Victorian Tech: Wonders or Warnings? | Mechanical Monsters | Full Documentary

00:58:06
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUGEdA2DQIA

Summary

TLDRDe video bespreekt de fascinerende geschiedenis van technologie en engineering in het Victoriaanse tijdperk waar machines gezien werden als zowel engelen als monsters. Er wordt gereflecteerd op iconische ontwikkelingen zoals de Difference Engine van Charles Babbage, de constructie van grootse telescopen voor astronomische vooruitgang, en de ontdekking en reconstructie van dinosaurussen die traditionele religieuze opvattingen uitdaagden. Daarnaast wordt verkend hoe de tweede wet van de thermodynamica, die de beperkingen van energie benadrukt, de Victorianen dwong na te denken over verval en het eindige karakter van vooruitgang. Met de tijdmachine van H.G. Wells als literair anker verkennen de makers de impact van evolutionaire en kosmologische theorieën van die tijd op het geloof in menselijke transcendentie en technologische vernieuwing.

Takeaways

  • 🤖 Machines definiëren en bedreigen menselijke waarden.
  • 🕰 Het Victoriaanse tijdperk bracht enorme technologische vooruitgang.
  • 📚 Charles Babbage's bijdragen legden de grondslag voor moderne computers.
  • 🌌 Victorians onderzochten kosmologie en evolutie samen met religie.
  • 🦖 De ontdekking van dinosaurussen daagde traditionele opvattingen uit.
  • 🔧 Innovatie ging gepaard met angst voor mechanische ongelukjes.
  • 🌀 De tweede wet van de thermodynamica voorspelde universele wanorde.
  • 👽 Monsters symboliseerden de vervaging tussen mens en machine.
  • 🎥 H.G. Wells verkende de mogelijke toekomsten middels fictie.
  • 💡 Technologie bood zowel oplossingen als nieuwe uitdagingen.

Timeline

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    De video begint met een reflectie op de onmisbare rol van technologie in ons leven, maar ook de dreiging die machines kunnen vormen. Worden ze engelen of monsters voor de mensheid? Om dit te begrijpen, keren we terug naar de Victoriaanse tijd waarin machines een nieuw filosofisch en wetenschappelijk licht werpen op ons bestaan, ons geloof en de toekomst.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    In het Victoriaanse tijdperk ontwikkelde Charles Babbage een machine die de menselijke capaciteiten kon nabootsen: de verschil- en analytische motoren. Deze machines stelden filosofische vragen over wat het betekent mens te zijn en weerspiegelden de angsten van Babbage's tijd waarin mensen en machines steeds meer op elkaar leken.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:00

    Babbage droomde ervan zijn rekenmachines te bouwen die op geloofwaardige wijze de kracht van de menselijke rede konden evenaren. Deze machines werden gezien als een bedreiging voor de unieke status van de mens en droegen bij aan de groeiende angst dat machines de mensheid zouden kunnen vervangen.

  • 00:15:00 - 00:20:00

    Terwijl Babbage's machines hun problemen opriepen, werd het Victoriaanse wetenschappelijke denken ook uitgedaagd door fossielen die een lang en dramatisch verleden onthulden, wat een protestantse kijk op schepping bedreigde. Men begon vragen te stellen bij het verhaal van de schepping zoals dat in de Bijbel vermeld staat.

  • 00:20:00 - 00:25:00

    In 1854 werden dinosaurussen voor het eerst tentoongesteld in Crystal Palace, wat het denken over geschiedenis en schepping verder compliceerde. Fossielen toonden uitgestorven soorten die niet op de ark van Noach pasten, een idee dat evolutie en natuurlijke selectie zoals voorgesteld door Darwin steeds aannemelijker maakten.

  • 00:25:00 - 00:30:00

    De strijd tussen schepping en evolutie culmineerde in een technologisch hoogtepunt met de bouw van de grootste telescoop ter wereld in Ierland, de Leviathan. Deze werd gebruikt om het idee van evolutionaire kosmologie te testen, door vermeende gaswolken in de ruimte te observeren.

  • 00:30:00 - 00:35:00

    Lord Ross en Thomas Romney Robinson gebruikten de Leviathan om het evolutionaire kosmologieconcept aan testen, omdat ze bang waren voor de ketterij die erbij kwam kijken. De waarnemingen bevestigden aanvankelijk Robbinson's hoop dat de nevels simpelweg sterren waren.

  • 00:35:00 - 00:40:00

    Uiteindelijk leek de nevelhypothese te worden verworpen door de Leviathan-telescoop, hoewel nieuwe bewijzen van een bescheiden observatorium in Zuid-Londen aantoonden dat nevels hoofdzakelijk uit gas bestonden, wat evolutie ondersteunde, niet ontkrachtte.

  • 00:40:00 - 00:45:00

    De verwoestende 'Grote Stank' in Londen leidde tot de bouw van een systeem voor afvalwaterbeheer. De behoefte aan efficiëntie in stoommachines droeg bij aan inzichten in de tweede wet van de thermodynamica, die wanorde en verspilling benadrukt.

  • 00:45:00 - 00:50:00

    Volgens sommige wetenschappers dreigde de wereld gedoemd te zijn tot entropie, een staat van onvermijdelijke wanorde en achteruitgang. Ondanks de technologische vooruitgang was er dus een onderliggende angst voor de onvermijdelijke achteruitgang en controle van machines.

  • 00:50:00 - 00:58:06

    Wells' roman 'The Time Machine' doorzocht de dreigende toekomst en achteruitgang, geïnspireerd door technologieën zoals de fiets. Het idee van de machine, hoewel nooit gebouwd, illustreerde de Victoriaanse spanningen van vooruitgang tegenover achteruitgang.

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Mind Map

Mind Map

Faqs

  • Waarom wordt het Victoriaanse tijdperk als focus genomen?

    Het Victoriaanse tijdperk was een tijd van grote technologische vooruitgang die belangrijke filosofische vragen over de menselijkheid en religie opriep.

  • Wat symboliseren de machines in het Victoriaanse tijdperk?

    Ze symboliseren zowel de vooruitgang als de bedreigingen door technologie, die vragen oproepen over het wezen van de mensheid en de plaats van de mens in het universum.

  • Wie was Charles Babbage?

    Charles Babbage was een wiskundige en uitvinder bekend om zijn ontwerpen voor de eerste mechanische computers, de Difference Engine en de Analytical Engine.

  • Wat is de tweede wet van de thermodynamica?

    Deze wet, ook wel de entropiewet genoemd, stelt dat alle systemen de neiging hebben om naar wanorde en energieverlies toe te gaan.

  • Hoe beïnvloedde de stoommachine de industriële revolutie?

    Stoommachines maakten de bouw van gigantische machines mogelijk en waren essentieel voor de industriële productie en transport.

