The crystal acts like a sort of amplifier. Shockley and his team called it a transistor. James Burke: Connections s2e11: New Harmony
Spinoza got everybody all stirred up with stuff about how mathematics is the only truth and how everybody should have absolute freedom to speak and think how they choose. ibid.
Owen turned his factory in New Lanark, Scotland, into a kind of workers’ paradise ... New Harmony remember: Owen’s dream, still described to tourists today, was to set up a utopian socialist commune away from the factories and the exploitation. So when the tiny American settlement of New Harmony came up for sale he jumped at it. ibid.
This story looks at the way a whole series of wars kicked off because back in the Middle Ages people would commit murder to get their hands on anything that would blow your head off. I’m talking about spices of course. Explosive stuff. James Burke: Connections s2e12: Hot Pickle
Tea: by the late 1800s we Brits were importing oh eighteen million pounds of it a year, mostly from China. ibid.
This scientific approach of Paley to religion and creation and such went over very big. He took Nature apart like you would a watch, looking for God’s purpose in the design. ibid.
How once upon a time against all the odds something happened that could be the reason you’re alive today, thanks to the way chance works. James Burke, Connections s2e13: The Big Spin
Penicillin: all thanks to Alexander Fleming’s untidiness. ibid.
In 1870 he studies Greek, goes nuts about the Trojan war and decides that Homer is telling the literal truth. Because he – Heinrich Schliemann – is going to find the fabled city of Troy. A project about which he becomes quite deranged. Well since he knows as much about archaeology as I do he kind of destroys the site, fails to find Troy, and accidentally turns up a fortune in gold and jewels. This make him internationally infamous, because he kind of steals it. Well what would you call secret shipments back home. ibid.
All this business of classifying people started with anthropology around 1780 with a German called Blumenbach. ibid.
History is full of people with bright ideas. James Burke, Connections s2e14: Bright Ideas
The sun comes up one hour earlier for every fifteen degrees you go east, or later if you go the same distance west. ibid.
Throughout history people keep stirring things up, making waves. James Burke, Connections s2e15: Making Waves
Thanks to mud-packs and seaweed baths and hydrotherapy and collagen and the rest of the twenty billions spent on cosmetics every year nobody has to look themselves any more. ibid.
The Yankee Clipper: In 1851 the fastest [tea] ship in the world. ibid.
It was an American fungus, and in 1845 it arrived in Ireland and destroyed the potato crop, leaving the Irish nothing to eat. Not almost nothing – nothing. There were too many corpses that winter to bury. ibid.
History is all about finding your ‘routes’. James Burke, Connections s2e16: Routes
Leaving things alone to do their thing became known as laissez-faire – free trade we call it. ibid.
That printer [Aldus Manutius] said printed scribble did that because in 1501 in Venice he came up with the printed equivalent of scribble: we call it italic. James Burke, Connections s2e17: One Word
When Tyler stopped travelling, he went back to England and kind of invented cultural anthropology. James Burke, Connections s2e18: Making Waves
Compared with the razzle dazzle of the modern world the past was really pretty colourless. And in spite of what you might think, the food in that picnic was monotonous, limited and bland. James Burke, Connections s2e19: Better Than the Real Thing
Carotene – which is what gives plants their red, orange, yellow colours ... Carotene is part of the way your eye works. ibid.
When they [vitamins] were discovered we didn’t know what chemicals they were so they just got letters. ibid.
I suppose one of the secrets of success in war has always been preparedness. Anticipating the threat and knowing how to react to it. And where. And when. And then doing what you had to do with surgical precision. James Burke, Connections s2e20: Flexible Response
The longbow was called the longbow because it was six foot long, and it was a medieval terror weapon. ibid.
It still took Americans fifty years to give up using their English shillings. ibid.
The telegraph solved the single track problem at a stroke. Now trains knew they didn’t have to wait around. So they ran more trains. So the price of freight went down. So the American economy went up. The telegraph got the railroad people so well organised everybody in business started copying their methods. ibid.
The whole connections concept is a product of the technology. Because back before the technology you couldn’t have seen life that way, the way everything is connection, because back then it wasn’t. James Burke, Connections s3e1: Feedback, BBC 1997
Feedback: the magic idea thought up by MIT and Bell Labs for tracking the missile, and then using fancy math to predict from the radar data where the missile is likely to be a few seconds from now. ibid.
There’s a whole string of reactions ... going on in your body – feedback reactions – that keep all your body levels the way they are supposed to be, like if you need water ... Homeostasis. ibid.
Morey becomes an international weather Biggie, which is why he gets to organise the first international weather conference in Brussels in 1853 where he talks everybody into standard formats for weather charts. The other thing Morey is hot for is a weather reporting network. ibid.
Morse is a political loony: he believes that the pope is infiltrating Catholics into Missouri in preparation for an armed uprising. That there is a foul foreign conspiracy against these United States, and that very soon there will be an American world empire! ibid.
America is having a war with Libya and needs a local base. ibid.
But where Graham really scores is with his electico-magnetico-celestial bed where if you can’t have children, a few high-voltage sessions with the good doctor, and from then on all your troubles will be little ones. ibid.
In 1883 [William] Morris and Karl Marx’s sister and others get together and a year later Morris founds the Socialist League. ibid.
The world’s hardest material after diamond – carborundum, chemical name silicon carbide. James Burke, Connections s3e2: What’s in a Name?
Smithson who gave America two billion in today’s money because he reckoned the country needed to spread the light of knowledge. James Burke, Connections s3e3: Drop the Apple
The amazing secret of crystals like this: if you slice a bit out and then squeeze it – put pressure on it – the crystal changes shape slightly, and when it does that it gives off an electric charge. ibid.
The thing about mixing oxygen and acetylene is the flame: it burns at about four thousand degrees centigrade, one thousand degrees hotter than any other gas will give you. ibid.
The most successful opera ever written and called Aida. ibid.
The Suez Canal: the high-tech amazement of the age. A hundred miles long ... Twenty-five thousand labourers, ten years to build. ibid.
There are no absolutes ... Buddhism is all about that. You know – no absolutes, no centre to the universe, nothing but er nothingness. ibid.
If light does have weight, as Einstein said, then it ought to be affected by gravity. And if that were true, black holes should be possible. Black holes: dead stars so big their gravity pulls in light. James Burke, Connections s3e4: An Invisible Object
American Express starts life as a delivery business started by ... Wells & Fargo ... They invent the cash on delivery idea. ibid.
The pony express only lasts for sixteen months but it becomes a legend. ibid.
Buffalo Bill: in 1883 Bill hits the big-time all around the world with his all-star wild-west show. ibid.
By 1440 Tomas Torquemada is top Spanish torturer – when he is on a winning streak he can burn 13,000 in one year. ibid.
Meet the Knights of Malta and their new home the island of Malta. By 1565 these guys have made so much trouble for the Turks, they decide enough is enough and send in a humungous military force to wipe them out. And fail. ibid.