How We Got to Now How We Got to Now How We Got to Now is a British-American factual television series that was broadcast on PBS in 2014 and BBC Two in 2015. The series was commissioned by the BBC in the United Kingdom and made by Nutopia, a British-American production company in the United States. The six-part series, presented by Steven Johnson, explores the legacy of great ideas. Episode titles for the six parts are: 1) Clean, 2) Time, 3) Glass, 4) Light, 5) Cold, and 6) Sound. The historical characters who appear include Thomas Edison, Clarence Birdseye, Frederick McKinley Jones, Willis Carrier, Tim
Thomas Edison had created the first industrial laboratory concerned with creating knowledge and then controlling its application. Edison's name is registered on 1,093 patents. Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey, with the automatic repeater and his other improved telegraphic devices, but the invention that first gained him wider notice was the phonograph in 1877. This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park," New Jersey. His first phonograph recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder. Despite its limited sound quality and that