thumbnail of Of Science and Scientists; 23; The Unity of Science
Transcript
Hide -
This transcript was received from a third party and/or generated by a computer. Its accuracy has not been verified. If this transcript has significant errors that should be corrected, let us know, so we can add it using our FIX IT+ crowdsourcing tool.
An important conclusion of science and scientists concerns the unity of science. Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah . Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah . We're live at present and it way in which mankind has never lived since he has been on Earth which is about five hundred thousand years probably more . All this time men have been divided into small potato units and their individual lives were mostly occupied with the fight for food and diseases
. At the present time we use it personal communication with anything that happens in one nation immediately acts on all the others so that for the first time all of mankind is united by mutual actions. You cannot get by a single political organisation. Non-individual brain hunger has to be at all civilized. While it has been improved enormously and the average lifetime has been increased to an extent which may soon place us before. These considerable changes without precedent in the past are due exclusively to the effect of a type of intellectual activity which while it was foreshadowed that fair use places and times did not come into its own until about the year sixteen hundred three and a half century as it got. This intellectual activity is called science and there
can be no question of the importance of science whether from a historic go a few days off or a particular point of view . It is common knowledge that scientific activity has had two different kinds of results on the one hand it is a tool for learning about nature. It has taught us that nature exhibits a certain type of uniformity that goes by the name of law all natural laws . On the other hand science has led to practical applications of all kinds applied sciences such as geology and engineering and OT such as medicine. We might begin by examining separately those two branches of scientific activity. The discoveries of the laws of nature on the one hand and technical logical progress on the other . The men and women whose life's work is the pursuit of scientific knowledge often called Pure scientists and they are many
of them not only in that universe it is but also in their industries. Their aim is to discover the laws of nature such as Newton's Law of Universal God dictation and they are the laws of physics . And I just take as an example one of the simplest of these the law of the acts in the night the fall of heavy bodies discovered by getting around 16:00. Assuming we did ask that in finding how bodies fall and other serialized nations were not. Simple observation shows that it is impossible to say anything definite about the and I get to fall of a leaf . But that the vertical fall of the stone . There is something much more. I get it .
However it happens much too fast. Like I was a vacation and still getting no Imagine holding it was a ball along a slime ball like this one. And Hamas measurements of length enough time he concluded that the distances covered in peace as they square the next he found this talk of the total for all inclinations of the ball and therefore also for naturally falling heavy bodies. This was the first few minutes on which Newton based his ball genealogies ations called The Laws of dynamics and the scene turns made possible he's only all of universal God the Daish. No we mention the fact that again it was measurements of time and length . We're not at all accurate he was himself perfectly conscious of that. But he added the comment that one could assume that nature operates
in simple ways showed that since the experiment had been indicated that they've a lawsuit they have a falling body wears off from the time he was justified in assuming that it does when exactly to the time. Today with much more accurate methods of measurement we would not be justified in drawing this conclusion because no measurement power of a base size is perfectly exact. Scientists nowadays in depositional publications never give as a sort of a measurement a single number such as an avi loss it did let us say of a thirty point forty seven feet per second . But always add an estimate say point 0 2
feet Bescheinigung plus or minus a point so 47 plus or minus point or two feet. This an estimate of what they believe to be a likely margin of error. This fall no experiment on falling bodies could we ever draw the conclusion that philosophy is I exactly proportional to time when we say that bodies fall in vacuum according to the law. They lost it proportional to time . We have in mind an ideal case which nobody has ever seen. The same thing happens in geometry where the mathematician speaks of a time go made the lines perfect they state an infinitely thin. Well when I'd call a time go like this I got a b c.. Those two lines all
neither perfect mistake nor infinitely thin. I d airlines have never existed. The justification followed they said assumption of ideal quantities is the same in both cases and that is that the idea of Congo's which we measure in so they are their real cylindrical shaft which we measure in engineering and the fall of heavy bodies you name it. All come very close to a baby. The laws of the ideal cango the ideal circle the ideal falling body in the same way distilled water comes very close to being h to all the idea of water which no chemist will ever see. So we have on the one hand feel that it got science which is concerned with ideal bodies obeying humanity laws with perfect exactness and on the other hand experimental science which measures objects that behave very
linearly like the ideal ones. Now in this way science has established to get a menu many code balls between all sorts of ideal quantities physical and chemical In physics we have lost but they ning to the domains of dynamics and heats and optics and in this it being that dharmic physics and so forth. You can't mislay and live single chemical equation constant you would see no sense at all. That is supposing I have I see plus or true is C too. Well this is a prediction that 12 ounces of carbon plus 32 ounces of oxygen in certain definite conditions will
