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There are some great questions

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that have intrigued and haunted us
since the dawn of humanity.

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What is out there?

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How did we get here?

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What is the world made of?

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The story of our search
to answer those questions
is the story of science.

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Of all human endeavours,

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science has had the greatest impact
on our lives -

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on how we see the world,
on how we see ourselves.

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Its ideas, its achievements,
its results are all around us.

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So how did we arrive at
a modern world?

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Well, that is more surprising
and more human than you might think.

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The history of science is often told
as a series of eureka moments,

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the ultimate triumph
of the rational mind.

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But the truth is
that power and passion,

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rivalry and sheer blind chance have
played equally significant parts.

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In this series
I'll be offering a different view
of how science happens.

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It's been shaped as much by what's
outside the laboratory as inside.

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Oh!

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This is the story of
how history made science

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and science made history,

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and how the ideas that were
generated changed our world.

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It is a tale of power...

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..proof...

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..and passion.

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This time,
an ancient human ambition -

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the search for limitless power.

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We are the most power-hungry
generation that has ever lived.

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Energy is the heartbeat
of our civilisation.

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The pursuit of power has created
and destroyed fortunes.

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It has raised and toppled nations.

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And it has utterly transformed
how we live our lives.

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But this relentless search for
more power has an importance

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that is far greater than
discovering what it can do for us.

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When people ask themselves "What
is power?" as opposed to simply,
"Where can I get more of it?"

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well, that led to
some of the greatest insights
in the whole history of science.

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The 17th century was a pivotal edge,

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when the balance between man
and nature began to change forever.

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There was no electricity.

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There were no cars, no trains.

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The most common power sources
had to be fed and watered.

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Horsepower meant just that.

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But a remote beach in Holland
would provide a glimpse
of what was to come.

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If you had been walking along
a beach in north-west Holland
400 years ago

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you might have seen a much larger
version of one of these zip past.

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It was called the wind chariot.

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Designed to carry heavily armoured
soldiers along the coast line...

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..it amazed and terrified
in equal measure.

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Here was the power of the wind being
harnessed to produce motion on land.

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It must have been
an extraordinary sight. Oh, yes.

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The people were afraid of it
and they called it a devil's rig.

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The devil's rig.
Very dramatic, yeah.

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How fast?
It could outpace a horse running.

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Outpace a horse? So that must have
made it one of the fastest things
in the world at the time.

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Probably one of the fastest things.

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Using wind power.
Just wind power. Very impressive.

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The wind chariot was designed by
an engineer and mathematician
called Simon Stevin,

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a remarkable man who would literally
change the face of Holland

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and help turn it into
a great trading empire.

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Because Stevin's ambitions for
wind power went far beyond chariots.

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He wanted to transform his country
using mathematics.

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Mathematics was changing.

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For hundreds of years,
in the universities,

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geometry and arithmetic had been
important theoretical pursuits.

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Practical applications, like
building bridges and firing canons,
were limited.

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But now, men like Simon Stevin
would use maths theory

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to create something much bigger...

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A new,
mathematically grounded science.

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And that would help them solve
a whole range of complex problems.

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Now, Stevin was clearly
a mathematician who didn't mind
getting his hands dirty.

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He saw the value of applying
mathematical knowledge to
the solution of practical problems.

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The problem Stevin turned
his mathematics to

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was a crucial one
in low-lying Holland -

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How to keep the country dry.

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For over a century, Holland's
windmills had been scooping water

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from drainage ditches, tipping
it into canals to carry it away.

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But Stevin was convinced that
mathematics could make windmills
much more efficient.

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We're at the top of the windmill now
and this is the gearing system.

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This was the heart
of what Stevin did.

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Mathematically it's interesting
because what he's done is, there
is no whole number relationship.

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It's not like two to one,
three to one between this and this.
There's no regular relationship.

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Also you can probably see
these things are angled.

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It is not a simple vertical plane
meeting a horizontal plane.

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It's going at an angle.

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And that is quite difficult
to deal with mathematically as well.

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It looks crude,
but it is fantastically refined.

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It's very impressive. I'm looking
forward to seeing it run.

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Magnificent isn't it? It's like
being inside an enormous clock.

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Standing here,
you get the impression of

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immense, inexorable power
which is sort of just driving
round and round.

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And the thing which surprises me
is it is so quiet.

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And that is a tribute to Stevin's
mathematics because he obviously got
it right. The interactions all work.

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There's very little clanking.

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If all that power was being
wasted in sound and heat,
this whole place would be vibrating.

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But actually it's very smooth.

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This new,
mathematically designed windmill

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was three times more efficient
than the ones it replaced.

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It's almost poetic.

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I mean, this is a mathematical model
realised in a physical reality.

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Stevin designed new
paddle wheel shapes, sluices,

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even a chain of windmills
that could be used to drain
not just fields, but a lake.

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What's more,
he patented his many inventions

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to ensure his work
would be well rewarded.

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Mathematics made Stevin rich.

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And it wasn't long before it started
to change the whole country.

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Simon Stevin had shown
what really well designed windmills
were capable of.

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And people now began to ask
themselves, "If they could drain
lakes, what else could they do?"

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Holland was already
an emerging European force.

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Now the power of windmills
helped turn it into
an industrial power house.

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Seeds and nuts were ground
to extract their valuable oil.

