James Burke : Connections, Episode 2, "Death In The Morning", 4 of 5 (CC)

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Episode 2 of James Burke's most well-known series "Connections" which explores the surprising and unexpected ways that our modern technological world came into existence. Each episode investigates the background of usually one particular modern invention and how it came into being. These explorations are an attempt to locate the "connections" between various historical figures who seemingly had nothing to do with each other in their own times, however once connected, these same figures combined to produce some of the most profound impacts on our modern day world; in a "1+1=3" type of way.

It is this type of investigation that is the main idea behind the Knowledge Web project; whereby sophisticated software is used to attempt to discover these subtle connections automatically. See http://k-web.org.

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and that, in turn led to the telephone

but, for our purposes,

let's take the route that leads to one of
modern society's most horrifying inventions.

and the next step on that route

from this 17th century government meeting,

forward into the future,

takes us into the area...
of the Englishman's favourite topic of conversation:

The weather.

There was obviously some connection between
Guericke's spark and lightning.

So, people got all excited
about atmospheric electricity in general.

Was there gunpowder in clouds?

Was Irish fog *more electric* than other kinds?

Interest centered on the unfortunate church bell-ringers

who, now you've mentioned it, did
tend to get electrocuted with monotonous regularity

because one of their jobs was to ring the bell...

during storms.

But lightning got taken *really seriously*
only when they realized it was doing this little trick:

Gunpowder stores *kept on* doing this!

Now this was serious!

it wasn't just costing lives (yawn)

it was costing money!

It was these explosions that brought to public attention

the ideas of the 15th son of an American soap-maker

who flew his kite in a storm to prove his points.

Franklin reckoned the key solution

was lightning rods

that would attract the negative electricity
to their positive metal.

Ship's masts were like lightning rods.

And it was a disgruntled Navy that finally got the subject
widened to include storms in general...

when this happened:

In an attempt to warn their ships of storms, the Royal Navy
started taking weather reports from them,

as well as reading readings from their barrometers.

When was first of these collections put together in 1861,

they had the world's first weather-chart
of an "Atlantic depression"

looking remarkably modern!

On land, the same thing started;
with stations reporting via the new telegraph.

Now, fortunately, all this seriousness

was tinged with some of the peculiar insanity of the period.

By the eagerness with which people now took
to an amazing new invention

described, just started came out, as:

"Infinitely the most extraordinary and magnificent
discovery, perhaps since creation!"

Now, you may feel that's a bit exaggerated.

But you can understand why people got so very
light-headed about it;

it's one of the symptoms you suffer from when you use it.

[♪ symphonic, happy-go-lucky ♪]

Going up in a balloon
makes you feel like doing all sorts of daft things!

By the middle of the 19th century, the balloon had enjoyed
the same kind of reputation the...

back-seat of the motorcar did in the 1940s:

It was rather often used for purposes for which
it had not been originally designed.

I mean Frenchmen, in particular, would cruise along
with their uh ... "girlfriends", uhh...

dropping empty champaign bottles on the
gaping peasants below,

and...

...returning to earth to announce their engagement.

Mind you, *some of it* was, all serious science;

they took up barrometers and thermometers and...

...cats and dogs and geese and ducks and sheep...

...and 200-pound ladies...

...to observe their effects on the weather.

And vice-versa.

And these intrepid pioneers enjoyed all the privilages
of going to high-altitude without oxygen:

Bleeding at the ears and eyes,

nausea, vomiting, swelling of the head and passing-out.

Mind you, in spite of that, they did learn things
they never would have if they'd stayed on the ground.

Like...

the temperature does not decrease steadily
as you rise in the sky,

and nor does the air pressure.

Some of the stayed up for days...

drifting along enjoying the view,

dropping notes by parachute that never seemed to say
much other than:

[Accent: "English Aristocrat"]
Everything going remarkably well!

including those you've never seen again!

