Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Generations before sophisticated artificial intelligence was widely thought possible, automatons – elaborate machines frequently intended to mimic lifelike movements – were the closest that humans had come to simulating life. Though aspects of their underlying mechanisms date back to ancient Greece, by the 18th century, automatons had become quite sophisticated, and were used as both ‘the playthings of royalty’ and a ‘testing ground for technology’ throughout the world. Kempelen’s Chess-playing Automaton tells the strange, largely forgotten story of one of the most infamous and influential automatons ever created: the Austrian inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen’s chess-playing ‘Turk’.
Director: Alice Nelson
Producer: Sarah Tierney
video
Thinkers and theories
A rare female scholar of the Roman Empire, Hypatia lived and died as a secular voice
5 minutes
video
Anthropology
Why are witchcraft accusations so common across human societies?
4 minutes
video
Wellbeing
Born in China, Zee seeks a gender-affirming life in the American Midwest
11 minutes
video
Chemistry
Why do the building blocks of life possess a mysterious symmetry?
12 minutes
video
Rituals and celebrations
A whale hunt is an act of prayer for an Inuit community north of the Arctic Circle
8 minutes
video
Cosmology
Tiny, entangled universes that form or fizzle out – a theory of the quantum multiverse
11 minutes
video
Astronomy
The history of astronomy is a history of conjuring intelligent life where it isn’t
34 minutes
video
Politics and government
How it looked to Afghan women to see the Taliban return to power
33 minutes
video
Metaphysics
Simple entities in universal harmony – Leibniz’s evocative perspective on reality
4 minutes