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I suppose making these programs
and watching them

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is a little bit like finding your way
through an historical labyrinth.

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00:00:46,195 --> 00:00:49,596
And this program is going to be full
of strange twists and turns,

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00:00:49,732 --> 00:00:53,429
but, ironically, we're going
to end up back here,

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in Indiana, in this labyrinth.

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Because there's more
to what you're looking at

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than meets the eye.

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See, nearly 200 years ago,
the people who founded

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a small, utopian community
here in Indiana

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dreamed of a better life.

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Alas for them, the dream died.

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But because of the strange way
history works,

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maybe for us it didn't
because of this.

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Oh, the dream?

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They named this place after it.

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The story starts here
on the eastern Pacific Rim

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with one of its more
meaningful products, the microchip,

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which runs only
the entire modern world.

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It's so commonplace,
this little thing, isn't it,

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that most of the time,
you don't even know it's there:

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in your car, your TV,
your washing machine,

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or here in what most people agree
is the world's cleanest city.

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Singapore.

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Some people say Singapore
and the people here

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all work a bit
like a giant microchip:

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efficient, automatic, logical,
untiring, productive.

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And one of the things

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that makes Singapore
the world's cleanest city

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is the fact that this runs this,

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Singapore's super-high-tech
garbage incinerator

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thanks to what happened in 1945
when an American called Shockley

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discovered something extraordinary
about a crystal.

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If you add impurities
to some crystals,

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you can end up
with spare electrons

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on many of the crystal atoms--
here, the ones in red.

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If you then send into the crystal
a minute electrical charge like this,

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it kind of knocks the spare electrons
off their atoms,

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and they leave the crystal
as a much bigger electric charge.

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So tiny charge in,
big charge out.

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So the crystal acts
like an amplifier.

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Shockley and his team called it
a transistor.

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Now, the first crystal
Shockley used

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was a crystal called germanium.

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No prizes for guessing

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where a mineral called germanium
gets its name.

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Ja wohl, Germany.

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Discovered by a German in 1885
name of Winkler,

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who is so good
at analyzing minerals

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because he's done nothing else
all his life.

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Well, he has done one other thing.

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Winkler designed the first machine
for making sure there was no junk

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in the gasses
going up industrial chimneys,

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which kind of matters
when you run an incinerator

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to burn unspeakable muck
like this.

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So you can thank Winkler
for today's clean environment.

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But apart from germanium
and hot air,

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Winkler's real
full-time business was cobalt,

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a mineral that dyes things blue,
the kind of blue you need

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when you're into
expensive fakes--

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Chinese fakes, I mean.

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And if you've ever tried
to buy a Ming vase,

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you'll know why
there was a market for fakes.

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It costs an arm and a leg.

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Oh, and they're blue, of course,
and cobalt is the only stuff

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that will take the high temperatures
you need to make porcelain,

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so the real Ming chinaware
had also used cobalt.

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The story picks up not in China
but here in Istanbul in Turkey.

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Because Istanbul is the link back
to the Chinese porcelain masters

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and how they came across
the cobalt they used.

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Now, Istanbul may not exactly be
where the elite meet today,

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but back in the Middle Ages,
it was a kind of world trade center,

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because this was the western end
of the Silk Road,

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the great trade route that started

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in China way out to the east
and ended here.

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One day in the 1 4th century,
out along the Silk Road

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at a place called Kashan in Iran,

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the traveling Chinese traders
found this stuff,

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blue tiles colored blue by cobalt.

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So at incredible expense,

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they took the stuff back home
to China,

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which is why Ming porcelain
is blue and costs a lot

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and why I'm telling you all this
in a Turkish graveyard.

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Look in here.

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This is a tomb.

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And even when I tell you...

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whose tomb it is
and you get a look at it...

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you may still not be
all that impressed.

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But you should be, because
the chap lying in state in here

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is Sueleyman the Magnificent,
history's absolutely top Turk.

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And you can tell that,
because when something

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was that special
in the Islamic world,

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they said it
with Kashan blue tiles.

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Look at the walls.

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Now, I said that those blue tiles

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were only ever used
in very special Islamic places,

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and you may still feel
you haven't seen one yet.

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Okay, you want special?

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Here's special.

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The incomparable mosque
at the heart of old Istanbul

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called Aya Sofia.

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The greatest tilers
in the Islamic world

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were brought here
to cover the walls,

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no expense spared.

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Which is why Aya Sofia is one
of the wonders of Islam.

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Well, kind of,
because the ironic thing

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about all this
amazing Islamic decor

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is that the guys who did it

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used the tiles
for a great cover-up job.

