Tập
Modern Marvels: Episode 47
Tóm tắt
Since time immemorial, flashes of light have startled our senses and piqued our imagination. But it’s only in recent years that we’ve begun to unlock the secrets behind this terrifying phenomenon, as we learn in this high-tech look at how man has tried to control nature throughout history. Lightning kills nearly 100 people yearly in the United States and injures hundreds of others. Meet men and women who look for new ways of detection, prevention, and how to save lives when Mother Nature strikes!
Chi tiết
- Phim bộ
- Modern Marvels
- Mùa
- Mùa 12
- Tập
- Tập 47
- Ngày phát sóng
- 2005-08-31
- Thời lượng
- 44 min
Thông tin tập
Episode 47 là tập 47 trong Season 12 của Modern Marvels. Tập này phát sóng ngày 2005-08-31. Thời lượng là 44 min.
Tập trước / tập sau
Tập 46
We begin with electrical linemen perched precariously out a helicopter door, repairing 345,000-volt high-tension power lines. They are part of an army of technicians and scientists we'll ride, climb, and crawl with on this episode. They risk their lives so that we can have the services we take for granted–electric power and 21st century communications. They lay and maintain the wire that connects us one to another, as well as America to the rest of the world. The hardwiring of America is a story that is nearly two centuries old. And though satellites and wireless systems may be challenging the wire, it's not dead. Fiber optic cable, lines that transmit light, became a player in information delivery in the late 1970s. We may be entering a "wireless" age, but the infrastructure of wires laid by visionary scientists and industrialists are still vital to America. Wire technology will be with us, continuing to provide service, well into the next century.
Tập 48
The HMS Victory would play a crucial role in the foremost naval engagement in 19th century maritime history, the battle of Trafalgar. This victory was so decisive that no fleet challenged Britain’s Royal Navy for more than one hundred years. Built with enough wood to cover the Empire State Building one and a half times, propelled by wind and firing solid shots from smooth bored muzzle-loading canons, ships like HMS Victory ruled the waves for over two centuries. Manned by a crew of 850 and capable of firing one and a half tons of iron shot in a single devastating broadside, these eighteenth century floating fortresses were as complex and sophisticated in their day as a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is today. Using color re-enactments and the actual recollections of those who fought on board, this profile goes below the decks of the famous warship.
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Tập 45
Tập 49
Tập 44
In any battle, the key to victory is the ability to strike the enemy without them knowing what hit them. Within the US arsenal one such weapon can go into harm’s way, deliver 40,000 pounds of either conventional or nuclear bombs, and slip away unobserved–the B-2 Stealth Bomber. With its origins in single-wing experimentation in Germany in the 1930s, the B-2 was developed under a cloak of secrecy. But when that cloak was lifted, the world was awed by what stood before them. Able to fly over 6,000 miles without refueling, it can reach whatever target the US military wants to attack and deliver its awesome array of laser-guided weapons with pinpoint accuracy. Using state-of-the-art technology, including over 130 onboard computers, and shrouded by a mantle of stealth, it’s undetectable by any radar.
Tập 50
Traces the origins of this tasty drink from Ethiopia over 1,000 years ago to the espresso-fueled explosion of specialty coffee stores like Starbucks today. Along the way, we’ll see how American companies like Hills Brothers, Maxwell House, Folgers, and MJB grew to be giants. Discover how billions of coffee beans make their journey from coffee farms and plantations, and are processed in gigantic roasting and packaging plants before showing up in coffee cups all over the world. Details the invention and production of instant coffee, decaffeinated coffee, freeze-dried coffee, and the espresso machine. Also, we explain how coffee made shift work in factories possible, while coffeehouses provided a creative cauldron that brewed political and artistic progress in the 18th and 19th centuries. And, we also provide tips on how to make a better cup at home!
Tập 43
Perhaps no field has experienced the revolution in velocity more acutely than transportation. We look at five blazingly fast technological marvels that have pushed the speed limits to the very edge, each with its own unique and dramatic history: the world's fastest production car (Sweden's Koenigsegg CCR); the world's fastest train (the Maglev in Shanghai); the world's fastest boat (The Spirit of Australia); the world's fastest roller coaster (the Kingda Ka) and the fastest thing on earth (the Holloman High Speed Test Track), used to test highly sensitive equipment for many branches of the government and commercial clients.
Tập 51
Tập 42
German military aircraft designs were decades ahead of their Allied counterparts. To insure the Luftwaffe’s air superiority, Germany’s cutting edge designers conceived and tested highly advanced concepts including swept-wing and vertical take-off aircraft, and long range stealth bombers. Their innovations influenced the world’s military and civilian aircraft designs for much of the post war period. Had Hitler’s forces held on for another few years, the Luftwaffe’s airborne arsenal would have changed the war’s outcome. Using archival footage and computer-generated images, this program traces the development of high production jet fighters, dive bombers, swept-wing fighters, and vertical take-off planes. The centerpiece of the Luftwaffe’s plans, the horton 18 long range jet bomber, was destined to drop a nuclear bomb on the U.S. So advanced was the Horton 18′s design, it became a model for the American stealth bomber fleet of the 1980′s.
Tập 52
Tập 41
From chariot wheels of ancient Egypt to hard disks in a computer to the wheels on a Mars rover, machinery can’t function without lubricants. And in today’s technology, there are a mind-boggling number of friction points that must be lubed, and a staggering number of lubricants– petroleum motor oils that keep car engines from burning up, synthetic greases that stay put in the zero gravity of space, and solid coatings that prevent eggs from sticking to a pan. We’ll see how this marvel of chemistry works and how it’s used. Peering into the future, we’ll behold a power generator that employs air as a lubricant, trains using magnetic levitation, which eliminates any need for lubrication, and bio-engineered vegetable oils that promise to take humanity back to one of its very first lubricants. From helping medieval windmills spin, to allowing robotic arms on planetary rovers to move, lubricants are crucial to the advance of technology and literally keep the wheels of progress turning.
Tập 53