Dr. Witt defines water surface tension and shows examples of "wetted water." His daughter Marilyn performs an experiment floating a steel needle on water until an additional drop of water breaks the surface tension and sinks the needle. Dr. Witt demonstrates how the surface of a glass plate treated with a wetting agent stays clear and unfogged as the water spreads into a thin film, unlike the untreated surface, on which droplets formed spheres that cloud the glass. This technology is used on skin diving masks and windshields of airplanes and cars. Dr. Witt compares "wetted water" and regular water in laundry uses. Wetting agents also allow mixing of oil with water to make stable emulsions for such products as agricultural sprays, paints and dyes, cosmetics, and floor waxes. In addition to synthetic wetting agents, there are also natural ones such as egg yolks. Dr. Witt shows how a warm carbonated beverage, as an unburnable emulsion, can be used as a fire extinguisher to put out small fires.

This 200th show reviews the five years this series has been on television. Dr. Franco Rasetti recreates one experiment from the first show, which was filmed in a Johns Hopkins classroom: the spontaneous break-up of a radioactive element as evidenced by a Geiger counter's response. Dr. Ralph Witt, of the plastics lab, shows how plastics are made and molded by replicating the same plastic resin he made on the program five years ago. He explains how glass fibers can now be woven into fabric and covered with plastic resin to make a strong laminate. Lynn Poole then pages through album photos to recall other programs: John Lehman, the university glassblower; Dr. Donald H. Andrews freezing the atom; medical artists; warnings on sunburn; "Fear," the first program (10/3/50) for the Dumont Network; Dr. Russell Morgan unveiling the x-ray fluoroscope; human engineering; Dr. Arthur Parpart demonstrating the new microscope combined with a television screen; films of the earth taken by a camera 70,000 feet above the earth. P. Stewart McCauley pays tribute to the Johns Hopkins Science Review and its staff, guests, and viewers, especially Lynn Poole. Ken Carter, general manager of television station WAAM in Baltimore presents a gift of a lamp decorated with pictures from the show to Mr. Poole, who read many congratulatory telegrams on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the Johns Hopkins Science Review.