Who Invented the Internet? And Why?

43:01

The dangers of nations being dependent on digital devices and global interactivity are examined.

S5E05 • Through the Wormhole • Technology

6:32

Who was the genius who came up with all of that? The internet is such a crucial tool in our daily lives today that we hardly remember that it hasn't been here forever. But yeah, it is actually not that old.

Technology

42:16

The invention of the perfect revolver pits Samuel Colt and Daniel Wesson.

S1E5 • American Genius • 2015 • Technology

41:29

What if we could travel not just through space, but through time itself? If you could travel through time, would you change the past or the future? What if you found it couldn’t be changed? What price does the time traveller — and the people they are closest to — pay? This is a journey from H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine through ideas like The Grandfather Paradox and The Butterfly Effect to the professional time traveller that is the ever popular Doctor Who. Steven Moffat, David Tennant, Karen Gillan, and Neil Gaiman offer a unique perspective on the Doctor. Edward James Olmos reveals the hidden meaning of the language he created for the vision of the future that is Blade Runner. Bob Gale and Christopher Lloyd take us behind the scenes of Back to the Future, while Ed Solomon describes the joy of solving a time travel conundrum for Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. But what would be the physical and emotional cost to the time traveller? Audrey Niffenegger explains what inspired her novel The Time Traveller’s Wife. And what if someone from the future tried to travel back in time to warn us? Would we believe them? From the apocalyptic tones of 12 Monkeys to the drama of Quantum Leap and the comedy of Groundhog Day, time travel is a subject that has been irresistible to the creators of every type of science fiction.

Part 4 • The Real History of Science Fiction • 2014 • Technology

47:24

Enlai explores if we can truly love artificial intelligence, and teach it to love us back. He meets impassioned love robots and chatbots trained on memories of people, living and dead.

S1E1 • Becoming Human • 2020 • Technology

55:41

Board a submarine with Steven Johnson to discover what a lack of natural light means for a sailor’s working day and visit Heathrow, the world’s busiest airport, to try to get timings right at air traffic control. The story of getting a grip on time is full of curious garage tinkerers. One of them, railway clerk William F. Allen, was so exasperated by the chaos caused by the hundreds of local times zones in the U.S. that he fought tirelessly to standardize time into four zones. Learn how advancements in navigation, the way we work, technology and travel would have been impossible without the unsung heroes of time.

S1E2 • How We Got to Now • 2014 • Technology