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  • 00:00:00
    [Music]
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    our lives would be
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    inconceivable without
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    technology yet machines are also a
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    threat will they replace us will their
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    effects destroy our
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    world but the present we live in was
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    someone else's future
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    these passions and concerns about
  • 00:00:33
    technology have a fascinating history we
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    need to go back to a world the Victorian
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    world when
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    machines seemed like
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    angels and more often like
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    Monsters I want to show you some of the
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    greatest engineering wonders of the 19th
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    century they were St startling inspiring
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    Feats of technology which posed deep
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    philosophical
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    questions they were cuttingedge
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    scientific advances which challenged
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    faith in God and undermined our place in
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    the
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    universe they ask us what does it mean
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    to be
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    human how was the universe created what
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    does the future hold for all of
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    [Music]
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    us a couple of hundred years ago
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    building giant machines needed a
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    technological breakthrough which is why
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    I've come to C Brookdale in shopshire
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    it's a quiet rural scene now but at the
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    beginning of the 19th century a painter
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    called Philip delberg came here and this
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    is what he
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    painted lather BG's Vision made
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    coldbrook Dale look like hell the 15m
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    valley of smoke Brimstone hanging in the
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    air he was gazing at furnaces iron
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    foundaries fueled with Coke and
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    [Music]
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    Ironstone this painting has become
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    iconic it proclaimed the arrival of the
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    mechanical monsters of the 19th
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    [Music]
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    century C Brook s's great furnaces
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    forged the Industrial
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    Revolution for laberg and other visitors
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    to C Brookdale what they were seeing was
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    a dramatic combination of a volcanic
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    explosion and the power that engineering
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    and Machinery could exert over the
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    forces of
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    nature the furnaces were using a new
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    process harnessing the power of high
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    energy Coke they made it possible to
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    construct vast
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    machines this great steam Hammer For
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    example could simultaneously crush a
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    railway sleeper it could pound iron into
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    fragments but it could also be
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    controlled so precisely that it could
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    crack the shell of an egg without
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    crushing
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    [Music]
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    it these new machines could be
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    terrifying they had the capacity to rip
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    off workers arms and legs and they
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    dwarfed life on a human
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    scale in Fantastical cartoons of the
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    period new fangled machines have
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    transformed daily life they can help you
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    travel fast
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    you can even
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    fly a steampowered
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    engine can give you a
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    shave but it can also go horribly
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    wrong in This Strange New World the
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    distinction between human and machine
  • 00:04:55
    seems to blur
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    increasingly humans were seen as
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    machines they were treated as though
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    they were engines they were cogs in a
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    vast technological system and at exactly
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    the same time machines seemed
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    increasingly capable of everything
  • 00:05:21
    humans could do so there were critical
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    questions right at the heart of
  • 00:05:26
    Victorian culture are humans know more
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    more than machines and a machines going
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    to replace Humanity
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    itself this was the question of the
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    heart of my first mechanical monster
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    what does it mean to be
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    human it was the creation of Charles
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    babit mathematician inventor
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    entrepreneur he thought that machines
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    held unlimited potential and it was a
