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On the 14th of August 1894,
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an excited crowd gathered
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outside Oxford's Natural History Museum.
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This huge Gothic building was
hosting the annual meeting
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of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science.
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Over 2,000 tickets had
been sold in advance,
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and the museum was already packed,
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waiting for the next talk to be given
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by Professor Oliver Lodge.
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His name might not be familiar to us now,
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but his discoveries should
have made him as famous
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as some of the other great
electrical pioneers of history,
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people like Benjamin Franklin,
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Alessandro Volta,
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or even the great Michael Faraday.
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Quite unwittingly, he would set in motion
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a series of events that
would revolutionize
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the Victorian world of
brass and telegraph wire.
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This lecture would mark the birth
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of the modern electrical world,
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a world dominated by silicon
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and mass wireless communication.
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In this program, we
discover how electricity
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connected the world together
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through broadcasting
and computer networks,
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and how we finally learnt to
unravel and exploit electricity
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at an atomic level.
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After centuries of man's
experiments with electricity,
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a new age of real
understanding was now dawning.
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These tubes are not plugged
in to any power source,
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but they still light up.
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It's electricity's invisible effect,
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an effect not just confined
to the wires it flows through.
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In the middle of the 19th century,
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a great theory was proposed
to explain how this could be.
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The theory says that
surrounding any electric charge,
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and there's a lot of electricity
flowing above my head,
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is a force field.
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These florescent tubes are lit
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purely because they
are under the influence
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of the force field from
the power cables above.
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The theory that a flow of
electricity could, in some way,
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create an invisible force field,
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was originally proposed
by Michael Faraday,
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but it would take a
brilliant young Scotsman
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called James Clerk Maxwell, who
would prove Faraday correct.
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And not through experimentation,
but through mathematics.
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This was all a far cry from
the typical 19th century way
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of understanding how the world works,
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which was essentially to see
it as a physical machine.
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Before Maxwell, scientists had
often built strange machines
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or devised wondrous experiments
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to create and measure electricity.
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But Maxwell was different.
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He was interested in the numbers,
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and his new theory not only revealed
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electricity's invisible force field,
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but how it could be manipulated.
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It would prove to be one
of the most important
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scientific discoveries of all time.
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Maxwell was a
mathematician, and a great one
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and he saw electricity and
magnetism in an entirely new way.
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He expressed it all
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in terms of very compact
mathematical equations.
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And the most important thing
is that in Maxwell's equations
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is an understanding of
electricity and magnetism
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as something linked
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and as something that can occur in waves.
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Maxwell's calculations showed
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how these fields could be disturbed
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rather like touching the surface
of water with your finger.
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Changing the direction
of the electric current
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would create a ripple or wave
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through these electric
and magnetic fields.
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And constantly changing the direction
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of the flow of the current
forwards and backwards,
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like an alternating current,
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would produce a whole series of waves,
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waves that would carry energy.
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Maxwell's maths was telling him
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that changing electric currents
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would be constantly sending
out great waves of energy
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into their surroundings,
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waves that would carry on forever
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unless something absorbed them.
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Maxwell's maths was so
advanced and complicated
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that only a handful of people
understood it at the time,
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and although his work
was still only a theory,
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it inspired a young German
physicist called Heinrich Hertz.
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Hertz decided to dedicate himself
to designing an experiment
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to prove that Maxwell's
waves really existed.
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And here it is.
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This is Hertz's original apparatus
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and its beauty is in its sheer simplicity.
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Heat generates and alternating current
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that runs along these metal rods,
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with a spark that jumps across the gap
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between these two spheres.
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Now, if Maxwell was right,
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then this alternating
current should generate
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an invisible electromagnetic wave
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that spreads out into the surroundings.
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If you place a wire in
the path of that wave,
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then at the wire,
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there should be a changing
electromagnetic field,
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which should induce an
electric current in the wire.
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So what Hertz did was build
this ring of wire, his receiver,
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that he could carry around
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in different positions in the room
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to see if he could detect
the presence of the wave.
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And the way he did that
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was leave a very tiny gap in the wire,
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across which a spark would jump
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if a current runs through the ring.
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Now, because the current is so weak
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that spark is very, very faint
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and Hertz spent pretty much most of 1887
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in a darkened room, staring
intensely through a lens
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to see if he could detect the
presence of this faint spark.
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But Hertz wasn't alone in trying
to create Maxwell's waves.
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Back in England,
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a young physics professor
called Oliver Lodge
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had been fascinated by the topic for years
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but hadn't had the time
to design any experiments
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to try to discover them.
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Then one day in early 1888,
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while setting up an experiment
on lightning protection,
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he noticed something unusual.
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Lodge noticed that when
he set up his equipment
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and sent an alternating
current around the wires,
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he could see glowing
patches between the wires,
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and with a bit of tweaking,
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he saw these glowing
patches formed a pattern.
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The blue glow and
electrical sparks occurred
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in distinct patches, evenly
spaced along the wires.
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He realized they were the
peaks and troughs of a wave,
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an invisible electromagnetic wave.
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Lodge had proved that Maxwell was right.
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Finally, by accident, Lodge had created.
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Maxwell's electromagnetic
waves around the wires.
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The big question had been answered.
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Filled with excitement at his discovery,
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Lodge prepared to
announce it to the world,
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at that summer's annual scientific meeting
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run by the British Association.
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Before it though, he
decided to go on holiday.
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His timing couldn't have been worse,
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because back in Germany, and
at exactly the same time,
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Heinrich Hertz was also
testing Maxwell's theories.
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Eventually, Hertz found
what he was looking for:
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A minute spark.
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And as he carried his receiver around
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to different positions in the room,
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he was able to map out the shape
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of the waves being
produced by his apparatus.
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And he checked each of
Maxwell's calculations carefully
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and tested them experimentally.
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It was a tour de force
of experimental science.
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Back in Britain,
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as the crowds gathered for the
British Association meeting,
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Oliver Lodge returned from holiday
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relaxed and full of anticipation.
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This, Lodge thought, would
be his moment of triumph,
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when he could announce his
discovery of Maxwell's waves.
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His great friend, the
mathematician Fitzgerald,
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was due to give the opening
address in the meeting.
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But in it, he proclaimed
that Heinrich Hertz
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had just published astounding results:
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He had detected Maxwell's
waves traveling through space.
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We have snatched the
thunderbolt from Jove himself
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and enslaved the all-pervading
ether, he announced.
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Well, I can only imagine
how Lodge must have felt
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having his thunder stolen.
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Professor Oliver Lodge had
lost his moment of triumph,
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pipped at the post by Heinrich Hertz.
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Hertz's spectacular demonstration
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of electromagnetic waves,
what we now call radio waves,
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even though he didn't know it at the time,
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is gonna lead to a whole
revolution in communications
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over the next century.
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Maxwell's theory had
shown how electric charges
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could create a force field around them,
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and that waves could
spread through these fields
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like ripples on a pond,
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and Hertz had built a device
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that could actually create
and detect the waves
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as they passed through the air.
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But almost immediately, there
would be another revelation
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in our understanding of electricity,
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A revelation that would once again involve.
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Professor Oliver Lodge,
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and once again, his
thunder would be stolen.
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The story starts in Oxford,
in the summer of 1894.
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Hertz had died suddenly earlier that year,
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and so Lodge prepared a memorial lecture
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with a demonstration that
would bring the idea of waves
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to a wider audience.
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Lodge had worked on his lecture,
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he'd researched better ways
of detecting the waves,
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and he'd borrowed new
apparatus from friends.
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He'd made some significant advances
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in the technology designed
to detect the waves.
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This bit of apparatus generates
an alternating current
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and a spark across this gap.
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The alternating current sends
out an electromagnetic wave,
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just as Maxwell predicted,
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that is picked up by the receiver.
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It sets off a very weak electric current
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through these two antennae.
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Now, this is what Hertz had done.
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Lodge's improvement on this
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was to set up this tube
full of iron fillings.
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The weak electric current
passes through the filings,
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forcing them to clump together.
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And when they do, they close
a second electric circuit
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and set off the bell.
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So if I push the button on this end,
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It sets off the bell at the receiver.
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And it's doing that with no
connections between the two,
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it's like magic.