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Paper mills became mechanised.

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Wood could be cut 30 times faster
and with greater precision
than by hand...

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..helping to turn this small country
into the biggest ship builders
in western Europe.

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To the sound of mathematically
designed mills whirring in the wind

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Holland became an even more dynamic
trading nation...

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..and Amsterdam one of the richest

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and most cosmopolitan cities
on earth.

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Here, you could buy
almost anything -

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diamonds, furs, exotic spices.

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Amsterdam was enjoying a golden age.

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The city produced the first central
bank, the first stock exchange

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and the first economic crash.

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The growth of Holland changed
the power map of Europe.

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It had been helped by advances
in windmill design

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and new mathematically based
science.

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And a belief
amongst men like Simon Stevin

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that science should be useful.

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It was obvious what power could do.

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But what was still missing
was any scientific understanding
of what power actually is.

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That would only begin to emerge
far later, on the other side
of the Channel.

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The English country house
of the 18th century
was a place of intrigue,

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romance and gossip.

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But, between visits from
dashing cavalry officers,

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these bastions of high society

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also hosted the occasional
visiting experimenter.

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The home of an unlikely alliance

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that marked the birth of a world
changing new source of power.

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Science had become popular
entertainment for the drawing room.

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Most of these contraptions
had been developed to explore
the wonders of the age,

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like static charge and magnetism.

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Oh!

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Now that really is impressive.

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Now, this was a real crowd pleaser.

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The vacuum trick. What you do
is you take an alarm...

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set it to go off...

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then put it in here...

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and pump out the air.

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Right.

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The alarm clock goes off...

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..and you hear...absolutely nothing.

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No-one fully understood the science
behind these demonstrations.

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But the ability to dazzle and
intrigue helped bring new ideas

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to a new and attentive audience.

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Matthew Boulton was an entrepreneur

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who belonged to the Lunar Society,

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so called because they met
on the night of the full moon.

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They were industrialists,

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experimenters
and natural philosophers

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who all shared
a love of practical knowledge.

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A leading lunar man was
Scottish engineer, James Watt.

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For some years Watt had been working
with prototype steam engines.

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And this prompted Matthew Boulton
to invite him to take part
in a joint business venture.

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He had heard that Watt was trying to
develop a new type of steam engine.

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As he later wrote to Watt, the
reason for backing were twofold -

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love of you and love of
a money-getting ingenious project.

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Now, the plan was clear.

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Boulton had the capital,
Watt had the idea.

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Together
they would get seriously rich.

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This was capitalism in action.

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The steam engine had
enormous global impact.

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And yet the surprising thing is,
there was hardly any
scientific theory behind it.

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That would come later.

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This is a Boulton and Watt
steam engine.

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And this the familiar bit -
man, coal, furnace.

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But what you might not expect is
it is stationary and it is vast.

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This single machine occupies
the whole building.

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So vast that this engine,
originally built to keep the nearby
canal topped up with water,

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boasts its very own driver.

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Hello. Hello. Nice to see you.
You're the driver?
Yes, I'm the driver of this engine. 

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I am amazed. This is still working,
isn't it? Actually doing the job.

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This, at this moment, is actually
maintaining the canal. The electric
pumps British Waterways

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normally use are switched off
and we're actually doing that job.

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Can I have a go at driving? You
certainly can. Step round this lever.

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Always wanted to
drive a steam engine.

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This wasn't quite what
I'd imagined it. Right OK.

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So.. Turn that lever to the left,
about a quarter of a turn.

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There's a sort of narrow
window between...

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There is. There are indeed.

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What drove the engine was
not so much the power
of the steam directly,

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rather an industrial version of that
country house trick - the vacuum.

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The steam is injected,
then cooled, creating a vacuum.

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It's this which drags
the piston head down

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providing the engine
with its lifting power.

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00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:40,720
Close it another quarter of a turn.

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What's happened? Well, you actually
closed it too far.

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This is not good.

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I was thinking it was really quite
simple and then within 30 seconds
of taking charge of this machine

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I managed to stop it,
which is quite bad.

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That's looking good.

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James Watt didn't invent
the steam engine

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or even the idea of using a vacuum.

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00:18:17,840 --> 00:18:21,800
Engines had been powered
this way for decades.

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00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:24,960
Watt's fame,
and that of his machine,

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rests instead on one
small modification

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00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:33,360
located here,
right at the bottom of the engine.

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00:18:33,360 --> 00:18:36,360
It may not look like much,
but down there

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00:18:36,360 --> 00:18:40,800
is James Watt's unique contribution
to the story of power.

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00:18:40,800 --> 00:18:43,600
It's called a separate condenser.

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00:18:43,600 --> 00:18:49,080
It's where the steam was cooled
to create the all-important vacuum

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00:18:49,080 --> 00:18:56,160
well away from the hot cylinders,
a small but ingenious technical
innovation with enormous benefits.

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00:18:58,120 --> 00:19:02,440
The Boulton and Watt steam engines
were far more efficient
than their rivals.

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00:19:02,440 --> 00:19:05,240
They used a quarter of
the amount of coal.

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00:19:08,800 --> 00:19:11,400
The potential savings were enormous.

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00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:15,320
Something any business man
could understand. Over to you.

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00:19:15,320 --> 00:19:18,160
Thank you.