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    deeply practical necessity of the time
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    which set him
  • 00:06:17
    [Music]
  • 00:06:18
    thinking babbage's world was dominated
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    by an avalanche of printed numbers
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    mathematical tables logarithms
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    trigonometric function functions on
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    Whose accuracy the Commerce and trade
  • 00:06:34
    and navigation of Britain completely
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    depended this is the nordal almanac
  • 00:06:41
    published each year by the board of
  • 00:06:44
    longitude whose mathematical tables
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    instructed Mariners on their
  • 00:06:50
    position each digit in these tables was
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    calculated by human computers any error
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    in their calculations was
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    fatal examining these tables and to his
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    horror finding scores of Errors Babbage
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    expostulated I wish to God these
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    calculations had been executed by
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    [Music]
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    steam babage had a Keen Eye for a
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    commercial
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    opportunity he lobbied the British
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    government and obtained thousands of
  • 00:07:28
    pounds in funding to try to make his
  • 00:07:31
    ideas a
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    [Music]
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    reality babbage's lifetime ambition was
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    to build a series of extraordinary
  • 00:07:41
    calculating
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    machines his plans were Exquisite
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    detailed
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    masterpieces of Victorian Science and
  • 00:07:51
    Technology first A Difference Engine
  • 00:07:55
    with 8,000 parts that would allegedly
  • 00:07:59
    make error-free tables and then an even
  • 00:08:03
    more ambitious analytical engine a
  • 00:08:06
    general purpose
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    computer babbage's great calculating
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    engines were based on the layout of what
  • 00:08:15
    he understood as the factory and to
  • 00:08:18
    modernize the reason these machines are
  • 00:08:21
    remembered is because they look like the
  • 00:08:24
    ancestor of everyday computers now but
  • 00:08:29
    that's not why I'm interested in them
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    they matter to me because they raised
  • 00:08:35
    fundamental philosophical questions in
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    the great theological crisis of
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    babbage's own time babage never managed
  • 00:08:45
    to build a full-size engine but parts of
  • 00:08:48
    it were built and one of them is held in
  • 00:08:51
    Cambridge in a place very close to my
  • 00:08:54
    heart so we're here in the Whipple
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    Museum which is where I work in fact my
  • 00:08:59
    office is just
  • 00:09:01
    upstairs and this is a very special
  • 00:09:03
    moment for me because this is a fragment
  • 00:09:07
    of babbage's Difference Engine it's
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    normally shown behind glass this is the
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    first
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    time that I've ever been allowed to
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    touch it and that's a real
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    treat every tooth on every wheel
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    represents a number as it's cranked by
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    hand they mesh each interaction
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    represents a new
  • 00:09:32
    calculation bigger machines had the
  • 00:09:35
    potential for greater
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    power although babage never Managed IT
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    the science museum in London has built a
  • 00:09:47
    fullsize Difference Engine based on
  • 00:09:50
    babbage's original drawings it works
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    perfectly carrying out calculations to
  • 00:09:57
    an accuracy of 30 decimal
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    [Music]
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    places but babage dreamt of an even
  • 00:10:18
    bigger machine it would have been
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    capable of memory of calculation of
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    prediction and it was this which would
  • 00:10:28
    raise profound and troubling
  • 00:10:30
    philosophical questions in the decades
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    ahead for victorians it was the powers
  • 00:10:37
    of human reason put into humans by God
  • 00:10:43
    that showed the superior status of
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    humankind and what babbage's machine
  • 00:10:50
    threatened was that these were no longer
  • 00:10:54
    the prerogative of humans alone rather
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    any well-programmed
  • 00:11:00
    machine could with unerring accuracy
  • 00:11:05
    emulate and perhaps even surpass what
  • 00:11:08
    humans could
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    do could science create a soulless
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    automatan capable of thought which could
  • 00:11:17
    perhaps one day even replace human
  • 00:11:21
    beings this was the Spector raised by
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    babbage's extraordinary technological
  • 00:11:28
    dreams for victorians science was
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    challenging their very sense of who they
  • 00:11:33
    were and where they came from my next
  • 00:11:37
    mechanical monsters were built by men
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    grappling with one of the greatest
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    questions of
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    all
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    [Music]
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    creation most victorians believed that
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    God designed the world and everything it
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    contains in just a few days yet real
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    life monsters were r rising up to
  • 00:12:00
    challenge that
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    [Music]
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    idea here in cambridge's Sedwick Museum
  • 00:12:09
    there's a collection of more than 1 and
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    a half million fossils and rocks
  • 00:12:15
    covering the 4 billion years of the
  • 00:12:19
    history of our planet the 19th century
  • 00:12:22
    was the first AG to dig up name
  • 00:12:25
    reconstruct and puzzle over dinosaurs
  • 00:12:30
    dinosaur reconstructions were some of
  • 00:12:33
    the most remarkable triumphs of
  • 00:12:36
    Victorian
  • 00:12:37
    engineering often victorians had to work
