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00:01Around the world, the race to win wars and explore the universe
00:05have created some of the most incredible products ever designed.
00:08And we use them every day, unaware of their amazing origins.
00:15On Incredible Inventions, the wristwatch.
00:19How does World War I fit into its popularity today?
00:24The digital camera.
00:26What is the link between spy satellites and the selfie?
00:31The prosthetic leg. The amazing evolution of this high-tech wonder.
00:36We reveal the amazing history and engineering behind these incredible inventions.
01:00The modern wristwatch has many roles, an expensive piece of jewelry, a high-tech wrist-worn computer, even a device to tell the time.
01:10But do you know that warfare is the reason for its popularity today?
01:15Personal watches can trace their origins back to 16th century Europe, with timepieces worn by men as pendants around their neck.
01:24Watches were a very expensive item, and the wristwatch was used exclusively as a female accessory.
01:28Typified by Robert Dudley, presenting a wristwatch to the English queen, Elizabeth I, in 1571.
01:38Wristwatches were mainly reserved for women, and were known then as wristlets.
01:43And it was certainly very effeminate for a man to wear a wristwatch.
01:46It was in World War I, though, that good timekeeping became as important as the bullets in a soldier's gun, or the boots on his feet.
01:53You come to the First World War, we have the famous, or the infamous Battle of the Somme, the 1st of July 1916.
02:037.30 in the morning, you've got to know exactly what time you're going over.
02:08If you're holding a pocket watch, how are you then going to hold your weapon?
02:14The only way the soldiers could safely advance was if a creeping barrage by their own artillery screened their advance,
02:21like a huge exploding curtain falling just ahead of them.
02:25As they moved forward, so did the covering fire, killing the enemy, but going over the heads of their own side.
02:32To protect the glass face from the mud, blood, and bullets, the watches were fitted with shockproof faces.
02:39And luminous dials were developed to give an accurate time check in the dark of a trench,
02:44where a sniper's bullet would find its target if a light was turned on.
02:47With the memory of their practicality in World War I fresh in their minds,
02:52and the availability of cheap parts and mass production, even the ordinary man could now afford one.
02:57But just how is a wristwatch manufactured?
03:01The Schofield Watch Company has been creating luxury wristwatches since 2011.
03:05The life of a Schofield Watch starts with the manufacture of the watch case.
03:12The watch case is comprised of two parts, the front, which the strap will be fitted to,
03:17and the rear, which is a glass window, to display the watch mechanism.
03:20It takes many man-hours to make a mechanical wristwatch, and a mechanical wristwatch especially because there are so many moving parts,
03:29there's so much engineering involved.
03:31A case alone takes about 14 hours to machine from billet to the finished piece ready for assembly.
03:39The front part of the watch case starts off as a large piece of titanium called a billet.
03:46The billet undergoes a long and rigorous process called machining,
03:50where its shape is sculpted using the latest computer numerical control machinery.
03:55Also known as CNC machines, these mills and blades can cut with absolute precision to achieve a perfect finish.
04:02Even using state-of-the-art machinery, the shaping process still takes eight hours.
04:09To begin, the billet is fixed to a lathe, where the first cuts and initial holes are made.
04:15Once completed, the billet is then taken through the first of many milled processes.
04:21Here, the inner threads are bored out, cleaned, and examined by hand.
04:26Then, it is back to the mill, where the front, top, and back of the newly formed case is carved out.
04:34It's here that we can start to see the watch case taking shape.
04:40A stainless steel back is fitted, then it's back to the mill once again for fine-tuning.
04:48The casing is put through its final machine process before it is sent to be inspected by hand.
04:53Each case must pass through inspection before it is released to the assembly labs.
05:00Once the case passes inspection, it is sent to the assembly lab where skilled watchmakers begin a detailed and meticulous routine to hand-build the watches.
05:12The first stage is to use a machine called a crystal press.
