A new artificial species might challenge our superiority. Mechanical beings have the potential to change everything. And how we got them is a story of astonishing twists and amazing turns. Jim Al-Khalili, Revolutions: The Ideas that Changed the World VI: Robots
A new breed of robot is taking shape in laboratories all over the world. A kind of robot that can do more than just make things or perform repetitive tasks. These are the robots that will interact with us. Become our friends. Or perhaps our enemies. Robots will usher in a new era of humanity’s relationship with technology. ibid.
The runner’s name was Alan Turing, at the time a fellow of Cambridge University. The problem he was wondering about concerned the limits of mathematics itself. He imagined a machine that carried a program in its memory, a device that could solve any problem that could be described mathematically. The idea became known as a Universal Turing Machine, or universal computer. ibid.
Peter Rice was the equal best structural engineer of the twentieth century. Peter Rice: An Engineer Imagines, expert, BBC 2019
‘When you’re working on a plane that weighs three hundred tons there’s going to be problems as you go through.’ British Airways 24/7: Access All Areas s1e3, engineer, Channel 5 2019
Can the airline’s crack team of engineers fix a hangar full of faulty aircraft in just one night? ibid.
As well as their long-haul fleet, the airline runs a short-haul operation: 140 smaller aircraft that fly on routes of five hours or less. ibid.
Aircraft are complex machines, and any technical issues can cause havoc with the schedule. ibid.
… And that means jacking up a sixty-five ton plane. ibid.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel: the man who built Great Britain. He designed the world’s fastest railway, its longest suspension bridge and its biggest ship. Over 150 years on from his death ample evidence of his genius remains. But behind his elaborate creations lay an equally complex and private man, plagued by his own personal blue devils. Brunel: Building a Great Britain, Channel 5 2020
The Great Eastern is an example of both Brunel’s ambition and his commitment to innovation. Almost 700 feet long, weighing 18,000 tons, she was six times longer than any other ship previously conceived. ibid.
It’s also an example of his lifelong overconfidence and his determination to exert complete control. The giant ship exposed the conflicts simmering within its creator. ibid.
Mark [father] Brunel spends five years in America designing everything from a theatre to a cannon factory. ibid.
The battle between Grand Ambition and the fear of failure, between supreme self-confidence and gnawing self-doubt raged unabated in Brunel throughout his late teens and early twenties. ibid.
The Clifton Suspension Bridge showcased Brunel the engineering radical. ibid.
A project [GWR] that would change the nation for ever … For an ambitious young engineer like Brunel, this new technology [rail] was rich in possibilities. ibid.
‘The time is not far off when we shall be able to take our coffee and write while going noiselessly and smoothly at 45-miles-per-hour – let me try.’ ibid. Brunel
The SS Great Britain is a technical triumph but never realises her potential commercially. In September 1846 a catastrophic navigational error sees the ship run aground. ibid.
Parking in Baltimore becomes a slow-motion catastrophe. A narrow escape for the most famous building error in the book. A Manhattan skyscraper with a deadly design flaw. And a state of the art bridge with a balance problem. With big builds even the smallest mistake can be a huge disaster. From miscalculations to misunderstandings. These are the massive engineering mistakes that only an expert can hope to fix. When engineering goes wrong, news crews usually arrive after the dust has settled. But when the calamity is caught on camera, we get a unique window into what went wrong. Massive Engineering Mistakes s1e1, Quest 2020
Baltimore landslide: ‘And I can remember just seeing the vehicles goes down, and they’re sinking, and sinking, and in a moment we watched that whole side of the street explode, and it hit like a mortar round, like boom!’ ibid.
Italy: the best known blooper of all time. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the most famous buildings in the world. But just 30 years ago engineers came close to destroying it … The foundation is far from solid: the seven-metre tower sits on supports that are only 3 metres deep and surrounded by soggy ground. ibid.
New York: a skyscraper that was very nearly blown away. This tower hid a deadly flaw that could have devastated midtown Manhattan. Until a sharp-eyed engineering student saw the storm brewing … The new skyscraper straddled the church. Placing stilts under the sides not the corners meant they had to rewrite the construction rule-book. ibid.
