Spark
Jim Al-Khalili tells how the first 'natural philosophers' began to unlock electricity's mysteries, studying its curious link to life and building instruments to create it.
Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the electrifying story of our quest to master nature's most mysterious force - electricity. Until fairly recently, electricity was seen as a magical power, but it is now the lifeblood of the modern world and underpins every aspect of our technological advancements.
Without electricity, we would be lost. This series tells of dazzling leaps of imagination and extraordinary experiments - a story of maverick geniuses who used electricity to light our cities, to communicate across the seas and through the air, to create modern industry and to give us the digital revolution.
Episode one tells the story of the very first 'natural philosophers' who started to unlock the mysteries of electricity. They studied its curious link to life, built strange and powerful instruments to create it and even tamed lightning itself. It was these men who truly laid the foundations of the modern world. Electricity was without doubt a fantastical wonder. This is the story about what happened when the first real concerted effort was made to understand electricity - how we learned to create and store it, before finally creating something that enabled us to make it at will - the battery.
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Clip
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Stephen Gray’s ‘Hanging Boy’ Experiment
Duration: 03:19
Music Played
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Gregorio Allegri
Miserere Mei
Credits
Role | Contributor |
---|---|
Presenter | Jim Al-Khalili |
Producer | Tim Usborne |
Director | Tim Usborne |
Series Producer | Steve Crabtree |
Executive Producer | Tina Fletcher-Hill |
Broadcasts
- Thu 6 Oct 2011 21:00
- Thu 6 Oct 2011 22:00´óÏó´«Ã½ HD
- Fri 7 Oct 2011 00:30
- Fri 7 Oct 2011 03:00
- Sat 8 Oct 2011 23:30´óÏó´«Ã½ HD
- Mon 10 Oct 2011 23:00
- Sat 7 Jan 2012 20:00
- Sun 8 Jan 2012 01:35
- Sun 29 Apr 2012 20:00
- Mon 30 Apr 2012 00:45
- Thu 8 Nov 2012 20:00
- Fri 9 Nov 2012 00:20
- Sat 10 Nov 2012 20:00
- Sun 11 Nov 2012 01:10
- Tue 17 Nov 2015 22:00
- Thu 19 Nov 2015 02:00
- Tue 25 Apr 2017 21:00
- Wed 26 Apr 2017 03:00
- Thu 16 Aug 2018 20:00
- Fri 17 Aug 2018 03:00
- Tue 2 Jun 2020 15:00Red Button One
- Wed 3 Jun 2020 20:00
- Thu 4 Jun 2020 02:25
- Thu 4 Jun 2020 18:00Red Button One
- Fri 5 Jun 2020 15:00Red Button One
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