![]() ![]() Finally, after sending out over 700 letters, Julius found work at a private school in Connecticut. It was impossible to find work in physics during the Depression, so Julius and his wife Alice spent two years working as butler and maid for a wealthy doctor. Years later, he used his own money to expand the library’s collection.Īfter high school, Julius went to Boston University and graduated in 1933 with degrees in philosophy and theoretical physics. When Julius wasn’t busy with homework or chores on the family farm, he was consuming knowledge voraciously and “read the town’s library dry by the age of sixteen”. His father was Latvian, and his mother was “a Lithuanian peasant who spoke twelve languages”. Julius Sumner Miller was born May 17th, 1909 in Billerica, Massachusetts, and was the youngest of nine children. Professor Miller reached thousands of students in the course of his nearly 40-year teaching career, and inspired millions more throughout North America and Australia via television programs like The Mickey Mouse Club and Miller’s own show entitled Why Is It So? His love for science is indeed infectious, as you can see in this segment about the shock value of capacitors. He was completely fascinated by physics, and deeply desired to understand it as best he could so that he could share the magic with people of all ages. Professor Miller’s was a shouting, leaping, arm-waving, whole-bodied approach to physics demonstrations. Imagine if Cosmo Kramer were a physics professor, or if that doesn’t give you an idea, just picture Doc Brown from Back to the Future (1985) with a thick New England accent and slightly darker eyebrows. His demonstrations are dramatic, delightful, and about as far away from boring old math as possible. In pictures, his stern face commands respect. Professor Julius Sumner Miller was energetic and enthusiastic about physics to the point of contagiousness. And while it’s true that the student must be willing to learn, having a good teacher helps immensely. The fun is in the hands-on learning, the lab work, the live action demonstrations of Mother Nature’s power and prowess. A lot of experiments he performed on his show were repeated in the Frightenstein shows.Let’s face it - for the average person, math and formulas are not the most attractive side of physics. His passion for physics and science in general really comes across. Great vintage TV and he was great at conveying information. ![]() ![]() It's like taking the world's wildest physics course. He also appears to have been quite popular in Australia.Ībout eight years ago, his programs were rerun on Toledo's PBS station as part of their afternoon educational programming and I nabbed as many as I could. He also appeared on The Hilarious House of Frightenstein which has been issued on DVD (by the Canadian releases of complete episodes to get some footage of him). I know that he appeared on The Mickey Mouse Club (I've seen no footage of him, but have one of the records he made for Disney telling the bios of various inventors & scientists). There's very little info available on Prof. Might you be thinking of Professor Julius Sumner Miller? If so, you're remembering a show called "Demonstrations In Physics" (1969-1971).
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