Connections with James Burke
Season 1
20236 episodes
A mind-blowing romp through history builds a pathway to the present – and a breakthrough that stands to profoundly change our future.
Episodes
E1Seeing the Future
2023-11-09 · 45m
James connects the dots between Napoleon’s toothpick and the Nielsen TV ratings to see how scientists have built the quantum computer – a data-processing machine so powerful that it can predict the future.
E2The End of Scarcity
2023-11-09 · 47m
James jumps in the sensory deprivation tank with a man who took LSD with dolphins to discover how syphilis in the French aristocracy kicked off a journey to the nanofabricator–a machine that can build anything you wish for, molecule by molecule, for free. What will that mean for the value of things?
E3In the Net
2023-11-09 · 47m
James opens a cabinet of curiosities to discover how the French Revolution, wallpaper, and NORAD brought about the rise of big data – and a world where humans finally merge with the internet.
E4None of This is Real
2023-11-09 · 40m
Dog pee, the Polaroid camera, and rocket fuel lead us to a future where AI is indistinguishable from human intelligence. If we can’t tell machines and people apart, what will that mean for humanity?
E5Designer Genes
2023-11-09 · 41m
A cup of coffee in the 18th century takes James to the pioneering woman who discovered the structure of DNA, and a future with genetically engineered people. Will we want to be Super-Human?
E6Limitless Energy
2023-11-09 · 41m
How did a journey that began thousands of years ago with the Inca and the potato, connect to a mad scientist in a castle, and German beer, then bring us to the brink of a future with clean, limitless energy? And what will that future mean for humanity?