Sunday, September 13, 2009

From The Curiosity Show to Mythbusters

My interest in science and technology can probably be traced back to a
little Adelaide TV program called "The Curiosity Show":
  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curiosity_Show>

I always looked forward to coming home from school to watch the latest
episode.  Thanks to YouTube, clips from the show can be viewed online.
For example, here's a piece about how films and movies work:
  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL0et1YZNMM>

Around the same time, the ABC had a science show hosted by an American
scientist, Julius Sumner Miller:
  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Sumner_Miller>

His stock phrase before explaining the science underlying an experiment
was "Why is it so?", which is how the show got its name.  Episodes are
available officially on the ABC site:
  <http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/whyisitso/>
Of course, there are lots of other clips featuring JSM online via YouTube.

Later, my curiosity for how stuff works was met by a couple of English
presenters in a series called "The Secret Life of Machines".  The
videos for all episodes are available at:
  <http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/SLOM/index.html>

In the modern era, Mythbusters maintains the tradition of using
experiments to explain science, albeit in a more entertainment-oriented
way:
  <http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/mythbusters.html>