In the mid nineteenth century, a handful of visionaries embarked on a quest to change the world forever. Involving some of the greatest minds in the world, finance on an unimaginable scale, and radical new breakthroughs in engineering and technology, their goal was to physically link the two mightiest nations on earth, across thousands of miles of ocean with a telegraphic cable. In a single stroke their plan would slash communication times between America and Britain from weeks to minutes.
And the man who made this astonishing feat possible was one of the greatest scientific minds of his day an Ulsterman, William Thomson, later known as Lord Kelvin.
In Groundbreakers: The Man Who Shrank the World, William Crawley examines Kelvin's legacy as one of giants of science through the story of this massive achievement.
William takes viewers through this remarkable story, described at the turn of the century by The Times as "the most wonderful achievement of this victorious century".
The film is part of the Groundbreakers season of visionaries.
Groundbreakers: The Man Who Shrank the World is made for BBC Northern Ireland with assistance from the Northern Ireland Screen Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund.
