 00:22:06,361
When it's wound up tight,
it starts to unwind.

423
00:22:06,361 --> 00:22:07,877
It's working very powerfully,
strongly.

424
00:22:07,877 --> 00:22:10,142
As it unwinds, it becomes
weaker and weaker.

425
00:22:10,902 --> 00:22:12,656
So if you're going to get
a spring to work,

426
00:22:12,794 --> 00:22:14,874
you have to make sure
that it's given the hard work

427
00:22:14,874 --> 00:22:17,245
at the beginning,
and the easy work at the end.

428
00:22:18,336 --> 00:22:20,471
Now, in clocks,
this is how they did that.

429
00:22:20,618 --> 00:22:23,368
They put the spring
inside a barrel.

430
00:22:23,494 --> 00:22:24,217
There's a barrel.

431
00:22:24,343 --> 00:22:26,167
And the spring is connected
to the barrel,

432
00:22:26,167 --> 00:22:27,904
so that as the spring unwinds,
the barrel turns.

433
00:22:28,028 --> 00:22:30,492
Now, coiled around the outside
of the barrel,

434
00:22:30,615 --> 00:22:33,253
there's either catcut,
or chains, in this case,

435
00:22:33,253 --> 00:22:35,328
and that chain is then
taken across over here

436
00:22:35,328 --> 00:22:36,427
and wound round and round

437
00:22:36,427 --> 00:22:38,554
to the main drive shaft
of the clock.

438
00:22:38,699 --> 00:22:40,080
But you see that?

439
00:22:40,205 --> 00:22:44,301
That drive shaft is tapered
so that, as the chain unwinds,

440
00:22:44,432 --> 00:22:46,070
the first parts inwind down here,

441
00:22:46,198 --> 00:22:48,320
where the hard work
has to be done by the spring.

442
00:22:48,453 --> 00:22:51,107
And then, as it weakens,
it's unwinding further

443
00:22:51,238 --> 00:22:53,619
and further up the shaft,
until, right at the top,

444
00:22:53,619 --> 00:22:55,116
the easiest work
is being done,

445
00:22:55,116 --> 00:22:56,560
the position it's in now,
as a matter of fact.

446
00:22:57,205 --> 00:22:59,466
Now, that threaded shaft there
is called a fusie.

447
00:22:59,598 --> 00:23:02,578
And if you're ever looking
at your wristwatch one day

448
00:23:02,578 --> 00:23:03,884
and wondering why
you're a slave to it,

449
00:23:03,884 --> 00:23:05,597
blame the fusie.
That's where it all started.

450
00:23:05,734 --> 00:23:09,731
These spring-driven clocks were,
as you would expect,

451
00:23:09,731 --> 00:23:10,791
instant raving success.

452
00:23:10,791 --> 00:23:14,379
I mean, imagine being given
something like that,

453
00:23:15,152 --> 00:23:18,491
when the world you live in
is full of bears, and wolves,

454
00:23:18,491 --> 00:23:21,242
and dark forests, and muddy tracks,
and thatched roofs.

455
00:23:21,376 --> 00:23:23,555
It must have been like
one of us getting

456
00:23:23,555 --> 00:23:25,795
a personal interstellar
spacecraft to play with,

457
00:23:25,795 --> 00:23:27,031
and park around
behind the house.

458
00:23:28,538 --> 00:23:32,282
Most of these medieval
mechanical marvels

459
00:23:32,282 --> 00:23:35,072
came from the same town
in southern Germany

460
00:23:35,072 --> 00:23:39,614
that this one did, because
it's called a Nuremberg egg.

461
00:23:56,557 --> 00:23:58,512
Okay, enough of
the tourist bit.

462
00:23:58,642 --> 00:23:59,413
On with the story.

463
00:23:59,999 --> 00:24:01,811
Nuremberg was good
at clock making,

464
00:24:01,811 --> 00:24:03,262
because it was good
at metal work,

465
00:24:03,262 --> 00:24:06,058
because it was in the greatest
mining area in Europe:

466
00:24:06,058 --> 00:24:10,992
gold, silver, iron, copper,
so it was very, very rich,

467
00:24:10,992 --> 00:24:13,514
and it had the best craftsmen
in Europe.

468
00:24:13,979 --> 00:24:16,115
They used to boast
that your average burger here

469
00:24:16,115 --> 00:24:17,744
lived better than
the king of Scotland.

470
00:24:18,489 --> 00:24:20,615
Nuremberg was also
on a main road,

471
00:24:20,615 --> 00:24:22,115
so a lot of people
came through.

472
00:24:22,115 --> 00:24:24,762
In most cases, they came
for the expertise

473
00:24:24,762 --> 00:24:27,240
that the craftsmen here
guarded so jealously,

474
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:30,206
keeping their earnings up
by keeping other craftsmen

475
00:24:30,206 --> 00:24:30,901
out of town.

476
00:24:32,810 --> 00:24:34,913
At one end of the scale,
they produced

477
00:24:34,913 --> 00:24:36,423
some of the best
armor around,

478
00:24:36,423 --> 00:24:38,755
at the other,
extremely delicate

479
00:24:38,755 --> 00:24:41,429
and extremely expensive
trinkets like this.

480
00:24:41,429 --> 00:24:45,134
Nuremberg became a center
for research into metallurgy.

481
00:24:45,292 --> 00:24:46,987
And since they also ran
silver mines,

482
00:24:46,987 --> 00:24:49,415
they also had the biggest
banking corporations in Europe.

483
00:24:49,415 --> 00:24:52,079
They lent money to everybody
to finance their wars,

484
00:24:52,079 --> 00:24:54,711
and then made even more money
by selling them

485
00:24:54,711 --> 00:24:56,735
a nice little line in weapons
they also made.

486
00:24:56,735 --> 00:24:59,115
And where have we heard
that trick before?

487
00:24:59,962 --> 00:25:01,471
But, the point
of all this,

488
00:25:01,471 --> 00:25:02,171
I hear you ask.