  • 00:12:40
    with really very few fossil remains and
  • 00:12:44
    what they achieved with an amazing
  • 00:12:46
    combination of historical imagination
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    and Technical expertise easily rivaled
  • 00:12:52
    the other great mechanical marvels of
  • 00:12:55
    the 19th century
  • 00:12:59
    these fossilized bones proved that the
  • 00:13:03
    Earth had a history and a strange one
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    since they were the relics of beasts no
  • 00:13:10
    longer
  • 00:13:12
    alive somehow these animals had become
  • 00:13:16
    extinct in dramatic
  • 00:13:19
    ways this was a history that fascinated
  • 00:13:23
    the victorians but it also posed
  • 00:13:26
    genuinely serious genuinely dangerous
  • 00:13:40
    threats it was this potent mixture the
  • 00:13:44
    fascination and the threat which Drew
  • 00:13:47
    thousands of people to a park in
  • 00:13:49
    Suburban South
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    [Music]
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    London opened in
  • 00:14:00
    1854 in the grounds of the Crystal
  • 00:14:03
    Palace exhibition it offered unsettling
  • 00:14:06
    visions of the past a mechanical
  • 00:14:09
    managerie of monsters rising up from the
  • 00:14:18
    [Music]
  • 00:14:23
    waters this is a
  • 00:14:25
    Megalosaurus gigantic Beast that
  • 00:14:27
    originally r roed Southern England in
  • 00:14:30
    the middle Jurassic Period this model
  • 00:14:34
    was built here at the Crystal Palace by
  • 00:14:37
    Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins one of
  • 00:14:39
    Victorian England's leading
  • 00:14:42
    sculptors the idea was to show the
  • 00:14:46
    monstrosity and the nobility the design
  • 00:14:50
    and the horror of these ancient beasts
  • 00:14:54
    [Music]
  • 00:15:05
    creating these monsters was an enormous
  • 00:15:09
    engineering
  • 00:15:11
    challenge their construction used
  • 00:15:13
    hundreds of tiles bricks cement broken
  • 00:15:18
    Stones iron hooping and Central iron
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    columns
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    [Music]
  • 00:15:34
    just as Hawkins dinosaur models were
  • 00:15:37
    being
  • 00:15:38
    completed they staged a dinner inside
  • 00:15:43
    the mold of this
  • 00:15:46
    Iguanodon about two dozen people huddled
  • 00:15:50
    together drinks were taken songs were
  • 00:15:53
    sung the Jolly Old Beast is not deceased
  • 00:15:57
    there's life in him again they
  • 00:16:01
    chortled according to Hawkins they made
  • 00:16:04
    so much noise at the dinner that it was
  • 00:16:06
    like a herd of iguanodons released into
  • 00:16:10
    the Crystal Palace grounds the impact of
  • 00:16:13
    these dinosaurs on the mid Victorian
  • 00:16:16
    psyche was immense it was like time
  • 00:16:20
    travel monsters like these had once
  • 00:16:24
    roamed the Earth many imagined that the
  • 00:16:28
    dinosaurs must somehow have lived
  • 00:16:30
    between the time of the creation and the
  • 00:16:33
    time of the flood According to some
  • 00:16:36
    visitors these great beasts have been
  • 00:16:39
    simply too big to fit on Noah's Ark and
  • 00:16:44
    so they been washed away with the
  • 00:16:47
    flood The Men Who Built This Park were
  • 00:16:50
    convinced that dinosaurs were an example
  • 00:16:53
    of God's creative power and purpose yet
  • 00:16:56
    soon these ideas would be rudely
  • 00:17:00
    challenged within 5 years Charles Darwin
  • 00:17:05
    would publish his incendiary work on the
  • 00:17:08
    Origin of Species the story was no
  • 00:17:11
    longer that dinosaurs like these had
  • 00:17:15
    become extinct because somehow they've
  • 00:17:17
    been too large to fit on Noah's Ark
  • 00:17:21
    they' been extinguished because of the
  • 00:17:24
    darwinian struggle of all against all
  • 00:17:27
    for scarce resources the fight was on
  • 00:17:30
    between creation and design and
  • 00:17:34
    evolution and natural
  • 00:17:38
    law scientific theories like Evolution
  • 00:17:42
    were attempts to explain the Miracles of
  • 00:17:46
    creation just as dinosaurs Rose from the
  • 00:17:50
    ground so astronomers seemed to be
  • 00:17:53
    finding strange beasts in space too my
  • 00:17:58
    next mechanic iCal monster became a
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    weapon in a battle to explain their
  • 00:18:03
    Mysteries and answer the question how
  • 00:18:06
    were the stars and planets
  • 00:18:09
    [Music]
  • 00:18:13
    created this is the Orion Nebula as it
  • 00:18:16
    was sketched by Victorian astronomers
  • 00:18:20
    looking at this celestial object through
  • 00:18:22
    their very best
  • 00:18:24
    telescopes and what they drew filled
  • 00:18:28
    them with horror for them this was a
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    monster with a curling lip a hideous eye
  • 00:18:37
    the atmosphere around it full of Terror
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    hatred tyranny
  • 00:18:43
    Revenge the nebuli were the chief
  • 00:18:47
    building block of a dangerous new Theory
  • 00:18:51
    We Now call evolutionary cosmology the
  • 00:18:54
    nebuli so it was argued were nothing but
  • 00:18:58
    clouds of luminous gas and under the
  • 00:19:02
    action of natural law without any divine
  • 00:19:05
    intervention
  • 00:19:06
    whatsoever these nebuli were spinning
  • 00:19:10
    and condensing they formed stars and
  • 00:19:14
    Suns our sun and our Earth for many this
  • 00:19:19
    stank of heresy and the idea of this
  • 00:19:23
    nebul Evolution had to be strangled at
  • 00:19:27
    Birth a machine would have to be built a
  • 00:19:31
    monster to conquer a
  • 00:19:37
    monster this is Burr Castle in County
  • 00:19:41
    offy Central Ireland The ancestral home
  • 00:19:46
    of the Earls of
  • 00:19:48
    [Music]
  • 00:19:51
    Ross in its grounds what looks like a
  • 00:19:54
    smaller Castle
  • 00:20:00
    but in fact it's a 56t high mechanical
  • 00:20:05
    monster built to try to resolve the
  • 00:20:09
    mysteries of the
  • 00:20:17
    nebuli this is the great telescope that
  • 00:20:20
    was built here between 1842 and
  • 00:20:25
    1845 it was the largest such instrument
  • 00:20:28
    in the world World a status it would
  • 00:20:30
    maintain right through the rest of the
  • 00:20:33
    19th century and well into the 20th and
  • 00:20:37
    it was with this machine that some of
  • 00:20:39
    the fundamental problems of evolution of
  • 00:20:43
    science and belief of religion and of
  • 00:20:47
    creation would be
  • 00:20:49
    resolved it soon came to be known as the
  • 00:20:52
    Leviathan and it was built by the third
  • 00:20:55
    Earl of Ross and paid for with cash from
  • 00:20:58
    his wife Mary Ross lady Alysia is their
  • 00:21:02
    great great great granddaughter she
  • 00:21:06
    spent years cataloging the Castle's
  • 00:21:08
    archives including some remarkable
  • 00:21:11
    photographs taken by Mary she was a
  • 00:21:14
    Pioneer photographer and but for those
  • 00:21:17
    photographs we wouldn't have a record of
  • 00:21:20
    what exactly it looked like because we
  • 00:21:21
    have no working drawings and of course
  • 00:21:24
    all the metal work was melted down in
  • 00:21:26
    the first world war the telescope
  • 00:21:29
    was very complicated mechanically it's
  • 00:21:31
    got underground tunnels in order to get
  • 00:21:33
    all the pulley and the
  • 00:21:35
    counterweights and those photographs
  • 00:21:38
    incredibly useful when you're trying to
  • 00:21:39
    restore and rebuild and they also
  • 00:21:41
    include very often this is one of the
  • 00:21:44
    reasons I love them there's the family
  • 00:21:46
    there's always the family in it Mary
  • 00:21:48
    Ross on top of supporting her husband in
  • 00:21:52
    his great project she also had quite a
  • 00:21:55
    lot of children um sadly only four
  • 00:21:57
    survived and her kids were all brought
