The Day The Universe Changed (1985)

Episode 6. Credit Where It's Due: The Factory & Marketplace Revolution (2/5)

The concepts of leisure time and consumerism are relatively new to human society. The Industrial Revolution led to the creation of an educated middle class and the production of goods that were not necessary for survival. Increased manufacturing depleted natural resources without any concern for the sustainability of those resources or the long-term impacts of mass production. This program examines the reasons for and the effects of the Industrial Revolution. Shows how growing wealth, coupled with innovations in business and credit, created a new industrial society. Describes the origins of the Industrial Revolution and the resulting growth of urbanization, the creation of the factory system and an industrial working class, and the exploitation of the planet.

The Day the Universe Changed (subtitled "A Personal View by James Burke") is a British documentary television series produced by and starring science historian James Burke, originally broadcast in 1985. It was released in DVD form in 2009. A companion book of the same title, also written by Burke, was published the same year, presenting the same general premise of the television series in expanded detail. A revised edition subsequently appeared in 1995.

The series' primary focus is on the effect of advances in science and technology on western philosophy. The title comes from the philosophical idea that the universe essentially only exists as you perceive it through what you know; therefore, if you change your perception of the universe with new knowledge, you have essentially changed the universe itself.

To illustrate this concept, James Burke tells the various stories of important scientific discoveries and technological advances and how they fundamentally altered how western civilization perceives the world. The series runs in roughly chronological order, from around the beginning of the Middle Ages to the present.

Episodes

1. The Way We Are: It Started with the Greeks
2. In the Light of the Above: Medieval Conflict - Faith & Reason
3. Point of View: Scientific Imagination in the Renaissance
4. A Matter of Fact: Printing Transforms Knowledge
5. Infinitely Reasonable: Science Revises the Heavens
6. Credit Where It's Due: The Factory & Marketplace Revolution
7. What the Doctor Ordered: Social Impacts of New Medical Knowledge
8. Fit to Rule: Darwin's Revolution
9. Making Waves: The New Physics - Newton Revised
10. Worlds Without End: Changing Knowledge, Changing Reality

Source: Wikipedia