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You could imagine a packed house,
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lots of people in the audience,
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and what they suddenly see is,
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as if by magic, a bell ringing.
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It's quite incredible.
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It might not have been
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the most dramatic demonstration
the audience had ever seen,
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but it certainly still created
a sensation among the crowd.
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Lodge's apparatus, laid out like this,
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no longer looked like a
scientific experiment.
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In fact, it looked remarkably
like those telegraph machines
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that had revolutionized communication,
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but without those long cables
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stretching between the sending
and receiving stations.
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To the more worldly and savvy
members of the audience,
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this was clearly more
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00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:42,740
than showing the maestro
Maxwell was right,
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this was a revolutionary
new form of communication.
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00:14:52,230 --> 00:14:54,000
Lodge published his lecture notes
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on how electromagnetic waves
could be sent and received
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using his new improvements.
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All around the world,
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inventors, amateur
enthusiasts, and scientists
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read Lodge's reports with excitement
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and began experimenting
with Hertzian waves.
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Two utterly different characters
were to be inspired by it.
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Both would bring improvements
to the wireless telegraph,
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and both will be remembered
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00:15:25,200 --> 00:15:27,210
for their contribution to science
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far more than Oliver Lodge.
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00:15:30,350 --> 00:15:33,313
The first was Guglielmo Marconi.
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Marconi was a very intelligent, astute,
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and a very charming individual,
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he definitely had the Italian-Irish charm,
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He could apply this to almost anyone
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from young ladies to
world-renowned scientists.
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Marconi was no scientist,
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00:15:51,730 --> 00:15:55,180
but he read all he could
of other people's work
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in order to put together his
own wireless telegraph system.
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It's possible that because
he was brought up in Bologna
261
00:16:02,590 --> 00:16:04,960
and it was fairly close
to the Italian coast,
262
00:16:04,960 --> 00:16:07,720
that he saw the potential
of wireless communications
263
00:16:07,720 --> 00:16:11,410
in relation to maritime
usage fairly early on.
264
00:16:11,410 --> 00:16:15,380
Then, aged only 22, he came to London
265
00:16:15,380 --> 00:16:18,499
with his Irish mother to market it.
266
00:16:20,920 --> 00:16:24,020
The other person inspired
by Lodge's lecture
267
00:16:24,020 --> 00:16:27,630
was a teacher at the
Presidency College in Calcutta,
268
00:16:27,630 --> 00:16:29,983
called Jagadish Chandra Bose.
269
00:16:32,520 --> 00:16:35,620
Despite degrees from London and Cambridge,
270
00:16:35,620 --> 00:16:39,070
the appointment of an Indian
as a scientist in Calcutta
271
00:16:39,070 --> 00:16:41,713
had been a battle
against racial prejudice.
272
00:16:44,160 --> 00:16:45,500
Indians, it was said,
273
00:16:45,500 --> 00:16:50,040
didn't have the requisite
temperament for exact science.
274
00:16:50,040 --> 00:16:53,030
Well, Bose was determined
to prove this wrong,
275
00:16:53,030 --> 00:16:54,240
and here in the archives,
276
00:16:54,240 --> 00:16:57,273
we can see just how fast he set to work.
277
00:16:58,760 --> 00:17:00,730
This is a report
278
00:17:00,730 --> 00:17:04,070
of the 66th meeting of
the British Association
279
00:17:04,070 --> 00:17:07,470
in Liverpool, September 1896.
280
00:17:07,470 --> 00:17:09,610
And here is Bose,
281
00:17:09,610 --> 00:17:13,470
the first Indian ever to present
at the Association meeting,
282
00:17:13,470 --> 00:17:17,730
talking about his work and
demonstrating his apparatus.
283
00:17:17,730 --> 00:17:19,900
He'd built and improved-on
284
00:17:19,900 --> 00:17:22,300
the detector that Lodge described,
285
00:17:22,300 --> 00:17:25,180
because in the hot, sticky Indian climate,
286
00:17:25,180 --> 00:17:27,670
he'd found that the metal
filings inside the tube
287
00:17:27,670 --> 00:17:30,540
that Lodge used to detect the waves
288
00:17:30,540 --> 00:17:32,550
became rusty, and stuck together,
289
00:17:32,550 --> 00:17:35,650
so Bose had to build a
more practical detector
290
00:17:35,650 --> 00:17:37,913
using a coiled wire instead.
291
00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:41,733
His work was described as a sensation.
292
00:17:43,600 --> 00:17:46,090
The detector was extremely reliable
293
00:17:46,090 --> 00:17:47,880
and could work on board ships,
294
00:17:47,880 --> 00:17:51,373
so had great potential for
the vast British naval fleet.
295
00:17:52,310 --> 00:17:54,020
Britain was the center
296
00:17:54,020 --> 00:17:56,480
of a vast telecommunications network
297
00:17:56,480 --> 00:17:58,710
which stretched almost around the world,
298
00:17:58,710 --> 00:18:03,710
which was used to support an
equally vast maritime network
299
00:18:03,910 --> 00:18:05,960
of merchant and naval vessels,
300
00:18:05,960 --> 00:18:08,293
which were used to support
the British Empire.
301
00:18:09,230 --> 00:18:12,710
But Bose, a pure
scientist, wasn't interested
302
00:18:12,710 --> 00:18:15,493
in the commercial potential
of wireless signals,
303
00:18:16,420 --> 00:18:17,853
unlike Marconi.
304
00:18:19,030 --> 00:18:22,280
This was sort of a
new, cutting-edge field,
305
00:18:22,280 --> 00:18:25,170
but Marconi wasn't a trained scientist,
306
00:18:25,170 --> 00:18:27,290
so he did come at things
in a fairly different way,
307
00:18:27,290 --> 00:18:29,260
which may have been why
he progressed so quickly
308
00:18:29,260 --> 00:18:30,510
in the first place.
309
00:18:30,510 --> 00:18:34,580
And he was very good
at forming connections
310
00:18:34,580 --> 00:18:37,570
with the people he needed
to form connections with,
311
00:18:37,570 --> 00:18:39,164
to enable his work to be done.
312
00:18:41,540 --> 00:18:43,550
Marconi used his connections
313
00:18:43,550 --> 00:18:45,670
to go straight to the only place
314
00:18:45,670 --> 00:18:47,613
that had the resources to help him.
315
00:18:52,110 --> 00:18:56,010
The British Post Office was a
hugely powerful institution.
316
00:18:56,010 --> 00:19:00,000
When Marconi first
arrived in London in 1896,
317
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:02,210
these buildings were newly completed
318
00:19:02,210 --> 00:19:04,700
and already heaving with business
319
00:19:04,700 --> 00:19:07,903
from the empire's postal
and telegraphy services.
320
00:19:09,080 --> 00:19:11,450
Marconi had brought his telegraph system
321
00:19:11,450 --> 00:19:12,930
with him from Italy,
322
00:19:12,930 --> 00:19:15,640
claiming it could send wireless signals
323
00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:17,950
over unheard-of distances,
324
00:19:17,950 --> 00:19:21,530
and the Post Office
Engineer-in-Chief, William Preece,
325
00:19:21,530 --> 00:19:24,363
immediately saw the
technology's potential.
326
00:19:26,650 --> 00:19:28,580
So Preece offered Marconi
327
00:19:28,580 --> 00:19:31,680
the great financial and
engineering resources
328
00:19:31,680 --> 00:19:36,423
of the Post Office, and they
started work up on the roof.
329
00:19:38,490 --> 00:19:42,370
The old headquarters of the
Post Office were right there.
330
00:19:42,370 --> 00:19:44,920
And between this roof and that one,
331
00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:46,790
Marconi and the Post Office engineers
332
00:19:46,790 --> 00:19:51,360
would practice sending and
receiving electromagnetic waves.
333
00:19:51,360 --> 00:19:54,670
The engineers helped him
improve his apparatus,
334
00:19:54,670 --> 00:19:58,550
and then Preece and Marconi
together demonstrated it
335
00:19:58,550 --> 00:20:01,664
to influential people in
Government and the Navy.
336
00:20:05,570 --> 00:20:07,430
What Preece didn't realize
337
00:20:07,430 --> 00:20:09,990
was that even as he was proudly announcing.