489
00:25:02,171 --> 00:25:05,463
Well, because Nuremberg
was so well placed

490
00:25:05,463 --> 00:25:07,932
to make fantastically
complex clocks like this,

491
00:25:07,932 --> 00:25:13,145
it started turning out
sky-watching instruments.

492
00:25:13,790 --> 00:25:15,959
Thanks to the locksmiths
and the clockmakers,

493
00:25:15,959 --> 00:25:18,403
you could now look at the sky
in such detail

494
00:25:18,403 --> 00:25:19,735
with the new,
improved instruments,

495
00:25:19,735 --> 00:25:22,654
you began to see
that there was something wrong

496
00:25:22,654 --> 00:25:25,976
with the old idea of the Earth
being at the center of everything.

497
00:25:29,819 --> 00:25:32,471
This frightening possibility
took over Europe by storm.

498
00:25:32,471 --> 00:25:34,820
Up North, everybody
was talking about it.

499
00:25:34,820 --> 00:25:38,133
Down south, here in Italy
nobody was.

500
00:25:38,133 --> 00:25:40,256
Or if they were, they made sure
they were alone.

501
00:25:40,256 --> 00:25:42,383
Well, most of them did.

502
00:25:42,383 --> 00:25:45,449
Except one, which is why
out story takes us next

503
00:25:45,449 --> 00:25:47,960
to the italian cathedral
city of Pisa.

504
00:25:49,248 --> 00:25:52,074
And this is where
the catholic church
comes into the picture.

505
00:25:52,918 --> 00:25:55,479
It was probably a man,
called Hans Lippershey,

506
00:25:55,479 --> 00:25:57,666
a spectacle maker
who lived in Holland,

507
00:25:57,666 --> 00:26:03,351
who is as responsible as anybody
for kicking the whole thing off,
because in 1603,

508
00:26:03,351 --> 00:26:06,800
he offered THIS
to the Dutch army
for use in the battlefield

509
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:11,427
He called it, his 'looker'.
We call it a 'telescope'.

510
00:26:12,057 --> 00:26:16,218
A years later, in 1609, one was
in the hand of Galileo.

511
00:26:16,218 --> 00:26:17,847
And, from the very firts moment

512
00:26:17,847 --> 00:26:19,335
that he looked through it
at the night sky,

513
00:26:19,335 --> 00:26:22,242
our view of where we stand
in the universe changed,

514
00:26:22,242 --> 00:26:26,996
because what Galileo saw
confirmed what the polish
astronomer Copernicus

515
00:26:26,996 --> 00:26:29,392
had been saying theoretically
for 60 years:

516
00:26:29,392 --> 00:26:32,026
that the Earth was not
the center of the universe,

517
00:26:32,026 --> 00:26:33,710
with everything going round it.

518
00:26:37,799 --> 00:26:41,393
Galileo saw something
that shock him rigid: Jupiter.

519
00:26:41,393 --> 00:26:44,053
That was Okay.
But with Moons going round it?

520
00:26:44,383 --> 00:26:47,047
So if Jupiter
was the center for its Moons,

521
00:26:48,147 --> 00:26:50,372
that blew the idea that the Earth
was the center of everything.

522
00:26:53,628 --> 00:26:55,346
When Galileo published
what he thought,

523
00:26:55,346 --> 00:26:58,398
the result was the Inquisition
and house arrest

524
00:26:58,398 --> 00:26:59,494
until the day he died.

525
00:27:00,544 --> 00:27:02,412
In those days, you simply
did not question

526
00:27:02,412 --> 00:27:05,564
what the catholic church said,
and the catholic church said

527
00:27:05,564 --> 00:27:07,876
that the Earth was the center
of everything.

528
00:27:10,259 --> 00:27:13,872
However, something else
Galileo wrote about

529
00:27:13,872 --> 00:27:16,760
wasn't quite so revolutionary
so it didn't get suppressed,

530
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:18,157
so people got to
hear about it.

531
00:27:19,142 --> 00:27:22,365
It was something he noticed
that was to turn out to be

532
00:27:22,365 --> 00:27:26,375
the solution to another problem
that the telescope created.

533
00:27:26,823 --> 00:27:29,780
You see, now astronomers had
these things to observe with,

534
00:27:29,780 --> 00:27:32,192
they need better clocks
that they had,

535
00:27:32,192 --> 00:27:35,697
to time the movements
of the planets
they were watching.

536
00:27:35,697 --> 00:27:37,645
And over a long period
of time,

537
00:27:37,645 --> 00:27:40,592
a spring-driven clock
was just not good enough.

538
00:27:41,779 --> 00:27:46,250
According to the legend,
this was what Galileo noticed

539
00:27:46,250 --> 00:27:49,767
here in Pisa Cathedral,
one day in 1581.

540
00:27:50,852 --> 00:27:53,659
Out of curiosity,
he timed the length of the swing

541
00:27:53,659 --> 00:27:55,018
on his pulse, and he noticed

542
00:27:55,018 --> 00:27:57,800
that the length of time
it took the lamp to swing,

543
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:01,449
was exactly the same,
whether it was a big swing or,

544
00:28:01,449 --> 00:28:03,330
as the swing lessened,
a little swing.

545
00:28:03,717 --> 00:28:08,124
In other words, it was
an extremely accurate
unit of measurement.

546
00:28:08,805 --> 00:28:13,721
Well, neither in Pisa
nor anywhere else in Italy

547
00:28:13,721 --> 00:28:15,638
did Galileo do very much
about his observation.

548
00:28:15,638 --> 00:28:18,097
It took somebody
from a northern country,

549
00:28:18,097 --> 00:28:20,126
a protestant country
with no fear of the Inquisition,

550
00:28:20,126 --> 00:28:22,390
to take things to
their logical conclusion.

551
00:28:22,390 --> 00:28:25,004
He was an astronomer, too,

552
00:28:25,004 --> 00:28:27,364
and he needed an accurate clock,
just like everybody else.

