TV's "Mr. Wizard," Don Herbert, Dies At 89 255
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."
Re:Science is timeless, isn't it? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Science is timeless, isn't it? (Score:3, Informative)
A quick google search reveals it to be "Lycopodium"
http://www.cmste.uregina.ca/Quickstarts/powderglo
Re:Who is our generation of Mr. Wizard? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Science is timeless, isn't it? (Score:3, Informative)
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)
An inspiration for TWO generations. (Score:5, Informative)
That was his second show.
His first one turned on many (including me) in my generation (now becoming eligible for Senior Citizen Discounts).
Re:Science is timeless, isn't it? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:How old are you slashdot? (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The Fahrealz Gandolf. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
2 Hours of Interview with Don on Google Video (Score:5, Informative)
"In his four-part (each part is posted separately) oral history interview, host Don Herbert describes his early years as an actor on stage
1 [google.com]
2 [google.com]
3 [google.com]
4 [google.com]
Which generation? (Score:5, Informative)