(thunder rolls)
- Last time on Our Fascinating Planet
(lightning cracks) lightning struck man
and a man struck lightning with a kite.
Energy changed the face of the Earth
while man faced the change of the Earth,
all under a bright burning planet in the sky
called the sun, which ultimately brought mankind
face to face with his own potential to burn another planet,
one we call
the Earth.
(stirring orchestral music)
Perhaps there is no brighter force in the known universe
than light.
This bewitching scintillating enigma illuminates
every corner of the known cosmos,
but what is light?
Well, it's all around us
like air
or sexual tension,
an inextricable part of everything we do
and have and are and see.
(thunder crashes) (upbeat music)
(electricity crackles)
And we know it is our greatest form of energy.
To understand what light is, we must look into it,
literally, to see what it is made of.
Of course, this is difficult
because when you look directly at light,
much like a dog or a common criminal,
it is liable to hurt you.
But when scientists were able to look into light
using a combination of powerful telescopes
and even more powerful sunglasses,
we discovered a fascinating world within this shining form of energy.
- Energy comes in many forms or, as we like to call it,
waves.
The smallest waves are, of course,
microwaves, which are made of micros.
- [Ted] And these micros, or atoms,
as they are sometimes called,
are the building blocks of light.
So what exactly are these atoms?
Well an atom is essentially a microscopic atmosphere
of electrically charged storm clouds
and at its very center lies a tiny Earthlet.
The clouds rotate around the Earthlet and bombard it
constantly with minuscule lightning bolts.
These tiny storms are what give the atom energy
and also make it glow and so today we know
that since all objects contain atoms,
all objects contain light.
Trees,
cars,
people,
and even water.
In fact, light can even be found in something as simple
as a potato.
- Yeah, we're all familiar with the science fair experiment
where a kid powers a clock with a potato,
but we don't really have a grasp on how much energy
there is inside of a potato.
I mean, think about it, a potato is powered by what?
Potato atoms, Or potatoms, which are some
of the strongest atoms there are.
(electronic humming)
- Once micros were discovered, scientists began to think
about how to unleash all of the pre-captured
potential energy from the objects around us.
The problem was to find a way of extracting the micros
from those objects
and the solution
would come from a nightclub singer turned inventor
named Thomas Jefferson Edison.
Edison, having recently invented the record player
to help him practice his singing at home
was working on a patent for a glass listening helmet
to go with his new player.
One day, when he accidentally made one of his glass helmets
too small, Edison had a breakthrough.
He thought that maybe, if he put one of the large
hoop earrings from his stage costume upside down
into the small glass helmet
and hooked up wires to the earring,
it might create a small lightning storm inside the glass helmet
which would cause the micros in the upside down earring
to release light and that's exactly what happened.
And so, the light bulb was born and with it
a whole new era of energy began.
Light was used to power lamps,
trains,
homes,
and wars.
And it was even used to save lives,
but light,
like any good parent,
it can just as easily extinguish the life it gives.
(waves crash)
And so, lying deep within the positive energy
of light's illuminated micros,
there was a negative dark energy waiting to be released.
(suspenseful music)
- Light is very dangerous.
If you wait long enough,
a light will kill you.
- [Ted] Unsatisfied with the energy
they'd harnessed from atoms,
power greedy scientists decided to split open
one of these atoms
to extract all of the energy from the core
of its Earthlet
and when they did
(explosion booms) (intense orchestral music)
Still, despite this danger and the constant threat
of nuclear annihilation, man has succeeded in capturing
energy from light in all its various forms.
- Light is neutral.
It's all about what we make of it.
Light can be used for dark purposes.
Well I remember seeing film years ago
called Superman IV: A Quest for Peace
where they used the light to create a sun man,
a horrible sun man, a villain made of
the sun's rays.
This is a terrible villain.
These are choices that we make as humans,
but the light itself is neutral.
It's a neutral tool.
It's as neutral as the wind,
although the wind's pretty scary.
- Now, it's one thing to capture energy,
but
what's the point in capturing it,
if you have no way of containing it.
Which is to say, how do you keep energy?
I'm talking about storing it.
What's the point in having a child
if you have
no home
from which
to keep it escaping
from?
(upbeat music) (electricity crackles)
And so, mankind invented one such home
that today can be found in everything
from living room propellers
to home sex machines.
It's called the battery,
a metal shell containing a tiny lightning generator
that stores enough energy to kill a porpoise.
But how does a battery work?
Each battery's made up of tiny storm generating components,
which when combine create an explosive batter
of viscous lightning, hence the name battery.
On the side of its metal shell, a positive sign
and a negative sign,
a humble reminder
of both the awesome positive and negative power
always looming below light's surface.
Once placed into the proper holder,
the batter within the battery receives a charge
and starts to produce lightning
which in turn gives off energy.
Energy that can then power something as essential
as a child's semi-automatic water weapon.
Storing energy enables us to use it
any time we want,
like a donkey
or a prostitute,
and our modern world is evidence
of mankind having done just that.
We use energy today in so many myriad varieties of ways.
You could say
energy has powered
all of man's
greatest
hits.
(coconut thumps)
(coconut and desk thump)
(upbeat music)
As we look at the world today, it's hard
not to be impressed with what we've done as a species,
taking the Earth and using its resources
to create fantastic feats of energy utilization,
from lightning all the way down to potatoes.
- Look at her go.
- [Ted] The latest craze, green energy is an ingenious way
to harness the planet's natural energy
and it makes sense because it turns out
the Earth contains in its core the very same
viscous lightning that we put into batteries.
It's a natural form of lightning batter called
lava.
- The Earth is basically the biggest battery we have.
It's constantly expending energy just doing what it does
so we've discovered that if we simply get in its way
when its trying to do something, like blow wind
or shine sun,
we can basically
take that energy for free.
- [Ted] Thanks to impressive new technologies,
like wind propellers,
sun magnets,
and river motors,
we are finally really starting to take
our fragile planet's free energy.
- Here's a very effective metaphor.
It's like stepping in front of someone
who's on their way to the bank
and then just grabbing their wallet,
but let's say it's like an infinitely rich person
and they go to the bank every day
because they have so much money to deposit.
So our planet is like that very rich guy
on his way to the bank and we're stepping in front of it
and saying,
"Freeze"
"Freeze, you dirty pig, give me your wallet
"and if you tell anybody that you saw my face
"I'm going to kill you,"
and then you take the wallet,
you throw out, you just take the cash
and then throw the rest in the gutter.
- [Ted] Today we are robbing the Earth in smarter
and more creative ways,
taking the light and energy
it has stored for centuries
and using it in the blink of an eye.
- Fossil fuel, what is it?
What is it made of?
It's basically rich dense dinosaur bones
converted into liquid dinosaur paste
to make oil
and that's how we have electrical cars.
(stirring orchestral music)
- [Ted] The future is full of possibilities,
but will they be light or dark?
Perhaps it is not light or energy
that contains great positive and negative forces within,
but instead
it is man.
Maybe it is we, who, like the very batteries
we have created out of the lightning we have stolen,
should be mindful of the positive and negative signs
on our own metal shells.
Next time on Our Fascinating Planet.
- Not only can light give light, but it can also bounce.
Let me show you an example.
Let's pretend this is the sun and my palm is the Earth.
You see, it bounces off my hand and gives light
all around.
(stirring orchestral music)
(electronic swoosh) (squeak creaks)