553
00:28:27,364 --> 00:28:30,169
His name is Christiaan Huygens,
a dutchman.

554
00:28:30,169 --> 00:28:36,196
And in 1656, he produced
THIS, a pendulum.

555
00:28:36,632 --> 00:28:39,079
You remember the verge
and foliot system,

556
00:28:39,079 --> 00:28:41,247
the very first
mechanical clock system,

557
00:28:41,247 --> 00:28:45,305
the one that had a big
weight pulling a wheel
with teeth on it,

558
00:28:45,305 --> 00:28:47,600
and the theet were held
in check one at a time

559
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:49,608
by a rod with blades
that went like this,

560
00:28:49,608 --> 00:28:51,262
as the whell
was pulled round?

561
00:28:51,695 --> 00:28:54,410
Well, instead of using
a swinging weight

562
00:28:54,410 --> 00:28:56,881
to give those blades
the power to hold the wheel,

563
00:28:56,881 --> 00:28:59,896
Huygens used the swinging power
of the pendulum,

564
00:29:00,552 --> 00:29:04,059
so that as the pendulum swung,
the blades went hold, release,

565
00:29:04,059 --> 00:29:07,115
hold, release, hold, release.

566
00:29:07,860 --> 00:29:09,149
Very accurate indeed,

567
00:29:09,149 --> 00:29:11,990
so it solved all the problems
the astronomers had.

568
00:29:12,737 --> 00:29:14,473
But there was another bunch
of stargazers

569
00:29:14,473 --> 00:29:15,875
who couldn't use that system,

570
00:29:15,875 --> 00:29:18,119
they were sailors
who had to know the time.

571
00:29:18,119 --> 00:29:20,310
And the reason
they couldn't use this system?

572
00:29:20,310 --> 00:29:24,092
Well, you try a pendulum clock
an a pitching sea,

573
00:29:24,092 --> 00:29:25,399
and you'll get the point.

574
00:29:25,399 --> 00:29:26,908
The pendulum goes,
all over the place.

575
00:29:37,801 --> 00:29:40,960
Now, the reason why
navigators had to be able
to tell the time,

576
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:43,785
was that by the beginning
of the 17th century,

577
00:29:43,785 --> 00:29:47,184
the trade routes to America
and to India

578
00:29:47,184 --> 00:29:48,194
had been opened up,

579
00:29:48,194 --> 00:29:50,772
and the great maritime
empires were really going:

580
00:29:50,772 --> 00:29:52,692
the portuguese, the spanish,
the dutch, and the english.

581
00:29:52,692 --> 00:29:55,720
And in that order,
their goverments offered

582
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:57,812
really big money for anybody
who would come up

583
00:29:57,812 --> 00:29:59,662
with a way to help
their navigators tell the time.

584
00:29:59,662 --> 00:30:00,952
Here's why.

585
00:30:00,952 --> 00:30:05,087
Each navigator had a book
of star tables with him,

586
00:30:05,087 --> 00:30:06,386
and what those star tables

587
00:30:06,386 --> 00:30:09,857
told him was the position
of any star or the Moon,

588
00:30:09,857 --> 00:30:13,789
at any particular hour
of any particular day
during the year.

589
00:30:14,378 --> 00:30:16,302
And, if he observed a star,

590
00:30:16,302 --> 00:30:18,714
he would check
the position of it in the sky,

591
00:30:18,714 --> 00:30:21,644
so many degrees up,
so many degrees
to north or south.

592
00:30:22,210 --> 00:30:23,556
Then, he'd go
and look in his book,

593
00:30:23,556 --> 00:30:25,347
and the book would say,
"Well, if that's where it is

594
00:30:25,382 --> 00:30:26,684
at this particular time,
then, that means

595
00:30:26,684 --> 00:30:28,954
you're in the only place
where you would see it
in that position,

596
00:30:28,954 --> 00:30:30,369
therefore, you must be at X"

597
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:31,743
And that would be
his position.

598
00:30:32,638 --> 00:30:35,034
Now, the problem with that is
that those star tables

599
00:30:35,034 --> 00:30:37,137
were only made to be used
when you were either going

600
00:30:37,137 --> 00:30:40,044
north or south
in the same time zone.

601
00:30:40,762 --> 00:30:44,200
Suppose you, say, go out
into the Atlantic

602
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:46,802
west toward America, say,
to the point where the sun

603
00:30:46,802 --> 00:30:49,033
comes up an hour later
that when you left home?

604
00:30:49,033 --> 00:30:51,244
Then all you measurements
are an hour out.

605
00:30:51,244 --> 00:30:52,785
So you look
at your star tables,

606
00:30:52,785 --> 00:30:55,249
and the star tables tell you
information that is okay

607
00:30:55,249 --> 00:30:56,059
for when you left home

608
00:30:56,059 --> 00:30:58,270
but not for where
it's actually an hour later.

609
00:30:59,053 --> 00:31:04,385
And in terms of distance,
the Earth turns 1000 miles
during an hour,

610
00:31:04,385 --> 00:31:06,809
so your position is
1000 miles out.

611
00:31:06,809 --> 00:31:09,534
And even if you got the time right
to within one minute,

612
00:31:09,534 --> 00:31:11,546
you'd still be
15 miles off course.

613
00:31:11,546 --> 00:31:14,127
15 miles off course,
you miss the place
you're going to,

614
00:31:14,127 --> 00:31:16,041
you don't get the cargo
you've been sent to pick up.

615
00:31:16,041 --> 00:31:17,917
And that kind of thing
was happening all the time.

616
00:31:17,917 --> 00:31:20,814
They were absolutely desperate
to get a clock

617
00:31:20,814 --> 00:31:22,302
to those navigators
that would tell them

618
00:31:22,302 --> 00:31:24,726
what time it was back home,
so they could make

619
00:31:24,726 --> 00:31:26,821
the necessary alterations
in their star tables.

620
00:31:27,224 --> 00:31:30,104
And the one thing it couldn't be
was a pendulum clock.

