Bobblehead Einstein portrayed as a womanizer making moves on Marie Curie

[Note: Successful bitching has resulted in the removal of this video from YouTube. This is why I rarely use links.]

"'It's (Not) Okay to be (Not) Smart'"

by
Michael Getler

November 19th, 2013

PBS Ombudsman

The headline above is my edited version of the title of a PBS Digital Studios production of "A Very Special Thanksgiving Special/It's Okay to be Smart." The idea, its webpage states, is to "be thankful for everything science has given you this year."

First, a bit of background. PBS Digital Studios started last year and, by most accounts that I've seen, "has had a heck of a first year," as Digiday put it. Forbes described the launch as a way "to give the public broadcaster a way to create and distribute content that was created just for online viewing, as opposed to just distributing content that was being created for TV."

It was a way to connect big-time with the YouTube audience and an early offering called "Garden of Your Mind," based on the venerable Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, has been viewed more than nine million times.

One of the new video series is called "It's Okay to be Smart," but it appears that the Thanksgiving Special, set at a holiday dinner table, is more akin to the proverbial skunk at the picnic.

I've received a fair amount of mail about this five-minute segment and all of it is sharply critical. A sampling of those emails is posted below. I'm in agreement with the viewers.

The video presents a clever idea — to shed light on the personalities of some world famous scientists using bobblehead dolls to represent them around the table and some catchy dialogue. Only one is a woman, Marie Curie. She gets some sexual harassment-type attention from the Albert Einstein bobblehead and that's where "Okay to be Smart" gets dumb. Einstein, as a matter of fact and probably like others of that era, did not have what you'd call a great track record when it came to behavior toward women. How many people, do you think, know that?

But this attempt to be creative and humorous goes south fast. So fast, in fact, that the video now contains this statement at the beginning: "Several have taken offense to a scene at end of this video. Please see link in description to read our apology." The writer, Joe Hanson, to his credit, posted an explanation and apology on his blog.

What astounds me is that, while risk-taking is often to be applauded, this depiction of Einstein and Curie is so not funny, so off-the-wall, so not likely to be understood yet virtually guaranteed to anger a huge segment of a viewing audience for no good reason that one wonders how it was decided to show it. On the other hand, in an era where clicks count the most, maybe it is not so dumb.

What follows is a sampling of the letters to me, followed by a statement from PBS's Jan McNamara, senior director for corporate communications.
Here Are the Letters

My husband and I have supported NPR and PBS forever. For an equally long time we have been working to improve science education for all students and to increase the quality and diversity of the scientific workforce. And, oh yes, for many years we have been working not just providing services to rape victims but to change the culture that makes rape "ok."

We thought that we and PBS were on the same page until we saw your "A Very Special Thanksgiving Special/ It's Ok to be Smart." I don't know where to start — having Albert Einstein sexually harass Marie Curie and later in the piece, strip naked and "accidently" assault her could be a beginning. Does it make it worse that the woman being assaulted was the only woman there or that someone decided it was cool to make Albert Einstein a rapist or that everyone was white or that someone thought having Einstein try to rape the best known woman in science was a great way to encourage girls to enter science or . . . I just can't go on. I don't know what the heck you were thinking but I do know what I am thinking and it strongly impacts my future long-term support of public broadcasting.

Patricia B. Campbell, PhD, Groton, MA

~ ~ ~

I find the PBS Digital Studios video, "It's OK to be Smart," to be very offensive and unacceptable. I am very disappointed that PBS — normally a bastion of intelligent conversation and equality — would endorse such a blatantly sexist production.

Christopher Hunter, Warsaw, IN

~ ~ ~

I'm appalled that PBS allowed the video short, A Very Special Thanksgiving, to be distributed. Sexual harassment of women in science is not humorous, it's appalling. I expect more of PBS.

M. Eblen-Zayas, Northfield, MN

~ ~ ~

Have you seen the incredibly stupid and offensive "It's Okay to Be Smart" video done in PBS's name that has a naked Albert Einstein sexually assaulting a timid Marie Curie? Please, take down the video and have PBS issue an apology. There are so many things wrong with this video, from wronging Einstein and Curie, to making Curie (and thus women scientists in general) look like meek, "just grateful to be here" token sexual objects, to making male scientists look like misogynistic jerks. It is so embarrassing that this has been done in the name of PBS. This video sends exactly the opposite message of "it's okay to be smart." It suggests it's not only okay to be stupid, it's also okay to sexually assault a woman colleague or watch someone do it without saying anything.

