DRS_Education - 2019-01-16
"The Trigger Effect" details the world's present dependence on complex technological networks through a detailed narrative of New York City and the power blackout of 1965. Agricultural technology is traced to its origins in ancient Egypt and the invention of the plough. The segment ends in Kuwait where, because of oil, society leapt from traditional patterns to advanced technology in a period of only about 30 years.
I can't get over the fact that I only thought to look for this series now, after nearly 40 years. This has been a major inspiration to me, validating the way I think as a generalist, and shaping the way I teach and present things to people.
Loved this show along with Cosmos back in the 70s. I wish there were still shows like this.
There are still some good ones. Great ones to look for on YouTube are ones produced by RI (Royal Institution), PBS Spacetime, Sean Carroll's Biggest Ideas in the Universe or his Mindscape podcast, Neil Tyson is rebooting the Cosmos series, Scishow with the Vlog Brothers / Nerdfighteria crew are very educational, especially at high-school level.
Just be wary of any that have gone the way of History Channel / TLC / etc. that's all "ancient aliens" or other woo-woo pseudoscience bullshit.
Jh boob excellent avatar !!
@mdiem The tragedy is I can only upvote your comment once. Well said!
This was my trigger effect in realizing that getting a "good education" wasn't really a bad thing and that learning is a continuing process of many mistakes, moving on and someday getting things right. Life became more interesting for me. More people should watch this series and have their minds open and maybe learn something about the world they live in everyday and maybe appreciate it more. Thanks for uploading this series. I first saw this on public TV in my country in the summer of 1979 when I was ten years old. It is like fine wine, it ages well.
Amazing series! Some of the info may be dated, but the impact of connections between events, concepts, personalities, inventions is as timeless as ever. Should he required viewing in high school. Thank you James Burke, and thank you for uploading
The greatest technology/history series ever. Taught me how think differently.
Same. So, so good.
Back in the 7th grade, my teacher had recordings of these episodes on tape and showed them to us in our science class. I'd say the deepest of the messages went over our heads (we were 12-13) but intriguing points were certainly made. I only briefly remember watching this show, but damn I'm glad I found it! It's been something that felt like a fever dream and I've wanted to track it down for a very long time. Wow, does it hit different now.
(and when I say 7th grade, I'm not talking about 1978, I'm talking about 2013! My teacher had a carefully curated selection of documentaries and such, and this was among them)
If kids are going to be (barely) taught at home via zoom, they should run repeats of classic series like Connections, Cosmos, Ascent of Man, Alistair Cooke's America and the like.
They're more likely to get kids to actually think and learn.
Well said.
@Tom D Advances don't come from Alabammy, Texas, Florida or Wyoming. California, Chicago, New York and the like in Canada are where technology, innovation and commerce get done.
@Tom D That's right Opie, teachers are the enemy. Also universities, scientists, athletes, entertainers, state workers, the media, the woke military, all Democrats and some Republicans (depending on what day of the week it is). Did I miss any? You better go watch Tucker Carlson and see if there is a new enemy we need to watch out for...
My kids called him "Funny Man". I had them watch before sleep when younger. They are teens now. A good show to get wonderment started.
@Tom D Damn, can't believe I went through 12 years of school, learned programming, physics, calculus, and all that, when according to Tom D from the internet, all that's taught is "your special." Wish I knew that was all I needed to know to pass the woke liberal brainwashing facility. Now I just feel stupid for working so hard when apparently the only thing they teach kids is 2 words. Well, that's a shame. Guess I wasted my time.
I used to watch back when they were new! Loved them. He's still around and 83 years old!
@Jeffery Amherst if you can believe James, then if those suits obey the laws of mathematics, then they will come around again😎
Long live the King of HPS!!
@Kay Harker Nice try Warrior... You've got the wrong guy here.