338
00:20:09,990 --> 00:20:13,550
Marconi's successful partnership
with the Post Office,
339
00:20:13,550 --> 00:20:17,173
Marconi was making
plans behind the scenes.
340
00:20:18,680 --> 00:20:20,410
He'd applied for a British patent
341
00:20:20,410 --> 00:20:23,260
on the whole field of wireless telegraphy
342
00:20:23,260 --> 00:20:26,113
and was planning on
setting up his own company.
343
00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:29,270
When the patent was granted,
344
00:20:29,270 --> 00:20:32,825
all hell broke loose in
the scientific community.
345
00:20:36,900 --> 00:20:39,573
That patent was itself revolutionary.
346
00:20:43,990 --> 00:20:46,570
You see, patents could
only be taken out on things
347
00:20:46,570 --> 00:20:48,720
that weren't public knowledge,
348
00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:52,340
but Marconi famously
had hidden his equipment
349
00:20:52,340 --> 00:20:54,193
in a secret box.
350
00:20:58,190 --> 00:21:00,130
And here it is.
351
00:21:00,130 --> 00:21:02,710
When his patent was finally granted,
352
00:21:02,710 --> 00:21:06,480
Marconi ceremoniously opened the box,
353
00:21:06,480 --> 00:21:09,898
everyone was keen to see
what inventions lay within.
354
00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:15,850
Batteries forming a circuit,
355
00:21:15,850 --> 00:21:18,530
iron filings in the tube
to complete the circuit
356
00:21:18,530 --> 00:21:20,870
to ring the bell on top.
357
00:21:20,870 --> 00:21:23,680
Nothing they hadn't seen before,
358
00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:26,423
and yet Marconi had patented the lot.
359
00:21:28,730 --> 00:21:30,440
The reason Marconi is famous
360
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:32,510
is not because of that invention.
361
00:21:32,510 --> 00:21:35,227
He doesn't invent radio,
but he improves it,
362
00:21:35,227 --> 00:21:37,650
and turns it into a system.
363
00:21:37,650 --> 00:21:41,980
Lodge doesn't do that, and
that's why we remember Marconi,
364
00:21:41,980 --> 00:21:44,379
and that's why we don't remember Lodge.
365
00:21:48,690 --> 00:21:51,690
The scientific world was up in arms.
366
00:21:51,690 --> 00:21:53,760
Here was this young man
who knew very little
367
00:21:53,760 --> 00:21:56,250
about the science behind his equipment,
368
00:21:56,250 --> 00:22:00,500
about to make his
fortune, from their work.
369
00:22:00,500 --> 00:22:04,500
Even his great supporter Preece
was disappointed and hurt
370
00:22:04,500 --> 00:22:07,270
when he found out Marconi
was about to go it alone
371
00:22:07,270 --> 00:22:09,450
and set up his own company.
372
00:22:09,450 --> 00:22:13,080
Lodge and other scientists began a frenzy
373
00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:16,880
of patenting every tiny
detail and improvement
374
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:18,957
they made to their equipment.
375
00:22:21,570 --> 00:22:24,600
This new atmosphere shocked Bose
376
00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:26,073
when he returned to Britain.
377
00:22:28,090 --> 00:22:30,090
Bose wrote home to India
378
00:22:30,090 --> 00:22:33,180
in disgust at what he found in England.
379
00:22:33,180 --> 00:22:38,070
Money, money, money all the
time, what a devouring greed.
380
00:22:38,070 --> 00:22:41,943
I wish you could see the craze
for money of the people here.
381
00:22:43,190 --> 00:22:46,740
His disillusionment
with the changes he saw
382
00:22:46,740 --> 00:22:48,740
in the country he revered
383
00:22:48,740 --> 00:22:52,493
for scientific integrity
and excellence, is palpable.
384
00:22:53,410 --> 00:22:55,870
Eventually though, it was his friends
385
00:22:55,870 --> 00:23:00,190
who convinced Bose to take
out his one and only patent,
386
00:23:00,190 --> 00:23:04,530
on his discovery of a new
kind of detector for waves.
387
00:23:04,530 --> 00:23:06,280
It was this discovery that would lead
388
00:23:06,280 --> 00:23:10,690
to perhaps an even greater
revolution for the world:
389
00:23:10,690 --> 00:23:14,463
He had discovered the power of crystals.
390
00:23:16,810 --> 00:23:19,510
This replaces older
techniques using iron filings,
391
00:23:19,510 --> 00:23:22,070
which are messy, and
difficult, and don't work well,
392
00:23:22,070 --> 00:23:25,170
and here's a whole new way
of detecting radio waves,
393
00:23:25,170 --> 00:23:26,860
and it's one that's
going to be at the center
394
00:23:26,860 --> 00:23:28,073
of a radio industry.
395
00:23:30,244 --> 00:23:32,470
Bose's discovery was simple,
396
00:23:32,470 --> 00:23:35,353
but it would truly shape the modern world.
397
00:23:36,940 --> 00:23:39,800
When some crystals are touched with metal
398
00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:42,340
to test their electrical conductivity,
399
00:23:42,340 --> 00:23:46,360
they can show rather
odd and varied behavior.
400
00:23:46,360 --> 00:23:48,490
Take this crystal, for example.
401
00:23:48,490 --> 00:23:51,240
If I can touch it in
exactly the right spot
402
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:53,293
with the tip of this metal wire,
403
00:23:54,210 --> 00:23:56,293
and then hook it up to a battery,
404
00:23:57,250 --> 00:23:59,683
it gives quite a significant current.
405
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:04,350
But if I switch round my
connections to the battery
406
00:24:04,350 --> 00:24:06,020
and try and pass the current through
407
00:24:06,020 --> 00:24:10,603
in the opposite direction,
it's a lot less.
408
00:24:12,970 --> 00:24:16,310
It's not a full conductor of electricity,
409
00:24:16,310 --> 00:24:18,280
it's a semiconductor,
410
00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:20,290
and it found its first use
411
00:24:20,290 --> 00:24:23,093
in detecting electromagnetic waves.
412
00:24:24,620 --> 00:24:27,830
When Bose used a crystal
like this in his circuits
413
00:24:27,830 --> 00:24:30,020
instead of the tube of filings,
414
00:24:30,020 --> 00:24:32,990
he found it was a much more
efficient and effective
415
00:24:32,990 --> 00:24:35,713
detector of electromagnetic waves.
416
00:24:36,870 --> 00:24:38,840
It was this strange property
417
00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:41,680
of the junction between the wire,
418
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:43,640
known as the cat's whisker,
419
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:46,200
and the crystal, which
allowed current to pass
420
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:49,070
much more easily in one
direction than the other,
421
00:24:49,070 --> 00:24:50,860
that meant it could be used
422
00:24:50,860 --> 00:24:54,583
to extract a signal from
electromagnetic waves.
423
00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:59,510
At the time, no-one had any idea
424
00:24:59,510 --> 00:25:02,543
why certain crystals acted in this way,
425
00:25:03,770 --> 00:25:07,330
but to scientists and
engineers, this strange behavior
426
00:25:07,330 --> 00:25:11,683
had a profound and almost
miraculous practical effect.
427
00:25:13,770 --> 00:25:16,170
With crystals as detectors,
428
00:25:16,170 --> 00:25:19,280
now it was possible to broadcast
429
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:24,280
and detect the actual sound
of a human voice, or music.
430
00:25:36,270 --> 00:25:39,160
In his Oxford lecture in 1894,
431
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:42,810
Oliver Lodge had opened a Pandora's box.
432
00:25:42,810 --> 00:25:45,690
As an academic, he'd failed to foresee
433
00:25:45,690 --> 00:25:49,690
that the scientific discoveries
he'd been such a part of
434
00:25:49,690 --> 00:25:51,893
had such commercial potential.
435
00:25:53,020 --> 00:25:55,740
The one patent he had managed to secure,
436
00:25:55,740 --> 00:25:58,090
the crucial means of tuning a receiver
437
00:25:58,090 --> 00:26:00,030
to a particular radio signal,
438
00:26:00,030 --> 00:26:04,873
was bought off him by
Marconi's powerful company.
