How We Got to Now

This is a great documentary series.

I just finished the glass episode. Starting on the Venetian island of Murano in the 14th century where a craftsman discovered a way to make glass clear.
- Clerics use half spheres of clear glass to magnify words on a page.
- Lens are made to help clerics to read better, they are put in frames and spectacles are invented.
- The invention of the printing press makes books more available and increases the demand for spectacles.
- Lens are combined to create the microscope and the telescope.
- A lens is added to a box and photosensitive material to create the camera.
- The live video camera is reduced so as to make a live broadcast from the moon possible.
- Glass mirrors fundamentally change the psychology of self and makes possible many renaissance artists.
- Mirrors make modern, large telescopes possible.
- Fiber optics makes broadband Internet possible worldwide.