Abstract: Seven Johns Hopkins scholars predict what the audience might expect in 1968 in various fields of science Dr Dayton Carritt assistant director of the Chesapeake Bay Institute considers the future of earth sciences rockets will orbit the earth and send back weather information nuclear power will be developed and ocean circulation will be studied for possible food production In the area of life sciences biology professor William McElroy discusses nutritional requirements to relieve diseases trapping solar energy the physiology of space travel insights on aging and other possibilities in a golden age of medicine Professor of microbiology Thomas B Turner predicts space medicine electronic equipment for the handicapped public protection against radioactivity better surgical methods for transplants and the reduction or elimination of heart disease polio and cancer Professor Charles Singleton maintains that the humanities will continue to survive as long as we ask What is a man and What does it mean to be where we are In communications chemistry professor Donald Hatch predicts the extension of television networks as well as 3D television programs and programs on demand Professor of physics Theodore Berlin lists future energy issues such as control of thermonuclear fusion reactions problems with radioactive wastes application of atomic energy but not in homes or vehicles transformation of devices to control energy and development of solid fuels and solar energy According to Francis Clauser professor of aeronautics in the realm of space travel commercial airlines will fly at supersonic speeds guided missiles and antimissile devices will be the backbone of defense the US will enjoy peaceful space travel with the Russians and a rocket will go to the moon To reinforce this view Wernher von Braun in a taped segment predicts that the US will launch a man into outer space he will orbit and return to earth He says an unmanned rocket will also land on Mars Milton S Eisenhower the president of Johns Hopkins University sums up their findings by pointing out the importance of education in all these endeavors
Date Published: 1958-03-08
Abstract: With the assistance of sketches photos and a reenactment of John Browns trial and indictment Dr C Vann Woodward history professor at Johns Hopkins University describes the details of John Browns failed slave insurrection of 1859 and sketches in the historical and biographical background A copy of Browns Provisional Constitution and Ordinances is shown and Browns famous trial speech is recited Dr Woodward concludes with comments on whether the end justified the means
Date Published: 1958-11-09
Abstract: Lynn Poole discusses xrays for treatment and diagnosis of disease and displays a recent report from the National Academy or Sciences and National Research Council on the biological effects of radiation Dr Russell Morgan Director of Radiology Dept at Johns Hopkins University fields questions from members of the press Nate Hazeltine a Washington Post science writer Pare Lorentz a film producer and Earl Ubell a reporter and science editor with the New York Herald Tribune Dr Morgan explains that xrays affect both individual cells and the whole body making them more susceptible to premature aging He discusses the research by John Lawrence on the effects of radiation on mice and their extrapolation to man He also notes a study on radiation vs nonradiation workers that showed no difference in life spans of the two groups It is the amount of radiation exposure that determines the effects of the damage For example a chest xray only delivers about 120th roentgen a unit of radiation However Dr Morgan discusses the feasibility of a reporting system for patients total xray exposure and the need for a set of standards And he does admit that the complexity and amount of radiation exposure is increasing in diagnostic studies and could double by 196065 A film clip demonstrates that this radiation exposure can be reduced by filtration distance from the xray machine length of time of exposure and protection of areas not being radiated Mr Poole points out that Dr Morgan has developed a fluoroscopy machine reducing by up to ten times the radiation time In conclusion Dr Morgan discusses whether the Atomic Energy Commission or the U S Public Health Services should be responsible for the publics radiation health problems
Date Published: 1957-01-20
Abstract: This program commemorates the fourteenth anniversary of this battle in the Philippines written about by Dr C Vann Woodward history professor at Johns Hopkins University in The Battle for Leyte Gulf Using maps and US Navy film clips he describes in detail the strategies and battles of this decisive naval campaign The U S fleets were led by Admiral William F Halsey and Vice Admiral Thomas C Kincaid Key Japanese commanders were Toyoda Ozawa and Kurita Dr Woodward concludes that Leyte was the last and most decisive battle fought between surface forces The victory was nearly a disaster for the US and the defeat was nearly a triumph for Japan since sheer chance and human frailty were critical to the outcome
Date Published: 1957-10-20
Abstract: Dr George Carter a human geographer at Johns Hopkins University studies mans relationship with the physical world and how civilizations developed He explains the differences between independent inventionists researchers who believe in indigenous cultures that developed independently and diffusionists scholars who maintain that there was early contact between civilizations Pre1492 contacts between the old world and the new appear impossible but evidence shows similarities in games instruments tools math religion etc in both Asia and the Americas The existence of domestic plants such as the sweet potato in both places and with the same name seems proof that man crossed the oceans during preColumbian times Evidence in art may support the diffusionists too according to Dr Gordon Ekholm curator of archaeology at the American Museum of Natural History He points to similar Mayan and Cambodian temples and parallel sculptural details such as trefoil arches in Mexico and in Asia
