Episode
Modern Marvels: Copper
Overview
It transports electricity, water, and heat. It brings music to our ears and beauty to our eyes. Copper--its impressive traits, long history, and how it's mined. This versatile metal’s most famous attribute is its ability to conduct electricity.
Details
- Series
- Modern Marvels
- Season
- Season 13
- Episode
- Episode 37
- Air date
- 2006-09-13
- Runtime
- 44 min
Episode context
Copper is Episode 37 in Season 13 of Modern Marvels. It aired on 2006-09-13. The runtime is 44 min.
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Episode 36: The Cola Wars
Coke vs Pepsi for world supremacy. Each year, Americans consume more soft drinks than tap water. Available in nearly 200 countries, Coca-Cola alone sells one-billion bottles, cans, and glasses of pop daily, with archenemy Pepsi-Cola a close second. We look at the legendary rivalry between these giants in a $100-billion industry built on little more than sugar and water as they battle not just to quench consumer thirst, but for their hearts and minds as well.
Episode 38: Shotguns
The first specialized gun, the British upper-class used it to shoot birds and small game for sport. The shotgun took on a variety of roles, used by hunter and warrior alike.
More episodes from this season
Episode 35: Water
Water, the most needed substance for life, so powerful it can carve our landscape, yet so nurturing it can spawn life and support its intricate matrix.
Episode 39: Building In The Name Of God
The greatest religious structures are marvels of engineering, technology, and invention, representing not only the glory of God, but also the ingenuity of man.
Episode 34: Levees
From collapsing floodwalls in New Orleans to high-tech mechanical storm surge barriers in Europe, we'll explore the 2,500-year history of keeping rivers and tides at bay by erecting levees.
Episode 40: Horsepower
Buckle up for a rip-roaring ride through the world of extreme horsepower. Experience the fastest accelerating cars on earth. Find out how horsepower was first coined as a marketing tool for the steam engine in the early 1800s and meet the horsepower police--the Society of Automotive Engineers who test today's most powerful car engines. Feel the amazing power of Unlimited Hydroplane racing as 3-ton boat-beasts careen across water at speeds of over 200 miles per hour. Journey to the bowels of an enormous container ship where the world's most powerful diesel engine provides over 100,000 horsepower. At the Hoover Dam, watch as it harnesses the enormous power of water. Explore the 80,000 horsepower pumping units at the Edmonston Pumping Plant that delivers 2-billion gallons of water a day to thirsty Californians. And sit behind the steering wheel of a new generation of hybrid cars that boast 400-horsepower yet get 42 miles per gallon of gas.
Episode 33: Mummy Tech
After thousands of years, Egyptian mummies are speaking from the grave. With the use of state-of-the-art computer tomography scanning we explore inside a 2,000-year-old mummified body of an Egyptian child.
Episode 41: Renewable Energy
Take an in-depth look at the most proven and reliable sources: solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels, and tidal power. From the experimental to the tried-and-true, renewable energy sources are overflowing with potential... just waiting to be exploited on a massive scale.
Episode 32: Batteries
Mixtures of metals and caustic chemicals that make our tech, tools and toys surge with energy.
Episode 42: Freight Trains
Explore the history of freight transportation from its humble beginnings as tramways in mines to complex system of rails that stretches to every corner of the nation.
Episode 31: Rube Goldberg
Episode 43: Cities of the Underworld
Teamed with leading archeologists and experts, peel back the layers of the past--to reveal a hidden history that hasn't seen the light of day for ages.