James Burke : Connections, Episode 4, "Faith In Numbers", 3 of 5 (CC)

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Episode 4 of James Burke's most well-known series "Connections" which explores the surprising and unexpected ways that our modern technological world came into existence. Each episode investigates the background of usually one particular modern invention and how it came into being. These explorations are an attempt to locate the "connections" between various historical figures who seemingly had nothing to do with each other in their own times, however once connected, these same figures combined to produce some of the most profound impacts on our modern day world; in a "1+1=3" type of way.

It is this type of investigation that is the main idea behind the Knowledge Web project; whereby sophisticated software is used to attempt to discover these subtle interconnections automatically. See http://k-web.org.

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[wegreenall]

i must know! what's the music playing when he introduces venice near the end of this part? it's also played in a clockwork orange, but i have to know what it is!! any info is greatly appreciated.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

ACO is constantly going back to Beethoven's 9th. Not sure which movement though.

The whole thing is wonderful anyway, so I would suggest buying a good recording of it. Not sure what's the best or most well-known performance...

[pbanta62]

Ahh, didn't think of that. Then it's a good thing styrofoam and fast-food didn't come along back then or we'd have ancient landfills still full of Mutton McMuffin containers to deal with ;)

[JamesBurkeWeb]

True enough. But your grandkids will :)

Although you know... all that plasticy, synthetic stuff has energy stored in it (just light one up to prove it) so perhaps we would've invented a way to use *that* energy instead of fossil fuels to power our toasters! ... that is, if you have a toaster (which I don't, personally).

- JBW

[pbanta62]

The printing revolution, made possible by a 14th century recycling program!

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Haha, I guess that's one way of putting it!

Although one might find one's self pondering in confusion about the fact that the printing revolution pretty-much created our current-day need for recycling programs... ;)

- JBW

[controlsnerd]

I think he says "frilly" knickers not free knickers, though there is nothing wrong with either ; )

[ChorltonBrook]

@megcram Sorry I'm six months late : ) But thanks for your comment. Merry Xmas.

[rockoqatsi]

@wegreenall Oh, and that's not Beethoven, that's Purcell's music for the funeral of Queen Mary (I think), which was arranged for Clockwork Orange by Wendy (nee Walter) Carlos.

[rockoqatsi]

@JamesBurkeWeb I know my reply is two years late, but since I'm here I'll throw in my bid for the Sir Georg Solti/Chicago Symphony Orchestra's 1987 performance (London 448 617-2). Don't know exactly how well-known it is, but I've collected several 9ths over the years and find myself listening to that one the most.

[RichardHands]

@wegreenall It's Purcell's 'Funeral March for Queen Mary', and yes, it does get used in Clockwork Orange as well.

[megcram]

@ChorltonBrook Just like the english keyboard. There's various ingenious input methods, including a rather simplified phonetic system which uses the English alphabet. There's also various ways to type by "stroke order," because characters are written stroke by stroke in a standardized order. Hard to explain without a basic knowledge of characters, but it's not so complicated really. Nowadays with trackpads and touch screens drawing characters is also becoming more common.

[ChorltonBrook]

I wonder what a Chinese computer key-board looks like?

[delbard1]

@JamesBurkeWeb Stanley Kubic @ that part of his career would feature 1 composer for 2001 he feature Strauss Das Spaken Zarahousa. became 2001: a space oddessy.

[KevinByrne2]

@ryoushii -- Thank you for your reply. I learned something.

[ryoushii]

@KevinByrne2 Actually the Plague didn't stop in 1350. As new generations were born, there were continual flareups every 15-20 years until the middle of the 15th century and rarer flareups later, such as the London Plague of 1665. And the population in Europe wouldn't reach the numbers it had been 1290 until nearly 1700, so labor shortages were a regular European situation, and hence, the rapid push for automation, such as printing.