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The Secret Genius of Modern Life (2022)
Popularity 3.7
Overview
Hannah Fry uncovers the secrets behind the miraculous technologies of the modern world, revealing the mind-blowing stories behind their invention.
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Top Cast
Hannah FrySelf - Presenter
Key Crew
Eileen InksonExecutive Producer
Paul OvertonExecutive Producer
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EPISODE GUIDE
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Series 1
6 episodes · First aired 2022-11-10 · ★ 6.2
E01
Bank Card
2022-11-10 · 59 min
Hannah Fry takes a look at the bank card, the digital key to accessing cash, and finds out how its extraordinary innovations have some surprising and sinister origins.
E02
Food Delivery App
2022-11-17 · 59 min
Hannah Fry tucks into the tech behind food delivery apps, which are now used by 24 million people in the UK. Hannah finds out how pizza made us fall in love with the internet.
E03
Virtual Assistant
2022-11-24 · 59 min
Hannah Fry delves into the inner workings of virtual assistants, such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri, which are now found in almost half of all UK homes.
E04
Electric Car
2022-12-01 · 59 min
Hannah Fry discovers why innovations in meat packing almost derailed the electric car revolution and how a breakthrough in camcorder batteries led to Elon Musk’s electric empire, as well as demonstrating how not to drive a multimillion dollar prototype car of the future.
E05
Fitness Tracker
2022-12-08 · 59 min
Hannah Fry finds out how 1970s car crashes helped us to count our steps, why WWII dog-fights led to a crucial health monitor and how fitness trackers are even being used to catch killers.
E06
Trainer
2022-12-15 · 59 min
Hannah Fry visits Ebay’s authentication centre, where they are waging war against fake high-value trainers.
Series 2
6 episodes · First aired 2023-11-08 · ★ 7.0
E01
Passport
2023-11-08 · 49 min
Hannah gains access to a top-secret site where anonymous staff and the latest tech work to make the British passport one of the most secure documents on the planet. She reveals the World War I spy craft hidden in the pages of every passport and takes a look into how modern ID checks were shaped by the hunt for a 19th-century French serial killer and 1970s psychedelic art.
E02
Vacuum Cleaner
2023-11-22 · 51 min
Hannah takes a look at the vacuum cleaner, going behind the scenes with Dyson and discovering how the motor in their latest vacuum spins nine times faster than that of a Formula One race car.
She finds out why a wheezy janitor in the 1900s took inspiration from a sewing machine to create the first popular, portable vacuum. And she comes face to face with a colony of creepy crawlies whose job is to help us fight the filth.
E03
Smartphone
2023-11-29 · 50 min
With over six billion of them across the planet, smartphones have changed the modern world. With rare access to electronics giant Samsung, Hannah uncovers the technological game-changers that have made the smartphone a reality.
She finds out how 1940s comic book hero Dick Tracy inspired the first mobile phone, discovers why the invention of the digital camera led to one of the biggest commercial blunders of all time, and reveals what a 2010 South Korean sausage frenzy can tell us about touchscreens.
E04
Microwave
2023-12-06 · 50 min
Hannah Fry discovers the hidden WW2 radar technology that heats up baked beans, learns the legend of the melted candy bar in an engineer’s pocket that kick-started a kitchen revolution, and puts her life on the line to demonstrate why microwaves zap food but not people!
E05
Headphones
2023-12-07 · 49 min
Headphones: these marvels of miniaturisation are worn by 30 million people in the UK. Hannah Fry visits Bose to find out how the teeny earbud tech works and meets the human testers with ‘golden ears’.
E06
Lift
2023-12-14 · 58 min
Hannah goes behind the scenes to look at the technology behind the lift, entering a 246m high lift shaft to test everything from the brakes to her own fear of heights.
Along the way, she finds out how rickety 19th-century coal mines made lifts safer, gets to grips with a piece of medieval siege technology still used in lifts today, and discovers how an 1850s PR stunt changed the modern skyline forever.
