Photon Connection
From the collection of
Photon Connection
Sir Kenneth Corfield presents a revolutionary use of light for comunication in the 54th annual Faraday Lecture at London's Dominion Theatre.
Sir Kenneth Corfield, chairman and chief executive of Standard Telephones and Cables, presents the 54th edition of the annual Faraday Lecture. Seen by over 100,000 people across the country, the final lecture took place in the Dominion Theatre on London's Tottenham Court Road. STC celebrated its own centenary the same year.
The crowds stream into the venue, under the marquee (or letter board) advertising some of the other coming attractions, such as the third Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi, along with the title of the upcoming lecture - The Photon Connection. The opening of the lecture makes use of the massive hydraulic lift designed by set designer John Napier for the upcoming 'Time - the Musical'.
The lecturer talks about the use of light to transfer messages; from the fall of Troy to announcing the wedding of Charles and Diana. A slide show takes us through developments in communication technology - radio to television, BBC to commercial stations, the introduction of colour, moon landings, and the arrival of computers into offices and everyday life. Sir Kenneth provides us with practical demonstrations using visible light and lasers, and explains the benefits of optical systems - less digging up of the roads for one thing!
This video is from the IET Archives, a member of the London's Screen Archives Network.
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That Was the Future
Their future, our now: explore how earlier generations imagined the world we're living in today.
For anyone living in the later years of the 20th century, it felt like the future was arriving unusually fast. As computers, once huge behemoths that filled rooms, began to shrink to desktop size, they quickly spread into every arena of society, spreading out from university labs and industry giants to ordinary offices, schools and into the home. Meanwhile astonishing advances in robotics, genetics, materials, transport and entertainment all offered glimpses of a brave new world. Just trying to keep up with this revolution was dizzying, never mind making sense of it.
What did it all mean? What did the future hold - for our work, our leisure, our health, our food, our relationships? How would technology change us as people? Would it be the kind of future we'd want? Nobody could say for sure, but there were plenty of people willing to speculate. And now that their future is our present, it's fascinating to look back and judge for ourselves how right - or how wrong - they were.
19 videos in this collection
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IT82: The Office
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IT82: The Home
4
Prostheses
5
Smart Living @ Home with Technology
6
Sinclair C5 Cycle / Car Launched
7
Mobile Phones: Text
8
Appeal For Computer Game Programmers
9
Digital World
10
Scientists Growing Skin Artificially
11
Talk Teletext
12
Introduction to Computers
13
Modernising the Underground
14
Photon Connection
15
Mensa Symposium Predicts Future
16
Computers for Share Dealing
17
Ford Working On Tomorrow's Car
18
Police Try Out Their New Hoolivan
19