Browse all episodes of The Secret Genius of Modern Life

With over six billion of them across the planet, smartphones have changed the modern world. With rare access to electronics giant Samsung, Hannah uncovers the technological game-changers that have made the smartphone a reality.

She finds out how 1940s comic book hero Dick Tracy inspired the first mobile phone, discovers why the invention of the digital camera led to one of the biggest commercial blunders of all time, and reveals what a 2010 South Korean sausage frenzy can tell us about touchscreens.

Smartphone

Hannah takes a drive to the National Highways control centre for the UK’s busiest motorway to meet the team that keep the motorways running 24/7.

Motorway

Hannah Fry discovers the hidden WW2 radar technology that heats up baked beans, learns the legend of the melted candy bar in an engineer’s pocket that kick-started a kitchen revolution, and puts her life on the line to demonstrate why microwaves zap food but not people!

Microwave

Hanna uncovers the wild origins of the modern-day rollercoaster and gets the inside story on the UK’s newest, tallest and fastest coaster – Thorpe Park's Hyperia.

Rollercoaster

The rise of the smart doorbell is one of the great tech success stories of the 21st century. Hannah heads to Los Angeles to take a deep dive into doorbell history and talk to market leaders Ring.

Doorbell

Hannah hits the production line with appliance giants Bosch to find the lifeblood at the heart of every fridge and gets a lesson in carrot droop.

Fridge

Hannah Fry takes a look at the bank card, the digital key to accessing cash, and finds out how its extraordinary innovations have some surprising and sinister origins.

Bank Card

Headphones: these marvels of miniaturisation are worn by 30 million people in the UK. Hannah Fry visits Bose to find out how the teeny earbud tech works and meets the human testers with ‘golden ears’.

Headphones

Hannah goes behind the scenes to look at the technology behind the lift, entering a 246m high lift shaft to test everything from the brakes to her own fear of heights.

Along the way, she finds out how rickety 19th-century coal mines made lifts safer, gets to grips with a piece of medieval siege technology still used in lifts today, and discovers how an 1850s PR stunt changed the modern skyline forever.

Lift

Hannah takes a look at the air fryer – a device that is rapidly taking over people's kitchens, cooking up everything from bread rolls to baked Alaska and almost making ovens obsolete.

Air Fryer

Hannah Fry delves into the inner workings of virtual assistants, such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri, which are now found in almost half of all UK homes.

Virtual Assistant

Hannah gains access to a top-secret site where anonymous staff and the latest tech work to make the British passport one of the most secure documents on the planet. She reveals the World War I spy craft hidden in the pages of every passport and takes a look into how modern ID checks were shaped by the hunt for a 19th-century French serial killer and 1970s psychedelic art.

Passport

Hannah takes a look at the vacuum cleaner, going behind the scenes with Dyson and discovering how the motor in their latest vacuum spins nine times faster than that of a Formula One race car.

She finds out why a wheezy janitor in the 1900s took inspiration from a sewing machine to create the first popular, portable vacuum. And she comes face to face with a colony of creepy crawlies whose job is to help us fight the filth.

Vacuum Cleaner

Hannah Fry finds out how 1970s car crashes helped us to count our steps, why WWII dog-fights led to a crucial health monitor and how fitness trackers are even being used to catch killers.

Fitness Tracker

Hannah Fry discovers why innovations in meat packing almost derailed the electric car revolution and how a breakthrough in camcorder batteries led to Elon Musk’s electric empire, as well as demonstrating how not to drive a multimillion dollar prototype car of the future.

Electric Car

Hannah Fry visits Ebay’s authentication centre, where they are waging war against fake high-value trainers.

Trainer

Hannah Fry tucks into the tech behind food delivery apps, which are now used by 24 million people in the UK. Hannah finds out how pizza made us fall in love with the internet.

Food Delivery App

Hannah Fry uncovers the secrets behind the miraculous technologies of the modern world, revealing the mind-blowing stories behind their invention.

All Episodes of The Secret Genius of Modern Life

Season 1

Bank Card

Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 11/10/2022

Virtual Assistant

Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 11/24/2022

Fitness Tracker

Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 12/8/2022

Electric Car

Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 12/1/2022

Trainer

Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 12/15/2022

Food Delivery App

Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 11/17/2022