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The Nature of Things

Season 9 · 14 episodes · Sep 26, 1968

  1. Episode 1

    Thomas Edison

    Sep 26, 1968

    Thomas Edison wasn't merely a lone inventful genius. He invented modern research team makes possible technology shaping our world.

  2. Episode 2

    Human Engineering

    Oct 3, 1968

  3. Episode 3

    Materials

    Oct 10, 1968

    A review of history of man's oldest materials: wood, stone, iron, bronze and glass.

  4. Episode 4

    Structure

    Nov 7, 1968

    Defying force of gravity, man has strewn his structures across earth. This program looks at some of them.

  5. Episode 5

    Communications

    Nov 14, 1968

    Much of this program deals with basic communications problem of getting a signal through noise.

  6. Episode 6

    Canals And Tunnels

    Nov 21, 1968

    The great engineers of past - men like DE Lesseps of Suez fame and Panama infamy and Bradley - whose canals were arteries of industrial revolution, sacrificed health and fortune, and sometimes lives.

  7. Episode 7

    Central Power

    Nov 28, 1968

    One test of civilization is ability to organize sources of energy. Central power was something new in 1876.

  8. Episode 8

    Man And Machines

    Dec 5, 1968

    The Greek inventor, Alexander Hero, first defined five basic devices which make all machines possible: lever, wedge, wheel, pulley and screw.

  9. Episode 9

    Land And Water

    Dec 12, 1968

    This program shows how man changes his environment by shaping land he lives on, reclaiming land from sea, making new lakes and rivers.

  10. Episode 10

    Man Aloft

    Dec 19, 1968

    This film looks, sometimes whimsically, at examples of old and modern flying machines.

  11. Episode 11

    Portable Power

    Dec 26, 1968

    Man's first "portable power" device was part of his own body, energy from contraction of long molecules in presence of sugar: muscle power.

  12. Episode 12

    Machines And Man: Transportation

    Jan 2, 1969

    Are problems of urban transportation insurmountable? The traffic jams which are a regular feature of city life make it appear so.

  13. Episode 13

    Machine And Man: Systems Engineering

    Jan 9, 1969

    A system, according to Oxford dictionary, is a whole composed of parts in orderly arrangement, according to some scheme or plan.

  14. Episode 14

    Audubon

    Mar 18, 1969

    A study of life and work of Jean Jacques Audubon, great painter-naturalist who captured beauty of American wildlife on canvas.