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Building Up a New Theory (1957)
About this film
Touch a wooden stick to a flame. The stick chars. But what happens when you plunge a stick into a jar of strong acid? In illustrating the dynamic nature of physics, Sanborn Brown (Associate Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) uses this demonstration to provoke thought about the nature of heat. Is heat a liquid, flowing into a substance like acid, or like air into a balloon? Or is heat energy? And what is energy? At one time, both points of view had their supporters. But the work of one man, Count Rumford, described in this episode, was crucial in building up a new theory of heat. As Professor Le Corbeiller concludes, "We owe all, or almost all the advances of science to the few men who have, as Rumford had, the ingenuity to devise experiments in uncharted scientific territory, and the temerity to dissent from hallowed scientific theory." (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
Directors & creators
WGBH Educational Foundation
Subjects
public broadcasting, AAPB, Physics, History of science, Heat, Caloric theory, Thermodynamics, Scientific method, Sanborn Brown, Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, Thermal expansion, Energy, Scientific theories, Science education, 18th century, Experimental physics, Matter, Fluid theory of heat, Evolution of science, Philosophy of science, MIT
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