Episode
Modern Marvels: Aluminum
Overview
This useful metal was once considered more valuable than gold. Watch as aluminum is stretched, pounded, melted and turned into foam. Did you know that aluminum is made out of a powder? Visit the widest rolling mill in the world where skins for the largest jets are made, then it’s off to NASA to observe how aluminum is used to make reflective mirrors for telescopes. Discover the process of making aluminum foil and learn why aluminum baseball bats are better than wood.
Details
- Series
- Modern Marvels
- Season
- Season 14
- Episode
- Episode 25
- Air date
- 2007-07-25
- Runtime
- 44 min
Episode context
Aluminum is Episode 25 in Season 14 of Modern Marvels. It aired on 2007-07-25. The runtime is 44 min.
Previous / Next
Episode 24: Saws
They brought down the forests and built up the pyramids. They're a cut above for construction, salvage, demolition - and they even make music and some have used them to torture.
Episode 26: Sticky Stuff
A look at everyday stuff that is sticky including VHB tape, velcro, stealth rubber, cling wrap, and asphalt.
More episodes from this season
Episode 23: Cheese
From the giant cheese factories of Wisconsin to the goat farms of Northern California, this episode explores cheese.
Episode 27: Chocolate
It's America's favorite flavor. We eat over three and a half billion pounds of it each year. It satiated the ancients and built modern-day empires. From the equatorial fields, to the factories of moguls, and the kitchens of artisans.
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.
Episode 28: Bedroom Tech
We spend 1/3 of our lives in the bedroom, explore the technologies that help to ensure we wake up on the right side of the bed.
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 29: Vacuums
On this episode of Modern Marvels we'll see giant-sized vacuums that clean up after disasters like Hurricane Katrina and 9-11. Beneath the sea we'll meet The Super Sucker, an underwater vacuum that saves coral reefs by suctioning up invasive alien algae.
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 30: Traps
They're designed to capture and often kill, but they don't always harm their prey. Traps are devices as old as humanity itself. We'll trap 400 pounds Black Bears with West Virginia Division of Natural Resources biologists.
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 31: Nature Tech: Volcanoes
Volcano technology is examined. Included: attempts to monitor and control activity.