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Nova Season 32 Episodes
Season 32 Episode Guide
17 Episodes 2005 - 2005
Episode 1
Welcome to Mars
Tue, Jan 4, 200560 mins
NOVA follows a team of scientists as the monitor the Martian rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Spirit runs into some problems, but Opportunity takes a photograph that may confirm the existence of water on Mars.
Episode 2
The Boldest Hoax
Tue, Jan 11, 2005
Chronicles English fossil hunter Charles Dawson's 1912 discovery of the "missing link" between apes and humans---and the discovery that this "Piltdown Man" was a fraud some 40 years later.
Episode 3
Supersonic Dream
Tue, Jan 18, 2005
Chronicles the short history of the Concorde, from the drawing board in the 1950s to its final flight in 2003. Literally faster than a speeding bullet, the elegant SST was popular among jet-setters who could afford its high fares.
Episode 4
Nova scienceNOW
Tue, Jan 25, 2005
A recently discovered system in the brain may help explain why we humans can get so worked up watching other people. Also scientists look into a generations-old conundrum: how and why do certain sand dunes produce mysterious noises?
Episode 5
The Viking Deception
Tue, Feb 8, 2005
There are few more tantalizing or notorious historical documents than the Vinland map. A faded, yellowing scrap of parchment bearing a faint tracery of lines, the map apparently shows the eastern seaboard of North America-yet it was drawn at least half a century before Columbus reached the New World. It seems to present unshakeable proof that the Vikings were the real discoverers of the Americas. But for 40 years, a bitter debate over its authenticity has raged among cartographers, historians, and scientists. Despite chemical analysis and radiocarbon tests, the case remained unresolved. Now, in an exclusive investigation, NOVA presents fresh evidence confirming that the map was probably one of the cleverest forgeries of all time, and probes who might have wanted to carry out the deception. In this enthralling cartographic detective story, NOVA pursues a trail from Scandinavia to Austria, Switzerland, London, and the U.S.
Episode 6
Saving the National Treasures
Tue, Feb 15, 200558 mins
Follows the restoration and re-encasement of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights between 2001 and 2003.
Episode 7
A Daring Flight
Tue, Feb 22, 2005
In 1909, French aviation pioneer Louis Blériot becomes the first man to cross the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine, Blériot's own Type XI monoplane. Nearly a century later, his grandson and namesake attempts a re-enactment of the historic flight that made his grandfather famous and catapulted France to the forefront of aviation technology.
Episode 8
Wave That Shook the World
Tue, Mar 29, 200554 mins
On December 26, 2004, a series of tidal waves killed hundreds of thousands and devastated communities around the Indian Ocean. NOVA investigates what made the recent event so powerful and catastrophic.
Episode 9
Nova scienceNOW
Tue, Apr 19, 2005
The remains of three-foot-tall humans are discovered on a remote Indonesian island. Naomi Halas is a pioneering nanotechnologist bent on seeing practical applications for her work -and soon.
Episode 10
Nova scienceNOW: Fuel Cells
Tue, Jul 26, 2005
Hydrogen fuel cell cars promise pollution-free driving, but will we see them anytime soon?
Episode 11
Mystery of the Megaflood
Tue, Sep 20, 2005
The Channeled Scablands in Washington state defied conventional explanations for their formation for decades. Little by little evidence mounted for an old theory that was rejected by the scientific establishment. It involved glaciers, volcanoes, a relatively minor river and a prodigious amount of water.
Episode 12
Sinking the Supership
Tue, Oct 4, 200552 mins
A modern team of divers sets out to learn the secrets of the super battleship Yamato, the greatest ship of the Second World War.
Episode 13
E=mc²: Einstein's Big Idea
Tue, Oct 11, 2005
This docudrama examines the history of scientific discovery that lead up to Albert Einstein's famous equation E=mc2 and its aftermath in the creation of nuclear energy. This includes Faraday's discovery of electromagnetic fields; Antoine Lavoisier's discovery that mass is never lost; and Emilie du Chatelet's demonstration that Newton's calculation of the velocity of a falling object was incorrect. By 1905, the miracle year where the publication Einstein's four physics papers changed over 200 years of scientific fundamentals, all of this came together with his now famous equation. Afterwards, Lise Meisner's work on uranium let to her conclusion that splitting an atom would release large amounts of energy.
Episode 15
Volcano Under the City
Tue, Nov 1, 2005
Volcanologists climb into the caldera of Mount Nyiragongo, an active and unstable volcano, to collect samples the will help determine when, where and how it is likely to erupt next. Two million souls in the nearby city of Goma depend on the results.
Episode 16
Hitler's Sunken Secret
Tue, Nov 8, 2005
Explores the Nazi quest for atomic weapons as it follows a mission to recover barrels of heavy water bound for Berlin from a Norwegian hydroelectric plant.
Episode 17
Newton's Dark Secrets
Tue, Nov 15, 2005
When an Englishman buys many of Sir Isaac Newton's journals, he spends years decoding them and discovers a secretive side to the great genius. Apart from inventing calculus, outlining the laws of gravity, writing treatises on optics and the properties of color, and other brilliant scientific discoveries, Newton also practiced alchemy and was a disbeliever in the divinity of Christ (a criminal offense in his time.) He also proved to be a secretive man, who kept many of his thoughts to himself for many years, possibly afraid of the criticism he couldn't abide.
Episode 18
Storm That Drowned a City
Tue, Nov 22, 2005
An exploration of the devastation wrought on New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina details failures of levees and disaster-relief planning; why the city was unprepared; and what made Katrina so powerful.