London, England: a bridge that made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Bridges have been across the Thames for centuries. But twenty years ago a new iconic bridge left pedestrians with a very queasy feeling … The Millennium Bridge: a unique pedestrian-only crossing spanning the Thames. ibid.
1,300 B.C.: Ancient Egyptian civilisation is in its golden age. Its ruler is Ramses II, a man who intends to be the greatest of all pharaohs. He will make his mark by building vast statues, towering obelisks, temples carved from living rock. Ramses is a giant. He dominates his kingdom for 67 years. Lost Worlds s1e3: Ramses’ Egyptian Empire, History 2006
The hypostyle Hall of Karnak was just the start of the most ambitious series of engineering projects that Egypt had ever seen. ibid.
More than 2,000 years ago Greek writers began to compile lists of mankind’s most remarkable creations. These became known as the Seven Wonders of the World. In Egypt, there was the Great Pyramid of Giza; and Alexandria’s lighthouse the Pharos; on mainland Greece there was the ivory statue of Zeus at Olympia; and in defiance of nature the Hanging Gardens in the mighty city of Babylon; the shrine of Artemis at Ephesus in Turkey [Halicarnassus], once the most visited temple in the world; the tomb of King Nautilus, the museum was decorated with hundreds of life-size figures; and towering above the island state of Rhodes was the Colossus, the largest bronze statue ever made. All but one are gone. Lost Worlds s2e1: The Seven Wonders, History 2007
In ancient Egypt a revolution is brewing. The most ambitious building project ever conceived sets off a chain of events that will transform the nation. Buried in the sands of Egypt is the tale of a powerful pharaoh who would become a god and revolutionise his country. This is the legend of the world’s first pyramid. Legends of the Pharaohs s1e1: Egypt’s First Pyramid, History 2021
Egypt’s pyramid-building age: 500 years during which some of the world’s most remarkable monuments were constructed, including the Great Pyramid of Giza. ibid.
When the underground burial chamber was complete, Imhotep turned his attention to the stone monument above … Imhotep would use stone masonry on an industrial scale. ibid.
After toiling for 19 years, Imhotep’s masterpiece was finished. He had succeeded in his mission, creating a magnificent and original tomb from stone … A pyramid that towered over 60 metres high, with sides over 100 metres long, set to contain 850,000 tons of limestone blocks. This engineering marvel still inspires awe today. ibid.
The story of Egypt’s pyramids is one of innovation and mysterious rituals. Backbreaking work and palace intrigue. Legends of the Pharaohs s2e2: Curse of the Pyramids
In the scorching heat of the Egyptian desert a stone mountain rises 100 metres from the sand. This is the Red Pyramid of Dahshur. Over 1.7 million cubic metres of stone. It’s the first flat-sided true pyramid in Egypt: the work of a powerful pharaoh called Snefru … Snefru built not one but three record-breaking pyramids. ibid.
All over the country Snefru recruited civil servants to enforce palace orders. Snefru would need to recruit manpower from the lower ranks, paving the way for a new social class to emerge. ibid.
On a remote stretch of the Somerset coast an army of 5,000 engineers and workers is embarking on the largest construction project in Europe. Their challenge: to build the UK’s first new nuclear power station for three decades: Hinkley Point C. The new power station costing more than £22 billion will have two of the most advanced nuclear reactors in the world. And generate enough electricity to power an average of six million homes. Building a nuclear power station is the pinnacle of modern engineering. Building Britain’s Biggest Nuclear Power Station I, BBC 2021
At its heart will set two uranium-fuelled nuclear reactors; they will generate 3.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to provide 7% of the UK’s power … Hinkley Point C should generate electricity for sixty years. ibid.
It’s just before Christmas 2019 and the team is more than three years into Hinkley Point C’s ten-year build. The first stage – to lay the station’s mammoth concrete foundations – is complete. Now the team is gearing up to work on the next phase – constructing the station’s storm-proof flood defence system, and the buildings that will house the critical core of the plant. Building Britain’s Biggest Nuclear Power Station II
Since this deal was signed, the cost of these fixed-price agreements for other low-carbon sources of electricity such as wind and solar have fallen sharply, with some recent contracts fixed at around half the cost of Hinkley’s. ibid.