Hacker Cinema
Uranium: Twisting the Dragon's Tail
2015 · TV series · documentary · 51 min episodes · 1 season
A stunning new documentary series exploring the incredible story of uranium, from its creation in an exploding star to its deployment in nuclear weapons, nuclear power, and nuclear medicine. It’s a journey across nine countries and more than a century of stories, to discover the rock that made the modern world. It’s part science, part history, and all epic adventure. Join physicist and YouTube phenomenon Dr. Derek Muller as he reveals the untold story of the most wondrous and terrifying rock on Earth.
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2 comments on Hacker News
"The whole context and presentation seemed like it was designed to make the viewer feel like they'd learnt something even though nothing of substance was really delivered in those 20 seconds. He does that a lot."
I can't disagree with that. He's not only a YouTube presenter but also a documentary maker, His documentary Uranium: Twisting the Dragon's Tail https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4847012/ has been repeated on TV where I am, I think, at least three times. He's also made others.
Unfortunately, that type of presentation is all too common in modern docos (probably couldn't get it past the director otherwise). As you'd know, this and similar techniques (which I find highly irritating) are also used to pad out half-hour shows to an hour and or to multi episodes when one would do adequately (thankfully, my PVR comes to the rescue and I rarely watch them in real time).
My two favorites vulgarization approach about nuclear radiation: - The XKCD radiation dose chart http://xkcd.com/radiation/ - The pretty bad-ass documentary "Uranium: Twisting the Dragon's Tail" where there presenter start by taking an radon bath in a Swiss SPA then travel around to the most radioactive places on earth (and flip out when under Pripiat hospital where he almost took too much risk)...