The passing of my name sake

[The Wizard of BC]

As some of you may know on the 12th of June a television icon passed.

Don Herbert aka "Mr. Wizard" died of bone cancer at the age of 86.

To those of us who learned our love of the sciences, and physics in particular, from the "Ask Mr. Wizard" TV show of the '50's and '60's, this one man and the simple, straight-forward way he presented science to kids without talking down to them, without needing to be silly or have puppets or cartoons, we owe a debt we can never repay.

In the military I attempted to teach subjects like aerodynamics using Don Herbert as my example. This method of teaching earned my the call-sign "Mr. Wizard" which I wore with pride.

Later as I continued to teach High School and College Physics I always tried to follow Don's example.

Today, I still honor Don with my nic of "The Wizard of BC" whenever on-line.
I think this evening I will lift a test tube of Glenfarclas to his memory.

Both of my personal hero's, Don Herbert and Clayton Moore are gone now. I feel old and shriveled. Lessened somehow. Today's generations will never know hero's like these. I feel sorry for them.

[Mr. MacDougall]

I think this evening I will lift a test tube of Glenfarclas to his memory.

"And remember kids, you don't need specialized equipment to do science!" If you don't have a test tube, any small glass, such as a shot glass, will do fine!

[Marshal Moroni]

Greetings Wizard,

I read the article about Mr. Wizards, passing. It saddened me also, there was a man who could explain science.

After 30 years in the business world, a downsizing has allowed me to return to my first career choice, Teaching. I am currently teaching a summer school H.S. Biology course and its an interesting challenge trying to communicate all of the details to students who have varying levels of interest. I may need some lessons from Mr. Wizards old shows to help me reach my students.

The world is a smaller place as these heroes move on!

Sympathetically,

Marshal Moroni

[Kiltedfirepiper]

hey I'm 30 and I remember Mr. Wizard's World on nickelodeon.... LOVED it....but everytime I tried to do one of his expieriments they never turned out the same......

[The Wizard of BC]

AAhh Kfp,

I believe I have found your problem.

I have just reviewed all 1,738 hours of Mr. Wizard experiments and have determined that your problem is tongue positioning.

As every successful scientist will attest, the method to insure provable outcome of experimentation is to insure that during the course of the experiment the scientists tongue MUST be held correctly.

For right handed scientists the tongue MUST be placed in the right corner of the mouth, extended no more than 15.4mm for scientists less than 1.8288 meters tall and of a mass of no more than 86.1826 Kg.

The conversion for larger scientists is a ratio of 1.48 to 1 for each increase of .1 meter of height and 1.0038 to 1 for each increase in .24 Kg.

For left-handed scientists the same figures hold true but the position of the tongue MUST be altered to the left side of the mouth.

The scientist may roll their tongue and expel air only if the experiment concerns the effects of Newton's three Laws of Motion.

For experiments concerning Bernoulli's laws or Venturi's Laws the lips may be pursed during the exhalation of breath.

The tongue MUST never be moved in a repeating vertical motion or or allowed to flap wildly about unless experimenting with alternating currents.

The lips MUST be kept moistened and sealed against the surface of the tongue to insure you do not contaminate your experiments with vapors of alcohol.

I believe that if you will re-attempt your experiments while following these simple but critical requirements you will find you have far more consistent results.

[Kiltedfirepiper]

you're probably right

[Alan H]

Mr Wizard was an amazing man. He had a talent that few peple have...to make difficult ideas seem easy and fun and relevant. I still remember a few of his shows...saw them as a kid.

[Warhoover]

I remember watching him with awe when I was a weeun. I always enjoyed his shows. Sad to hear of his passing, another of our true illuminaries passes beyond the veil. Thank you for the inspiration to wonder Mr Wizard!

[Don Patrick]

I didn't see a news notice. You would have thought his passing would have warranted it.

[Scratchy's Lass]

Being 48 and change, I, too, remember the tv shows, and enjoyed them.

But, take heart: there are young people about who adore and pursue science! My 17 yo son is an example. He has a HUGE wall hanging of the Table of Periodic Elements on his wall above his bed. It is positioned exactly next to his life-sized poster of Kurt Cobain He's insisted for some time that he needs a new Table, at the one he has is "out of date, MOM! There's a BUNCH of elements that were discovered after this was printed!"

(Neither of us are 'morning people', and he can be a real bear to wake up. I've found that intentionally MISpronouncing some of the elements at a whisper, into his ear as he is sleeping, is a sure-fire way to wake him up. hehehe..... he HATES that!)
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