Date Published: 1957-01-27
Abstract: Lynn Poole and Malcolm Davies a teacher at Baltimore Junior College show two children Marsha Southwick and Richard Tillman how toys demonstrate basic science principles For example key wound spring toys with gears store potential energy An animated cartoon shows the story of Luigi Galvani who experimented with the animal electricity of severed frogs legs and Alessandro Volta who realized animal tissue was unnecessary for conduction of electricity and built the first battery The children compare draw swing arch and cantilever bridge designs They also consider the fulcrumlever principle of the seesaw and an animation of the operation of a windlass All of the scientific principles are demonstrated by a battery operated toy crane Mr Davies demonstrates how Robert Robot works using a Bendix cable and how other toys operate with little motors originally built as tiny fans for radios but made obsolete with the invention of transistors
Date Published: 1956-12-23
Abstract: Lynn Poole tells how the tenth century Islamic scholar Alhazan described the workings of the camera obscura Later Frenchman Niepce discovered an emulsion that could retain a photographic image Dr Walter Driscoll director of research at BairdAtomic Inc then shows a chart of the electromagnetic spectrum and notes that while xrays yield only shadowy pictures and radar waves detect but dont create pictures germanium and silicon filters block radiated energy and allow infrared light to pass through to form an image Dr Driscoll displays a scanning bolometer which can see in the dark but the shapes it creates need to be interpreted He also shows a snooperscope and a film clip of a sniperscope with infrared scope Previous research on infrared or thermal detection was done by Sir John Frederick William Herschel Potter Trainer demonstrates and explains the Evaporagraph EVA which is based on the principle that all things radiate heat as infrared rays and shows some of the actual pictures made from heat rather than light Dr Walter Baird describes applications of EVA to industry such as detecting problemcausing hot spots in electronic equipment or indicating heat escape or insulation deficiency in a building EVAs resolution is 10 linesmm at best and it shows temperature contrast of 2 degree The machines weakness is the slow speed of response to small temperature differences and the inability to obtain the temperature scale of the item viewed Nonetheless Mr Poole says EVA could play a vital role in civil defense and medicine
Date Published: 1957-01-13
Abstract: This program is the first public showing of a film whose title is from a line in Keatss Ode on a Grecian Urn made by Donald H Andrews and funded by Mrs William Hale Harkness Dr Andrews hypothesizes that all matter is music since all matter in the universe vibrates and tones and harmonies are made by vibrations The motion of a plucked violin string and its adjacent string sympathetic resonance are shown in slow motion and on an oscilloscope Dr Andrews discusses one dimensional harmony as described by Pythagoras Two dimensional harmonies are indicated by the fractional overtones of a drum head membrane which is shown in slow motion and heard electronically enhanced Three dimensional harmonies result from the contraction and expansion of a sphere however differently shaped solids such as statues have fractional resonances that produce unique chords or harmonic patterns when vibrating Four dimensional harmonies come from atom vibration a wave whose harmonic pattern is displayed by a vibrating sphere Thus Dr Andrews concludes that since an atom is not a particle that vibrates in space but rather the vibration itself all matter is in dynamic form or all matter is music He continues by playing on a piano the chords of tones of atoms produced by different chemical compounds He also shows and discusses the pattern of Bachs music on an oscilloscope and music composed by Rebekah West Harkness In conclusion Dr Andrews discusses the dynamic form of the human bodys symphony and its small chords in the larger universe
Date Published: 1960-03-13
Abstract: Dr Loren C Eiseley Provost of the University of Pennsylvania lectures from material in his 1958 prizewinning book Darwins Century He explains why he teaches and how mans brain receives impressions and profits from experiences He reads from Charles Darwins Origin of Species as well as from Alfred Russel Wallaces work that recognizes mans brain as the totally new factor in the history of life Man has the ability to invent progress and make changes in his surroundings and mans ethics arts and religions determine his cruelty or humaneness Dr Eiseley notes that man is relatively young in the total history of life but with his mechanical inventions and implements of war and power of choice for good or evil man and his science have made humanitys extinction possible Showing a chart of anthropoidal skulls of mans ancestors Dr Eiseley says the potential destiny of man is unknown Because of the Cold War we need to take responsibility now for spiritual greatness He warns that man should not abandon or forget how he has always tried to transcend himself spiritually and he quotes C S Lewis on the rationality of man
Date Published: 1960-01-31
Abstract: This program opens with a brief scene from Shakespeares Othello performed in twentieth century dress and setting Dr Lawrence Ross associate professor of English at the Johns Hopkins University argues that such modern trappings distort Shakespeares work and Elizabethan times He explains that the Shakespeare stage was an open air platform with emphasis on the actors and their speech and symbolized the order of the universe with man in the center The same scene is then performed on the Folger Shakespeare Librarys stage in Washington DC in period costume Dr Ross says that Shakespeares dramatic poetry spoken on the symbolic stage represented the essence of life and that the meanings of Elizabethan words often differed from current ones Shakespeares characters are hybrid part real part symbol such as Shylock exacting a pound of flesh in the dramatized scene from The Merchant of Venice Dr Ross analyzes a portrait of Queen Elizabeth as an introduction to the Elizabethan order of natural authority the king ruled over the state God over the universe the sun over the planets the husband over the family and reason over man Actors from Johns Hopkins Play Shop perform five passages from Macbeth as Dr Ross explains the violation of the social political and natural worlds evident in the words and their rhythms when Macbeth and his wife contemplate and carry out the death of King Duncan