  • 00:21:59
    up in the workshops um from an early age
  • 00:22:02
    they were tuted in the Workshops the
  • 00:22:04
    fact that they're involved in the
  • 00:22:06
    telescope I think is wonderful it gives
  • 00:22:09
    an impression which I think is really
  • 00:22:11
    interesting about this heroic
  • 00:22:12
    engineering
  • 00:22:14
    achievement that it's a domestic
  • 00:22:16
    achievement absolutely it was and they
  • 00:22:18
    were very much in the heart of
  • 00:22:22
    it running the telescope was Heavy
  • 00:22:25
    engineering because of the Irish weather
  • 00:22:28
    the mirror tarnished really badly so it
  • 00:22:31
    needed to be repolished in the workshop
  • 00:22:34
    up at the castle and then after
  • 00:22:36
    polishing a team of six would have to
  • 00:22:39
    bring it on a cart all the way from the
  • 00:22:41
    castle it weighed four tons and the men
  • 00:22:45
    would then handle it really carefully
  • 00:22:49
    down to the working end of the
  • 00:22:54
    telescope so it was from this platform
  • 00:22:57
    that the astronom would make their
  • 00:22:59
    observations with the giant telescope in
  • 00:23:02
    order to approach the tube it was
  • 00:23:05
    necessary to turn a winch and move the
  • 00:23:08
    platform so that you are in
  • 00:23:14
    position we're in the middle of the bog
  • 00:23:17
    valon in central Ireland much of the sky
  • 00:23:22
    would be clouded with Pete smoke that
  • 00:23:24
    was the local fuel it rains an enormous
  • 00:23:27
    amount and not only that but the great
  • 00:23:29
    telescope can barely move East or West
  • 00:23:33
    it relies on the motion of the earth to
  • 00:23:36
    bring any particular celestial object
  • 00:23:39
    into its field of view and if that
  • 00:23:41
    happens to be a night when it's cloudy
  • 00:23:44
    or raining then you've lost it maybe for
  • 00:23:46
    months maybe for years so we can see
  • 00:23:50
    that getting reliable observations out
  • 00:23:53
    of the telescope was a matter of real
  • 00:23:57
    difficulty and concern considerable
  • 00:24:00
    controversy Lord Ross had built the
  • 00:24:03
    telescope largely to demonstrate the
  • 00:24:05
    power of Victorian technology but there
  • 00:24:08
    was another equally important figure in
  • 00:24:11
    the story in the life of the telescope
  • 00:24:14
    that was Thomas Romney Robinson priest
  • 00:24:17
    Master astronomer very close friend of
  • 00:24:21
    Lord Ross and frequent visitor to the
  • 00:24:24
    telescope for
  • 00:24:26
    Robinson nothing less than the fate of
  • 00:24:29
    Christianity was at stake Robinson
  • 00:24:33
    loathed Evolution he loathed the nebula
  • 00:24:37
    hypothesis he thought the idea that
  • 00:24:40
    there was luminous fluid somewhere in
  • 00:24:43
    space from which all planets All Stars
  • 00:24:46
    all life had somehow emerged was a
  • 00:24:50
    dangerous filthy heresy and what he set
  • 00:24:54
    out to do was to use the telescope as a
  • 00:24:57
    weapon in the fight for the survival of
  • 00:25:01
    religion
  • 00:25:03
    [Music]
  • 00:25:18
    itself so in February of
  • 00:25:21
    1845 Thomas Romney Robinson joined his
  • 00:25:24
    friend Lord Ross here at the telescope
  • 00:25:28
    over the next few months they pointed
  • 00:25:31
    the telescope at nebula after nebula and
  • 00:25:34
    Robinson started making announcements he
  • 00:25:38
    claimed nebuli were not evolving they
  • 00:25:41
    were just made up of stars as he'd
  • 00:25:44
    always
  • 00:25:47
    hoped but there was one crucial
  • 00:25:51
    exception the Orion Nebula itself it
  • 00:25:55
    held out it resisted the attention
  • 00:25:58
    of the Irish
  • 00:26:00
    astronomers the weather was
  • 00:26:03
    terrible their view was obscured by
  • 00:26:06
    clouds the nebula was in the wrong
  • 00:26:09
    position even to be observed by the
  • 00:26:13
    monster machine it took more than a year
  • 00:26:16
    but finally Robinson announced a Triumph
  • 00:26:21
    the Orion Nebula he said was
  • 00:26:25
    resolvable it seemed as if the the nebul
  • 00:26:29
    hypothesis all the evidence on which it
  • 00:26:31
    had been based the main claim for Cosmic
  • 00:26:35
    Evolution had been destroyed in one blow
  • 00:26:40
    and True
  • 00:26:41
    Religion and the science of creation
  • 00:26:47
    saved it seemed that the nebula
  • 00:26:50
    hypothesis had been laid to rest perhaps
  • 00:26:53
    even discredited by the Leviathan
  • 00:26:56
    telescope but then then a tiny David
  • 00:27:00
    came along to slay a
  • 00:27:05
    Goliath it happened not in a nobleman's
  • 00:27:09
    castle but in the much more humble
  • 00:27:11
    surroundings of tuls Hill South
  • 00:27:15
    London here a keen astronomer and former
  • 00:27:18
    Draper called William Huggins designed
  • 00:27:21
    his own
  • 00:27:23
    instruments and pioneered a new form of
  • 00:27:26
    astronomy AST
  • 00:27:28
    spectroscopy the analysis of light
  • 00:27:34
    itself Dr Jen gupter is an
  • 00:27:37
    astrophysicist at Portsmouth University
  • 00:27:40
    she's an admirer of William Huggins and
  • 00:27:42
    even more of his wife Margaret who
  • 00:27:45
    worked with him for most of his career I
  • 00:27:48
    think for me the fact that they were so
  • 00:27:50
    devoted to astronomy is what fascinates
  • 00:27:53
    me about the huggins I mean there were
  • 00:27:54
    stories of Margaret actually got a
  • 00:27:55
    spectroscope for her wedding present
  • 00:27:57
    from her friend they named their dogs
  • 00:27:59
    after um famous astronomers from the
  • 00:28:01
    past and that Devotion to the science
  • 00:28:04
    and the fact that they pretty much
  • 00:28:05
    invented this field of astrophysics of
  • 00:28:08
    taking those observations from the sky
  • 00:28:10
    and of marrying that with the physics
  • 00:28:11
    that we're doing here on Earth really
  • 00:28:13
    opened up this entire window for future
  • 00:28:16
    astronomers when you pass light through
  • 00:28:19
    a prism it breaks down into its Spectrum
  • 00:28:22
    its different
  • 00:28:24
    wavelengths so William Huggins developed
  • 00:28:27
    instruments you could attack attach to
  • 00:28:28
    the end of a telescope and capture the
  • 00:28:30
    Spectra of distant objects this is a
  • 00:28:34
    spectroscope designed by William Huggins
  • 00:28:38
    himself what Huggins did here was let
  • 00:28:42
    the light enter through this slit pass
  • 00:28:45
    down the tube to a prism there to split
  • 00:28:49
    up the light from the celestial object
  • 00:28:52
    into its Spectrum now what chemists knew
  • 00:28:56
    in the middle of the 18 1800s is that
  • 00:28:59
    there's a fundamental difference between
  • 00:29:03
    the spectrum of a gas and the spectrum
  • 00:29:06
    of a star so this small but Exquisite
  • 00:29:13
    instrument would answer one of the great
  • 00:29:16
    questions of 19th century
  • 00:29:19
    science that's the theory at least but
  • 00:29:22
    it's a hugely complicated challenge in
  • 00:29:25
    practice even using modern technology
  • 00:29:29
    this is clanfield observatory in
  • 00:29:33
    Hampshire what we're doing now is
  • 00:29:35
    essentially the modern day version of
  • 00:29:37
    what the huggins would would do so they
  • 00:29:39
    would have the spectroscope on the back
  • 00:29:40
    of their um on their telescope but
  • 00:29:43
    instead of having a digital camera they
  • 00:29:44
    would have just had photographic
  • 00:29:48
    plates so the light is going to come
  • 00:29:50
    down this tube here into a prism and a
  • 00:29:52
    defraction grating and then the Spectrum
  • 00:29:54
    will actually be taken um with this
  • 00:29:56
    camera at the back here
  • 00:30:10
    the first Target is the star
  • 00:30:14
    [Music]
  • 00:30:22
    Arcturus so what you immediately see is
  • 00:30:24
    the continuous rainbow going along and
  • 00:30:26
    this is pretty much exactly what will
  • 00:30:28
    Huggins would have seen when he pointed
  • 00:30:29
