Everyday Miracles - The Genius of Sofas, Stockings and Scanners

Episode
Away
Broadcast Info
2014 (58 mins)
Description
New materials have produced the everyday materials that have transformed our lives at home, but they’ve also had a huge impact on our ability to get around and explore our planet and even our universe. We think of the bicycle as a basic form of transport so simple that it’s been around forever. But as Mark reveals, the bicycle was a great idea waiting for the right materials to come along. The bicycle was a dead loss until 1888 when reliable steel production and the ability to make seamless steel tubing collided with pneumatic tyres. For the first time, bicycles were light and comfortable and easy to use by everyone. Hot on the heels of the bike came the car but travelling at speed was extremely uncomfortable. Thank goodness then for glass to shield you from the wind. But unfortunately glass’s tendency to shatter into dagger like shards was far from ideal. In the lab, Mark shows us Prince Rupert’s Drops exploding droplets of glass which hold the key to safety glass, and happier motoring. Glass lenses and pyrex backed reflector mirrors have given us an accurate appreciation of scale, from discovering microbes in the water, to measuring the size of the universe. Mark meets a teenage para-athlete to discover how carbon fibre composites have transformed the lot of amputees like him not just on the track, but across the board in prosthetics. 3D printing is something Mark’s very familiar with and something often used by his students. But what he discovers when he meets Kevin Shakesheff at Nottingham University is that this technology is being developed to print human body parts maybe eventually whole organs. Finally Mark visits the river Forth outside Edinburgh, to see how our understanding of materials has impacted on civil engineering projects like bridge building. At the site of the new Forth crossing, Mark discovers how the new bridges construction has moved on from that of the previous two.
Genre
Culture; Technology

How to cite this record

The Open University, "Everyday Miracles - The Genius of Sofas, Stockings and Scanners". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/85948 (Accessed 11 Jan 2025)