Date Published: 1959-06-07
Abstract: This program hosted by Leo Geier takes place aboard the Maury a laboratory ship belonging to the Johns Hopkins Chesapeake Bay Institute Assistant director Dayton Carritt explains that the Institute was founded in 1948 to study the physical and chemical oceanography of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries and to conduct the academic program in oceanography at Johns Hopkins University The Bay is 200 miles long 20 miles wide and a great natural resource for commercial and recreational users Dr Donald Pritchard director of the Institute shows viewers such below deck equipment as the pyrheliometer which measures and records the intensity of solar radiation and thetrifilter hydrophotometer which measures the amount of red green and blue light that penetrates the various depths of the Bay and indicates the amount of energy in the water available for underwater plant growth Using a schematic illustration Dr Carritt describes the environmental factors affecting plants and organisms in the Bay such as water currents temperature and salinity as well as availability of plant food oxygen and animal life Dick Whaley demonstrates a microscope mounted with a camera to study and record species of organisms such as diatoms Other instruments read the salinity and temperature of the water measure the angle of the current and analyze the amount of dissolved oxygen in water for plant use Scuba divers Tom Hopkins and Jim Carpenter discuss their apparatus and their Bell and Howell movie camera with underwater lens before going overboard to study the oyster and clam beds for predators and general condition These are all examples of pure research on the Chesapeake Bay
Date Published: 1957-06-02
Abstract: Johns Hopkins University faculty member Elliott Coleman reads from his poetic works Spring on the Estuary Joyces Grave Letter to Pierre Emmanuel Sonnets on the Roman Light and Aubade for Josephine Jacobsen Poetry consultant to the Library of Congress Josephine Jacobsen reads the following of her poems Topic of Advent The Animals The Danish Mobile Painter in Xyochtl and The Stranger and Corrigan
Date Published: 1960-02-07
Abstract: Dr George Carter professor of geography at the Johns Hopkins University discusses elephant drawings as the key to the controversy of whether or not the American Indian civilization was influenced by European and Asian civilizations Examples of elephant drawings made between 1500 BC and 500 AD in such diverse places as England Ceylon China and Siam are often stylized or abstract whether the animal is native to the country or not Similarly a Greek coin displays an elephant likeness However during this period in Central America Mayan statues carvings and writings and Aztec art and rituals distinctly show elephants even though there were none to copy nor anyone to describe them Thus Dr Carter maintains that Asian peoples must have brought drawings or statues of elephants to Central America over 2000 years ago The proof he offers for this theory is the Thor Heyerdahl transpacific raft voyage proving such a trip could be made in a primitive vessel identical temples 12000 miles apart in Mexico and Cambodia identical Sumatran and Mexican folding bark religious books identical fishhooks from Easter Island and California physical attributes of Central American and Asian Indians photos show one of each both playing nose flutes and plants appearing in lands too far from original sources to have blown there In closing Lynn Poole shows additional examples of elephant artwork found in the United States
Date Published: 1960-01-24
Abstract: Johns Hopkins University president Milton S Eisenhower briefly summarizes the life of Dante Alighieri 12651321 a poet and philosopher exiled from his native Florence He then interviews Dr Charles Singleton Johns Hopkins professor of humanistic studies about Dantes Divine Comedy Dr Singleton explains that the poem is divided into 100 cantos and 3 canticles Inferno Purgatorio and Paradisio each of which he describes with diagrams The poem tells the tale of a journey through the afterlife to God and can be read in the literal sense as well as an allegory Dr Singleton reads verses from Canto I in Italian and translates St Augustines phrase the unquiet heart from The Confessions is the basis of Dantes allegory a notion of the livings journey of mind and heart to God He describes the image of a flame and how it rises upwards seeking its proper place Dr Eisenhower comments that Dantes poem invites readers on a journey to escape provincialism
Date Published: 1957-10-27
Abstract: Lynn Poole briefly summarizes the highlights of Albert Einsteins life 18791955 with accompanying photos Actors representing German physicist Max Planck British scientist Sir Oliver Lodge and Royal Society member Joseph J Thompson comment on the progress of Einsteins work Setting the foundation Newton discovered the Corpuscular Theory of Light Huygens the Wave Theory of Light Maxwell and Hertz the Electromagnetic Theory and Michelson and Morley the experiment using the interferometer to measure the speed of earth through ether From this evolved Einsteins 1905 Special Theory of Relativity E=MC2 proving that all motion is relative and that light travels at a constant speed Einstein won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the photoelectric effect contributed to the theory of Brownian movement the molecular construction of matter and conducted research in unified field theory
Date Published: 1959-02-08
