Our Mr Sun (1956)

the Bell Telephone system brings you one of a series of programs on science to understand nature's laws you let's try that focus again gym titles okay now let's test that first animation role - okay hold it now sharpen the focus right hole role - doctor how is the son born don't know exactly you're a scientist and you don't know could use my imagination but you're the fiction writer imagination well we could ask mr. son himself yes if we had a magic wand sure sure you've got it magic your science and my magic we'll open up our story of our mr. son with her little fantasy you know showmanship go back into time show the birth of the Sun out of time Stardust here we'll turn back the clock whoa that'll only take you back 12 hours oh all right we'll open up the curtain of our imagination this will be our magic screen yours will be just perfect we'll pull back the cursors of our magic screen we'll dream up a clock there you are a clock that's been ticking since time again our solar system honor my father time himself do you see what I'm seeing what's their name maybe I could talk to him huh hey father time how long is that son o'clock been going a few billion years why well could John wind it for us unwind time man are you crazy well I'm a fiction writer we're auditioning a show of Honor mr. son and I thought that show about me well well about time hi yeah we were wondering how it all happened at the beginning nobody knows what happened at the beginning oh come on pop unwind us they want to see how I was born you you'll not gasbag you keep still now don't flip your sickle pop the man says it's just a show he's a romantic fool if you want facts ask your scientists oh we got doctor a search here for facts but what I need right now is something to open this thing up with a bang you know what I mean certainly my story should be colorful romantic not just facts here I'll tell you how it should open wait a minute I'm telling this story you're just imaginary quiet you want a show don't you go on [Music] yes sir set the stage for me oh yeah [Music] getting the Academy Award ready hey he's taking over how do you like that I like it let him go on music life color and here mr. Sun from me [Music] good morning Brotherhood for the umpteen millionth time good morning good morning brother bird brother mountain brother sieve morning to you brother Gao brother be good morning all great day every day is a great day you know me as the Sun of course what I really AM is a star an average everyday type of star visions like me I remember when primitive man first began to look up to gaze in wonderment at the stars and planets sweeping across the face of the sky that primitive curiosity was the beginning of all your science of course they had some pretty odd notions about me some thought I was an enormous beetle trundling a fiery ball across the heavens the ancient Eskimos thought I was a little man wearing thick furs to keep myself warm but to most I was a God fancy names and ward rules in Babylon I was shamash and my son temples were observatories in Persia I was Mithras and two ancient Egypt I was the Great God rah glory to the great Sun God blame me for getting the swell head but the name I liked best was Phoebus Apollo the Greeks always didn't have a word for it in my case it was handsome Apollo racing across the sky it is hiring chariot making heavenly music on his hold and ukulele oh that was for me I loved it and then along came another great to spoil it all a Greek who would rather think than worship Sun gods annex a gross was his name the Sun is not a god or a person it is a mass of red hot stone only 40 miles across and four thousand miles away for blaspheming against the beautiful Apollo annex a giris was banished from Athens and I wasn't a bit sorry for it but man had fallen for this new and fascinating mistress his brain thinking began spreading like the measles everybody got the bug the Greeks with their logic and philosophy the Hindus with their algebra and your present number system the Arabs with their early instruments like the astrolabe and today instead of temples rituals and hymns to the Sun its toll charts and numbers I'm devoted to a specimen a pile of facts and figures a big blob of mass holding little blobs of mass together with gravity instead of with love I think you're all through who's all through earth man he's had it why you flamin idiot - haven't even started yet in worshiping me ancient man was reaching for the great light beyond what modern man he's got all the answers mr. Sunday you mind if I butt in a moment who are you Oh me oh I'm them never mind thank you very much goodbye would you mind if we listen in see here you're not even real I just made you up you go wind your clock no let them stay I like your magic father time my name's research Oh a scientist hmm hey howdy doc your research I'd like to hear what you have to say about Golden Boy here well it's a delightful experience talking directly to you and to mr. Sun especially for