Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity
Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity is a British television series outlining aspects of the history of electricity. The series was a co-production between the Open University and the BBC and aired from 6 to 20 October 2011 on BBC Four. The programs were presented by Jim Al-Khalili.
Episodes
Spark: How pioneers unlocked electricity's mysteries and built strange instruments to create it.The Age of Invention: How harnessing the link between magnetism and electricity transformed the world.Revelations and Revolutions: After centuries of experimentation, how we finally came to understand electromagnetism.Spark
In the first episode Al-Khalili introduces the history of our understanding of electricity and the harnessing of its power. He covers the achievements of these "natural philosophers" – Francis Hauksbee, Stephen Gray, Musschenbroek, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Cavendish, Galvani, Volta and Humphry Davy.The programme starts with Hauksbee's invention of a glass globe static-electricity generator and its subsequent demonstration to the high-minded. It covers Franklin and the resulting experiments to capture and tame lightning. The narrative continues with Cavendish's investigations of the electric shock received from the torpedo fish. Al-Khalili expands on the development of the electric battery following Volta's discovery that simultaneously licking a copper coin and a silver spoon would generate a tingle of electricity. The programme finishes with the first breakthrough in finding a commercial use for electricity: Humphry Davy demonstrating the first carbon-arc light before members of the Royal Institution.
The Age of Invention
In the second episode Al-Khalili covers the scientists who discovered the links between electricity and magnetism leading to a way to generate electric power- Hans Christian Oersted, Michael Faraday, William Sturgeon and Joseph Henry.The development of commercial applications started with Samuel Morse and Al-Khalili then tells the story of the 1866 transatlantic cable. He revisits the war of the currents rivalry between direct current and alternating current.