05:16It is used to press the glass into the case to create a tight friction fit and to help keep the watch waterproof.
05:25The maker then carefully selects the movement parts by hand from a range of new and old stock that has been fully refurbished.
05:32The watch is comprised of an extremely complicated set of parts, and it can take up to three hours for a skilled watchmaker to carefully and precisely place all the movements, auto works, and rotors together.
05:47Then it comes to actual watch assembly and the building of the movements.
05:53And again, looking at the beta, we use new old stock Swiss movements, and these have to be serviced, so effectively they are stripped down to their component parts, then they are rebuilt.
06:02So we're looking at a further three hours to put that together by a watchmaker.
06:06So we really are accumulating a lot of man hours to be able to put a wristwatch together.
06:12The dial is then added, along with the hands, before testing at key points ensures all the mechanisms are aligned correctly.
06:19The movement is then placed inside the casing and fastened into place to make sure the fit is tight and waterproof.
06:33The completed watch is then put through a pressure and vacuum machine to test the tolerance levels of the watch.
06:40And to make sure it meets Schofield's highest standards, every watch that leaves the factory is meticulously inspected.
06:46With final inspections carried out by hand, before being packaged into a handcrafted box ready for delivery.
06:54So the next time you glance at that engineering masterpiece sitting on your wrist,
06:59remember, it owes its popularity to the hell on the western front.
07:04When Incredible Inventions returns, we find out what the everyday selfie has in common with spy satellites.
07:16Who doesn't love taking a quick snapshot, a photo of an amazing experience, and even the mundane shot of what you ate last night.
07:31But have you ever considered the technology that has made photography so easy and instant?
07:36And what has a selfie got in common with spy satellites?
07:39The answer is the digital camera.
07:42If you are under the age of 20, you cannot possibly imagine how this technology has changed the way we take and share a picture.
07:49In the years BC, that's before cameras, the only way to create an image was to take out an easel and start painting away.
07:57The invention of the film camera and its introduction to the mass market in the 1900s changed all that.
08:02Now, science has given everyone the ability to capture that special moment in time.
08:08In the traditional film camera, the light comes in, is captured to a small opening,
08:13then projected through mirrors and lenses onto a film surface,
08:18which is coated with a substance that has light-sensitive material in it,
08:24so that it had to be developed before you could share it.
08:27There was no easy way of then transmitting it in almost real time to somebody else.
08:32With the popularity of film cameras firmly established, what was the need for digital photography?
08:38The answer is in the stars.
08:41The successful launch of the Sputnik satellite by the Russians in October 1957 opens up a new frontier in intelligence gathering.
08:50Soon, US and Russian spy satellites, equipped with film cameras, are being launched to keep an eye on each other from the lofty perch of space.
08:58In the early days of spy satellites, they used actual cameras with film on board the satellite.
09:04So now you have this problem of the satellite that sits in orbit around the earth can't easily be brought back down to earth.
09:10So you need to get the film down, and therefore all kind of elaborate schemes whereby the film went into a re-entry capsule
09:16that was then shot back down, it came down on a parachute, the plane came by and picked it up with a grappler hook.
09:24This creates all kinds of practical and other difficulties.
09:27This complicated system needed to be improved, and the launch of the $1 billion 15-ton KH-11, or keyhole-class satellite in 1976, solves this issue.
09:39With its amazing digital camera powered by a revolutionary CCD, a charged coupled device.
09:44A charged coupled device, it's a surface that has a property that when light falls onto it, it generates an electrical charge that is proportional to the light that falls onto the surface.
09:58So basically, an image, a visual image, is translated into a series of electrical charges.
10:03Those electrical charges can then be taken into an electrical signal that can be transmitted to a receiver,
10:10and where that signal can be retranslated into visual points of light on a screen or any other form of imaging.
10:18The 800 by 800 pixel CCD on board the KH-11 provides a resolution of 640,000 pixels.
