Episode 5 The Quizeum

Highlighting the skill, the ingenuity and the invention

that created the Industrial Revolution

and fired up the white heat of technical innovation

across the north of England,

this is the Museum of Science and Industry

in Manchester.

And today, it's host to The Quizeum.

Welcome and this is an utter treat

because we are sitting here in the Textiles Gallery

amongst some hugely inspiring scientific and industrial clutter.

We've got four rounds to ask questions about the contents,

ranging from machines to models,

from tools to madcap devices.

And gagging to get amongst them

and show us how they work are our two teams.

On my right, from that other great industrial town - Oxford -

art historian Dr Nina Ramirez.

Joining her, we welcome back

Professor of the Public Understanding of Science,

also from Oxford, Marcus du Sautoy.

But ranged against that august university,

we have our opposing elements led by Professor Kate Williams

and her partner today, physicist, writer

and presenter Dr Helen Czerski.

So, Nina, how are you feeling about the coming battle today?

Pretty nervous about the idea of an art historian

pitting her wits against all of science and industry.

LAUGHTER You have Marcus here!

I'm the Professor for the Public Understanding of Science,

-so I know the whole of science.

-The whole of science!

-So, the pressure is on me. Don't worry.

-Good, good.

Helen, what I love about this place and is interesting about it

is we have science and industry.

Which comes first?

You know, is it the industry that says, "We need science to help us?"

Or is it science going, "We've got this idea,

-"how can you make a use of it?"

-It's a little bit of both.

That's the best thing about all this is that you...

Some of it is accidental and people just found the thing

and some of it is people really, really wanting something

and trying hard until they've made it. So, we are in both.

I like the idea that as you go around, you think,

"Gracious, what a lot of mental effort went into some..."

I mean industry... No, seriously.

Industrial terms, we don't quite realise until you get amongst

these things how complicated they were to think up and then to make.

Anyway, we are going on into our first round.

I'm going to ask an open question worth one point.

The first right answer gets a more intriguing question

worth a more intriguing two points.

So, off we go into the museum to encounter this here.

So, which manufacturer produced this vehicle in Hulme, Manchester?

BELL RINGS

-It's Rolls-Royce.

-Ford.

-It's Rolls-Royce.

Kate and Helen, point to you. You get the specialist question.

Have a look at this coming in now.

So, your question here is -

why was driving this chisel into this 10,000-volt cable no accident?

-LAUGHS:

-Sounds like a dangerous thing to do if it was an electrical cable.

But it was no accident, so it must have created...

It must have been...

It has something to do with creating a piston or a car or engine.

Would it send a telegraph signal? No. I don't know.

-So, should we guess something?

-Go on.

-Go on, you guess.

-HELEN LAUGHS

-Is it a telegram or creating an engine?

-It's more likely to be a telegram.

-OK, telegram.

We are going for telegram.

So, it made a message which it sent to somebody in the form of

-a sort of telegram - "Listen to this."

-Yeah.

-Yes.

That's not correct. I'm going to pass it over here.

There is a chisel

and next to the chisel is a very large,

tough-looking electrical cable.

Now, listen carefully to the question.

Why was driving this chisel into this 10,000-volt cable no accident?

-So it's done on purpose.

-Was it creating a spark?

Is it an early form of spark plug?

It wasn't an early form of spark plug. No!

It's no accident,

so it was...it was done on purpose to break the flow,

the electrical current, presumably for safety reasons, but I don't...

When you mean for safety reasons, how do you mean?

Cos you're very close to it now.

-HE SCOFFS

-Um...

-You've certainly got one point.

-OK.

-Yes.

-Safety reasons, so maybe the current was too great.

-Almost there.

It was driven in to break the current for safety purposes...

-Yes!

-..but it wasn't because there was an accident about to happen

if it didn't happen.

But slightly the opposite.

-It was a demonstration.

-Oh!

It was a safety test made in 1889.

On the new power line from Deptford to London,

this very chisel was driven into this very cable,

which was very live with 10,000 volts.

It activated the main fuse and cut off the supply,

so the system was shown to be safe.

