About this season
The Nature of Things is a Canadian television series of documentary programs. It debuted on CBC Television on November 6, 1960. Many of the programs document nature and the effect that humans have on it. The program was one of the first to explore environmental issues, such as clear-cut logging. The series is named after an epic poem by Roman philosopher Lucretius: "Dē Rērum Nātūrā" — On the Nature of Things.
Episodes (14)
1. Thomas Edison
Aired 26 September 1968
Thomas Edison wasn't merely a lone inventful genius. He invented modern research team makes possible technology shaping our world.
2. Human Engineering
Aired 3 October 1968
3. Materials
Aired 10 October 1968
A review of history of man's oldest materials: wood, stone, iron, bronze and glass.
4. Structure
Aired 7 November 1968
Defying force of gravity, man has strewn his structures across earth. This program looks at some of them.
5. Communications
Aired 14 November 1968
Much of this program deals with basic communications problem of getting a signal through noise.
6. Canals And Tunnels
Aired 21 November 1968
The great engineers of past - men like DE Lesseps of Suez fame and Panama infamy and Bradley - whose canals were arteries of industrial revolution, sacrificed health and fortune, and sometimes lives.
7. Central Power
Aired 28 November 1968
One test of civilization is ability to organize sources of energy. Central power was something new in 1876.
8. Man And Machines
Aired 5 December 1968
The Greek inventor, Alexander Hero, first defined five basic devices which make all machines possible: lever, wedge, wheel, pulley and screw.
9. Land And Water
Aired 12 December 1968
This program shows how man changes his environment by shaping land he lives on, reclaiming land from sea, making new lakes and rivers.
10. Man Aloft
Aired 19 December 1968
This film looks, sometimes whimsically, at examples of old and modern flying machines.
11. Portable Power
Aired 26 December 1968
Man's first "portable power" device was part of his own body, energy from contraction of long molecules in presence of sugar: muscle power.
12. Machines And Man: Transportation
Aired 2 January 1969
Are problems of urban transportation insurmountable? The traffic jams which are a regular feature of city life make it appear so.
13. Machine And Man: Systems Engineering
Aired 9 January 1969
A system, according to Oxford dictionary, is a whole composed of parts in orderly arrangement, according to some scheme or plan.
14. Audubon
Aired 18 March 1969
A study of life and work of Jean Jacques Audubon, great painter-naturalist who captured beauty of American wildlife on canvas.