Whipped Cream Difficulties

Science Sunday!

I thought I’d do another assortment today, instead of a single theme.

First up: “Shaping Things to Come”, with Professor Eric Laithwaite of Imperial College London. Professor Laithwaite sounds like an interesting guy: he was one of the pioneers of maglev technology, did a lot of work on electric motors (specifically linear induction motors)…and had some rather eccentric ideas about gyroscopes and moths.

I just love the way this video opens. I don’t know how you could get more British than this.

Bonus: for something a little different, Alan Holden of Bell Labs explains crystals.

Science Sunday!

Here’s something a little off the beaten path for you: “The Story of Dr. Lister”, a 1963 dramatization from Warner-Lambert Pharmaceuticals, about the life of Dr. Joseph Lister.

For those of you who aren’t big medical history buffs, Dr. Lister was one of the pioneers of antiseptic surgery.

Lister promoted the idea of sterile surgery while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Lister successfully introduced carbolic acid (now known as phenol) to sterilise surgical instruments and to clean wounds.
Applying Louis Pasteur’s advances in microbiology, Lister championed the use of carbolic acid as an antiseptic, so that it became the first widely used antiseptic in surgery. He first suspected it would prove an adequate disinfectant because it was used to ease the stench from fields irrigated with sewage waste. He presumed it was safe because fields treated with carbolic acid produced no apparent ill-effects on the livestock that later grazed upon them.

Bonus: I spent some time trying to find a decent video about Ignaz Semmelweis, but couldn’t. So for a change of pace, please enjoy an Army Air Corps video from 1944 on what is rapidly becoming a lost art: “Celestial Navigation”.

(Yes, even though this is a military training film, I do think understanding the relationship of celestial objects to one’s position on the Earth does count as science.)

Science Sunday!

An assortment today. Sort of like a box of chocolates. (I’ll let you decide which one is the “Spring Surprise“.)

A short one: vintage video of the flight of the Gossamer Albatross.

(“Albatross!“)

Somewhat longer: by way of the San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives, a lecture from the “Convair Lecture Series” by George Gamow on “Stellar Evolution”.

This is an interesting oral history from Marvin Stern, who worked at Convair at one time, which touches briefly on the Convair Lecture Series.

For instance, when Edward gave one —. By the way, he wouldn’t give one, I was told. But when I asked him, he did. During his lecture, he made a little mistake. A student asked him a question –- “Oh yes” — and he erased it and he fixed it. Afterwards Edward said, was it all right, do I want him to do it over? I said, “No. Making a little mistake — what have you—having a question — interrupt is almost a pedagogic technique. If I wanted to hire a Hollywood actor, I’d hire a Hollywood actor.”

Longest: “Nuclear Reactor Construction and Operation” from MIT “MIT 22.01 Introduction to Nuclear Engineering and Ionizing Radiation, Fall 2016”.

This is lecture number 16 in the course, but I feel like it is fairly stand-alone. Y’all know how I am about nukes and nuke stuff.