439
00:26:09,450 --> 00:26:12,320
Perhaps the worst indignation
for Lodge, though,
440
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:14,660
would come in 1909,
441
00:26:14,660 --> 00:26:18,240
when Marconi was awarded
the Nobel Prize in Physics
442
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:19,823
for wireless communication.
443
00:26:21,470 --> 00:26:24,350
It's difficult to imagine a bigger snub
444
00:26:24,350 --> 00:26:27,640
to the physicist who'd so
narrowly missed out to Hertz
445
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:29,930
in the discovery of radio waves,
446
00:26:29,930 --> 00:26:31,930
and who'd then go on to show the world
447
00:26:31,930 --> 00:26:34,013
how they could be sent and received.
448
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:40,470
But despite this snub,
Lodge remained magnanimous,
449
00:26:40,470 --> 00:26:42,750
using the new broadcasting technology
450
00:26:42,750 --> 00:26:46,680
that resulted from his work,
to give credit to others,
451
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:48,733
as this rare film of him shows.
452
00:26:49,630 --> 00:26:51,193
Hertz made a great advance.
453
00:26:53,260 --> 00:26:56,433
He discovered how to produce
and detect waves in space,
454
00:26:58,180 --> 00:27:01,647
thus bringing the ether into
practical use, harnessing it,
455
00:27:02,563 --> 00:27:06,200
harnessing it for the
transmission of intelligence
456
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:08,400
in a way which has
subsequently been elaborated
457
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:10,318
by a number of people.
458
00:27:21,650 --> 00:27:25,960
Today, we can hardly imagine
a world without broadcasting,
459
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:28,200
to imagine a time when radio waves
460
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:29,813
hadn't even been dreamt of.
461
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:35,340
Engineers continued to refine
and perfect our ability
462
00:27:35,340 --> 00:27:39,110
to transmit and receive
electromagnetic waves,
463
00:27:39,110 --> 00:27:40,830
but their initial discovery
464
00:27:40,830 --> 00:27:44,320
was ultimately a triumph of pure science,
465
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:48,400
from Maxwell, through Hertz, to Lodge.
466
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:49,700
But still, the very nature
467
00:27:49,700 --> 00:27:53,430
of electricity itself
remained unexplained.
468
00:27:53,430 --> 00:27:56,780
What created those electrical
charges and currents
469
00:27:56,780 --> 00:27:58,173
in the first place?
470
00:28:00,770 --> 00:28:04,450
Although scientists were
learning to exploit electricity,
471
00:28:04,450 --> 00:28:07,633
they still didn't know
what it actually was.
472
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,150
But this question was being answered
473
00:28:11,150 --> 00:28:12,880
with experiments looking into
474
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:16,293
how electricity flowed
through different materials.
475
00:28:17,580 --> 00:28:22,150
Back in the 1850s, one of
Germany's great experimentalists
476
00:28:22,150 --> 00:28:25,570
and a talented glass
blower, Heinrich Geissler,
477
00:28:25,570 --> 00:28:28,277
created these beautiful showpieces.
478
00:28:37,420 --> 00:28:39,590
Geissler pumped most of the air
479
00:28:39,590 --> 00:28:42,190
out of these intricate glass tubes
480
00:28:42,190 --> 00:28:45,663
and then had small amounts
of other gases pumped in.
481
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:52,700
He then passed an electrical
current through them.
482
00:28:52,700 --> 00:28:55,110
They glowed with stunning colors,
483
00:28:55,110 --> 00:28:58,963
and the current flowing through
the gas seemed tangible.
484
00:29:01,550 --> 00:29:04,630
Although they were designed
purely for entertainment,
485
00:29:04,630 --> 00:29:06,590
over the next 50 years,
486
00:29:06,590 --> 00:29:09,730
scientists saw Geissler's
tubes as a chance
487
00:29:09,730 --> 00:29:12,363
to study how electricity flowed.
488
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,100
Efforts were made to
pump more and more air
489
00:29:17,100 --> 00:29:18,750
out of the tubes.
490
00:29:18,750 --> 00:29:22,710
Could the electric current
pass through nothingness,
491
00:29:22,710 --> 00:29:23,753
through the vacuum?
492
00:29:28,850 --> 00:29:33,850
This is a very rare flick book
film of the British scientist
493
00:29:34,110 --> 00:29:38,500
who created a vacuum good
enough to answer that question.
494
00:29:38,500 --> 00:29:40,840
His name was William Crookes.
495
00:29:43,093 --> 00:29:45,570
Crookes create tubes like this.
496
00:29:45,570 --> 00:29:48,450
He pumped out as much
of the air as he could
497
00:29:48,450 --> 00:29:52,050
so that it was as close to a
vacuum as he could make it.
498
00:29:52,050 --> 00:29:55,733
Then, when he passed an electric
current through the tube.
499
00:29:58,894 --> 00:30:01,870
He noticed a bright glow on the far end.
500
00:30:02,820 --> 00:30:05,800
A beam seemed to be
shining through the tube
501
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,550
and hitting the glass at the other end.
502
00:30:08,550 --> 00:30:12,090
It seemed at last we
could see electricity.
503
00:30:12,090 --> 00:30:15,030
The beam became known as a cathode ray,
504
00:30:15,030 --> 00:30:19,090
and this tube was the forerunner
of the cathode ray tube
505
00:30:19,090 --> 00:30:22,521
that was used in television
sets for decades.
506
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:31,610
Physicist JJ Thomson
discovered that these beams
507
00:30:31,610 --> 00:30:35,560
were made up of tiny,
negatively-charged particles,
508
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:38,290
and because they were
carriers of electricity,
509
00:30:38,290 --> 00:30:40,873
they became known as electrons.
510
00:30:42,820 --> 00:30:45,480
Because the electrons only
moved in one direction,
511
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:47,240
from the heated metal plate
512
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:50,330
through the positively-charged
plate at the other end,
513
00:30:50,330 --> 00:30:52,820
they behaved in exactly the same way
514
00:30:52,820 --> 00:30:55,920
as Bose's semiconductor crystals.
515
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:59,530
But whereas Bose's crystals
were naturally temperamental,
516
00:30:59,530 --> 00:31:02,690
you had to find the right
spot for them to work,
517
00:31:02,690 --> 00:31:06,680
these tubes could be
manufactured consistently.
518
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:08,930
They became known as valves,
519
00:31:08,930 --> 00:31:13,173
and they soon replaced crystals
in radio sets everywhere.
520
00:31:17,260 --> 00:31:19,080
These discoveries would lead
521
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:21,623
to an explosion of new technology.
522
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,000
Early 20th century electronics
523
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:27,870
is all about what you can do with valves.
524
00:31:27,870 --> 00:31:30,360
So, the radio industry is built on valves,
525
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:31,970
early television is built on valves,
526
00:31:31,970 --> 00:31:34,280
early computers are built with valves.
527
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:36,953
These are what you build
the electronic world with.
528
00:31:40,140 --> 00:31:42,170
Having discovered how to manipulate
529
00:31:42,170 --> 00:31:44,700
electrons flowing through a vacuum,
530
00:31:44,700 --> 00:31:47,420
scientists were now keen to understand
531
00:31:47,420 --> 00:31:50,083
how they could flow
through other materials,
532
00:31:51,626 --> 00:31:53,270
but that meant understanding
533
00:31:53,270 --> 00:31:56,310
the things that made up materials:
534
00:31:56,310 --> 00:31:57,143
Atoms.
535
00:32:08,570 --> 00:32:11,640
It was in the early
years of the 20th century
536
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:13,550
that we finally got a handle
537
00:32:13,550 --> 00:32:18,140
on exactly what atoms were made
up of and how they behaved,
538
00:32:18,140 --> 00:32:22,723
and so what electricity actually
was on the atomic scale.
539
00:32:25,630 --> 00:32:28,750
At the University of Manchester,
Ernest Rutherford's team
540
00:32:28,750 --> 00:32:31,760
were studying the inner
structure of the atom
541
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:33,230
and producing a picture
542
00:32:33,230 --> 00:32:35,820
to describe what an atom looked like.
543
00:32:35,820 --> 00:32:39,430
This revelation would finally help explain
544
00:32:39,430 --> 00:32:43,310
some of the more puzzling
features of electricity.