Alice Dreger, PhD, East Lansing, MI

~ ~ ~

SO DISAPPOINTED IN PBS! Einstein raping Marie Curie? What were you thinking? Not funny, not appropriate, not up to your standards. Shame on you.

Acton, MA

~ ~ ~

The PBS Digital Studios youtube channel put up a Thanksgiving Special edition of Joe Hansen's It's Okay to be Smart series, in which a group of scientists from the ages gather for Thanksgiving dinner. In the video, Albert Einstein spends the entire time sexually harassing Marie Curie. He starts by blowing on her neck — with the scripted encouragement of Joe Hanson as narrator — and then continues with escalating physical and verbal attacks. He drops his clothing and jumps on her, knocking her over, at the end of the video. Many people have written to Hanson — via twitter, via comments on his blog post — and he has responded with a sort-of-apology post on his blog (which suggests people who don't see the humor in the sexual assault aren't understanding his intent), by linking the sort-of-apology post underneath the "see more" fold on youtube, and by adding a little text that appears if you hover over the play button that says "several have been offended by a scene at the end of the video." In the meantime, PBS (which promoted the video on its twitter feed) and PBS Digital have been silent . . . I am heartsick that a) Hanson does not seem to be able to hear the critiques, b) PBS Digital is letting that video stay up and, c) PBS/PBS Digital has not spoken to any of this.

The PBS imprimatur usually tells me that something is good; that it's educational; that it's something I'd be proud to show my kid. In this case, your brand is being seriously damaged.

Susan Harrington, Burlington, VT

Here's the PBS Response:

Joe Hanson issued a sincere apology on his blog [below], which is the channel he chose to discuss this issue. It included a detailed explanation of how the video was created, what he was trying to accomplish and the statement, "this video makes a joke to call attention to the sexual harassment that many women still today experience, often from wannabe Einsteins. The joke is uncomfortable because these issues are uncomfortable. To be very clear: that joke is not an endorsement of sexism in science. We aimed to ridicule miscues of science in society, past and present, using dolls, and we failed."

He also asks in the post that people form their opinions based on his past videos and writings, such as the video from the previous week, where he examines the fact that the vast majority of Nobel prize winners have been white men and criticizes women's "Nobel snubbing" as a "symptom of a larger problem," that "women are under-represented in science in general."

There have been a number of comments about "A Very Special Thanksgiving Special" since it debuted that have ranged from critical to laudatory. With this video, Joe has opened up an important, though difficult, debate. We believe we are meeting our public service mission by providing an open forum where this and other conversations about complex subjects can take place.

Reply...

On this week’s video …

My desk is covered in bobblehead dolls of famous scientists. This week I put out a video where they joined me for Thanksgiving Dinner.

Many people have contacted me on Twitter in the past day to say they are offended by that video. To you, and others, I am deeply sorry.

The criticism directed at the video (and much of it at me personally) centers around Albert Einstein’s advances toward Marie Curie. I should mention that Madame Curie is the only female science doll at the table for the simple reason she is the only female science doll available for purchase in bobblehead form.

One of the many points I was thinking about when I made this piece was that women are under-represented and don’t receive the respect they deserve in science today, well after Marie Curie’s time. I say this directly in the video and had intended the outrageous behavior of the Einstein doll to speak to this idea, as well. It didn’t come through the way I had hoped and I apologize for that and for the offense we caused.

In producing this video, we guided improv voice actors to create caricatures of dead scientists so we could lampoon the most extreme aspects of their personalities. Then we made dolls act out those extremes, flaws and all. We tried to present the way in which these characters might actually act, in their own time. Galileo doesn’t get evolution. Tesla is obsessed with Edison. And Einstein reflects the dark reality that many men in his time acted inappropriately toward women. 

This video makes a joke to call attention to the sexual harassment that many women still today experience, often from wannabe Einsteins. The joke is uncomfortable because these issues are uncomfortable. To be very clear: that joke is not an endorsement of sexism in science. We aimed to ridicule miscues of science in society, past and present, using dolls, and we failed.

We tried to reach another layer, another message in this video. But we missed the mark in delivering that message, and for that I am truly sorry.

