Inventions that shook the world - S01E06 - THE 1950S

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from boats that float to boats that hover it changed how we travel from room sized radios to those that fit in a pocket in revolutionize electronics and from anonymous asteroids traveling through space to a man-made satellite orbiting Earth it opens the door to the universe they were all inventions of a 1950's a decade defined by fast food fast cars and even faster music the hovercraft the transistor radio and the breathalyzer were all inventions that shook the world the 1950s saw a race to produce the first transistor radio although just beaten by the region CTR won a pair of inventors would build the super company Sony because of their invention in the late 1940s to Tokyo engineers was struggling to keep their small electronics company afloat because post-war Japan was in ruins their tape recorders and other gadgets were not selling there was no steady power supply there were no tools there was no consumer class left there was no money to buy something even if you had something to sell Masaru Ibuka started the company in 1946 ibaka was a sort of bumbling big slightly stooped over not very fashionable brilliant inventor and even more gorgeously brilliant inspirer of inventions ibaka employed the best and brightest minds including Akio Morita who turned his back on his family's sake Dynasty to study physics Morita had the ability to pioneer a market when no market existed he said you don't know you want this but by the time I'm through with you you won't be able to do without it the market they wanted to break into was the US when new electronic gadgets were everywhere they yearly give their attention to what's new and beautiful and advance from beauty products to labor saving devices but what to invent for a nation that seemed to have everything Ibaka wondered if a recent scientific breakthrough the transistor could be the key it was a tiny new device that amplified electronic signals it controlled the flow of a current and switched that flow off and on the revolutionary part of transistors was that they were a fraction of the size of anything that had previously existed Ivica was intrigued he knows nothing about them but he knows that they're a power source that's tiny that's all I needs to know he wants it the power source at the time was the glass vacuum tube these cumbersome tubes met the TVs and radios the 1950s was so big they took up half a room this gave the inventors an idea a smaller radio that listeners could carry around with them made using the new transistors this transistor would be their entrance their entry key into the American market which they wanted desperately they'd bought a license from Western Electric the US company that developed the first transistor but the early version was so weak it could only power tiny devices such as hearing aids inspired as always by Ibaka 's insistence by his fixation by his focus and by his energy the company's engineers outdid themselves for nearly a year struggling with what to do with this feeble little transistor they discovered that the transistors power was boosted with a process called phosphorus doping injecting microscopic amounts of the mineral added free-floating electrons to the metal in the transistor this dramatically improved its ability to conduct electricity and increased power flow the next challenge was to make miniature radio parts there were many dead ends that were encountered obviously how do we make this thing work because this was of course their baby they'd put a lot on the line they had borrowed money though the Regency tr1 was unveiled in 1954 they weren't discouraged and had a prototype finished by 1955 and it worked like a dream there was tremendous exhilaration and exuberance that went through he began more John was a thrilling moment when that transistor was originally placed into the wiring which had been designed to run this little radio and it worked next they had to find a company name that Americans could pronounce more etre the marketing expert suggested a clever combination the Latin word for sound sonís combined with sunny slang for boy and so sony was born this is a marvelous store because it meant to him a sunny boy a young guy was brimming with energy and exuberance and vitality so let's take sound mix it with sunny boy and come up with sunny and that's where the name came from in April 1955 Murata went to America to sell the Sony radio but the response was not enthusiastic the transistor radio business in the United States encountered some very considerable resistance 1950s was a time when Americans were going bigger and better not smaller and better so these huge consoles bigger cars bigger everything then Moritz Ahmet executives with a Bulova watch company who were impressed Jim this could be what we're looking for I think and they said we get it we think people want a radio they can carry around with them easily and we will buy from you 100,000 units that translated in terms of money into more than the entire companies capitalized worth how many can we get it seemed as if a dream had come true but there was a drawback Bulova wanted its own name on the product not Sony's he said we'll buy a hundred thousand of these things but you have to put our name on them and more it I said Murata's decision shocked the executives I mean that's the most important moment in the entire transistor radio story and more Jo later said about it that it was his most important business decision he ever made back in Japan Morita and Ibaka changed their strategy they began work on selling the concept of a radio that would fit in your pocket but it won't fit the solution was to invent a bigger pocket the early transistor radios didn't quite fit into a normal shirt pocket