Radar | Welcome to Tuxedo Park | 1

American Innovations

Wondery

Steven Johnson, History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids, Science

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What technology won WWII? Most people would say the atomic bomb, but the real answer is radar.

As a small island country, vulnerable to aerial attacks, England took the lead in developing radar in the 1930s. But the early radar systems were too massive to fit into planes, where they would be of most use in the fight against the Germans. At the heart of the problem was a technological catch-22. Smaller radar systems were, by definition, less powerful.

Or so everyone thought, until a mismatched pair of brothers in Northern California decided to take a crack at creating a new kind of radar...

This is episode one of our three-part series on radar, “Welcome to Tuxedo Park.”

Listen ad-free on Wondery+ here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to American innovations, add free on Amazon music, download
0:06.0	the app today.
0:16.9	It's September 1940.
0:19.3	The Battle of Britain is raging.
0:21.6	Royal Air Force pilot Johnson is flying through the air over England, looking for a German
0:27.1	bomber.
0:28.1	Germany has been relentlessly bombing England for months, showing the world its impressive
0:32.9	aerial power.
0:34.4	Johnson is exhausted.
0:36.8	Come on, come on.
0:38.7	Where are you, Nazi chump?
0:41.0	Moments ago, England's air detection system, known as Chain Home, registered incoming
0:46.7	German planes using radio waves.
0:49.6	But the system is imprecise.
0:52.0	How many and exactly where these planes are is up to Johnson and his colleagues to determine
0:57.4	by hunting around in the sky?
0:59.2	It's a huge improvement over the method used during the last war, which relied on human
1:04.0	observers stationed at lookouts.
1:06.6	Chain home is given England a fighting chance against the German assault, but there are
1:11.8	limitations.
1:12.8	Johnson swivels his head back and forth, but he can barely see anything in the pea soup
1:17.5	of the clouds.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Wondery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Wondery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.