The engineer in charge was Sebastian Ferranti from Liverpool.

And he was just 23 at the time.

He was the original bright spark.

And luckily, he didn't have to spend half an hour in the cupboard

under the stairs trying to work out which fuse had gone.

LAUGHTER

-I think safely and fairly I can give you one point for that.

-Well done.

I can't give you both points cos we missed the essential idea

that it was a demonstration.

Now, have a look at this.

Built into the fabric of the museum,

this is the oldest surviving passenger railway station

in the world. But what was the name of the locomotive

that won the competition...? BELL RINGS

-Rocket.

-Planet.

-The Rocket...

-Shh!

-No, no!

-Rocket! Rocket.

-OK, she said it first. Sorry.

Marcus! Yes, you are correct, Nina.

So, just by the skin of your teeth you managed to get in

before Marcus came in with an inoperative name.

OK, yes, George and Robert Stephenson's Rocket,

the only locomotive to complete the trials

winning first prize of £500.

So, let's have a look at this.

This is a clock.

It's your two-pointer.

Installed in a mill in 1810.

But how did this clock two-time the workers?

Two-time the workers.

Yeah, I think...I think I've... I think it's something to do with

the water that was running... It's a mill, isn't it?

-It's in a mill, is that right?

-It is in a mill, yes.

And I think it was something to do with if there wasn't...

If the water wasn't flowing fast enough,

then the machinery wouldn't work fast enough,

so the workers had to make up the time.

So, although they were looking at the clock above to say,

"Oh, I'm clocking off in five minutes."

In fact, they were having time added on for extra

work that they had to do at the end of the day. Is that right?

If that's not right, it deserves to be

cos it's such a brilliant answer.

-That's two points. You're completely right.

-Yay!

-That's fantastic!

Perhaps if it had really flooded and production time was flying by,

maybe everybody got the afternoon off.

-LAUGHS:

-No.

No, I don't think so either.

Anyway, that's two points to you. Fingers back on your buzzers.

This is another opener, so for one point.

This triplane was the basis of the first company exclusively set up

to produce aeroplanes in Britain. What was it called?

BELL RINGS

Arvos, is it?

That's the... One of them, yeah. Go for that.

What's your answer?

-Arvos.

-Arvos?

-Arvos.

No, it's not Arvos. I'm going to pass it over here.

-Av...

-Arvo?

-It's Avro. ALL:

-Avro!

So, neither of you got the special question.

So, which bomber made by Avro first saw active service in 1942?

-BELL RINGS

-Lancaster.

The Lancaster, the Avro Lancaster.

So, you get a two-point special question.

So, Nina and Marcus...

Oh!

Have a look at this.

Here is your question.

How did a brewer bring up a hot issue with this?

Right. How did a brewer bring up a hot issue?

-OK, so this is Joule.

-Ah!

Joule was a brewer and measured energy.

-You are on exactly the right track.

-He used precision instruments.

-You've got your point for Joule. He was a brewer.

-Yeah.

So, the other part of the question, had a hot issue with this piece.

Oh, I know! No, it's about agitation.

So, this is agitating thing...is to show that heat is actually movement.

-That's it! Movement.

-And so by moving the thing, it heated up.

So, this is actually moving the molecules inside the liquid

and by showing that that was heating up,

he demonstrated that kinetic energy, movement

being put into this thing translated into heat.

That sounds good enough for me. I'm going to give you the two points.

It was only a few years later the first law of thermodynamics

effectively was promulgated, as it were.

Although he had already said

that what his experiments were proving was that it was not possible

-to dissipate energy.

-But this is really important

because it changed what people thought about energy.

It was still argued about, but he showed the nature of energy

for the first time. That was what was important about this apparatus.

My favourite story about him is that he was

so fascinated by heat that when he went on honeymoon

to the waterfalls in Switzerland,

decided he had to go and measure the heat of the waterfall

-while on honeymoon.

-Romantic(!)

-HELEN:

-Dedication to the cause, I think you'd agree.

So, fingers on your buzzers, another opener worth one point.

