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.

This program opens with a film of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Station in Beltsville, MD. In one greenhouse two groups of plants are receiving the same daytime conditions, but at night one is kept in total darkness while the other receives eight additional hours of incandescent light. Two four-year old loblolly pines show the results of this experiment. Dr. H. A. Borthwick explains that this is to study photoperiodism, or the effect of light on the plants' growth mechanism. In 1918 Wightman W. Garner and Harry A. Allard discovered that it is not the length of the day but rather of the night that is the determining factor in flower and seed production and growth of plants. Further experiments with lettuce, bean, tomato, and corn seeds test the effect of spectrum light colors and exposure on germination. A far red light creates a taller plant, and red light creates the tomato skin color. The mechanism in a plant the reacts to light is not chlorophyll but rather a two-way growth pigment, phytochrome, that acts as a switch with red and far red light. A film shows the process, using a spectrophotometer, by which this was determined. K. H. Norris demonstrates a spectrophotometer with a corn sample and explains the results with graphs. Two film clips show Sterling B. Hendricks doing further research on phytochromes to isolate their molecular structure and Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev at Beltsville, MD listening to Dr. Borthwick discuss crop growth issues.

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.

Denys Peter Myers, Assistant Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, discusses sculpture. He first describes, and displays, sculptures as artistic expressions existing in the round and being representational, semi-representational, or non-representational. He then argues that to understand the purpose of a sculpture, one must consider the culture that produced it and will generally find that it is either humanistic (making a statement about the human condition) or cult (serving as a bridge from this world to the next). As examples of cult objects, Mr. Myers exhibits the bronze head of the dead king of the kingdom of Benin in Nigeria. He also shows an Egyptian rose quartz sculpture of a pharaoh, an 8th century Indian temple corner graced by two dancers, a 14th century French Madonna and child, a second century Gandharan stucco head in the Roman tradition, and a 5th century sculpture similar to a Roman sarcophagus. To contrast humanistic examples of sculpture, Mr. Myers displays the remainder of a Greek Venus sculpture, the ideal of feminine beauty. The neo-humanism of Dante's era led to contemporary individualism as expressed in Maillol's 1898 "Bather Fixing Her Hair," Degas' "Little Dancer," and Matisse's "Serf," "Reclining Nude," and "Serpentine." He compares Renoir's 1916 bronze Venus to the ancient one and Henry Moore's abstract "Reclining Woman" with previous examples. Mr. Myers maintains that modern artists are the prophets and moralists of society and their return to abstract ideas and figures are a balance of otherworldliness and worldliness, with Venus and the dead king coalescing. He concludes the program showing two abstract metal sculptures: Giacometti's "Man Pointing" and Ibram Lassaw's "Planets."

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 B.C. and 500 A.D. 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 2,000 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 12,000 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.

This program considers the stories of love, courtship, and marriage in Appalachia as told through folk songs. Virgil Sturgill sings "Sourwood Mountain," accompanied by Mike Seeger on banjo. Elwil Hughes strums a mountain dulcimer as she sings "Lonesome Dove." In the duet "Mountaineer's Courtship" with Hughes, Seeger plays the autoharp and Sturgill comments on the lyrics. Seeger sings "The Wedding Dress" with banjo accompaniment and "Aggravate Your Soul" with guitar. Sturgill plucks a mountain dulcimer and sings "Devilish Mary." Seeger, on guitar, sings "Everyday Dirt." The ensemble concludes with "Wish I Was Single Again" and "Careless Love."

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 photos showing the versatility and expression of glass. Host Leo Geier explains that Johns Hopkins University employs full-time glassblower John Lehman because research scientists require intricate, complex glass equipment that no one has ever seen. Mr. Lehman demonstrates "pulling points" as he creates a ring seal for a trap. When Mr. Lehman first started blowing glass, there were only soft, soda, and lime glass varieties; now there are 75 different types and additional refinements are in process. A film covers the discovery of glass, from obsidian, natural glass used to carve weapons, vessels, and decorations, to the first manmade glass in 5000 BC and the Egyptians' glass jewelry and containers. Mr. Lehman demonstrates how to make a manometer from capillary tubing glass as well as the procedure in blowing a flask and a coiled glass tube. To demonstrate non-scientific aspects of the art, Mr. Lehman blows a swan, makes glass Christmas "snow," and completes a glass bird.

In this second program of a three-part series, astronomical historian and lecturer John Williams Streeter describes Venus as the morning and evening star and tells the viewers when and where to observe it. He gives the planet's distance from sun and earth, its solar orbiting time, its measurements, and its mass, density, and surface gravity and then announces, "That's all we know." A brief history of the astronomers who made telescopic observations and early drawings of Venus include Galileo in 1609, Francesco Fontana in 1645, Gian Domenico Cassini in 1666, Francesco Bianchini, William Herschel, and Johann Schroter in 1788. Mr. Streeter says that Venus apparently has an atmosphere because it reflects sunlight and thus must be covered by dense white clouds. Venus's atmosphere was first thought to be like that of the carboniferous period on earth, but a subsequent spectroscopic study showed nothing but carbon dioxide, permitting no life as we know it. However, the Venusian ocean may support one-celled animals. Mr. Streeter describes the history of speculated life on Venus and shows early sketches of Venusians. Film clips show the 1959 balloon and gondola designed by Johns Hopkins University's Dr. John Strong and piloted by Navy commander Malcolm Ross. It rose to an altitude of 80,000, and its spectroscopic data, analyzed by physicist Charles Moore, showed measurable water vapor on Venus. In order for a rocket to reach Venus, Mr. Streeter predicts, it would launch from the moon, choose a route requiring the least fuel, and not reach its destination for over two years.

In this final program of a three-part series, Robert Neathery, Director of the Science Museum of Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, discusses the possibility of life on Mars by first defining the needs of life as we know it: water, oxygen, food, moderate temperatures, adaptation to gravitational forces, and protection from radiation. He then gives the history of Mars from Francesco Fontana's 1636 drawing of the planet to Christian Huygens' comments on possible inhabitants of Mars and Giovanni Schiaparelli's 1877 observation of Mars's channels (mistakenly translated as "canals" by others). Mr. Neathery describes a diagram of the planet's orbit between 1956-71 indicating its nearness to the earth every 15 years. Aerology, or the study of the features of Mars, is done with telescope, spectroscope, thermocouple, and camera and reveals polar caps that wax and wane and a reddish color, thought to be desert, covering 75% of the planet's surface. Dr. Neathery shows a cactus in a bell jar containing nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide, and oxygen in proportions considered similar to those in the Martian atmosphere and compares it to a cactus plant outside the jar. He also uses balloons filled with nitrogen or helium to demonstrate the escape velocity of gravity on earth as compared to the lower surface gravity on Mars. Because oxygen is nearly non-existent on Mars, the temperatures are extreme, and it's unclear whether chlorophyll exists on the planet, Dr. Neathery concludes that Mars is inhospitable to life as we know it. However, he is certain that man's curiosity will take him there. The trip will take eight months, and an artist's rendition shows what will be seen upon landing. Dr. Neathery laments that the public's belief in Orson Welles's 1938 "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast is a sad commentary on their understanding of science.