a scientist I was just going to relate a few facts about mr. Sun facts if you're going to tell my story don't give the people equations and figures give them the real lowdown tell them what I mean to them they'd forgotten that when they eat corn or bread or grapes or meet their eating sunlight their houses furniture cars their nylons yes even their moonshine is sunshine tell them if it wasn't for me they'd have no eyes because there'd be nothing to see that's enough you're getting purple why if I put my light out every living thing on earth would be frozen stiff and you scientists who know would be just as cold and stiff as the people that don't go through blowing sunspots yeah then apologize to dr. research oh well I'm sorry brother research no apology necessary and mr. Sun is almost right almost yes mr. Sun your logic is a little on the romantic side too you say that you don't like facts and yet you just given us quite a list of them oh this may turn out to be fun no mr. Sun we haven't got all the answers science has just opened the book yet and seeking for more knowledge we too in a way are reaching for the great light beyond doctor thank you that's it what's it the gimmick come into my office here we put the show on for him for the Sun Shores a tough audience science show son were not all true you yeah could be boring too it could be hey you keep your corona on what science is found out about you is more exciting than any fiction you stick around you'll see what we really don't know very much about it all we know plenty about it what about the television people never mind him just think we got a real show here well you remember where you come in I remember the weather the field Ian cutting on me am I gonna stop hitting on you here but come on rolling rolling roll - here we go although mr. Sun is 93 million miles away and it takes his light eight minutes to reach us he's really quite close the light from the next nearest star traveling at 186,000 miles per second takes over four years to get to us we know mr. Sun is so large our earth is barely visible alongside him it would take some three hundred and forty worlds like beads on a string to make a necklace around his shining sphere how much does mr. Sun weigh thousand worlds a hundred thousand no sir he weighs as much as 350,000 mother earth's we also know that mr. son is not solid or liquid for the fiery ball of hot glowing gases consisting of some 95% hydrogen and helium and a few percent all other elements we know that this huge cloud of hot gases would expand float away dissipate into space unless gravity squeezed it together into a tight sphere the gases at the center of the Sun are so densely packed by gravity that they're about a hundred times heavier than water and the pressure is around 1 billion tons to the square inch while at the surface the gases are so thin the pressure is only about one pound of the square inch we know to that the temperature at the core of the Sun is incredibly hot around 30 million degrees Fahrenheit while at the surface it drops down to just about 10,000 degrees but here's a strange thing as we go out from the Sun into the corona the temperature goes up again to over 1 million degrees at the outer edges tell him why dr. research we don't know why you don't well what is the corona anyway we don't actually know that yet oh but we do know there's more to mr. Sun than the shining surface we normally see which we call the photosphere or sphere of light only when the moon moves between us and the Sun and covers the photosphere completely in the total eclipse can we see the rest of mr. Suns thin atmosphere the beautiful and mysterious corona for many many years scientists have loved their instruments to all parts of the globe chasing eclipses expeditions spending months just for a two or three-minute opportunity to see measure and photograph the eclipsed Sun sometimes heavy clouds failure complete washout sometimes light clouds measurements uncertain but on happy occasions perfect conditions the Coronas studied and photographed in the fullness of his glory you're Coronas most puzzling to us mr. Sun hmm we know that it rotates with you but it no two eclipses does it look just the same it pulsates changes shape and at times extends out millions of miles why is that just one of the many things we still don't know about the Sun and look definitely better tell them something we do no want to hear anymore mr. Sun I like your pictures of me got any more oh yes lots roll six the camera is one of our main tools now here's a normal picture of you taken by direct sunlight it's rather flat your face has little expression but about sixty years ago dr. George Ellery Hale of America and dr. Arne DeLong of France conceived this ingenious instrument called the spectral heliograph it filters out all the light waves except the light from some particular glowing atom as for instance hydrogen let's look at a normal white light picture of the Sun again now here taken at the same time is a spectral