Working on a new Connections!!!! https://twitter.com/DrJoeHanson/status/1389303711567130631?s=20
fuuuck liked his apperance on Hardcore History
I only regret that I can't hit the like button a million times. I use this episode in my Engineering Classes after picking their brain on where the tech comes from.
Relevant today? Even more so than when it was produced. Genius storytelling? Absolutely. Thank you so much for uploading this series. I watched it avidly as a kid. Seeing it now in a new time with a very different perspective, its even better. Yes you have to recognise when it was made but this is gold. James Burke was one of the best science communicators I ever saw and heard. Gotta love the safari suit too!
Back then, those were called Leisure Suits. It was a short-lived fashion phenomenon. But this show was brilliant and James Burke made an impression on me that has, ever since, made me concerned with cause and effect.
No other non-fiction TV series has been so philosophically influential in my life, both as a person as a hard scientist.
And 50 years later, as relevant as when aired in the late 1970s.
Influential in the mind shaping type of way
have you seen this https://youtu.be/WkyATw1lYLo?t=708
It aired in 1978 and was already irrelevant thanks to backup generators, solar panels, and not to mention what actually happened.
@Reality Check solar panels were big, expensive and low efficiency. Backup generators are a lot smaller, too.
@James Faulkner II Neil DeGrasse Tyson sounds hard.
My dad showed me this series in the early 80's when I was in elementary school. While I didn't understand all the details, the fundamental theme rang true to me. There is truly nothing new under sun, only new combinations of existing technology that leads to further new combinations to new conclusions. Brilliant book and series then as now. I wish more professors would use this series as curricula.
Nothing better illustrates the truth of there being nothing new under the sun and no new technologies better than the jet airliners that the ancient Egyptians used to fly.
@Ni999 what an asinine comment
@Hot Skeets It's obviously the only rebuttal I could make to show how wrong the adage is that there's never anything new under the sun. That it triggered you so badly suggests that you might benefit from reading Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague DeCamp. If you've never actually created anything yourself it can help you to understand how your world came about, and if you have created anything, it can help you understand why those who can't actually believe that all anyone ever does is iterate existing designs. I suspect that your anger at my comment is really just a simple case of you strongly feeling some great truth in the myth about there being nothing new under the sun but when confronted with the hypocrisy of that position, the strain of epiphany was just too much so all you could do was lash out. Read the book, it's pretty good. Until then, facts outweigh opinions and feelings don't determine the veracity of facts. Have a nice day!
This is, without a doubt, the coolest science program EVER. Love Burke's clever essays and dramatic historical recreations that bring us full circle and better informed in the end! Neat-O!
I'm watching this November 2019. I first saw it in the late 70's. Still, along with Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation", one of the best series ever.
Me too! I was very little - about 8? - when I first saw it. We had just come back after five years living in the US - and I remember New York from that time quite well. I'm pretty certain this series was repeated a few years later and that must have been at that time that it left an indelible impression on me. I think it was one of those waking-up moments that we experience during childhood. It has lost none of its power because it is work of intense originality and brilliance. It was like an electric shock direct to a very young brain (perhaps ironically :)
@Ingens_Scherz This Series and the later additions were a regular thing on PBS. My dad, a science teacher, introduced them to the family. Big reason I got into history. While in engineering school in the '90s, these were regularly checked out by professors to show students some clips.
One of the best documentary series ever made. There are lessons to learn here, even tho it is decades old. Perhaps more relevant today than when it originally aired.
Someone else mentioning this, triggered in me the memories of growing up, and the profound influence this series had on me. It should be on every school syllabus
I wanted to be an Inventor. ...Talk about your impossible goals... After this series, then II and III I became an Inventor. I hold this series largely responsible for re-wiring my thinking. Thank You, James Burke and fantastic crew and role-players.
I am watching this in 2020, and as a New Yorker, two things jump at me: it's filmed at the World Trade Center, which doesn't exist anymore, the scenes are so ominous, and the flight number is 911. Very creepy.
Stop it, you guys are freaking me out man.
