James Burke : Connections, Episode 10, "Yesterday, Tomorrow and You", 1 of 5 (CC)

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Episode 10, conclusion of James Burke's most well-known series "Connections" which explored the surprising and unexpected ways that our modern technological world came into existence; ways often having more to do with happenstance than planning or foresight. The series dealt with what Mr. Burke calls "connections" between nearly-unrelated historical figures who's ideas, once "connected", caused major changes to occur in the present day, and beyond. Burke showed that only in retrospect can we really appreciate and comprehend the profound impact that these particular (and almost exclusively accidental) connections had, and then questions whether or not that need be the case as we move forward.

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

See channel page for purchase options.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• James
• Burke
• Connections
• Science
• History
• Yesterday
• Tomorrow
• and
• You
• Summary
• Non
• Linear
• Thought
• JamesBurkeFan

[MountErrigal]

this might be my fav of them all.

great man he is

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Yes, it's kind of a tough episode to swallow... but there is a lot of truth and honesty that you don't see in regular television these days.

[Ratama]

Mister Burke brings up an essential narrative, especially in this time. Too bad he'll have most of us giggling with all this horny "turns you on" talk.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Humor is one of the best ways to maintain/regain someone's attention. Like it or not, a joke here or there can bring focus to the surrounding narrative ;)

- JBW

[Monkor001]

Is this fabulous individual James Burke Still alive?

[JamesBurkeWeb]

yes

[DJTI99]

It's the movement called 'O Fortuna' from the Carmina Burana from Carl Orff.

My cat sings a variation of that called "'Oh! For Tuna!" whenever I open a can of tuna fish.

And thank you for putting this up. This show really made me want to get interested in science. It changed my life.

[PaulUmbarger]

"Who knows what some one is doing with a toilet roll right now" has to be the best line describing invention ever televised!

[victorialucas38]

That eeirie choir at the beginning of each episode sounds like the sound from the monolith in '2001: A Space Odyssey' - or has someone else already pointed that out?

[ChorltonBrook]

Why oh why is Patric Moore still on TV and not this guy?

[GabrielKnightz]

Growing up, watching this show, this man, shaped in more ways than one how i think.

And i will always be grateful to him for that, Thank you Mr.Burke Thank you.

[Inediblehulk]

It won't be long now before we delegate the tedious inventing work to our robot friends with the vastly superior analytical engines. And from that moment on, technological progress will accelerate unfathomably rapidly, making the brief end of our species appear to us as much as foreign as our own 10,000 year journey had appeared to fish.

[cybervaldez]

He sounds so much like richard dawkins

[Xam323]

My final is on this video i watched it like 6 times already the whole 5 parts

[KevinByrne2]

@ryoushii -- No. Famines were common in the past, but are rare now because technology makes it easier to ship food from areas with surpluses. When the power grid in eastern Canada was destroyed by an ice storm in 1998, it was soon repaired by help from outside. Technology is tools to solve problems. Is the world more vulnerable because it has more tools to solve any problems that arise? Technology makes the world LESS vulnerable, not more.

[ryoushii]

@KevinByrne2 You assume there will be an "outside" world that can come to the rescue. In fact what Burke is saying is that as the technological tower grows higher and higher and encompasses more and more people, eventually we will ALL be on that tower. And, when that collapses, there will be no "outside", because we all will be inside.

[adrastea99]

Toilet rolls are being recycled into cheap wifi antennas, to eventually give you the ability to connect to the internet anywhere you are