hylia gram that photographed only the red light from glowing hydrogen atoms now your face is interesting reveals character here's another spectral hylia gram taken at the same time but photographed only the violet light from incandescent calcium atoms which tells us even more about you with the spectral heliograph dr. Robert our McMath of the McMath Hulbert Observatory near Pontiac Michigan made the first time lapse motion pictures of the prominences and wrinkles on the face of the Sun from his pictures and from the many thousands of photographs taken at observatories all over the world particularly at the Mount Wilson Observatory [Music] we've learned a great deal about mr. Sun especially about those much talked of sunspots that mystify guy sunspots there are such things of course oh yeah they're not just something that scientists see when they're tired they're very real but very mysterious they mystify galileo went through his original telescope he first saw them moving daily across the face of the Sun and they've been mystifying us ever since spots can appear singly like this one or in groups like these and quite often indistinct pairs when photographed by red hydrogen light they look something like giant violent tornadoes seen from above Spock's range in size from mere pinpoints just a few hundred miles across and to which you could drop the British Isles to huge ones into which you could drop 100 planets as big as the earth spots look dark although they really are because they're cooler than the rest of the surface 7,000 degrees as against 10,000 degrees of the surface also over the years we noticed a strange fluctuation in the number of spots increasing to a maximum decreasing to a minimum in more or less regular 11-year cycles which many of us believe affect our weather our crops and the growth of our trees one of the most astonishing mysteries revealed by study of spots mr. son is that your equator or the middle of you rotates faster than the rest of you the middle rotates faster yes for instance if a line of spots were placed like runners at the starting line from the sun's north to the South Pole and that a signal raced around the Sun they would end up like this equator wins in twenty five and one-third days half north and half South tie for second time twenty seven and a half days why is that if you don't know why okay have you got any more pictures of me and would it please you to know mister glory puss that you've been photographed more than all the Hollywood stars put together the most dramatic pictures roll seven the most dramatic pictures are taken with a coronagraph which creates automatic total eclipses whenever the sun is shining this very remarkable instrument was first constructed by dr. Bernard Leo of France in 1930 today there are improved coronagraphs at the high altitude Observatory of climax Colorado under the direction of dr. Walter Roberts and at the Air Force installation is Sacramento Peak New Mexico presided over by dr. JW evidence the first user of the coronagraph in America was dr. Donald H Menzel of Harvard University what happens in these red hydrogen coronagraph motion pictures in one second actually took place in about five minutes on the Sun the small sphere you see here represents the size of the earth in comparison with the Sun your surface mr. Suns a stormy sea of violent motion small spicules are geysers like these continually burst from blisters on the surface and jet up like little fountains if you can call five or ten thousand miles up little compare them of the size of the earth big flame like eruptions like these are called prominences they're vast clouds of gas that sometimes float idly at other times shoot out of thousands of miles per minute as if they never heard of gravity sometimes they rise in graceful ribbons or Kangol streamers beautiful beautiful some SERDES up like gigantic geysers others flow sidewise and downward at times forming natural bridges portions of the prominences may even break off and go floating aways in this picture but the baffling part is that most prominences flow downward gasses materializing from seemingly nowhere and flowing down into sunspot areas for days at a time coronal rain that sometimes called where does it come from of course when it rains on earth we don't actually see the rain go up either we only see it come down although we know it evaporates up from the southern scenes we're coronal rain comes from we can only guess is yet give him the hopper doc biggest solar explosion ever recorded greatest photographic shot in history on June 4th 1946 a great arch of gas hundreds of times is because the earth rose up at a speed of 400 thousand miles per hour the arch expanded clear out of range of the instruments of climax in less than an hour and a half I remember that one sure blew my top that day as we heard you roll 15 you heard me oh yes we hear you every day you not only send us like waves but you broadcast radio waves which we are able to pick up quite clearly at special radio