Episode
Modern Marvels: Greatest Movies Gadgets
Overview
Cars that fly and drive themselves. Spiffy spy tools that see under doors and through walls. Water “Harleys” that fly above and below the surface. Only in the movies, right? Hollywood may have dreamt these things up, but regular guys are making them for real as we see in a 2-hour special combining clips of recent blockbusters and hilarious old movie serials, along with a look at real-life creations, including intelligence-gathering “insects” and undersea robots. Gadgets lovers beware your bank accounts!
Details
- Series
- Modern Marvels
- Season
- Season 11
- Episode
- Episode 24
- Air date
- 2004-06-17
- Runtime
- 44 min
Episode context
Greatest Movies Gadgets is Episode 24 in Season 11 of Modern Marvels. It aired on 2004-06-17. The runtime is 44 min.
Previous / Next
Episode 23: City Water
When you tap your faucet does clean, pure water flow? Can your city supply enough water for industry, firefighting, and street cleaning? U.S. public water-supply systems serve nearly 99 percent of the population, yet few users know how the system of aqueducts, pipes, and pumps work. Learn the colorful history of the water systems in Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles when we scour the past and look to the future, including desalination plants that turn seawater into drinking water.
Episode 25: Robots
More episodes from this season
Episode 22: Rubber
The story of rubber is more than tires, toys, gloves, and gum–it’s imbedded in modern life, from the controversial Challenger O-rings to seals on hydrogen fuel cells. A gigantic worldwide synthetic rubber industry creates exotic elastomers for high-tech applications, while China’s rapid industrialization plays havoc with the world’s natural rubber supply. From the ancient Olmecs of Yucat n, who knew the secret of vulcanization, to modern processing plants, we trace rubber’s history and future.
Episode 26: Nuclear Tech
Nuclear research ranges from well-known applications, such as bombs and reactors, to little-known uses in medicine, food preparation, and radiation detection. It’s also spawned ancillary technologies to store nuclear waste and clean up accidents.
Episode 21: A-10 Tankbuster
Nicknamed the 'Warthog', the A-10 Tankbuster is one of the U.S. military's most prolific air support fighters. Focuses on its design, production, and life saving record on the battlefield.
Episode 27: Apollo 11
As mankind's greatest achievement of the 20th century, Apollo 11 stood as the apogee of science, exploration, flight, and technological prowess. In scarcely 10 years, America went from rocketing monkeys to landing a man on the moon. Leaving Earth on July 16, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, and Mike Collins pushed the limits of skill and endurance. See and experience the flight of Apollo 11 through the eyes of the astronauts, mission controllers, engineers, and designers who made it happen.
Episode 20: D-Day Tech
Modern Marvels shines the spotlight on the array of inventions that made the epic invasion possible, telling the stories of their development and following them into combat in the greatest invasion in history. From parachuting mannequins to pole charges, amphibious DUWKS trucks to Rhino Barges, D-Day tech is a fascinating look at the hardware that helped free Europe from Hitler's grasp.
Episode 28: World War I Tech
The first bombing airplanes and widespread use of chemical weapons…earliest tanks…submarines. When Industrial-Age technology and war first mixed on a large scale, the end result was ruthlessly efficient destruction. World War One epitomized the dark underbelly of the Industrial Revolution. We see how technological achievements that streamlined 19th-century production, improved transportation, and expanded science were used to efficiently decimate a generation of soldiers in the early 20th century.
Episode 19: Plane Crashes
When the most sophisticated machines fail, they do so horrifically, plunging to earth with a terrifying loss of life. From the beginning of manned flight, plane crashes have plagued the aviation industry and terrorized the public. But the truth is, passengers have never been safer because of the brightest minds, best technology, and billions of dollars focused on preventing air disasters. Using famous crashes like TWA Flight 800, we examine safety improvement and what still needs to be done.
Episode 29: Distilleries
From water and grain…to mash…still…vat…barrel and bottle–the distilling of alcoholic spirits is a big business and near-sacred religion. Its acolytes eye the color, swirl the glass, inhale the bouquet, sip, and then ponder their ambrosia.
Episode 18: The Subs of WWII
Episode 30: Oil Tankers
The biggest moving objects ever built by man, oil tankers dominate the world’s waterways, both in size and numbers. Upwards of 10,000 strong, the world tanker fleet’s vast number results from the modern, insatiable thirst for oil. We’ll dig into the history of oil transport–from Civil War days to the critical WWII years and invention of the supertanker in the 1950s. And we examine the financial impact of modifying these steel leviathans to prevent future catastrophic environmental disasters.