10:26That means the U.S. government can focus on an object as small as 5 inches from 200 miles away in space,
10:34and beam electronic version of the image back to Earth instantly.
10:39So, the military proves the CCD's worth, but when CCD-equipped digital cameras hit the shelves in the 1990s, their high cost leads to slow sales.
10:49Enter the complimentary metal oxide semiconductor, or CMOS sensor.
10:56Developed and refined during the late 1990s, the CMOS sensor captures an image in a similar way to the CCD,
11:03but is made using traditional microchip manufacturing techniques, unlike the specialized and expensive CCD.
11:10CMOS requires less power than traditional CCDs, so it is quite suitable for devices like mobile phones,
11:16where battery power comes at a premium.
11:19And furthermore, this technology is very similar to other components already used in cameras,
11:25and therefore it makes for a convenient and economically feasible way of producing cameras for things like mobile phones,
11:33that are compact, don't require a lot of power, yet still have good quality imaging properties.
11:40Within these clever sensors powering the cameras inside our phones,
11:43the digital camera is now part of our everyday lives,
11:47and it's given us the ability to capture and share our experiences as never before.
11:52A device invented for spying, but now used for the obligatory selfie.
11:56The digital camera, truly an incredible invention.
12:00How do you turn your smartphone into a powerful microscope?
12:04Find out when we return.
12:13We are familiar with the digital camera in our mobile phones, capturing every detail of our lives.
12:25But what about focusing even closer on our world?
12:28Let's make our mobile phone into a mobile microscope.
12:32All we need is plexiglass, wood, bolts, washers, a small LED flashlight, and a laser pointer.
12:38Notice the tiny lens at the front of your phone.
12:42Well, the secret is to change its focal plane.
12:45That's the distance from the camera to the objects it's focusing on by putting another lens in front of it.
12:50Enter the laser pointer.
12:52With a laser pointer, you need to concentrate the laser lights to, well, a point.
12:56And the front of the pointer is a tiny lens, which concentrates light far greater than our phone's camera.
13:01Carefully pop the lens out of the pointer, and by fixing it in front of our phone's lens, we have created a powerful microscope.
13:09Well, not quite.
13:11This setup allows us to zoom into an object over a hundred times.
13:14But at this magnification, holding the camera by hand, it's going to be a little too shaky.
13:19This is where the wood and bolts come in.
13:23Our tester creates a stand by drilling three holes in a square piece of wood.
13:27Three bolts are added with nuts and washers screwed on to keep them in place.
13:33A small sheet of plexiglass has two holes made to allow it to sit on the front two bolts and act as a shelf.
13:40Three holes are drilled in the larger plexi sheet, and it is then fixed onto the top of the bolts with screws and washers.
13:49A small hole is then drilled, into which the laser lens is carefully placed.
13:53Finally, the phone is carefully positioned on top of the laser lens.
13:59But, we need a specimen.
14:01So, what's on hand?
14:03Ah, a human hair.
14:05This is put on the specimen tray.
14:08And the tray is placed between the two layers of plexiglass.
14:12Then, carefully adjust it for focus.
14:14And, presto!
14:15With the LED light illuminating the subject, the beauty of the human hair can be seen in all its cellular glory.
14:23On your cell phone.
14:25So, point proof.
14:27The CMOS sensor inside your phone can easily be unleashed as an amazing microscope.
14:33The digital camera, truly an incredible invention.
14:35Coming up, how does amazing modern technology help our wounded warriors?
14:42For centuries, battles have produced some pretty grisly injuries.
14:58Just a glance at any record of conflict, from the ancient Greeks to the bio-tapestry to the modern conflicts in the Middle East, shows that the loss of limbs by axe or artillery is a reality.
15:10Modern composite materials mean a wounded veteran isn't condemned to a life of immobility, unlike their unfortunate medieval forebears.
15:17However, replacing a lost limb with a metal or wood attachment isn't as new as you might think.
