Episode
Modern Marvels: Engineering Disasters 19
Overview
More engineering disasters are profiled, including the sinking of SS Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975 in Lake Superior; two Boeing 737 crashes; a diesel-fuel leak, a radiation-spilling accident at Santa Susana, an oil spill in the Monongahela River, and the failure of Galaxy 4 Satellite affecting communications and pagers nation-wide.
Details
- Series
- Modern Marvels
- Season
- Season 13
- Episode
- Episode 10
- Air date
- 2006-03-22
- Runtime
- 44 min
Episode context
Engineering Disasters 19 is Episode 10 in Season 13 of Modern Marvels. It aired on 2006-03-22. The runtime is 44 min.
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Episode 9: Leather
Made by the tanning of animal hides, leather has proven to be a versatile and important material. Without it, the Pilgrims may not have survived the winters in Plymouth, and the Romans may not have been able to march to the Tigris.
Episode 11: Insulation
Although quite simple in nature, insulation is a very important component in keeping our homes a comfortable temperature. In this episode, we'll find out the history of insulation and then visit manufacturing plants to find out how insulation is being made today.
More episodes from this season
Episode 8: Engineering Disasters: New Orleans
Modern Marvels examines the destruction Hurricane Katrina caused in New Orleans.
Episode 12: Hi-Tech Hitler
This is the true story of the scientific feats and failures of Hitler's Nazi Germany.
Episode 7: Nature Tech: Avalanches
Examining unusual World War II weapons that were in the planning or testing stages for use by the Allies. Included: floating tanks; pigeon-guided missiles.
Episode 13: Shovels
Man has always had a need to move large amounts of earth. In this episode, we profile the technological advances which have allowed shovels to become absolutely enormous, capable of carrying 200 tons of earth in one load today.
Episode 6: Weird Weapons: The Axis
Examining unusual World War II weapons that were in the planning or testing stages for use by the Axis powers. Included: an assault rifle that could shoot around corners; a death ray capable of boiling people; and an army in space.
Episode 14: Drilling
The program features the quest to drill the deepest hole ever and the scientific drill ship expected to perform the feat, and also looks at drills used to recover ice cores that will unearth thousands of years of climate history.
Episode 5: Candy
It pulls, stretches, bubbles, hardens, crunches, and melts! We eat about 7-billion tons of it yearly. We’re talking about Candy–loved by kids and savored by adults. Candy-making evolved from a handmade operation to high-tech mass production. Nowhere is that more apparent than at Hershey’s. On a tour of their newest production facility, we learn how they process the cocoa bean. At See’s Candy, we see how they make their famous boxed chocolates–on a slightly smaller scale than Hershey’s. We get a sweet history lesson at Schimpff’s Confectionery, where they still use small kettles, natural flavors, and hand-operated equipment. Then, we visit Jelly Belly, purveyors of the original gourmet jellybean. Saltwater-taffy pullers hypnotize us on our sweet-tooth tour; we gaze at extruders making miles of licorice rope; and watch as nostalgia candy bars Abba-Zaba and Big Hunk get packaged. And in this sugary hour, we digest the latest sensations–gourmet chocolates and scorpion on a stick!
Episode 15: 80s Tech
Remember “brick” cell phones, Pac-Man, Rubik’s Cube, Sony Walkman, and the first music CDs? Remember all the new and exciting gadgets of the 1980s? Join us as we investigate the transition from Industrial to Information Age–a digital decade dedicated to ergonomics and entertainment. The microchip ushered in an era that revolutionized the way we work, play, and communicate. And we tour Silicon Valley–birthplace of some of the greatest inventions from an amazing time of change, including the modern personal computer. Steve “Woz” Wozniak tells us about the evolution of Apple computers, and we talk to Sony–makers of the Walkman, Betamax, and the first CD players. A visit to the Computer History Museum shows fun technological “artifacts”, primitive by today’s standards. At Intel, makers of the first microchips, we learn why technology moves at such a fast pace. We also take a ride in a DeLorean DMC-12 sports car–few things moved faster.
Episode 4: Engineering Disasters 18
Modern Marvels shows more of the world's biggest engineering disasters. We look at faults in the U.S. Army's Stryker Light Armored Vehicle, the Sunjiawan coal-mine explosion in China in 2005, the death of three iron workers at Milwaukee's Miller Park in 1999, and much more.
Episode 16: Ben Franklin Tech
One of the most prodigious American inventors, Ben Franklin is credited for creating things like the lightning rod, the armonica, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses, and the flexible urinary catheter. In this episode of Modern Marvels, we examine how Dr. Franklin's inventive genius extended to things like Daylight Savings Time and the voluntary fire department.