I grew up with Mr. Wizard (Don Herbert). For all you younglings out there in cyberspace, Mr. Wizard was a guy who'd show up on the TV set and teach kids wonderful tricks while imparting a little bit of science education. Now this is back before educational TV existed, so us kids watched Mr. Wizard for sheer entertainment little realizing that we were being educated. Mr. Wizard's show aired on WMAQ television (Chicago) in 1951. The heady days of atomic-science, space exploration and general gee-whizz technology advancement created a veritable boom of popularity and interest in science. Mr. Wizard helped us learn that science is magic that works and that we can all understand.
Nowadays it seems there's a resurgence in the other kind of magic...you know, the kind that doesn't work and requires a full-time effort just to think up excuses for why it doesn't work...but fear not; there is some sanity left in the world and still some mighty oomph left over from the days when massive Saturn V rockets hurled men to the moon. Science is not dead...it's not even resting.
Today the lucky kids (and lucky adults) have Bill Nye The Science Guy to carry the torch of popular science in a world that seems increasingly hostile to hard science. Bill Nye is fifty-one years old today, please join me in wishing him a Happy Birthday and hoping he's not yet reached his half-life.
Please visit Mr. Wizard's and Bill Nye's websites for all sorts of fun science. If you learn something new, be sure to tell them thanks!
1 comment:
What's really sad is when I've thrown out a Mr. Wizard reference as a sarcastic barb - "Thanks for the tip, Mr. Wizard" - only to have it fall flat due to the clueless age of the recipient.
My kids watched Bill Nye but tended to watch Beakman's World more often due to the amount of flatulence humor in the latter. Hey, at least it got them exposed to science.
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