Have a look at this.

This lifting machine was powered by a horse walking in a circle,

but in the late 18th century,

who developed the concept of horsepower as a unit of measurement?

-BELL RINGS

-Well, I think with Newcomen's...

engine, that was about replicating the energy of a horse

by up to six to ten, so I'd make a guess it's him,

but I'm probably wrong.

Newcomen. No, I'm afraid not. Do you want to pick this up?

-Is it Watt?

-It was Watt. Yes!

Congratulations. Well done.

That's one point, but also the specialist question.

So, can you tell me why might a real one of these

be unwelcome here in two ways?

Well, it's got pipes running through it, which are closed at this end.

So, it could be for heating or cooling.

Is it something to do with the cotton and the fact that

if it was too...humid... If it wasn't humid enough, cotton...

-You needed a humid environment...

-If it hasn't got the right

conditions... Yes.

As we are in the cotton mill producing area,

too much heat would mean that the cotton wasn't properly produced

cos it would get greasy and the machines would fail.

No.

No, I'm afraid, but I'm going to hand it over

because you haven't got close with that.

Would you like to guess what this object is?

I think it's from a nuclear power station.

I think it might be a nuclear fuel rod or something.

-I think you might be right.

-Yes.

And I'm going to give you the point,

but why but why would it be doubly unwelcome here?

-In Manchester?

-In Manchester?

I don't know. I was going to say a coal using area,

but no, I don't know. Why would nuclear power be unwelcome?

The council here declared this a nuclear-free zone.

You get the extra point. That's exactly what they did in 1980.

This is a dummy.

It's an advanced gas-cooled reactor fuel element from around 1975.

At least I was told it was a dummy. LAUGHTER

A real fuel rod would also be unwelcome here in Manchester

because in 1980, the city council declared it a nuclear-free zone.

Though these days, they also advertise it as the birthplace

-of nuclear physics...

-Exactly!

-LAUGHTER

..where Ernest Rutherford first split the atom.

That's called having your yellow cake and eating it.

LAUGHTER So, at the end of the round,

it's time to look at the scores.

And Helen and Kate, I thought you...

You appeared to know everything there...

-But...

-..but you only scored two points.

-Can do better.

-Nina and Marcus, who claimed ignorance

-of all things scientific, have scored nine points!

-Nine!

But it can all change as we move into the next round.

We are going to bring an object to the table,

both members of one team will give an account of it,

but only one of those is actually true

and the other team has to guess which

and will earn three points for doing so.

It is time for a Question Of Attribution.

So, Nina and Marcus, you go first.

What does this purport to be

and who is going to start?

I'm going to tell you all about this contraption.

It's, in fact, a canary resuscitator.

So, you might know that down the mines,

people had to take canaries down

to check that the carbon monoxide level wasn't getting too high.

But of course, people got a bit upset at these canaries all dying.

So, this was when they spotted the canary keeling over,

they would take the canary out, pop it in here,

shoot it with a load of oxygen and resuscitate the canary.

-Nina, you have a different story.

-I do.

OK, so, this was used for understanding

the levels of nitrogen balance

with the Haber-Bosch process

to make chemical fertilisers.

You'd put nitrogen into the gas...

or levels of nitrogen in the gas and check the levels of nitrogen

that would be then absorbed by the plants.

THEY LAUGH

So, it's either a sort of plant reviver

or a canary's iron lung.

I have to say that the canary is very funny,

-but I don't believe at all.

-Oh!

The Haber-Bosch process was very important for producing

fertiliser and I could well believe that this...

-Could this work for that?

-..is some gas apparatus.

-I don't think they cared about the canary.

-I don't think they cared

-about the canary either.

-Yes, I think they just thought,

"Well that's the science. He's a sacrifice to science."

I think that no-one would have bothered to take one down...

-It's got a perch.

-Yeah, and they even put a perch in there.

-You know, a little mirror for it to play with.

-Yeah!

-Something to eat.

So, Helen and Kate, what is your decision?

I think it's the Haber-Bosch process

and something to do with measuring ammonia.

