Connections

Would you do me favor?

I'd like to stop talking, 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,

shaped 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 possible for you

To watch this screen, now.

Or the fact, that, because 18th century merchants

Were worried about ship's 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 serve 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 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 that 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.

800.000 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, Kennedy airport;

The usual evening departure rate.

Passengers with appointments in New Delhi, 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.

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 fact starts of 5 degrees.

The energy levels are more than enough to cope,

even on a chilly November evening.

Ten past 5:00, Mount Sinai hospital.

The patient, Mrs. Marconna, is expecting twins.

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 taked 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 Avenue.

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 iin 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 Lustet.

Kennedy airport control, scandinavian 911

Weather information, Jenkins

5,000 feet, approaching riverhead.

Scandinavian 911, ROGER

1221 radio back to the final runway, four right

A clear moonlight night,

the flight manifests lists 89 passengers.

The descent into Kennedy is so far, uneventful.

It's now 15 minutes and 30 seconds past 5.

Announcement on public system

Please fasten your seatbelts.

The runaway lights appeared, two apart. Okay, nice feeling.

With the next contraction there,

You'll take a deep breath and push real hard, okay?.

The big one's about to start.

Take a deep breath and

Push, Okay?

At Mount Sinai hospital,

Ms. Markana is in labor.

Okay Peter, I think you can put her to sleep. : The anesthetic being used at the time

Is a mixture of gases,

Including one called cyclopropane.

It's potentially explosive,

but everybody know that.

Okay, she's fairly sleep now. Okay, with the next contraction

we'll have a little bit of pressure.

All right, look; she's starting contraction now.

Just a little bit more.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay guys, we've now got a baby.

It's now exactly 16 minutes and 10 seconds past 5

one second later, several hundred miles

north west of the New York City THIS did what it was built to do.

with disastrous consequences.

You may have already guessed what kind of

technological network this is part of;

It's a bit of a Power Station.

The Power Station known as Adam Beck 2,

here at Niagara,

where electricity is generated

by the tremendous power of falling water.

The water turns turbine blades that make a shaft spin.

At the top of the shaft are magnets,

and they spin inside a cylinder up there,

that has copper wire coils on its inner wall.

The interaction between the spinning magnets

and the copper coils, makes electricity,

that's where THIS comes in.

It's a relay, and its job is to detect changes

in power going on to a transmission line; These up here.

Power flows north along these lines,

and on the particular evening in question,

this relay detected an increase in power on one of those lines,

that was above a pre-set limit

when that happened, magnets set around this metal cup

caused it to rotate, and that brought this on

to make a contact like this.

That contact was made

on the evening of november 9th, 1965,

at 16 minutes and 11 seconds past 5.

The effect was to cascade power off the overloaded line