January - December 2000
Tales from the Hive
Lost on Everest
Secrets of Lost Empires: Medieval Siege The trebuchet was a fearsome, gravity-powered catapult that flung stone missiles with great speed, accuracy and destructive power. It was the first large-scale mechanized weapon, and it transformed warfare 300 years before the age of gunpowder. If ammunition ran low, trebuchets could serve as instruments of terror. Among the projectiles mentioned in medieval chronicles are wagonloads of manure, hives of angry bees, spurned ambassadors, plague-infected corpses and an early form of napalm known as Greek Fire. All these were hurled at high speed over castle walls at the luckless defenders. Despite its central role in siege warfare, most aspects of trebuchet design and operation remain a mystery. Were these crude contraptions of a type that any mischievous adolescent might concoct? Or did the need for high-power, precise artillery give birth to a genuine science of trebuchet design?
NOVA set two teams of timber framers, engineers, and
historians the challenge of building precise replicas of this
ultimate thirteenth century deterrent. Armed only with
traditional tools, the teams began work in a swampy field
beside Loch Ness in northern Scotland, beset by constant
drizzle. Finally, the moment of truth arrived as the giant
wooden catapults stood poised to fling 250 pound stones high
into the air. In thrilling footage of these risky firing
experiments, NOVA recaptures all the suspense, violence, and
ingenuity that characterized the medieval siege.
Diamond Deception
In "Diamond Deception," NOVA dramatizes the breakneck battle
in the 1950s as a team at General Electric beat its rivals to
synthesize the first industrial diamonds. Then the show
explores today's race to produce the first artificial
gem-quality stones. Surprisingly, crucial breakthroughs have
been made with primitive-looking equipment in makeshift labs
in Russia and China. These unlikely pioneers are now closing
in on their goal of producing bigger stones with fewer flaws
and perfect coloration. Their efforts threaten the
centuries-old monopoly of De Beers and may transform the
marketing of the world's most desirable gem.
Secrets of Lost Empires: Pharaoh's Obelisk In 1994, a NOVA team successfully reproduced many of the original techniques involved in quarrying and transporting these massive monoliths. However, the final riddle of how to erect a replica 40-ton stone defied the expertise of our team. The first NOVA obelisk lies abandoned today in an Egyptian quarry at a 40-degree angle. Now NOVA returns to Egypt take on this ultimate engineering challenge of the ancient world. The stars of THIS OLD PYRAMID and the first obelisk show, Egyptologist Mark Lehner and stone mason Roger Hopkins, tackle the problem with a fresh approach. They explore the wood and rope boat technology that was incorporated in such amazing vessels as the intricately fitted Khufu boat, over 100 feet long, discovered almost intact in a pit beside the Great Pyramid. The boats inspire our team to design an ingenious apparatus for pivoting a new 40-ton replica obelisk into position. Hopes are raised until, yet again, an unexpected disaster looms....
This time, Lehner, Hopkins, and the rest of the team will
ultimately prevail over the 40-ton monster. But it will take a
twist worthy of Agatha Christie to deliver the final solution
of this daunting challenge from the past.
Trillion Dollar Bet In 1993, Scholes and Merton joined forces with John Meriweather, the legendary bond trader of Salomon Brothers. With 13 other partners, they launched a new hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management, which promised to use mathematical models to make investors tremendous amounts of money. Their money machines reaped fantastic profits, until their theories collided with reality, and sent the company spiraling out of control. The crisis threatened to bring markets around the world to the brink of collapse.
Join NOVA in the quest to turn finance into a science. Plus,
trace the little-known history of predicting financial markets
and go to work with some successful modern traders who rely on
intuition as well as mathematical models.
