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James Burke Connections, Ep. 4 "Faith in Numbers"

DRS_Education · 225.6K views · 2019-01-21 · 48:42

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Overview

Episode 4 of James Burke's Connections series, tracing how commercialism, climate change and the Black Death shaped the move to the Renaissance. It follows threads through waterpower, the printing press, the Jacquard loom and the Hollerith punch card toward modern computing.

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HN commenters strongly recommend it for its account of how the Jacquard loom and punch cards led to computers.

Recommended by 4 HN people across 5 months · HN mentions 2020–2026

Topics

History of computingWorld historyDocumentaries & storytelling
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james burkeconnectionsjacquard loompunch cardshistory of technology

What people said

aspenmayer · 2025-11 · Strong recommendation

I believe Robert Hooke is mentioned in James Burke’s Connections , a fantastic program that just got a new season on Curiosity Stream; I haven’t seen the new episodes yet but I have thoroughly enjoyed everything else Burke has ever done, so I expect the new series to be great also. [LINK] The episodes Faith in Numbers (1978 original series, S01E04[0]) and Thunder in the Skies (S01E06)[1] feature Robert Hooke from what I can tell from a little searching, though it’s been a while since I saw the series, so I apologize if I’m wrong on that point, though the entire series is worth watching all the same. [0] [VIDEO] [1] [LINK]

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sxp · 2024-07 · Strong recommendation

If you want a more in depth view about this series of events, I suggest [VIDEO] which is an episode of the amazing documentary, Connections. (The show also has one of the best timed shots in history: [LINK] )

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Maursault · 2022-10 · Strong recommendation

Every computer engineer, computer scientist and software developer should learn about the Jacquard loom and its predecessors and its significance as elegantly described by James Burke.[1] [1] [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by DRS_Education, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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