To anyone curious if I am not aware of, or not committed to preventing this kind of treatment (in whatever way my privileged perspective allows me to do so) I would urge you to check out my past writing and videos … like maybe this video from the week before. This doesn’t excuse us, but I ask that you form your opinion of me, It’s Okay To Be Smart, and PBS Digital Studios from my body of work, and not a piece of it.

Before PBS

"Predictions for Educational TV in the 1930s"

May 29th, 2012

Smithsonian

Today most universities offer online courses that allow students to study and take tests without physically being on campus, but in the 1930s the distance learning technology of the future was television.

Both radio and television were initially envisioned as methods for point-to-point communication, but once radio broadcasting became mainstream in the 1920s universities saw the potential of the medium to reach a broad audience with educational programming. This was especially true in rural farming communities where long distance commuting to a university was out of the question.

Universities in the U.S. may have been at the forefront of experimenting with radio broadcasting, but frankly, they weren’t great at attracting sizable audiences. As Douglas B. Craig explains in his book Fireside Politics, “many university stations [of the 1920s] began operations with high hopes of bringing education to the masses, but soon faltered as broadcasting costs increased, audiences diminished, and professors demonstrated that lecture-hall brilliance did not always translate into good radio technique. These problems were quickly reflected in an unfavorable allocation of frequency or broadcast times, sending many of these stations into a downward spiral to oblivion.”

The handful of universities that were successful at attracting large audiences did so by introducing an almost confrontational approach to their presentation. University of Chicago Round Table, which began as a local Chicagoland broadcast in 1931 but ran nationally on NBC radio from 1933 until 1955, adopted a talk radio format that would be quite familiar to today’s audiences. Rather than a single professor lecturing on a given topic, University of Chicago Round Table had three professors or scientists sitting around a triangular table while facing each other. These people would then debate scientific subjects like whether there was life on other planets and whether light is a wave or a particle. As Marcel C. Lafollette notes in “A Survey of Science Content in U.S. Radio Broadcasting, 1920s through 1940s, the goal of University of Chicago Round Table was to “keep it moving and keep it conversational” — a rule of broadcasting that holds true today.

Experiments in television brought universities that had failed at radio a fresh start, but it was still unclear as to whether these technologies should be used for narrowly targeted or broadcast purposes. In 1933, the University of Iowa became the first American university to broadcast TV. The first public demonstration of television in the state had occurred just two years earlier at the 1931 Iowa State Fair, and there was tremendous excitement by scientists at the University of Iowa to see what it could accomplish. Unreliable and unclear at the time, the rudimentary television technology of the early 1930s meant that the few experimenters who owned a TV (most likely constructed by themselves, rather than purchased in a store) had to turn on their radio in order to hear the broadcast, as the audio and visual couldn’t be broadcast together. As noted in the March 16, 1933 Monticello Express (Monticello, IA):

    University of Iowa’s radio and television stations WSUI and W9XK are now ready to present the first scheduled series of sight and sound educational programs ever given by an American university. This announcement was made by the department of electrical engineering last Friday. The first broadcasts will probably be made once a week between 7 and 7:30 p.m., exact evening to be determined upon later. Details of the broadcasts are now being arranged and it is expected that a regular schedule of illustrated lectures will commence next week. Illustrated lectures have been chosen for program material because they are adaptable to radio and television synchronization pictures being confined to small areas with details.

In 1935, New York University professor C. C. Clark conducted a class using a shortwave radio transceiver (a radio that can both send and receive messages) from his home. Because the radio went both ways, Prof. Clark was able to take questions from the class. The April 1935 issue of Short Wave Craft magazine reported on Clark’s experiment as a harbinger of the bold new way that classes may one day be conducted by television.

The article in Short Wave Craft included the drawing below, which proclaimed that it would be a scene “commonplace for tomorrow.” Interestingly, the article also makes mention of the need for advertising to sustain such ventures — a controversial prospect at the dawn of television broadcasting.

The article claims that practical television broadcasting is just a year or two away, but doesn’t mention the experiments at the University of Iowa. The magazine goes on excitedly about the commercial opportunities of television even though the FCC wouldn’t yet allow stations to sell advertising in 1935.

