Whipped Cream Difficulties

Science Sunday!

Today, we’re wrapping up the Bell System Science Series. Previous posts:

• Part 1.
• Part 2.
• Part 3.

We’re still in the “produced “under the personal supervision of Jack L. Warner”/Owen Crump era. But according to Wikipedia, the Bell System wasn’t all that happy with the first two Warner films, and actually approached Frank Capra about coming back. I gather he turned them down.

Film number seven in the series: “Thread of Life”, about DNA and related matters (heredity, genetics, all that stuff). This is from 1960, so it’s worth considering where we were at the time: it wasn’t until 1952 that DNA was established as the carrier of genetic information, and it wasn’t until 1953 that Crick and Watson published the double helix paper. Franklin and Gosling’s X-ray diffraction photo was from 1952.

In an influential presentation in 1957, Crick laid out the central dogma of molecular biology, which foretold the relationship between DNA, RNA, and proteins, and articulated the “adaptor hypothesis”. Final confirmation of the replication mechanism that was implied by the double-helical structure followed in 1958 through the Meselson–Stahl experiment. Further work by Crick and co-workers showed that the genetic code was based on non-overlapping triplets of bases, called codons, allowing Har Gobind Khorana, Robert W. Holley, and Marshall Warren Nirenberg to decipher the genetic code. These findings represent the birth of molecular biology.

This is literally within a couple of years of the beginnings of molecular biology, and the Bell System is trying to present these concepts to the general public.

What if – and I know this is a crazy thought – but what if someone like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos produced a one hour video once a year to explain some scientific concept to the general public? Get some real hotshot director like Tarantino to direct, bring in subject matter experts who come across well on camera, hire a charismatic host…? I think you could do this without veering into the political arena, though I’m sure the temptation would be hard to resist for some.

Just a thought.

Rowland Barber wrote the screenplay for this one: he’s perhaps more famous as the author of The Night They Raided Minsky’s, basis for the early William Friedkin movie.

Film number eight in the series: “About Time”. The people of Planet Q have a problem. They haven’t been into the concept of “time”, but they just got their first clock and want to know what time they should set it to. They are unhappy with the initial answer – “Set it anywhere you like.” which leads to a discussion of time, the nature of time, timekeeping, how do we really know what time it is anyway, and relativity theory.

Spoiler #1: the ultimate answer turns out to be…”Set it anywhere you’d like.” But there’s a catch: the people of Planet Q are looking for audiophiles who are interested in high quality cassette tapes.

Spoiler #2: if you don’t want to watch the whole film, but are just interested in the guest appearance, Dr. Richard P. Feynman appears at about the 45 minute mark.

Is it just me, or is there a little bit of resemblance between Feynman and Leonardo DiCaprio?

Okay, that may not have been the best DiCaprio photo I could have picked, but I have reasons. I really think DiCaprio could pull off the Feynman role, if they ever make that film of his life.

But I digress. There was one more film in the series: “The Restless Sea”. Unlike the first eight, it was only 30 minutes long. It also wasn’t produced by Capra or Warner: this was actually a Disney production. Les Clark, one of the early Disney animators, directed, and Walt Disney appears as himself.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find this one anywhere. Wikipedia’s page lists various public domain/DVD/VHS/laserdisc releases of the Bell System Science Series, but none of them seem to include “The Restless Sea”. I suspect this is locked away in the Disney vault, possibly on the same shelf as “Song of the South”.

Next week: I want to continue the “Science Sunday” theme, but I don’t have any good ideas right now. Suggestions from the gallery are very welcome.

Science Sunday!

Let’s pick up where we left off with the Bell System Science Series.

The third and fourth films in the series were co-written by Frank Capra and Jonathan Latimer. Mr. Latimer was fairly famous as a crime novelist as well as a screenwriter. (He also wrote the screenplays for “The Glass Key” and “The Big Clock”, among other credits.) I haven’t read any of Latimer’s work, but I have heard the name come up before. According to Wikipedia, he wrote a book called Solomon’s Vineyard in 1941: it was so racy that it wasn’t published in the US until 1950, and was heavily censored at that time.

The third film in the series was “The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays”.