545
00:32:43,310 --> 00:32:47,120
By 1913, the picture of the atom was one
546
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:50,370
in which you had a positively-charged
nucleus in the middle
547
00:32:50,370 --> 00:32:54,190
surrounded by negatively-charged
orbiting electrons,
548
00:32:54,190 --> 00:32:57,080
in patterns called shells.
549
00:32:57,080 --> 00:32:59,440
Each of these shells corresponded
550
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:02,630
to an electron with a particular energy.
551
00:33:02,630 --> 00:33:06,270
Now, given an energy boost,
an electron could jump
552
00:33:06,270 --> 00:33:09,030
from an inner shell to an outer one.
553
00:33:09,030 --> 00:33:11,410
And the energy had to be just right,
554
00:33:11,410 --> 00:33:12,480
if it wasn't enough,
555
00:33:12,480 --> 00:33:15,260
the electron wouldn't make the transition.
556
00:33:15,260 --> 00:33:17,660
And this boost was often temporary
557
00:33:17,660 --> 00:33:20,040
because the electron would
then drop back down again
558
00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:21,930
to its original shell.
559
00:33:21,930 --> 00:33:25,730
As it did this, it had to
give off its excess energy
560
00:33:25,730 --> 00:33:28,730
by spitting out a photon,
561
00:33:28,730 --> 00:33:33,170
and the energy of each photon
depended on its wavelength,
562
00:33:33,170 --> 00:33:36,113
or as we would perceive it, its color.
563
00:33:39,180 --> 00:33:43,170
Understanding the structure of
atoms could now also explain
564
00:33:43,170 --> 00:33:46,182
nature's great electrical light shows.
565
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:50,620
Just like Geissler's tubes,
566
00:33:50,620 --> 00:33:53,850
the type of gas the
electricity passes through
567
00:33:53,850 --> 00:33:55,373
defines its color.
568
00:33:57,900 --> 00:33:59,990
Lightning has a blue tinge
569
00:33:59,990 --> 00:34:02,743
because of the nitrogen in our atmosphere.
570
00:34:05,030 --> 00:34:08,450
Higher in the atmosphere,
the gases are different
571
00:34:08,450 --> 00:34:11,610
and so is the color of
the photons they produce,
572
00:34:11,610 --> 00:34:14,383
creating the spectacular auroras.
573
00:34:20,460 --> 00:34:24,630
Understanding atoms, how they
fit together in materials
574
00:34:24,630 --> 00:34:27,060
and how their electrons behave,
575
00:34:27,060 --> 00:34:29,650
was the final key to understanding
576
00:34:29,650 --> 00:34:32,982
the fundamental nature of electricity.
577
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:40,710
This is a Wimshurst machine
578
00:34:40,710 --> 00:34:43,033
and it's used to generate electric charge.
579
00:34:45,530 --> 00:34:48,070
Electrons are rubbed off these discs
580
00:34:48,070 --> 00:34:50,290
and start a flow of electricity
581
00:34:50,290 --> 00:34:52,462
through the metal arms of the machine.
582
00:34:55,670 --> 00:34:57,470
Now, metals conduct electricity
583
00:34:57,470 --> 00:35:00,060
because the electrons
are very weakly bound
584
00:35:00,060 --> 00:35:01,167
inside their atoms
585
00:35:01,167 --> 00:35:05,493
and so can slosh about and be
used to flow as electricity.
586
00:35:06,730 --> 00:35:09,760
Insulators on the other hand,
don't conduct electricity
587
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:11,760
because the electrons
are very tightly bound
588
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:12,960
inside the atoms
589
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:14,835
and are not free to move about.
590
00:35:16,930 --> 00:35:19,800
The flow of electrons,
and hence electricity,
591
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:22,840
through materials was now understood,
592
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:25,423
conductors and insulators
could be explained.
593
00:35:26,630 --> 00:35:28,270
What was more difficult to understand
594
00:35:28,270 --> 00:35:31,573
was the strange properties
of semiconductors.
595
00:35:34,810 --> 00:35:39,250
Our modern electronic world
is built upon semiconductors
596
00:35:39,250 --> 00:35:41,723
and would grind to a halt without them.
597
00:35:43,483 --> 00:35:45,300
Jagadish Chandra Bose
598
00:35:45,300 --> 00:35:49,370
may have stumbled upon their
properties back in the 1890s,
599
00:35:49,370 --> 00:35:51,330
but no one could have foreseen
600
00:35:51,330 --> 00:35:54,173
just how important they were to become.
601
00:35:55,750 --> 00:35:58,060
But with the outbreak
of the Second World War,
602
00:35:58,060 --> 00:36:00,825
things were about to change.
603
00:36:06,010 --> 00:36:09,240
Here in Oxford, this
newly-built physics laboratory
604
00:36:09,240 --> 00:36:13,370
was immediately handed over
to the war research effort.
605
00:36:13,370 --> 00:36:15,350
The researchers here were tasked
606
00:36:15,350 --> 00:36:17,863
with improving the British radar system.
607
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:26,940
Radar was a technology that
used electromagnetic waves
608
00:36:26,940 --> 00:36:31,780
to detect enemy bombers, and
as its accuracy improved,
609
00:36:31,780 --> 00:36:35,763
it became clear that valves
just weren't up to the job,
610
00:36:39,530 --> 00:36:43,100
so the team had to turn to old technology:
611
00:36:43,100 --> 00:36:47,940
Instead of valves, they
used semiconductor crystals.
612
00:36:47,940 --> 00:36:49,530
Now, they didn't use the
same sort of crystals
613
00:36:49,530 --> 00:36:50,980
that Bose had developed,
614
00:36:50,980 --> 00:36:53,023
instead they used silicon.
615
00:36:56,270 --> 00:37:00,053
This device is a silicon crystal receiver.
616
00:37:00,053 --> 00:37:03,270
There's a tiny tungsten wire coiled down
617
00:37:03,270 --> 00:37:07,720
and touching the surface of
a little silicon crystal.
618
00:37:07,720 --> 00:37:10,323
It's incredible how
important a device it was.
619
00:37:15,210 --> 00:37:16,660
It was the first time
620
00:37:16,660 --> 00:37:20,480
silicon had really been
exploited as a semiconductor,
621
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:24,340
but for it to work, it
needed to be very pure,
622
00:37:24,340 --> 00:37:26,180
and both sides in the war
623
00:37:26,180 --> 00:37:29,283
put a lot of resources into purifying it.
624
00:37:30,660 --> 00:37:34,550
In fact, the British
had better silicon devices
625
00:37:34,550 --> 00:37:37,630
so they must have had
some coils of silicon
626
00:37:37,630 --> 00:37:38,920
already at that time
627
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:43,568
which we were just
starting with in Berlin.
628
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:48,380
The British had better
silicon semiconductors
629
00:37:48,380 --> 00:37:51,860
because they had help from
laboratories in the US,
630
00:37:51,860 --> 00:37:54,950
in particular, the famous Bell Labs.
631
00:37:54,950 --> 00:37:58,010
And it wasn't long before
physicists realized
632
00:37:58,010 --> 00:38:01,383
that if semiconductors could
replace valves in radar,
633
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:03,910
perhaps they could replace valves
634
00:38:03,910 --> 00:38:07,433
in other devices too, like amplifiers.
635
00:38:10,350 --> 00:38:12,030
The simple vacuum tube,
636
00:38:12,030 --> 00:38:14,150
with its one-way stream of electrons,
637
00:38:14,150 --> 00:38:17,920
had been modified to produce a new device.
638
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:21,220
By placing a metal grille
in the path of the electrons
639
00:38:21,220 --> 00:38:23,220
and applying a tiny voltage to it,
640
00:38:23,220 --> 00:38:24,410
a dramatic change
641
00:38:24,410 --> 00:38:27,240
in the strength of the
beam could be produced.
642
00:38:27,240 --> 00:38:30,150
These valves worked as amplifiers,
643
00:38:30,150 --> 00:38:32,210
turning a very weak electrical signal
644
00:38:32,210 --> 00:38:33,980
into a much stronger one.
645
00:38:33,980 --> 00:38:35,250
An amplifier is something
646
00:38:35,250 --> 00:38:36,950
that in one sense is really simple:
647
00:38:36,950 --> 00:38:39,080
You just take a small current,
648
00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:41,600
you turn it into a larger current.
