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Private Notes
Thomas Edison wasn't merely a lone inventful genius. He invented the modern research team that makes possible the technology shaping our world. Edison was the captain of an organized research group whose method was to attack systematically every aspect of a problem. Among the more than 600 inventions he and his team produced were the gramophone and the incadescent light bulb. This program examines Edison's inventions, methods and impact on our life. Much of it was filmed at his original Menol Park Laboratories, preserved in Dearborn, Michigan.
A review of the history of man's oldest materials: wood, stone, iron, bronze and glass; and an examination of modern materials and design.
Defying the force of gravity, man has strewn his structures across the earth. This program looks at some of them, from simple structures of column and beam to the vast Roman arched aqueducts, the stone needles of Milan's Gothic cathedral, cantilever and suspension bridges, and the miracles of graceful design wrought by modern precast concrete and reinforced steel.
Much of this program deals with the basic communications problem of getting a signal through noise. Includes gesture, speech, code, braille, telegraph, radio, television, laser beams, computers and power grid monitors to space communications and satellites.
The great engineers of the past - men like de Lesseps of Suez fame and Panama infamy and Bradley - whose canals were the arteries of the industrial revolution, sacrificed the health and fortune, and sometimes the lives, of themselves and others, to build the first great canals and tunnels. Their story and the story of all kinds of modern canals and tunnels used for transportation are told. Includes historic footage.
One test of civilization is the ability to organize sources of energy. Central power was something new in 1876, when Paris became the "City of Light". By 1879, Edison had developed the incandescent bulb. The program looks at more modern developments, including use of natural steam, ocean tides, and nuclear power. Also looks at attempts to tame fusions and harness the sun itself. The film also reviews what happened when the lights went out all over eastern North America in November 1965, illustrating our dependence on central power.
The Greek inventor, Alexander the Hero, first defined the five basic devices which make all machines possible: the lever, the wedge, the wheel, the pulley and the screw. They all contribute to the conversion of energy into usable power. This film examines the development of these principles into such everyday examples as the nutcracker, and more complex machines such as the automated typesetter, computers and an automatic pilot.
This program shows how man changes his environment by shaping the land he lives on, reclaiming land from the sea, making new lakes and rivers. The Netherlands is a prime example of what reclamation can accomplish. The film shows some of the Dutch techniques and accomplishments.
This film looks, sometimes whimsically, at examples of old and modern flying machines. Bush planes, barnstormers, gliders and war planes are seen, and the program concludes with a look at the present and possible future at airports, supersize jets and passenger aircraft. Includes historic footage of man's early attempts to fly, and the explosion of the Graf Zeppelin.
Man's first "portable power" device was part of his own body, the energy from the contraction of long molecules in the presence of sugar: muscle power. Muscle power was amplified with primitive levers, and later by the use of domesticated beasts. Some of the modern portable power devices seen in this film are portable nuclear reactors, internal combustion engines, rockets and fuel cells.
Are the problems of urban transportation insurmountable? The traffic jams which are a regular feature of city life make it appear so. This program examines the many cures being considered for the hardening of vehicular arteries: faster vehicles, mass transit methods, supersonic subways, bigger and better expressways, air transport, better control and direction of traffic. Over all this, however, lies a Malthusian gloom inspired by the population explosion of both people and automobiles.
A system, according to the Oxford dictionary, is a whole composed of parts in orderly arrangement, according to some scheme or plan. A sailing ship is a system; so is the U.S. manned space program. Both are analysed in this program which examines the organization of systems.
The beautiful, vast tracts of land in the western Mountain parks of the West Coast and the Rocky Mountains are gradually being destroyed ... by camp sites, roads and towns. As they are opened, their animal life gradually disappears. Now biologists and naturalists are attempting to save plant life and animals, such as the Rocky Mountain Bighorn, elk, moose and goats.