It would be another four years before television’s coming out party at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and even then, the television receiver wouldn’t become a staple of American homes until well after World War II. In 1952, the FCC set aside 242 noncommercial channels to encourage educational programming. One year later, it became apparent that the funding required to produce such shows was sorely lacking. Still, Life magazine tried to keep the faith: “The hunger of our citizenry for culture and self-improvement has always been grossly underestimated; the number of Americans who would rather learn a little something than receive a sample tube of shaving cream is absolutely colossal.”

Newtons and a "Golden Fetchy"

What...'Newtons and a "Golden Fetchy"'???? I have featured before the PBS children's afternoon program Fetch with Ruff Ruffman [ PBS...a kid's show with some science ]. It is good-natured fun and some science. Well, I tuned in the other day to catch the final episode of Season 5. A thin plot with Ruff Ruffman [an over weight orange animated canine assisted by an intelligent cat (Blossom) and lively mouse (Chet) with six real children] trying to find out what happened to his parents and thwart the efforts of P.U.R.R.S's desire to take over the world and turn everyone into cat zombies through the electronics of the "Golden Fetchy". Okay, that is a silly plot but there is considerable science in this program [partially sponsored by the NSF (National Science Foundation)]. Towards the end of the program, to crown the single champion, the kids have to address some challenges whereby one will be the "grand champion". The remaining four finalists are divided into two groups: The pink and blue and must, by science, devise a tool that will propel a projectile to hit a large button that will disable P.U.R.R.S's plan. One team constructs a catapult and the other team works with a tube and the elastic properties of a large rubber band. The devices are tested and measured by determining the "Newtons" produced...to see if they are forceful enough to depress the button. The projectiles hit an unknown device that displays the Newtons [force measurement]. Of course Newtons and the device were never explained and the best I can deduce is that the measuring instrument is a Dynamometer or Force Gauge.

Newtons [Wikipedia]

PBS...a kid's show with some science

One wonders sometimes just how much science is really offered with a PBS kid's program. It was initially somewhat difficult to choose but I settled on a PBS program called Fetch which is a blend of animation and live action. This series is in part sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Wikipedia offers this synopsis:

FETCH! is a reality-based game show where young contestants take on various challenges to gain points. During these challenges, the contestants must complete a variety of tasks assigned to them ahead of time (and on the fly) by Ruff and surrogates, depending on the situation. There is also an educational component, as contestants often must learn something (i.e. Astronomy, Carpentry, Food Science, Biology, etc) in order to complete the task.

Not all contestants leave the studio each episode to complete tasks. As determined usually by the Fetch 3000, the contestants who remain behind in the studio participate in the "Half-Time Quiz Show", in which Ruff asks them questions based on the activities of the contestants out on challenges (see below). Once the contestants complete the activities in the field to the best of their abilities, they return to the studio and Ruff tallies their points. A prize is awarded to the contestant with the most points. At the end of the season, a final point tally is conducted, with the winner of the tally being declared winner of that season.

Prizes are not always desirable, and sometimes the prize holder winds up with a "booby prize"; in Good Dancing and Bad Teeth, Anna and Brian had to dance a waltz in the studio. During the first season the contestant had the choice of keeping the prize, or giving it to a fellow contestant. In Season 2 and 3, there are two unknown prizes from which the winner chooses one. Usually, the prize is "mailed" to the mailbox in Studio G, although occasionally large prizes are hidden elsewhere on the set. In one season two episode Rosario gave the prize to Nina.

Out on challenges, contestants have the potential to earn up to 100 points. The contestants in the studio have a chance to win a maximum of 50 points in the Half-Time Quiz Show in which they have to answer 10 questions about events during the challenges. Each question is worth 5 points. They have a total of 90 seconds (for Season 3 it was reduced to 60 seconds) to answer all the questions, as well as a time limit on each question. They can pass on the question and return to it if time permits. Usually, there is also a Fetch Fairness Guarantee, which states that every contestant will have had an equal number of challenges (usually 13) and quiz shows (usually 6) before the final episode. Additionally, there are between 5 and 10 "Bone-us" points (sometimes 15 or 20 points) available for one or two stand-out contestants. On rare occasions, such as an episode with a colonial theme, there is the possibility to earn more than 100 points (outside of any bonuses).

Now, the episode I viewed was rather cool dealing with two legendary places: Dogtopia and Catlantis in "The Mystery of Dogtopia and Catlantis". Ruff sends all the FETCHers to Misery Island to solve the mystery of what happened between dogs and cats in the lost civilization of Dogtopia and Catlantis. Okay, where's the science. Well, there were two: A lesson in the use of pulleys and electromagnetism. Now I am sure that they were scripted to find science solutions to two perplexing problems and coincidence provided the necessary tools. Nevertheless, here is the entire episode in three parts.