@Orwellian Horseman of the Apocalypse It's even got the Omen music at the end.
@Spicy Cherries 93 connection : https://youtu.be/HwC0pHIIMMI USS Liberty on Real News is another.
@Gavin Hudson 93 conn : https://youtu.be/HwC0pHIIMMI USS Liberty on Real News.
Watching this with 116 (911 upside down) likes on your comment. The flight number and date are eerie indeed. Retro - causality?
How can anyone down vote this series or anything with James Burke in it.
- Comrade, James Burke was declared an Enemy of The People™ for producing these White Supremacist propaganda videos. He has now been purged in the name of inclusiveness, tolerance, and diversity.
Religious extremists denouncing anything to do with science (or reality in general) is the most likely reason.
@mdiem My religion, Pelagianism, firmly embraces scientific method and materialism. The Church of Wokeness is the most powerful anti-scientific movement in the world today. Many scientific institutions have been infected with this virulent mental disease. Theoretical Physics, for instance, has devolved in many places into mere math worship, and violently attacks any "heretics" who dare to question the equations that demand that the hydrogen to helium ratio at the end of the Cosmic Inflationary Period had to be a certain number. Change that ratio by even a small amount, and the entire theory of dark matter and dark energy collapses into a puddle of incoherent nonsense. Faith in the truth of this ratio is all they've got left at this point; they've painted themselves into a corner, their backs are to the wall, and in their irrational rage, they lash out and try to destroy the lives and careers of anyone who publicly doubts their holy pronouncements.
@Kay Harker Wow. lets burn everything down. Have you ever built anything.
Not so easy.
My mind boggles at your ignorance.
Trolls. Sociopaths.
It's interesting that you should choose the electrical grid as the topic of the first program in this series. It's 17 February, 2021 and I'm looking at what's going on in Texas right now because of a little snow and a little cold snap and a system that wasn't prepared for either. I think now is a good time to put together a "Dooms Day" box for whatever happens next.
If you're going to live in Texas, better have some kind of life boat for sailing the seas of stupidity.
Some of my best childhood memories are of watching this with my parents and then talking about it after the show. Brought me back to happier days.
Accelerating Change is the main theme of the program and i like how very noticeable it is in this episode. Most people stuck in darkness in this episode use matches or cigarette lighters as an emergency light source. 15 years ago we would use dim light of our cell phone screens in this kind of situation. Today we have an extremely powerful LED in our phones. And 150 years ago having a on demand light source in your pocket was close to impossible.
My engineering professor in college was influenced by his ideas and we were required to watch his videos in class. I can see why and his videos are still relevant today.
He was pre-advertising 9 11 and 3 11.
The best part of a program like this that examines the history of science is that it stands the test of time.
I’ve never heard of this man until today. I can’t wait to watch all of his series’.
This series should be shown in every school.
1965, Age 15, Our farm is 40 miles southeast of Buffalo. We had just finished wrestling practice at school and boarded the late buses for home when the great power outage hit. I remember it so well. I always loved these series.
I was 11 got stuck over the baby sitters house. She had a gas stove . They didn’t have electrical ignitions back then , so I didn’t care, I ate! My poor mom was stuck in Manhattan at her job
@dancingnature When I was a kid we kids used to cook our breakfasts before going to school on a gas stove we lit with a match and never thought anything of it. This was in the 70s.
@alex carter that's the way it was on my family's farm growing up in the 70s/80s
So happy I found this series again!! Filled my
Life with questions and a lot of answers!! Thank you James Burke!!
So glad I found this, I remember watching it as a kid and was fascinated.
Thank you so much for posting these!! This show absolutely blew my mind, such a huge Burke fan, gonna binge these first thing tomorrow!
I remember how fascinated I was with this series when it first aired. I never missed an episode.