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00:19:21,240 --> 00:19:25,880
Why some ideas change the world
while others languish,

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00:19:25,880 --> 00:19:32,200
unloved and unnoticed, is seldom
down to their intrinsic merit.

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00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:43,880
The success of Boulton and Watt's
engine was not just due
to new technology,

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00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:48,160
but also a clever piece
of financial engineering.

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The machines were complicated
and needed someone to install them

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00:19:54,640 --> 00:19:58,360
and that someone was more often
than not James Watt himself.

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00:19:58,360 --> 00:20:02,880
In his letters he complains bitterly
about all the travelling
he had to do.

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Walk on.

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Gee up, boys. Go on. Go on.

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And you can sort of see why,
can't you?

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Lots of jolting.
Now this is bearable...

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Short trip, middle of summer.

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00:20:17,520 --> 00:20:19,760
But imagine there
it's cold, it's winter,

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00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:24,400
it is absolutely lashing down -
completely different experience.

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But the discomfort of 18th-century
travel was a price worth paying

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because once his engines had been
installed, the money began
to flood in.

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00:20:38,840 --> 00:20:43,360
This three-page document was the
key to Boulton and Watt's wealth.

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00:20:43,360 --> 00:20:47,400
It's a patent. It covers Watt's
adaptations to the steam engine.

234
00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:53,800
Now, you had to go on paying
royalties year after year, long
after the machine was installed.

235
00:20:53,800 --> 00:20:59,120
Any savings you made
from the machine, a proportion
went straight back to them.

236
00:20:59,120 --> 00:21:06,200
I think it's very telling
how scientific discovery is rarely
far away from the smell of money,

237
00:21:06,200 --> 00:21:10,400
and that's especially true
of the search for power.

238
00:21:20,200 --> 00:21:23,600
But, for all the riches on offer,
there was still no real

239
00:21:23,600 --> 00:21:28,000
scientific framework
to explain what power actually is.

240
00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:34,920
Science would have to wait
till steam power became a force
throughout the land.

241
00:21:34,920 --> 00:21:37,560
HORSE NEIGHS

242
00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:49,720
The big demand for steam engines
was in the West Country,

243
00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:52,640
pumping flood water from mines.

244
00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:57,920
Their owners soon became reliant
on Boulton and Watt's
more efficient machines.

245
00:21:57,920 --> 00:22:02,360
Some mine owners, fed up
with royalties, stopped paying.

246
00:22:02,360 --> 00:22:06,440
Boulton and Watt got tough
and responded with legal writs.

247
00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:11,640
It's said that a delivery man
who came to one of these mines

248
00:22:11,640 --> 00:22:18,360
was seized by the ankles, hung over
the mine shaft and asked if he still
wanted to deliver that writ.

249
00:22:18,360 --> 00:22:22,400
The man behind that particular story
was Richard Trevithick.

250
00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:29,240
To get round of Watt's patent
Trevithick began to build
his own engines.

251
00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:40,000
This was his greatest achievement,
the Puffing Devil,

252
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:42,400
all eight horsepower of it.

253
00:22:49,560 --> 00:22:52,840
And unlike Boulton
and Watt's engine, it moved.

254
00:22:59,360 --> 00:23:06,360
Trevithick's genius was he built
high pressure steam engines where
the steam drives the piston.

255
00:23:06,360 --> 00:23:10,360
So he didn't need
vacuums or condensers.

256
00:23:10,360 --> 00:23:18,120
Instead of being the size of houses,
his steam engines were small,
powerful, mobile.

257
00:23:18,120 --> 00:23:23,680
And as an added bonus they produced
that wonderful "whoo-hoo" noise.

258
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:27,840
That's the sound of
high-pressure steam escaping.

259
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:34,280
ENGINE WHISTLES

260
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:49,040
I'd read that people thought
they were incredibly dangerous,
and not unreasonably,

261
00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:51,480
that they would blow up,
the high-pressure system.

262
00:23:51,480 --> 00:23:55,520
You're quite right. They didn't have
the knowledge of metallurgy

263
00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:58,200
we do today, and they did get
boiler explosions.

264
00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:01,480
There's no risk of this one
blowing up, I take it?

265
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:03,120
Not at all.

266
00:24:03,120 --> 00:24:10,360
This new steam engine
clearly pointed to a better way of
moving goods and people around.

267
00:24:10,360 --> 00:24:15,880
Yet Trevithick has not gone down
in history as the father
of the modern railway.

268
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:22,520
I gather that he actually did,
on one occasion, manage to get

269
00:24:22,520 --> 00:24:27,600
his steam car, if you like,
on a track, on a railway.
Why didn't it work?

270
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:32,440
The engine weighed five tonnes or so,
so the rails broke
under the weight of the engine.

271
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:37,120
So the problem wasn't
the train at all. It was the rail
it was running on. Absolutely.

272
00:24:37,120 --> 00:24:38,760
Yes, the engine worked a dream.

273
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:42,200
Right. That is incredibly ironic
isn't it? Yeah.

274
00:24:46,560 --> 00:24:51,360
The history of science is full of
moments like this.

275
00:24:51,360 --> 00:24:56,960
Great ideas have to come at
the right place and the right time.

276
00:24:56,960 --> 00:25:00,800
Sadly for Trevithick,
the place and time were wrong.

277
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:05,800
So why didn't he die
rich and famous?

