1 00:00:24,778 --> 00:00:29,215 This program reveals how, if you stay cool, 2 00:00:29,349 --> 00:00:30,680 free, 3 00:00:30,817 --> 00:00:32,148 tropical, 4 00:00:32,285 --> 00:00:33,650 healthy, 5 00:00:33,787 --> 00:00:35,118 maritime, 6 00:00:35,255 --> 00:00:36,620 watery, 7 00:00:36,757 --> 00:00:38,054 foolish, 8 00:00:38,191 --> 00:00:39,522 Eastern, 9 00:00:39,659 --> 00:00:40,990 on the move, 10 00:00:41,128 --> 00:00:42,493 frog loving, 11 00:00:42,629 --> 00:00:43,960 and experimental, 12 00:00:44,097 --> 00:00:47,965 you, too, can stay In Touch. 13 00:00:48,101 --> 00:00:50,729 Okay, this is all very scenic, 14 00:00:50,871 --> 00:00:54,238 but please focus your attention on this headline: 15 00:00:56,143 --> 00:00:58,043 In Spanish, it says something like, 16 00:00:58,178 --> 00:01:00,806 "Argentina Solves All the World's Power Needs 17 00:01:00,947 --> 00:01:03,006 With a Totally New Kind of Energy." 18 00:01:05,318 --> 00:01:06,410 What? 19 00:01:06,553 --> 00:01:09,420 Believe it or not, this newspaper story 20 00:01:09,556 --> 00:01:13,322 about what some minor ex-German scientist in Argentina 21 00:01:13,460 --> 00:01:15,189 was or was not up to 22 00:01:15,328 --> 00:01:19,128 triggers one of those ideas that changes the world. 23 00:01:19,266 --> 00:01:24,568 The triggering happens on a ski lift in Colorado in 1951. 24 00:01:24,704 --> 00:01:26,672 Okay, here's the story. 25 00:01:26,807 --> 00:01:29,674 An American scientist called Lyman Spitzer 26 00:01:29,810 --> 00:01:32,904 is apparently on one of these things for about half an hour. 27 00:01:33,046 --> 00:01:35,776 On the way up the mountain, he's thinking 28 00:01:35,916 --> 00:01:38,942 about that newspaper story about some guy in Argentina 29 00:01:39,085 --> 00:01:42,885 who's cracked the nuclear fusion problem. 30 00:01:43,023 --> 00:01:44,581 In 1951? 31 00:01:44,724 --> 00:01:45,918 Well, with hindsight, 32 00:01:46,059 --> 00:01:48,687 your view's going to be the same as his was back then. 33 00:01:48,829 --> 00:01:51,161 His first thought is, "Garbage." 34 00:01:51,298 --> 00:01:54,893 The second thing he thinks is, because he's an astrophysicist 35 00:01:55,035 --> 00:01:57,799 and fusion is like what happens inside stars, 36 00:01:57,938 --> 00:02:01,066 "Hmm, we ought to do something about that." 37 00:02:06,012 --> 00:02:07,240 This is the result: 38 00:02:07,380 --> 00:02:10,076 An experimental nuclear fusion reactor. 39 00:02:10,217 --> 00:02:11,844 If we can get fusion to work, 40 00:02:11,985 --> 00:02:16,012 you could power Los Angeles for a month on a bucket of seawater, 41 00:02:16,156 --> 00:02:20,286 which contains the kind of atoms you need for the fusion process. 42 00:02:20,427 --> 00:02:22,258 There's only one minor snag. 43 00:02:22,395 --> 00:02:26,229 First of all, you have to reproduce the conditions inside the sun, 44 00:02:26,366 --> 00:02:30,826 because the trick is to be able to fuse together those atoms 45 00:02:30,971 --> 00:02:32,768 deuterium and tritium. 46 00:02:32,906 --> 00:02:36,364 When you do, they release a humungous amount of heat 47 00:02:36,509 --> 00:02:39,910 to make steam to drive turbines to make electricity. 48 00:02:40,046 --> 00:02:42,480 So first you need a gas packed with the atoms 49 00:02:42,616 --> 00:02:44,447 so they're more likely to hit each other, 50 00:02:44,584 --> 00:02:47,849 and the gas has to be hot, like a million degrees. 51 00:02:47,988 --> 00:02:51,890 In this state, the gas is called plasma. 52 00:02:55,295 --> 00:02:56,660 And that's the catch. 53 00:02:56,796 --> 00:02:58,354 You've got to make the plasma hotter 54 00:02:58,498 --> 00:03:00,932 than anything that ever existed on the planet. 55 00:03:01,067 --> 00:03:04,696 Problem with that is, it'll vaporize everything in sight. 56 00:03:04,838 --> 00:03:07,898 Except there's one thing that won't vaporize everything: 57 00:03:08,041 --> 00:03:10,532 A magnetic field to hold the plasma in. 58 00:03:12,579 --> 00:03:16,276 To kick start the thing, you need so much electrical power, 59 00:03:16,416 --> 00:03:19,715 you've got to find a way to get it cheap, 60 00:03:19,853 --> 00:03:21,718 which would save you having to share 61 00:03:21,855 --> 00:03:24,153 the experiment costs with other countries. 62 00:03:24,291 --> 00:03:27,283 You know, what's called "going Dutch." 63 00:03:27,427 --> 00:03:28,792 Funny, that. 64 00:03:35,635 --> 00:03:38,160 It's this Dutchman who originally discovers 65 00:03:38,305 --> 00:03:42,105 how you might get electricity for almost nothing. 66 00:03:42,242 --> 00:03:45,575 Nothing is what gets Kamerlingh Onnes his Nobel Prize... 67 00:03:45,712 --> 00:03:48,203 getting the temperature down to nearly nothing. 68 00:03:48,348 --> 00:03:50,441 Because Onnes thinks that when things are chilled 69 00:03:50,583 --> 00:03:54,519 close to absolute zero, they do strange things. 70 00:03:56,589 --> 00:03:59,149 Take a small magnet, and place it gently 71 00:03:59,292 --> 00:04:03,922 on a special kind of metal plate you're going to make extremely cold. 72 00:04:05,765 --> 00:04:07,357 Okay, now for the chill down 73 00:04:07,500 --> 00:04:11,231 with a liquid gas colder than minus 100 degrees. 74 00:04:11,371 --> 00:04:14,932 At this temperature, something extraordinary happens. 75 00:04:15,075 --> 00:04:17,771 The magnetic field being generated by the tiny magnet 76 00:04:17,911 --> 00:04:19,708 creates a current in the metal plate 77 00:04:19,846 --> 00:04:22,974 where this current generates another magnetic field. 78 00:04:23,116 --> 00:04:24,777 As long as the plate's kept cold, 79 00:04:24,918 --> 00:04:28,376 the current stays, and so does the magnetic field, 80 00:04:28,521 --> 00:04:31,081 interacting with the magnetic field in the magnet 81 00:04:31,224 --> 00:04:34,625 and making the magnet levitate. 82 00:04:37,897 --> 00:04:39,592 Onnes discovers that. 83 00:04:39,733 --> 00:04:43,533 Back in 1911, he uses some liquid helium, 84 00:04:43,670 --> 00:04:45,433 colder than which there isn't much, 85 00:04:45,572 --> 00:04:50,600 to get some mercury chilled down to just above absolute zero. 86 00:04:50,744 --> 00:04:54,578 That's minus 273 degrees Centigrade. 87 00:04:54,714 --> 00:04:57,205 He zaps the mercury with electricity 88 00:04:57,350 --> 00:04:59,614 and, to his amazement, sees its resistance 89 00:04:59,753 --> 00:05:02,847 to the electric current almost totally disappear. 90 00:05:02,989 --> 00:05:06,049 It has become a superconductor. 91 00:05:07,927 --> 00:05:10,157 Like the metal plate under the magnet. 92 00:05:10,296 --> 00:05:12,355 That's why its current and its magnetic field 93 00:05:12,499 --> 00:05:13,898 don't fade away. 94 00:05:14,034 --> 00:05:15,661 No resistance. 95 00:05:17,937 --> 00:05:21,236 Now, back in 1911, all this might have been no more 96 00:05:21,374 --> 00:05:23,934 than some physicist's little game. 97 00:05:24,077 --> 00:05:26,602 Not today. 98 00:05:26,746 --> 00:05:31,308 Any minute now, they're also going to be able to do this. 99 00:05:32,952 --> 00:05:35,284 They're going to be able to light places like this 100 00:05:35,422 --> 00:05:38,653 from a single power station hundreds of miles away 101 00:05:38,792 --> 00:05:42,193 without all those power stations in the middle to boost the current, 102 00:05:42,328 --> 00:05:44,796 because there'll be no resistance in the power cable. 103 00:05:44,931 --> 00:05:46,057 Get it? 104 00:05:46,199 --> 00:05:49,259 Saves tons of money and power station pollution. 105 00:05:49,402 --> 00:05:51,495 And, as you've seen with the magnet, 106 00:05:51,638 --> 00:05:54,163 they're well on their way to be able to do that trick 107 00:05:54,307 --> 00:05:57,936 thanks to something that happened back before Onnes. 108 00:05:58,078 --> 00:06:00,979 And I'm not just talking hot air. 109 00:06:01,114 --> 00:06:03,548 Well, in one sense, I am. 110 00:06:16,796 --> 00:06:20,095 Meet Louis-Paul Cailletet, French ballooning freak, 111 00:06:20,233 --> 00:06:22,394 and his group of fellow noodlers. 112 00:06:22,535 --> 00:06:26,130 Cailletet's another physicist who is keen on getting high, 113 00:06:26,272 --> 00:06:29,571 so he invents the first ever liquid oxygen breathing system 114 00:06:29,709 --> 00:06:32,837 for people heading up where the air is thin. 115 00:06:37,517 --> 00:06:40,077 Cailletet's got the liquid oxygen to use 116 00:06:40,220 --> 00:06:42,552 thanks to an accident in his laboratory, 117 00:06:42,689 --> 00:06:45,351 which I'll get to when these guys finally manage 118 00:06:45,492 --> 00:06:48,325 to get their act off the ground. 