In modern life we take so many things for granted. Technology is probably up there on the top of the list. If you really think about it, the only reason we get to accomplish anything these days is because of a boost from technology. It's a fragile interdependent system that if broken, can bring life as we know it to a grinding halt.
In 1978 the BBC premiered a 10-part science series called CONNECTIONS which was brilliantly researched and written by scholar and historian JAMES BURKE. It's ground-breaking in the sense that a program that appealingly bridges science, history and philosopy had never been presented like this. And you didn't have to be a fan of any of those subjects to like it either.
Born in Ireland and educated at Oxford, Burke became the BBC's science anchor during the peak of the space race. Around the mid-seventies he began work on Connections along with then BBC director MICK JACKSON. (who went on to have a succesful hollywood career directing films like "L.A. Story" and "The Bodyguard")
The series is a perfect balance of Burke's wit and philosophical genius as he weaves the events that lead up to an eventual discovery, along with Jackson's masterful and detailed recreations of those events, staged most of the time right where they had happened. It's as if Burke had conjured up a time machine and traveled effortlessly to each event in a some trans-historical treasure hunt.
More importantly, it's how he sums up the impact of the resulting event, or discovery and how it affects us today. It's seventies era technology so it's quite dated, but the message is as relevant (probably even more so) today.
This series had a tremendous impact on me as a ten year old. I was always inquisitive and pondered the greater mysteries in life, Seeing Connections got me curious about science and technology, but it also helped make me more self-aware at a young age. And to a certain degree, it probably inspired the idea for my first book RANDOM ANOMALIES.
At the conclusion of Connections, James Burke explains that something as seemingly insignificant as a matchstick was a culmination of luck, talent, turmoil and even bloodshed. And that those same factors will continue to shape future technology. The final shot is a multi-stage rocket hurtling into space..... either in service to mankind, or to deliver it's destruction.....
Thanks to kind fans, several episodes in varying lengths are available on YouTube. Here's Episode One, Part One: (eerily, the opening scene is shot at the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, and there is a passenger plane landing at JFK with the flight number 911)
You can also purchase Connections as a complete DVD set via Amazon.com HERE.
James Burke on Wikipedia.
5 comments:
Pity he turned into an insane, drooling, global warming advocate. For a guy that had so much logic in his earlier works he seems to have lost it completely since the 90's.
I have all the series on DVD and have watched it several times. What he does with clarity, and humor, is to show people that the world we live in today is NOT some magical wonderland. Things were invested for necessity, and profit motive, most all times. He even goes into the stifling political system of China which negated any drive in people to invent anything since they couldn't profit from anything helpful to the whole of the nation. Makes sense, since Europe took rudimentary inventions from China and took them to far higher levels to help make clothing, grow crops, or wage warfare.
Even dated by 30 years Connections, the first series, is pure brilliance and hasn't aged at all - he predicts the revolution of communication coming from computers toward the end of the series, and claims it will connect people in a way that will speed up invention. It was great how he showed the WTC, Kuwait, SE Asia, China, Europe and America, and what they all provided toward events that led toward the components of the ultimate power of our world - the atomic bomber.
Thanks for the insight anonymous... I don't follow Burke much these days so I have to hear what he has to say regarding global warming...
It is clear that Connections is his finest work. Even the sequels are not as good.
Perhaps that's how i'll choose to remember him....
Yeah, Burke was best in the 70s. Remember him that way. His luster is now corroded and tarnished.
Science has become less logical since so much of it is now opinion based on claims rather than proof of facts and data put through the rigors of controversy and debunking. Politicians have now found a way to bypass facts, since so much science deals with minutia divorced from amazingly spectacular effects or results. By claiming small anomalies in data can cause the 'end of the world', politicians and activists can control people with science that is akin to baseless magic.
Burke bought into the hype, the obfuscation, and has not done his homework. But he also swims in the media muck. You would think he would be sensible enough to see through the crap and would have learned from all the history he knows.
Sad.
cool stuff here and also in your web, congratulations your work is very amazing.
Post a Comment