astronomy stations which receive radio signals from outer space here's a sample of the radio message you send us on one of your noisier days in Australia they've recently done some brilliant work with Radio Astronomy dr. eg Bowen heads the group of radio astronomers it's only in the past few years that we have discovered some strange things in the sky radio waves coming to us from many places in outer space Radio Astronomy is a brand-new exciting tool for scientists and with it we found out quite a bit about you mister Sun through the noises you make mmm I'm beginning to feel like a goldfish you got him going doctor well doesn't dole is spouting and erupting have some effect on the earth oh yes tremendous a tiger roll eight well for instance when a large flare flashes up around the sunspot area it immediately sends out a burst of powerful ultraviolet rays the 50 earth and eight minutes but it also sprays streams of slower electrified fragments of atoms out into space as if from a hose this solar spray of fine particles usually misses the earth but at times the earth is in its path now the earth is a magnet with north and south magnetic poles and a magnetic field around it the spray of minut particles shot from the Sun which takes some 30 hours to reach the earth is deflected toward the poles by the Earth's magnetic field as this solar dust stardust you might call it comes down into our atmosphere near the poles and collides with air molecules it creates the most beautiful spectacle of the aurora also called the northern and southern lights dr. CW dark line of cornell university took this unique time-lapse motion picture of the actual aurora borealis the Earth's rotation produces the apparent motion of the stars in the background but the effect of these ultraviolet bursts from the Sun are not so beautiful voltage fluctuates radio communications are disturbed and although our radio engineers have performed their miracles in protecting our radio waves from this solar sniping at dr. rule 7c sometimes this happened we take you now to London for a direct report from Sam Johnson come in London this is same Junction there's an air Ken's expectancy here in London I even trust [Applause] that was the momenta statement the Prime Minister read to us this morning and now back to New York what an engineer wasn't the shoe no it wasn't the shoe let's recreate what actually happened in terms of atmosphere and radio waves radio waves normally move in a straight line but about 50 miles high in our atmosphere there is an electrified layer called the ionosphere that reflects radio waves making it possible to bounce them around the earth now let's listen to Sam Johnson again this is Sam Johnson there's an air of expectancy here in London suddenly a bright flare occurs on the Sun bursts of ultraviolet rays disrupts the ionosphere this morning the Prime Minister announced what radio engineers are right on the ball si D means the sudden ionospheric disturbance which is unpredictable but usually in a matter of minutes the ionosphere clear reforms again and that was the momenta statement the Prime Minister read to us this morning and now back to New York but when big reasons of the Sun are intensely active the spray of solar particles that causes the aurora can disturb communications for hours even days but this type is predictable oh yes fortunately it usually is and Sims radio communication is so vital to the services airline's radio stations telephone companies ships at sea recently observatories all over the world have begun to keep watch on the Sun and make up a worldwide radio warning service high-altitude Observatory of climax Colorado at the air force observatory at Sacramento Pete at Kota Canal in the air in Japan in stations all over the globe observers keep tabs on you mr. Sun send in information to the central collecting agencies such as the radio storm warning service of the National Bureau of Standards for men under Allen Shapley analyzed the data and try to predict when the solar storm will strike the earth especially the vital North Atlantic communication lines then by radio by teletype my phone warning goes out severe magnetic storm will affect North Atlantic circuits lower frequencies are used southern routes that's fine but dr. research what has puzzled you scientists most about the Sun roll 9 oh yeah even I can give you that in one word energy this lady's parasol has 1 and 1/2 horsepower of sunshine continually Bourdon it enough to run her washing machine sewing machine refrigerator and vacuum cleaner in full sunlight our family car receives almost enough Sun power to run it if we only knew how to use solar energy directly at the common rate of 2 cents per kilowatt hour the Sun sends the earth 1 billion dollars worth of energy every second and it's coming to us free five minutes worth would pay our national debt one minutes worth the energy that hit the earth would pay the total annual income text of all United States citizens Oh a happy day yet what the earth