119 00:06:56,035 --> 00:06:59,163 Okay, now for that laboratory accident. 120 00:07:02,775 --> 00:07:06,302 In 1877, Cailletet's squeezing oxygen in a cylinder 121 00:07:06,446 --> 00:07:08,937 when some tube or other cracks. 122 00:07:09,082 --> 00:07:12,574 The cylinder pressure and the oxygen temperature plummet. 123 00:07:12,719 --> 00:07:15,313 No fool Cailletet, he takes the cold oxygen 124 00:07:15,455 --> 00:07:16,649 and repeats the trick, 125 00:07:16,789 --> 00:07:19,724 each time dropping the pressure deliberately. 126 00:07:19,859 --> 00:07:21,793 Each time, the oxygen temperature 127 00:07:21,928 --> 00:07:24,226 drops further and further until, at one point, 128 00:07:24,364 --> 00:07:26,992 it's so cold, it goes liquid. 129 00:07:32,539 --> 00:07:35,406 Cailletet carries his liquid oxygen in a flask 130 00:07:35,542 --> 00:07:37,203 and sniffs the vapors. 131 00:07:37,343 --> 00:07:38,901 This, of course, leads him on 132 00:07:39,045 --> 00:07:42,037 to study breathing and pressure and all that good stuff. 133 00:07:42,182 --> 00:07:46,312 Takes the whole science of physiology to new heights. 134 00:08:00,900 --> 00:08:04,893 Now, even in Cailletet's time, there's another way to get high, 135 00:08:05,038 --> 00:08:07,131 feel the pressure, get your heart rate up, 136 00:08:07,273 --> 00:08:10,674 huff and puff, all that stuff Cailletet's into, 137 00:08:10,810 --> 00:08:13,802 and that's go up a really high tower... 138 00:08:15,315 --> 00:08:18,682 in 1889, the highest tower in the world, 139 00:08:18,818 --> 00:08:21,912 so high, the pressure is meaningfully different 140 00:08:22,055 --> 00:08:24,580 between the bottom and the top. 141 00:08:24,724 --> 00:08:27,420 900 feet different. 142 00:08:32,732 --> 00:08:33,721 Phew. 143 00:08:33,866 --> 00:08:36,562 So Cailletet climbs all 900 feet 144 00:08:36,703 --> 00:08:39,194 and runs a giant tube all the way from top to bottom 145 00:08:39,339 --> 00:08:41,773 and fills it with various liquids and gases 146 00:08:41,908 --> 00:08:43,432 to see what the height does to them. 147 00:08:43,576 --> 00:08:46,545 Hey, what did you think noodlers did back then? 148 00:08:48,147 --> 00:08:51,776 Speaking of which, one of the greatest noodlers of all time 149 00:08:51,918 --> 00:08:54,819 builds the thing up which Cailletet climbs 150 00:08:54,954 --> 00:08:58,253 and a zillion other people, maybe you too. 151 00:09:02,428 --> 00:09:08,799 The Eiffel Tower, built of wrought iron by, guess who, Gustave Eiffel. 152 00:09:08,935 --> 00:09:12,371 As I said, Gustave is also a noodler 153 00:09:12,505 --> 00:09:14,973 and obsessed by what you can do with towers, 154 00:09:15,108 --> 00:09:20,671 like release things and observe their aerodynamic behavior, for instance. 155 00:09:22,448 --> 00:09:24,609 Now, take a closer look at the structure, 156 00:09:24,751 --> 00:09:26,378 and you'll see what Gustave is good at 157 00:09:26,519 --> 00:09:28,578 besides wrought iron. 158 00:09:33,092 --> 00:09:35,492 See all the delicate tracery? 159 00:09:35,628 --> 00:09:36,617 Know why? 160 00:09:36,763 --> 00:09:38,458 The wind just blows straight through it, 161 00:09:38,598 --> 00:09:41,362 which means the Tower won't get blown down. 162 00:09:41,501 --> 00:09:45,335 So Gustave's Tower can be what the French need so badly: 163 00:09:45,471 --> 00:09:49,373 The biggest anything in the world. 164 00:09:49,509 --> 00:09:52,945 This tower thing is Gustave's second attempt 165 00:09:53,079 --> 00:09:55,445 at boosting French morale, which, at the time, 166 00:09:55,581 --> 00:09:57,947 is going in the same direction I am now. 167 00:09:59,686 --> 00:10:00,710 Here's the problem. 168 00:10:00,853 --> 00:10:02,582 You know how the French political system 169 00:10:02,722 --> 00:10:03,882 is like musical chairs? 170 00:10:04,023 --> 00:10:05,923 You know, "It's my turn to be prime minister." 171 00:10:06,059 --> 00:10:07,492 No different back then. 172 00:10:08,761 --> 00:10:11,025 So the new French republic is far from secure. 173 00:10:11,164 --> 00:10:13,029 I mean, there are monarchists who want a king 174 00:10:13,166 --> 00:10:15,600 and crazy radicals who want another revolution 175 00:10:15,735 --> 00:10:19,603 and socialists and anarchists and every other kind of -ists. 176 00:10:19,739 --> 00:10:21,832 So the idea is to come up with something 177 00:10:21,974 --> 00:10:23,965 that will strengthen the moderates 178 00:10:24,110 --> 00:10:27,546 and give the place a little political stability. 179 00:10:27,680 --> 00:10:31,275 So they decide to give America a present, made by Gustave, 180 00:10:31,417 --> 00:10:33,851 to remind all Frenchmen 181 00:10:33,986 --> 00:10:38,946 of their good, moderate, democratic friends, the Yanks. 182 00:10:40,760 --> 00:10:43,661 And, of course, remind the Yanks and the rest of the world 183 00:10:43,796 --> 00:10:46,959 that, nudge nudge, it was the French who bankrolled 184 00:10:47,100 --> 00:10:49,034 the American war of independence. 185 00:10:50,903 --> 00:10:51,892 Phew. 186 00:10:52,038 --> 00:10:53,733 Well, they certainly get "A" for effort. 187 00:10:53,873 --> 00:10:55,534 Doesn't work, though. 188 00:10:55,675 --> 00:10:58,007 I mean, as far as the Americans are concerned, 189 00:10:58,144 --> 00:10:59,168 this French offer 190 00:10:59,312 --> 00:11:01,007 they're not supposed to be able to refuse 191 00:11:01,147 --> 00:11:04,139 is, well, how shall I put this? 192 00:11:04,283 --> 00:11:05,750 A bit of a liberty. 193 00:11:16,696 --> 00:11:19,631 When the Statue of Liberty went up in 1866, 194 00:11:19,766 --> 00:11:22,326 it wasn't the symbol of America it is today. 195 00:11:22,468 --> 00:11:24,936 It was French, looking away from America 196 00:11:25,071 --> 00:11:26,936 back towards what the French regarded 197 00:11:27,073 --> 00:11:29,337 as the home of liberty, France. 198 00:11:29,475 --> 00:11:31,443 So the Statue was intended to be nothing less 199 00:11:31,577 --> 00:11:34,341 than a permanent reminder of French culture, 200 00:11:34,480 --> 00:11:37,005 a gigantic ad for French achievements 201 00:11:37,150 --> 00:11:40,449 right in the middle of New York harbor. 202 00:11:52,098 --> 00:11:54,965 But now take a look at how the Americans 203 00:11:55,101 --> 00:11:59,800 give French political intentions the old switcheroo. 204 00:11:59,939 --> 00:12:04,501 What does it is the famous poem written for the Statue. 205 00:12:06,045 --> 00:12:08,775 "Give me your tired, your poor, 206 00:12:08,915 --> 00:12:12,612 "your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 207 00:12:12,752 --> 00:12:16,017 "the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 208 00:12:16,155 --> 00:12:19,921 "Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me. 209 00:12:20,059 --> 00:12:24,291 I lift my lamp beside the golden door." 210 00:12:31,637 --> 00:12:34,765 For refugees worldwide, the Statue of Liberty 211 00:12:34,907 --> 00:12:36,602 is now a symbol of the American welcome 212 00:12:36,742 --> 00:12:38,107 that lies ahead of them... 213 00:12:38,244 --> 00:12:41,008 refugees like the Jews fleeing repression and violence 214 00:12:41,147 --> 00:12:42,671 in Russia and Germany. 215 00:12:42,815 --> 00:12:47,616 In the 1880s, tens of thousands of Jews arrive in America. 216 00:12:52,592 --> 00:12:55,083 But some Jews don't come to America. 217 00:12:55,228 --> 00:12:58,254 They head instead for what today is Israel, 218 00:12:58,397 --> 00:12:59,830 urged on by the young woman 219 00:12:59,966 --> 00:13:03,060 who writes that poem for the Statue of Liberty. 220 00:13:04,570 --> 00:13:06,162 She's Emma Lazarus. 221 00:13:06,305 --> 00:13:07,499 She's Jewish. 