Electric Dreams • 2019 • episode "S1E1" • Victorian Sensations

58:56

From the Stone Age to the Silicon Age, materials have helped drive forward our civilisation. By manipulating materials we have been able to transform our world and our lives - and never more so than in the past century when we have discovered and designed more materials than at any other time in human history. (Part 2: Plastic) Professor Mark Miodownik tells the story of plastics - created in the lab, they have brought luxury to the masses and shaped the modern age. He recounts tales of the mavericks responsible for some of plastic's most outrageous failures and heady successes, from the explosive attempts to make a replacement for ivory billiard balls to the ultimately ubiquitous Bakelite. Investigating at atomic level, Mark discovers the properties that have allowed plastics to dominate our world and reveals how the next generation of plastics will take its inspiration from nature, creating man-made materials which behave as though they are alive and which could help rebuild the human body.

S1E2 • How It Works • 2012 • Technology

50:03

Think NASA's only for the stars? Think again. The space race has played a colossal part in our daily lives. From online dating to the freshness of the food we consume. The quest for the stars has created tech so woven into our everyday existence, without it, the world would simply unimaginable.

S1E2 • A World Without NASA • 2019 • Technology

54:51

Learn the explosive history of the rocket, from its origin in ancient China, to its use as a weapon of war, to how adding hydrogen allowed it to carry astronauts all the way to the moon. Narrated by Patrick Stewart. With guest Jim Al-Khalili

Breakthrough the Ideas that Changed the World • 2019 • Technology

25:39

Currently, the only destination for Astronauts and Cosmonauts is the orbiting research platform known as the International space station. This episode exposes the working life of people who spend months orbiting in microgravity.

S1E4 • Zenith: Advances in Space Exploration • 2021 • Technology

52:00

This program looks at the beginnings of flight, with innovators such as Benjamin Franklin and Leonardo DaVinci coming up with new ways to give man wings, and chronicles the invention of hot air balloons, Zeppelins, box kites, and of course the story of the most influential aviation inventors of all - Wilbur and Orville Wright.

1/13 • The Amazing World Of Aviation • 2009 • Technology

88:29

Documentary which tells the story of the most ambitious project ever conceived on the internet and the people who tried to stop it. In 1937 HG Wells predicted the creation of the 'world brain', a giant global library that contained all human knowledge which would lead to a new form of higher intelligence. 70 years later the realisation of that dream was under way, as Google scanned millions of books for its Google Books website. However, over half those books were still in copyright and authors across the world launched a campaign to stop them, climaxing in a New York courtroom in 2011. A film about the dreams, dilemmas and dangers of the internet, set in spectacular locations in China, USA, Europe and Latin America.

2013 • Technology