Review of "PBS Home Video: The Great Transatlantic Cable," DVD

 Review of

PBS Home Video: The Great Transatlantic Cable, DVD

Five out of five stars

Diagram of a world-changing event

 In the modern world of near worldwide Internet access and near instantaneous communication, it is easy to forget the first such communication revolution. In the 1830’s, Professor Samual Morse developed the concept of using electricity to send messages over wires. The mechanism was the use of dots and dashes that could be interpreted as alphanumeric characters. Just as significant, he invented the Morse Code, which took advantage of the natural distribution of the appearance of letters. Shorter codes were used for the most commonly used letters. For example, the most common letter is “e” and a single dot represents it in Morse Code. This compression technique is still used in compression tactics for storing data in computers. 

 The incredible efficiency of telegraphy over the fastest transmission of letters led to a very quick development of telegraph networks in North America and Europe. At its peak, the Pony Express took 10 days to carry a message between Missouri and California. The national telegraph cut that time to minutes. 

 With this increase in the speed of messages and news clearly understood, the next logical step was to lay a telegraph cable under the Atlantic Ocean from North America to Europe. This idea needed an incredible visionary, and such a man appeared. His name was Cyrus Field. This video is the story of his efforts that led to the establishment of a telegraph cable between the two continents. 

 Field was a wealthy self-made man, and he found it fairly easy to convince some of the wealthy people he knew to bankroll the project. The first step was to extend the telegraph system in North America to the eastern end of Newfoundland. What seemed to be an easy task proved to be much more complicated. The developers underestimated the cost and effort needed to lay the cable across the forested, rugged terrain of Newfoundland. While they were successful in doing this, the effort consumed all of their capital. 

 Undeterred by the lack of funds for furthering the network, Field sought out additional investors. His efforts took him to England, and he managed to secure the funding for the laying of a transatlantic cable from Newfoundland to Ireland. This  necessitated the development of  a new technology of a cable strong enough to not break and inert enough to survive the sea water. 

 The first trial worked for a short time but soon the cable failed. Again, Field pushed forward with his amazing optimism. Fortunately, there was a powered ship available capable of carrying the entire cable. It started in Ireland and traveled westward with regular message passing between Ireland and the ship. 

 Suddenly, the signal was lost. In one of the greatest improvisations of all time, the captain ordered a backtracking along the path and a grappling hook lowered. They were able to snag the cable, raise it to the ship, identify the problem and repair the cable. From this point on, the laying of the cable went smoothly and once the connection was made in Newfoundland, at no point later was the communication between North America and Europe lost. Once the cable was in place, the time to send messages across the Atlantic was cut from 10 or more days to less than 10 minutes. 

 This is a superb video about one of the greatest visionaries of all time. While Cyrus Field was not an inventor, he filled a role just as critical, that of the visionary with the ability to make his vision a reality. This video should be required viewing in high school classes. 


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