"The Mystery of Dogtopia and Catlantis"

June 5th, 2007

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3

"PBS science programs" poll

Do you watch PBS science programs?

Yes...2
No...0
Sometimes...3

PBS is probably the most common source of science programs with free access. For the most part they are informative and thoughtful. Two recent good programs were "Absolute Zero" and "The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer". One of the worst was "Einstein's Big Idea" which was too heavy on dramatization and criticized over the role of Einstein's wife Mileva Maric. The BBC ran a docudrama on Albert Einstein and Sir Arthur Eddington [played by Doctor Who's David Tennant] and will probably be picked up by PBS in a year or two. NOVA Science Now and the Scientific American offerings have vanished. Even science programing for children has disappeared...Bill Nye the Science Guy is gone. Some programs like Ruff Ruffman do incorporate some science within an entertainment format of "spills and thrills and adventure".

"Einstein and Eddington"...BBC production


"400 Years of the Telescope" on PBS this Friday

Amber's encapsulated gems

Bill Nye "The Science Guy"..."Stargate Atlantis"

"Doctor Atomic"--Great Performances at the Met

"Einstein's Big Idea"...back again

Fractals via NOVA

Neil deGrasse Tyson...new representative

Neil deGrasse Tyson..."NOVA scienceNow"--2nd season

Newton and 2060

NOVA--"Hunting the Hidden Dimension"

NOVA's "Hunting the Hidden Dimension" transcript available

NOVA's "Absolute Zero"

NOVA's "Absolute Zero"--repeated

PBS Palomar documentary

PBS--Palomar Observatory

"Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives"...NOVA offering

"Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives"--YAWN

Percy Lavon Julian...chemist

"The Atom Smashers"--tonight on PBS

"The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer"

"The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer"--worthy

Yoky Matsuoka--robotics expert and inventor

[I should mention that PBS has very little to do with these programs. They are just the venue for airing the independent productions.]

"400 Years of the Telescope" on PBS this Friday

Mark your calendar for this Friday night [April 10th] PBS will air "400 Years of the Telescope".

"PBS documentary turns lens on 400 years of telescope"

by

William Loeffler

April 3rd, 2009

TRIBUNE-REVIEW

He filmed the world's most powerful telescopes on five continents. But what really moved Kris Koenig was looking through the primitive instrument that started it all.

During the making of the PBS documentary "400 Years of the Telescope," Koenig visited the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence, Italy. There, he was permitted a peek through the telescope that Galileo used to gaze skyward in 1609.

The instrument that sparked a scientific revolution was a humble, dented cylinder roughly a yard long, with a lens pocked with air bubbles.

"It's impressive that he was able to do the discoveries he did," Koenig says. "It's a very difficult telescope, optically, to look through. He was obviously a very patient man."

"400 Years of the Telescope," which premieres at 10 p.m. Friday on WQED, examines how the telescope altered man's relationship with the universe, from Galileo through the Hubble Space Telescope and beyond.

Aided by the magnifying power of the telescope, Galileo discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus and the mountains of the moon. His observations also led him to support Nicolaus Copernicus' theory that the Earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa -- a supposition that eventually led to his conviction as a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church.

"The telescope helped prove that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe," says Tom Reiland, founder and director of the Nicholas E. Wagman Observatory in Deer Lakes Park, "It wasn't even the center of our solar system."

Koenig wrote, produced and directed "Telescope" through his California-based company, Interstellar Studios. He interviewed cosmologists and astronomers from around the world, including Wendy Freedman, director of the Carnegie Institute Washington Observatories, and Chris Corbally, vice director of the Vatican Observatory in Rome. The documentary includes footage of the dormant volcano Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which has 13 observatories.

While it added inestimably to our body of knowledge, the most profound effect of the telescope might have been to show us how little we really know of the universe, Koenig says.

"In reality, '400 Years of the Telescope' is less about the history of the telescope and more about the future of the telescope," Koenig says. "What we are trying to show is that we are as ignorant today in our understanding of the universe as Galileo was 400 years ago."

