Australian
Screen

Clip description

A simple title sequence featuring dramatic drum roll and a model eyeball. This is followed by Professor Julius Sumner Miller standing in front of a large blackboard. After his ‘usual salutations and greetings’, the professor introduces the theme of this first episode in a new series on light, optics and modern physics. He then gives a very brief lesson in the history of physics up to the present.

Curator’s notes

Sumner Miller’s inclusive introduction reflects his wish to engage as wide an audience as possible with the joy of science: 'these programs are for everybody, ages four to 94, and in all walks of life’. In describing what he means by 'modern physics’, he avoids any technical language that might alienate his audience and he sets the historical context for the discussion and experiment to come.

The production is very straightforward: a single camera set-up with the only variation being a gradual close-up. Sumner Miller makes no attempt to disguise the fact that he is reading from notes, and his occasional stumbles (over the Curies’ names, 'radioactive activity and such’) are left in. His mistakes help humanise this brilliant professor for the audience. Despite the simple production values, Sumner Miller’s trademark eccentricity and enthusiasm for his subject matter make the clip entertaining.

Writing on the power of enthusiasm in the preface to his book Millergrams (1966), Professor Sumner Miller stated:

There lies, I say, in every human creature what is beautifully expressed by the word enthusiasm – which is from the Greek en theos and it means 'a god within’, 'possessed by the gods’. It is this spirit which we all possess but which few ever awaken. Once awakened it grows with unbounded fever and it can drive a boy or a girl or a man or a woman to wondrous things. I have seen it. A tiny spark can set the world aflame and the light of a single candle can pierce the darkness.

The passion evident in Sumner Miller’s statement is reflected in his performance in this clip. His own enthusiasm is a powerful tool that inspires the same response in his audience.