Episode
Modern Marvels: 60s Tech
Overview
A look at the technology behind some of the 1960s greatest inventions. With color television, transistor radios, satellite broadcasting, touch-tone phones, lava lamps, the Ford Mustang, and toys like Etch-a-Sketch and the Super Ball.
Details
- Series
- Modern Marvels
- Season
- Season 14
- Episode
- Episode 16
- Air date
- 2007-05-16
- Runtime
- 44 min
Episode context
60s Tech is Episode 16 in Season 14 of Modern Marvels. It aired on 2007-05-16. The runtime is 44 min.
Previous / Next
Episode 15: Welding
It was a science first conjured amid the fiery ovens of ancient blacksmiths; today more than 50% of all U.S. products require some form of welding. Whether via electricity, flammable gases, sonic waves, or sometimes just raw explosive power, welding creates powerful bonds between metal unmatched by any other joining process. From high atop emerging 60-story towers on the Las Vegas strip to oil platforms hundreds of feet below the ocean, discover how welders forge the backbone of civilization. Learn about exciting new applications: how sound waves create bulletproof welds for contemporary body armor; the technologies behind robotic welding systems; and the knee-rattling impact of an explosion weld, the most powerful method of all.
Episode 17: It Came From Outer Space
What do remote controlled robots, Tempur-Pedic mattresses, polarized glasses and metallized blankets have in common? They are all civilian inventions among the thousands derived from technologies used in space exploration.
More episodes from this season
Episode 14: Deep Sea Salvage
Driven by the need for deep sea rescue and salvage capabilities, the US Navy Diving and Salvage Programs have gathered together a highly skilled team of divers, scientists and engineers, who have been involved in some of the most exciting and dangerous salvage operations ever undertaken.
Episode 18: World's Strongest II
What does it take to become "the world's strongest"? You'll find out on this episode of Modern Marvels. With life-saving boron carbide body armor and MegaFly - a giant ram air parachute.
Episode 13: More Military Movers
Soldiers, machines, and supplies are only effective if they arrive at the battlefield in time. Explore the history and the technology behind the machines that do the heavy moving in times of war.
Episode 19: Engineering Disasters of the '70s
To err is human, but when the error results in the loss of life, it's a disaster. Learn about the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Buffalo Creek Dam disaster, and the explosion of a tanker in Los Angeles harbor.
Episode 12: Yard Tech
The technology used to keep your lawn green including the lawnmower, riding movers, sod, astro turf, and sprinklers. The state of the art grass used in the University of Phoenix Stadium in Arizona. Also: how a company moves big trees, and the science of different types of grasses.
Episode 20: 70s Tech
The 1970s were a decade of excess. Dust off your mirror ball, put on your leisure suit, and rediscover the gadgets of the era
Episode 11: Dams
Dams - one of man's greatest accomplishments are explored. The history of dams from construction to demolition and their impact on the environment. Beavers and their dams and construction of embankment dams and larger Hydroelectric dams such as Three Gorges, Hoover, and Grand Coulee are explored.
Episode 21: Truck Stops
Join Modern Marvels as we discover how truck stops, serving more than twenty million truckers nationwide, are bigger and better than ever. These mammoth pit-stops are essential cogs in the machinery that keeps goods flowing seamlessly around the country. In this episode we'll tour the world's largest truck stop, a grand service area complete with fuel, food, parking, private showers, a movie theater, a dentist office, and a barbershop. We'll see how 18-wheelers power elaborate living quarters without idling their engines by plugging into truck stop utilities.
Episode 10: Barbarian Battle Tech
It's clear from the bow that nearly brought down Rome, the suspension system that revolutionized the chariot, and the axe that named a country that barbarians and technology aren't such a contradiction after all.
Episode 22: Fertilizer
Without it one third of us would starve. Modern Marvels: Fertilizer tours the places that harness the vital nutrients that enrich the soil...that grow the crops...that feed us.