So, Nina, is it for measuring ammonia?

-I was lying!

-It's for canaries!

-Oh!

What an amazing object to be able to bring to the table -

a canary resuscitator.

Kate and Helen, we can go on now to your object and see

if you can similarly bamboozle this lot over here.

(Haber-Bosch - inspired.)

-So, off you go. Who is going to start?

-I'm going to start.

-Kate.

This is from about 1920

and this is a cork maker,

particularly for Vimto,

which, as we all know, was created in Manchester.

And it was very popular

because in the First World War,

drink, Lloyd George said, was our greatest enemy

along with the Austrians and Germans

and he tried to stop us all drinking.

But also there was an upsurge of soft drinks like Vimto

and this is the way you make a cork for your Vimto

or for similar drinks.

You put some cork in at the top and you squash it

and a lovely cork comes out of the end.

OK, we are going to go onto another version

of what this might be from Helen. Helen, what is this now?

It's no such thing. It's much older than that.

It's from about 1850 and there's lots of canals around here.

And this is actually one of a pair of devices that were owned by

the lock keepers and various other people who were managing the canal.

So, when you stretch rope, if it gets wet, it stretches more.

And what you would do is get your rope wet

and you would stretch it between those two things.

You would wrap it around and pull the lever down

and then you have a very tight, well-stretched rope.

So, this is kept around in order to help with boat maintenance.

So, it's a bit of a stretch

or a total corker.

You have to make your choice, I'm afraid.

I like the rope because something thick here would be pushed through,

as you see it's getting narrower as it goes through.

-So, it would be pushed out. So, my feeling...

-Yeah, I like it.

-I think it looks a little older. I think it looks...

-'50. 1850.

More 19th-century.

To me, it makes sense that this would do what Helen was describing

purely because, as you say,

it does seem to be like you could pull a rope through there.

-But both good.

-OK, so what are you going for?

-Ropes.

We're going for the ropes. Rope stretcher. Helen, is that true?

-I was not telling the truth.

-Yay!

-APPLAUSE

-Well done. That was really convincing.

-Amazing.

It is, in fact, a cork presser.

It made corks for Vimto bottles in Manchester.

Well, there we are. You two, you were fooled as well, I'm afraid.

So, you didn't get any points either.

Which means that at the end of that round of

HUGELY entertaining fantasy,

we've ended up with Nina and Marcus still with nine points

and Helen and Kate still with two points.

So, it is time to go exploring.

I'm taking each team on a guided tour of this museum

and putting their clogs on first are Nina and Marcus.

The team will look at two objects, they'll have three questions

worth one point each in order to make a connection between them.

Here are the two objects and I have three questions beginning with this.

Now, this is a Jacquard loom,

I know you are hoping to tell me it's a Jacquard loom,

but why might it not be correct to call it a Jacquard loom?

It looks like a Jacquard loom. I mean, the thing...

The only...about the only thing I know about a Jacquard loom

is that these cards go around and it tells

the loom, the various parts, what do,

but how is it not a Jacquard loom?

You've got the threads coming through

-and the...whatever the thing is called here...

-Shuttle.

Shuttle! Very good. I can't see a shuttle, though.

There are pins coming through which see whether there is a hole or not.

Well, I suppose...

I mean, the way it works is it reads the punch holes at the top here,

so you've got a kind of reader

and that was Jacquard's great breakthrough.

So, maybe the loom isn't Jacquard's,

it's the reader that's Jacquard's.

So, in fact, the loom... You know you can just put it on top of any

-old loom.

-You are quite correct. Well done.

I'm going to give you a point for that.

Do you know any more about Jacquard?

Well, no. Presumably, he is French.

French. I'm not going to give you a point for that,

-but that's quite a good guess.

-Early 19th century.

Well, in fact, late 18th century on into the very early 19 century.

So, let's move on to the other object here.

Marcus, why were 550 of these needed to make a little one?

Well, I think this is possibly part of one of the very first

computers that were developed here in Manchester.

And the special thing about this computer was that it

stored things in memory as it was processing.

I think maybe these valves are

-what were being used to do the processing.