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See, the original builders
and decorators of this place

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weren't Islamic at all.

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They'd started out as
a banned underground movement,

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and you can tell that

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from the materials they used
for their decor.

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Look, if you put little bits
like this all over the wall,

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each one at a different angle,
they reflect the light; see?

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Just what you need
down a dark hole,

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where the Christians were,

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designing the mosaics
that the Islamic artists

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would copy and then cover up
centuries later,

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mosaics that would reflect
the imperial glory of Byzantium...

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once the Christians
came out of hiding

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when the emperor
made them official

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and then gave the whole
of the West to the Pope

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in a document called
The Donation of Constantine.

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1,000 years later,

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some Italian scholar
called Valla reveals

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00:10:02,384 --> 00:10:05,353
the document on which
the Pope's authority rests

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is a fake, probably by the Vatican.

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Which brings us, as I'm sure
you were expecting, to a funeral.

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It's being held not long
after Valla's shock revelations

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in the small central Italian town
of Todi just north of Rome.

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But the news to emerge
from this funeral

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may not be quite
what you're expecting.

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The surprising thing is,
it isn't Valla's.

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Surprising because back then,
you just don't go

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on the front page
with a Vatican expose like that

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and stay alive.

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So whose funeral is it?

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It's for an ecclesiastical godfather
who'd saved Valla's neck

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and the necks
of everybody else here,

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paying their respects
for similar favors,

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one of whom is a Portuguese type
called Martins

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00:11:01,576 --> 00:11:05,478
who's the head of Portugal's
secret oceanic exploration agency,

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00:11:05,614 --> 00:11:09,482
about which he's saying nothing
on account of it's the equivalent

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00:11:09,618 --> 00:11:13,452
of the Department of Defense
and NASA rolled into one.

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00:11:17,559 --> 00:11:20,824
We're on the main channel
just above the 27 buoy.

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I'll be cutting across.

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00:11:22,230 --> 00:11:23,424
Now, I said NASA

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00:11:23,565 --> 00:11:26,398
because Martins' explorers
are like NASA people:

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right out on the edge.

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Well, back then, what they're up to

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is as mind-blowing and dangerous
as going to the moon was for us,

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because what they're planning
is to boldly go

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where no European
has gone before.

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They've been down
the coast of Africa for gold

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and then out
across the Indian Ocean

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to the Far East for spices,
but this is the big one:

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the vast, trackless,
unexplored wastes of the Atlantic.

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...one side of the bridge.

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Now, that's nothing

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to a modern, sophisticated ship
like this.

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But to the Portuguese,

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it was off the edge
of the known world.

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Now, the Portuguese were able
to take risks like that

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because they had various bits
of equipment that added up

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to the 15th-century equivalent
of satellite navigation.

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Now, other people have
that stuff,

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as well as the Portuguese,
but what nobody else knows

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is the mysterious business
of running up the latitudes,

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for which you need
this secret Portuguese gizmo.

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Okay, you go north
until the polestar

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is a certain number of degrees
above the horizon on your quadrant,

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and you measure
those degrees like this.

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The star's up there.

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Line it up,
check the plumb line's free,

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and read off the angle there.

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And when the polestar
is 39 degrees above the horizon,

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you turn right,
and sooner or later,

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you'll hit Lisbon, home, and mother.

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And that's why nobody else
was doing the one thing

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that really makes the Portuguese
like NASA:

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deliberately losing sight of land,

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going on secret
navigational proving exercises

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deep into mid-Atlantic,
which is why in 1 497

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Martins is able to tell his explorers
something quite extraordinary.

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To forget hugging the coast of Africa

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on the way to India
like everybody else does,

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instead to take the best winds
by going due south

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down the Atlantic
from the Cape Verde islands

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and then left
around the bottom of Africa.

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It works.

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So three years later,
a fellow called Cabral

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tries doing the same thing,

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only he goes
a little bit too far west

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and bumps into Brazil.

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So here we are in Amsterdam,

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00:13:59,454 --> 00:14:02,252
because the Portuguese
colonized Brazil

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00:14:02,390 --> 00:14:05,018
with Jews who wanted
to get away from persecution.

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00:14:05,160 --> 00:14:08,357
But after a while,
the Inquisition arrived in Brazil,

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00:14:08,496 --> 00:14:10,794
so a lot of them hightailed it back

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00:14:10,932 --> 00:14:15,096
but not to Portugal;
here to Holland.

202
00:14:18,440 --> 00:14:22,035
See, in the 17th century,
Holland had probably the rarest

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00:14:22,177 --> 00:14:25,044
and most valuable commodity
of any country anywhere:

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00:14:25,180 --> 00:14:26,977
tolerance.