Secrets of Lost Empires: Easter Island Countless ingenious theories have been proposed. Thor Heyerdahl, the famous Norwegian explorer, attempted to "walk" a statue along by rocking it from side to side in an upright position. Geologist Charles Love fastened a replica to a wooden sledge and tried pulling it on rollers. But neither met with much success: Love's statue came crashing to the ground while Heyerdahl's broke in transit. The failure of these experiments inspired Jo Anne Van Tilburg, a leading authority on Easter Island, to seek her own solution to the riddle. Drawing on her painstaking inventory of the statues, she built a computer model of Easter Island's terrain, created a digital statue, and experimented with different transportation and erection techniques in cyberspace. This led her to a solution that seemed flawless. But would it work outside the computer?
To test her theory, NOVA casts a 15-ton concrete replica of a
typical Easter Island statue. With the help of 70 Easter
Islanders, the statue is then hauled across over a mile of the
ancestral terrain, and the challenge of erecting it begins.
What seemed so straightforward in the computer now reveals
hidden complications that plunge the team into rival theories
and disagreement. As the mystery of the builders' methods
deepens, NOVA explores the profounder challenges that Easter
Island has always posed: Who were the ancient islanders? Where
did they come from? And what went wrong with their unique and
exotic civilization?
Mystery of the First Americans
Secrets of Lost Empires: Roman Bath Many of Rome's engineering secrets originated in one of its most important institutions: the Roman bath. A vital focus for leisure and social interaction, the public bathhouse incorporated intricate systems for plumbing and heating, sophisticated vaulted ceilings, and a revolutionary new building material we now call concrete. These buildings represented a new concept of luxury and sophistication in an age more often marked by violence and squalor. Indeed, the bathhouse was one of Rome's most effective tools for converting its conquered subjects to the Roman way of life. Supported by generous state subsidies, the bath functioned as pleasure palace, public health facility and community center in every town under Roman rule. Surprisingly, despite the cultural and architectural importance of the Roman bath, many of its workings are still poorly understood. Just what recipe of sand, lime, water and rubble did the Roman builders use to make their watertight concrete? How did they design and cast the domes and vaults that resulted in such graceful, airy interior spaces? And how did they create the ingenious plumbing and heating that accounted for the baths' legendary comfort? Perhaps the most intriguing feature is the hypocaust, or underfloor heating system. One of the Roman engineers' most revolutionary advances, it made possible a clean, dry, efficient form of heating without the problems of smoke and gas by-products. How were the Romans able to eliminate indoor pollution and achieve such fine temperature control?
In Sardis, Turkey, NOVA sets out to recreate a working Roman
bath, complete with hot tubs, cold plunges, and underfloor
heating, all designed with a meticulous eye for authenticity.
As well as academic experts, the team will rely on local
Turkish artisans proficient in the ancient techniques of terra
cotta tilemaking and metal working—skills still in
demand in Turkey because of the country's continuing tradition
of community bathing. As with any complex building project,
the team encounters glitches and tempers fray. But the
builders have a unique reward for their labors: a finished
building that enables them to experience at first-hand the
vanished sensual pleasures of ancient Rome.
Lost Tribes of Israel
Secrets of Lost Empires: China Bridge In China Bridge, NOVA explores the unexpected wealth of China's bridge heritage. The show's experiments will focus on an ancient design that baffles engineers and scholars—the Rainbow Bridge. Its blueprint derives from a renowned 12th century Chinese scroll painting that depicts life in the Song Dynasty capital of Kaifeng around 1000 A.D. It is a panorama that teems with more than a thousand tiny figures bustling about their daily life and involved in weddings, funerals, and war games. At the center of all this activity is the Rainbow Bridge. Lined with shops on both sides, the bridge is an avenue for food hawkers, fortunetellers and street peddlers. One Song Dynasty historian wrote, "the bridge has no piers, but giant timbers spanning the void, decorated with red paint and curved like a rainbow." The design is neither an arch nor a beam, but rather a delicate hybrid of the two; a series of interlocking horizontal and cantilever beams form a graceful arc. It was a style never attempted in the Western world.