-OK, so these...

And the "little one" is

because the first computer was called Baby, isn't it?

It was called Baby. And these were the valves.

And they had 550 of these valves.

Have you any idea why it was called Baby?

-No.

-Probably because it was ginormous.

-Yeah!

It wasn't just irony. They had had a much, much bigger one.

Oh, right, so this was the baby.

And when they made this machine,

they called it the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine

and they nicknamed it Baby.

But even at that size, it weighed an Imperial ton.

Not really a baby, then.

Hence my ironic question. So, that's it. I will give you a point for that.

-So, your final question...

-Big baby.

How are these two objects connected?

And you are almost there, I know.

It's to do with storage of data and information,

-repeating cycles of...

-Not quite storage.

It's more about the programming.

So, we are going to say the Jacquard loom in some sense was

the inspiration for the first program

and here we see the computer, which was running prograes to do

calculations about numbers.

Essentially, in June 1948 here in Manchester,

they made the first programmable computer.

Baby had all the elements of a modern computer

except the capacity to leave it on a train.

And you got your three points,

so it's time to go and see how the others get on.

The task is the same -

to connect two objects by way of three questions.

Right. Now, here are our two precious...three objects, in fact.

Although, this is one and this the other.

So, Kate, here is your first question.

What discovery came from this sticky tape and this rock?

Erm...

Erm, sort of plastic?

-Not plastic, no.

-Oh.

Helen, save us.

-Is a graphene?

-Oh.

-It is graphene, yes. Explain a bit more.

Graphene is very, very thin sheets of carbon,

so it's one-atom thick, carbon atoms, arranged in a lattice

and it's basically the thinnest material you can make.

And the reason I think it is related to the sticky tape is that

if you stick sticky tape on something made of lots of carbon

and peel it back, you bring back these very thin sheets.

But it's this fantastic material.

It conducts electricity very well.

It's very, very strong and then it turns out,

it's not just flat sheets.

You get little tubes and balls and all these funny shapes.

And carbon was doing all this thing and, like, one of the most common

atoms in the world and it's doing all this cool stuff

we didn't know about.

Because it's so thin we think it's really going to be

transformative in the sense that it is this amazing conductor.

So, it's going to be really good in computer chips

and also in materials.

So, a lot of people really think this is the future.

Well, there we are.

It's all coming from that little rock and that bit of sticky tape.

And I'll give you one point for that.

Here's your second question, then.

Why do you think people born to the purple were drawn to this bottle?

Oh. So, purple might be to do with dyes, aniline dyes.

I do know that mauve was the first aniline dye,

the first synthetic dye

because before that all pigments had come from nature.

You had to go to a plant or a rock or something that already had

that colour in it and then someone worked out how to make mauve

and it became fantastically popular.

So, I think it might be something to do with that.

If you were born to the purple,

what does that mean, "born to the purple"?

I think "born to the purple" relates to the fact that royals always

wore purple, that it was always seen as a royal colour,

an imperial colour because it was so incredibly expensive.

But this was also then taken up by royalty, mauve was.

Queen Victoria was very fond of mauve

and it also became a Victorian mourning colour.

You would have to wear a mauve dress between your movement

from black to normal clothes again.

And so, that's why mauve was a bestseller for the Victorians

because they loved death and they loved mourning.

Quite right. Queen Victoria took up mauve, in particular.

The first real synthetic chemical dye

as created by William Henry Perkin in 1856.

-So, you've got two of your three points.

-Two points.

For your third point,

what is the connection between the bottle and what's in it

and the sticky tape and the rock?

Is it something to do with organic chemistry? Cos they are both...

You know, this has a base made of carbon atoms

and that's made of carbon.

It's not to do with organic chemistry.

I guess it's...they're both experiments or...

Is it...? I know! Is it happenstance?

Is it the fact that both of these were discovered by accident?

-Possibly.

-That's a very good guess

-and it means that I do indeed have to give it to you because...

-Hooray!

-It wasn't a guess, though.

-Was it not? You worked it out.

