Engineering

Building the Sun The 250 Million Degree Problem

2017 Technology

Scientists investigate the way the Sun builds its power -- through fusion -- hoping to find a way to use fusion as a less dangerous and less radioactive waste-producing path to energy than fission. But there are some major difficulties along the way. Fusion really is the perfect way to make energy. We have millions of years worth of fuel. It ...produces no long-lived radioactive waste. If we can solve the engineering challenges, energy will become cheaper, more available for everybody. Show More

Series: Catalyst

Augmented

2022 Technology

Follow the dramatic personal journey of Hugh Herr, a biophysicist working to create brain-controlled robotic limbs. At age 17, Herr’s legs were amputated after a climbing accident. Frustrated by the crude prosthetic limbs he was given, Herr set out to remedy their design, leading him to a career as an inventor of innovative prosthetic devices ....
Now, Herr is teaming up with an injured climber and a surgeon at a leading Boston hospital to test a new approach to surgical amputation that allows prosthetic limbs to move and feel like the real thing. Herr’s journey is a powerful tale of innovation and the inspiring story of a personal tragedy transformed into a life-long quest to help others. Show More

Eiffel Tower: Building the Impossible

2024 Technology HD

A majestic presence, towering over Paris for more than 130 years, the Eiffel Tower is an iconic symbol of 19th-century progress and grandeur. When it was built for the 1889 Paris world’s fair, its creator, Gustave Eiffel, was at the height of his fame and ready to take on the dream of every engineer and architect - to build the world’s talles ...t man-made structure. He had just two years, two months and five days to erect his 300-metre iron colossus. Drawing on three decades of civil engineering innovation and works across the globe, Eiffel, a magician of iron building, was perfectly poised for this extraordinary feat. Show More

The Cable that Changed the World

2024 Technology HD

Jessie Buckley narrates the extraordinary story of the first transatlantic communications cable. In 16 August 1858, a short message is telegraphed from County Kerry to Newfoundland, 3,000km away: ‘Europe and America are united by telegraph. Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will towards men.’ The Morse code message is conducte ...d along the new underwater transatlantic telegraph cable laid across the bed of the Atlantic Ocean. Sending the same message by ship would have taken at least ten days, but the transmission takes just hours and heralds the dawn of the modern communications age.
The quest is driven by visionaries and pioneers. Among them are Cyrus Field, a wealthy businessman who, despite his immense success, ends his life in poverty; Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph and Morse code; Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the British engineer who pushes boundaries and budgets; and Belfast physicist Lord Kelvin, who calculates how to achieve what had hitherto been deemed impossible. Together, their ingenuity and relentless pursuit helps realise one of the great scientific accomplishments of their age for which Valentia, on Ireland’s remote western coast, is ground zero. Show More

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