Bang Goes The Theory Special

Episode
Explosions: How We Shook The World
Broadcast Info
2010 (59 mins)
Description
200 years before the birth of Christ, in the moutain wildernesses of Western China, travellers put lengths of bamboo on their campfires to make loud ‘cracks’ to ward off shape-shifting creatures of the night. Without knowing it they set mankind on a journey that would lead to ever greater destruction in battle, the industrial revolution and sources of power beyond their comprehension.

Now engineer Jem Stansfield, of Bang Goes the Theory, travels the same path, looking at how our growing understanding of explosive power has led to more and more control over it, harnessing it for our own uses.

The first part of his travels takes him through makind’s first steps in chemistry - from the alchemy of ancient China to the tin mines of Cornwall - as the chemists of the day gradually refined their techniques, brining the oxidant and the fuel ever closer together to increase the effectiveness of combustion.

The second part starts in the laboratories of Cranfield University. Here Jem will take us through the discovery that revolutionised modern explosives - the creation of high explosives. Here the oxidant and the fuel are combined into one single molecule, making supersonic shockwaves that would lead to the development of Dynamite, bazookas and, incredibly, the Nobel Peace Prize.

The final part of or journey into the science of explosions takes us right to the heart of the atom itself - with Jem detecting the energy released from splitting uranium atom in his copy of Otto Frisch’s original ionisation chamber. As with all explosive phenomena - the energy released in the splitting atom was a source of previously undreamed of power, to be used however mankind decided.
Genre
Science; Chemistry; Physics

How to cite this record

The Open University, "Bang Goes The Theory Special". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/81717 (Accessed 10 Jan 2025)