How could such a daring and intricate structure have been
assembled above a river? Retired engineer Tang Huan Cheng says
he knows the answers. He has carefully studied the Rainbow
Bridge for nearly fifty years; now NOVA helps him fulfill his
long-cherished dream of reconstructing it. Starting from
scratch, Professor Tang is joined by a team of experts who
devise a plan for the bridge based on scant historical
information and a close analysis of the painting. Working in a
lively village in the picturesque Yellow Mountains of central
China's Anhui Province, the two teams work from opposing
banks, each with a different set of challenges. Their final
act is to join the middle section of the bridge together,
above the turbulent water. This drama forms the climax of one
of NOVA's most evocative shows, which will open a window on
the vanished wonders of ancient China.
What's Up with the Weather? The Clinton administration is one of the strongest advocates of a treaty—the Kyoto Protocol—that would radically alter the way we produce and use energy. The social and financial consequences are potentially enormous, enough to transform the economic landscape of the 21st century. But will the proposed measures work? Can we hope to put a brake on the accelerating amounts of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, that are escaping into the atmosphere?
In this special two-hour program, WGBH's flagship series'
FRONTLINE and NOVA take on one of the most complex and
important challenges facing the world today. With searching
analysis and probing interviews, this program will explain the
science, investigate what is known and unknown, and dissect
the acrimonious policy debate. It will take viewers on a
dramatic journey—from the Greenland ice cap where
scientists can read 10,000 years of climate history, to the
equatorial Maldives Islands threatened by rising sea levels;
from the corridors of power in Washington to the rapidly
growing industrial cities of China and India—a journey
to find out how the Earth's climate system works and what the
future may hold in store.
Stationed in the Stars The International Space Station got off to a shaky start in the early 1980s, when its design was constantly at the whim of fluctuating budgets and successive NASA engineers. In the era of glasnost, the project got a new lease of life when it was perceived as an effective way of reaching out to the beleaguered Russian space agency. Fraught with funding issues and political tensions, the collaboration highlighted the different styles of its engineers. NASA engineers tend to think on a big—sometimes too ambitious—scale, while the Russians have concentrated on low-cost, improvised solutions to such problems as long-term life support for the astronauts on board.
NOVA's profile of the ISS will focus on a crucial turning
point in the project as the Russians finally deliver the vital
Service Module, which they've been constructing for almost 15
years. NOVA will take viewers inside the excitement and risks
of the shuttle mission that will place this third key
component of ISS in orbit. Assuming the mission succeeds, NASA
hopes that ISS will begin to silence its many critics and
start to realize its scientific potential. Our show will paint
a vivid picture of the third mission, the risks and hazards of
long-term operations in space, and the vision and audacity
that lie behind this extraordinary project.
The Vikings But who were their aggressors? In this two-hour special, NOVA presents a dramatic investigation of a people who were much more than axe-wielding pirates. It features stunning camerawork in Scandinavia and the far-flung countries that the Vikings penetrated, while historians and archaeologists present us with an image of the Vikings that goes far deeper than their savage stereotype. The latest research shows that they were canny merchants, expert shipbuilders, superb artisans, and bold colonizers of lands that lay beyond the edge of the known world. The special retraces Viking voyages in faithful replicas of their magnificent ships, probing such questions as how they were able to navigate so far beyond the sight of land in the stormy north Atlantic. NOVA searches for traces of Leif Eriksson's legendary exploits in North America and the poignant extinction of Erik the Red's colony in Greenland. Less familiar is the story of the extraordinary Viking journeys along Russian rivers that led them ultimately to Istanbul and Baghdad. The Scandinavian contribution to the formation of Russia—the very name comes from Rus, meaning Swede or Scandinavian—is one of the liveliest Viking controversies investigated by NOVA.
With state-of-the-art computer animation and fresh
archaeological discoveries, NOVA breathes life into the towns
the Vikings founded, from Dublin to Novgorod. "The Vikings"
strips away the myth of savagery to reveal a compelling
portrait of a people who brought fear, prosperity, and new
horizons to the world of medieval Europe.
Lincoln's Secret Weapon
Holocaust on Trial
Hitler's Lost Sub
Runaway Universe
Garden of Eden
Dying to be Thin
Japan's Secret Garden |
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© | Created January 2007 |
