Science and Common Sense (1957)

About this film

Here is a bottle, filled with water, inverted in a shallow tray filled with water. There are two water levels: one in the bottle, one in the tray. Yet, according to common sense, "water seeks its own level." How reliable, Leonard Nash (Associate Professor of Chemistry and of General Education, Harvard University) asks, is common sense? After all, common sense advises to "Look before you leap," and at the same time suggest that "He who hesitates is lost." Nash explores, by means of many demonstrations, the validity of the maxim that "Nature abhors a vacuum." He shows how this explains very well such effects as the working of siphon, but fails to explain why, for example, water cannot be pumped higher than thirty-two feet with hand operated pumps. The conclusion about the relationship of common sense to science is controversial, as Le Corbeiller shows in a postscript. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)

Directors & creators

WGBH Educational Foundation

Subjects

public broadcasting, AAPB, Science, Common sense, Philosophy of science, Epistemology, Scientific reasoning, Rationality, Prediction, Human experience, Organized knowledge, History of science, Of Science and Scientists, 1950s, Atomic energy, Logic, Scientific theory, Imagination in science, Scientific principles, Intellectual history, Educational television, Observation, Intuition, Survival, Methodology, Scientific concepts, Public understanding of science

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