222 00:13:07,640 --> 00:13:10,006 And it's she who really kicks off zionism, 223 00:13:10,142 --> 00:13:12,838 the call for Jews to set up a Jewish state, 224 00:13:12,979 --> 00:13:15,914 because, at the time, there isn't one. 225 00:13:16,048 --> 00:13:19,074 But before all that, where are we? 226 00:13:22,889 --> 00:13:25,449 Nuclear fusion needs a lot of electric power 227 00:13:25,591 --> 00:13:26,956 that could be a lot cheaper 228 00:13:27,093 --> 00:13:29,823 thanks to Onnes and superconductivity chill down 229 00:13:29,962 --> 00:13:32,089 with liquid gas made by Cailletet, 230 00:13:32,231 --> 00:13:35,098 whose liquid oxygen helps high-altitude research, 231 00:13:35,234 --> 00:13:38,032 some of it done up the tower built by Gustave Eiffel, 232 00:13:38,170 --> 00:13:39,762 who also builds Miss Liberty 233 00:13:39,906 --> 00:13:42,033 with her poem by zionist Emma Lazarus, 234 00:13:42,174 --> 00:13:46,577 whose zionism takes my story to tropical shores. 235 00:13:52,051 --> 00:13:56,044 At one point during her efforts to establish a Jewish state, 236 00:13:56,188 --> 00:13:57,212 which this isn't, 237 00:13:57,356 --> 00:13:58,948 Emma Lazarus goes off to England, 238 00:13:59,091 --> 00:14:00,456 which this isn't, 239 00:14:00,593 --> 00:14:03,619 and meets a guy, who this isn't, 240 00:14:03,763 --> 00:14:05,594 who is so pro-zionist 241 00:14:05,731 --> 00:14:08,359 and who lobbies so successfully for the Jewish cause, 242 00:14:08,501 --> 00:14:11,163 he ought to be Jewish but isn't. 243 00:14:13,906 --> 00:14:16,704 So where are we, and why are we here? 244 00:14:16,842 --> 00:14:19,970 To meet that guy, Laurence Oliphant, 245 00:14:20,112 --> 00:14:22,171 who starts life here in Sri Lanka, 246 00:14:22,315 --> 00:14:26,274 where his dad is chief justice for the British colonial authorities. 247 00:14:26,419 --> 00:14:28,944 After building the foundations of a legal career, 248 00:14:29,088 --> 00:14:31,818 Oliphant gets itchy feet and sets off 249 00:14:31,958 --> 00:14:37,590 on a hectic, nonstop life that ends in old age in Israel. 250 00:14:41,434 --> 00:14:43,834 Between Sri Lanka and Israel, 251 00:14:43,970 --> 00:14:46,734 Laurence Oliphant really packs in a busy career: 252 00:14:46,872 --> 00:14:49,397 Lawyer, correspondent for the "Times," 253 00:14:49,542 --> 00:14:53,410 diplomat, administrator, trouble-shooter, you name it. 254 00:14:53,546 --> 00:14:56,242 Oh, and, of course, travel writer. 255 00:14:56,382 --> 00:14:58,179 Well, what would you do 256 00:14:58,317 --> 00:15:01,650 if the map of your life looked like this? 257 00:15:01,787 --> 00:15:05,120 Laurence Oliphant is a travel agent's dream. 258 00:15:08,194 --> 00:15:09,286 I suppose I ought to mention 259 00:15:09,428 --> 00:15:11,328 that most of the traveling Oliphant gets up to, 260 00:15:11,464 --> 00:15:15,560 he's doing something somewhere for queen and country. 261 00:15:31,417 --> 00:15:35,319 One job he gets is working for a diplomat name of Elgin, 262 00:15:35,454 --> 00:15:38,423 who hits the headlines when he forces Beijing 263 00:15:38,557 --> 00:15:41,549 to accept opium instead of money for exports to Britain 264 00:15:41,694 --> 00:15:43,855 and brings addiction and ruin to China. 265 00:15:43,996 --> 00:15:48,160 Still, ruins are nothing new to the Elgin family. 266 00:15:57,910 --> 00:16:00,811 The name of these ruins is, as I'm sure you know, 267 00:16:00,946 --> 00:16:03,915 the Parthenon in Athens, Greece, 268 00:16:04,050 --> 00:16:07,281 bits of which are missing, as you can see. 269 00:16:07,420 --> 00:16:12,483 The missing bits look like this, and in 1803, they're removed 270 00:16:12,625 --> 00:16:15,321 by one of the Elgin family, Lord Elgin. 271 00:16:15,461 --> 00:16:16,826 The pieces he snitches 272 00:16:16,962 --> 00:16:20,056 had originally been the Parthenon temple frieze, 273 00:16:20,199 --> 00:16:21,928 found in bits by Lord Elgin 274 00:16:22,068 --> 00:16:24,866 after the Parthenon was blown up during a war. 275 00:16:25,004 --> 00:16:28,496 Elgin discovers them being ground up for cement by local builders 276 00:16:28,641 --> 00:16:30,506 and decides he'd better save them 277 00:16:30,643 --> 00:16:32,907 and then sells them to the British Museum, 278 00:16:33,045 --> 00:16:34,444 where they still are, 279 00:16:34,580 --> 00:16:40,314 with the help of Thomas Lawrence, a really big-name, high-society painter. 280 00:16:49,795 --> 00:16:53,287 Lawrence paints the queen and anybody else that matters, 281 00:16:53,432 --> 00:16:56,765 as a result of which he gets appointed painter to the king, 282 00:16:56,902 --> 00:17:00,861 which is going to be great for Lawrence's financial health, 283 00:17:01,006 --> 00:17:04,373 speaking of which, in 1776, 284 00:17:04,510 --> 00:17:07,968 His Majesty also appoints his new doctor. 285 00:17:17,556 --> 00:17:21,287 The new royal medical team faces an immediate challenge. 286 00:17:21,427 --> 00:17:24,487 The king, George III, is going nuts, 287 00:17:24,630 --> 00:17:28,157 and really drastic measures are tried to prevent this from happening. 288 00:17:28,300 --> 00:17:29,562 The measures fail. 289 00:17:29,702 --> 00:17:31,795 Not surprising, considering the background 290 00:17:31,937 --> 00:17:34,667 of the new royal physician, John Hunter, 291 00:17:34,807 --> 00:17:37,674 who was a bit of a slower learner. 292 00:17:37,810 --> 00:17:40,711 Well, it takes till he's 17 before he can read and write. 293 00:17:40,846 --> 00:17:43,576 Then he has a go at carpentry for three years. 294 00:17:43,716 --> 00:17:45,183 Well, that doesn't work. 295 00:17:45,317 --> 00:17:49,151 But with all that experience, where else would he go but surgery? 296 00:17:50,623 --> 00:17:52,090 Hunter is so good at it, 297 00:17:52,224 --> 00:17:55,284 he kind of kicks off modern surgical procedures. 298 00:17:55,427 --> 00:17:58,487 So he and his brother open an anatomy school in London, 299 00:17:58,631 --> 00:18:00,121 a knockout success, 300 00:18:00,266 --> 00:18:03,633 and John indulges his other obsessions: 301 00:18:03,769 --> 00:18:05,703 The study of codfish hearing, 302 00:18:05,838 --> 00:18:07,533 the digestion of hibernating lizards, 303 00:18:07,673 --> 00:18:09,163 and hedgehogs. 304 00:18:09,308 --> 00:18:11,776 Oh, and listening to his wife trying out 305 00:18:11,911 --> 00:18:14,505 the libretto she writes for various composers. 306 00:18:14,647 --> 00:18:16,808 Hear that Muzak playing? 307 00:18:18,551 --> 00:18:22,715 In 1760, before Hunter becomes royal physician, 308 00:18:22,855 --> 00:18:24,447 he has a terrible row with his brother, 309 00:18:24,590 --> 00:18:28,151 who promptly walks out on him... 310 00:18:28,294 --> 00:18:30,888 to be replaced by another anatomist 311 00:18:31,030 --> 00:18:34,693 called William Hewson, who, in 1770, 312 00:18:34,834 --> 00:18:39,533 has the luck to marry a lady whose lodger is a kind of negotiator 313 00:18:39,672 --> 00:18:43,665 and who comes in to help settle a row William Hewson's having 314 00:18:43,809 --> 00:18:45,504 about a contract. 315 00:18:45,644 --> 00:18:48,442 And the reason we care about this negotiator person 316 00:18:48,581 --> 00:18:52,039 is something I'll get to after I have this tooth fixed. 317 00:18:52,184 --> 00:18:54,914 Oh, the other reason I'm in the dentist's chair, 318 00:18:55,054 --> 00:18:56,681 another obsession of John Hunter. 319 00:18:56,822 --> 00:19:01,020 He writes the first book on the diseases of the teeth. 320 00:19:02,928 --> 00:19:04,088 Sorry. 321 00:19:04,230 --> 00:19:06,926 He writes the first book on the diseases of the teeth. 322 00:19:07,066 --> 00:19:08,693 Okay, doctor, go ahead. 323 00:19:23,015 --> 00:19:26,143 Okay, now for Mrs. Hewson's lodger. 324 00:19:26,285 --> 00:19:29,118 Remember? The guy who did all that negotiating. 325 00:19:29,255 --> 00:19:32,247 Benjamin Franklin, who does his best negotiating 326 00:19:32,391 --> 00:19:35,019 for the American government after the war of independence 327 00:19:35,160 --> 00:19:38,220 and, as a result, spends most of his time 328 00:19:38,364 --> 00:19:39,797 crisscrossing the Atlantic. 329 00:19:51,443 --> 00:19:56,380 The other thing Franklin gets up to with all these transatlantic crossings 330 00:19:56,515 --> 00:19:58,574 is find out you can get across the Atlantic faster 331 00:19:58,717 --> 00:20:00,617 if you get your ship onto a mysterious current 332 00:20:00,753 --> 00:20:03,847 moving east across the ocean. 333 00:20:03,989 --> 00:20:05,422 And you know you're on this current 334 00:20:05,557 --> 00:20:09,493 because its water is warmer than the surrounding sea. 335 00:20:09,628 --> 00:20:13,086 So Franklin uses all his voyages to check up on the current 336 00:20:13,232 --> 00:20:15,427 by gradually taking the temperature of the water 337 00:20:15,567 --> 00:20:18,559 all the way across from America to Great Britain, 338 00:20:18,704 --> 00:20:20,103 point of it all being, 339 00:20:20,239 --> 00:20:23,800 if he can map the current well enough for sailors to use it regularly, 340 00:20:23,943 --> 00:20:25,706 it'll save time and money. 