We humans tend to believe that we occupy an extraordinarily unique and special place in the universe. Until a few hundred years ago, we believed that the entire universe revolved around Earth. When Copernicus argued instead that Earth orbits the Sun, we backed off, only to insist that it must be our Sun around which the universe revolves.
However, this view of a Sun-centered universe was also not supported by subsequent astronomical observations. In response, we believed that as a minimum, the Sun is the center of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. But that was also not borne out by observation. Indeed, we continue to discover that our solar system’s place in the universe is not unique at all.
History books tell us that Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, but that’s not the whole story. This drama uncovers the forgotten team involved in the development and manufacture of the drug that transformed medicine.
Is our world unique? Is it the only one in existence, or are there others – perhaps many others – out there? Do other beings – maybe even intelligent ones – call these worlds their home, and live out their lives completely unbeknownst to us? The questions have been asked repeatedly and persistently through the centuries, but apart from philosophical speculation, no answer was forthcoming.
Then, in 1995, something changed: A group of astronomers headed by Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory announced that they had detected a planet orbiting the star 51 Pegasi. For the first time in history, scientists had discovered a new world in the wide expanses of space. Suddenly, the question “are there other worlds out there?” was transformed from a topic for philosophical speculation, to the subject of intense scientific study.
The Codebreakers was aired on BBC World TV during May 2006. It investigates how poor countries are using FOSS applications for development, and includes stories and interviews from around the world.
Far beyond the inner planets of rock and iron lie the gas giants. Discover the most distant and alien worlds in our Solar System and the moment of genius that allowed scientists to explore them.
Invention is rarely the isolated product of a lone scientist or engineer. Instead, every significant technology in the modern world is the product of a long history of numerous people and events. One of our most modern inventions, the Internet, is itself the result of decades of work and innovation by thousands of people who may have never dreamed of the possibility or potential of a global network.
One interesting and influential ancestor in the history of the Internet is radar. Hundreds of the best scientists and engineers in Britain and the U.S. worked during World War Two to develop radar systems to help them to defeat the Axis powers. Electronics technology was pushed to new heights to make the signals stronger, and early computing machines were developed to process the complex radar messages.
In the 1980’s, personal computers became a common fixture in homes and offices. Supplying business with computers and software grew into one of the biggest industries in less than a decade. Soon, networking became a profitable business for engineers previously restricted to networking mainframes.
Some of the engineers trained on the ARPAnet went out on their own to found some of the fastest growing high-tech companies in history. Bob Metcalfe, one of the pioneers of ARPAnet, developed a better way of networking personal computers together and founded 3Com.
The rise of the personal computer by Apple and IBM introduced the rest of the world to computing. At first, computers were the tools of technically inclined nerds, but new applications drew other people to the keyboard. With an affordable modem, people could connect with other computer enthusiasts and commercial online services. People were using the computer as Bush and Licklider had prophesized, as a medium to interact with other people.
A venerable institution of international collaboration was the setting for the major development in the history of the Internet. It began when Tim Berners-Lee, a computer programmer at CERN in Switzerland, got to play on a new NeXT workstation. The object-oriented operating system was an inspiration for a problem he was working on – how to distribute information across a diverse network of different computers and operating systems. He started working on a protocol very similar the “docuverse” described by Ted Nelson, but reduced it down to a minimal, working model.
A loggerhead turtle journeys across the Pacific, meeting dolphins and whales, sharks and giant squids, and typhoons and fishermen along the way. She swims over deep canyons, and uses underwater mountain tops like motorway service stations.
Blue whales thunder by like juggernauts, and sharks dance a beautiful midnight ballet around her. Pacific means peaceful, but it is clearly not. One minute she is under fire from marlin, the next swimming over a coral reef, with crocodiles as well as sharks.
NASA’s New Horizon’s mission to Pluto was set to launch on January 17, 2006. Passport to Pluto goes behind the scenes to show the development and testing of the spacecraft, and the hard work of the scientists, engineers and support staff who worked for decades to make the mission possible.
New Horizons will be the fastest spacecraft ever launched from Earth, on board America’s most powerful rocket, and will be traveling the farthest distance to begin its primary mission of any NASA spacecraft. If all goes well it will reach Pluto and its giant moon, Charon — some 3 billion miles from Earth — as early as 2015, and then travel on out into the Kuiper Belt, a previously unexplored region of the solar system, populated by “ice dwarf” worlds completely unlike the terrestrial and gas giant planets known through previous missions.
Richard Hammond journeys to discover the startling engineering connections behind the Troll A gas platform, the largest object ever moved by man across the surface of the Earth.