278
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:12,200
Well, it's partly because he didn't
have his own Matthew Boulton
to get his inventions out there

279
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:14,960
and to make sure
he was raking in the cash.

280
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:18,920
But it's also because his ideas
were well ahead of their time.

281
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:25,120
In the early 1800s,
if you wanted to get from A to B,
you were better off buying a horse.

282
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:33,280
Steam engines would eventually
bring unprecedented change

283
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:37,200
borne out of a combination
of different forces.

284
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:41,880
The Lunar Society,
where men of science and business

285
00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:44,680
could meet and exchange ideas.

286
00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:48,640
Technical innovations,
like high-pressure steam.

287
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:52,720
The promise of money
and the protection of patents.

288
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:08,720
From all this emerged a previously
unimaginable source of power...

289
00:26:18,120 --> 00:26:20,680
..the mechanical equivalent
of countless horses

290
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:25,200
to work the factories and mills
of the 19th-century landscape.

291
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:37,880
The steam engines, their profits,
their owners,

292
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:41,320
these were the forces
shaping Victorian Britain.

293
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:53,840
But the effects of all this power
were felt far beyond the world
of heavy industry.

294
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:58,800
The new aristocracy of factory
owners and businessmen knew

295
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:02,960
just how they wanted to use
their new-found influence.

296
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:07,200
Some used their wealth
to campaign for social change,

297
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:10,680
like the abolition of slavery
or the education of women.

298
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:17,640
The search for power
had given political power to a new
group of people, the middle classes.

299
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:22,200
The quest for power
had produced so much...

300
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:27,720
but with no more
scientific understanding
than had existed a century before.

301
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:32,480
Only now, belatedly,
came the theorists.

302
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:46,000
The Victorians were utterly
entranced by the power of steam.

303
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:52,200
But the science behind it
posed some of the greatest
questions of the age.

304
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:57,800
It demanded a new theory,
a new way of looking at nature.

305
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:01,760
Fortunately help was at hand.

306
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:08,240
This is Mrs Beeton's Book
Of Household Management,

307
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:12,880
a Victorian classic which contains
pretty well everything
you need to know

308
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:15,840
about how to run a household
efficiently and well,

309
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:18,120
including how to sack
your servants.

310
00:28:18,120 --> 00:28:24,240
"Frugality and economy are virtues,
without which no household
can prosper."

311
00:28:26,120 --> 00:28:32,680
Mrs Beeton,
like so many in Victorian society,
was obsessed with efficiency.

312
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:37,640
Waste was not just uneconomical,
it was also un-Christian.

313
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:42,600
In the kitchen, if you had
old bones, you made soup.

314
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:45,480
If you had old bread,
you made a pudding.

315
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:49,120
And this obsession was shared
by the scientific community.

316
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:55,360
In fact, it led to the development
of a whole new concept,
that of energy.

317
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:06,120
As steam engines took off, people
became interested in comparing
which engines were most efficient.

318
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:14,720
A new theory of energy
would now help them make
precisely that sort of judgment.

319
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,320
No-one really knew what energy is.

320
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:27,120
Some people thought of it
as a fluid which flows
from one place to another.

321
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:32,520
But what was becoming increasingly
clear is it could be transferred.

322
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:38,920
The steam engine, like a kettle,
could be explained scientifically.

323
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:44,720
As it burns, chemical energy
from the coal is turned into heat.

324
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:48,760
This energy heats the kettle
and the water inside....

325
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:52,880
Which turns into steam, which can
then be used to perform work.

326
00:29:55,680 --> 00:30:00,720
It sounds really simple, but
this was a turning point in science.

327
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:05,040
For the first time, such diverse
things as heating coals,

328
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:09,880
warming water, production of steam,
even the spinning of windmills

329
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:13,800
could all be united by
a single concept - that of energy.

330
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:21,360
It led to the formulation
of a new law of physics,
one that is absolutely fundamental.

331
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:24,760
It's called
the first law of thermodynamics.

332
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:32,720
The first law of thermodynamics
is a mathematical description
of energy,

333
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:35,280
known as conservation of energy.

334
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:41,160
It states that energy cannot
be created or destroyed.

335
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:46,960
So you can never get more out than
is contained in the fuel you put in.

336
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:54,480
And it applies to
every source of power there is -

337
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:58,760
from kettles, to steam engines,

338
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:00,920
to windmills.

339
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:04,160
Everything.

340
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:15,040
Thermodynamics was one of
the crowning glories
of 19th-century science,

341
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:18,240
inspired in part
by the need to explain

342
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:21,640
that wonder of the age,
the steam engine.

343
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:27,680
And by an obsession
with thrift and efficiency.

344
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:31,160
But thermodynamics was
only one component

345
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:37,320
of what was to be
a far more comprehensive theory
of energy and power.

346
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:06,080
In June 1772,
a small sailing expedition
set off for the coast of France

347
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:10,800
on a voyage that would help point
science towards the modern age.

348
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:22,360
Its leader was John Walsh,
recently retired from
the British East India Company.

349
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:27,720
Walsh was fascinated
by the electricity found in nature.

350
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:36,080
He went looking for it,
not in the skies, but under water...

351
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:40,640
..in a fish....

352
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:48,080
..the torpedo fish...

353
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:54,440
..which uses electric shocks
to catch its prey.