621
00:31:36,803 --> 00:31:38,097
So, where have we got?

622
00:31:38,234 --> 00:31:42,516
The sick caliph, the arab science
that turned on european monks,

623
00:31:42,650 --> 00:31:45,730
their need for alarm clocks,
up came the spring,

624
00:31:45,860 --> 00:31:49,284
fancy metal work followed,
and sky-watching instruments

625
00:31:49,415 --> 00:31:51,743
like the telescope,
and them, the pendulum clock

626
00:31:51,743 --> 00:31:54,435
that timed the planets,
but was useless for navigators.

627
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:58,430
Their need to get
the position of the Moon

628
00:31:58,567 --> 00:32:00,487
and the sky or a star
right

629
00:32:00,606 --> 00:32:04,182
demanded a better clock spring,
and that need triggered off

630
00:32:04,182 --> 00:32:06,262
a series of events
that begins with a spring,

631
00:32:06,262 --> 00:32:08,661
but end typically,
somewhere different.

632
00:32:09,336 --> 00:32:10,776
It starts, of all places,

633
00:32:10,776 --> 00:32:15,059
here in a glassmaking furnace
in Sheffield, and it ends

634
00:32:15,059 --> 00:32:17,075
with something
that was good for the muscles,

635
00:32:17,212 --> 00:32:21,247
thanks to the way
all these bits and pieces
on this table go together.

636
00:32:21,384 --> 00:32:24,297
You see, the steel
in the springs

637
00:32:24,297 --> 00:32:26,938
was made by piling up
alternative layers

638
00:32:26,938 --> 00:32:30,448
of iron bars and charcoal
and keeping the pile hot for,

639
00:32:30,448 --> 00:32:31,448
oh, anything up to a week.

640
00:32:31,448 --> 00:32:35,746
The carbon in the charcoal
defused into the surface

641
00:32:35,746 --> 00:32:37,801
of the iron,
and made a layer of steel.

642
00:32:38,372 --> 00:32:40,813
Now you knock those layers off,
and then you hammer them together,

643
00:32:40,813 --> 00:32:44,324
and what you come up with
is laminated steel made up of
the compressed layers.

644
00:32:44,942 --> 00:32:46,794
Now, when you coil that steel
into a spring,

645
00:32:46,794 --> 00:32:48,283
you've given yourself a problem.

646
00:32:48,283 --> 00:32:51,011
Because of the different qualities
of the different layers,

647
00:32:51,011 --> 00:32:53,793
the spring tend to unwind
irregularly.

648
00:32:54,345 --> 00:32:56,872
Now, if only you could
melt the layers,

649
00:32:56,872 --> 00:32:59,600
they would all run together,
and form a steel
of uniform strength.

650
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:01,896
But in 1740,
who could melt steel?

651
00:33:03,070 --> 00:33:06,268
Well, the glass makers who
worked in this pace could,

652
00:33:06,268 --> 00:33:07,477
only they didn't know it.

653
00:33:07,477 --> 00:33:11,860
Until a clockmaker called
Benjamin Huntsman

654
00:33:11,860 --> 00:33:13,850
came along and noticed
that the local glass makers

655
00:33:13,850 --> 00:33:17,233
were putting old bits of glass
into their furnaces

656
00:33:17,233 --> 00:33:18,957
and managing to melt them,

657
00:33:18,957 --> 00:33:21,795
because they lined the walls
of these places

658
00:33:21,795 --> 00:33:23,830
with the kind of clay
that reflected the heat

659
00:33:23,830 --> 00:33:26,846
back into the furnace,
and that sent the temperature
way up.

660
00:33:28,369 --> 00:33:31,547
The first thing that Hunstman did
was to make pots out of that clay.

661
00:33:31,547 --> 00:33:33,236
Because it could stand
terrific heat.

662
00:33:33,599 --> 00:33:37,178
Then he'd put these pots
into one of the amazing
new coke furnaces.

663
00:33:37,337 --> 00:33:39,729
And here's where he pinched
the glass maker's technique.

664
00:33:39,860 --> 00:33:43,120
He put bits of old steel
into the pots,

665
00:33:43,267 --> 00:33:46,207
left the lot to simmer
at very high temperature,

666
00:33:46,342 --> 00:33:49,232
and after five hours,
instead of a week,

667
00:33:49,366 --> 00:33:51,280
the pots came out
of the furnace

668
00:33:51,407 --> 00:33:53,584
full of white hot melted steel

669
00:33:53,584 --> 00:33:55,946
that what just the stuff
for clock springs,

670
00:33:56,078 --> 00:33:59,084
and, as it turned out,
a lot of other things.

671
00:34:06,701 --> 00:34:11,002
So the glass industry helped
solve Huntsman's problem.

672
00:34:11,398 --> 00:34:13,064
The new steel also,
incidentally,

673
00:34:13,064 --> 00:34:16,827
gave Sheffield steel cutlery
its start in life,

674
00:34:17,261 --> 00:34:19,522
and that's a clue
to what esle it did, too.

675
00:34:19,665 --> 00:34:22,475
Because, at the time,
navigation instruments

676
00:34:22,475 --> 00:34:24,331
had become really
very precise.

677
00:34:24,492 --> 00:34:27,325
Look at this sextant.
This is the viewing tube.

678
00:34:27,325 --> 00:34:28,084
You put your eye
at that end,

679
00:34:28,084 --> 00:34:29,624
and you look, let's say,
for the Moon.

680
00:34:29,624 --> 00:34:32,253
At the other end,
half of it's glass,

681
00:34:32,253 --> 00:34:33,608
and you see the Moon
through that.

682
00:34:33,608 --> 00:34:35,054
The other half of it's
a little mirror,

683
00:34:35,054 --> 00:34:37,020
and you also see the Moon
reflected in there

684
00:34:37,444 --> 00:34:39,732
because of that main
reflecting mirror here.

685
00:34:39,873 --> 00:34:42,257
It picks up the image
of the Moon, sends it down to

686
00:34:42,257 --> 00:34:44,007
the tiny mirror and back
into your eye.