341 00:20:25,844 --> 00:20:27,835 He does, and it does... 342 00:20:27,980 --> 00:20:29,971 to this day. 343 00:20:30,115 --> 00:20:33,278 We call the current Franklin charts the Gulf Stream. 344 00:20:33,419 --> 00:20:36,752 Franklin's work kind of kicks off modern oceanography 345 00:20:36,889 --> 00:20:38,379 and, strangely enough, 346 00:20:38,524 --> 00:20:40,651 all because of yet another example 347 00:20:40,793 --> 00:20:43,762 of how stealing things can change history. 348 00:20:43,896 --> 00:20:46,126 Not by Franklin, of course. 349 00:20:46,265 --> 00:20:49,325 I'm talking about the thermometer he uses, 350 00:20:49,468 --> 00:20:52,562 the idea for which is snitched by its so-called inventor, 351 00:20:52,705 --> 00:20:57,108 the famous Dutch instrument maker Gabriel Fahrenheit. 352 00:21:04,016 --> 00:21:07,417 1714 in Amsterdam, Fahrenheit produces his thermometer. 353 00:21:07,553 --> 00:21:09,350 Great news for all. 354 00:21:09,488 --> 00:21:12,457 Especially hypochondriacs. 355 00:21:12,591 --> 00:21:14,081 Phew, that's a relief. 356 00:21:14,226 --> 00:21:16,421 98.4, so that's okay. 357 00:21:16,562 --> 00:21:18,120 Ah, now, where was I? 358 00:21:18,263 --> 00:21:19,491 Oh, yeah, Fahrenheit. 359 00:21:19,631 --> 00:21:23,795 Now, the reason Fahrenheit's thermometer is such a boffo success 360 00:21:23,936 --> 00:21:25,801 is because back in the 18th century, 361 00:21:25,938 --> 00:21:27,769 finding out what the temperature is 362 00:21:27,906 --> 00:21:30,773 is not what you'd call an exact science. 363 00:21:30,909 --> 00:21:35,039 In fact, you could say they're all working in the dark. 364 00:21:40,519 --> 00:21:42,487 Fahrenheit clears up the confusion 365 00:21:42,621 --> 00:21:44,987 created by everybody doing it a different way 366 00:21:45,124 --> 00:21:47,354 with different scales on their instruments 367 00:21:47,493 --> 00:21:50,018 so temperature is a matter of anybody's guess. 368 00:21:50,162 --> 00:21:51,993 Now, to start with, 369 00:21:52,131 --> 00:21:55,862 the way Fahrenheit makes his thermometer is nothing new. 370 00:21:56,001 --> 00:21:58,663 You just melt the end of a glass rod 371 00:21:58,804 --> 00:22:01,170 with a hole down the middle and then blow down the hole 372 00:22:01,306 --> 00:22:03,831 to make the molten blob on the end expand 373 00:22:03,976 --> 00:22:05,841 into what will become the thermometer bulb 374 00:22:05,978 --> 00:22:07,741 that contains the mercury. 375 00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:11,043 Getting the mercury into the bulb's really nifty. 376 00:22:11,183 --> 00:22:12,411 Watch. 377 00:22:12,551 --> 00:22:16,146 You put the hot rod, bulb up, into the mercury, 378 00:22:16,288 --> 00:22:18,813 and the vacuum you made in there with the heat 379 00:22:18,957 --> 00:22:21,323 sucks the mercury up into the bulb. 380 00:22:23,128 --> 00:22:26,461 Okay, now for the absolutely lunatic way 381 00:22:26,598 --> 00:22:28,896 Fahrenheit comes up with the Fahrenheit scale, 382 00:22:29,034 --> 00:22:31,002 so hang in there. 383 00:22:31,136 --> 00:22:34,196 He starts with a scale the bottom end of which 384 00:22:34,339 --> 00:22:38,639 is going to be the temperature of frozen ice, zero. 385 00:22:38,777 --> 00:22:42,110 He calls boiling water 60. 386 00:22:42,247 --> 00:22:45,683 1/8 and 3/8 up the scale are freezing water 387 00:22:45,818 --> 00:22:48,651 and the temperature of a healthy armpit. 388 00:22:48,787 --> 00:22:50,084 Are you still with me? 389 00:22:50,222 --> 00:22:52,690 Okay, make each degree four degrees, 390 00:22:52,825 --> 00:22:57,785 which turns freezing water from 71/2 to 30 391 00:22:57,930 --> 00:23:02,128 and a healthy armpit to 90 but doesn't divide by 8. 392 00:23:02,267 --> 00:23:06,966 So make 3032 and 9096, and there you are, 393 00:23:07,106 --> 00:23:09,165 plus one last tweak. 394 00:23:09,308 --> 00:23:10,707 Clear as mud? 395 00:23:10,843 --> 00:23:13,676 I never said what Fahrenheit did would make any sense. 396 00:23:13,812 --> 00:23:16,144 Well, there's one thing I can explain: 397 00:23:16,281 --> 00:23:19,011 That armpit number. 398 00:23:19,151 --> 00:23:21,984 Remember I said he snitched the whole idea? 399 00:23:22,121 --> 00:23:24,954 In 1708, Fahrenheit visits Copenhagen 400 00:23:25,090 --> 00:23:26,785 and meets the ex-mayor of the city, 401 00:23:26,925 --> 00:23:28,950 one of those talented scientific amateurs 402 00:23:29,094 --> 00:23:30,618 the place is full of back then, 403 00:23:30,762 --> 00:23:33,890 guy by the name of Ole Rømer. 404 00:23:34,032 --> 00:23:35,363 Never heard of him? 405 00:23:35,501 --> 00:23:37,401 Thank Fahrenheit for that. 406 00:23:37,536 --> 00:23:41,563 See, the whole thermometer thing is Rømer's idea. 407 00:23:41,707 --> 00:23:45,507 So's the armpit number and all the basic research. 408 00:23:45,644 --> 00:23:49,705 Fahrenheit kind of just turns up, takes notes of Ole Rømer's notes, 409 00:23:49,848 --> 00:23:52,282 and then nips back down south to Amsterdam, 410 00:23:52,417 --> 00:23:54,851 not long after which 411 00:23:54,987 --> 00:23:57,615 Ole Rømer's notes get destroyed in a terrible fire, 412 00:23:57,756 --> 00:24:00,816 not long after which, it's "Ole who?" 413 00:24:00,959 --> 00:24:03,223 End of that sad tale. 414 00:24:03,362 --> 00:24:05,489 Okay, time for a quick catch-up. 415 00:24:07,399 --> 00:24:09,629 Remember the pro-Jewish Oliphant, 416 00:24:09,768 --> 00:24:11,292 who works for Elgin, 417 00:24:11,436 --> 00:24:13,563 whose father grabs the Elgin Marbles 418 00:24:13,705 --> 00:24:16,640 aided by Lawrence, painter to the king, 419 00:24:16,775 --> 00:24:19,266 whose doctor John Hunter has an assistant 420 00:24:19,411 --> 00:24:21,936 whose wife's lodger is Benjamin Franklin, 421 00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:24,571 who charts the Gulf Stream with a thermometer, 422 00:24:24,716 --> 00:24:28,413 whose design Fahrenheit steals from poor old Ole Rømer. 423 00:24:28,554 --> 00:24:31,580 Mind you, Rømer has already hit the bright lights 424 00:24:31,723 --> 00:24:35,819 with a guy who lives in this modest little place. 425 00:24:41,533 --> 00:24:44,832 In 1672, before Fahrenheit meets Rømer, 426 00:24:44,970 --> 00:24:47,461 Rømer gets picked up by a French astronomer 427 00:24:47,606 --> 00:24:50,336 and brought here to France, where he does amazing things 428 00:24:50,475 --> 00:24:52,272 like working out the speed of light 429 00:24:52,411 --> 00:24:57,110 and becomes the favorite foreign egghead of King Louis XIV. 430 00:24:59,851 --> 00:25:01,876 And that's eventually why the king of Denmark 431 00:25:02,020 --> 00:25:04,682 asks Ole to come home, and that's eventually why 432 00:25:04,823 --> 00:25:08,554 Ole is in Copenhagen for Fahrenheit to meet. 433 00:25:08,694 --> 00:25:10,821 And that French guy who picked him up, 434 00:25:10,963 --> 00:25:15,024 Jean Picard, a major French science nerd, 435 00:25:15,167 --> 00:25:18,898 one of those "I can go anywhere, do anything" types, you know? 436 00:25:19,037 --> 00:25:22,200 Serve him right, considering what King Louis XIV 437 00:25:22,341 --> 00:25:26,778 asks him to do next, which is to ask him to do this. 438 00:25:34,987 --> 00:25:37,785 Fancy fountains is what the king wants 439 00:25:37,923 --> 00:25:40,858 to go with the new palace he's building at Versailles. 440 00:25:40,993 --> 00:25:42,255 So guess what he gets? 441 00:25:42,394 --> 00:25:44,885 Fancy fountains up the ying yang. 442 00:25:46,698 --> 00:25:48,563 The only minor problem is, 443 00:25:48,700 --> 00:25:50,964 because Louis XIV is in such a royal hurry, 444 00:25:51,103 --> 00:25:52,570 they're building them faster 445 00:25:52,704 --> 00:25:55,639 than hydraulic engineers can keep up theory-wise. 446 00:25:55,774 --> 00:25:57,298 Like, "Okay, you guys, 447 00:25:57,442 --> 00:26:00,036 see if you can make THIS design work." 448 00:26:00,178 --> 00:26:01,236 So nothing goes right. 449 00:26:01,380 --> 00:26:02,574 The reservoirs run out. 450 00:26:02,714 --> 00:26:04,079 The aqueducts fall down. 451 00:26:04,216 --> 00:26:06,707 The king is getting annoyed. 