The film’s screenplay works from the premise that the nature of cosmic rays is a mystery comparable to the great detective stories. A committee of marionettes representing Fyodor Dostoevsky, Charles Dickens, and Edgar Allan Poe is called upon to decide the question.

The fourth film in the series: “The Unchained Goddess”, about weather. Capra produced this one, and wrote the screenplay with Latimer, but did not direct: Richard Carlson did that job.

Apparently, the television ratings for these next two films were disappointing. Capra wasn’t happy either: I gather that he felt the Bell System was interfering too much with his creative vision. He was replaced after “The Unchained Goddess” and went back to directing Hollywood films. His first one after “The Unchained Goddess” was “A Hole In the Head”, with Frank Sinatra and Edward G. Robinson. You may remember that as the movie that introduced “High Hopes”.

But what happened with the Bell System Science Series? Next week: “Produced under the personal supervision of Jack L. Warner”.

Have I really been doing this for a solid month?

Looks that way.

I thought today I’d reach back for some rocket geekery.

First up: “The Space Age: Dr. Goddard to Project Gemini”. This is a 1965 film sponsored by the Metropolitan Life Company about the early days of rocketry. Includes some home movies of Dr. Goddard that I think are pretty neat.

Bonus video #1: “Report From Aerojet”, a promo video for Aerojet General, “a subsidiary of the General Tire and Rubber Corporation”.

Bonus video #2: “All Systems Go”, a 1963 NASA promo film about Gemini.

I haven’t done anything super geeky in a little while, so today’s the day.

“An Introduction to Digital Computers”, from the UNIVAC division of Sperry Rand sometime in the 1960s.

Bonus video #1: it seems only fair to give the other guys their turn. This is a compilation put together by the Computer History Archives Project of promotional videos for the IBM System/370.

Bonus video #2: and before that, System/360.

You try and tell the young people today that…and they won’t believe you.

(A fun non-video System/360 diversion from Ken Shirriff.)

I’m fascinated by atomic energy.

Not just bombs – though what high explosives fan can resist the biggest booms of all – but atomic energy in general. The early power reactors. Atoms for peace. Project Plowshare.

I have personal reasons for this, but in my mind, it also ties in to something I call “The Future We Could Have Had”. A lot of folks have written about facets of that future, and someday I may do a longer blog post on the idea.

Today is not that day. But here are some vintage atomic videos to hold you.

First up, “First Reactor In Space…SNAP 10A”. SNAP 10A was an experimental reactor launched almost exactly 55 years ago (April 3, 1965) and was the first nuclear reactor in orbit.

Bonus video: “Power For Continent Seven”. Yes, there was a reactor at McMurdo Station (PM-3A) that operated for about 10 years.

Slight spoiler: if you read the Wikipedia entries, you’ll find that neither one of these projects was, shall we say, 100% successful.

Two of my favorite things written by Neal Stephenson:

• Cryptonomicon, a book that seems scientifically designed to push the maximum number of my buttons.
• “Mother Earth, Mother Board”, Stephenson’s long but fascinating essay about submarine cables. This was originally published in Wired almost 24 years ago, and (interestingly enough) is reprinted as part of the back matter to the Kindle edition of Cryptonomicon.

I mention these things because this came across my YouTube recommendations, and I thought it was worth running on a Sunday: “The Voice Beneath The Sea”, about laying a trans-Atlantic cable to link the US, Canada, and the UK. Brought to you by “The American Telephone and Telegraph Company Long Lines Department”.

Man, I miss the days of organizations like the “Long Lines Department” and people with names like “Wildman Whitehouse” (even if the latter was grotesquely incompetent).

Bonus video #1: This seems oddly appropriate in these days of Zoom and Skype and WebEx: “Face to Face”, a 1970s promo film from AT&T for the Picturephone.

This is weird, but: I have a really vivid memory of seeing a Picturephone demonstration on TV when I was very young. Specifically…on “Captain Kangaroo”. I kid you not. I guess there were a lot of five to seven year old kids in the target market for AT&T’s service. Or perhaps it was really targeted at all the stay-at-home moms who were watching the show with their small children?

Bonus video #2: “Tools of Telephony”, produced by Western Electric.

I have another video or two along the long lines line (see what I did there?) that I want to put up, but I’m waiting for it to get hot again: I’m hopeful that at least one of those videos will cool you down a bit.