The documentary explores new theories, such as dark energy, a mysterious force that is accelerating the expansion of the universe, and provides a glimpse of a new generation of super-telescopes, which will have lenses the size of football fields. One is the European Extremely Large Telescope, or EELT. It will most likely be built on a mountaintop in Chile, where atmospheric turbulence is minimal.

"These telescopes that are coming online are 10- to 100-fold better in light gathering and resolution than we have today," Koenig says. "Our view of the universe today will not be our view in 20 years."

Two new survey telescopes that are in the planning stages, the Pannstarr and LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope), will enable scientists to detect asteroids up to 30 years before their possible collision with Earth.

"They'll be online in another five to 10 years," Koenig says.

Galileo built his own telescope after hearing about the new novelty "spyglass," a tube-shabed object that magnified distant objects. That telescope had less power than a pair of modern-day opera glasses, says Peter Machamer, professor of history of philosophy and science at the University of Pittsburgh and an authority on Galileo.

Galileo's discovery that the moon had mountains and craters also disproved Aristotle's theory that matter in space was physically different from that on Earth.

"There's just one kind," Machamer says. "When he looks at the moon, when he finds mountains, this is the support that there's only one kind of matter in the universe."

"400 Years of the Telescope" is part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, a global celebration of astronomy and its contributions to society and culture. It was created by UNESCO and the International Astronomical Union, the same world body that demoted Pluto from its status as a planet in August 2006.

It is the first PBS documentary to be filmed on 4K digital cinema technology. The process renders a picture with more than five times the pixels of standard high definition.

"400 Years of the Telescope" [PBS]

CARLA BEFERA PUBLIC RELATIONS [many photographs available]

"The Atom Smashers"--eccentric

Now I know why they ran this so late last night. "The Atom Smashers" was a study of eccentric physicists and the race to discover the Higgs Boson--overall somewhat boring. It is a small world of theoretical physicists and the question here, especially in the light of the current economy, is the search for the ultimate particle justified at this time. It is more a matter of philosophy than science...to discover the Holy Grail of high energy physics and possibly offer an explanation of what holds the universe together. The DOE has slowly cut funds at Fermilab and other institutions as well. Money is getting tight and the wholesale search, however grand it would be, is put on the back burner for now. Of course there is the LHC...Fermilab's high-powered competitor that may well discover the Higgs Boson before Fermilab does. The cognitive battle between Fermilab and the LHC, I suppose, is a matter of pride. The search for the Higgs Boson is interesting, but what would it eventually yield?

As a side note, the expository subtitled data was intrusive, overused, and difficult to read.

"The Atom Smashers"--tonight on PBS

Fermilab

Wow, a back to back science offering from PBS. Tonight on Independent Lens is a program called "The Atom Smashers".


"The Atom Smashers"

And co-director Clayton Brown's blog

the atom smasher

"Review: The Atom Smashers"

by

Duran

October 1st, 2008

Who knew smashing atoms together would be so interesting?

With all the hoopla lately over the possible end of the world and the recent launch of CERN's new Large Hadron Collider, this movie's release was timed pretty well.

The Atom Smashers follows a group of physicists who are all involved in research at Fermilab to look for the famed Higgs Boson, or "God Particle", well before the folks in Europe started looking. But instead of just chronicling the hunt itself, the documentary examines the daily lives of the men and women who have devoted their careers to look for something they don't really know exists. An apt quote from the movie goes, "It is difficult to see a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat."

Instead of wearing white lab coats and pocket protectors, these career-long geeks are shown not to be anything near society's stereotypical perception of scientists. They play in rock bands, dress like skaters, dance in salsa clubs (albeit badly), and fly model airplanes. They have relationships with each other that come under strain with project deadlines and conferences. The researchers are seen as human beings with super-human determination.

In addition to the personal struggle to maintain normal lives, the scientists come under intense pressure with reduced funding and program cuts from the Bush administration. It points out the irony about how the people making the decisions for scientific funding don't fully understand the underlying principles of the science that is being researched. They also feel the heat as they compete with the impending completion of the European machine, in a race that is seen as "competitive collaboration".

Being an engineer myself, I related to this piece quite well and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone with an ounce of inner-geekdom. Any film where you can just sense the tension on screen is a good film in my books. The documentary also does a great job of examining the question of "why" and the whole purpose behind the decades-long search for the elusive particle.

