Episode 1

Eric Monkman and Bobby Seagull travel around Britain as they explore their favourite scientific breakthroughs, beginning with the 18th-century inventions that kick-started the Industrial Revolution and transformed scientific understanding. They head to Derbyshire to investigate Richard Arkwright's water frame - a spinning machine that allowed cotton textiles to be mass-produced, and then examine James Watt's separate condenser, an unassuming invention that would be the biggest single improvement ever made to the steam engine.