The Electric Boy

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"The Electric Boy"
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey episode
Episode no.Season 1
Episode 10
Directed by Bill Pope
Written by Ann Druyan
Steven Soter
Narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Featured music Alan Silvestri
Editing byJohn Duffy
Michael O'Halloran
Eric Lea
Production code109
Original air dateMay 11, 2014 (2014-05-11)
Running time41 minutes
Episode chronology
 Previous
"The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth"
Next 
"The Immortals"
List of episodes

"The Electric Boy" is the tenth episode of the American documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey . It premiered on May 11, 2014 on Fox, and aired on May 12, 2014 on National Geographic Channel. [1] The episode was directed by Bill Pope, and written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter. The episode explores the Earth's magnetic field and the contributions of Michael Faraday (1791 – 1867), which paved the way for high technology and light-speed communication. [2]

Contents

Episode summary

Michael Faraday presenting his experiments with electromagnetism at a Christmas Lecture, 1856 Faraday Michael Christmas lecture detail.jpg
Michael Faraday presenting his experiments with electromagnetism at a Christmas Lecture, 1856

This episode provides an overview of the nature of electromagnetism, as discovered through the work of Michael Faraday. Tyson explains how the idea of another force of nature, similar to gravitational forces, had been postulated by Isaac Newton before. Tyson continues on Faraday, coming from poor beginnings, would end up becoming interested in studying electricity after reading books and seeing lectures by Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution. Davy would hire Faraday after seeing extensive notes he had taken to act as his secretary and lab assistant.

After Davy and chemist William Hyde Wollaston unsuccessfully tried to build on Hans Christian Ørsted's discovery of the electromagnetic phenomena to harness the ability to create motion from electricity, Faraday was able to create his own device to create the first electric motor by applying electricity aligned along a magnet. Davy, bitter over Faraday's breakthrough, put Faraday on the task of improving the quality of high-quality optical glass, preventing Faraday from continuing his research. Faraday, undeterred, continued to work in the Royal Institution, and created the Christmas Lectures designed to teach science to children. Following Davy's death, Faraday returned to full time efforts studying electromagnetism, creating the first electrical generator by inserting a magnet in a coil of wires.

Tyson continues to note that despite losing some of his mental capacity, Faraday concluded that electricity and magnetism were connected by unseen fields, and postulated that light may also be tied to these forces. Using a sample of the optical glass that Davy had him make, Faraday discovered that an applied magnetic field could affect the polarization of light passing through the glass sample (a dielectric material), leading to what is called the Faraday effect and connecting these three forces. Faraday postulated that these fields existed across the planet, which would later be called Earth's magnetic field generated by the rotating molten iron inner core, as well as the phenomena that caused the planets to rotate around the sun. Faraday's work was initially rejected by the scientific community due to his lack of mathematical support, but James Clerk Maxwell would later come to rework Faraday's theories into the Maxwell's equations that validated Faraday's theories. Their combined efforts created the basis of science that drives the principles of modern communications today.

Episode title

The Electric Boy, Essai sur l'electricite des corps, 1746 RGNb10360943.01 Nollet The Electric Boy.tif
The Electric Boy, Essai sur l'electricité des corps, 1746

Faraday can be seen as an "electric boy" because of his electrical discoveries. Also, "The Electric Boy" was an experimental demonstration of static electricity popular in the eighteenth-century. A young man was suspended from the ceiling using insulating silk cords, and electrified, causing his body to act as a magnet. Objects were attracted to him, and close proximity of another person could lead to sparks. [3]

Reception

The episode received a 1.1/3 in the 18-49 rating/share, with 3.46 million American viewers watching on Fox. It placed third and last in its timeslot behind The Good Wife and Rosemary's Baby ; and eleventh out of fifteenth for the night. [4]

Related Research Articles

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<i>Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey</i> 2014 American science documentary television series presented by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is a 2014 American science documentary television series. The show is a follow-up to the 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which was presented by Carl Sagan on the Public Broadcasting Service and is considered a milestone for scientific documentaries. This series was developed to bring back the foundation of science to network television at the height of other scientific-based television series and films. The show is presented by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who, as a young high school student, was inspired by Sagan. Among the executive producers are Seth MacFarlane, whose financial investment was instrumental in bringing the show to broadcast television, and Ann Druyan, a co-author and co-creator of the original television series and Sagan's wife. The show is produced by Brannon Braga, and Alan Silvestri composed the score.

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"The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth" is the ninth episode of the American documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. It premiered on May 4, 2014 on Fox, and aired on May 5, 2014 on National Geographic Channel. The episode was directed by Brannon Braga, written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, and featured the voice of Amanda Seyfried as geologist Marie Tharp. The episode explores the history of the Earth starting with the period of the Late Heavy Bombardment, approximately "3.8 to 4.1 billion years ago during which the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and the Earth were battered by space debris." Host Neil deGrasse Tyson then delves into the biography of the Earth, expressed "in its continents, oceans and life living on and in them, saying 'the past is another planet,'" alluding to how plate tectonics have shaped the Earth over millions of years.

"The Immortals" is the eleventh episode of the American documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. It premiered on May 18, 2014, on Fox, and aired on May 19, 2014, on National Geographic Channel. The episode was written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, and directed by Brannon Braga. The episode explores the possibility of the interstellar spread of life and possible alien encounters. The episode also presents the hypothesis of panspermia, where the origin of life is attributed to comets or asteroids carrying radiation-resistant organisms.

"Unafraid of the Dark" is the thirteenth and final episode of the American documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and its series finale. It premiered on June 8, 2014, on Fox and aired on June 9, 2014, on the National Geographic Channel. The episode was written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, and directed by Ann Druyan, making this her series directorial debut. The episode explores the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, as well as the contributions and theories of Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky, who furthered our understanding of "supernovae, neutron stars and 'standard candles.'" The finale reveals a recording of life on Earth - the final message on the golden record of the space probe, Voyager. The episode ends with Carl Sagan's iconic speech on Earth as the "Pale Blue Dot."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of field theory</span>

In the history of physics, the concept of fields had its origins in the 18th century in a mathematical formulation of Newton's law of universal gravitation, but it was seen as deficient as it implied action at a distance. In 1852, Michael Faraday treated the magnetic field as a physical object, reasoning about lines of force. James Clerk Maxwell used Faraday's conceptualisation to help formulate his unification of electricity and magnetism in his theory of electromagnetism.

References

  1. Bowman, Sabienna (May 11, 2014). "Cosmos a Spacetime Odyssey Episode 10 "The Electric Boy"". TV Equals. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  2. The Daily Galaxy (May 11, 2014). "'Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey' -- "The Electric Boy" (Background for Sunday's Episode)". The Daily Galaxy. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  3. Lynn, Michael R. (2006). Popular science and public opinion in eighteenth-century France. Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press. p. 31. ISBN   978-0719073731 . Retrieved 31 October 2017.
  4. Bibel, Sara (May 13, 2014). "Sunday Final Ratings: 'Once Upon a Time', 'American Dad' & 'America's Funniest Home Videos' Adjusted Up; 'Revenge', 'Cosmos' & 'Dateline' Adjusted Down". TV by the Numbers. Archived from the original on May 14, 2014. Retrieved May 13, 2014.