It's unfortunate however that the ending is open ended. But then again, that's all due to timing, as the search for the "God Particle" continues...

"The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer"--worthy

Okay, I sat through two hours of this documentary on the rise and fall of J. Robert Oppenheimer and must say that is one of the better offerings from PBS. Usually, "docudramas" flounder where the emphasis is placed on actors attempting to characterize famous individuals rather than the actual event as was PBS's "Einstein's Great Idea" where too much emphasis was spent on attempting to dramatize certain scientists set in lavish sets and costume. David Grubin's production was very different. David Strathairn's portrayal of Oppenheimer was to the point and limited to probably about 20% screen time allowing the narrator and guests to carry the force and message of the documentary interspersed with archival film and photographs.

The film illustrates a difference between an individual's interpretation of an ideology [communism] and strict adherence to its basic philosophy. Oppenheimer said over and over that certain elements of communism were relevant to him but he was not a card-carrying member involved in corrupting or compromising American policies or supporting a foreign government.

And high profile individuals with different agendas and inflated egos will have conflicts...J. Robert Oppenheimer vs Edward Teller and Lewis Strauus and the scientific ineptness of presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman..

"The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer" is worth another viewing.

From: American Experience [WGBH]:

In the first dozen years of the atomic age, few men played a more pivotal role in shaping U.S. nuclear policy than the former banker Lewis Strauss. An ardent champion of the hydrogen bomb, he was also a strong believer in the importance of maintaining a large nuclear stockpile. His appointment to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1946 (an agency he chaired from 1953 - 58) meant he was well placed to influence both President Truman's and President Eisenhower's decisions on nuclear issues and to oversee the atomic related activities of all federal agencies.

The thorny, owlish-looking Lewis Strauss started out life as a travelling shoe salesman working for his father. He later became an incredibly successful investment banker. By the time he left Wall Street to join the AEC, he was earning a million dollars a year. His new government appointment required him to give up all his business interests, which he told an interviewer, made him feel "like a man who is amputating his own leg."

Early on in his role as an AEC commissioner, Strauss argued that the U.S. needed to have a system in place to detect foreign atomic tests. As it turned out the monitoring system set up at his insistence, was established just in time to detect the first Soviet atomic test in August 1949.

The news that the U.S. no longer had a monopoly on nuclear weapons, pitted Strauss against other members of the AEC including its chairman David Lilienthal. Lilienthal wanted to respond to the Soviet test by increasing the production of atomic bombs while at the same time stepping up the effort to create international controls for weapons of mass destruction. Strauss argued vigorously for a crash program to build a hydrogen bomb: "the time has now come for a quantum jump in our planning... We should now make an intensive effort to get ahead with the super [hydrogen bomb]." Strauss won the day. And in January 1950, President Truman publicly announced a "crash" program to build a superbomb.

Conflict over the H-bomb also created tensions between Strauss and physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. Strauss told President Eisenhower that he would only accept the position of AEC chair if Oppenheimer played no role in advising the agency. He explained that he didn't trust Oppenheimer partly because of his consistent opposition to the superbomb. Within days of being sworn into office in July 1953, Strauss had all classified AEC material removed from Oppenheimer's office. By the end of the year, Oppenheimer's security clearance was revoked.

Over the years Strauss' arrogance and his insistence that he was always right made him unpopular on Capitol Hill. In 1959, after two months of exhausting hearings, the Senate rejected his nomination to be Secretary of Commerce. The ordeal was publicly humiliating for Strauss, especially after he was caught lying under oath. Afterwards the financier returned permanently to the private sector.

"Revisiting the trial of the father of the atomic bomb"

January 25th, 2009

chicagotribune.com

In the middle of the last century, J. Robert Oppenheimer was one of the most famous men in America.

His leadership of the Manhattan Project, which produced the atomic bomb, turned him into one of the nation's most powerful figures, and he was certainly the country’s most acclaimed scientist during and after World War II. Glowing media coverage of his life and accomplishments portrayed him as the absent-minded genius who exhibited the kind of can-do spirit that helped America win the war.

In the '50s, however, Oppenheimer's political enemies conspired to drag this proud man down from his lofty perch—not necessarily for being arrogant, but for disagreeing with powerful advocates for ever larger and more terrifying nuclear bombs.