687
00:34:44,155 --> 00:34:47,489
So when you look at the Moon,
you actually see two Moons.

688
00:34:47,637 --> 00:34:49,885
One's always superimposed
on the other.

689
00:34:50,038 --> 00:34:52,472
To find how high the Moon
is in the sky,

690
00:34:52,472 --> 00:34:55,556
you come down until you're
looking at the horizon,

691
00:34:55,556 --> 00:34:57,100
and then using this rod,

692
00:34:57,100 --> 00:35:00,761
you tilt the main reflecting
mirror back gradually

693
00:35:00,761 --> 00:35:02,630
until it picks up
the Moon again,

694
00:35:03,289 --> 00:35:05,484
and now, you see
a horizon and a Moon.

695
00:35:06,026 --> 00:35:09,295
The angle at which you had to
tilt that main mirror back

696
00:35:09,295 --> 00:35:12,623
to find the Moon is the angle
at which the Moon
is up in the sky.

697
00:35:12,963 --> 00:35:15,936
It's a very precise instrument,
but it is only as precise

698
00:35:15,936 --> 00:35:18,978
as those scales down there,
of which you read the angle.

699
00:35:19,111 --> 00:35:23,161
And that's where he comes in:
Jesse Ramsden.

700
00:35:25,295 --> 00:35:27,966
Jesse Ramsden was the fellow
who invented or stole

701
00:35:27,966 --> 00:35:31,849
a way of marking a scratch every
sixth of degree on a sextant,

702
00:35:32,022 --> 00:35:33,342
and he did it with a screw.

703
00:35:35,547 --> 00:35:38,643
See how the foot pedal pulls
a cord wound round the screw?

704
00:35:38,643 --> 00:35:41,136
That turn the screw
at exact number of times,

705
00:35:41,136 --> 00:35:44,997
moving a bit, flat, circular plate
round exactly a sixth of a degree,

706
00:35:45,166 --> 00:35:49,054
each time you mark the instrument
clamped on top of a plate.

707
00:35:49,884 --> 00:35:53,071
Ramsden's machine
came out in 1774,

708
00:35:53,201 --> 00:35:56,501
cut the price of marking
instrumets by 50 times,

709
00:35:56,636 --> 00:36:00,556
won him a prize, and put him
on the road to riches.

710
00:36:02,803 --> 00:36:04,740
This was the secret
of Ramsden's success:

711
00:36:04,868 --> 00:36:07,804
the idea of using a screw
to measure like that.

712
00:36:07,944 --> 00:36:10,759
But you can only get a good
screw when you wanted one,

713
00:36:10,892 --> 00:36:13,489
thanks to what was going on
in the furniture business.

714
00:36:14,930 --> 00:36:18,265
You know all that knobbly
17th century furniture
with bulbous legs?

715
00:36:18,265 --> 00:36:21,227
Well, that happened because of
some unknown wood turner

716
00:36:21,227 --> 00:36:23,410
doing things to this,
the pole lathe.

717
00:36:23,941 --> 00:36:26,800
Here's the springy pole,
fix a strap to it,

718
00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:29,425
wind it round the wood,
and cut on every other turn.

719
00:36:30,198 --> 00:36:32,920
Now, if you give the turner
something to rest his knife on,

720
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:35,324
that's the same shape
as the leg you want,

721
00:36:35,324 --> 00:36:37,275
he can cut it to a pattern.

722
00:36:41,189 --> 00:36:43,945
Jesse Ramsden realized
that if you cut a table leg

723
00:36:43,945 --> 00:36:45,212
by following a table leg pattern,

724
00:36:45,212 --> 00:36:48,088
then you should cut a screw
by following a screw pattern.

725
00:36:48,088 --> 00:36:50,389
So this, at least in principle,
is what he did.

726
00:36:50,389 --> 00:36:54,019
He mounted a cutter on a base
that had a threaded hole in it,

727
00:36:54,019 --> 00:36:55,611
and through the threaded hole,

728
00:36:55,611 --> 00:36:57,987
he put the master screw
he wanted to copy,

729
00:36:57,987 --> 00:37:00,019
so that as he turned
the master screw,

730
00:37:00,019 --> 00:37:01,661
the cutter moved along it.

731
00:37:01,661 --> 00:37:05,211
Now, with the work peice
turning on the lathe

732
00:37:05,211 --> 00:37:06,998
at exactly the same speed
as the master screw,

733
00:37:06,998 --> 00:37:08,813
the cutter made an exact copy.

734
00:37:09,631 --> 00:37:11,984
All Ramsden had to find
was a cutter that would make

735
00:37:11,984 --> 00:37:14,362
screw after screw
without going blunt,

736
00:37:14,362 --> 00:37:17,216
and there
was only one metal around

737
00:37:17,216 --> 00:37:19,967
that was remotely hard enough
to do that job.

738
00:37:20,658 --> 00:37:22,243
Yes, Huntsman steel.

739
00:37:25,110 --> 00:37:29,182
So by the 1797, all the ingredients
in this story I've just told you

740
00:37:29,182 --> 00:37:31,889
were waiting around,
as so often happens in history,

741
00:37:31,889 --> 00:37:35,841
for somebody to put them together,
which, of course, somebody did.

742
00:37:36,669 --> 00:37:38,730
And this is another one
of those rare times

743
00:37:38,730 --> 00:37:41,190
when somebody sees beyond
the bits and pieces.

744
00:37:41,841 --> 00:37:45,112
In 1800, Henry Maudslay put
the edge of Huntsman steel

745
00:37:45,112 --> 00:37:48,113
together with Ramsden's
idea of using the screw

746
00:37:48,113 --> 00:37:50,530
to measure with,
and came up with a machine

747
00:37:50,530 --> 00:37:53,058
that would cut metal to within
a 10.000th of an inch,

748
00:37:53,058 --> 00:37:54,954
because he was
a precission freak.

