Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Would you do me a favor?
I'd like to stop talking for a minute, and when I do...
take a look at the room you're in and above all at the man made objects in that room that surround you-
the television set, the lights, the phone and so on
and ask yourself what those objects do to your life
just because they're there.
Go ahead.
Well, that is what this series is going to be all about.
It's about the things that surround you in the modern world
and just because they're there
shape the way you think and behave,
and why they exist in the form they do.
and who, or what, was responsible for them existing at all.
The search for those clues will take us all over the world
and 12,000 years into the past.
because it's in those strange places
and in those long gone centuries
that the secret of the modern world lies.
And you'd never believe the extraordinary things that led to us being the way we are today.
Things like, for instance,
Why a 16th century doctor
at the court of Queen Elizabeth
did something that made it possible for you to watch this screen now.
Or, the fact that because 18th century merchants
were worried about ships' bottoms, you have nylon to wear.
Or why a group of French monks and their involvement with sheep rearing,
helped to give the modern world the computer.
Or what medieval Europeans did with their fire in winter
that led to motorcar manufacture.
The story of the events and the people who over centuries came together to bring us in from the cold
and to wrap us in a warm blanket of technology
is a matter of vital importance.
Since more and more of that technology infiltrates every aspect of our lives.
It's become a life support system without which we can't survive.
And yet, how much of it do we understand?
Do I bother myself with the reality of what happens when I get into a big steel box,
press a button, and rise into the sky?
Of course I don't!
I take going up in the world like that for granted.
We all do.
And as the years of the 20th century have gone by
the things we take for granted have multiplied way beyond the ability of any individual to understand in a lifetime.
The things around us
the man made inventions we provide ourselves with
are like a vast network, each part of which is interdependent with all the others.
I mean - cross the road.
Whether or not a car coming around the corner knocks you down
may have something to do with a person you've never met fitting the brakes correctly.
Change anything in that network and the effects spread like ripples on a pond.
And all the things in that network have become so specialized
that only the people involved in making them understand them
I don't mean use them - anybody can use them.
Down there
is one of the biggest, most complex cities in the world
full of people using things as if they understood them.
and sometimes not even knowing they're doing it.
New York City
like all the other major high density population centers scattered across the earth
is a technology island.
It can neither feed, nor clothe, nor house, nor warm its inhabitants without supplies from outside.
Without those supplies, the entire massive structure
and the teeming millions it encloses would die.
And yet, in cities everywhere we act as if that were not so.
We have no choice.
The pace of life in New York is set by the pace of the technology that serves it.
You just have to hope it will stay that way.
I'd like you to meet a few people who were in or near New York City
on a November evening over a decade ago.
And the reason I'd like you to meet them is because they all have one thing in common.
They were all brought to a sudden and catastrophic realization of how vulnerable they were...
...how dependent on one aspect of that technological network I was talking about.
Because of what this did to their lives.
Now, until I was told what this is,
I was no more able to recognize what it is than you are now.
But watch what it did to those people.
And if you look very carefully,
you'll see evidence of what this does
in every second of what follows...NOW.
It's one minute past 5:00 in the evening.
Rush hour in downtown Manhattan.
Eight hundred thousand people crowd onto subways
looking forward to home - to the end of this journey.
For most of them, the technology carrying them doesn't exist.
They take it for granted.
Two minutes past 5:00.
Kennedy Airport.
The usual evening departure rate.
Passengers with appointments in New Dehli, London, Tokyo.
Appointments they expect to keep.
And 200 planes due to arrive in the next 5 hours.
No delays expected.
Three minutes past 5:00.
At the energy control center, downtown, nothing special is happening.
It's the standard rush hour condition in the main control room.
The time of day when power consumption starts to come up to a maximum
as people head for home, and meals get cooked.
It's cool outside.
After a high of 58° the temperature's falling to an expected low of 39°
with a predicted wind chill factor of 5 degrees.
The energy levels are more than enough to cope, even on a chilly November evening.
Ten past 5:00, Mt. Sinai Hospital
The patient, Mrs. Marconna, is expecting twins.
[Speaker: Thank you Mr. Chairman...]
[may I first say to my distinguished colleague, the ambassador from the U.S.S.R...]
12 minutes past 5:00 the UN General Assembly in session
The speaker is President Roosevelt's son.
In their boxes, the interpreters-
The invisible support structure of the debate whatever the language.
At the U.N., that's taken for granted.
In the subway, Herbert Friedman, a lawyer, reads his paper on his way home to suburban Jamaica.
Al Haydock works for a publisher on 5th Ave He passes the time doing a crossword.
Marjorie O'Shaughnessy also works for a publisher looking forward to spending a quiet evening at home.
Steve Boetty - late - been to a movie.
Bruce Singer, works in Greenwich Village.
Bill Palmer is a student - just been playing basketball.
And Hans Kramer, insurance broker.
All these people take the subway every evening.
They expect to get home. They always do.
- 5:15, Kennedy Airport.
At one of the international terminals on the board Scandinavian Airlines 911.
Scandinavian 911 is on its way into Kennedy.
The pilot is veteran captain Carl Lustig.
[Co-Pilot communicates with ground control]
A clear, moonlit night. The flight manifest lists 89 passengers.
The descent into Kennedy is, so far, uneventful.
It's now 15 minutes and 30 seconds past 5:00.
[Flight Attendant: Please fasten your seatbelts]
[Co-Pilot: Runway lights at- uh - two o'clock]
[Pilot: Ok, I see them]
[Doctor: With the next contraction dear, you'll take a deep breath and push real hard, ok?]
[I think one is about to start, take a deep breath, and push real hard. ok.]