James Burke : Connections, Episode 3, "Distant Voices", 5 of 5 (CC)

[mdiem]

What a freaky episode!

[niqhtt]

Someone rubs my balls they also become strangely attractive

[MrLotharofhillpeople]

Trust the Germans to think of 'experiments' involving small, suspended boys.

[spencnaz]

Excellent series. Really brings to the fore Ecclesiastes 1:9 'there is nothing new under the sun", only recombinations of existing ideas to come up with different solutions to problems.  Never get tired of watching these programs.

[aikigeorge3]

this show informed the way I think back in the day when I was learning to think....

I will always be grateful to Proffessor Burke.

[rockoqatsi]

2:33 WTF?!

[jaymoe67]

Oh, the experiments perfomed on women and young boys by cathiloc monks in the name of discovery in the middle ages could not be compressed into even a single seasons seires of shows on BBC, much less a single episode. Thanks for trying though.

[lensman1781]

1:53

[nedski2003]

thank you so much for posting these episodes on youtube. your series remain one of the most important influences of my life. probably got me started on my career in IT and (dare i still use the term?) "knowledge management." you were the pioneer, sir.

[perfectmelon]

Interesting prediction here:

" 8:41 Perhaps to bring the people of the world closer together 8:44 into one community"

Something like personal computers linked into a wORLD wIDE wEB?

Familiar? :)))

(however Arthur C. Clarke mentioned it almost 10 yrs earlier)

[Hiraghm]

This show made (makes) me feel proud to be human...

HERESY! BURN THE WITCH!

Nowadays, it seems all they want to do is make us feel ashamed to be human.

[synchromesh]

Speaking of contact with aliens, I see Mark Wing-Davey played Henry the Fifth - and Zaphod Beeblebrox! Ah, the seventies, truly a golden age for the British arts.

[ryoushii]

Boy did they have fun in the 18th century

[Rogermiler]

This whole episode is charged with innuendo. Priceless!

[jessgal4480]

this was a fantastic episode thank you for poasting it

[RevSyd]

"...a means of preventing war, through the use of telecommunications, perhaps to bring the people of the world closer together, into one community"

[AClarke2007]

Speaking as an innovator myself, it seems all the old inventors weren`t aware of the complications their contraptions would have; now I do!

[JamesBurkeWeb]

haha. I bet!

[ripedecomp]

....My betamax copies of both series were destroyed by fire...

but not by the time my son was fully impressed by their sheer

witt and knowlegde. Everyone i explain these shows to always comes back,thanking me.

BOFFO James !!! Thank you for the post!!!

[JamesBurkeWeb]

You're very welcome.

Also, just so you know, I am not actually James Burke. I used to have a channel called JamesBurkeFan and I closed it for various ... too long to go into ... reasons. I couldn't recreate it with that name so I changed Fan to Web and I think by choosing that name I've confused a lot of people into thinking that I am in fact Mr. Burke.

Rest assured, Mr. Burke is no "YouTuber" ;) but I have no doubt he's aware of this channel and his growing influence because of it.

- JBW

[URProductions]

James Burke not a YouTuber!? But it's such an innovative technology!

[Zoetroper]

The more he rubbed his glass balls, the weirder they got, they became...strangely...attractiv­e. in 1709 he told somebody... so they all started doing it. Around 1720 Steven Grey was rubbing his tube, to make it attractive... why not?

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Haha... I guess if interpreted a certain way there's something... well, I best not go on.

- JBW

[Zoetroper]

Haha, nah, this series is brilliant.... but it caught my ear... then went on for 5 minutes.... I couldn't control my juvenile impulse.

[AgentJayZ]

When I watched these in the eighties, I never noticed the humorous sexual references.

Now they jump out at me.

Is it the show, or is it me?

This was a truly great series!

[JamesBurkeWeb]

It's the show ;)

Or you, depending on how you look at it!

- JBW

[prenduzal]

The end of this episode was broadcast eleven years before the New York Times first mentions the word "Internet." But the episode, in a way, anticipates it.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Absolutely. If you ever wanted to prove to someone that knowing the past is a great way to anticipate the future, point them to these shows. Esp. TDTUC's closing remarks. What he calls "they" and "us" have actually reversed. And he is still around, so he lived to see it happen.

The other danger still exists though; we still have outdated institutions such as "countries" and "governments". So we're not quite there yet, but almost.

- JBW

[TheCosmicPHANTOM]

Very nice. I have "Connections" and "The Day The Universe Changed" on DVD which are actually copies from my Super VHS copies I made off of The Learning Channel back in the spring of 1995. I was so impressed that I contacted TLC and they told how much each series cost and I had to pass. But not before the nice lady told me that they were unedited and, in the case of "The Day The Universe Changed", it was shot in widescreen. Thanks very much for uploading both these series. 100% complete!!

[JamesBurkeWeb]

You're very welcome.

I'm not sure when you talked to TLC but all of these series (4 all together) are available on DVD now for $150 each (full quality and unedited).

Which is a pretty good deal considering what it used to be only a year ago ($800 for TDTUC). See the channel page anyway, there's direct a link to the "new" owner's purchase pages (I could only fit 2 but the rest are listed there).

- JBW