452 00:26:08,787 --> 00:26:10,846 Picard discovers the awful truth: 453 00:26:10,989 --> 00:26:14,686 Versailles is higher than the surrounding countryside. 454 00:26:14,826 --> 00:26:16,123 Hang on a minute. 455 00:26:16,261 --> 00:26:18,195 That's supposed to be why it's here, right? 456 00:26:22,567 --> 00:26:24,432 Picard solves the problem 457 00:26:24,569 --> 00:26:28,005 with the 17th-century equivalent of what these guys are up to. 458 00:26:28,140 --> 00:26:32,509 He rigs up a telescope to measure the slightest differences in land levels 459 00:26:32,644 --> 00:26:35,477 so he knows exactly where to site the reservoirs. 460 00:26:35,614 --> 00:26:38,378 So by 1683, there's a whole network 461 00:26:38,517 --> 00:26:40,951 of interconnecting channels and pools and stuff 462 00:26:41,086 --> 00:26:43,054 to keep enough water coming 463 00:26:43,188 --> 00:26:45,213 to keep fountains spurting night and day 464 00:26:45,357 --> 00:26:47,052 and, most important of all, 465 00:26:47,192 --> 00:26:51,652 provide the king with the water show he wants 466 00:26:51,797 --> 00:26:55,824 and enough water for the other little thing the king has in mind. 467 00:27:01,306 --> 00:27:03,774 This little thing: A garden center 468 00:27:03,909 --> 00:27:07,401 the like of which nobody has ever seen before. 469 00:27:19,891 --> 00:27:22,291 The Versailles gardens are put together for Louis 470 00:27:22,427 --> 00:27:24,292 by one of the greatest gardeners in history, 471 00:27:24,429 --> 00:27:26,590 fellow named Le Nôtre, 472 00:27:26,732 --> 00:27:30,065 a man for whom nature needs a haircut. 473 00:27:30,202 --> 00:27:34,662 Louis' gardens take 36,000 people 20 years to complete. 474 00:27:34,806 --> 00:27:36,535 Well, if you're king by divine right, 475 00:27:36,675 --> 00:27:39,667 it's no fun if you can't think really big. 476 00:27:39,811 --> 00:27:43,542 What Louis XIV does to satisfy his megalomania 477 00:27:43,682 --> 00:27:48,016 makes even Hollywood consumption look inconspicuous. 478 00:27:53,692 --> 00:27:55,887 About the only thing Louis doesn't mess with 479 00:27:56,027 --> 00:27:57,688 are the French forests, 480 00:27:57,829 --> 00:27:59,990 only because the other thing he wants is a navy, 481 00:28:00,132 --> 00:28:03,499 which is why the next royal inspector of the French marine 482 00:28:03,635 --> 00:28:06,604 has an obsession about wood. 483 00:28:15,647 --> 00:28:17,638 Here we are on a British man-of-war 484 00:28:17,783 --> 00:28:19,751 awaiting the arrival of the aforementioned 485 00:28:19,885 --> 00:28:21,876 French inspector general of marine, 486 00:28:22,020 --> 00:28:26,116 a genial twit by the name of Duhamel du Monceau. 487 00:28:30,462 --> 00:28:33,693 Duhamel is here because this is where you come back then 488 00:28:33,832 --> 00:28:37,199 if you want to learn all about making wooden warships. 489 00:28:39,871 --> 00:28:41,634 In the middle of the 18th century, 490 00:28:41,773 --> 00:28:44,833 it takes more than French gold braid and fancy hats 491 00:28:44,976 --> 00:28:48,605 to impress the British navy, who are busy taking over the world. 492 00:28:48,747 --> 00:28:53,411 I mean, they're so accustomed to winning every sea battle they fight, 493 00:28:53,552 --> 00:28:58,717 they even write catchy little tunes about ruling the waves. 494 00:29:05,564 --> 00:29:08,124 Now, the reason this scribbling fool 495 00:29:08,266 --> 00:29:11,758 is taking so many notes is, in terms of timber use, 496 00:29:11,903 --> 00:29:15,964 this place is the equivalent of a fair-sized bit of forest. 497 00:29:19,945 --> 00:29:22,641 Like oak for the interior fittings belowdecks, 498 00:29:22,781 --> 00:29:25,807 oak for the decks, oak for the ship's furniture, 499 00:29:25,951 --> 00:29:28,351 and oak for the hull. 500 00:29:32,224 --> 00:29:34,784 Then there's oak for the cannon supports, 501 00:29:34,926 --> 00:29:37,895 more oak for the pulley blocks you wind all the ropes on, 502 00:29:38,029 --> 00:29:41,021 and, of course, the gangways are made of oak. 503 00:29:48,907 --> 00:29:49,931 What else? 504 00:29:50,075 --> 00:29:52,373 Oh, well, oak for your masts, of course, 505 00:29:52,511 --> 00:29:53,773 and the rigging systems 506 00:29:53,912 --> 00:29:57,439 and all the spars and yardarms and stuff. 507 00:30:00,752 --> 00:30:03,778 Even Duhamel is starting to get the point. 508 00:30:05,857 --> 00:30:07,916 By the time Duhamel has done his sums 509 00:30:08,059 --> 00:30:11,256 and realizes that building one single ship like this 510 00:30:11,396 --> 00:30:14,388 will take no fewer than 1,000 oak trees, 511 00:30:14,533 --> 00:30:16,933 you just know what he's going to do next: 512 00:30:17,068 --> 00:30:18,558 Hotfoot it back to France 513 00:30:18,703 --> 00:30:21,137 and get a new law banning the use of trees 514 00:30:21,273 --> 00:30:23,935 for anything else but building ships 515 00:30:24,075 --> 00:30:26,373 and a massive program of conservation 516 00:30:26,511 --> 00:30:28,911 and replanting and forest management, 517 00:30:29,047 --> 00:30:32,278 something the English have already done. 518 00:30:37,589 --> 00:30:41,821 All this scribble-scribble gives Duhamel another idea, as well. 519 00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:45,293 So when he gets back to France, he becomes a tree hugger 520 00:30:45,430 --> 00:30:47,660 and sets up the first real arboretum 521 00:30:47,799 --> 00:30:51,200 with experimental shrubs and trees on his family estate, 522 00:30:51,336 --> 00:30:54,897 where he also writes copious works on fertilizing 523 00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:58,703 and hoeing and manuring and general agricultural muck. 524 00:30:58,843 --> 00:31:02,574 One of his books gets translated into English in 1759 525 00:31:02,714 --> 00:31:06,241 and becomes a big hit with British architectural types, 526 00:31:06,384 --> 00:31:10,684 a matter which takes us once more to tropical shores. 527 00:31:23,602 --> 00:31:27,629 Duhamel's book about gardens strikes just the right note 528 00:31:27,772 --> 00:31:30,673 with an English guy who's just written a book of his own, 529 00:31:30,809 --> 00:31:32,902 which is kind of about what you do 530 00:31:33,044 --> 00:31:37,037 once you've got the garden Duhamel talks about in his book. 531 00:31:41,052 --> 00:31:43,452 All about the kind of building you might like to have 532 00:31:43,588 --> 00:31:45,681 if you had a really posh garden 533 00:31:45,824 --> 00:31:48,190 and you wanted a really fancy place to live in. 534 00:31:48,326 --> 00:31:50,351 Architecture like this. 535 00:31:54,833 --> 00:31:57,427 The architectural author is William Chambers, 536 00:31:57,569 --> 00:31:59,400 who dreams up an exotic new style 537 00:31:59,537 --> 00:32:02,734 while he's working out here in the East... 538 00:32:05,677 --> 00:32:09,135 traveling between Europe and China and Sri Lanka here 539 00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:11,612 for the Swedish East India Company 540 00:32:11,750 --> 00:32:15,083 and seeing all kinds of stupefying things, 541 00:32:15,220 --> 00:32:17,085 like this stupa, as it's called. 542 00:32:17,222 --> 00:32:18,587 Good, eh? 543 00:32:18,723 --> 00:32:23,092 Anyway, Chambers finally gets back home to jolly old England 544 00:32:23,228 --> 00:32:25,924 and turns out that book on architecture 545 00:32:26,064 --> 00:32:27,929 and becomes the designer you call 546 00:32:28,066 --> 00:32:30,557 if you want your home to feature in all the mags, 547 00:32:30,702 --> 00:32:34,763 by which I mean if you want it to look Eastern, 548 00:32:34,906 --> 00:32:37,602 the latest rave craze. 549 00:32:41,613 --> 00:32:45,515 There's probably never been a more instant fashion 550 00:32:45,650 --> 00:32:49,780 than the one Chambers kicks off, especially for this kind of stuff. 551 00:32:54,626 --> 00:32:57,186 Chambers' greatest hit is pagodas. 552 00:32:57,328 --> 00:32:59,228 After the British royal family commission him 553 00:32:59,364 --> 00:33:02,060 to build this one in the Royal Botanical Gardens, 554 00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:07,661 well, pagoda mania spreads across Europe like wildfire. 555 00:33:07,806 --> 00:33:10,240 It's okay; I'm not going to visit any more of them. 556 00:33:10,375 --> 00:33:12,639 But the pagoda thing does make Chambers 557 00:33:12,777 --> 00:33:15,075 flavor of the royal month. 