The Nature of Things Season 9, Episode 13: Machine And Man: Systems Engineering

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison wasn't merely a lone inventful genius. He invented modern research team makes possible technology shaping our world.

Human Engineering

Materials

A review of history of man's oldest materials: wood, stone, iron, bronze and glass.

Structure

Defying force of gravity, man has strewn his structures across earth. This program looks at some of them.

Communications

Much of this program deals with basic communications problem of getting a signal through noise.

Canals And Tunnels

The great engineers of past - men like DE Lesseps of Suez fame and Panama infamy and Bradley - whose canals were arteries of industrial revolution, sacrificed health and fortune, and sometimes lives.

Central Power

One test of civilization is ability to organize sources of energy. Central power was something new in 1876.

Man And Machines

The Greek inventor, Alexander Hero, first defined five basic devices which make all machines possible: lever, wedge, wheel, pulley and screw.

Land And Water

This program shows how man changes his environment by shaping land he lives on, reclaiming land from sea, making new lakes and rivers.

Man Aloft

This film looks, sometimes whimsically, at examples of old and modern flying machines.

Portable Power

Man's first "portable power" device was part of his own body, energy from contraction of long molecules in presence of sugar: muscle power.

Machines And Man: Transportation

Are problems of urban transportation insurmountable? The traffic jams which are a regular feature of city life make it appear so.

Audubon

A study of life and work of Jean Jacques Audubon, great painter-naturalist who captured beauty of American wildlife on canvas.