749
00:37:56,874 --> 00:37:58,962
And he realized
a screw that accurate

750
00:37:58,962 --> 00:38:01,870
would guide a cutter to make
anything else that accurate.

751
00:38:02,902 --> 00:38:05,714
And, curiously, that was
great news for the navy.

752
00:38:13,808 --> 00:38:16,903
You see, at that time
boats used things called blocks

753
00:38:16,903 --> 00:38:18,104
by the thousand,

754
00:38:18,104 --> 00:38:20,992
complicated bits of wood
with pulley wheels inside;

755
00:38:20,992 --> 00:38:24,103
great for sailors with no muscles,
because it gives you a pull

756
00:38:24,103 --> 00:38:25,847
three times your own strength.

757
00:38:31,224 --> 00:38:35,726
In 1800, a fellow called Brunel
got Maudslay to use
his precision machinery

758
00:38:35,726 --> 00:38:38,401
to make other machines
that would make blocks.

759
00:38:38,958 --> 00:38:40,607
The british navy
jumped at the idea.

760
00:38:40,992 --> 00:38:44,902
By 1808, in Portsmouth stockyard,
this was happening.

761
00:38:48,433 --> 00:38:50,587
It may look like a bunch
of dusty old guys

762
00:38:50,587 --> 00:38:52,762
cutting wood to you,
but this is the beginnings

763
00:38:52,762 --> 00:38:54,998
of an idea
that runs your life today.

764
00:38:57,465 --> 00:38:59,515
Maudslay built
a long line of machines,

765
00:38:59,515 --> 00:39:01,385
each of which did one job.

766
00:39:01,385 --> 00:39:04,520
From a tree trunk, the wood
was sawn into wooden cubes.

767
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:06,841
And it was passed from
one machine to the next,

768
00:39:06,841 --> 00:39:10,428
the block was gradually shaped
and drilled and contoured

769
00:39:10,428 --> 00:39:14,915
one step at a time, and so were
the wooden pulley wheels
that fitted inside it.

770
00:39:15,333 --> 00:39:18,615
It took 43 separate machines
to finish the job,

771
00:39:19,173 --> 00:39:24,329
and 43 men each doing
just one job over and over again.

772
00:39:25,437 --> 00:39:26,302
Sound familiar?

773
00:39:36,796 --> 00:39:38,605
With Maudslay's line of machines,

774
00:39:38,605 --> 00:39:40,946
each one doing just
part of the operation,

775
00:39:40,946 --> 00:39:43,970
you've got yourself the ability
to shove raw material

776
00:39:43,970 --> 00:39:46,791
in at one end of the line,
run the whole thing

777
00:39:46,791 --> 00:39:49,003
from one power shaft
spinning up above,

778
00:39:49,003 --> 00:39:53,065
and pick up the finished product
as it comes off the last machine.

779
00:39:53,746 --> 00:39:55,810
I'm sure you recognize this
for what it is.

780
00:39:55,810 --> 00:39:57,703
And it was
the world's first.

781
00:40:09,516 --> 00:40:11,458
Everybody went crazy
about the idea,

782
00:40:11,458 --> 00:40:13,412
everybody, that is,
except the craftsmen

783
00:40:13,412 --> 00:40:15,084
machines like these
would put out of work.

784
00:40:18,845 --> 00:40:22,842
But 4000 miles away,
this system was just
what the doctor ordered.

785
00:40:25,820 --> 00:40:28,412
See, the british were putting
the screws on America

786
00:40:28,412 --> 00:40:31,484
with a naval blockade,
and americans desperately needed

787
00:40:31,484 --> 00:40:32,624
to make their own goods.

788
00:40:32,624 --> 00:40:35,322
And short of manpower,
the first thing they did

789
00:40:35,322 --> 00:40:37,345
was grab that factory
system idea.

790
00:40:40,147 --> 00:40:44,269
This is the other thing
americans were doing
at the time: making guns.

791
00:40:44,644 --> 00:40:46,374
Take a close look
at this rifle.

792
00:40:46,374 --> 00:40:48,999
This bit here is called
the breach block.

793
00:40:48,999 --> 00:40:50,254
Now, there's a trigger.

794
00:40:50,254 --> 00:40:51,373
You pull the trigger,
the spring inside

795
00:40:51,373 --> 00:40:54,019
releases this hammer here,
carrying a bit of flint,

796
00:40:54,019 --> 00:40:55,093
the flint jumps forward,

797
00:40:55,093 --> 00:40:56,804
hits that metal,
causes sparks.

798
00:40:56,804 --> 00:41:00,642
The sparks cause the powder
in that little shelf to ignite.

799
00:41:00,642 --> 00:41:02,382
The flame goes through
that tiny hole,

800
00:41:02,382 --> 00:41:04,209
ignites the main charge
inside the gun,

801
00:41:04,209 --> 00:41:06,470
and causes the bullet
to be fired down the barrel.

802
00:41:07,355 --> 00:41:09,318
A complicated bit of
workmanship, wouldn't you say?

803
00:41:09,907 --> 00:41:12,257
And that, at the end
of the 18th century,

804
00:41:12,257 --> 00:41:13,909
is just what America
couldn't do.

805
00:41:13,909 --> 00:41:15,657
She didn't have enough
skilled men,

806
00:41:15,657 --> 00:41:17,944
and that put the country
in a real hole,

807
00:41:17,944 --> 00:41:20,889
because at the time,
they were importing

808
00:41:20,889 --> 00:41:22,619
most of their guns
from us europeans,

809
00:41:22,619 --> 00:41:25,754
and half the time, they were
on the edge of war with us.

810
00:41:25,754 --> 00:41:27,030
So what do they do?

811
00:41:27,030 --> 00:41:30,420
They came up with a way
of making handcrafted weapons

812
00:41:30,420 --> 00:41:32,297
without making
handcrafted weapons.

813
00:41:32,297 --> 00:41:34,509
And that's why this isn't
what it appears to be.

814
00:41:34,509 --> 00:41:37,250
See, it's not made by hand,
it's made by machine.

