Sometimes it can take years to figure out what an invention is really good for. The airplane, the radio, the computer: Though born of determined and uniquely gifted inventors, these and other twentieth-century wonders owe their development and impact to the often surprising forces that guide them into astonishing new technologies.

From Kitty Hawk to Cape Canaveral, the radio to the Internet, the vacuum tube to the microchip, "Bigger, Better, Faster" (premieres Wednesday, January 14, 1998, 8pm ET), the fourth of A Science Odyssey's five two-hour programs, tells the hidden stories behind the major technological innovations of the past hundred years.

"Bigger, Better, Faster" travels back to the turn of the century, when the automobile, a recent invention, is a curiosity... a plaything for the rich. It is inconceivable that it will ever be anything more -- until Henry Ford's Model T sputters onto the scene in 1908. But behind this humble though revolutionary invention is a second, even more profound innovation: the perfection of assembly-line production. This new process, developed to meet the demand for Ford's "Tin Lizzie," would remake America with an inexpensive car for the masses -- and, eventually, transform the manufacture of virtually everything from household appliances to motion pictures.

Meanwhile, radio's potential remains to be realized. More than fifteen years old when the United States goes to war in 1917, radio is nothing more than a highly unreliable wireless telephone, used principally for point-to-point communication between ships at sea or troops on the battlefield. And it remains little more until one bored "ham" operator in Pittsburgh tires of talking and begins to "broadcast" music for his friends.

By the mid-1920s, radio transmitters are everywhere -- at universities, in department stores, churches -- bringing sermons, lectures, feed prices, election results, and local musicians to homes across the country. But how to make radio profitable? The answer will define radio as we know it.

The story of the airplane also begins with the exploits of intrepid individuals. In 1903, two unknown Americans are the first to test a "flying machine" -- a device which defies the most inviolable of the physical laws: gravity. Orville and Wilbur Wright, self-confident and tenacious bicycle mechanics from Dayton, out-think scores of competitors here and abroad to develop "wing-warping," a mechanical method for mimicking the flight of birds. But their success in unlocking the secrets of controllable, sustained flight hardly leads to the airplane as we know it.

In 1911, the dashing aviator Calbraith Perry Rodgers flies from Long Island to California in a Wright machine christened the "Vin Fiz Flyer," named after a soft drink made by his sponsor; it is hoped his flight will prove the potential of the airplane. Forty-nine days and nineteen crashes later, Rodgers proves his heroism beyond a doubt -- but to any reasonable mind, the airplane seems little more than a diversion for daredevils and barnstormers, more likely to land them in the hospital than anywhere else. World War I -- and the needs of war machines on both sides of the Atlantic -- pushes the technology to new heights, bringing aviation under the wing of the military and sealing its future.

By the end of the Second World War, military interests play a central part in the invention of new technologies. But even with giant budgets behind research and development, it is still seldom clear what a technology will yield: A better flight simulator for pilots becomes the heart of a giant computer, which is transformed into a nationwide system of air defense before landing on desktops everywhere. A new twist in the Cold War propels a man to the Moon -- and leaves mankind with an unexpected and profound new understanding of Earth. A Defense Department plan to connect a few university computers ends up linking the world and revolutionizing the way we communicate.

Ambition, talent, money, war: all drive the story behind these whirlwinds of change. In the end, "Bigger, Better, Faster" reveals a world transformed, where new technologies recast our perceptions of distance, speed, and convenience, changing the way we live, work, and dream. It is also a journey that restores our sense of wonder about things we take for granted, spotlights the people and circumstances that have brought about phenomenal changes to our daily lives, and explores in riveting detail the profound, complex, and always unpredictable nature of technological change.

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Major funding is provided by the National Science Foundation.

Corporate sponsorship is provided by IBM. IBM is a registered trademark of IBM Corporation.

Additional funding comes from public television viewres, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Becton Dickinson and Company.