But the whole point about graphene was it was discovered

and won a Nobel Prize for its discoverers

because they cleaned rocks of graphite with sticky tape.

And professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov

of Manchester University looked at the residues of the tape

until they realised they could make a material which was one-atom thick.

Mauve was discovered by William Perkin,

who was, in fact, looking for a synthetic quinine

when he discovered that he'd made something extremely purple,

which had the two very important qualities -

it didn't wash out and it didn't fade in sunlight.

-So, both of these were...

-Wow! Fascinating.

..experiments which effectively looking for something else

and by accident turned into amazing inventions.

-And I'll give you three points...

-Hooray!

..and we should now go back to the desk to compare results.

Well, you both got exactly the same score of three,

which means that Helen and Kate have come up to five

and Nina and Marcus are ahead with 12 still.

OK, but the gap between you is quite small

and might very well change in this final round

as we look for quickfire answers from this extraordinary collection.

So, stand by your digitally controlled,

finger-activated noise generators

and the first in, gets the point.

Have a look at this. This is Lucky Jim the cat.

He accompanied Alcock and Brown in 1919.

What were they doing? BELL DINGS

Crossing the Atlantic in a plane.

Nonstop. I'll give you that.

OK. This is the earliest known photographic

representation of Manchester dating from 1842.

What was the method used to create it?

-BELL DINGS

-Is it daguerreotype?

-It's a daguerreotype.

-Woo!

-You get the point.

This vehicle went on sale in 1985. Who invented it?

-BELL DINGS

-Clive Sinclair.

Clive Sinclair.

Issued by the London, Midland and Scotland Railway Company,

why did people get this medal just for doing their job in 1926?

BELL DINGS

Is it because they were breaking the general strike?

They were doing their job by staying at work during the general strike.

These are part of John Dalton's atomic model from 1808.

What did he propose distinguished one element from another?

-BELL DINGS You were first, Helen.

-Its mass.

Its mass, its weight, yes.

So, which event in Manchester in 1819 does this jug commemorate?

-BELL DINGS

-Um...um...

-The...

-Now, I'm going to have to... You didn't come straight in.

-BOTH:

-Peterloo massacre.

-Peterloo massacre.

So, you came in there, Kate and Helen.

It was a peaceful public meeting that was broken up violently

by the local yeomanry. Have a look at these pants.

What innovative process created them? BELL DINGS

Are they made from artificial fibres?

They are made from artificial fibres,

but that's not the process that created them.

Are they waterproof?

-No, they are 3-D printed pants.

-Really!

This is Arkwright's spinning frame, but what was used to power it?

BELL DINGS With you, Nina.

-BOTH:

-Water.

Yes, it's a water frame.

Here is a model of a cart. What was it used for?

BELL DINGS With you, Helen.

That was a luncheon cart.

No, not luncheon.

-It's sewage.

-It's sewage. Right, sir. Yes, it was sent to...

-The other end!

-So... LAUGHTER

Here's a box of electrical adapters, but which country was it made for?

-BELL DINGS

-It was made actually for here,

-wasn't it?

-It was indeed. It was made for Britain in the 1940s.

This was found in millions of British homes for decades, but where exactly?

-BELL DINGS

-Is it a light bulb?

It's not light bulb, no.

-Is it a TV?

-Like a CRT.

-Is that your answer? Quickly.

-I don't know. Helen knows best.

-Quick!

-Is it the TV?

-Yes.

It's the TV, yes.

I don't know why I was waiting for so long.

I heard it, but you have to commit, you have to commit!

FACTORY WHISTLE BLOWS Oh, that's it.

The factory whistle has sounded, so we are out of here.

But before we go,

we need to have a look at our teams' levels of productivity.

Well, Helen and Kate, you made a brave effort to catch up there.

And you've come up to 11 points,

but you haven't quite caught up with Nina and Marcus who got 16.

THEY CHEER

And we must say goodbye now

from the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.

This magnificent and extensive museum represents a real

insight into the relationship between science and industry.

And not only that, it provides quite a decent walk.

Now, sadly, we must down tools and from all of us here, goodnight.