815
00:41:37,250 --> 00:41:39,415
It was a european idea,

816
00:41:39,415 --> 00:41:42,966
oh, rather like that
Portsmouth block-making system

817
00:41:42,966 --> 00:41:44,927
that went over like
a lead ballon in Britain,

818
00:41:44,927 --> 00:41:46,430
only this time,
is was in France.

819
00:41:46,430 --> 00:41:50,216
A fellow called Henri Leblanc
who was getting zero interest

820
00:41:50,216 --> 00:41:52,773
from his fellow frenchmen,
told the american ambassador

821
00:41:52,773 --> 00:41:53,480
about his idea,

822
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:55,915
Thomas Jefferson,
who promptly went bananas,

823
00:41:55,915 --> 00:41:57,482
wrote to the folks
back home,

824
00:41:57,482 --> 00:41:58,547
and they jumped
at the idea.

825
00:41:58,547 --> 00:42:00,447
Let me tell you,
in principle,

826
00:42:00,447 --> 00:42:02,027
what that idea
turned out to be.

827
00:42:03,463 --> 00:42:05,697
It was to get a machine to do
all the clever work,

828
00:42:05,697 --> 00:42:07,642
so you don't need
a skilled operator.

829
00:42:07,961 --> 00:42:08,981
See what's happening?

830
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:12,480
The machine cuts
only so far and stops.

831
00:42:19,350 --> 00:42:22,004
So, the guy working the machine
doesn't need any skill.

832
00:42:22,004 --> 00:42:24,504
And the reason the machine
knows what he doesn't

833
00:42:24,504 --> 00:42:26,573
is because you use
a master of the shape

834
00:42:26,573 --> 00:42:28,330
you want to cut,
to set the machine.

835
00:42:28,330 --> 00:42:32,729
So every time, the drills
and the knives go so far,
and no further.

836
00:42:32,729 --> 00:42:36,293
So every time,
you get an identical piece

837
00:42:36,293 --> 00:42:39,251
cut in metal or in wood.

838
00:42:42,260 --> 00:42:44,425
That was Leblanc's idea
picked up here in New England

839
00:42:44,425 --> 00:42:47,014
by Eli Whitney and John Hall,
and Simeon North,

840
00:42:47,014 --> 00:42:49,136
to make each part of a gun
on a machine

841
00:42:49,136 --> 00:42:52,647
set to make that part
and that part only,
over and over again.

842
00:42:52,647 --> 00:42:55,407
Now, the result of that idea
was that if your gun

843
00:42:55,407 --> 00:42:56,870
went gablooey
in the middle of a battle,

844
00:42:56,870 --> 00:42:59,882
you just got your little
screwdriver and did this.

845
00:43:04,818 --> 00:43:11,955
And any other block will do,
because they're a standard shape.

846
00:43:16,462 --> 00:43:19,803
And because they're standard,
they're interchangeable.

847
00:43:23,236 --> 00:43:24,545
And if that doesn't
blow your mind,

848
00:43:24,545 --> 00:43:25,330
well, it should.

849
00:43:25,518 --> 00:43:27,925
I mean, almost everything
you possess, you only have

850
00:43:27,925 --> 00:43:30,443
because of the way those guns
were made by machines.

851
00:43:30,443 --> 00:43:33,812
Have you ever heard of a one-off
handcrafted television set?

852
00:43:34,716 --> 00:43:36,745
So, anyway, when these two
great ideas got together,

853
00:43:36,745 --> 00:43:39,727
the factory system
the textile manufacturers

854
00:43:39,727 --> 00:43:41,627
were using, and the
interchangeability idea

855
00:43:41,627 --> 00:43:44,339
that gun makers were into,
America really took off.

856
00:43:44,864 --> 00:43:46,496
And look what the country
had going for it:

857
00:43:46,496 --> 00:43:48,326
water power
coming out of your ears,

858
00:43:48,326 --> 00:43:50,172
mountains of raw materials,

859
00:43:50,172 --> 00:43:53,685
and the uniquely american way
of using machine tools.

860
00:43:55,191 --> 00:43:57,056
The humble machine tool
probably did more

861
00:43:57,056 --> 00:43:58,820
to make America great
than almost anything else.

862
00:43:58,978 --> 00:44:01,617
Because although each machine
tool only did one thing,

863
00:44:01,617 --> 00:44:04,101
like grinding, or boring,
or drilling,

864
00:44:04,101 --> 00:44:06,988
all machine tools had to solve
the same general problems -

865
00:44:06,988 --> 00:44:13,007
control systems, gearing,
power transmission -
so that what you learned

866
00:44:13,007 --> 00:44:14,797
in making machine tools,
you could use

867
00:44:14,797 --> 00:44:16,533
when you made the machines
with the machine tools.

868
00:44:16,533 --> 00:44:18,326
And what you got
from that was a kind of

869
00:44:18,326 --> 00:44:21,894
technical cascade from guns,
to sewing machines,

870
00:44:21,894 --> 00:44:23,630
to bicycles, to cars.

871
00:44:23,630 --> 00:44:25,818
I mean, did you know that
Cadillac started with bicycles?

872
00:44:26,707 --> 00:44:28,458
Anyway, by the end
of the 19th century,

873
00:44:28,458 --> 00:44:29,599
american machines
were so good,

874
00:44:29,599 --> 00:44:32,519
the only thing that wasn't
was the people.

875
00:44:37,976 --> 00:44:40,030
The fellow who helped to turn
people into machines

876
00:44:40,030 --> 00:44:42,842
used to go berserk
watching bricklayers work,

877
00:44:42,842 --> 00:44:44,661
or rather - not work.

878
00:44:45,379 --> 00:44:49,076
He was an american engineer,
a guy called Frank Gilbreth,

879
00:44:49,076 --> 00:44:51,113
who studied expert
oyster openers,

880
00:44:51,113 --> 00:44:53,232
swordsmen, typists,
you name it,

881
00:44:53,232 --> 00:44:55,937
and got all fussed up about
how disorganized

882
00:44:55,937 --> 00:44:57,434
ordinary peoples' work was.

