Two actors, James Potter and Robert Keller, open this program with a dramatization of an emergency situation in which a child is severely burned far from a treatment center. Dr. Sanford Rosenthal, pharmacologist at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases in Bethesda, MD, explains the emergency treatment he developed that is recommended in the dramatic scene: one teaspoon of salt plus half teaspoon of baking soda mixed in one quart of cool water and delivered orally to the burn victim at the rate of one quart per twenty pounds of body weight during the first 24 hours and half the amount during the next 24 hours. He explains that since 1942 National Institute of Health (NIH) has studied shock that follows severe injuries such as burns, crushing injuries, and hemorrhage. A film shows the procedure that replicated these types of injuries on female albino mice. Tissue fluid and blood rushing to the wound area result in dehydration, sodium deficiency, and reduced blood volume overall and can be corrected by administering Rosenthal's fluid treatment orally or intravenously. Dr. Kehl Markley, also of NIH, explains a chart comparing the amount of saline treatment to survival rate. He then narrates a film about 1951 experiments with human burn victims in Lima, Peru, where half received saline solution by mouth and half received plasma and glucose by vein. The two groups showed no significant differences after 24 hours, although many burn victims who survive the shock later die from infection. Dr. Markley discusses a chart of burn victims showing the number of deaths/cases of those who received saline, plasma, or both. In conclusion, the Office of Civil Defense Mobilization has recommended emergency use of saline solution for burn shock in case of a major bomb disaster.

Actors Joseph Potter, Bob McGill, Walter Koehler, Harry Welker, and Harry Weiss dramatize the trial of Socrates Aeropagus in 399 BC. The seventy year old Athenian philosopher is under attack as a sophist and faces the Tribunal. Lynn Poole, as "chorus," intersperses descriptions of Athens, its religion, courts, and history with scenes played by costumed actors. Libelled by Aristophanes' comedy "The Clouds" and accused by the poet Meletus of impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens, Socrates eloquently counters the accusations only to be voted guilty by the jury. He abides by the death penalty and prophesies that punishment will fall upon both his supporters and accusers for not examining their lives and living righteously.

The program opens with drawings of early, primitive underwater vessels and segues into a film of swimmers with aqualungs. A photo of Charles William Beebe is shown as oceanographer Dayton Carritt discusses Beebe's 1930s bathysphere. In 1953, Auguste Piccard built the first bathyscaphe, the "Trieste," a 50-foot untethered underwater vehicle, after many years of successfully using balloons to study the atmosphere. The "Trieste" operates on the Archimedes principle of water displacement, demonstrated by Dr. Carritt by dropping a tennis ball and a golf ball into water. Dr. Carritt explains in detail a schematic diagram of the "Trieste," showing how the ballast mechanism works with a small experiment and film clip of the procedure. In 1958, the Office of Naval Research bought the "Trieste" from Piccard for $185,000 to study the physical, chemical, biological, and geological characteristics of the ocean. Dr. Carritt interviews Dr. Robert Dietz of the U.S. Navy, who recounts his dive in "Trieste" with Piccard, describing what he saw and how he felt. Dr. Dietz also explains the "false bottom" or "deep scattering layer" and shows a graph of it. He discusses the drawbacks and the uses of bathyscaphes, such as deep sea salvage, mineral mining, and cable monitoring.