649
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,700
But in other ways, it changes the world,
650
00:38:44,700 --> 00:38:47,180
because when you can amplify a signal,
651
00:38:47,180 --> 00:38:49,384
you can send it anywhere in the world.
652
00:38:53,060 --> 00:38:57,430
As soon as the war was over,
German expert Herbert Matare
653
00:38:57,430 --> 00:38:59,610
and his colleague Heinrich Welker
654
00:38:59,610 --> 00:39:02,640
started to build a semiconductor device
655
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:05,423
that could be used as
an electrical amplifier.
656
00:39:06,730 --> 00:39:10,620
And here is that first working model
657
00:39:10,620 --> 00:39:13,400
that Matare and Welker made.
658
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:16,530
If you look inside, you
can see the tiny crystal
659
00:39:16,530 --> 00:39:18,883
and the wires that make contact with it.
660
00:39:20,150 --> 00:39:23,570
If you pass a small current
through one of the wires,
661
00:39:23,570 --> 00:39:25,930
this allows a much larger current
662
00:39:25,930 --> 00:39:27,730
to flow through the other one,
663
00:39:27,730 --> 00:39:30,903
so it was acting as a signal amplifier.
664
00:39:33,770 --> 00:39:38,770
These tiny devices could
replace big, expensive valves
665
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:42,440
in long-distance telephone
networks, radios,
666
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:46,103
and other equipment where a
faint signal needed boosting.
667
00:39:47,450 --> 00:39:50,890
Matare immediately
realized what he'd created,
668
00:39:50,890 --> 00:39:53,530
but his bosses were
initially not interested.
669
00:39:53,530 --> 00:39:56,990
Not, that is, until a
paper appeared in a journal
670
00:39:56,990 --> 00:39:59,223
announcing a Bell Labs discovery.
671
00:40:03,310 --> 00:40:07,230
A research team there had
stumbled across the same effect
672
00:40:07,230 --> 00:40:10,970
and now they were announcing
their invention to the world.
673
00:40:10,970 --> 00:40:12,993
They called it the transistor.
674
00:40:14,940 --> 00:40:17,707
They had it in December 1947,
675
00:40:17,707 --> 00:40:20,173
and we had it in beginning '48.
676
00:40:21,390 --> 00:40:24,303
But just, just life, you know,
677
00:40:25,785 --> 00:40:28,035
they had it a little
bit earlier, the effect.
678
00:40:29,020 --> 00:40:32,883
But funnily enough, their
transistors were just no good.
679
00:40:35,220 --> 00:40:38,370
Although the European
device was more reliable
680
00:40:38,370 --> 00:40:41,870
than Bell Labs' more experimental model,
681
00:40:41,870 --> 00:40:44,750
neither quite fulfilled their promise:
682
00:40:44,750 --> 00:40:47,543
They worked, but were just too delicate,
683
00:40:49,110 --> 00:40:50,120
so the search was on
684
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:54,470
for a more robust way to
amplify electrical signals
685
00:40:54,470 --> 00:40:57,373
and the breakthrough came by accident.
686
00:40:59,010 --> 00:41:02,710
In Bell Labs, silicon
crystal expert Russell Ohl
687
00:41:02,710 --> 00:41:04,740
noticed that one of his silicon ingots
688
00:41:04,740 --> 00:41:07,380
had a really bizarre property:
689
00:41:07,380 --> 00:41:10,650
It seemed to be able to
generate its own voltage.
690
00:41:10,650 --> 00:41:12,110
And when he tried to measure this
691
00:41:12,110 --> 00:41:14,610
by hooking it up to an oscilloscope,
692
00:41:14,610 --> 00:41:17,493
he noticed that the voltage
changed all the time.
693
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:21,930
The amount of voltage it
generated seemed to depend on
694
00:41:21,930 --> 00:41:24,280
how much light there was in the room.
695
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:28,090
So, by casting a shadow over the crystal,
696
00:41:28,090 --> 00:41:30,450
he saw the voltage dropped;
697
00:41:30,450 --> 00:41:32,983
More light meant the voltage went up.
698
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:37,010
What's more, when he turned a fan on
699
00:41:37,010 --> 00:41:39,600
between the lamp and the crystal
700
00:41:40,720 --> 00:41:44,770
the voltage started to oscillate
with the same frequency
701
00:41:44,770 --> 00:41:46,550
that the blades of the fan
702
00:41:46,550 --> 00:41:48,833
were casting shadows over the crystal.
703
00:41:52,630 --> 00:41:55,750
One of Ohl's colleagues
immediately realized
704
00:41:55,750 --> 00:41:57,680
that the ingot had a crack in it
705
00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:00,430
that formed a natural junction,
706
00:42:00,430 --> 00:42:04,910
and this tiny natural junction
in an otherwise solid block
707
00:42:04,910 --> 00:42:08,580
was acting just like the
much more delicate junction
708
00:42:08,580 --> 00:42:11,170
between the end of a wire and a crystal
709
00:42:11,170 --> 00:42:12,793
that Bose had discovered,
710
00:42:13,830 --> 00:42:16,683
except here it was sensitive to light.
711
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:23,020
The ingot had cracked
because either side contained
712
00:42:23,020 --> 00:42:27,160
slightly different amounts of impurities.
713
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:30,800
One side had slightly more
of the element phosphorous,
714
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:33,000
while the other had slightly more
715
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:35,690
of a different impurity, boron,
716
00:42:35,690 --> 00:42:38,300
and electrons seemed to
be able to move across
717
00:42:38,300 --> 00:42:41,340
from the phosphorous
side to the boron side,
718
00:42:41,340 --> 00:42:43,590
but not vice versa.
719
00:42:43,590 --> 00:42:46,160
Photons of light shining
down onto the crystal
720
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:49,230
were knocking electrons out of the atoms,
721
00:42:49,230 --> 00:42:53,303
but it was the impurity atoms
that were driving this flow.
722
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:57,763
Phosphorous has an electron
that is going spare,
723
00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:03,070
and boron is keen to accept another,
724
00:43:03,070 --> 00:43:06,760
so electrons tended to flow
from the phosphorous side
725
00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:08,270
to the boron side
726
00:43:08,270 --> 00:43:12,124
and crucially, only flowed
one way across the junction.
727
00:43:18,860 --> 00:43:22,410
The head of the semiconductor
team, William Shockley,
728
00:43:22,410 --> 00:43:27,110
saw the potential of this one-way
junction within a crystal,
729
00:43:27,110 --> 00:43:29,950
but how would it be
possible to create a crystal
730
00:43:29,950 --> 00:43:33,893
with two junctions in it that
could be used as an amplifier?
731
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:39,600
Another researcher at Bell
Labs called Gordon Teal
732
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:43,273
had been working on a technique
that would allow just that.
733
00:43:45,830 --> 00:43:49,890
He'd discovered a special
way to grow single crystals
734
00:43:49,890 --> 00:43:52,103
of the semiconductor germanium.
735
00:43:55,490 --> 00:43:59,530
In this research institute,
they grow semiconductor crystals
736
00:43:59,530 --> 00:44:02,603
in the same way that Teal
did back in Bell Labs,
737
00:44:03,530 --> 00:44:07,053
only here, they grow
them much, much bigger.
738
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:13,610
At the bottom of this vat is a container
739
00:44:13,610 --> 00:44:17,030
with glowing-hot molten germanium,
740
00:44:17,030 --> 00:44:19,440
just as pure as you can get it.
741
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:24,110
Inside it are a few atoms of
whatever impurity is required
742
00:44:24,110 --> 00:44:27,780
to alter its conductive properties.
743
00:44:27,780 --> 00:44:32,410
Now, the rotating arm above has
a seed crystal at the bottom
744
00:44:32,410 --> 00:44:34,660
that has been dipped into the liquid
745
00:44:34,660 --> 00:44:37,629
and will be slowly raised up again.
746
00:44:42,340 --> 00:44:47,210
As the germanium cools and
hardens, it forms a long crystal
747
00:44:47,210 --> 00:44:49,910
like an icicle, below the seed.
748
00:44:49,910 --> 00:44:54,623
The whole length is one single,
beautiful germanium crystal.