Connections is simply captivating. I loved these shows when I was young, and still love them now that I'm, um, not so young. If history had been taught in schools in a similar way to James' style, I would be a history professor right now, carrying on his work. No one else has ever come close to James in making history so interesting that you'd rather watch a documentary than a hit TV show. When the box set of this entire series was released, I bought it like it was crack. I hesitate to rave too much, but this is real life made FUN and, importantly, INTERESTING. Much better than the "names and dates" method of the American school curriculum I grew up with.
Absolutely influential to me. The intro is incredible and the intensity of the first half of this episode is amazing
Have loved this show all my life. So glad I found it here. Thanks!
During the great Blackout...in our small city an alert city employee saw what was happening to the grid. He immediately switched our power source to receive power from our own electricity produced by the local water power company powered by a dam on the Connecticut River. We were one of the few communities that did not lose power!
40 years old and still relevant. Amazing show.
I so love this show. Saw it in college and always remembered it, amazing!
Loved this series so much my wife bought it for me last xmas and we watched it together as she was too young to remember when 1st on and she thought it was as good as I told her it would be.
A superb series that my husband and I loved when it debuted. Something I still enjoy watching all these years later.
Probably one of THE BEST science education shows EVER created!
Wow! James Burke; one of my tv favourites from my boyhood in the 1970's. If James Burke was on the show, I would always watch as it was always going to be thought provoking and interesting. So good to see him again.
Thank you Mr James Burke. Your show inspired my childhood, its what made me happy. Science!
Stupendous! Thank you for uploading this phenomenal series — just subscribed. Greetings from Greece!
Liked his various presentations a lot. Mr. Burke often points to the fact that many human advancements have their historical roots in the most mundane moments of everyday life. What Mr. Burke is talking about some call 'the butterfly effect.'
I think that he's right.
I just walked through the 9/11 Memorial on Friday, the 19th anniversary of the WTC attack.
The sphere sculpture is there on display, damaged by the falling towers around it.
Finding this episode today and have watched it since I was a 13 year old boy in 1978 has struck a very solemn chord.
If he only knew what would happen in that plaza 23 years later.
Comrade, James Burke was declared an Enemy of The People™ for producing these White Supremacist propaganda videos. He has now been purged in the name of inclusiveness, tolerance, and diversity.
Fantastic TV series with fantastic narrator James Burke!
The need for a plow is more toward the planting of grains and other cereal crops, which need much more space than other plants to produce equal amounts of food. You can get away with relatively small plot and a vegetable garden, which can produce all summer long. The reason grains became a primary crop is they store much longer and reliably than most plant crops. If you live in a cold winter climate then those more volatile types of crops can be stored for the winter pretty easily too.
One of my all time favorite series.
I watched this series back in the later 70’s on PBS and was hooked starting with first episode. Science and technology is taught as thorough each discovery or invention are individual events. The series shows how things are connected in ways most of us (including me)never imagined.. NOT TO BE MISSED IF YOU HAVE A CURIOUS MIND. Thank you YouTube/Google and James Burke.
I have loved this series for years!
Ztirffritz - 2019-03-06
Still one of the best shows on television ever produced.
Sergio Nascimento Bordalo - 2021-09-27
The BOOK is a great companion!
Sergio Nascimento Bordalo - 2021-09-27
@trappleton The "Ascent of Man" (1973, BBC, Jacob Bronowski).
tnecklover - 2021-12-29
@Mitchell Young That and Kenneth Clark's "Civilization". To be sure, there are many good documentarians such as Lucy Worlsey, Susannah Lipscomb, Dan Snow and Waldemar Januszczak, but Clark, Burke and Bronowski were the ones who started them off.
Mark Croom - 2022-01-16
I didn't encounter these until the 1990s, almost twenty years after they were originally aired. My family and I were fascinated by the way he looks at history and technology and the final episode is basically prophetic -- by the time we watched it his predictions had basically come true and today we know that his predictions weren't nearly wild enough. I am going to enjoy watching these again now that they are available here!
tnecklover - 2022-01-16
@Mark Croom You'll love them!!