15:24Dating back to ancient Egypt, a body has been found fitted with a wooden toe.
15:29It was found that it belonged to a noble woman.
15:32With it being the great toe, I suppose it would have given her some stability to walk, but perhaps also it would have been something that would be of cosmetic use to her.
15:41The biggest advancements in prosthesis, however, would come as a result of World War II.
15:45And by the Vietnam era, thousands of injured men were getting a chance for a better life via fitted aluminum legs.
15:54And the veterans from more recent conflicts, like Iraq and Afghanistan, are wearing the next generation still.
16:00The amazing technological advances in prosthetics are encapsulated in this C-Leg.
16:06The C-Leg is the most researched microprocessor-controlled knee joint in the world.
16:11It has been on the market for almost 20 years and has become the best-selling mechatronic knee joint in every country it's sold.
16:17Now manufacturing up to 5,000 C-Legs a year, Autobach Healthcare products continue to produce these life-altering prosthetics and supply them to those in need.
16:30Walking is and should be an automatic function.
16:36In a biological leg, nerves acting as sensors send signals to the leg muscles that then move accordingly.
16:45This happens up to 20 times every second in what is known as a reflex leap.
16:51In the C-Leg, the microprocessors replace the body sensors, while the hydraulics replace the muscle function.
16:59However, what makes the C-Leg so intuitive is the all-important microprocessor that acts as the brains of the leg, controlling the hydraulics by the sensors that are vital to gate control.
17:11The microprocessor sits at the top of the C-Leg, just below the knee joint, inside this electronic cover, and is now time to assemble the hydraulic unit.
17:21This unit controls the C-Leg's valve position and the dampening for the extension and flexion of the knee joint by regulating valves for oil flow.
17:28Magnetic sensors are inserted into the holder and soldered.
17:35The server electronics are then inserted into the case, and the plugs are soldered and secured.
17:42The engine of the C-Leg is then positioned, tested, and adjusted accordingly before being glued into the case.
17:49The assembly process of the C-Leg continues with an inspection of the leg's coated frames for any marks or damage.
17:58Damper is glued into the frame of the leg in order to prevent the various components within from moving and clashing against the frame while the leg is used.
18:06The serial numbers of every component that makes up the C-Leg are then recorded to ensure accuracy before testing.
18:15The battery of the C-Leg is added as well as a sliding component that is used to measure the knee angle.
18:23The beeper that will serve to alert patients along with the vibration unit is then inserted and connected to the main electronics.
18:31Once this is done, the measuring function of the angle sensor for the C-Leg is verified.
18:36The knee angle sensor is used as a way of measuring the knee position and of controlling the prosthesis.
18:42The joint is turned on and connected to PC software and then bent and stretched from one to seven degrees and then tested.
18:52The results are recorded and if all tests are passed, the hydraulics can then be built into the C-Leg.
18:59Each C-Leg has its own testing protocol according to each patient's specific needs.
19:04The final testing process begins with connecting the joint to a computer and then manually bending and stretching the joint.
19:12The C-Leg is then mounted onto a walking simulator.
19:17Here, 1,000 steps are simulated for a period of 20 minutes.
19:23Once the C-Leg has undergone the rigorous and thorough testing process and passed,
19:27it is then packaged along with the instruction manual for the patients and shipped ready for use.
19:34In my opinion, the C-Leg hasn't changed my life because I can do with the C-Leg everything I did before.
19:40I can go motorcycle riding, I can go bicycling, I can go skiing, I can do everything I want.
19:48Using state-of-the-art materials and research that can improve the lives of those that need them,
19:54it's safe to say this C-Leg is the epitome of an incredible invention.
19:59So there you have it, a glance through the hidden history and super science of some amazing products we use every day,
20:05but have never realized their fascinating backgrounds.
20:08The wrist watch, the digital camera, and the prosthetic leg.
20:12They may seem common and ordinary, however, these products help change the world, one incredible invention at a time.