354
00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:07,840
Walsh wanted to find out whether the
power emitted by this strange fish

355
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:11,120
was the same as that given off
by lightning...

356
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:14,920
..or a spark generator.

357
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:21,640
Having done numerous experiments
on himself and his crew,

358
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:25,320
Walsh now headed back to London
to try and find out

359
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:29,240
just how the torpedo fish
produced electric shocks.

360
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:39,160
Some of the fish Walsh brought back
are still preserved

361
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:41,920
at the Hunterian Museum in London.

362
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:48,080
They were dissected by
the renowned surgeon John Hunter
to reveal some very peculiar organs.

363
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:57,560
Well, you see these two patches of
white tissue, one top, one bottom
either side of the fish?

364
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:01,640
These are things which Hunter
hadn't seen before in other fish,

365
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:03,960
other rays that he'd dissected.

366
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:07,080
Right.
This one looks very different.

367
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:10,200
It's a much more detailed dissection,

368
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:12,640
but also Hunter's worked
a bit of magic on it

369
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:17,480
by injecting it with a red dye
to show where the blood vessels are.

370
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:23,200
The electric charge seemed
to come from these tiny cells,

371
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:28,560
now known as electrocytes,
found within the electric organs.

372
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:33,360
It is extraordinary because
you begin to see where the charge
would have come from.

373
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:37,400
You can actually see each of the
cells. It is beautiful, isn't it?

374
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:39,840
A work of art. A work of art
in its own right, isn't it?

375
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:46,320
Walsh was convinced that the
electricity from the torpedo fish

376
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:50,920
was not only the same as
the electricity in lightning,

377
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:54,880
but that it must be possible
to produce it using a machine.

378
00:34:56,280 --> 00:34:59,800
But plenty of people
did not agree with Walsh.

379
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:05,280
It seemed almost sacrilegious
to claim that electricity
from a machine made by man

380
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:10,440
was exactly the same
as electricity from a fish
which had been created by God.

381
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:20,040
And yet, proof that this was
the case was not far away.

382
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:37,160
In the archives of the Royal
Society in London sits a letter
that dates back to 1800.

383
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,800
Written by an Italian scientist,
Alessandro Volta,

384
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:49,960
essentially it contains
instructions on how to build
your very own torpedo fish.

385
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:03,080
This is a copy of the letter that
Volta sent to the Royal Society.

386
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:07,160
It's in French, got a useful diagram
over in the corner.

387
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:10,240
I've also got a box here
of bits and pieces.

388
00:36:10,240 --> 00:36:16,680
Right, first of all
I need some zinc and some copper.

389
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:22,360
Also I need some bits of cardboard
or tissue

390
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:26,520
capable of soaking up
a briny solution.

391
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:33,400
It is very hard to believe

392
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:35,480
this is actually going to
do anything.

393
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:37,880
We shall see.

394
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:47,120
A piece of copper on the top
and I've got a lead on it.

395
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:52,600
Now, if you look at it closely,
it really does resemble

396
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:56,160
the working bits, if you like,
of a torpedo fish.

397
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:02,240
And he suggested to call it
an artificial electric organ.

398
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:07,120
The "voltaic pile",
as it became known,

399
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:10,120
could generate
a significant electric current.

400
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:17,320
Volta couldn't measure it,
but he could demonstrate

401
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:21,240
that it delivered a shock,
just like the torpedo fish.

402
00:37:21,240 --> 00:37:22,520
Ohh!

403
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:24,320
Oh! Ooh!

404
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:28,480
What's interesting is that Volta,
when he writes to the Royal Society,

405
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:30,920
effectively gives away
all his secrets,

406
00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:35,720
which is a bit of a shame for him
because this turned out to be

407
00:37:35,720 --> 00:37:39,840
one of the greatest technological
discoveries of all time.

408
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:42,360
It is of course the battery.

409
00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:52,560
What is really surprising, looking
at it from a modern perspective,

410
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:56,640
is that for a long time people had
no idea what to do with the battery.

411
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:58,960
It had not obvious
practical application.

412
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:00,720
There was nothing to plug it into.

413
00:38:00,720 --> 00:38:04,520
It would be a generation
before somebody managed to find

414
00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:07,080
a really significant practical use.

415
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:12,160
An ingenious response to
a rather urgent problem.

416
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:21,040
On the 18th June 1815,

417
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:26,800
the armies of the Duke of Wellington
and the Emperor Napoleon
met at Waterloo.

418
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:34,440
It was a battle on whose outcome
rested the fate of Europe.

419
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:41,200
By the end of the day, the battle
was over. The French had lost.

420
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:46,000
Wellington was keen to get
this good news to London
as quickly as possible.

421
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:50,200
Major Henry Percy
was ordered to carry the message.

422
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:56,800
He mounted his battle-weary horse
and rode off across Belgium
until he got to the coast.

423
00:38:56,800 --> 00:38:59,920
When he arrived, he had to wait
for the correct wind and tide

424
00:38:59,920 --> 00:39:02,760
before finally he could set sail
for England.

425
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:07,200
In all, it took him four days
to reach London,

426
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:10,920
four days during which I'm sure
the people in the war office

427
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:13,640
were biting their fingernails
with anxiety

428
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:16,240
because many expected
the French to win.