    his telescope with a spectroscope at a
  • 00:30:32
    star the next step is to find a
  • 00:30:36
    nebula but in typically difficult
  • 00:30:38
    British conditions there's a huge amount
  • 00:30:41
    of atmospheric
  • 00:30:45
    disturbance we pointed the telescope at
  • 00:30:48
    the Ring Nebula for a few minutes to
  • 00:30:50
    gather light from this faint object but
  • 00:30:53
    um this is the best we could get we've
  • 00:30:54
    got a very faint Blue Line blue emission
  • 00:30:57
    line coming through um but it's not
  • 00:30:59
    great because the viewing conditions
  • 00:31:01
    today weren't optimal and I think this
  • 00:31:03
    this shows how hard it is still today um
  • 00:31:06
    to do this kind of science to um use a
  • 00:31:08
    telescope even even of this size um it's
  • 00:31:11
    still pretty tricky to get a spectrum
  • 00:31:13
    fortunately they have this the spectrum
  • 00:31:16
    of the Orion Nebula which they
  • 00:31:18
    photographed in better conditions and
  • 00:31:20
    it's clearly very different from a
  • 00:31:25
    star the huggins spent decad decades
  • 00:31:28
    studying nebuli like this and
  • 00:31:30
    established that many nebuli were
  • 00:31:32
    composed of gas not Stars we now know
  • 00:31:36
    that their star nurseries gas and dust
  • 00:31:39
    condensing and evolving to form stars
  • 00:31:42
    and
  • 00:31:43
    planets like dinosaurs nebuli had been
  • 00:31:47
    turned into signs of
  • 00:31:51
    evolution and this beautiful but rather
  • 00:31:55
    humble
  • 00:31:56
    instrument man Ed by a retired Draper
  • 00:32:00
    living in South London had somehow
  • 00:32:03
    proved that the lessons of the great
  • 00:32:06
    telescope at Burr were
  • 00:32:09
    misleading and
  • 00:32:10
    [Music]
  • 00:32:17
    [Applause]
  • 00:32:18
    false Lord Ross's telescope did go on to
  • 00:32:21
    make many stunning discoveries such as
  • 00:32:24
    the spiral nature of some galaxies but
  • 00:32:28
    the true nature of nebuli had somehow
  • 00:32:31
    eluded
  • 00:32:33
    it so what had gone wrong here at the
  • 00:32:36
    great telescope the astronomers in
  • 00:32:39
    Ireland were working right at the limit
  • 00:32:42
    of observation in really difficult
  • 00:32:45
    conditions and as one of them admitted
  • 00:32:49
    in the wake of hugin's observations the
  • 00:32:53
    eye may be influenced by the mind you
  • 00:32:58
    see what you desperately want to see and
  • 00:33:02
    mechanical monsters like the great
  • 00:33:05
    telescope however
  • 00:33:07
    magnificent can also be really
  • 00:33:10
    treacherous when humans take
  • 00:33:16
    control my next mechanical monster was
  • 00:33:19
    built to tackle the Fearsome destructive
  • 00:33:22
    side effects of progress but this
  • 00:33:25
    machine will give us profound insights
  • 00:33:29
    into one of the biggest questions of all
  • 00:33:32
    the fate of the
  • 00:33:37
    universe by the middle of the 19th
  • 00:33:40
    century the population of London had
  • 00:33:42
    risen to well over 2 million people and
  • 00:33:46
    with no proper seage system all their
  • 00:33:49
    waste drained straight into the river
  • 00:33:52
    temps the river became known as Monster
  • 00:33:56
    Soup
  • 00:34:00
    [Music]
  • 00:34:02
    hello so I'm here with my friend
  • 00:34:04
    Elizabeth pizani who is Authority on
  • 00:34:08
    epidemiology and is fascinated by uh the
  • 00:34:14
    deeds and sufferings of mid 19th century
  • 00:34:17
    London disease so if we'd been here on
  • 00:34:20
    the banks of the TS looking out at the
  • 00:34:23
    palace of Westminster in the 1850s what
  • 00:34:26
    would it have been like what would be
  • 00:34:28
    first of all we'd have been doing this
  • 00:34:31
    um because it was a Cess pool
  • 00:34:35
    essentially and people were dying and
  • 00:34:37
    people were dying so there were massive
  • 00:34:40
    chera outbreaks every few years the
  • 00:34:43
    first case of chera in this country um
  • 00:34:45
    arrived in 1831 20,000 deaths within a
  • 00:34:48
    few months um and then there were
  • 00:34:51
    periodic outbreaks uh every few years
  • 00:34:54
    but at the time it was very firmly
  • 00:34:56
    believed that colera was caused by the
  • 00:35:00
    stink not by the water don't forget that
  • 00:35:04
    at the time these beautiful embankments
  • 00:35:06
    along the TS weren't there so it was
  • 00:35:08
    much shallower it was much flatter it
  • 00:35:12
    was much muddier and the the effluence
  • 00:35:16
    to put it politely was sort of trailing
  • 00:35:19
    down the sides right up to the houses of
  • 00:35:22
    Parliament there and actually over the
  • 00:35:25
    years it got stinkier in stinkier and uh
  • 00:35:29
    1858 was a particularly hot year so that
  • 00:35:31
    was the great stink the great stink of
  • 00:35:33
    June 1858 tell me about the great stink
  • 00:35:38
    I don't know how to describe it better
  • 00:35:39
    than the people of London described it
  • 00:35:41
    at the time the great stink um so there
  • 00:35:44
    was this absolutely appalling smell
  • 00:35:46
    rising from the river so appalling that
  • 00:35:50
    Parliament actually had to shut which
  • 00:35:53
    something that hadn't happened before
  • 00:35:55
    and suddenly they were
  • 00:35:58
    okay this is coming a bit too close to
  • 00:36:01
    my people who are coming down from
  • 00:36:02
    Hamstead or who are coming from their
  • 00:36:04
    grand palaces in the West End are now
  • 00:36:07
    actually rather closer to this stink
  • 00:36:09
    than they previously had been so it
  • 00:36:11
    would have been a pretty unpleasant
  • 00:36:12
    place to
  • 00:36:13
    be now sufficiently motivated Parliament
  • 00:36:17
    voted to fund an astonishing sewage
  • 00:36:21
    system it channeled the waste down river
  • 00:36:25
    towards the sea half a million gallons
  • 00:36:29
    of effluent were sent eastwards every
  • 00:36:34
    day these vast volumes of sewage were
  • 00:36:38
    brought down here to irith about 15
  • 00:36:41
    miles down river from London the idea
  • 00:36:46
    was that the sewage would be pumped up
  • 00:36:48
    into huge holding tanks and then
  • 00:36:50
    released at high tide into the temps and
  • 00:36:54
    disappear down to the Sea
  • 00:36:57
    the great engines that did the pumping
  • 00:37:00
    were housed here in one of the most
  • 00:37:03
    remarkable buildings of mid 19th century
  • 00:37:10
    [Music]
  • 00:37:22
    Britain cross Ness pumping station is an
  • 00:37:26
    outrageous ground AB bag of
  • 00:37:28
    architectural Styles it has arches and
  • 00:37:32
    pillars reminiscent of a medieval
  • 00:37:36
    Cathedral it boasts ornamental cast iron
  • 00:37:40
    work its elaborate designs befitting a
  • 00:37:44
    Byzantine
  • 00:37:46
    [Music]
  • 00:37:49
    [Applause]
  • 00:37:52
    Palace and all of it just to house these
  • 00:37:57
    giant steam driven
  • 00:38:04
    pumps there were originally four engines
  • 00:38:07
    running in this building one has been
  • 00:38:10
    restored to give an idea of their scale
  • 00:38:13
    and
  • 00:38:13
    [Music]
  • 00:38:20
    power the steam engines were the heart
  • 00:38:23
    and soul of the system and magnificently
  • 00:38:27
    each of them was named after a member of
  • 00:38:30
    the royal family the Queen the prince
  • 00:38:34
    consort her son Albert Edward his wife
  • 00:38:39
    Alexandre this monster is the prince
  • 00:38:43
    consult the largest surviving rotative
  • 00:38:48
    beam engine in the world
  • 00:38:51
    [Music]
  • 00:39:09
    victorians thought that cleanliness was
  • 00:39:12
    Next to Godliness and so it was
  • 00:39:15
    inevitable that a seage pumping station
  • 00:39:19
    would turn into a cathedral this
  • 00:39:22
    Cathedral with its amazing designs drawn
  • 00:39:26
    from medieval architecture from Venice
  • 00:39:29
    from
  • 00:39:30
    Byzantium the idea was that these vast
  • 00:39:35
    engines had surpassed all the
  • 00:39:38
    achievements of past
  • 00:39:42
