![]() He also appeared on television with such late-night stars as Steve Allen and Johnny Carson, wrote eight books and published more than 300 papers in professional journals.Īctive around the world even after his official retirement at age 65, Miller gave thousands of lectures inside and outside the classroom and made hundreds of television appearances. I am glad that many of these have survived and are being hosted on YouTube and other media sources for the future edification of a new breed of young scientists.Miller also found physics at work in the kitchen, showing how housewives could peel onions without tears or bake potatoes faster by using physics-based tricks.ĭressed in a dark coat and open-collared white shirt, Miller made 40 appearances on Walt Disney’s “Mickey Mouse Club” and also did a children’s record series for Disney on history’s great scientists. I remember he drove an old blue Chrysler car, which he often drove right onto the campus grounds and hosted several different TV shows where he would indoctrinate younger people into the wonders of science. Something that has stuck with me to this day. He would espouse the classic physicists, like Sir Humphrey Davy, Michael Faraday and Bernoulli, showing how important a knowledge of the history of science was. He was known as a tough teacher, but his lectures and demonstrations were interesting and very mentally challenging. I, too, watched his lectures while I was attending classes at El Camino Junior College. He did have success with Why Is It So? in Australia. Does the pin hole get bigger, smaller, or stay the same size? **I'm still trying to puzzle out this one: you have a metal plate with a pin hole drilled in it. Wizard, but as a kid, I'd change the channel whenever I saw them. *I grew to like MisterRogers and respect Mr. His importance in popularizing science is incalculable. There is a foundation in his name that works to get more students to learn about science, but since most of his work was in black and white, and he rarely had a show to his own,*** his demonstrations are hard to find (though there are some Youtube videos). Miller continued his role of popularizing science until his death in 1987. He worked on TV networks in Canada and Australia, as well as on PBS in the States, finding ways to show scientific principles divorced from dry lectures and in an immediate and fascinating way that made you want to run out a learn more. He appeared on The Steve Allen Show and The Tonight Show, performing science demonstrations that were as much entertainment as education. The experiments were pretty basic, but always memorable.įrom Disney, Sumner Miller branched out. Sumner Miller rarely lectured he'd show - and ask you questions as he talked, some of which he left to you to find out the answer**. He would go through his presentations of basic science, pretty much live: you got the feeling he was improvising wildly to give the demonstrations he wanted.Īnd he did a lot of demonstrations. With his wild hair and staccato way of blurting out his presentation in short, sharp phrases, and his boundless enthusiasm, he was perfect for television. Students packed his lectures, and it somehow got the attention of producers at Disney, who marketed him as "Professor Wonderful" and had him do segments on The Mickey Mouse Club and elsewhere. Miller was born in Massachusetts and got his physics degree in 1933 and started teaching physics in various colleges until settling down at El Camino Junior College in California. ![]() ![]() Julius Sumner Miller, on the other hand, was a mad scientist. Wizard was the MisterRogers of science - nice, somewhat bland, and like your science teacher in school*. ![]() Oh, the show was educational enough and Herbert was a successful and earnest popularizer of science. And the king of kid's science programming in the US was Don Herbert ("Mr. Early TV took its role as an educational medium seriously, and that included science education. ![]()
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