429
00:39:16,240 --> 00:39:20,720
Now, if you could have got a secret
message from Waterloo to London

430
00:39:20,720 --> 00:39:27,440
faster than Major Percy, you
could have made a fortune, betting
on an improbable English victory.

431
00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:34,640
There was clearly a need
for faster communication.

432
00:39:36,720 --> 00:39:41,080
Volta's Pile was about to get
plugged into something useful.

433
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:49,000
And this time it was science
that led the way, thanks to a man
called Hans Christian Oersted.

434
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:57,400
The story goes
he was about to give a lecture
and he was preparing his equipment.

435
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:01,240
Amongst it, he had a voltaic pile
and some wire.

436
00:40:01,240 --> 00:40:05,320
When he connected up the wire,
something utterly unexpected
happened.

437
00:40:09,720 --> 00:40:12,880
The needle
of a nearby compass twitched

438
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:15,640
and every time he connected the wire

439
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:18,240
or disconnected,

440
00:40:18,240 --> 00:40:20,200
it moved again.

441
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:26,920
People had known for centuries
that compass needles
were deflected by magnets.

442
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:33,960
Somehow the electric current in the
wire was also acting like a magnet,

443
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:39,680
deflecting the needle, which left
Oersted completely baffled.

444
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:44,280
Now, he obviously realised
this was important

445
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:48,440
because he did further research
and published his findings.

446
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:51,960
But I think it's extremely unlikely
he ever appreciated

447
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:56,040
just what a massive impact his
discovery would make on the world.

448
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:06,120
Within a few years,
that twitching compass needle had
grown into the electric telegraph.

449
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:17,240
The power of electricity could now
be used to get messages from A to B
almost instantaneously.

450
00:41:17,240 --> 00:41:22,160
Telegraph tables were soon running
right across the globe.

451
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:32,280
And when the telegraph came
together with that other great
invention the steam engine,

452
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:34,960
the combination was unstoppable.

453
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:43,720
Steam power did the heavy work -

454
00:41:43,720 --> 00:41:47,320
draining mines, spinning cotton,

455
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:49,960
powering a new railway network.

456
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:54,640
And with the telegraph that ran
alongside those same railways,

457
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:59,080
the battery brought control -
political and financial.

458
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:06,320
Together, they helped build
the empires of 19th-century Europe.

459
00:42:12,240 --> 00:42:18,760
The stage was now set for
the next step in the scientific
understanding of power.

460
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:35,320
The tiny, twitching needle
of the telegraph had shown

461
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:38,440
how electricity from a battery
could be truly useful.

462
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:44,640
But what's happening here
is also something which
is much more profound.

463
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:47,560
It is the coming together
of two great forces

464
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:51,000
that previously were regarded
as utterly separate.

465
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:57,000
And covering the link between two
things as disparate as an electric
current and a magnetic compass

466
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:01,160
was one of the greatest achievements
of science,

467
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:05,320
a major step towards
a unified concept of energy.

468
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:10,720
Electricity was the crowd pleaser.

469
00:43:10,720 --> 00:43:14,080
Flashes, sparks, electric shocks.

470
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:19,160
Magnetism was altogether
more sedate, something of interest
mainly to navigators.

471
00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:24,120
But when the two came together,
they created the science of
electromagnetism

472
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:26,600
that would dominate
the 19th century.

473
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:34,840
Electromagnetism
not only explained the relationship
between electricity and magnetism,

474
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:38,560
it would go on to explain
the very nature of light...

475
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:41,720
..of radio waves...

476
00:43:41,720 --> 00:43:44,360
of x-rays.

477
00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:49,560
And it helped persuade
19th-century physicists

478
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:53,640
that they had now discovered
all the fundamental laws of nature.

479
00:43:56,480 --> 00:44:02,520
As it turned out,
this cosy assumption was
somewhat wide of the mark.

480
00:44:09,800 --> 00:44:13,800
At the turn of the 20th century,
the discovery of a new element

481
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:17,080
was splashed across front pages
all over the world.

482
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:35,360
One reason for all the excitement
was the way radium behaved.

483
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:39,080
It spontaneously
glowed in the dark...

484
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:44,800
..and created ghostly patterns
on photographic plates.

485
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:49,920
It seemed to be creating energy
out of nowhere.

486
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:05,720
Radium's mysterious properties
caught the public imagination,

487
00:45:05,720 --> 00:45:10,400
helping to sell a new range
of consumer products...

488
00:45:13,240 --> 00:45:17,960
..which was unfortunate,
since radium is radioactive.

489
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:20,640
..Yes. Thank you. Have a look.

490
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:22,560
OK. So what am I looking at?

491
00:45:22,560 --> 00:45:26,160
Well, you're looking at a variety
of radioactive consumer products,

492
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:27,800
mostly from the 1920s,

493
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:31,920
produced in the United States.
So this one here, for example,

494
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:35,520
you actually put... Water in it.
You put water in it?

495
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:40,200
That is the most famous
of the radioactive quack cures,
at least in the United States.

496
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:43,200
Over half a million
of these were sold.

497
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:46,800
This is a similar device, except,
rather than put the water in it,

498
00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:49,080
you would put this in the water.

499
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:52,480
This is not radioactive now,
I take it? Or mildly?

500
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:56,320
Yes, it is radioactive,
but it's mild.

501
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:03,880
It is quite spooky, I must admit.

