THRESHOLDS FOR TOMORROW

Heat. Heat. [music] [music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> "There is no use trying," Alice said. "One can't believe in impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had much practice," [music] said the White Queen. "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. The next hour will be an adventure in believing the impossible as we [music] cross the thresholds for tomorrow. [music] [music] >> [music] >> Since men [music] crossed the ridge of recorded time, they have sought answers to the same basic questions that we're asking [music] today. What is life? What is thought? What is matter? What is the universe? Our space [music] threshold currently carries the greatest urgency and impact. But never before have we been so [music] close to getting the answers to all our basic questions. These were men in search trying to understand and control the world around them. [music] Men of science before the age of science. Once they worshiped the sun as a source of power [music] and wonderment. Today men of science still look wonderingly upon the sun as a source of power and life, a dynamic exploding [music] sun. The hot gases of stars, each a sun, hurl particles at the Earth with such speed they shatter the atoms they meet. [music] The atoms, the minute building blocks of matter. Splitting the atom releases energy, as was theorized by Albert Einstein in the early 20th century. And in the 1940s, this lesson of releasable [music] atomic energy was indelibly inscribed on the minds of men. >> [music] [music] >> In cyclrons and particle accelerators, the basic atoms which are exploded in the bomb, we are now shattering with precision and control. Particles are shot electronically down long accelerator barrels, crashing into atoms [music] and releasing the energy. We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms. So wrote author Samuel Butler in Another Age. But today, the atom is the prime source of interest for all scientists because it is at the core of all science from astronomy to zoology. The nuclear physicist is the advanced god. For no longer is any one field of science [music] isolated from another. All things are of the same stuff. These patterns inscribed by bits of a broken atom could have come from the atoms of wood or steel or clay or man. >> [music] >> What of the bomb itself? Can it be controlled for peaceful uses? Last year, in a desert salt mine near Carl'sbad, New Mexico, a small atomic bomb was exploded deep underground to test the possibility of storing the bomb's heat in the molten rock and later piping it to run generators. Such underground explosions may help reshape the earth. As a part of US Project Plowshare, a new Alaskan harbor is to be blown out by subsurfaced atomic explosion. Underground storage reservoirs will be blasted beneath the world's deserts to trap and hold water. Oil locked in the mountains of Colorado will be freed by breaking up the tar shells. And beyond plowshare, we envision underground shelters blasted into the moon. >> [music] >> But controlled explosions are only one facet [music] in control of the atom. Today, atomic plants are springing up around the world to tame the atom without a blast [music] and give a slow, steady, intense source of power. Today, electricity from reactors is being obtained in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, and California. Our new states of Alaska and Hawaii, nations like India and Israel, far from sources of fuel, are looking to the atom. Reactors can drastically [music] reduce the time for industrialization of underdeveloped nations. In the isolated Antarctic, the first atomic [music] reactor to power an entire US base has just gone into operation. [music] Submarines and ships are now powered by large atomic reactors. And in space, at the bottom of the seas, at the poles, small reactors [music] are going to work. Just constructed in the Arctic is a United States weather station [music] run by a small suitcase-sized atomic generator. This SNAP [music] power plant is not a reactor, but runs on isotopes, which heat metal to produce electricity directly. Once in place, the SNAP power plants can operate for 10 years without refueling. for unmanned satellites, boys and aircraft warning signals on [music] mountain peaks. Every great scientific truth goes through three stages, said the American naturalist Louisie Agassi in [music] the last century. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Next, they say it has been discovered before. Lastly, they say they always believed it. But who believes this yet? That the power of the sun will be duplicated on Earth. This dancing gas is about 50,000° [music] centigrade, but only a fraction of the heat of the electrified gases on the sun known as [music] plasma. Today, we are first trying to control such gases. Already developed are ion engines, which expel electrified particles like those hurled from the sun to obtain thrust for power. A beam of ion particles such as this [music] with ounces of thrust will one day accelerate a spaceship to 180,000 [music] mph to the planets and beyond. [music] But the real problem in believing is the attempt to compress [music] hot gases to 40 million degrees, as hot as the center of the sun, to hold them at that temperature until [music] they fuse. and to find something to hold them in. There's a problem, the most difficult that atomic scientists [music] face today, controlling fusion. The only use of fusion thus far has been in the hydrogen bomb. How to pinch, fuse, and contain this plasma beam. Within 7 or 8 years, we [music] will have achieved it. Then the sea, which would be a source of fusion fuel, [music] could supply power for the emerging needs of the world. There is almost no limit to the fuel in the sea. Perhaps the most beneficial outpouring of the atomic age [music] has been the radioactive isotope produced in the atomic reactor. Isotopes broadcast energy [music] that can be traced by sensitive geer counters. Isotopes are proving a most versatile tool for industry, medicine, agriculture, genetics. Waiting to be made radioactive