V2 the Nazi Rocket • 2015

114:12

Explore how a data company named Cambridge Analytica came to symbolize the dark side of social media in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

2019 • Technology

11:17

Dr. Michio Kaku, the renowned theoretical physicist, walks through the evolutionary journey of quantum computing, from analog to digital to the quantum era. Quantum computers hold immense promise because of their ability to tap into parallel universes, which boosts their computational power exponentially. They could revolutionize agriculture, energy, and medicine, solving complex problems like creating efficient fertilizers, achieving fusion energy, and modeling diseases at the molecular level.

Big Think • 2023 • Technology

59:00

Mike Wooldridge examines real-life neurons in action and explains how artificial neural networks are inspired by neural structures in the brain. To demonstrate how AI learns, we watch drones as they are trained to recognise and fly through structures in the lecture theatre autonomously. AI exploded into the public consciousness in 2022 with the release of ChatGPT and boasts around 100 million monthly users. Mike unravels the mystery of how large language models like ChatGPT work, and he finds out if one day this technology - along with a whole suite of different AI tools - will allow us to understand the animals we share this planet with. The Christmas Lectures are the most prestigious event in the Royal Institution calendar, dating from 1825, when Michael Faraday founded the series. They are the world's longest running science television series and always promise to inspire and amaze each year through explosive demonstrations and interactive experiments with the live theatre audience.

S1E1 • BBC Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: The Truth about AI • 2023 • Technology

59:08

The surprising story of the hidden powerhouse behind the globalised world - the diesel engine, a 19th-century invention that has become indispensable to the 21st century. It's a turtle versus hare tale in which the diesel engine races the petrol engine in a competition to replace ageing steam technology - a race eventually won hands down by diesel. Splendidly, car enthusiast presenter Mark Evans gets excitedly hands on with some of the many applications of Mr Diesel's - yes, there was one - original creation, from vintage submarines and tractors to locomotive trains and container ships. You'll never feel the same about that humble old diesel family car again.

Time Shift • 2015 • 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

52:06

A dirty laboratory and a vacation lead to the discovery of our first real weapon against bacteria: penicillin. A scientist's determination to test the ‘wrong' solution gives us Kevlar. Unwashed hands and some unexpectedly sweet bread is to thank for Saccharin. A failed laser becomes the LED light.

S1E3 • Oops, I Changed the World • 2022 • Technology