502
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:06,360
I can hear it still active
all these years later.

503
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:10,960
So great was the hype

504
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:14,200
that small amounts were put
into toothpaste,

505
00:46:14,200 --> 00:46:16,520
heat pads, toys.

506
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:23,120
Just the name radium was enough
to sell a product.

507
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:25,520
Radium, er...condoms!

508
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:32,920
Oh, it's an empty box. I was looking
forward to seeing a radium condom.

509
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:44,800
The scientists responsible for first
isolating radium were Marie Curie

510
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:46,840
and her husband, Pierre.

511
00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:54,920
It didn't take them long
to recognise its extraordinary
potential.

512
00:46:56,560 --> 00:46:59,640
One of the things
that stood out in Marie's mind

513
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:01,760
and piqued her curiosity
and interest

514
00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:05,720
was the tremendous amount of energy
being released by the radium.

515
00:47:05,720 --> 00:47:12,840
So they saw radium as a potentially
unlimited source of energy,
did they? Yes. Absolutely.

516
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:20,840
Just one gram contained
enough energy to turn a tonne
of freezing water into steam...

517
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:24,960
while one tonne of radium
could do the work

518
00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:28,960
of one-and-a-half million tonnes
of coal.

519
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:35,120
The problem facing the scientists
is that all this seemed to go

520
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:38,880
completely against
the established laws of physics.

521
00:47:42,480 --> 00:47:45,880
Radioactivity presented
a serious problem for scientists.

522
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:49,160
They knew that energy cannot
be created or destroyed.

523
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:51,680
That is the first law
of thermodynamics.

524
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:57,440
But they also knew that these
radioactive substances were pouring
out huge amounts of energy.

525
00:47:57,440 --> 00:47:59,440
So where was it coming from?

526
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:11,800
Across the world scientists had been
studying radioactivity intensely.

527
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:18,080
People noticed something peculiar -

528
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:22,480
that as radioactive substances
emit energy, they transform.

529
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:24,280
They turn into something else.

530
00:48:24,280 --> 00:48:27,480
Radium, for example, becomes lead.

531
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:30,560
And as they transform,
they become lighter.

532
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:35,960
In other words, as they emit energy,
they also lose mass.

533
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:49,760
The link between energy and mass
was eventually explained by Albert
Einstein's famous equation.

534
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:56,640
Energy equals mass times the square
of the speed of light.

535
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:04,160
The energy from the radium wasn't
coming from some magical source,

536
00:49:04,160 --> 00:49:06,360
but from the mass itself.

537
00:49:12,240 --> 00:49:18,560
People had previously realised
that you could describe heat
and movement in terms of energy.

538
00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:22,400
Now it seemed you could also
describe mass in the same way.

539
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:25,440
Energy which hadn't even
existed as a concept

540
00:49:25,440 --> 00:49:29,720
was now being used to explain
the very nature of matter itself.

541
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:37,160
In fact there wasn't much that could
not be explained in terms of energy.

542
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:41,080
Not just steam engines...

543
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:43,680
and windmills,

544
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:45,000
but living things.

545
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:51,120
Stars, even galaxies were all
governed by the laws of energy.

546
00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:58,640
In its quest to understand
what power is,

547
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:04,320
science had uncovered secrets
which lay at the very heart
of the universe.

548
00:50:11,040 --> 00:50:16,800
The theory encapsulated in E equals
MC squared would eventually lead

549
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:21,320
to the release of nuclear energy
and the atomic bomb.

550
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:26,240
But the consequences of that
belong to a different story.

551
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:33,640
Instead, to complete the story
of power, I want to go back
to the 19th century.

552
00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:40,160
CLOCK TICKS

553
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:46,080
Back then theories of energy might
have been lighting up men's minds,

554
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:49,200
but they weren't lighting up homes.

555
00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:52,440
Not yet, at any rate.

556
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:57,480
Most people's domestic lives
were largely unaffected

557
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:01,280
by developments in thermodynamics
or electromagnetism.

558
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:05,200
Outside there were telegraphs
and steam trains,

559
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:09,720
but at home,
gas lamps, candles and open fires.

560
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:18,480
What changed our personal
relationship with power
was the discovery

561
00:51:18,480 --> 00:51:23,680
that the link between electricity
and magnetism worked both ways.

562
00:51:23,680 --> 00:51:29,040
Oersted had shown
that an electric current
could act just like a magnet.

563
00:51:31,960 --> 00:51:37,320
British scientist Michael Faraday
was the first to demonstrate
the opposite,

564
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:41,040
that moving a magnet could produce
an electric current.

565
00:51:43,240 --> 00:51:48,960
He used the idea that switching on
an electric current could make
a magnetised piece of metal move

566
00:51:48,960 --> 00:51:51,480
to build the world's
first electric motor.

567
00:51:51,480 --> 00:51:54,880
But he also demonstrated
the reverse is true.

568
00:51:54,880 --> 00:51:58,880
Take a magnet,
push it through some copper wire

569
00:51:58,880 --> 00:52:01,800
and you produce electricity.

570
00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:04,840
Beautiful, isn't it?

571
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:08,880
It's called
electromagnetic induction

572
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:12,120
and it was the key
to the electric age.

573
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:22,160
If one could keep
the magnet moving fast enough,

574
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:27,000
one could produce an electric
current that was continuous.