558 00:33:17,449 --> 00:33:20,043 By 1761, he's chief royal architect, 559 00:33:20,185 --> 00:33:23,586 and by 1774, he's getting really big jobs. 560 00:33:23,722 --> 00:33:26,657 I mean, take a look at this desirable residence, 561 00:33:26,791 --> 00:33:29,521 a giant palace called Somerset House 562 00:33:29,661 --> 00:33:31,822 in downtown London. 563 00:33:33,598 --> 00:33:34,792 Pompous, right? 564 00:33:34,933 --> 00:33:39,563 Ends up as the home of the Internal Revenue Service. 565 00:33:39,704 --> 00:33:41,797 I'd say they were made for each other. 566 00:33:41,940 --> 00:33:44,101 Anyway, there was one other job Chambers got, 567 00:33:44,242 --> 00:33:46,005 which must have been a lot of laughs. 568 00:33:46,144 --> 00:33:49,170 It was to design an overblown bit of architecture on wheels 569 00:33:49,314 --> 00:33:51,282 for his pal King George III. 570 00:33:51,416 --> 00:33:52,383 Here we go. 571 00:33:52,517 --> 00:33:54,917 State coronation coach. 572 00:33:56,921 --> 00:33:58,650 I guess the word that floats to mind 573 00:33:58,790 --> 00:34:02,385 is "theatrical," and speaking of stagey... 574 00:34:07,599 --> 00:34:09,430 How about this for getting around? 575 00:34:09,567 --> 00:34:11,398 The local bus back then. 576 00:34:11,536 --> 00:34:12,867 Not royal, of course, 577 00:34:13,004 --> 00:34:15,131 and, if you live up here in Scotland 578 00:34:15,273 --> 00:34:17,537 and you're waiting to catch the next one to somewhere, 579 00:34:17,675 --> 00:34:22,669 not frequent, if at all, given the state of the roads. 580 00:34:27,752 --> 00:34:31,279 By 1802 or so, the state of Scottish roads 581 00:34:31,422 --> 00:34:33,253 becomes the concern of a stone mason 582 00:34:33,391 --> 00:34:35,188 employed by William Chambers 583 00:34:35,326 --> 00:34:38,261 back when he was building Somerset House, remember? 584 00:34:43,334 --> 00:34:45,768 Thomas Telford's this guy's name, 585 00:34:45,904 --> 00:34:48,771 and he's one of the greatest road builders ever. 586 00:34:48,907 --> 00:34:52,934 Now, Telford's a Scotsman, so he knows the place well. 587 00:34:53,077 --> 00:34:55,204 And he knows the problem. 588 00:34:55,346 --> 00:34:59,783 See, for the previous 50 years, the English have been evicting 589 00:34:59,918 --> 00:35:01,510 Scottish Highlanders from their land 590 00:35:01,653 --> 00:35:04,816 and setting fire to their houses and all that good stuff 591 00:35:04,956 --> 00:35:06,583 and are now wondering what's happened 592 00:35:06,724 --> 00:35:09,158 to Scotland's population, like most of them 593 00:35:09,294 --> 00:35:11,990 have hightailed it to the U.S. and Canada. 594 00:35:12,130 --> 00:35:14,724 So the English ask Telford to think about measures 595 00:35:14,866 --> 00:35:17,164 to get the Scots to come back. 596 00:35:17,302 --> 00:35:20,362 Well, being a road builder, Telford's report doesn't go on 597 00:35:20,505 --> 00:35:24,100 about atrocities and civil rights and all that, does it? 598 00:35:24,242 --> 00:35:26,073 Look at it from his point of view. 599 00:35:26,211 --> 00:35:28,076 Telford builds roads. 600 00:35:28,213 --> 00:35:29,202 That's what he's good at. 601 00:35:29,347 --> 00:35:31,440 And that's how he sees everything. 602 00:35:31,583 --> 00:35:35,519 And what he sees in Scotland is that what few roads there are 603 00:35:35,653 --> 00:35:39,453 are falling to pieces for lack of repair and maintenance. 604 00:35:39,591 --> 00:35:43,357 So when he presents his report to the bigwigs in London, 605 00:35:43,494 --> 00:35:46,952 it's about transportation, not politics. 606 00:36:01,646 --> 00:36:05,013 Telford's report says, "What this place needs 607 00:36:05,149 --> 00:36:06,844 "is me to give it better communications, 608 00:36:06,985 --> 00:36:08,316 and the Scots'll come back." 609 00:36:08,453 --> 00:36:10,887 He does. They don't. 610 00:36:11,022 --> 00:36:13,616 In spite of the greatest road- and bridge-building program 611 00:36:13,758 --> 00:36:15,225 this side of the Roman Empire. 612 00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:16,793 I mean, take a look. 613 00:36:16,928 --> 00:36:18,862 This is Scotland. 614 00:36:18,997 --> 00:36:21,693 Over 28 years, Telford puts in harbors, 615 00:36:21,833 --> 00:36:25,530 900 miles of new roads, and 1,000 new bridges. 616 00:36:25,670 --> 00:36:28,605 So when the committee for the new London bridge 617 00:36:28,740 --> 00:36:31,538 turns down his high-tech cast-iron design, 618 00:36:31,676 --> 00:36:34,907 Telford reckons the committee just hasn't seen the light. 619 00:36:35,046 --> 00:36:38,482 Actually, one of them has. 620 00:36:38,616 --> 00:36:41,915 But just before you meet him, where are we? 621 00:36:46,057 --> 00:36:49,390 Jean Picard surveys the Versailles fountain network 622 00:36:49,527 --> 00:36:51,688 so the king can have all the water he needs 623 00:36:51,829 --> 00:36:53,797 to grow trees that Duhamel writes about 624 00:36:53,932 --> 00:36:57,333 in a book read by pagoda builder William Chambers, 625 00:36:57,468 --> 00:36:59,959 whose stone mason, Thomas Telford, 626 00:37:00,104 --> 00:37:03,596 comes up with a design for a cast-iron London bridge 627 00:37:03,741 --> 00:37:06,232 which is turned down by the London bridge committee, 628 00:37:06,377 --> 00:37:10,473 a bunch of politicians and science biggies, 629 00:37:10,615 --> 00:37:14,051 including the guy who's about to do something to this program 630 00:37:14,185 --> 00:37:17,916 which I hope you'll find illuminating. 631 00:37:18,056 --> 00:37:21,184 The committee member in question is Thomas Young here, 632 00:37:21,326 --> 00:37:24,659 who is, by this time, on everybody's committee, 633 00:37:24,796 --> 00:37:27,230 being, well, a genius. 634 00:37:34,872 --> 00:37:38,069 Here's just one of the reasons Young is so clever. 635 00:37:38,209 --> 00:37:39,836 He's investigating dew. 636 00:37:39,978 --> 00:37:41,036 I'll say that again. 637 00:37:41,179 --> 00:37:43,704 Dew... you know, water droplets... 638 00:37:43,848 --> 00:37:46,874 by looking through the droplets at a light. 639 00:37:47,018 --> 00:37:49,885 And he sees lots of little different-sized rainbow rings 640 00:37:50,021 --> 00:37:52,387 around different-sized droplets. 641 00:37:52,523 --> 00:37:54,753 Yet another bit of pointless noodling? 642 00:37:54,892 --> 00:37:56,018 Uh-uh. 643 00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:58,788 Quick as a flash, Young squeezes some blood 644 00:37:58,930 --> 00:38:01,558 between plates of glass, lights his candle, 645 00:38:01,699 --> 00:38:03,428 sees more little rainbow rings, 646 00:38:03,568 --> 00:38:05,866 and works out the size of blood corpuscles. 647 00:38:06,004 --> 00:38:09,462 But where this guy really shines is when he decides 648 00:38:09,607 --> 00:38:13,771 to shed a little light on light in 1803. 649 00:38:13,911 --> 00:38:17,472 Okay, watch this bit of magic. 650 00:38:17,615 --> 00:38:22,712 Here we have a candle, a lens, a card with a pinhole in it, 651 00:38:22,854 --> 00:38:24,412 and one with two slits. 652 00:38:24,555 --> 00:38:26,716 Okay, shine the light from the candle 653 00:38:26,858 --> 00:38:30,225 through the lens so you get a nice, focused beam. 654 00:38:30,361 --> 00:38:33,888 Then carefully place your cards so that the light goes first 655 00:38:34,032 --> 00:38:36,193 through the pinhole, then the slits, 656 00:38:36,334 --> 00:38:38,302 and voila. 657 00:38:38,436 --> 00:38:39,698 Young realizes 658 00:38:39,837 --> 00:38:41,828 the light going through the slits and mingling 659 00:38:41,973 --> 00:38:43,565 must be coming in light waves, 660 00:38:43,708 --> 00:38:47,940 because this interference pattern could only be made by waves. 661 00:38:48,079 --> 00:38:52,573 Question is, what do light waves travel in? 662 00:38:52,717 --> 00:38:55,447 They decide to call the mystery stuff "ether," 663 00:38:55,586 --> 00:38:57,679 and the hunt for it shakes up the brains 664 00:38:57,822 --> 00:39:00,086 of most of the 19th century's complement 665 00:39:00,224 --> 00:39:02,215 of serious propellerheads. 666 00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:05,591 Now, the biggest propeller in Germany at the time 667 00:39:05,730 --> 00:39:09,166 is a harrumph type name of Helmholtz, 668 00:39:09,300 --> 00:39:10,995 prof at the University of Berlin, 669 00:39:11,135 --> 00:39:15,799 and he puts one of his whiz kids, Hertz, onto the case. 670 00:39:15,940 --> 00:39:21,003 Here is a very oversimple view... sorry... of what Hertz does. 671 00:39:21,145 --> 00:39:25,377 Say this water is that mystery ether stuff, right? 