The excellent "American Experience" documentary "The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer"...opens with the famous scientist at his lowest point. In 1954, Oppenheimer, who was never charged with any crime, was grilled for weeks in an unusual hearing that flouted most, if not all, accepted legal procedures. Actor David Strathairn ("Good Night, and Good Luck") does a wonderful job of depicting the prickly scientist in these re-creations, which are a little stagey but which ably bring the trial transcript to life.

The hearing was convened by the Atomic Energy Commission to examine whether Oppenheimer, who had been close to Communist Party members earlier in his life, was a security risk or a Communist himself (eventually he was stripped of his security clearance). Experts interviewed for the documentary say one of the real goals of the hearing—and other investigations—was to humiliate and "break" him, says Richard Rhodes, author of "The Making of the Atomic Bomb."

"He was made to look like a fool," Rhodes says.

It's hard not to have sympathy for this flawed but brilliant man. Oppenheimer could be cruel and socially awkward, but in the end, he appears to have been done in by his desire to protect old friends who had been in the Communist Party. Without ignoring Oppenheimer's flaws and mistakes in judgment, the physicists and journalists interviewed for this two-hour film paint a picture of a man who rose to the occasion during the Manhattan Project but emerged from the war with qualms about the way the atomic bomb had changed the world.

The persecution of Oppenheimer through the trial "removed the legitimacy of criticism against more and more nuclear weapons," according to Martin J. Sherwin, author of "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer."

Tragedy is certainly the right word for this tale.

In the matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: transcript of hearing before Personnel Security Board and texts of principal documents and letters

by

U.S. Atomic Energy Commission

ISBN: 0262710021 9780262710022

Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections

by

Alice Smith and Charles Weiner [editors]

ISBN-10: 0804726205
ISBN-13: 978-0804726207

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

by

Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

ISBN-10: 0375412026
ISBN-13: 978-0375412028

Science and the Common Understanding

by

J. Robert Oppenheimer

ISBN-10: 0671636014
ISBN-13: 978-0671636012


Andrei Sakharov vs Edward Teller

Los Alamos staff

Nuclear weaponry

The Manhattan Project...video presentation

"The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer"

Reminder--"The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer"...tonight

"The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer"

"The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer"

Coming Monday, January 26th on PBS's American Experience..."The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer".

PBS:

The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2 hours)

Robert Oppenheimer's life and legacy are inextricably linked to America's most famous top-secret initiative -- the Manhattan Project. But after World War II, this brilliant and intense scientist, tasked with the development of the atomic bomb and widely considered one of the most important minds of the twentieth century, fell from the innermost circles of American scientific policy. At the height of the Red Scare, the veil of suspicion fell over J. Robert Oppenheimer. He was accused of having communist sympathies and was pressed to explain his relationships with known communists.

This biography will present a complex and revealing portrait of one of the most influential American scientists. Interweaving interviews with family members, scholars and colleagues with dramatic recreations featuring Academy Award-nominated actor David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck, and The Bourne Ultimatum), this film follows J. Robert Oppenheimer on a fascinating arc from the heady world of international physics to the top-secret Manhattan Project, and finally to the dark days of the Red Scare and McCarthyism.

David Grubin, Producer
Filmmaker David Grubin has won every major award in his field, including three George Foster Peabody awards, two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University awards, and nine Emmys. Mr. Grubin has produced over 100 films on subjects ranging from history to art, from poetry to science.

Grubin's five-part series for PBS, Healing And The Mind with Bill Moyers, has won many awards, and the companion book, for which he was executive editor, rose to number one on The New York Times Best Sellers List. He won a Writers Guild Award for his biography of Marie Antoinette, which aired on PBS in September 2006. His most recent work is a six-hour series, The Jewish Americans, which aired on PBS in 2008.

A member of the executive committee of the Society of American Historians, Grubin has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, has been a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College, and is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Hamilton College.

Air date: January 26, 2009


Deceased--Robert Furman

"Doctor Atomic"

"Doctor Atomic"--Great Performances at the Met

George Koval...Soviet spy

Hans Bethe...physicist's physicist

Hans Bethe and Rudolf Peierls: Correspondence

Just a reminder...July 16th, 1945

Philip Morrison...physicist

Tickling the dragon's tail

"Doctor Atomic"...a reminder

Just a reminder that this evening on PBS's Great Performances at the Met the new opera "Doctor Atomic" will be performed.


"Doctor Atomic"--Great Performances at the Met