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Large Effects of Small Causes (1957)
About this film
With Leonard Nash (Associate Professor of Chemistry and of General Education, Harvard University), you watch time lapse motion pictures of dough rising in a pan. As the catalytic action of an enzyme in the living yeast progresses, the dough shapes itself to the pan, grows, expands. "Here beneath the common place, the taken-for-granted," says Nash, "we find beautiful mysteries, deep but not unfathomed." The fathoming of small causes of large effects forms the substance of this program, which moves close to a scientist's philosophy. At one time, the effects Nash demonstrates - kindling, nucleation, catalysis - were interpreted in terms of man's understanding of life: soul and body, spirit and matter, form and substance. Though that conception has changed, chemist Nash, in looking at catalysis, can believe that "science - abstract, indifferent, mechanical, cold - has revealed to us the deeps of a fantastic microcosm, close to the heart of life, whereas each catalysis enzyme is swept through its turbulent round, small causes have profound effects." The episode explains how he is led to this belief. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
Directors & creators
WGBH Educational Foundation
Subjects
public broadcasting, AAPB, Chemistry, Science History, Catalysis, Catalysts, Enzymes, Yeast, Chemical Reactions, Nucleation, Spontaneous Combustion, Hydrogen Peroxide, Vitalism, Philosophy of Science, Physics, Scientific Education, Thermodynamics, Matter and Spirit, Biology, Physical Science, Cause and Effect, Leonard Nash, Harvard University, 1950s Science, Time-lapse Photography, Supersaturated Solutions, Biochemistry
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