at our atomic piles are products for testing. Pistons and tires and steel tracks so as to trace their wear and tear. Food to test preservation by radiation, animals and plants to trace their processes of life and heredity. Isotopes are following the migration of birds and insects and the flow of sewage down river [music] to track pollution of sea life. >> [music] >> But the most vital secrets [music] to be uncovered are those related to the human body itself. Isotopes trace human processes [music] and the effect of medication on those processes. A dose of [music] radioactive tracers coursing through the bloodstream can be followed so as to examine the functions of the heart, thyroid, [music] and other organs. In the study of mental illness, radioactive isotopes trace [music] out the chemistry of thought in the brain cells and so lead to an understanding [music] of their normal and abnormal processes. Isotopes placed in specific drugs help explain [music] how the drugs themselves operate in the body. Isotopes being produced today are used to follow the aging process. One day reaching the 100th birthday may not be news. And widely used but [music] bearing even greater promise are the powerful varieties of isotopes used against disease such as cancer. Radiation is directed from a cobalt isotope suspended above [music] the diseased portion of the body. When powerful radiation is directed at a cancer cell, the cell withers and [music] dies. The search is also on for radioactive drugs that will carry lethal radiation into those diseased cells [music] which are still impervious to destruction. Then atomic energy will truly [music] have been converted from a man killer to a savior of man. Hunger and disease have plagued [music] man throughout history. Radioactivity is attacking both problems. This is a [music] case in point. A major insect pest is the debilitating screworm fly, which lays its eggs in the open wounds of cattle [music] where they hatch into worms and thrive. For four years, scientists collected screwworm flies and bred [music] them in a project operated by the US Department of Agriculture in Florida, where $20 million of damage [music] to cattle was being caused each year. A factory was established where within 5 years nearly [music] 3 billion screworm flies were raised. >> [music] [music] >> Once matured, the screw worm flies were radiated by cobalt 60 isotopes. from one of our atomic piles and were made sterile. These sterile flies were packaged and then released by planes to mate with the untreated flies of the area. From that sterile mating and others, there was no offspring. Today, the screworm fly has disappeared [music] from the southeastern section of the nation. What occurred here through the use of radioactive isotopes may in conjunction with other techniques [music] lead to ridding the world of insect born diseases, malaria, chalera, sleeping sickness, tick fever, and the plague. This is the power of the atom that can deal death or do work for good or evil. The excitement [music] and fear of the atom arose only yesterday. But man has been using and fighting [music] the sea since the beginning. Indeed, here was life's beginning in the oceans that cover 3/4 of the earth, [music] yet virtually unknown beneath their surface until now. On the shores of seas teeming with fish, people still starve because the whereabouts of sea life beyond the edges [music] of the ocean is unknown. At this moment in the Indian Ocean and in the Pacific, [music] teams of oceanographers are mapping those bodies of water to locate for fishermen from the exploding populations of Asia and Africa available sources of food and fertilizer. [music] One visionary scheme is to plant barren areas of the oceans with fish life. An astounding plan to lower great deposits of contained radioactive [music] waste to the ocean floor to warm the bottom waters, raise the minerals to the surface, and bring forth fish and plant [music] life in a veritable atomic garden. The sea has as much vegetation within it as does the land. Kelp, a seaweed source of rich protein food, is today harvested by motorized barges. 30 million tons of food [music] a year are already taken from the sea. But this will be insufficient for humanity in the years ahead. What is being done here off the coast of California may be the precursor of sea farming. Floating farms of seaweed, of fish, of plankton for flour on a massive scale. [music] >> [music] >> But the sea is not only a farm for food. It is an industrial storehouse of basic [music] chemicals for drugs, for textiles, for paint, for paper. As we will plow the sea, we will mine it and distill it [music] as well. Beyond the continental shelves [music] lie the deeps of the oceans. Scientists are now pushing into these great beyonds to chart [music] the undersea mountain chains to study how the earth is changing and growing. This is the [music] terrain over which submarine warfare and anti-ubmarine defense is [music] carried out. Vast unknown. The basin of the Pacific Ocean alone great enough to unfold the entire moon. Down into the seafloor, [music] giant drills are being plunged to raise crosssections or cores of the sediment [music] from the ocean bottoms to reveal the presence of oil and valuable minerals. But more exciting, the layers of past animal and plant life [music] deposited on the ocean bottom reveal the past temperatures of the seas and when those temperatures existed. The climate on Earth when [music] life first crawled from the sea onto the land. the possibility that the Arctic Ocean was warm during the ice age. [music] The climate in Egypt when Moses left, the conditions under which the once green Sahara turned to desert. What is being learned will be used in the future, whether Britain would become subarctic if the rising [music] and falling water temperatures around her were to drop further. How much melting of the Arctic [music] ice may occur before the ports of the world are flooded. The seafloor [music] ooze is giving man a clue to the past and the future. Using [music] the same technique of cing, geoysicists are drilling below the ooze [music] towards