give forty fall ounces of carbon dioxide. These millions of individual laws are conveniently go by the chemist in a few hundred general types of actions and the chemical formulas which define nearly a million individual compounds are themselves. Who can see it now. It is on such laws that technology and engineering based mechanical engineer all the electrical engineer chemical engineer has been taught those scientific laws in college. They are contained in it can books such as this one. Together with the new Melville MBNA code numerical information and he uses them in his work. I have it too but Edge dam of a quiet stray all manufacturing a chemical
product of they quite clearly. These technical odds have completely changed our way of living. Surely we don't need to go over this indeed . Let's give as a single example. They all are that they had always have played in the development of the United States. We have that's what seems to be a victory a good distinction contrast between pure science and applied science. Indeed the people who push through one or the other often have been in different occupations. Many a pure scientist makes it very clear that he's not intended in applications of his discoveries and only care about having advanced our knowledge of nature on the other hand. Engineers have usually a very strong sense that use the old but they play in society and often benefits that people will then I have found you costing it over all I knew electric power station. All I knew type of engine if the aims
of the people who work in science or in engineering today often you should notice that this was not the case at the beginnings of modern science in the 17th century. Most scientists bacon and an idiot got the idea in the first half of that century hopeful an age of research for which they had no precedent. They asked that some plants give them the means to hire just a few assistants to help to make scientific inquiry into nature . They said that they could in this way in a short while considered not really improve agriculture and medicine. And if you consider the lives of people in the underdeveloped world nowadays you would likely that bacon and Dick out we are dicing themselves to the two most important particle problems that of including I mean and that of disease. This point of view was quite common within the academies that were created in England and France and other countries in the
17th century. The members of the academies who received money and prestige were naturally anxious to test the advantages that they might bring to the people of their end during the next century. The idea of scientific research as an end in itself gained acceptance progress in until in the 19th century it became the king of all scientists. Moreover the great amount of pure science which actually related in this way has been the basis of all of the technical devices which have eventually come out. I mean and disease even though the pure scientists did not deliberately work in that direction. It is as though mankind first thinking of science as a means to better the practical condition of man turned towards a goal of pure and applied knowledge. And now I have to in the end just where it had first wanted to
go. One is tempted to think in this connection of a quite standard experiment in animal psychology. That's not that bad again . The experiments consisted in putting a hunting animal inside a wire cage. We don't know if a science cage like this. And here is the animal and they place its favorite food just in front of him outside the cage. A dog or cat takes only a few seconds to return to Holland and get out the food. But they had no right to told makes frantic attempts to get that the food through the wires. Then it gets this courage and only after aimless wandering inside the cages and manages to get out and perhaps some time to find food. Psychologists have concluded
on this study that the capacity for keeping a name in mind while it is absent from the field of perception is one of the most objective ways to define intelligence. How scientists in the 17th century set themselves the problem of finding a cure for smallpox. All that of devising it speaking that which His Majesty which speak Danish state to all his people they wouldn't have been able to discover a vaccine . Oh why do you mock casting. However mankind as a whole has done just that. It looks Therefore as if it had in this matter showed they could elective intelligence the highest form that point of view would begin to doubt whether they really as much separation between pure science and applied science as we first thought. They Well it looks as if pure science had been thought the collective mind of man
and the Indian like to way of reaching the goal that it had consciously opposed thought itself. But that is another point of view which would make a distinction of Pure and Applied Science even less defensible. It can of the advancement of pure science has been due to import prices in measurements for example the haaf measurements of pressure and volume led to all but barred to Islam all of the compressibility of gases. Two hundred years later more accurate measurements of pressure and volume and those I knew and others showed deviation homeboys law and led to the more I find gas theories which we use now in many such cases. An added decimal figure in measurements has given rise to important discoveries. But great to PlayStation
. Harder metals on which better machined instrument can be made from electric methods of measurements from the use of electronic amplifiers and so far this whole gets in the position of loud but then a measurement is due in very large part to the two instruments produced by industry. Practical and. This vote me to add me to. Today the design and construction of a cyclotron of an electron microscope 2 are dispensable instruments in pure research large engineering projects. Because of this given date between any such scientists and engineers who develop new mechanic and electrical equipment the distinction between you and upright science loses much of its meaning. This does that be an obvious step isin between pure and applied science. How