receives is only a menu fraction of the whole only one part and two billion of the total solar energy the rest of the 500 thousand billion billion horse power goes out into space how does the Sun generate this enormous amount of power doctor research yes I don't eat drink or take vitamins I never sleep or rest then how do I do it brother scientist well we know at least part of your secret mouth [Music] [Music] we know the answer not only to your energy but to what makes other stars in the universe shine thermonuclear reaction the key word that wound up the universe thermonuclear eight to five they made a hydrogen bomb We certainly have mister Sun and the news rocked the world but with you it's old stuff the equivalent of four billion hydrogen bombs have been going off inside you every second for some 4 billion years give or take a billion what smart guy figured that out dr. Hans bethe of Cornell is the gentleman in 1938 he announced that the source of the sun's energy is the fusion of 564 million tons of hydrogen into 560 million tons of helium each second 564 to 560 of where did the missing 4 million tons go just disappear disappears as mass as matter but reappears as light heat and all sorts of radiation Corner trickster old saw making 4 million tons disappeared 4 million tons there he is rolled 12 I brought along a trickster friend of mine thermal the magician who has an act which he claims explains the sun's magic I am I will do for you such a trick only me and the Stars can do pay attention this is one way to make a hydrogen bomb nature's way so hydrogen one two three four what is hydrogen the smallest atom from which you build all the older atoms so we will wave scale each bottle weighs exactly 100 ounces or button 400 ounces remember that 400 ounces so now carbon this is Calvin a piece of coal for you that is what I start with hydrogen and carbon so now I will heat them 30 million degrees I will heat them how in a hydrogen bomb it is done by exploding an ordinary atom bomb to ignite the hydrogen bomb for the stars they do it by pressure gravity like our mr. Sun so now I play mr. Sun and heat the hydrogen and the carbon to 30 million degrees higher now I am ready number 1 hydrogen come I tell now now give the command shoes so Oh what have we here nitrogen the gas what makes four-fifths of the air you breathe now number two and number three hydrogen come fusion now we have oxygen the other fifth of the air you breathe number four whew now we have coal again same piece and we have helium what you feel belongs with four hydrogens if they are thirty million degrees hot thirty million degrees it is not children playing with matches before hydrogen's come out one helium the carbon comes back the same you see same wave no change that's why we call this the carbon cycle now we weigh the helium should weigh 400 ounces like the hydrogen oh yes natural but it can't be the helium weighs three ounces less than the hydrogen where did the three ounces go that is the magic of the stars that is the secret of the hydrogen bomb I'll show you come back three ounces here is really where they changed [Applause] [Music] now the energy in those three little ounces that completely disappeared is matter that energy is enough to raise the Empire State Building 2500 miles high now the carbon cycle which is what thermo just explained to us is not the only way in which you can change hydrogen into helium plus energy you may also use a very special and rare process in which you put two hydrogen atoms together directly is that the famous proton proton process say you've been reading mr. Sutton you do not annihilate or destroy just two or three ounces but four million tons of hydrogen matter each second that gives you your unbelievable energy which you radiate out in space we think that originally you were a great loose cloud of gas mostly hydrogen being contracted by gravity as you were compressed the temperature went up just as the air and a bicycle tire gets hotter and hotter as you pump it finally the temperature in your core reached the necessary 30 million degrees needed to trigger the thermonuclear reaction presto the furnace was lit never to go out again as long as you live mr. Sun the hydrogen began burning into helium and energy gravity tries to compress you burning hydrogen tries to expand you the two forces just balance each other what's perfection itself a furnace made of its own fuel an immense continuous hydrogen bomb operating at an even heat for billions of years what a wonderful invention you are mr. Sun which brings up a point how long before he runs out of this here now hydrogen fuel or he still has about 98% of his fuel left but 50 hundred billion years from now mr. Sun you'll perhaps run out of fuel will expire go wherever good stars go we'll go with you because as you go we go you see you're not just a big blob of hot mess to us you're the head of our family we want to know more about you we depend on you for our very existence yes in fact we're depending on you heavily