The program opens with film clips of the effects of the bombing of Hiroshima. Dr. Donald Andrews, chemistry professor at Johns Hopkins University, says that man has learned how to harness and control the atom's energy in such projects as atomic submarines and power plants, but we can not yet harness or control hydrogen, the newest source of nuclear power. To do that, machines need to supplement man's brain, offering "automatic control" or cybernetics. Examples of this include analog machines that regulate single functions, like James Watts' fly ball governor to control steam to the engine (demonstrated in animated film), thermostats that work on a feedback loop, servoengines that correct the course of a ship, and automated pilots on planes. Dr. Andrews then demonstrates thermodynamics, which studies the relations between heat and motion, and shows visible and audible evidence of a gas using dry ice. He defines entropy as the degree of randomness in a situation expressed by probabilities. Claude Shannon was the first person to see the parallel between entropy and the theory of information, which makes possible more complex automatic control devices. Self-regulating machines still need human monitoring, but digital information machines, or computers, can handle more complex situations, such as reacting to emergencies. A filmed narrative describes IBM's Model 705 equipment and statistics. Dr. Andrews says that computers will become the instruments of overall control. Cartoons show the statistics, promises, and fears of mechanization in business, industry, and government, concluding that by 1965, the United States, with a population of 190,000,000 will require a 50% increase in production. Dr. Andrews also predicts that in the future automatic control machines will make possible automatically steered cars, continuous television with an on-request program selector for shows in full color and 3-D, interplanetary transportation within 100 years, and modification of conditions on other planets by robots for colonization of space. The program concludes with a brief film of the launching of an artificial earth satellite placed in orbit by a three-stage rocket as America's contribution to the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year.

This program opens with photos of famous American art museums and comments on their preservation demands. Lynn Poole shows an Egyptian bronze statuette that had become disfigured by bronze disease. Johns Hopkins chemistry professor Dr. Alsoph H. Corwin helped to develop a technique to reverse the corrosion on pieces like this and to restore the corroded coffer of the Dead Sea Scrolls. John Kirby, of Baltimore's Walters Art Gallery conservation department, briefly describes the Walters' collection and the job of the museum conservation staff. A film shows the conservation studio's equipment and procedures, such as the successive steps in relining the canvas of a painting. Another film shows how the wax immersion process reinforces and preserves deteriorating wood sculptures. Elisabeth Packard, also on the Walters staff, shows an example of the nineteenth century practice of piecing together unrelated fragments of sculptures and explains how conservators try to recognize and reconstruct the proper form. Mr. Kirby displays an ivory figurine from Crete whose fragments were reconstituted with gelatin and metal rods. Miss Packard discusses how paintings and other artwork are x-rayed and the damages, repairs, alterations, and brushwork that are discovered. Mr. Kirby demonstrates professional cleaning and restoring of a painting. Mr. Poole shows a painting of Maria Salviatti by Pontormo that was x-rayed and restored to reveal a child painted over by the mother's skirt. Miss Packard demonstrates retouching a painting to fill in breaks in paint by "in-painting," as opposed to "over-painting," which conceals the original paint. Mr. Kirby concludes by revealing two portraits beneath a painting of a lion presumably by Jericho to illustrate the mysteries conservators must solve.

Lynn Poole discusses reading comprehension and speed and how bad habits, such as moving one's mouth while reading, can be eliminated. He also shows a regressive reader, who lacks concentration and doesn't trust her comprehension. An ophthalmograph, which records every eye movement on film, is demonstrated along with the eye graphs of efficient and poor readers. A film, prepared by W. G. Perry, Jr. and C. P. Whitlock of Harvard University, simulates a reading clinic's tachistoscope, developed by Samuel Renshaw, to improve a student's precision of vision (length of time focused on a word and number of words in eye fixation) and peripheral vision. Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower, president of Johns Hopkins University, points out that the objective of all college courses is to increase reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. However, in 1955, only 17% of all U. S. adults were regularly reading books, and there was a disparity between reading levels and chronological ages.

An animated film details the parts of the eye. Lynn Poole compares the operation of an eye to that of a television camera. Eye prints reveal retinal detachment, glaucoma, and diseases of the body such as diabetes. A diagram traces the evolution of the eye. A history of sight-related research includes Galileo's telescope, Sir Isaac Newton's experimentation with prisms, Dr. Thomas Young's work with astigmatism, and Hermann von Helmholtz's development of the ophthalmoscope to look into the interior of the eye. Dr. Stewart Wolff, ophthalmologist at Johns Hopkins' Wilmer Eye Clinic, displays an electric ophthalmoscope, demonstrates a slit lamp, using Lynn Poole as a patient, and shows slides of cataracts. He also explains the test for tunnel vision with the tangent screen and peripheral field examination, the Snellen chart to test eyesight, and the tonometer to measure the intraocular pressure of the eye.

Thomas Schmid, of the Johns Hopkins University Press, displays some of the press's recently published books, such as "Soranus' Gynecology", the first English translation of this ancient Greek medicine book; and "Operations Research for Management", offering operations researchers' solutions to such problems as traffic jams. The Press's director, Harold Ingle, displays a map of the forty university presses in America and notes that Johns Hopkins University Press, established in 1878, is the oldest continuously publishing one. It is the responsibility of these presses to advance scholarly research and diffuse knowledge, and to that end, the Press produces books by scholars for scholars, books by scholars for intelligent laymen, and scholarly journals. Mr. Ingle shows examples of each. Additional featured examples include "Symposium on the Chemical Basis of Heredity", "Truxtun of the Constellation", "Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power", and "Ten Centuries of Spanish Poetry", an anthology in both Spanish and English. Editor John Kyle describes the acquisition and appraisal of manuscripts such as "Professional Public Relations and Political Power", by Dr. Stanley Kelley, Jr., who discusses his inspiration for the book. Dr. Malcolm Moos talks about the process of editing "A Carnival of Buncombe", a collection of 69 articles written by H.L. Mencken for the "Baltimore Evening Sun" between 1920 and 1936.

Dr. Eisenhower, Johns Hopkins University president, opens this tenth season of Johns Hopkins television. Lynn Poole discusses increasing U. S. energy needs and predicts that the world may run out of coal in 1000 years and oil in 100 years, making solar energy a critical commodity. A film clip shows the sun's surface and its energy generation is discussed. John Yellott, executive director for the Association for Applied Solar Energy, says that space heating will be the first large use of solar energy. He explains the workings of a solar-heated house with auxiliary heat pump designed by University of Minnesota architecture student Peter Lee and engineered by Bridgers and Paxton. According to Mr. Yellot, the basic instruments of solar energy are collectors, concentrators, photoelectricity, and photochemistry. He shows how solar stills can convert salt water into fresh; solar furnaces can be used for metallurgy and other research; and solar stoves can be designed for arid countries where fuel is scarce. Mr. Poole uses a photo flood light to light a cigarette and shows how selenium cells operate a photoelectric exposure meter and 8mm movie camera. Mr. Yellott demonstrates a radio/phonograph developed by Admiral Corp. to run on solar cells with backup storage batteries. Mr. Yellot concludes that at this time large scale uses of solar energy are too expensive, but solar is ideal for small amounts of energy in isolated places. More research is needed in harnessing this inexhaustible source of power.

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 U.S. 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 U.S., and the defeat was nearly a triumph for Japan since sheer chance and human frailty were critical to the outcome.

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 fulcrum/lever 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.

Dr. George Carter, a human geographer at Johns Hopkins University, studies man's 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. Pre-1492 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 pre-Columbian 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.