672 00:39:25,516 --> 00:39:28,485 Hertz is into electricity at the time 673 00:39:28,619 --> 00:39:31,110 and wonders if it travels through ether in waves, 674 00:39:31,255 --> 00:39:32,552 like light. 675 00:39:32,690 --> 00:39:34,954 And he finds out it does. 676 00:39:40,731 --> 00:39:43,199 An electric spark sends out electric waves 677 00:39:43,334 --> 00:39:46,963 moving like light waves or waves in the sea, 678 00:39:47,105 --> 00:39:52,702 which brings me to the delightful Belgian beach resort of Ostend. 679 00:39:55,580 --> 00:39:58,208 Now, remember Helmholtz? 680 00:39:58,349 --> 00:40:01,011 His own professor is Johann Müller, this guy, 681 00:40:01,152 --> 00:40:04,121 who is deeply into Life with a capital L 682 00:40:04,255 --> 00:40:06,450 and what makes everything tick. 683 00:40:06,591 --> 00:40:09,685 And he's spending time here in the Belgian drizzle 684 00:40:09,827 --> 00:40:11,624 because he's overworked like crazy 685 00:40:11,762 --> 00:40:16,256 and is hiding out in Ostend with a presuicide depression. 686 00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:17,992 Fun guy. 687 00:40:18,136 --> 00:40:20,604 Meanwhile, what does Müller mean by that stuff 688 00:40:20,738 --> 00:40:22,899 about what makes everything tick? 689 00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:26,669 Well, what Müller is thinking of is one of those weird 690 00:40:26,811 --> 00:40:29,143 "may the Force be with you" things 691 00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:34,445 operating in people, in animals, even in plants. 692 00:40:38,322 --> 00:40:41,018 To start with, take a look at the bit of a plant 693 00:40:41,159 --> 00:40:44,094 that fascinates Müller: The buds. 694 00:40:46,197 --> 00:40:49,633 And remember this is before Darwin and evolution and all that. 695 00:40:49,767 --> 00:40:50,995 "Okay," says Müller. 696 00:40:51,135 --> 00:40:53,729 How do the new plants come into existence?" 697 00:40:53,871 --> 00:40:57,466 Like, are they in here already, and when they do, 698 00:40:57,608 --> 00:41:01,374 how do they get to end up the way they are, like this, 699 00:41:01,512 --> 00:41:03,605 all neat and organized and doing whatever 700 00:41:03,748 --> 00:41:07,411 each bit of the plant is supposed to do? 701 00:41:07,552 --> 00:41:11,488 And is that all already organized in here? 702 00:41:11,622 --> 00:41:14,614 And if that's the case, are all the bits 703 00:41:14,759 --> 00:41:19,321 of all the future descendants of this little plant in here? 704 00:41:19,463 --> 00:41:20,896 Nah. 705 00:41:21,032 --> 00:41:22,499 Müller says what does 706 00:41:22,633 --> 00:41:24,464 all the organizing and running of everything 707 00:41:24,602 --> 00:41:26,934 is another one of those mystery phenomena 708 00:41:27,071 --> 00:41:31,508 you can't see or examine: The Life Force. 709 00:41:31,642 --> 00:41:34,543 And not just in plants... in animals, 710 00:41:34,679 --> 00:41:37,239 like the force going down one of your nerves. 711 00:41:37,381 --> 00:41:42,284 And this force Can Never Be Measured. 712 00:41:44,288 --> 00:41:47,780 Well, Helmholtz reacts to this mumbo jumbo, 713 00:41:47,925 --> 00:41:51,691 and in 1852, he runs some experiments on a frog muscle. 714 00:41:51,829 --> 00:41:54,127 Don't worry; this frog is safe. 715 00:41:54,265 --> 00:41:57,826 Helmholtz zaps the frog muscle with electricity. 716 00:41:57,969 --> 00:42:02,872 The muscle twitches and makes a mark on recording paper. 717 00:42:03,007 --> 00:42:07,603 So you knew to the eleventeen millionth of a second 718 00:42:07,745 --> 00:42:11,203 when you did the zapping, and now you know 719 00:42:11,349 --> 00:42:13,180 how long it takes for the electricity 720 00:42:13,317 --> 00:42:16,980 to go down the frog muscle nerve and make it twitch: 721 00:42:18,656 --> 00:42:20,920 At about 90 feet a second. 722 00:42:21,058 --> 00:42:23,822 So you can measure the mystery life force. 723 00:42:27,632 --> 00:42:30,829 Which is why I'm back on the beach at Ostend. 724 00:42:30,968 --> 00:42:36,065 Because Müller's life force idea is known as vitalism, 725 00:42:36,207 --> 00:42:38,675 and after what Helmholtz does to it, 726 00:42:38,809 --> 00:42:42,768 you'd think that would be the death of the life force idea, right? 727 00:42:44,849 --> 00:42:47,215 Except for another German who spends 728 00:42:47,351 --> 00:42:49,342 many experimental years on the beach... 729 00:42:49,487 --> 00:42:51,250 in his case, Monte Carlo... 730 00:42:51,389 --> 00:42:54,119 and takes over as leader of the vitalist movement. 731 00:42:54,258 --> 00:42:56,749 His name is Ludwig Klages, 732 00:42:56,894 --> 00:42:58,919 and you know Klages better than you may think 733 00:42:59,063 --> 00:43:01,224 for something else he gets up to, 734 00:43:01,365 --> 00:43:04,926 because Klages is the guy who analyses the way people move 735 00:43:05,069 --> 00:43:08,334 and comes up with what we now call body language 736 00:43:08,472 --> 00:43:11,202 and the language of gesture. 737 00:43:11,342 --> 00:43:13,936 Stuff like this: 738 00:43:27,758 --> 00:43:31,592 Klages says body language gives your secret feelings away. 739 00:43:31,729 --> 00:43:33,128 I mean, take this couple. 740 00:43:33,264 --> 00:43:35,994 See how she's crossed her legs away from him 741 00:43:36,133 --> 00:43:37,760 and folded her arms defensively? 742 00:43:37,902 --> 00:43:39,494 She doesn't like him. 743 00:43:39,637 --> 00:43:42,800 But look at him, leaning towards her, 744 00:43:42,940 --> 00:43:46,000 nodding when she nods, legs crossed towards her. 745 00:43:46,143 --> 00:43:49,203 This, says Klages, is a couple of people 746 00:43:49,347 --> 00:43:51,645 trying not to display their inner feelings 747 00:43:51,782 --> 00:43:56,116 but sending out messages in spite of themselves. 748 00:43:56,253 --> 00:43:59,450 Klages reckons every move you make 749 00:43:59,590 --> 00:44:02,218 gives you away like that, shows the real you 750 00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:06,820 behind what he calls the "mask of courtesy." 751 00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:11,732 Klages uses his research 752 00:44:11,869 --> 00:44:14,895 to develop a new science he calls characterology 753 00:44:15,039 --> 00:44:17,473 and sells it as a hotshot analytical tool 754 00:44:17,608 --> 00:44:21,339 when you're interviewing people for job selection. 755 00:44:21,479 --> 00:44:24,778 Now, remember what the date is, hmm: 756 00:44:24,915 --> 00:44:26,974 By this time, just after the first World War. 757 00:44:27,118 --> 00:44:29,279 And Klages is a German. 758 00:44:29,420 --> 00:44:32,446 And he's into irrational life force stuff 759 00:44:32,590 --> 00:44:33,682 and behavioral studies 760 00:44:33,824 --> 00:44:36,725 and all that what's-behind-the-mask stuff. 761 00:44:36,861 --> 00:44:42,060 And it's just before you-know-what happens in Germany. 762 00:44:42,199 --> 00:44:46,192 So you just know what kind of job selection 763 00:44:46,337 --> 00:44:49,966 his characterology is going to get used for. 764 00:44:55,780 --> 00:44:59,739 Die Fahne hoch 765 00:44:59,884 --> 00:45:04,583 die Reihen fest geschlossen. 766 00:45:04,722 --> 00:45:05,848 S. A... 767 00:45:05,990 --> 00:45:09,653 This is the job Klages' characterology gets used for 768 00:45:09,794 --> 00:45:12,160 when the Nazis are trying to find the type of person 769 00:45:12,296 --> 00:45:14,924 who will make an ideal officer in the S.S., 770 00:45:15,065 --> 00:45:18,057 men of iron self-control, superior, 771 00:45:18,202 --> 00:45:20,170 all that stuff. 772 00:45:20,304 --> 00:45:26,607 Marschier'n im Geist in unsern Reihen mit. 773 00:45:26,744 --> 00:45:31,181 Something else Klages dreams up gets grabbed by the Nazi selectors too: 774 00:45:31,315 --> 00:45:33,306 Handwriting analysis. 775 00:45:33,451 --> 00:45:35,180 Klages is the guy who starts all that stuff 776 00:45:35,319 --> 00:45:37,184 about handwriting being another way to see 777 00:45:37,321 --> 00:45:38,845 into a person's character, 778 00:45:38,989 --> 00:45:42,220 the idea being the way you write is a mixture 779 00:45:42,359 --> 00:45:46,090 of all the conflicting forces that make up your personality. 