for the solution of two of man's biggest problems well at last I'm being appreciated what did you say your name was dr. research you're big what are those two big problems you spoke of dr. research the first is the age-old problem of food roll fire and boy the number of miles that need food keeps increasing in 1650 after 25 thousand years of man our population had reached half a billion by 1950 only three hundred years later the population climbed to 2 and 1/2 billion five times as many out of all human beings who ever lived one out of 20 is alive today one other 20 alive today is not amazing we never had food enough for all in the past we don't have enough for all today two out of every three persons on earth actually eat below the minimum necessary for health yet 100 billion new babies are born every year a yearly baby crust nearly equal to the population of all of South America and all born hungry here's our populations practically exploding I'll bet he doesn't know who grows his food for him oh yeah we know quite a bit about that does he does roll for our food is grown by a natural process called photosynthesis which means putting together with light you are like the oldest biggest and most important manufacturing operation in the world 99% of all our food and fuel is created by photosynthesis a process that goes on only in plants never in animals on every green leaf there are millions of sub microscopic little one-man factories churning out more sugar than all the ships and railroads in the world to carry the headband of each Factory is a little green molecule called chlorophyll the only engineer with the know-how about this still secret life process chlorophyll is so small and so secretive but not even the most powerful microscopes can spy on him here's the way we think he works the veins of the leaf bring him water from the roots from the air he grabs the molecule of carbon dioxide co2 he puts a water molecule and a carbon dioxide molecule together then he reaches for a piece of sunlight this is what we don't quite know how he adds this sunlight and I'm not going to tell you it you can down well find out for yourself quiet piece by piece he adds more sunlight to his sugar cake and then he pulls out an oxygen atom from the mixture and releases it into the air and the Russians didn't give that me either I invented myself then he takes some sauce that come up in the veins sprinkles them over the mixture for icing and puts the completed sugar cake for waiting artery out of this sugar or sunshine cake the tree makes leaves trunk roots and fruit in the sea chlorophyll produces even more food than he does on land the whole surface of the Seas is teeming with billions of tons of amanoot single-cell vegetable called phytoplankton these in turn are eaten by countless almost invisible little animals calls all plankton which are eaten by little fish which are eaten by bigger fish which are eaten by still bigger things yes all fish are ultimately made of chlorophyll sunshine cake when we catch them and can them we're catching and canning sunlight in fact all animals feed on sunshine cake in one form or another the energy the junior gets from milk was in a contented cow 24 hours ago 24 hours before that the same energy was in clover which had absorbed it from sunlight to become 93 million miles in eight minutes from the surface of the Sun but had taken 20 million years to find its way to the surface from the sun's central furnace so you see the energy that makes jr. run that makes a porpoise leap and makes me talk so much that energy is hydrogen that burned in your central furnace long long before man walked the earth you know brother research I'm beginning to like you do all the people know these things about me no that's why this program what's the big hitch in a food problem for one thing chlorophyll is too slow take any acre of forest or vegetables the amount of sunshine converted to plant food averages only two tons of vegetable matter per year but if all the light you send us could be used by chlorophyll we could raise 2,000 tons of food per acre per year little chlorophyll may not a big secret but he's awfully inefficient I just make sugar can I happen it so silly please build fractions magic roots out of it but you can't eat but you're looking for is a plant that's all fruit oh there is such a plant Oh edible too and it multiplies back to the rabbit but you scientists that you'd done to find it there you are mister man find the plan oh we found it already mr. Sun roll 10 founded in freshwater lakes a kind of green algae called chlorella a tiny one-celled plant that has learned the mathematical trick of multiplying by divided each cell gives birth to from four to sixteen daughter cells which all grow up and repeat the process chlorella contains fats carbohydrates and up to 50% proteins and is all edible all fruit as mr. Farwell was they all over the world scientists are doing research on chlorella in Japan dr. Hiroshi Tamiya of the Tokugawa Institute has