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TV's "Mr. Wizard," Don Herbert, Dies At 89
XorNand writes "Television's Mr. Wizard, Don Herbert, died today at 89. He introduced generations of young viewers to the joys of science. Herbert, who had bone cancer, died at his suburban Bell Canyon home near Los Angeles."
http://www.mrwizardstudios.com/
Predictably, though, the site is just about impossible to get to right now. Judging from the Google cache there are 8 DVDs each with 4 episodes, for $17.95 each.
I remember that too.
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A quick google search reveals it to be "Lycopodium"
http://www.cmste.uregina.ca/Quickstarts/powderglo
The last one I can think of is Bill Nye. Other than Bill, I'm not sure. It's kind of sad. I just saw him on TV the other month for something but I can't remember what.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Just plain ol' ordinary talcum powder IIRC
And my impromptu test with some Gold Bond I had lying around shows it true (but you need a thicker layer of powder on the surface than I at first thought based on the episode, perhaps because Gold Bond isn't pure talc)
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
He turned on an entire generation of kids to science. Surely I'm not the only one who used to wake up before school at 6 AM to watch Mr. Wizard on Nickelodeon before school?
That was his second show.
His first one turned on many (including me) in my generation (now becoming eligible for Senior Citizen Discounts).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It was Lycopodium Powder.
Digression: I remember being amazed by that experiment, and tons of other things that I saw on that show. I especially remember the demonstration where he used a vaccuum pump to suck grape juice up in a tube. It only went up so far, and he explained how the best vaccuum pump in the world wouldn't do any better because of the limited pressure at the bottom.
I really learned a lot of science from his show.
I'm in my mid/late 30s, too. I used to watch him all of the time on Nickelodeon ("Mr. Wizard's World") in the mid-80s. He had a very basic approach to science but tried lots of different things, even the science behind pyrotechnics.
It was really great because all of his helpers were fellow teens or pre-teens who actually did the experiments. He just directed them, except for the really dangerous experiments, of course. So, it really helped to get kids involved because you watched other kids doing things that you would have thought only adults would do, and he would do things with basic, household items, like jars. I remember once when he used a muffin baking pan to demonstrate how fire would have different colors based on the chemical composition. In fact, if I remember, one of his "lab sets" was a kitchen.
Really cool stuff. Lots of good memories -- even the cheesy-by-today's-standards, computer-generated cutscenes.
Damn. Now I'm all nostalgic for You Can't Do That On Television as well.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
As I understand it, one atmosphere (1 bar) = 14.7 PSI. When you pull a vacuum, the best you can do is reduce that to zero, or close to it.
That said, when the combined fluid in the straw reached a certain weight, 14.7 PSI of pressure is no longer enough to "push" more fluid up higher (the other end is 0 PSI of course).
Which leads me to my question. Why is 32 feet the limit? Given what I just stated, one would think the maximum height would change depending on two factors. 1. The diameter of the straw. 2. The weight of the fluid per unit volume.
Life is not for the lazy.
2. The Density of a fluid does matter. The denser a fluid is, the lower the height the pressure of the atmosphere can support it. So, ocean water, being denser than distilled or fresh water, can't be supported up to a full 32ft. Mercury, being exceptionally dense, over 13 times as dense as water, can only be supported to a height of 760 millimeters.
The last fact I mentioned is why barometers are traditionally made using mercury. In order to accurately measure atmospheric pressure (useful in meteorology) you need to be able to see changes in the height of a fluid column (before we got more advanced equipment anyway). Water is obviously inconvenient for this, requiring a column 32 ft high, although it is very precise, because minute changes in pressure cause large fluctuations in the height of the column. This is why mm*Hg (millimeters of mercury) is a standard unit of pressure, with 760mm*Hg = 1atm.
The caveat I mentioned above is that the pressure exerted on a body 10m under the surface in the ocean is higher, but only because salt water is denser than fresh water. It has nothing to do with the size of the body.
I was searching for "Mr. Wizard" on Google Video for some cool clips and even episodes, and stumbled this interview that you people might be interested:
... all and radio before turning to television where he created the classic children's science series "Watch Mr. Wizard". He details his hosting of the show, as well as working with his young assistants. He talked about his simultaneous work as "G.E. Theatre's" "progress reporter," hosting a different three-minute commercial segment for each episode through the majority of run. He talks about the later incarnations of the "Mr. Wizard" franchise. He also mentions his appearances on morning and late-night television talk shows."
"In his four-part (each part is posted separately) oral history interview, host Don Herbert describes his early years as an actor on stage
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Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
You probably remember watching Mr. Wizard's World in the '80s. I remember watching Watch Mr. Wizard in the '50s. He inspired not one, but two generations, and that's something to be proud of!
Good, inexpensive web hosting