Network:  NOVA

Series: Adventures in Science
Episode: KABOOM!

     With stunning violence, a super-sonic shock wave ripples across the sand, blasting debris for a mile.  This time it’s only a test, rigged to help scientists explore the nature of explosions.  But its flash illuminates a dark fascination long held by those whose dangerous experiments have changed the course of history.

     Follow an explosive trail through the ages, starting in ninth-century China, where alchemists stir up a concoction meant to provide eternal life.   Instead, the strange mix blow ups in their faces – and the first pyrotechnics are born.  Intrigued by the magical formula, Roger Bacon makes a bigger bang by confining the black powder inside a tube.  “When the flame of powder catcheth the soul of man,” notes the medieval friar, “it burneth exceeding deep.”  The way is now paved for high explosives, and the nineteenth-century, industrialist Alfred Nobel – known variously as the ‘merchant of death’ and the founder of the Nobel Peace Prize – in turn pushes nitroglycerin to its dynamite potential.  Carrying on the legacy, physicist Robert Oppenheimer will unleash the terrible beauty of the atomic bomb, ironically hoping its awesome power might render war obsolete.  What will be our next experiment in search of the ultimate explosion?

Running Time:  60 minutes

Color/Not Rated/VHS

Released on cassette:  1997 

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