done some of the most interesting and practical work for their food is definitely a problem into these troughs water containing chlorella cultures is pumped nutrients salts are added the troughs are covered with plastic sheeting to let in sunlight while extra carbon dioxide is bubbled into the solution when the culture becomes intensely green the chlorella crop is harvested after washing and drying the fine powder looks like green flower mrs. Tamiya wife of the director has added this to regular flour and made excellent biscuits and cakes out of it if these processes ever become practical underfed populations may have a new rich source of food yes indeed an acre of chlorella can convert sunlight into some 20 tons of plant matter against one or two tons of an ordinary crop but there's a second great problem facing us eventually [Music] [Applause] [Applause] for thousands of years we got our fuel from burning wood SunPower mr. Sun stored up in trees next we put animals to work Sun power from grass then came educated power to do work animals couldn't be taught to do humans slave power to build roads pyramids and rose ships Sun power with brains but slaves had to be fed so we discovered power that didn't eat like windmills and waterwheel the Machine Age was born but modern machines need to be fed to fed with fuel where do we get the fuels from the big fuel man himself over the ages mr. Sun who's kind enough to store them up for chopped for living sunshine big for fossil sunshine drill for liquid sunshine for silence sunshine fuel fuel more fuel how much fuels in the bank how big is the trust fund the old boy left us roll 13 well suppose all our energy had been deposited in the Sun power bank incorporated founded millions of years ago with assets unlimited in 1850 each American for instance withdrew enough fuel from the fuel bank to generate 400 horsepower hours for himself nobody worried too much about it our assets still a beard unlimited in 1950 each American withdrew ten thousand force power hours from Sun power incorporated while Atomic Scientists were making some minor deposits this began to worry us our assets were becoming definitely limited by 1975 we'll probably withdraw twenty thousand horsepower hours each Tomic energy fuel deposits will stave off the run for some time but there's only so much uranium and thorium in the world that will go to when the principles gone you're going to have to live on your income but our incomes only about 10% of our power spending would need help every day I send you a thousand times more power than you use in a year it's up to you fellows anybody working on getting power direct from old blowhard here oh yes but not nearly enough roll 16 some years ago dr. Charles Greenlee Abbot an enthusiastic pioneer in solar engines designed this vacuum jacketed boiler to at the focus of a parabolic mirror which will convert sunlight to engine power today the French laboratory of solar energy has an enormous solar furnace at mon lui from metal research at high temperatures in India dr. s bot Nagar the famous Indian scientists experimented with solar cookers for home use on one of these cookers an Indian family can cook it's noonday meal with no heat other than the sun's heat some other ways depend on glass sunlight coming through a window heats up everything in the room but heat radiated back from furniture and floor is long heat waves which the window glass stops from going back out thus trapping the sun's heat is that why greenhouses covered with glass or warmer inside than the air outside right that's why your clothes car gets so unbearably hot standing out in the Sun dr. Maria teleca's has designed a model house in Massachusetts and which solar heat is ingeniously collected stored and distributed throughout the whole house now these are more or less well known mechanical ways of using Sun power directly there's exciting research going on with some brand new way you think mr. chlorophyll was pretty smart with his tricky sunshine cake that makes food out of your sunlight well the science boys are coming for the sunshine cake that makes electricity out of your sunlight oh yes you mean the solar battery yeah that's hardly even a cookie yet let alone a cake doc that's big news well the solar battery now held in the Sun this thin little cell a sunshine wafer we might call it produces the usable amount of electric current out of the sunlight that falls on it it was cooked up out of basic research at the Bell Telephone lab by three scientists Daryl Chapin Calvin fuller and Gerald Pearson you know although this is quite expensive at the moment the simplicity of this sunshine wafer startling quad bake one for Laurie pushed doc I'd be delighted well get him o pastry cook research the recipe for this solar wavered sounds just like a vacation just Sam and sunshine thank you son [Music] [Applause] plain old Sanders composed of silicon and oxygen its sunday-go-to-meeting name it's silicon dioxide separate out the oxygen in the Vista CV bottle tops