Dr. Herbert Friedman, astrophysicist with the U.S. Naval Research Lab, uses a piano to demonstrate that the range of the spectrum from red to violet is one octave of electro-magnetic frequency and notes that the earth's atmosphere blocks all but thirteen of the total sixty octaves of radiation frequencies. He shows a photo of Karl Jansky and a picture and soundtrack of lightening-produced "whistlers," which Jansky studied. In a 1945 film clip, V-2 rockets carry a Lyman alpha solar disk camera above the earth's atmosphere to study ultra-violet wavelengths such as the Lyman alpha line, discovered by Theodore Lyman at Harvard in 1912. The eponymous camera is described in a film as are the photon counters used in the rocket to send data from the flight to the ground. Pictures reveal the sun's characteristics, such as sunspots, flares, and plages. A 1959 detailed photo of the sun taken with the Lyman alpha camera shows the Lyman alpha regions. Another film discusses the study of solar flares and the use of "push button" rocketry to measure them. A film shows two-stage rockets launched from the Pont Arguello, CA U.S. Naval Missile Facility to study the ultraviolet x-ray emissions of solar flares. A chart displays the sun's photosphere surrounded by outer and inner coronas and a chromosphere. An animated segment and film clips document the attempt to photograph the sun during the October 12, 1958 total eclipse. Dr. Friedman concludes the program by explaining the detection of ultra-violet nebulosity in the night sky and lists questions researchers are trying to answer about Lyman alpha light and hydrogen-filled galactic space.

The Johns Hopkins Glee Club, under the direction of James Mitchell, opens this Christmas program with capella renditions of "See That Babe in the Lowly Manger," "Go Tell It on the Mountain," and "Behold That Star." Hopkins president Milton S. Eisenhower reflects on the observance of Christmas and stories related to the holiday, particularly "Amahl and the Night Visitors." The Glee Club follows with "Lord the Messiah" with piano accompaniment. The Chesapeake Troubadours, a barbershop quartet, sings their version of "Winter Wonderland" and "Jingle Bells." Lynn Poole briefly notes the differences in Christmases around the world. The Glee Club sings "Cradle Song of the Shepherd" and "Lo, How a Rose E're Blooming" and concludes with "Carol of the Bells."

Captain David Minard, with the medical corps of the U.S. Navy, discusses tests conducted for 44 days in Korea to study the physiological and psychological stressors on troops under actual combat and fatigue. Using a chart, he explains the test for reactivity of the autonomic nervous system. Both attack and defense troops were measured before and after combat for hormone excretion, protein destruction, body salt retention, white blood cell count, and number of days to recover. Capt. Minard recommends using electronic transducers and transmitters to record such data in the future. Jean Taylor, an operations analyst with Johns Hopkins University, explains homeostasis (adjustments to protect the status quo) and the results of serious strains on it. Combatants were given paper and pencil tests to measure their higher mental functions and given a visual flicker fusion frequency test and an auditory flutter fusion frequency test to measure sensory cortical sensitivity. Ms. Taylor concludes that the physiological tests were more definitive than the psychological tests, which were inconclusive. Psychological stress was best observed through films shown of men before and after a combat that resulted in a 61% casualty rate. The men's physiological reactions followed Hans Selye's chart of response to stress: alarm reaction, resistance stage, exhaustion phase.

Johns Hopkins history professor Charles A. Barker describes the characteristics and beliefs of Henry David Thoreau, one of the Transcendentalists in Concord, MA. The narrator enumerates Thoreau's life events, including his isolation at Walden Pond and Emerson's influence on him. Dr. Carl Bode, English professor at the University of Maryland, analyzes Thoreau's 26-month Walden venture and suggests that Thoreau was experiencing the cycle of withdrawal and return as described by Arnold Toynbee. Dr. Barker discusses Thoreau's animosity towards his peers and his polemic essays, such as the 1849 "Essay on Civil Disobedience" and the 1859 "A Plea for Captain John Brown," his last outburst of creative energy. Individualistic and dogmatic to the end, Thoreau died of tuberculosis in 1862. Actor Ed Golden portrays Thoreau and recites lines written by him to underscore the scholars' comments.