780 00:45:46,230 --> 00:45:48,790 And graphology, as it's called, can reveal 781 00:45:48,933 --> 00:45:52,892 which side of your personality has got the upper hand. 782 00:45:53,037 --> 00:45:55,904 So Klages' graphology says, for example, 783 00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:58,338 large sloping letters show 784 00:45:58,476 --> 00:46:01,036 either enthusiasm and getting on with people 785 00:46:01,178 --> 00:46:03,772 or, depending which side of you is stronger, 786 00:46:03,914 --> 00:46:07,850 lack of realism and a tendency to rashness. 787 00:46:07,985 --> 00:46:10,886 On the other hand, small vertical writing 788 00:46:11,021 --> 00:46:15,355 is either realism and rationality or lack of enthusiasm 789 00:46:15,493 --> 00:46:17,552 and a certain coldness of character. 790 00:46:17,695 --> 00:46:19,959 So how do you know which? 791 00:46:20,097 --> 00:46:22,156 Well, according to Klages, you can see that 792 00:46:22,299 --> 00:46:24,164 from how rhythmic the writing is, 793 00:46:24,301 --> 00:46:26,929 which, what do you know, is another one of those things 794 00:46:27,071 --> 00:46:31,508 that Can't Be Measured in Any Scientific Way. 795 00:46:31,642 --> 00:46:34,634 It can only be understood intuitively. 796 00:46:34,778 --> 00:46:36,678 Don't think I'd have made it through to the S.S. 797 00:46:36,814 --> 00:46:40,341 My handwriting is clearly realistic and rational 798 00:46:40,484 --> 00:46:42,509 with a touch of paranoia 799 00:46:42,653 --> 00:46:45,781 and, you will note, barely readable. 800 00:46:50,361 --> 00:46:53,888 Now, one of the reasons why Klages' graphology claims 801 00:46:54,031 --> 00:46:56,431 to be able to reveal character from writing 802 00:46:56,567 --> 00:46:58,762 is because everybody's is unique, 803 00:46:58,903 --> 00:47:01,997 a painful fact of life for anybody trying to deal 804 00:47:02,139 --> 00:47:05,233 with the U.S. mail in the 1960s when they start trying 805 00:47:05,376 --> 00:47:07,367 to get some automation into the process 806 00:47:07,511 --> 00:47:09,240 by inventing the zip code 807 00:47:09,380 --> 00:47:11,211 because the increase in business mail 808 00:47:11,348 --> 00:47:14,340 gets kind of overwhelming and goes on that way. 809 00:47:14,485 --> 00:47:16,282 So by the 1980s, 810 00:47:16,420 --> 00:47:19,753 there are nifty new optical character-recognition machines, 811 00:47:19,890 --> 00:47:21,448 which are able to read the zip 812 00:47:21,592 --> 00:47:24,390 and then spray a bar code onto the piece of mail 813 00:47:24,528 --> 00:47:28,396 so computers read the bar code and sort the mail. 814 00:47:28,532 --> 00:47:32,229 But you still have to write the zip code in capital letters 815 00:47:32,369 --> 00:47:33,734 because of what Klages calls 816 00:47:33,871 --> 00:47:38,331 the "extreme individualism" of handwriting. 817 00:47:42,746 --> 00:47:46,409 Mind you, all this black marks on paper and handwriting stuff 818 00:47:46,550 --> 00:47:50,418 will all disappear anyway when we switch from ink to electronics. 819 00:47:56,594 --> 00:47:59,119 I mean, the same electronics 820 00:47:59,263 --> 00:48:01,663 that made possible optical character recognition 821 00:48:01,799 --> 00:48:04,393 so machines can read the zip code on this envelope 822 00:48:04,535 --> 00:48:06,833 and tell me where to bring this letter exactly. 823 00:48:06,971 --> 00:48:11,772 For instance, here to Sri Lanka, 824 00:48:11,909 --> 00:48:14,776 to the southern province of Sri Lanka, here, 825 00:48:14,912 --> 00:48:18,814 to a village in the middle of nowhere called Balana. 826 00:48:24,488 --> 00:48:26,615 Population: 35. 827 00:48:26,757 --> 00:48:28,691 Total cash income: $0. 828 00:48:28,826 --> 00:48:33,456 Running water, electricity, phones, televisions, freezers, cars, toilets, 829 00:48:33,597 --> 00:48:37,260 and almost anything else you care to name: None. 830 00:48:37,401 --> 00:48:41,269 What they do have is a desperate desire for education. 831 00:48:41,405 --> 00:48:44,602 But maybe the same technology that got my letter here 832 00:48:44,742 --> 00:48:49,679 will soon help bring education here from anywhere in the world, 833 00:48:49,813 --> 00:48:51,838 as it enables all of us to communicate instantly 834 00:48:51,982 --> 00:48:55,110 all over the planet, from New York to here or anywhere, 835 00:48:55,252 --> 00:48:58,449 without thought to geography... 836 00:48:58,589 --> 00:49:03,754 with the equivalent of a laptop, a cell phone, and a satellite 837 00:49:03,894 --> 00:49:05,486 on the great global net. 838 00:49:05,629 --> 00:49:07,324 And if you've been watching this series, 839 00:49:07,464 --> 00:49:11,059 you'll know what I mean, because throughout this series, 840 00:49:11,201 --> 00:49:13,101 we've been traveling on a kind of global net 841 00:49:13,237 --> 00:49:15,967 through time and space on the great web of knowledge 842 00:49:16,106 --> 00:49:19,041 where everything is connected to everything else 843 00:49:19,176 --> 00:49:21,804 and everybody else. 844 00:49:21,945 --> 00:49:26,006 That's why we're here at the end of our last journey 845 00:49:26,150 --> 00:49:29,449 that went from cheaper fusion power 846 00:49:29,586 --> 00:49:32,316 thanks to superconductivity, discovered by Onnes, 847 00:49:32,456 --> 00:49:35,755 with liquid gas provided by the aeronautical Cailletet, 848 00:49:35,893 --> 00:49:39,056 who carries out experiments up the tower built by Eiffel, 849 00:49:39,196 --> 00:49:41,221 who also built the Statue of Liberty 850 00:49:41,365 --> 00:49:45,062 with its famous poem by the Jewish activist Emma Lazarus, 851 00:49:45,202 --> 00:49:47,796 who gets a lot of help from Oliphant, 852 00:49:47,938 --> 00:49:50,338 whose boss Elgin is the son of the guy 853 00:49:50,474 --> 00:49:52,806 who snitches the Elgin Marbles and sells them 854 00:49:52,943 --> 00:49:55,343 with the help of royal painter Thomas Lawrence, 855 00:49:55,479 --> 00:49:58,539 whose colleague Dr. Hunter has an assistant 856 00:49:58,682 --> 00:50:02,448 whose wife's lodger is none other than Benjamin Franklin, 857 00:50:02,586 --> 00:50:04,247 who charts the Gulf Stream 858 00:50:04,388 --> 00:50:07,118 with a thermometer Fahrenheit snitches from Ole Rømer, 859 00:50:07,257 --> 00:50:09,657 whose pal Picard surveys Versailles 860 00:50:09,793 --> 00:50:11,727 and provides the water for the fountains 861 00:50:11,862 --> 00:50:13,830 and the royal gardens and all the trees 862 00:50:13,964 --> 00:50:17,092 that inspire Duhamel to write the book on gardening 863 00:50:17,234 --> 00:50:19,998 that gets read by the architect William Chambers, 864 00:50:20,137 --> 00:50:23,072 who hires the Scottish stone mason Thomas Telford, 865 00:50:23,207 --> 00:50:26,608 whose idea for London Bridge is turned down by Thomas Young, 866 00:50:26,744 --> 00:50:28,609 whose light waves travel in ether, 867 00:50:28,746 --> 00:50:30,839 as do Hertz's electricity waves, 868 00:50:30,981 --> 00:50:33,347 with which Helmholtz zaps that frog 869 00:50:33,484 --> 00:50:35,975 to disprove the vitalists, whose leader, Klages, 870 00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:39,055 analyzes handwriting so individual 871 00:50:39,189 --> 00:50:42,852 zip codes have to be capital letters to get your mail to a jungle village 872 00:50:42,993 --> 00:50:47,430 where we began this whole series ten programs ago like this: 873 00:50:54,271 --> 00:50:55,363 Oh, hi. 874 00:50:55,506 --> 00:50:56,768 Could you hold it for a second? 875 00:50:56,907 --> 00:50:58,272 Thanks. 876 00:50:58,408 --> 00:51:01,741 Okay, access the uplink now. 877 00:51:01,879 --> 00:51:04,040 Sorry about that. 878 00:51:04,181 --> 00:51:05,648 Well, here we are. 879 00:51:05,783 --> 00:51:09,810 Intrepid reporter James Burke in one of the more remote parts of India, 880 00:51:09,953 --> 00:51:13,252 ready to start the show, a show that travels 881 00:51:13,390 --> 00:51:14,914 across the great web of knowledge, 882 00:51:15,058 --> 00:51:16,958 through space and time, to find... 883 00:51:17,094 --> 00:51:21,030 So we end where we started, in a third-world village 884 00:51:21,165 --> 00:51:24,862 In Touch, where we're all going to be in the 21st century... 885 00:51:26,470 --> 00:51:31,271 on the net and, like it or not, connected.