883
00:44:57,871 --> 00:45:01,107
And he and his psychologist wife
set about putting things right.

884
00:45:01,107 --> 00:45:04,121
They looked at the way people
moved when they did a job,

885
00:45:04,121 --> 00:45:06,992
put lights in their hands,
filmed in action,

886
00:45:06,992 --> 00:45:10,713
and then, used the films
to make 3D models,

887
00:45:10,713 --> 00:45:12,771
of the movements, so they could
redesign the moves,

888
00:45:12,771 --> 00:45:14,566
so as to make the jobs
more efficient.

889
00:45:15,436 --> 00:45:17,187
They even put
a grid everywhere

890
00:45:17,187 --> 00:45:19,224
to measure the movement,
down to the inch.

891
00:45:19,865 --> 00:45:23,041
This was world champion typist,
miss Hortense Stolinitz,

892
00:45:23,041 --> 00:45:24,921
showing just what
she could do.

893
00:45:28,817 --> 00:45:30,735
And you know how the surgeon
says, "forceps",

894
00:45:30,735 --> 00:45:32,547
and the nurse slaps it
into his hand?

895
00:45:32,547 --> 00:45:34,665
That was one of
the Gilbreth's ideas, too.

896
00:45:34,665 --> 00:45:37,323
Everywhere they went,
they took a job to bits

897
00:45:37,323 --> 00:45:39,820
and put it together again,
in a way that saved time.

898
00:45:39,820 --> 00:45:42,681
Time and motion
was their thing.

899
00:45:56,789 --> 00:45:58,199
Bored out of your skull
at work?

900
00:45:58,199 --> 00:45:59,265
Thank the Gilbreths.

901
00:45:59,791 --> 00:46:03,730
To be fair to them,
they rand their own lives
the same way: had 12 kids,

902
00:46:03,730 --> 00:46:06,077
and wrote a book about it
called, 'Cheaper by the dozen'.

903
00:46:09,418 --> 00:46:11,942
So here we are, at the modern
production lines, because:

904
00:46:11,942 --> 00:46:15,884
1) knowledge of the sky
apparently cured that arab caliph.

905
00:46:15,884 --> 00:46:19,012
2) the arabs got excited by astronomy

906
00:46:19,012 --> 00:46:20,826
and translated greek books on it,

907
00:46:20,826 --> 00:46:23,002
and medical astrology
and other science.

908
00:46:23,002 --> 00:46:25,382
3) that knowledge
helped the church

909
00:46:25,382 --> 00:46:27,015
to find a way
to make alarm clocks

910
00:46:27,015 --> 00:46:29,471
that sprea and took over
peoples' working lives,

911
00:46:29,471 --> 00:46:32,698
4) the pendulul
that still left sailors

912
00:46:32,698 --> 00:46:35,294
looking for a good spring
made of steel that -

913
00:46:35,294 --> 00:46:37,775
5) cut screws
for precision work that -

914
00:46:37,775 --> 00:46:40,739
6) built machines
to make blocks for warships,

915
00:46:40,739 --> 00:46:42,711
thanks to putting
the machines in -

916
00:46:42,711 --> 00:46:45,577
7) a long production line
set-up that led to -

917
00:46:45,577 --> 00:46:48,381
8) the manufacturing system
that helps to give us

918
00:46:48,381 --> 00:46:51,995
all the same possessions,
made by people

919
00:46:51,995 --> 00:46:53,843
doing identical things
with identical machines

920
00:46:53,843 --> 00:46:56,764
to make everything from cars,
to gingerbread men

921
00:46:56,764 --> 00:46:59,510
for everybody,
not just the privileged few.

922
00:47:01,530 --> 00:47:05,261
This place, America,
is a democracy
of common possession,

923
00:47:05,261 --> 00:47:07,207
and the rest of
the industrial world

924
00:47:07,207 --> 00:47:08,938
is rapidly
going that way, too.

925
00:47:09,481 --> 00:47:12,432
But, there's a price:
the way our lives

926
00:47:12,432 --> 00:47:15,508
have to become an extension
of the production line.

927
00:47:17,495 --> 00:47:19,209
We work together,
we holiday together,

928
00:47:19,209 --> 00:47:20,853
we sit in the same
traffic jam together,

929
00:47:20,853 --> 00:47:22,916
we wear the same clothes,
we live in the same house,

930
00:47:22,916 --> 00:47:25,387
we drive the same car,
we have the same ambitions.

931
00:47:27,568 --> 00:47:30,839
That's the price:
watching the clock.

932
00:47:31,720 --> 00:47:33,822
And, ironically,
we're back with the question

933
00:47:33,822 --> 00:47:35,336
they were asking at
the beginning of this program:

934
00:47:35,336 --> 00:47:37,730
"what happens to individuality?"

935
00:47:38,399 --> 00:47:40,556
Oh, sure, superficially
it's there.

936
00:47:40,556 --> 00:47:42,750
My car is a different color
from yours.

937
00:47:42,750 --> 00:47:44,774
I watch a different
television program from you.

938
00:47:45,662 --> 00:47:47,904
But empty your pockets
and see what you get:

939
00:47:47,904 --> 00:47:55,364
a pen, a watch, checkbook,
some money, credit card, keys,

940
00:47:55,364 --> 00:48:00,077
driving license, comb,
some money, lighter.

941
00:48:00,077 --> 00:48:02,591
The paraphernalia
of people's private lives.

942
00:48:02,591 --> 00:48:04,947
And yet, is there
one object here

943
00:48:04,947 --> 00:48:07,462
that thousands of other people
don't own?

944
00:48:07,462 --> 00:48:13,628
All of it made by machine,
not one object uniquely,
individually, me.

945
00:48:14,523 --> 00:48:18,312
And, if i'm not here,
where am I?

946
00:49:33,465 --> 00:49:36,465
[end]