Connections

tv show

poster for Connections

40 total episodes

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3 seasons

First Aired October 17, 1978

Overview

Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention, Connections explores an "Alternative View of Change" that rejects the conventional linear and teleological view of historical progress. To demonstrate this view, Burke begins each episode with a particular event or innovation in the past (usually ancient or medieval) and traces a path from that event through a series of connections to a fundamental and essential aspect of the modern world.

Sign Here poster unavailable

Sign Here

Season 2 - Episode 18 - 0h 0m

Air Date

July 31, 1994

Overview

Murphy's Law says you need insurance from Lloyd's of London, so pack your bags to study international law and protect yourself from piracy by calculating the probability. You better study Pascal's math for that, but you might find yourself jailed for free thinking. While you are in jail, study some sign language, or at least learn to speak better than Eliza Doolittle. Henry Higgins's waveform recordings lead you to the telephone, the invention of shorthand, the radiometer, gas flow, the Wright brothers' aeroplane, lubrication, ball bearings and a ballpoint pen so you can "Sign Here".