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00:14:27,115 --> 00:14:28,810
So refugees of all kinds came here

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00:14:28,950 --> 00:14:31,544
and in the case
of the Portuguese Jews

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00:14:31,686 --> 00:14:33,381
became diamond merchants,

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00:14:33,521 --> 00:14:37,252
in the business of light
and reflections.

209
00:14:40,729 --> 00:14:44,062
And speaking of light
and reflections and such,

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00:14:44,199 --> 00:14:46,827
one of the kids of one
of these Portuguese refugees,

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00:14:46,968 --> 00:14:49,198
a young guy
called Baruch Spinoza,

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00:14:49,337 --> 00:14:51,931
goes into lense grinding
to make a living

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00:14:52,073 --> 00:14:53,904
after he's achieved
the unique distinction

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00:14:54,042 --> 00:14:58,877
of being called a heretic
by Jews, Catholics, and Protestants.

215
00:14:59,013 --> 00:15:02,949
Reason being, Spinoza's got
everybody all stirred up

216
00:15:03,084 --> 00:15:05,951
with stuff about how mathematics
is the only truth

217
00:15:06,087 --> 00:15:08,385
and how everybody should have
absolute freedom

218
00:15:08,523 --> 00:15:11,014
to speak and think
as they choose.

219
00:15:11,159 --> 00:15:14,492
Spinoza's less revolutionary
optical work

220
00:15:14,629 --> 00:15:17,291
attracts the attention
of the M.I.T. of the period,

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00:15:17,432 --> 00:15:21,198
the English Royal Society,
who promptly zip over here

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00:15:21,336 --> 00:15:24,828
to see what other scientific ideas
are being floated in Holland.

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00:15:28,877 --> 00:15:30,868
It doesn't take them long
to get all excited

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00:15:31,012 --> 00:15:33,572
by an ex-draper's assistant
called Leeuwenhoek,

225
00:15:33,715 --> 00:15:37,617
who's got a new microscope
and is seeing things.

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00:15:40,188 --> 00:15:41,985
Well, that's what
the Royal Society think

227
00:15:42,123 --> 00:15:43,988
when they take a really close look

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00:15:44,125 --> 00:15:46,252
at his drawings
of what he's been seeing:

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00:15:46,394 --> 00:15:52,458
at 250 times magnification,
what looks like minute little animals.

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00:15:52,600 --> 00:15:56,502
Now, this blows everybody away,
because all these creepy crawlies

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00:15:56,638 --> 00:16:00,665
are apparently creeping
and crawling inside us

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00:16:00,809 --> 00:16:03,209
and everything else in the world.

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00:16:05,246 --> 00:16:09,012
Leeuwenhoek's little organisms also
went over very small in Switzerland,

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00:16:09,150 --> 00:16:11,983
where they had
an unexpectedly literary effect,

235
00:16:12,120 --> 00:16:15,180
which is why I'm here
in this charming little restaurant

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00:16:15,323 --> 00:16:17,120
on a lake in Switzerland,

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00:16:17,258 --> 00:16:20,591
because in 1813,
for the average joe,

238
00:16:20,728 --> 00:16:24,926
the key question is,
"Is life as we know it

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00:16:25,066 --> 00:16:27,933
just moving too fast
for people to take?"

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00:16:28,069 --> 00:16:30,663
I mean, every day,
new scientific amazements:

241
00:16:30,805 --> 00:16:36,107
gravity, chemistry, physiology,
electricity, geology--

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00:16:36,244 --> 00:16:39,179
anything, it seems,
with a "y" in it.

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00:16:40,982 --> 00:16:42,006
Thank you.

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00:16:42,150 --> 00:16:44,778
AII of which
seriously underwhelms

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00:16:44,919 --> 00:16:47,683
one particular bunch
of scribbling misfits

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00:16:47,822 --> 00:16:49,813
on holiday here in Geneva--

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00:16:49,958 --> 00:16:53,189
the Romantic megastars
Byron and Shelley

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00:16:53,328 --> 00:16:54,420
and their child brides--

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00:16:54,562 --> 00:16:56,530
over here
for a bit of wife swapping

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00:16:56,664 --> 00:16:58,825
and dope smoking
and stuff like that.

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00:16:58,967 --> 00:17:01,993
Anyway, one night at dinner,
the conversation gets 'round

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to the subject
of microscopic creepy crawlies

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and how, apparently, some scientist

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has galvanized a piece of pasta
and made it come alive.

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00:17:11,746 --> 00:17:14,146
Well, back then, who knew?