minds are some of the successive merging of different fields of science which has been a stick of scientific development in the last hundred and fifty years . Physics began as a collection of separate disciplines dynamics and heat and optics and IC to city and so forth. But this subject of dynamics and as Ptolemy by Newton there was of dynamics and the properties of gases merged in the kinetic theory of gases. The analogy of optics I quit to go and mechanical vibrations was like Good Night. We have here a chart. Which shows in a gothic way but all the different types of electric vibrations all belong to one huge feeling and all being measured. I caught into this same method the man who first discovered that was James Clark Maxwell in the
ninth 1870s and he sure would feel if I could go to wait that optical vibration. Those of visible light are the same as the waves of a lake place it in vacuum. And some 30 years later a chance a German physicist then dumped the first oscillators in order to pull the cork. Not so much where you are and these not only oscillators began being became more we have knowledge of all bought cost Hans meters and then the transmitters which it was higher frequencies. Then television and FM and even die even more. In the middle of the 19th century the people who worked on optics have discovered that on the one side of the visible spectrum was seen
as vibrations which gave us heat and on the other side where violent vibrations which all those that have chemical effects and for instance give us a tan that they see show. And according to Maxwell's theory this same file I have is the same thing as the waves of doubt and the ultraviolet thought the same thing as the X light this was at first but then I thought of you. But now the physicists haven't time it filled up the gaps so that they can't produce all soon they make the colossal nations of any one of the so-called wavelengths indicate that he it this is a minute one minute even sent to me. Wavelength as that is 10 10 kilometers. The long wave stations which they are still a few working in the world and then we diminish this wavelength until the excise discovered by get and 1893 and began to come out in my view
activity and even small qualifies. But we all know. So in this and in all of the cases we find physics to be more involved the cognized has a single domain and at last in one of its spot is to say excise is immediately made use off in all the others can mislay on the other hand while dependent on the physics of heat to a moderate extent was at first in its subject and its problems. A science of a completed death one time but it was the work of the last 48 years to find the intimate correlation between the physics of the atoms and the properties of the chemical element . This we have witnessed. Physics and Chemistry these two very large sciences of which the subdivisions have previously merged uniting themselves into a still larger feat now commonly called
the physical sciences. We have now come to the point where we divide the natural sciences into parts the physical sciences and on the other hand the sciences of life. All biology in the bog of sense in between new sciences are now developing called respectively by you physics and by you can mistake as an example of value of physics let me take the problem of physiological oscillations. You will ha beat your lungs but even an out and your legs tied back and fall off as you walk while the bird's wings beat the air power fully. All these not so long ago well considered they plan I'll get to the animal kingdom that is something that plants or inanimate matter could never do. Yet it is clear that the locomotive which is not a living body moves of its not
using up its supply of code just as we use food for fuel. The analogy was notice soon after the invention of the steam engine. But it was not until our century that the key understanding of the working of all Ossie make us living all non-living mechanic was a danger. We know not all that these depend upon a certain type of balkanization which goes in the joggle they are not under the name of positive feedback. I can build up before you an example of a system. Not at all complicated which would oscillate by itself because it can by this positive feedback we have here to begin with the indispensable source of energy. And they take back the two I divorce. Here we have a wire car in a spiral. I'm going to put a little mercury in this statement Poff down there.
And I'm going to connect the other with a mic purely with the on the end of the bet like this. And you would see that the that this chord alternate alternately makes and breaks the current and this chord oscillates in fact very much like your heart. I shall tell you nothing of biochemists play because I have to content myself with my hand from a distance. But it certainly looks as if it were going to provide in the event a near future. The most exciting breakthrough that science has seen in a long while. I mean an
understanding not to me a description as we have now of some of the basic phenomena that take place in the same they can I discover which we owe to Copernicus. To get new to you was that the same laws of physics apply out the surface of the earth. Who are the solar system in the far away the cess of space in the 19th century it was found that chemistry in this sun and in this fossil was the same as he had below. Then the French chemist better Little showed that he could manufacture in his test tubes as synthesized as we say. Most of this so-called Gagne compounds which exist in nature only in the tissues of living organisms. The unity of nature is a concept dear to the hearts of most scientists and of many non-scientists also.
They think to put it in a nutshell that it is too beautiful not to be taught. If and when this breaks what we in biochemistry or curse the unity of nature will be brought to the attention of a wider audience than Copernicus Newton called a the fact that lies in the near future I believe. Much more than they would like to say it is but of this and more you would like to hear and see. That would be it. Good bye and thank you. But with you to . To.
The. This is National Educational Television
.
Series
Of Science and Scientists
Episode Number
23
Episode
The Unity of Science
Producing Organization
WGBH Educational Foundation
Contributing Organization
WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)
Library of Congress (Washington, District of Columbia)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip-15-19f4r0x1
NOLA Code
OSAS
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip-15-19f4r0x1).