749
00:45:02,170 --> 00:45:06,020
Teal worked out that as
the crystal is growing,
750
00:45:06,020 --> 00:45:10,230
other impurities can be added
to the vat and mixed in.
751
00:45:10,230 --> 00:45:12,930
This gives us a single crystal
752
00:45:12,930 --> 00:45:16,490
with thin layers of different impurities,
753
00:45:16,490 --> 00:45:19,623
creating junctions within the crystal.
754
00:45:26,930 --> 00:45:31,930
This crystal with two junctions
in it was Shockley's dream.
755
00:45:32,240 --> 00:45:33,820
Applying a small current
756
00:45:33,820 --> 00:45:36,310
through the very thin middle section
757
00:45:36,310 --> 00:45:38,340
allows a much larger current
758
00:45:38,340 --> 00:45:40,833
to flow through the whole triple sandwich.
759
00:45:45,190 --> 00:45:47,640
From a single crystal like this,
760
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:51,580
hundreds of tiny solid
blocks could be cut,
761
00:45:51,580 --> 00:45:54,120
each containing the two junctions
762
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:56,940
that would allow the movement
of electrons through them
763
00:45:56,940 --> 00:45:58,573
to be precisely controlled.
764
00:46:01,690 --> 00:46:04,710
These tiny and reliable devices
765
00:46:04,710 --> 00:46:08,110
could be used in all sorts
of electrical equipment.
766
00:46:08,110 --> 00:46:10,133
You cannot have the electronic equipment
767
00:46:10,133 --> 00:46:12,480
that we have without tiny components.
768
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:14,530
And you get a weird effect actually,
769
00:46:14,530 --> 00:46:16,980
the smaller they get, the
more reliable they get,
770
00:46:16,980 --> 00:46:19,022
it's a win-win situation.
771
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:23,980
The Bell Labs team
were awarded the Nobel Prize
772
00:46:23,980 --> 00:46:26,700
for their world-changing invention,
773
00:46:26,700 --> 00:46:29,113
while the European team were forgotten.
774
00:46:34,530 --> 00:46:36,800
William Shockley left Bell Labs,
775
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:41,150
and in 1955 set up his own
semiconductor Laboratory
776
00:46:41,150 --> 00:46:43,020
in rural California,
777
00:46:43,020 --> 00:46:46,433
recruiting the country's
best physics graduates.
778
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:50,150
But the celebratory mood didn't last long,
779
00:46:50,150 --> 00:46:53,313
because Shockley was almost
impossible to work for.
780
00:46:54,210 --> 00:46:55,920
People left his company
781
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:59,920
because they just disliked
the way he treated them.
782
00:46:59,920 --> 00:47:03,330
So, the fact that Shockley
was actually such a git
783
00:47:04,740 --> 00:47:06,930
is why you have Silicon Valley.
784
00:47:06,930 --> 00:47:09,000
It starts that whole process
785
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:12,440
of spin-off, and growth,
and new companies,
786
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:14,000
and it all starts off
787
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:17,645
with Shockley being such
a shocking human being.
788
00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:30,710
The new companies were in
competition with each other
789
00:47:30,710 --> 00:47:34,450
to come up with the latest
semiconductor devices.
790
00:47:34,450 --> 00:47:38,440
They made transistors so small
that huge numbers of them
791
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:41,700
could be incorporated
into an electrical circuit
792
00:47:41,700 --> 00:47:45,083
printed on a single slice
of semiconductor crystal.
793
00:47:49,380 --> 00:47:52,480
These tiny and reliable chips
794
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:55,950
could be used in all sorts
of electrical equipment
795
00:47:55,950 --> 00:47:59,310
most famously in computers:
796
00:47:59,310 --> 00:48:01,183
A new age had dawned.
797
00:48:11,700 --> 00:48:14,630
Today, microchips are everywhere,
798
00:48:14,630 --> 00:48:18,480
they've transformed almost
every aspect of modern life,
799
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:22,163
from communication, to
transport and entertainment.
800
00:48:23,560 --> 00:48:25,910
But perhaps just as importantly,
801
00:48:25,910 --> 00:48:28,670
our computers have become so powerful
802
00:48:28,670 --> 00:48:31,360
they're helping us to
understand the Universe
803
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:32,963
in all its complexity.
804
00:48:37,240 --> 00:48:40,200
A single microchip like this one today
805
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:45,200
can contain around four
billion transistors.
806
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:49,803
It's incredible how far
technology has come in 60 years.
807
00:48:53,030 --> 00:48:56,300
It's easy to think that with
the great leaps we've made
808
00:48:56,300 --> 00:48:59,350
in understanding and
exploiting electricity,
809
00:48:59,350 --> 00:49:01,343
there's little left to learn about it.
810
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:04,593
But we'd be wrong.
811
00:49:06,950 --> 00:49:10,850
For instance, making the
circuits smaller and smaller
812
00:49:10,850 --> 00:49:13,750
meant that a particular
feature of electricity
813
00:49:13,750 --> 00:49:16,330
that had been known
about for over a century
814
00:49:16,330 --> 00:49:19,670
was becoming more and more problematic:
815
00:49:19,670 --> 00:49:20,783
Resistance.
816
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:27,350
A computer chip has to
be continuously cooled.
817
00:49:27,350 --> 00:49:29,700
If you take away the fan,
this is what happens.
818
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:35,337
Wow, that's shooting up.
819
00:49:35,337 --> 00:49:37,823
100, 120, 130 degrees.
820
00:49:43,030 --> 00:49:46,450
200 degrees, and it cut out.
821
00:49:46,450 --> 00:49:47,870
That just took a few seconds
822
00:49:47,870 --> 00:49:50,590
and the chip is well and truly cooked.
823
00:49:50,590 --> 00:49:54,090
You see, as the electrons
flow through the chip,
824
00:49:54,090 --> 00:49:56,680
they're not just traveling
around unimpeded,
825
00:49:56,680 --> 00:49:59,400
they're bumping into the atoms of silicon,
826
00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:02,620
and the energy being
lost by these electrons
827
00:50:02,620 --> 00:50:04,113
is producing heat.
828
00:50:05,550 --> 00:50:07,430
Now sometimes, this was useful,
829
00:50:07,430 --> 00:50:11,140
inventors made electric heaters and ovens,
830
00:50:11,140 --> 00:50:13,630
and whenever they got
something to glow white-hot,
831
00:50:13,630 --> 00:50:15,680
well, that's a light bulb.
832
00:50:15,680 --> 00:50:19,860
But resistance in electronic
apparatus and in power lines,
833
00:50:19,860 --> 00:50:24,594
is a major waste of
energy and a huge problem.
834
00:50:29,300 --> 00:50:31,510
It's thought that resistance wastes
835
00:50:31,510 --> 00:50:34,943
up to 20% of all the
electricity we generate.
836
00:50:36,470 --> 00:50:39,393
It's one of the greatest
problems of modern times,
837
00:50:40,990 --> 00:50:42,110
and the search is on
838
00:50:42,110 --> 00:50:45,323
for a way to solve the
problem of resistance.
839
00:50:50,870 --> 00:50:54,280
What we think of as
temperature is really a measure
840
00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:58,690
of how much the atoms in
a material are vibrating.
841
00:50:58,690 --> 00:51:00,460
And if the atoms are vibrating,
842
00:51:00,460 --> 00:51:02,837
then electrons flowing through
843
00:51:02,837 --> 00:51:05,220
are more likely to bump into them.
844
00:51:05,220 --> 00:51:07,510
So in general, the hotter the material,
845
00:51:07,510 --> 00:51:10,010
the higher its electrical resistance,
846
00:51:10,010 --> 00:51:11,440
and the cooler it is,
847
00:51:11,440 --> 00:51:13,270
the lower the resistance.
848
00:51:13,270 --> 00:51:15,900
But what happens if you
cool something right down,
849
00:51:15,900 --> 00:51:20,900
close to absolute zero,
273 degrees Celsius?
850
00:51:22,670 --> 00:51:26,070
Well, at absolute zero
there's no heat at all,
851
00:51:26,070 --> 00:51:29,160
and so the atoms aren't moving at all.