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00:17:14,282 --> 00:17:17,149
So Shelley's wife, Mary,
gets all exercised

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00:17:17,285 --> 00:17:19,913
about how "science will destroy us all

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00:17:20,054 --> 00:17:22,113
by tampering
with the forces of nature"

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00:17:22,257 --> 00:17:25,090
and decides to write a novel about it.

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Mary's novel is all about
a scientist called Victor

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00:17:40,675 --> 00:17:45,442
who does too much tampering,
and it all goes horribly wrong.

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00:17:49,651 --> 00:17:51,812
You already know
what I'm talking about,

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because you know
what Victor's other name was:

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Frankenstein.

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00:17:57,358 --> 00:18:01,658
But Mary had a secret agenda
inspired by her socialist father.

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"Frankenstein"
was really an attack

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on the kind of technology
that she thought

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was destroying people's lives

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in the unspeakable conditions
of industrial revolution factories.

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One of her father's
friends and admirers

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was a young factory manager
called Owen,

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who turned his factory
in New Lanark, Scotland,

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into a kind of workers' paradise.

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00:18:23,217 --> 00:18:26,311
We'd describe Owen as
politically middle-of-the-road,

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but back then,
he was revolutionary.

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00:18:28,890 --> 00:18:31,882
So seeing no future
for his plans in Britain,

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Owen took his revolutionary ideas

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where most revolutionaries
at the time did...

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America.
Well, Indiana.

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Which brings us back
to where we started:

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here in New Harmony, remember?

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So this is how the Harmonists
would have made candles,

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like this.

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Owen's dream, still described
to tourists today,

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00:18:56,551 --> 00:18:59,213
was to set up
a utopian socialist commune

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00:18:59,354 --> 00:19:02,118
away from the factories
and the exploitation.

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So when the tiny American
settlement of New Harmony

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came up for sale,
he jumped at it.

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00:19:08,463 --> 00:19:10,192
I will take them
and straighten them.

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00:19:10,331 --> 00:19:12,959
But the reason I started
the show in New Harmony

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00:19:13,101 --> 00:19:14,932
has to do with a fellow
called Maclure,

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00:19:15,069 --> 00:19:18,129
who had been so impressed
by the New Lanark experiment,

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00:19:18,272 --> 00:19:21,867
he offered start-up money to Owen
for the New Harmony venture.

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00:19:22,010 --> 00:19:24,672
And what brings a final twist
in my story

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00:19:24,812 --> 00:19:30,216
is that besides liberal causes,
Maclure had one other passion.

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00:19:39,060 --> 00:19:40,687
Rocks.

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00:19:42,830 --> 00:19:45,355
By the time of New Harmony,
Maclure had been

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00:19:45,500 --> 00:19:49,266
to every state and territory of America
with his bag and his hammer,

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chipping, cataloguing,
and collecting stuff like that.

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00:19:52,306 --> 00:19:55,469
And in 1817, he produced
what would turn out to be

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the first and only
proper geological map

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00:19:57,612 --> 00:19:59,842
of the United States
for the next 25 years.

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00:19:59,981 --> 00:20:01,573
Looked like this.

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00:20:01,716 --> 00:20:03,377
I won't bore you
with the detail.

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00:20:03,518 --> 00:20:05,383
Different rocks,
different colors.

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00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:09,115
But there in the area

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00:20:09,257 --> 00:20:12,249
where Kansas, Missouri,
and Oklahoma touch,

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00:20:12,393 --> 00:20:16,124
Maclure identified something
that brings my story full circle:

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00:20:16,264 --> 00:20:19,665
the kind of mineral deposits
that in the 20th century

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00:20:19,801 --> 00:20:22,065
would provide the germanium
Shockley needed

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00:20:22,203 --> 00:20:24,194
for his first transistor.

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00:20:31,245 --> 00:20:35,545
And that's why New Harmony maybe
wasn't a failure in the end,

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00:20:35,683 --> 00:20:39,312
because if we in the modern world
are ever to find a way to unite

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00:20:39,454 --> 00:20:42,480
the fragmented
post-Cold War chaos

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00:20:42,623 --> 00:20:44,784
that the 21st century looks
like becoming,

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00:20:44,926 --> 00:20:47,827
it'll be with what
the transistor made possible:

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00:20:47,962 --> 00:20:51,261
the open-access,
global communications network

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00:20:51,399 --> 00:20:53,367
that might give us a chance to build

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00:20:53,501 --> 00:20:56,834
what those people tried to here
all those years ago:

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00:20:56,971 --> 00:21:02,102
a community where we can all
live together in new harmony.