[♪ clarinets, happy ♪]

By the late 19th century,
what with all these airborn anamometers and...

reports from shipping and
stations on the ground using the new electric telegraph,

you could pick up a copy of your "Times" in the morning

and get *almost as good* a forcast as can today!

[Clears throat]

The only disadvantage to all this high-altitude information
which, by now they regarded as vital,

was that sooner or later, when you ran out of hot air

or hydrogen

or food

or ...champaign

you had to come down!

What they needed was some way of staying at high altitude
for as long as they liked.

Which is why our story next takes us to a place
you'd imagine they would've thought of long before;

a place where you can stay at high altitude
for as long as you like:

The Highlands of Scotland.

[♪ bagpipes ♪]

On October the 17th 1883,

this ancestral home at the bottom of a mountain

was the venue for a get-together by the cream
of the enlightened "Scottish-gentility"

to mark the grand opening of a new weather station
on top of the highest highland in the Highlands;

"Ben Nevis"

and refreshments were offered to the guests,

and provisions were loaded for the journey to come

by numerous factors and Guineas, and other members
of the unpronouncible Scottish lower-orders.

[Man shouting: Ladies and gentelemen, could we have you
on the lawn for the commermerative photograph please]

It was a grand, ludicrous, over-done affair.

In the way that all philanthropic, Victorian
public-occasions were.

In any other country in the world
they'd have dropped the whole thing till the rain stopped!

But this was 19th century Scotland!

And they were bent on *serious matters*.

So they gritted their teeth,

and cheerfully did their duty
as the rain filled-up their bagpipes.

[♫ ♫ ... ]

[Accent: "Scottish"] After all, was the whole thing
not being recorded for posterity?

[Festive cheering]

The really nice thing about
what science did to the Victorians

was that it made them all lunatic in the same way.

So the town's-people of Fort William also did their duty,

as the precession passed,

by getting soaked and waving "silly" flags;

as they were supposed to.

[More cheering, though less enthusiastic]

At 9 am, the party began their trek up the mountain

led by a single piper,

busking a catchy little Celtic number called
"Lochiel's awa ['s awa' (has gone)] to France"

Why? I've never been able to find out!

And the rain, obligingly turns to sleet.

So, everybody could have what one was supposed to have
when doing one's duty:

A thoroughly rotten time!

As more and more stations like Ben Nevis were set up

and people could sit and *look at* the weather
as it shifted and changed

they noticed that it made distinct patterns.

So in good Victorian style, they "catalogued" them.

And in the 1890s, came up with an official,
international "Cloud Atlas"

which gave clouds the names by-which they're known today.

And this catalogue of clouds, is the next clue
in our detective story,

because clouds caused something strange to happen

at Ben Nevis.

You see, from the moment it opened the station observers
worked 24 hours a day,

each shift would send off regular reports of

temperature ... pressure ... rain ... and so on.

And one of the reports they had to file

would be about the clouds.

And if you were on the dawn shift,

you'd sometimes see the clouds in the valley
do something very weird

to your shadow...

This is called a "glory".

And the strange thing about it is that the colors
that appear in the halo

don't appear in the order they do in the rainbow,

but the other way 'round.

At this point events took the most extraordinary twist

for the very mundane reason that
the Ben Nevis observatory was short of cash.

And so, because of that,

they used to take-on

university students during their vacation

to act as temporary, unpaid observers,
while their own staff was on holiday.

And in September 1894,

one of those young men

was a Cambridge Physics graduate called Charles Wilson.

This is him, in much-later life.

And...

one morning on Ben Nevis, Wilson saw a glory

and it turned him on *so much* that he decided
to go back to Cambridge and make one for himself

to find out how they worked.

And that's why our detective story brings us here.

Because the way Wilson did it,

and how, in the long run,

what he did, came to affect the lives of
every man woman and child on earth

is illustrated in every museum of any size in the world.

This one's the science museum in London.

And Wilson's machine is here:

Hidden away among the thousands of other clu...