The program opens with a film of the firing of a rocket and its subsequent high altitude photos charting the structure of a storm. Lynn Poole shows a model of an early twentieth century satellite and notes its increasing importance in meteorology. Dr. George Benton, Johns Hopkins University professor of meteorology, displays a chart of satellites' distance above the earth's atmosphere and another chart of the electromagnetic spectrum. Dr. Sigmund Fritz, a meteorologist with the U.S. Weather Bureau, lists the advantages of a satellite in weather forecasting, including its high vantage point, rapid mobility, and broad coverage over the globe. Dr. William Kellogg, a meteorologist with the Rand Corp., describes the typical orbits of satellites launched from Cape Canaveral, explaining why an elliptical orbit is generally preferable, but a circular one is best for a weather satellite. He also says that the higher the satellite's elevation, the longer it will take to circle the earth but the longer the satellite's lifespan as well. Dr. Fritz stresses the technological problems that need to be overcome before satellites can become more useful tools: stabilization, to make it constantly look down; transmission, interpretation, and distribution of collected data; and measurement of cloud reflectivity. The satellites' benefits to meteorology will include wide range cloud detection, measurement of the heat balances that drive the storms, and measurement of radiation balance over land and water by latitude. Visuals include a time lapse film of gathering thunderclouds from the ground and 22 miles up, a photo of cloud cover over the entire eastern seaboard from 86 miles up, and an artistic rendition of how the earth might look from 4,000 miles up, by Harry Wexler of the U.S. Weather Bureau.

Lynn Poole displays the incandescent point source of light from 1909, the 1938 fluorescent line source of light, and the new electro-luminescence flat panel of light. Carl Jensen, a lighting engineer and marketing manager, and Dr. John McNall, the director of research at Westinghouse Electric Corp., discuss how this light is generated by exciting phosphors in alternating electric fields and demonstrate the concept using a tilting board with traps and marbles. Electro-luminescence was first discovered in 1936 by Georges Destriau, shown in a film clip. The guests also make the analogy of keys on a piano to the full electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to gamma waves. They explain that lumens are units of light and watts are units of power, and they compare the brightness of electro-luminescence to incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. The new product can become brighter by increasing the voltage or frequency or both, but it has limits. Dr. McNall shows the electrical conductors and other layers making up this artificial source of light and notes that it can be made into many shapes or designs and installed in ceilings, walls, stairs, furniture, and even drapery. However, square panels are the most common shape, as shown in the top of a coffee table and on the walls of a model room. Scientific use of electro-luminescence includes astronautical instrumentation, and electro-enhancement will lead to less x-ray exposure by intensification of fluoroscopy screens. Mr. Jensen predicts that in the future this product could be used for a thin, flat, wall-mounted television screen with controls available remotely for the viewer's convenience.

As historical background to 1959 Doppler radar navigation systems, an animated film considers the use of Ptolemy and Mercator's maps, the magnetic compass, and John Hadley's 1731 sextant. Clarence Rice, aviation products manager of the Bendix Radio Division in Baltimore, MD, points out that aviation navigation depends on knowing the ground speed and the path of the aircraft over the earth. He uses a chart to demonstrate the effects of winds on plane direction and the efforts to compensate: a homing device, which did not account for wind drift and also picked up static interference; the radio range system, which used four beams to overcome the drift problem but still received static; and the manual direction finder, which became the standard aid in the 1930s. A film describes how, in 1939, Bendix developed the automatic direction finder (ADF) with omnirange, which also eliminated static. Over the ocean, LORAN, or long range navigation, devices were used. Another animated film shows how Christian Doppler, in 1842, described the Doppler effect based on sound waves and how that principle has been applied to radar's radio waves. The film explains the "plus" Doppler effect for direct measurement of forward speeds and the "minus" for measurement of drift angle. Pitch and roll are also corrected by the radar beams since beam compensation is based on the magnitude of the Doppler shift. A plane's Doppler radar components include a transmitter, antennae, receiver, frequency tracker, and cockpit indicator. Mr. Rice explains how pilots divide their flights into shorter legs, placing the information into the navigational computer. He notes that Doppler radar will not become obsolete with faster aircraft speeds and that it does not require a land-based facility.