but Laurita had equipped his sales force with extra large pockets to make the illusion work the pocket-sized radio became a huge hit in Japan and then the u.s. finally wanted the radio to in November 1957 Sony charted an entire cargo plane to export enough radios to the US in time for Christmas a new era of portable sound was underway and the man who started Sony went on to build one of the most powerful brands in history more inventions of the decade 1951 Liquid Paper a clever correction fluid invented by a Dallas secretary who made the first batch in her kitchen blender 1952 the bongo board took balancing acts out of the circus and onto the street by using bongo bingo everything shaped up nicely and 1959 the three-point safety belts snapped into place clunk click every click and help to save more lives during crashes today's satellites predict whether they help navigation and enable mobile phones to work the very first satellite called Sputnik didn't actually do anything but both it and its inventor attracted the world's attention in the mid-1950s sergey koroliov was the Soviet Union's leading rocket scientist head of missile development he was a person who projected force and strength and he would move to meetings and he would dominate a meeting just by the power of his personality and and the power his ideas korolyov's passion for rockets began early in the 1930s he led a government team experimenting with primitive rockets but like many of his compatriots he fell victim to Soviet politics he was tortured and sentenced to ten years in a Siberian labor camp it was basically a death camp people were not expected to come back from there they'd be worked and there died there but koroliov was a survivor during the Cold War Soviet leaders knew he had the knowledge they required to compete with the US the Cold War was almost a contest not for the present but for the future which a lot two different systems the u.s. system or the Soviet system would be the model that the rest of the world would come to follow in the decades and generations ahead Cara have developed a new generation of rockets which could carry nuclear warheads based on technology from World War two Germany but corrodes dream wasn't to build weapons he wanted to explore space he thought if a rocket could launch a warhead from one continent to another the same type of rocket should be able to launch a satellite into orbit around the earth he knew the myth he knew that a missile that could go 15,000 miles an hour throat to throw a warhead to North America could with a little bit of change go 18,000 miles an hour to throw a radio into space to circle the earth a radio there would be a satellite he realized that a secondary rocket could be added to the main rocket and that this secondary rocket could carry the satellite inside its nose cone the primary rocket would propel the secondary rocket to the edge of space reach maximum speed and release it the secondary rocket would travel faster on its own carrying the satellite into orbit when the missile is going as fast as it can that small rocket fires and goes a little bit faster on its own the big missile never does go into orbit it drops back to earth the little rocket has enough extra speed to make this loop around the earth this falling forever around the earth under the force of gravity but koroliovas not the only one with ambitions for space the u.s. was determined to get there first and announced a plan to launch the world's first satellite the Soviets very quickly announced that they were going to do one to which the most the world with just a meet to ISM kind of a brat a boast it was unfortunately typical what the Soviets had done in the past for propaganda Carola have seized his opportunity brother done done brother Carlos is willing if that's the case we have a bunch of rockets here ready to fire anyway can we use them for the satellite and Khrushchev said go ahead so with Khrushchev's approval koroliov ordered testing on his r7 rocket the aim was to make sure it was capable of launching a satellite into space but there were problems with everything from boosters to emergency shutdown systems the r7 required redesigning the stakes our car left were immense if he couldn't get this rocket to work other people would have tried he had competitors who were trying to get his job if he lost the favor of Khrushchev he'd lose the cash flow he lose the influence he'd lose his job he might even lose his freedom on the 3rd of August 1957 the r7 returned to the launch pad then lifted off perfectly the next challenge was to build the satellite in a sterile room a metal sphere the size of a beach ball began to take shape it was called Sputnik Russian for satellite caronia was under constant surveillance as under the regime everyone was a potential enemy one miscalculation one wrong word and the authorities would remove them from the mission September 1957 and Korolev was racing to finish Sputnik his orders were simple once in space the satellites mission was to ensure the whole world knew it was out there and korolyov's design was brilliantly simple it was basically a couple transmitters there batteries a pressure and temperature sensor all housed in a metal sphere the simplest possible design for a satellite the completed Sputnik was an 83 kilogram all its contents were hermetically sealed inside a durable shell made of aluminium magnesium and titanium less than two months after construction began Sputnik was ready for launch inside the nose cone of a mighty r7 rocket no one was sure if the rocket would be food fly high enough or accurately enough or fast enough it was it was a gamble sergey koroliov took his seat at Mission Control the countdown began 223 kilometers above Earth Sputnik emerged from the nosecone of the rocket and went into orbit it was a major achievement but it would mean nothing unless the whole world heard its radio signal the moment Korolev's team had planned for they picked a radio frequency actually that was the common radio amateur frequency around the world so they didn't as the Americans did take the radio frequencies and put them into unused parts of the radio spectrum where no one would interfere and no one could hear they picked one too right in the middle of the amateur radio band so everybody could hear koroliov waited anxiously for the radio signal then five minutes and 14 seconds after launch yeah clearly they're overjoyed they were just weeping with with joy at the set the success of the project car left myself sat there and give a short speech about the best hopes of mankind haven't been achieved by the team here tonight it was a beep that changed the world the u.s. was amazed and stunned that the Soviet Union had beaten them into space I said we should Miletich once the habit of such a thing my opinion when splenic was launched it was such a shocking event such a surprising event that yellow it wasn't an attack fiscal attack in the United States it was a spiritual attack on God States people were staggered to their souls by by this concept that the Soviets could do things that we couldn't yet do and those things could have very severe national security implications Sputnik beeped for 23 days until the transmitter batteries died it continued to orbit Earth for further nine weeks as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere the world's first man-made satellite disintegrated but Sputnik changed the world forever it was a symbol of entry to space there was a symbol of a new dimension in human existence Sputnik was basically kicking in the door of heaven within five months of sputnik's launch the u.s. launched a satellite Explorer 1 sergey koroliov went on to even greater achievements building rockets that sent the first humans into space other inventions of the decade 1950 the credit card plastic replaced paper as the way to pay 1954 Teflon cookware the nonstick wonder easy cleaning in the kitchen Joey it's sounding with Teflon on and 1956 videotape less expensive than film and far more convenient our evenings would never be the same again this tape can be erased and used again once roadside alcohol tests proved useless and catching impaired drivers the police couldn't prove it so the drunks got off then a forensics expert invented a machine that cannot be fooled in the 1950s Robert Birkin Stein was the head of an Indiana Crime Laboratory if once Enid had a photograph far too often were the deaths on motorways caused by impaired drivers whilst drink-driving was illegal in the US and nineteen fifties it was almost impossible to obtain a guilty verdict you've got to be kidding give me that much there was a real serious problem with alcohol and driving people getting behind the wheel of a car after they've had a few drinks and there was no effective way to measure the level of intoxication Volken Stein wanted to change that he didn't have a college degree he was just brilliant and he could look at something and determine how it was supposed to work and how to put it together and to train others with him after seeing one too many senseless accidents Bourquin Stein was determined to devise a roadside tests for inebriation he began to think about what scientists already knew about alcohol in the human body and realized the answer could lie on a discovery made decades earlier when alcohol enters the human bloodstream the alcohol molecules move into the lungs into millions of tiny air sacs called alveoli when exhaled alcohol is released from the alveoli into the breath along with carbon dioxide in the nineteen thirties that had led to the invention of the drunk ohmmeter the drunk ometer was the first actual breath testing instrument that was ever devised it involved a person blowing into a balloon and then the sample of breath was run through a series of chemicals and based on the chemical reaction it was possible to determine an approximate value what their blood alcohol concentration was but balkan stai knew that drunk ometer wasn't accurate though it detected the presence of alcohol it did not measure the percentage of alcohol in the bloodstream plus the Machine wasn't portable and it required a scientist to operate it seeing these limitations he immediately in the back of his mind started you know churning up ideas on how to improve it how to make it more accurate how to make it simpler Bourquin stein began to improve the drunken aaja first he removed the leaky balloon and replaced it with an airtight chamber to collect the breath sample next he had to devise a method of measuring the exact percentage of alcohol in the blood however for the result to be accepted in court he needed to find a way to measure the counter change he realized the answer lay in an area he knew well photography used to build cameras it was one of the first people to use color film and forensic science he worked with the military and helping develop a color comparator to assist in bombing raids Balkan Stein had also worked with a densitometer a photographic instrument that measured the darkness or density of photographic film and gave it a numerical value he wondered whether a similar instrument could measure color change in a breath sample Balkan Stein installed a photometer lab that compared the color density of liquid in two small vials the breath sample was released into one of the vials alcohol reacted with a chemical and changed color the photometer measured exactly how much lighter the alcohol sample was than the reference sample thus revealing the exact percentage of alcohol in the blood he had built the machine now he had to prove that it was accurate and reliable when dr. Bergin sane realized they had this instrument almost perfected and the test so like any good scientist he fix himself a scotch and Soda and he drank it and he gave himself a series of breath tests and recorded the results it worked exactly as he'd hoped he called his invention the breathalyzer finally there was a method to convict drunk drivers using a test that's almost impossible to refute in court well there are a lot of theories out there about how you can quote beat the breathalyzer and I can tell you right now everyone tries it is wasting their time so poor cam Stein's invention is used to convict millions of drunk drivers and helped turn a deadly habit into a taboo engine failure human error or a-bomb investigating why planes crash can be impossible if there are no survivors but at least one witness always survives to tell the tale and it was all because an Australian refused to give up on a good idea in 1953 Aviation investigators in Melbourne were facing a difficult task finding out why a passenger jet destined for Australia crashed it was leaving Pakistan killing everyone on board one investigator was combustion expert david warren whose job was to discover how and why things exploded he was the son of australian missionaries and had lost his father in a plane crash the final gift that David's father gave to him as a young boy was a crystal radio set which is really a simple radio receiver David loved the little gadget and it sparked his natural curiosity in things electronic or mechanical he went on to build his own little radio sets and sold them to schoolmates at the time he ended up working at Melbourne's aeronautical research lab but experts were mystified by the latest crash there was no wreckage survivors or witnesses to provide clues he started to think about this little gadget he'd just seen at a trade fair in Melbourne it was the mini fun pocket recorder the world's first miniature pocket recorder he wondered if a similar device could be installed in cockpits which would record what was happening when pilots were dealing with an emergency it was a new and revolutionary idea It was as if David scientific mind and his imaginative side came together and this idea came out of it the challenge was to convince his superiors his boss at the time wasn't interested in fact he said to David this really isn't your line of work go back to blowing up fuel tanks David didn't give up he was certain a solution to solving plane crashes was to record every sound in the cockpit so investigators could replay the final minutes before a crash instead of using tape he used wire as the recording mechanism as it stood a better chance of surviving an impact and fire through trial and error he built a prototype to make it crash and fire-resistant he how's his invention in a titanium box he took it to Australia's aviation authorities but there was more disappointment not all of David's colleagues and certainly not aviation authorities were enthusiastic or supportive of David's idea privacy was a big issue in fact there's some interesting quotes that from the pilots Federation it would be like a spy on board the Air Force said the tapes could yield more expletives than explanations David was up against hostility and indifference it seemed as if David's invention was doomed but a VIP visiting from England wanted to have a look at the prototype pleasure to meet you come and show me what you've been working on Robert Harding Ham was a former Air Marshal who had helped to guide the Royal Air Force to victory in the Battle of Britain David's boss at the time invited him to come to the lab and see David's little demonstration unit and explain what his idea and Sir Robert Harding Ham was immediately enthusiastic about it he thought it was a great idea he believed it was going to be a great tool for air accident investigation David was invited to go to England with Harding ham to demonstrate his invention he was given a team of engineers to further develop the unit with the support from Britain the aeronautical research labs decided to finally put some funding into this project a journalist called the flight recorder the black box like a little black book it is full of important information it was not until 1977 that the black box made headlines in Tenerife two Boeing 747s collided on a runway 583 people were killed and hundreds more were injured a lot of debris flew large pieces of little thrown up in the air alone it is one of the deadliest aviation disasters in history and thanks to the black box its cause was quickly established on reviewing the cockpit voice recordings it was revealed that there had been confusion between the pilots and confusion with the air traffic control that led to this horrendous crash it was critical information that would probably never have been discovered without the black box proving their fundamental worth to aviation the black box recorder changed the world because it gave Eric's investigators another dimension into investigation of an air crash if human flight is a supreme achievement of the 20th century then surely the cockpit voice recorder is one of the most important safety inventions for the aviation industry David Warren never made any money from his invention but in 2002 49 years after his brainwave he was finally awarded the Order of Australia more inventions of the decade 1958 the hula hoop a new toy that sent a whole world spinning 1953 the TV dinner easy meat and potatoes for those with a busy life also in 1953 the car that parked itself using a fifth wheel meaning it could be turned on a sixpence a concept that quickly stalled from the frozen Arctic to the combat zone the hovercraft revolutionized travel over land and water all because of an Englishman who thought of a way to float and fly in 1951 Christopher cockerel had retired and was enjoying an adil ik life on the English coast designing and building pleasure boats he was a remarkable man a real British gentleman he didn't suffer fools but he was remarkably intelligent and he could have a conversation with anybody on anything cockerel had had a brilliant career at the Marconi wireless company he pioneered aircraft communication and retired with 36 patents to his name during the war he had also worked on wireless messaging for troops on the move navigation was always a massive problem and in that time he saw the massive losses that Britain and the Allies were having in Normandy but there was one memory that continually haunted cockerel the d-day landings of 1944 when thousands of Allied troops were either killed by enemy fire or drowned because their ships couldn't reach shore the landings were the most dangerous part many British soldiers Allied forces got killed and if it had an infamous vehicle get them up the beach dry but it was made a big difference to the world war losses Cockrell was determined to build an amphibious vehicle he knew that meant defy the laws of friction to create a whole new kind of machine he knew that the water resistance the friction was very hard to overcome really the best way to is lift out the water altogether and not have any of the friction or the drag in other words how do you make a boat fly Cockrell believe the answer was to create a cushion of air between the hull and the water and he thought he knew how to do it to test his idea he gathered a few simple household items a hairdryer a couple of empty tins and a set of scales he suspended the hairdryer above the two cans the smaller container placed inside the larger one the air from the dryer was forced downward between the two tins this compressed the air into a high-pressure jet the more pressure the greater the chance of keeping an object aloft Cockrell then built the tin can concept into a simple prototype powering it with an engine from a model airplane during testing it did what it is designed to do hovering just above the water at a speed of 13 knots he'd done the mathematics and he knew it was gonna work so he wasn't surprised when it worked he called it the hovercraft but Cockrell couldn't convince anyone that it was an idea worth pursuing cockerel was unsuccessful initially in getting this idea off the ground so to speak he went round everybody all the right people had contacts in their ministry and they said lovely idea but it's not really near crawfish about he had contacts in the boating industry and they said well it is nearly crafts it's not really boat however cockerel persisted demonstrating his model whenever he could he waited for almost two years but nothing happened then the world discovered that the Swiss had the same idea it was only the fact that other people in the world have got ideas of that cockerel invention there was danger that other people the world was started doing it that riddance and it put some money into it but it was not the military that developed the hovercraft because the war was over instead construction began in 1958 on a civilian passenger craft the SR n1 the base of the craft was a buoyant tank nine metres long made from lightweight aluminium a deck took shape on top of the tank a giant fan was installed and its air would be guided downward toward Jets it would create the required cushion of air after months of construction and testing the hovercraft was ready for its maiden voyage in front of an international audience so Christopher said from the beginning Brittany's a shop window for hovercraft and what's better than using the English Channel July 25th 1959 the hovercraft left France and headed out into the English Channel cockerel was one of the three-man crew during the crossing he was almost knocked overboard by waves from a passing ship two hours and three minutes after departure he made a grand entrance into Dover Harbour they made light of it very much so that it was a piece of cake he said to the people down in the beach the reporters waiting for him when these Diaries he wrote it was a nightmare you know it was amazing we ever got through it the hovercrafts popularity caught on it prompted all types of variations including powerful military vehicles just as Cockrell had first imagined the lovely thing about the hovercraft it's being used everywhere today you can find them in the Aleutians taking people to school you can find them in Korea in defense you can find them in Africa doing whoring doctor services profiling Canada breaking ice you can find in Scandinavia doing things that no other military vessel can do hover over being used everywhere quietly the hovercraft earned cockerel and knighthood and made him one of the great transportation inventors along with men's such as Henry Ford and the Wright brothers other ideas of the 1950's 1957 the laser an intensely powerful beam of light that revolutionized everything from the supermarket to the operating room 1954 the high-efficiency solar cell capable of converting sunlight into energy six times more effectively than anything before it and 1950 the plastic aerosol valve turning liquid into spray pumped out a 100 million dollar bonanza for its inventor you

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Channel: Suzy Sertic

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Rating: 4.7330861 out of 5

Keywords: Channel, New, Discovery, World, Series, inventions, that, shook, the, world, 2013, season 1, s01, episode 6, e6, ep6, Full, Watch, Episodes, Season Episode, discovery channel, new, fuul, watch, Free, tv, show, series, now

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Length: 43min 10sec (2590 seconds)

Published: Mon May 20 2013

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