and other odds and ends and we have left of metals silicon but our silicon must be pure silicon so we purify air purifiers notice fuels for driven snow now Elsa silicon and I'd just a pinch of arsenic for flavor mix thoroughly and cool until it crystallizes then from the arsenic flavored silicon rolled right off a razor-thin waivers the way from into the oven fill oven with a boron gas and bake the white heat no boron cooks into the surface forms an extremely thin icing over the wafer removal finished wafers connect one wire from electric motor to boron icing and the other wire to the wafer itself exposed wafer to sunlight presto the motor starts running with the efficiency of an automobile and nothing is used up but the sunshine which is free hey that's something well I'll be darned so you see in a solar battery its energy from the Sun that moves the electricity which in turn rotates motors [Music] or as in this case powers rural telephone lines by charging storage batteries but the solar battery isn't all there's other important research and changing sunlight into power dr. AI rabinowitch has put together a chemical cell that'll change light waves into electric current but storing Sun power for night use is a big part of this energy from Sun problem well dr. Lawrence J hight of MIT is experimenting with a process in which sunlight decomposes water back into oxygen and hydrogen the hydrogen being a storable fuel another possibility phosphorus our chemical powders would absorb sunlight and can give it back slowly in the dark I read where Westinghouse engineers predict a wallpaper containing phosphorus which will absorb daylight during the day then glow four hours after dark a city painted with phosphor paint of the future might glow all night these are some of the processes that are being researched on a small scale today mr. Sun what our engineers can't turn the wheels of Industry on little wafers they'll have to build efficient generators that spread out over acres even square miles to compete with the cheap coal and oil still available to us and but doctor what about atomic power oh great hopes for it of course especially now since atomic plants can make their own fuel with so-called breeder reactors some even dream of imitating the stars getting power from hydrogen fusion but if dreams fail the answer must be Sun power from our mr. Sun what if you don't find ways to use my free sunshine for fuel then the Machine Age is over we'll have to go back to muscle power and the half million population that muscle power alone can support but that will never happen Oh No why not because man's greatest power source is his mind God gave him that not you without taking a step he can travel faster and farther than any animal without even getting wet he can outswim any fish louder fell on him he can fly faster higher and farther than any eagle [Music] he can send his eyes and ears hundreds of miles into space where he's never even been and he's pried open the secret of the atom please never even sing when his fuel run roll man's mind and imagination I'll meet the challenge and invent undreamed-of ways to use the free sunlight God showers down upon it just remember somebody must love you very much that planet you live on is not like all the rest you're blessed with just the right size the right temperature the right atmosphere the right composition everything just right to produce the biggest miracle of all life so go ahead ask inquire seek the truth it's right that you should know or the good Lord wouldn't have given you that driving curiosity measure the outside with mathematics but measure the inside with prayer prayer is research to study man as well as the world so keep on pitching the best is yet the convoy i predict man's next great adventure will be the son age when that happens you will be rich beyond all dreams I predict great Sun cities built underserved West lands where everything is run by sunlight I predict old it was that's fine but suppose I begin cutting up then what you won't but if you did man has migrated many times before and he'll do it again to he has to if you make it too hard for him enough man is capable of conceiving a way to move the whole kit and kaboodle to greener pastures on some other planet oh no we like it here don't change on us mr. Sun we used to worship he was an unknown God but now that we know you better we love use our great and good friend so keep on shining mr. Sun [Music] you the Bell Telephone system takes pride in bringing you this program in its series of shows on science we wish to express our gratitude to the distinguished Board of advisers who guide the choice in treatment of scientific matter for the series for the program you have just seen our thanks to the special advisors who have suggested and checked the scientific material the Bell Telephone system is indebted to all these men and to many institutions or the generous support they have given this venture in public education through entertainment [Music] [Applause]