Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi Indian word meaning variously: crazy life, life in turmoil, life disintegrating, life out of balance (the subtitle for this film), and a state of life that calls for another way of life. This film presents a concert of visual images set to the music of Philip Glass that progesses from purely natural environments to nature as affected by man, and finally to man's own manmade environment that is devoid of nature.

"In this cinematic concert - the concluding film of the Qatsi Trilogy preceded by critically acclaimed Koyaanisqatsi ("Life Out of Balance"), and Powaqqatsi (Life in Transformation") - mesmerizing images reanimated from everyday reality, then visually altered with state-of-the-art digital techniques, chronicle the shift from a world organized by the principles of nature to one dominated by technology, the synthetic and the virtual. Emtremes of intimacy...

James Burke examines how various scientific, historical and social factors gave rise to technological advances, including atomic weapons, nautical navigation and a growing dependence on technology. Part 1: Beginning in Egypt the program explains how plowing, building, writing, taxation, and astronomy began and how they became interdependent. Man's present dependence on complex technological networks is illustrated with a reconstruction of the New...

From the prairies of Saskatchewan to a Manhattan skyscraper, MODERN MARVELS(R) explores the 21st Century's cutting-edge "green" technologies in action. Learn how tongue-twisting technologies such as carbon sequestration and bioremediation take on our most daunting environmental crises: global warming, deforestation, nuclear waste and resource scarcity. Then, experience the slimier side of environmental tech as blue-green algae are converted into automotive...

"The big spin: The greatest medical accident in history starts a trail that leads to Helen of Troy, 17th century flower-power, the invention of soda pop and earthquake detection."--Container. "Bright ideas: A Baltimore man invented the bottle, which led to razors, clock springs, and the Hubbell telescope."--Container. "Making waves: Hairdressers, Gold Rush miners, Irish potato farmers and English parliamentarians are really tied together."--Container. "Routes:...

Look around you. Great masterpieces of engineering are everywhere. As soon as you get out of bed in the morning, you are putting centuries of scientific and mechanical ingenuity to use. So familiar are these structures, inventions, and services that they are all but invisible. Yet they are just as remarkable as great works such as the Parthenon, the Eiffel Tower, and the Panama Canal. Everyday Engineering: Understanding the Marvels of Daily Life...

"Something for nothing: Something impossible happened 400 years ago. And we wound up in outer space, thanks (en route) to pigeon lovers, the Pope, and electric Italian frogs."--Container. "Echoes of the past: On his way to finding the secret of the universe, Burke takes us to the Buddhist tea ceremony, ties it to international spies and Lincoln's assassination."--Container. "Photo finish: The Le Mans 24-hour race is the backdrop for linking photography...

"Hit the water: From the cockpit of a Tornado Fighter Bomber, dip into the history of margarine, dance at the ballet Copella, and blow up a dam in Norway with a British commando team to find out why and how Hitler never harnessed heavy water and the A-Bomb."--Container. "In touch: An American scientist ponders the problem of nuclear fusion in 1951 and from the connections between the Eiffel Tower to modern oceanography, the Global Net is developed."--Container....

"One word: One medieval word kicks off the investigation into different cultures with the same stories that ends in cultural anthropology."--Container. "Sign here: Dutch piracy starts international law and French probability math, phonetics, and Victorian seances."--Container. "Better than the real thing: How the zipper started with technology Jefferson picked up in Paris during a row about Creation."--Container. "Flexible response: Robin Hood...

"Feedback: Electronic agents may be our servants using feedback mathematics that won World War II based on an idea from France's vineyards where the Humane Society began while a doctor in Michigan created cornflakes."--Container. "What's in a name?: A breakfast leads to corn cob garbage used for 'furfan' which creates resin for bonding that leads to inventing the tractor and diesal engine and to the creation of the Smithsonian in Washington, DC."--Container....