575
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:30,880
What was needed was something
to keep the magnet moving.

576
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:41,640
Something like this.

577
00:52:43,520 --> 00:52:47,720
Niagara Falls, one of the most
powerful waterfalls in the world.

578
00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:57,160
This is about as close as
I can get to the Falls
and it really is magnificent.

579
00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:08,880
There's about a 150 million litres
of water coming over the Falls
every single minute.

580
00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:11,240
And you can really feel the power.

581
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:26,760
The challenge lay in finding a way
of converting this mass of energy

582
00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:30,560
into an altogether
more useful form - electricity.

583
00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:38,560
Until very recently, I couldn't have
stood here because there would have
been millions of litres of water

584
00:53:38,560 --> 00:53:41,920
just pouring down here,
sweeping everything away.

585
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:45,280
Up that way,
about a kilometre or so,

586
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:47,280
is the power station.

587
00:53:56,160 --> 00:53:59,840
The project began deep under ground.

588
00:53:59,840 --> 00:54:03,200
Tunnels were dug into solid rock
by hand

589
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:07,840
to divert some of the water
to an electrical generator.

590
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:11,960
Those taking part sensed
the dawn of a new age.

591
00:54:17,120 --> 00:54:24,520
When it was first built, it was
described as a feat to rival the
pyramids, the temples of the Greeks,

592
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:29,600
the great cathedrals of Europe,
a monument to the scientific age.

593
00:54:33,680 --> 00:54:36,480
And personally
I think they were right.

594
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:41,080
Because these giant turbines
really are the ultimate expression

595
00:54:41,080 --> 00:54:45,120
both of what power is
and what power does.

596
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:51,080
Huge magnets turned by
the power of falling water,

597
00:54:51,080 --> 00:54:56,200
creating enough electricity
to power three quarters
of a million light bulbs.

598
00:54:57,280 --> 00:55:00,840
But for electricity
to become a true commodity,

599
00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:03,920
something that could be
bought and sold,

600
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:07,280
there was one final barrier
to overcome -

601
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:13,560
how to get electricity
from here in Niagara to the places
you'd actually want to sell it.

602
00:55:13,560 --> 00:55:16,720
Cities like Buffalo, 24 miles away,

603
00:55:16,720 --> 00:55:20,360
or power-hungry New York,
400 miles away.

604
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:28,160
The problem was the power loss
as the current travelled
along the cable.

605
00:55:30,720 --> 00:55:35,680
If you happened to live near
a generating plant like this,
then you were fine.

606
00:55:35,680 --> 00:55:39,320
But the further away you moved,
the less power you got.

607
00:55:39,320 --> 00:55:41,080
After just a mile,

608
00:55:41,080 --> 00:55:44,360
you would begin
to notice the difference.

609
00:55:44,360 --> 00:55:49,160
After two miles, hardly any current
would be getting through at all.

610
00:55:52,280 --> 00:55:56,440
But here at Niagara,
this problem was overcome.

611
00:55:56,440 --> 00:56:01,520
Its generators produced what's
known as alternating current -

612
00:56:01,520 --> 00:56:04,160
high voltage, low power loss...

613
00:56:05,760 --> 00:56:10,080
..which meant that electricity
could finally travel.

614
00:56:12,640 --> 00:56:17,720
When, in 1896, this new form
of current was switched on,

615
00:56:17,720 --> 00:56:22,840
it took less than a second to reach
Buffalo, over 20 miles away.

616
00:56:25,680 --> 00:56:30,600
In that instant
was born the electric age.

617
00:56:40,600 --> 00:56:46,600
The discovery of what power can do
for us has transformed our lives

618
00:56:46,600 --> 00:56:51,360
and set us on a relentless search
for new sources of energy.

619
00:56:53,360 --> 00:56:56,720
From deep within the earth
to inside the smallest atom,

620
00:56:56,720 --> 00:57:04,480
to the sun itself, a hunger
for more power knows few bounds.

621
00:57:04,480 --> 00:57:10,960
Small wonder that our planet
alone in the solar system
glows in the dark.

622
00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:28,720
But the quest
to find out what power is

623
00:57:28,720 --> 00:57:32,120
has had an equally profound effect.

624
00:57:33,480 --> 00:57:35,840
Using the language of mathematics,

625
00:57:35,840 --> 00:57:39,680
we have shown energy to be
a basic property of the universe.

626
00:57:42,120 --> 00:57:47,320
And it's the coming together of the
practical and theoretical approaches
to power

627
00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:49,920
which underpins the modern world.

628
00:57:51,760 --> 00:57:56,480
For a long time, the search for
power was led by practical men.

629
00:57:56,480 --> 00:57:58,920
And then the theorists caught up.

630
00:57:58,920 --> 00:58:03,240
And to the plaintive cry,
"Can we have limitless power?"

631
00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:05,680
replied a resounding "No."

632
00:58:05,680 --> 00:58:10,880
But that search also led
to the uncovering of
the fundamental laws of nature

633
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:14,960
which now tell us how everything
in the universe operates.

634
00:58:25,840 --> 00:58:29,080
Next time, the great
puzzle of existence...

635
00:58:30,520 --> 00:58:33,320
What is the secret of life.

636
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:51,040
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

637
00:58:51,040 --> 00:58:54,200
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk