The Secret Genius of Modern Life - Season 2

The Secret Genius of Modern Life - Season 2

Season 2

Hannah once again takes us on a deep dive to uncover the unbelievable, and sometimes hilarious, stories behind modern day technology. Taking apart a different piece of technology in each episode, with exclusive access to major technology companies like Samsung and Dyson and speaking to some of the world's leading innovators, the second series of The Secret Genius of Modern Life sees Hannah uncover:

How catching a French 19th century serial killer helped shape the modern-day passport control.
The key component in vacuum cleaners developed for a secret atomic bomb lab.
How a Mormon preacher's sermon was crucial to the development of today's headphones.
How South Korean sausages shed new light on the inner workings of our smartphones.

Network
Episodes6
Datesnov. 8, 2023 - déc. 14, 2023
Previous Season

Episodes

Passport
Season 2Episode 160 min

Passport

Hannah gains access to a top-secret site where anonymous staff and the latest tech work to make the British passport one of the most secure documents on the planet. 

She reveals the World War I spy craft hidden in the pages of every passport and takes a look into how modern ID checks were shaped by the hunt for a 19th-century French serial killer and 1970s psychedelic art.

nov. 8, 2023
Vacuum Cleaner
Season 2Episode 260 min

Vacuum Cleaner

Hannah takes a look at the vacuum cleaner, going behind the scenes with Dyson and discovering how the motor in their latest vacuum spins nine times faster than that of a Formula One race car.

She finds out why a wheezy janitor in the 1900s took inspiration from a sewing machine to create the first popular, portable vacuum. And she comes face to face with a colony of creepy crawlies whose job is to help us fight the filth.

nov. 22, 2023
Smartphone
Season 2Episode 360 min

Smartphone

With over six billion of them across the planet, smartphones have changed the modern world. With rare access to electronics giant Samsung, Hannah uncovers the technological game-changers that have made the smartphone a reality.

She finds out how 1940s comic book hero Dick Tracy inspired the first mobile phone, discovers why the invention of the digital camera led to one of the biggest commercial blunders of all time, and reveals what a 2010 South Korean sausage frenzy can tell us about touchscreens.

nov. 29, 2023
Microwave
Season 2Episode 460 min

Microwave

Hannah Fry discovers the hidden WWII radar technology that heats up baked beans, learns the legend of the melted candy bar in an engineer's pocket that kick-started a kitchen revolution, and puts her life on the line to demonstrate why microwaves zap food but not people!

déc. 6, 2023
Headphones
Season 2Episode 560 min

Headphones

Headphones: these marvels of miniaturisation are worn by over 30 million people in the UK. Hannah Fry visits legendary headphone honchos Bose to find out how today's teeny earbud tech works and meets the human testers with ‘golden ears'.

She discovers how helicopters in the Korean War helped put the ‘shhh' into noise-cancelling, why it took a muted Mormon church service to get headphones onto people's heads, and how an opera singer's electric shock therapy led to the invention of the speaker.

déc. 7, 2023
Lift
Season 2Episode 660 min

Lift

Hannah goes behind the scenes to look at the technology behind the lift, entering a 246m high lift shaft to test everything from the brakes to her own fear of heights.

Along the way, she finds out how rickety 19th-century coal mines made lifts safer, gets to grips with a piece of medieval siege technology still used in lifts today, and discovers how an 1850s PR stunt changed the modern skyline forever.

déc. 14, 2023

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