BACKTRACKING
Mr. Wizard
by Terry Hogan
Back when I wore a young
boy's clothes and TV was in black and white, as were our views of the world,
there was Mr. Wizard. Mr. Wizard
brought science into the home of lots of boys and girls. He made it interesting. He made it work with simple examples
and experiments that you could do at home with everyday home items. He wasÉa wizard.
I had not thought
of Mr. Wizard for many years until
I heard on the radio that he had died in June at the age of 89.
At the mention of his
name, a memory crawled out of a crevice of my mind, stretched its
dendritic arms and caused the
firing of some synapses that probably stirred a few dust balls into motion. The
net effect was for me to recall one of his TV experiments of long ago that
taught me a little more than just science.
I was young. I was
watching Mr. Wizard on a Saturday.
Mr. Wizard was demonstrating how a Ping-Pong ball could be suspended in
mid-air by placing it carefully in
the vertical jet stream of air
created by the exhaust of a vacuum cleaner. I was enthralled.
Here, on the TV screen was a ping pong ball, floating in mid air, gently
bobbing up and down - no strings attached.
I had Ping-Pong
balls. My mother had an
Electrolux vacuum that had the
ability to attach the hose to the pressure end as well as the suction end. I was in business. I wanted to see if
Mr. Wizard's experiment would work at home. I got out Mom's vacuum cleaner. I reversed the attachment of the hose
to the pressure end of the horizontal vacuum cleaner . I got a Ping-Pong ball. I plugged in the vacuum cleaner and
moved it to the very center of the living room, to provide maximum room for the
ball to float magically in the air.
With great anticipation
and the faith that only a child can muster, I turned on the vacuum cleaner with
one hand while holding the ball in the other. To my "shock and awe"
(to borrow a bad phrase), the living room filled with dust, debris, and beagle
hair as the blast of air blew all the stuff that had hung up in the vacuum
hose. Mr. Wizard had failed
to warn me that reversing the direction of flowing air in a vacuum hose was a
good way to dislodge that which had been vacuumed but not deposited in the vacuum
bag.
Dust was
everywhere. Stuff floated around the room, clearly
visible in the sunlight still making an effort to penetrate the full width of
the living room through the odd, murky cloud. My mother was not amused. She wanted an explanation. Just what did I thought I was
doing with the vacuum cleaner.
I explained as all
children do. "It wasn't my
fault." I explained about Mr.
Wizard and the suspended Ping-Pong ball.
Once the dust cleared, I tried again. It worked.
There was magic in my own living room. The pressure of the flowing air
around the symmetrical and light Ping-Pong ball balanced out against the force of gravity. The ball was suspended in mid-air. And
because I had blown all the dirt of the hose on the first attempt, I could
actually see the Ping-Pong ball.
I learned a little science.
I learned how to clean
out a vacuum cleaner hose.
I learned to check with
Mom first before using the vacuum cleaner.
I learned a lesson that
I have relearned many times in later years - "the devil lurks in the
details."
Mr. Wizard had a real
name. He was Don Herbert. He died
of bone cancer. But I'm pretty
sure that he is known to a lot of us as just "Mr. Wizard". He taught some of us more than he expected.
tmh
7-19-07