Description
Episode Description
Physicists and biophysicists find common ground in interpreting the oscillation of a suspended spring. It is a simple piece of coiled metal which pulses over a small pool of mercury. The spring and the mercury are connected to a battery. Both scientists agree that the motion, regular and seemingly tireless, results from a design embodying the principle of "positive feedback." From the biophysicist's point of view, the pulsing spring is rather like the beating human heart. More and more areas of agreement common to all branches of science thus seems, as Professor Le Corbeiller puts it, "too beautiful not to be true." And if science is one in revealing nature, will it not demonstrate that nature itself is one... animate and inanimate, spring and heart, body and tone?" (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
Episode Description
Demonstrates and explains how the distinction between pure and applied science has lost much of its meaning. Points out how physics and chemistry have merged together into the physical sciences. Briefly discusses the rise and importance of biophysics and biochemistry. (Description from NET Film Service Catalog 1960)
Series Description
Americans tend to think of the sciences as potentially useful (air-conditioning) or potentially troublesome (Strontium-90). We accept or marvel at the revolutionary products of science while giving little thought to the basic ideas, concepts, techniques and logic that have gone into exploring, understanding and explaining our universe or in building our technical civilization. Such an understanding of science does not come easily. Limited by time and opportunity, scientists do not often explain themselves to non-scientists. Also, the quality of science is most difficult to the layman to understand is its indirect approach to the discovery of truths. Robert Frost summed up the problem by commenting that to his mind all science rested on the question, "How she differs from what she's like." Without attempting to teach physics or chemistry or geology, these programs suggest the qualities and outlook of science. By analogy and demonstration, they reveal the ideas which guide scientific research and the truths that research uncovers. They give an appreciation of what the scientist can and cannot do. As one speaker says, "The important thing about science is not merely that it gives rise to technological miracles, but that it provides us with one of many guidebooks we need to find our way in this universe." Today, as non-scientists are called upon to make decisions or concur in decisions that may affect the future of scientific research and even the future of life, a knowledge of "how she differs from what she's like," may not only be useful, but necessary. By explaining and demonstrating the guiding principles of science and scientists, these programs attempt to convey that increasingly necessary knowledge. Produced by WGBH-TV, Boston, the producer-director was David Walker and the executive producer Lawrence Kreshkoff. Dr. Phillipe Le Corbeiller is Professor of Applied Physics and of General Education at Harvard University. He is host and program editor for Harvard in the television series, "Of Science and Scientists." A leader in Harvard's general education program since its beginning in 1946, when he started the course, "Principles of Physical Science," Dr. Le Corbeiller was the first to be appointed professor of General Education in 1949, in addition to being professor of Applied Physics. Throughout the series Dr. Le Corbeiller is joined by other scientists. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
Broadcast Date
1957
Asset type
Episode
Topics
Education
Science
Rights
Published Work: This work was offered for sale and/or rent in 1960.
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:29:21
Embed Code
Copy and paste this HTML to include AAPB content on your blog or webpage.
Credits
Director: Walker, David
Executive Producer: Kreshkoff, Lawrence
Host: Le Corbeiller, Philippe
Producer: Walker, David
Producing Organization: WGBH Educational Foundation
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WGBH
Identifier: cpb-aacip-dd9a9d9c43a (Filename)
Format: Digital Betacam
Generation: Master
Duration: 00:00:30
WGBH
Identifier: cpb-aacip-46b091d9441 (Filename)
Format: 16mm film
Generation: Kinescope
Library of Congress
Identifier: cpb-aacip-1a3cdcb83c8 (Filename)
Format: 16mm film
Generation: Copy: Access
Color: B&W
Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive
Identifier: cpb-aacip-61daf20dfdb (Filename)
Format: 16mm film
WGBH
Identifier: cpb-aacip-af39c75838b (Filename)
Format: Betacam
Generation: Master
Duration: 00:00:30

Identifier: cpb-aacip-9ee53437640 (unknown)
Format: application/mxf
Generation: Preservation
Duration: 00:29:20

Identifier: cpb-aacip-1862f7dc2fb (unknown)
Format: application/mxf
Generation: Mezzanine
Duration: 00:29:21

Identifier: cpb-aacip-8bf4e74ec9f (unknown)
Format: video/mp4
Generation: Proxy
Duration: 00:29:21

Identifier: cpb-aacip-610274d4737 (unknown)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: B&W
Duration: 00:29:45:00
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
Citations
Chicago: “Of Science and Scientists; 23; The Unity of Science,” 1957, WGBH, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed November 4, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-19f4r0x1.
MLA: “Of Science and Scientists; 23; The Unity of Science.” 1957. WGBH, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. November 4, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-19f4r0x1>.
APA: Of Science and Scientists; 23; The Unity of Science. Boston, MA: WGBH, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-19f4r0x1