    civilizations mechanical monsters became
  • 00:39:45
    the signs of a new modernity
  • 00:39:50
    [Music]
  • 00:40:06
    the Cathedral of sewage became something
  • 00:40:09
    of a party venue for the victorians
  • 00:40:12
    dinners were held here in which bread
  • 00:40:16
    rolls were thrown and slightly too much
  • 00:40:19
    alcohol
  • 00:40:21
    consumed but every party ends with a
  • 00:40:26
    hangover just beneath the
  • 00:40:29
    surface of this Engine House was a vast
  • 00:40:33
    sea of London's
  • 00:40:36
    sewage above all something haunted
  • 00:40:41
    Victorian technology a threat they
  • 00:40:44
    feared more than anything
  • 00:40:47
    else
  • 00:40:52
    waste it all started with an engineering
  • 00:40:56
    puzzle
  • 00:41:00
    [Music]
  • 00:41:01
    scientists at the time were trying to
  • 00:41:03
    work out how to make Steam Engines more
  • 00:41:07
    [Music]
  • 00:41:15
    efficient all steam engines including
  • 00:41:19
    this amazing really early experimental
  • 00:41:22
    locomotive rely on one simple principle
  • 00:41:27
    heat travels from a higher temperature
  • 00:41:31
    in the boiler to a lower temperature and
  • 00:41:34
    as it flows it's turned into mechanical
  • 00:41:38
    work the locomotive
  • 00:41:40
    moves but even the most efficiently
  • 00:41:44
    designed machine has a limit on how much
  • 00:41:48
    work can be extracted from the heat some
  • 00:41:53
    of the heat seems just to get lost the
  • 00:41:56
    work no longer
  • 00:41:59
    available William Thompson brilliant
  • 00:42:01
    young Scottish physicist later Lord
  • 00:42:04
    Kelvin turned this into a universal
  • 00:42:07
    principle he realized that however
  • 00:42:09
    ingeniously designed any machine was
  • 00:42:13
    there was an absolute limit on the
  • 00:42:16
    amount of available work that it could
  • 00:42:18
    develop he called it the universal
  • 00:42:22
    tendency to dissipate the amount of
  • 00:42:25
    available work like any good Scotsman he
  • 00:42:29
    hated waste he loathed dissipation but
  • 00:42:33
    what victorians of the mid 19th century
  • 00:42:36
    leared was that the amount of work in
  • 00:42:39
    the world from which they could make a
  • 00:42:41
    profit was inevitably on the decline and
  • 00:42:45
    that their world was doomed to
  • 00:42:51
    Decay it's known as the principle of
  • 00:42:54
    entropy or the second law of
  • 00:42:56
    thermodynamics
  • 00:42:58
    all processes move inevitably towards
  • 00:43:01
    chaos disorder and
  • 00:43:04
    [Music]
  • 00:43:14
    waste underneath the great Victorian
  • 00:43:18
    optimistic vision of progress and a
  • 00:43:22
    bright future there was a deep and dark
  • 00:43:26
    undercurrent of
  • 00:43:28
    pessimism living on a planet now
  • 00:43:31
    revealed as unimaginably
  • 00:43:34
    old in a universe extraordinarily vast
  • 00:43:39
    with all sign of divinity gradually
  • 00:43:43
    being
  • 00:43:44
    effaced victorians confronted the
  • 00:43:47
    possibility of inevitable Decline and
  • 00:43:52
    Decay that on the one hand their
  • 00:43:55
    machinery would take them over that
  • 00:43:59
    mechanical monsters would rule the roost
  • 00:44:03
    and yet on the other hand that Machinery
  • 00:44:06
    that technology that had given them
  • 00:44:09
    command of the world would go to rack
  • 00:44:12
    and ruin deprived of
  • 00:44:16
    energy without any source of work the
  • 00:44:19
    19th century confronted its own
  • 00:44:23
    elimination
  • 00:44:27
    my final mechanical monster embodied all
  • 00:44:31
    these hopes and fears it's perhaps the
  • 00:44:33
    strangest Tale in all of 19th century
  • 00:44:37
    Science and Technology a machine which
  • 00:44:40
    never existed except in the heads of its
  • 00:44:43
    creators it was the brainchild of one of
  • 00:44:46
    my favorite writers a budding genius
  • 00:44:50
    then at the very beginning of his
  • 00:44:52
    career Herbert George Wells was a young
  • 00:44:56
    science student who' made a thorough
  • 00:44:59
    study of the problems of evolution and
  • 00:45:02
    physics he was absolutely up to speed
  • 00:45:06
    with The Cutting Edge problems of late
  • 00:45:09
    19th century science and he began to
  • 00:45:13
    think about how to reconcile the problem
  • 00:45:16
    of progress and the problem of Decay the
  • 00:45:20
    future of the world and its end and he
  • 00:45:24
    turned those problems into an
  • 00:45:27
    extraordinary scientific
  • 00:45:30
    Romance the time machine published in
  • 00:45:34
    1895 is the story of a man who invents a
  • 00:45:37
    device that transports him through time
  • 00:45:40
    it's a meditation on the future of
  • 00:45:43
    science civilization and Humanity itself
  • 00:45:47
    wells's story The Time Machine with its
  • 00:45:51
    Grim vision of a cosmic and Industrial
  • 00:45:55
    Future made his
  • 00:45:57
    reputation but what's much less welln is
  • 00:46:01
    that he became involved in an
  • 00:46:03
    extraordinary scheme to build a machine
  • 00:46:08
    that could convey the experience of
  • 00:46:11
    traveling through
  • 00:46:13
    [Music]
  • 00:46:17
    time what I want to do now is actually
  • 00:46:20
    try to
  • 00:46:21
    reconstruct how this strange machine
  • 00:46:23
    might have worked to do it I'll need
  • 00:46:26
    need the darkness of a studio and the
  • 00:46:29
    help of two technological Wizards who
  • 00:46:32
    know this extraordinary story Inside
  • 00:46:36
    Out hi hi see
  • 00:46:39
    hello I've invited you here today your
  • 00:46:44
    world experts on the details of that
  • 00:46:48
    story Steven Herbert and Jeremy Brooker
  • 00:46:51
    in 1895 in the aftermath of wells's
  • 00:46:55
    publication of his story The Time
  • 00:46:57
    Machine something absolutely remarkable
  • 00:46:59
    happens something which has always
  • 00:47:02
    really obsessed me because it's just so
  • 00:47:04
    dramatic and exciting which is there was
  • 00:47:08
    in London a scheme to build some kind of
  • 00:47:12
    device that would evoke that would
  • 00:47:16
    conjure the very experience of time
  • 00:47:19
    travel Stephen I really happy that
  • 00:47:22
    you're with us today because you know so
  • 00:47:25
    much about one of the key figures in
  • 00:47:28
    this story the man who really
  • 00:47:29
    collaborated with Wells whose name was
  • 00:47:32
    Robert Paul Robert Paul was an
  • 00:47:34
    electrical instrument maker in the
  • 00:47:36
    really new industry of electrics when he
  • 00:47:39
    read The Time Machine and he thought
  • 00:47:41
    this is perfect I can inte he read
  • 00:47:44
    wells's story as it was pretty much when
  • 00:47:46
    it was published probably yeah so he
  • 00:47:47
    contacted HD Wells and said I've got an
  • 00:47:51
    idea about your story what they were
  • 00:47:53
    interested in so I understand was
  • 00:47:56
    creating the experience of traveling
  • 00:47:59
    through time and getting an audience who
  • 00:48:02
    would pay quite a lot presumably to go
  • 00:48:06
    through that experience and the
  • 00:48:09
    technology that would allow them to do
  • 00:48:11
    that was the technology of the Magic
  • 00:48:17
    Lantern the Magic Lantern was an
  • 00:48:20
    extraordinarily popular attraction in
  • 00:48:22
    Victorian Britain lanterns were the
  • 00:48:25
    entertainment showman of of their day
  • 00:48:27
    drawing huge audiences and people had
  • 00:48:30
    them in their homes
  • 00:48:32
    [Music]
  • 00:48:35
    too Jeremy Brooker is Chairman of
  • 00:48:38
    today's Magic Lantern
  • 00:48:41
    Society it looks amazing how does it
  • 00:48:43
    work well it's a simple device
  • 00:48:46
    essentially there's a wooden box at the
  • 00:48:48
    back which has a very bright light
  • 00:48:49
    inside it there's a a slide then the
  • 00:48:52
    light passes through a tube through a
  • 00:48:55
    lens which you can focus and a distant
  • 00:48:57
    screen the images are generated by
  • 00:49:00
    complex moving slides this is a model of
  • 00:49:03
