The Secret Genius of Modern Life Episode Rating Graph

Hannah gains access to a top-secret site where anonymous staff and the latest tech work to make the British passport one of the most secure documents on the planet. She reveals the World War I spy craft hidden in the pages of every passport and takes a look into how modern ID checks were shaped by the hunt for a 19th-century French serial killer and 1970s psychedelic art.

Hannah Fry visits Ebay’s authentication centre, where they are waging war against fake high-value trainers.

Hannah Fry discovers why innovations in meat packing almost derailed the electric car revolution and how a breakthrough in camcorder batteries led to Elon Musk’s electric empire, as well as demonstrating how not to drive a multimillion dollar prototype car of the future.

Hannah Fry delves into the inner workings of virtual assistants, such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri, which are now found in almost half of all UK homes.

Hannah goes behind the scenes to look at the technology behind the lift, entering a 246m high lift shaft to test everything from the brakes to her own fear of heights. Along the way, she finds out how rickety 19th-century coal mines made lifts safer, gets to grips with a piece of medieval siege technology still used in lifts today, and discovers how an 1850s PR stunt changed the modern skyline forever.

With over six billion of them across the planet, smartphones have changed the modern world. With rare access to electronics giant Samsung, Hannah uncovers the technological game-changers that have made the smartphone a reality. She finds out how 1940s comic book hero Dick Tracy inspired the first mobile phone, discovers why the invention of the digital camera led to one of the biggest commercial blunders of all time, and reveals what a 2010 South Korean sausage frenzy can tell us about touchscreens.

Headphones: these marvels of miniaturisation are worn by 30 million people in the UK. Hannah Fry visits Bose to find out how the teeny earbud tech works and meets the human testers with ‘golden ears’.

Hannah Fry takes a look at the bank card, the digital key to accessing cash, and finds out how its extraordinary innovations have some surprising and sinister origins.