The Thinking Game • 2024

24:29

Computer code now controls how we live. But how did these programming languages evolve? And how can they be used to build a new and better world?

S2E5 • Explained • 2019 • Technology

59:00

Documentary which follows the construction of a trailblazing 36,000-tonne steel structure to entomb the ruins of the nuclear power plant destroyed in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. It films close up with the team of international engineers as they race to build the new structure before Chernobyl's original concrete sarcophagus - the hastily built structure that covers the reactor - collapses. Built to last just thirty years, the temporary sarcophagus is now crumbling, putting the world at risk of another release of radioactive dust. Radiation levels make it impossible for workers to build the new shelter directly over the old reactor, so engineers are erecting the new megastructure - taller than the tower of Big Ben and three times heavier than the Eiffel Tower - to one side and will then face the challenge of sliding the largest object ever moved on land into place over the old reactor.

2016 • Technology

50:00

The world's cities are growing at a faster rate than ever before. An estimated 75 million people around the world move to an urban area every year. And as our metropolises become more and more crowded, architects, designers, and builders face a constant challenge.

S1E3 • How Cities Work • 2013 • Technology

48:48

Innovations are emerging around the world to considerably reduce our waste: development of circular economies, the spread of composting, repair cafes, etc. So, what will it be like in 2050?

S1E6 • Dream the Future • 2017 • Technology

58:59

The car has shrunk the world, increased personal freedom and in so many ways expanded our horizons, but there is a flipside. Fumes from car exhausts have helped to destroy our environment, poisoned the air we breathe and killed us in far more straightforward ways. But all that is going to change. Horizon enters a world where cars can drive themselves, a world where we are simply passengers, ferried about by wholesome green compassionate technology which will never ever go wrong. And it is almost here. Horizon explores the artificial intelligence required to replace human drivers for cars themselves, peers into the future driverless world and discovers that, despite the glossy driverless PR (and assuming that they really can be made to work reliably), the reality is that it might not be all good news. From the ethics of driverless car crashes to the impact on jobs, it might be that cars are about to rise up against us in ways that none of us are expecting.

Horizon • 2017 • Technology

45:16

In 1976, the dream of supersonic commercial flight became a java: Concorde transported its first passengers. In the United States, Concorde awaits a new challenge: the competent service refuses to grant permission to land in New York. Over time, the White Bird becomes an aircraft of celebrities and important people. Three years after the tragic accident in 2000, Concorde was withdrawn from the service. Today NASA engineers in Ohio and Boom Supersonic experts in Denver reveal our latest research on supersonic flights of the future inspired by Concorde.

S1E2 • Concorde the Supersonic Race • 2017 • Technology