852
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:32,170
What happens then to
the flow of electricity,
853
00:51:32,170 --> 00:51:33,993
the flow of electrons?
854
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:41,653
Using a special device called a cryostat,
855
00:51:41,653 --> 00:51:44,450
that can keep things
close to absolute zero,
856
00:51:44,450 --> 00:51:45,633
we can find out.
857
00:51:46,750 --> 00:51:49,740
Inside this cryostat, in this coil,
858
00:51:49,740 --> 00:51:52,400
is mercury, the famous liquid metal,
859
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:55,150
and it forms part of an electric circuit.
860
00:51:55,150 --> 00:51:56,430
Now, this equipment here
861
00:51:56,430 --> 00:51:59,950
measures the resistance in the mercury,
862
00:51:59,950 --> 00:52:02,950
but look what happens
as I lower the mercury
863
00:52:02,950 --> 00:52:05,493
into the coldest part of the cryostat.
864
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:11,130
There it is,
865
00:52:11,130 --> 00:52:14,350
the resistance has dropped
to absolutely nothing.
866
00:52:14,350 --> 00:52:17,410
Mercury, like many substances we now know,
867
00:52:17,410 --> 00:52:18,400
have this property,
868
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:20,820
it's called becoming superconducting,
869
00:52:20,820 --> 00:52:23,280
which means they have no resistance at all
870
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:25,103
to the flow of electricity.
871
00:52:27,062 --> 00:52:29,190
But these materials only work
872
00:52:29,190 --> 00:52:31,573
when they're very, very cold.
873
00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:35,190
If we could use a superconducting material
874
00:52:35,190 --> 00:52:39,300
in our power cables and in
our electronic apparatus,
875
00:52:39,300 --> 00:52:41,160
we'd avoid losing so much
876
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:44,453
of our precious electrical
energy through resistance.
877
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:49,033
The problem, of course,
878
00:52:49,033 --> 00:52:51,520
is that superconductors had to be kept
879
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:54,200
at extremely low temperatures.
880
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:59,002
Then, in 1986, a breakthrough was made.
881
00:53:01,210 --> 00:53:02,340
In a small laboratory
882
00:53:02,340 --> 00:53:03,490
near Zurich, Switzerland,
883
00:53:03,490 --> 00:53:06,950
IBM physicists recently
discovered superconductivity
884
00:53:06,950 --> 00:53:08,620
in a new class of materials
885
00:53:08,620 --> 00:53:10,580
that is being called one
of the most important
886
00:53:10,580 --> 00:53:12,913
scientific breakthroughs in many decades.
887
00:53:15,570 --> 00:53:18,150
This is a block of the same material
888
00:53:18,150 --> 00:53:21,000
made by the researchers in Switzerland.
889
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:23,010
It doesn't look very remarkable,
890
00:53:23,010 --> 00:53:25,550
but if you cool it down
with liquid nitrogen,
891
00:53:25,550 --> 00:53:27,073
something special happens:
892
00:53:28,220 --> 00:53:31,240
It becomes a superconductor.
893
00:53:31,240 --> 00:53:35,070
And because electricity and
magnetism are so tightly linked,
894
00:53:35,070 --> 00:53:38,603
that gives it equally
extraordinary magnetic properties.
895
00:53:39,490 --> 00:53:42,360
This magnet is suspended,
896
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:45,373
levitating above the superconductor.
897
00:53:48,650 --> 00:53:51,800
The exciting thing is that although cold,
898
00:53:51,800 --> 00:53:54,680
this material is way above absolute zero.
899
00:54:05,350 --> 00:54:08,430
These magnetic fields are so strong
900
00:54:08,430 --> 00:54:11,780
that not only can they support
the weight of this magnet,
901
00:54:11,780 --> 00:54:14,630
but they should also support MY weight.
902
00:54:14,630 --> 00:54:16,933
I'm about to be levitated.
903
00:54:19,330 --> 00:54:22,163
Oh, that's a very, very strange sensation.
904
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:29,800
When this material was
first discovered in 1986,
905
00:54:29,800 --> 00:54:31,730
it created a revolution.
906
00:54:31,730 --> 00:54:33,810
Not only had no-one considered
907
00:54:33,810 --> 00:54:35,810
that it might be superconducting,
908
00:54:35,810 --> 00:54:38,000
but it was doing so at a temperature
909
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:41,620
much warmer than anyone
had thought possible.
910
00:54:41,620 --> 00:54:43,150
We are tantalizingly close
911
00:54:43,150 --> 00:54:45,400
to getting room-temperature
superconductors.
912
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:46,700
We're not there yet,
913
00:54:46,700 --> 00:54:49,510
but one day, a new material will be found
914
00:54:49,510 --> 00:54:52,200
and when we put that into
our electronics equipment,
915
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:55,713
we could build a cheaper,
better, more sustainable world.
916
00:54:58,670 --> 00:55:01,300
Today, materials have been produced
917
00:55:01,300 --> 00:55:02,810
that exhibit this phenomenon
918
00:55:02,810 --> 00:55:06,280
at the sort of temperatures
you get in your freezer,
919
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:08,360
but these new superconductors
920
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:11,400
can't be fully explained
by the theoreticians.
921
00:55:11,400 --> 00:55:13,910
So, without a complete understanding,
922
00:55:13,910 --> 00:55:17,400
experimentalists are often
guided as much by luck
923
00:55:17,400 --> 00:55:20,113
as they are by a proper
scientific understanding.
924
00:55:22,140 --> 00:55:25,760
Recently, a laboratory
in Japan held a party
925
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:28,970
in which they ended up
dosing their superconductors
926
00:55:28,970 --> 00:55:31,770
with a range of alcoholic beverages.
927
00:55:31,770 --> 00:55:34,320
Unexpectedly, they found that red wine
928
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:37,243
improves the performance
of the superconductors.
929
00:55:40,770 --> 00:55:45,100
Electrical research now has
the potential, once again,
930
00:55:45,100 --> 00:55:47,670
to revolutionize our world
931
00:55:47,670 --> 00:55:52,131
if room temperature
superconductors can be found.
932
00:56:02,130 --> 00:56:07,040
Our addiction to electricity's
power is only increasing,
933
00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:11,470
and when we fully understand
how to exploit superconductors,
934
00:56:11,470 --> 00:56:15,070
a new electrical world will be upon us.
935
00:56:15,070 --> 00:56:17,990
It's going to lead to one
of the most exciting periods
936
00:56:17,990 --> 00:56:20,640
of human discovery and invention,
937
00:56:20,640 --> 00:56:25,150
a brand-new set of tools,
techniques, and technologies
938
00:56:25,150 --> 00:56:27,713
to once again transform the world.
939
00:56:34,910 --> 00:56:38,400
Electricity has changed our world:
940
00:56:38,400 --> 00:56:40,080
Only a few hundred years ago,
941
00:56:40,080 --> 00:56:43,423
it was seen as a mysterious
and magical wonder.
942
00:56:45,150 --> 00:56:47,770
Then, it leapt out of the laboratory
943
00:56:47,770 --> 00:56:51,870
with a series of strange
and wondrous experiments,
944
00:56:51,870 --> 00:56:55,083
eventually being captured and put to use.
945
00:56:56,560 --> 00:57:00,260
It revolutionized communication,
first through cables,
946
00:57:00,260 --> 00:57:04,453
and then as waves through
electricity's far-reaching fields.
947
00:57:06,100 --> 00:57:09,610
It powers and lights the modern world.
948
00:57:09,610 --> 00:57:13,320
Today, we can hardly imagine
life without electricity,
949
00:57:13,320 --> 00:57:15,480
it defines our era,
950
00:57:15,480 --> 00:57:17,943
and we would be utterly lost without it.
951
00:57:20,900 --> 00:57:23,690
And yet, it still offers us more.
952
00:57:23,690 --> 00:57:25,420
We stand, once again,
953
00:57:25,420 --> 00:57:28,900
at the beginning of a
new age of discovery,
954
00:57:28,900 --> 00:57:30,283
a new revolution.
955
00:57:37,160 --> 00:57:39,640
But above all else, there's one thing
956
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:43,960
that all those who deal in the
science of electricity know:
957
00:57:43,960 --> 00:57:46,248
Its story is not over yet.
76897
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