    the solar
  • 00:49:05
    system Jeremy's Lantern allows him to
  • 00:49:08
    project three slides at once you have a
  • 00:49:11
    background image like this one and then
  • 00:49:14
    you can add an effect so here we've got
  • 00:49:17
    light coming on in the cottage window
  • 00:49:20
    and then the the third Lantern is adding
  • 00:49:23
    another effect which is
  • 00:49:27
    snow
  • 00:49:31
    falling and you can imagine with with
  • 00:49:33
    music and perhaps a bit of narration
  • 00:49:35
    it's going be quite a a magical thing to
  • 00:49:40
    see these were shows that became very
  • 00:49:43
    absorbing for the audience it's an
  • 00:49:46
    extraordinary combination between
  • 00:49:49
    engineering nature entertainment and
  • 00:49:52
    Science and it's also pretty sweaty I
  • 00:49:55
    imagine cuz this must generate a huge
  • 00:49:57
    amount of heat tremendous amount of heat
  • 00:49:59
    nowadays we use LED bulbs to protect the
  • 00:50:01
    um the slides because it in those days
  • 00:50:03
    it would have been burning gas which is
  • 00:50:05
    why it's got a chimney on the top to
  • 00:50:07
    take the heat away so these were
  • 00:50:08
    dangerous these were basically Factory
  • 00:50:11
    chimneys burning incandescent gases that
  • 00:50:14
    could easily blow up and they were in
  • 00:50:16
    the middle of the audience there are
  • 00:50:19
    really appalling descriptions of
  • 00:50:21
    accidents from the gases mixing and
  • 00:50:24
    exploding in the middle of the
  • 00:50:25
    auditorium because hydrogen is
  • 00:50:27
    essentially a bomb right the results
  • 00:50:29
    pretty catastrophic right so a monster
  • 00:50:32
    as well as
  • 00:50:34
    fun Robert Paul didn't just plan to use
  • 00:50:38
    a magic lantern he was busy inventing a
  • 00:50:41
    brand new form of Technology by 1895 it
  • 00:50:45
    was known that showing consecutive
  • 00:50:47
    photos could give the impression of
  • 00:50:50
    movement but film was only available in
  • 00:50:52
    boxes for one person to look into the
  • 00:50:55
    so-called ncope the race was on to
  • 00:50:59
    project film onto a screen so a large
  • 00:51:02
    audience could see
  • 00:51:04
    it Stephen amazingly we're very grateful
  • 00:51:09
    has built for us a version of the very
  • 00:51:12
    projector that Paul must have been
  • 00:51:14
    working on yeah so talk us through how
  • 00:51:18
    this device works I've got this 1895
  • 00:51:21
    Lantern which is basically a magic
  • 00:51:22
    lantern of the period he would have had
  • 00:51:25
    uh we know an electric AR clamp so he
  • 00:51:27
    would have used electric light which was
  • 00:51:28
    actually brighter than the other options
  • 00:51:30
    at the time um I've got a German
  • 00:51:33
    mechanism which is a star cross
  • 00:51:35
    mechanism and that's very close not
  • 00:51:37
    exactly but very close to the sort of
  • 00:51:39
    mechanism that he used at the time and
  • 00:51:41
    it's of the period that four it's it
  • 00:51:44
    turns the sprocket intermittently if you
  • 00:51:46
    just roll the film through is a blur on
  • 00:51:48
    the screen and then on the other side of
  • 00:51:51
    that cross would have been this thing a
  • 00:51:54
    sprocket teeth on it which pull the film
  • 00:51:56
    down and in fact if you went to a cin
  • 00:51:58
    before they went digital it's exactly
  • 00:52:00
    the same format what I've done here is
  • 00:52:02
    try to give an idea as you say exactly
  • 00:52:04
    what he was where he got to which is he
  • 00:52:06
    hadn't got Perfection it would be a few
  • 00:52:07
    months yet but he was getting there he
  • 00:52:09
    knew he could do it should we give the
  • 00:52:11
    world and see Happ absolutely I can't
  • 00:52:13
    wait yeah well okay let's see
  • 00:52:32
    now you saw there the it was very out of
  • 00:52:35
    focus yeah so that's one of the things
  • 00:52:37
    he's got to get right but I can see him
  • 00:52:40
    in his Workshop thinking lots of work to
  • 00:52:42
    do another 3 months but we're getting to
  • 00:52:44
    it's going to happen
  • 00:52:46
    yeah what we're looking at of course is
  • 00:52:48
    the birth pangs of Cinema and Robert
  • 00:52:51
    Paul is now considered a technological
  • 00:52:55
    Pioneer but there was one final element
  • 00:52:58
    to The Time
  • 00:52:59
    Machine
  • 00:53:02
    movement in putting together a machine
  • 00:53:06
    that could give the impression of
  • 00:53:07
    traveling through time Wells was
  • 00:53:10
    thinking about the most advanc
  • 00:53:12
    technology of his age and I think one of
  • 00:53:16
    the machines that he was thinking about
  • 00:53:18
    was this the bicycle the bicycle was
  • 00:53:22
    cuttingedge technology in the 1890s it's
  • 00:53:26
    no coincidence that in the very months
  • 00:53:30
    that Wells published his story about
  • 00:53:33
    time travel he was learning how to
  • 00:53:40
    cycle I believe Wells must have been
  • 00:53:43
    inspired by this experience the world
  • 00:53:46
    rushing past you so I think this is how
  • 00:53:50
    the final idea for the time machine came
  • 00:53:53
    together it would combine magic land
  • 00:53:56
    images and the new idea of film but
  • 00:54:00
    Wells also described time travel as
  • 00:54:02
    being disturbingly
  • 00:54:05
    kinetic excessively unpleasant he said
  • 00:54:09
    headlong motion a Switchback ride the
  • 00:54:13
    sense of an imminent
  • 00:54:16
    Smash and so their idea was to put the
  • 00:54:20
    audience in a room with projected images
  • 00:54:24
    but Seated on MO moving platforms to
  • 00:54:28
    give them that horrific sense of being
  • 00:54:32
    shaken forward into the
  • 00:54:41
    future the machine was never actually
  • 00:54:44
    built so we can only speculate what an
  • 00:54:47
    audience might have
  • 00:54:51
    seen using original Magic Lantern
  • 00:54:54
    techniques Jeremy Brooker has created
  • 00:54:57
    especially for us a journey into the
  • 00:55:00
    past and
  • 00:55:11
    [Music]
  • 00:55:20
    future in the novel the time traveler is
  • 00:55:23
    carried into the future human human it
  • 00:55:27
    has evolved into two separate species
  • 00:55:30
    the Eloy descendants of Victorian
  • 00:55:33
    Aristocrats lazy ineffectual
  • 00:55:41
    AIT and the morlocks the descendants of
  • 00:55:44
    the oppressed working classes who have
  • 00:55:47
    devolved into beasts and pre on the Eloy
  • 00:55:58
    then the time machine travels even
  • 00:56:00
    further into the future to find the
  • 00:56:03
    Earth reduced to a beach with monster
  • 00:56:06
    crabs crawling everywhere and the Sun is
  • 00:56:11
    dying Well's Bleak Vision was based on
  • 00:56:15
    his understanding of late Victorian
  • 00:56:17
    science the threat of evolution and of
  • 00:56:21
    universal decay
  • 00:56:32
    Robert Paul never did build his time
  • 00:56:35
    machine but he became a central figure
  • 00:56:38
    in early British Cinema making
  • 00:56:40
    extraordinarily inventive rather joyous
  • 00:56:43
    films
  • 00:56:48
    [Music]
  • 00:57:13
    our lives today are dominated by
  • 00:57:15
    technological concerns which started two
  • 00:57:18
    centuries ago will machines replace us
  • 00:57:22
    will their effects destroy us but our
  • 00:57:26
    our response has to be very different
  • 00:57:28
    from the
  • 00:57:30
    victorians for them faced with a whole
  • 00:57:33
    series of Crisis machines while they
  • 00:57:37
    produced those problems could also in
  • 00:57:40
    principle solve
  • 00:57:42
    them we've perhaps lost that optimism
  • 00:57:47
    and that confidence we feel less secure
  • 00:57:51
    with the technologies that we have
  • 00:57:54
    inherited the crisis of our own Epoch
  • 00:57:58
    need to be confronted as we deal with
  • 00:58:02
    our own mechanical monsters
Tags
  • Victorian_Tijdperk
  • Technologie
  • Stoommachines
  • Charles_Babbage
  • Het_heelal
  • Evolutie
  • Dinosaurussen
  • Thermodynamica
  • H.G._Wells
  • Technologische_vooruitgang