the rocky crust of the earth to probe the secrets of the planet's very [music] creation. This is project mohole now in its early stages in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico. Before drilling, [music] soundings are made of the seafloor to find where the layers of sediment are thinnest and the rock underneath them nearest. [music] [music] The scientific teams drill in the sea rather than on dry land to avoid having to cut through the continents to the rock below. [music] Project Mohole aims to reach 3 miles into the rock and learn how the [music] Earth was formed and to find out if the more than 2,000 degree heat [music] in the lower rock can be piped to run sea laboratories and even factories on land. It will learn whether communications using the deep layers of the Earth's crust as channels could be received by submarines anywhere in the world. One day, engineers may pour concrete foundations in holes in the sea floor to support artificial islands or cities. Men are studying the sea for basic knowledge. [music] And knowledge, whether in the sea or on the moon, will eventually be used. Man has always lived with the salt sea and dreamed [music] of turning its waters to fresh. Today he has begun to do just that practically and economically. At Pointloma in California is one of four different kinds of experimental government pilot [music] plants for the desalinization of seawater. 1 million gallons a day are being purified and piped [music] to San Diego. Industrial [music] nations such as ours are facing a frightening kinship with the desert countries of the world. [music] A water shortage whose dimensions are increasing as demands grow. [music] Desalinization [music] for many nations has become a matter of survival. Imagine a subcontinent sprinkled with lakes and underground [music] reservoirs, surrounded by the ocean, yet faced with the spectre of nationwide thirst. That is Australia, almost all of whose water is saline. Imagine a [music] city in which families spend as much for their drinking water as for their electricity. That is one of several cities in Florida beside the ocean, but water starved. A valuable byproduct of desalinization [music] is the rich store of minerals obtained from the salt. The time when man can quench his [music] thirst from the sea is still distant. When inexpensive atomic power comes, the day will [music] be closer. But there is hope. Hope in fresh water such as this, meeting the [music] continued needs of life. Life is perhaps [music] the most exciting, personal, frightening secret that exists on Earth. Delving into that secret, scientists are [music] today learning how life began in the sea, developed on Earth, and how life's code and pattern is transferred from generation to generation. In the past few months, scientists have finally broken the secret of how [music] this happens. They have found how mitosis or cell division, the primary hereditary process of all living things, is [music] directed. All living cells, from the invisible bacteria to those in man, divide in the same basic way. The long twisted chromosomes in the cells bearing the pattern and secret of life split and carry the secret forward. [music] [music] This process begins in the single fertilized egg cell which eventually divides billions of times precisely pre-planned to form the stem, the leaf, the root, the heart, the [music] eye, the brain, the embryo, the living thing. It is the same for all of life's diversity. What is the [music] mechanism that has created this diversity and maintained it over billions of years that can differentiate so carefully [music] between the species that so seldom makes mistakes and that after birth makes a jellyfish function like a jellyfish? A fly like a fly, a seal like a seal, a human function like a [music] human. Basically the same but all different. Here is the answer. [music] Locked within each band or gene of this chromosome are the life carrying characteristics. [music] We have long known they were there. We have hunted them. We have located them. They are here. [music] The substance in all living things that carries the blueprint [music] is known as DNA. Disoxy ribboucleic acid. British and American scientists have [music] separated the complex molecule. They have just begun to break the full genetic code of DNA. The way in which it decides physical qualities, growth patterns, [music] and disease susceptibilities passed from parents to children. Because of the discovery and extraction of DNA, life on Earth will never [music] again be the same. Before this year is ended, scientists may have attempted to create life from simple chemicals. The prospect is [music] that sooner than later we shall alter the DNA of lower plants and animals at will and even of man himself to correct [music] physical and mental imperfections and to influence the processes of the mind. [music] The studies are going on. Correction of the DNA molecule or injection of DNA materials would [music] prevent hereditary diseases and defects that have plagued mankind. The most prevalent [music] and distressing of mental illnesses, schizophrenia arising, it is believed from hereditary faults may one day be erased in the [music] complex DNA molecule. [music] If, as conjectured, memory is also locked up [music] in the complex DNA, the magic of total recall might be achieved by drugs which would affect the DNA. [music] The wild growing cells of cancer are believed to be due to DNA malfunction. And in changing the behavior of this [music] abnormal DNA, the cure to cancer may lie. But most rife with potential for good or evil will be man's [music] ability to tinker with the mind and with life itself. This is the model of the DNA [music] molecule, a doublest stranded coiled thread that holds the code for all living things. There is the miracle of life. I will give thanks [music] unto thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. >> [music] >> This is the birth of a thunderstorm rolling in over the western plains. Through time-lapse photography, we're seeing in seconds what took place [music] in hours. If this storm could be moved 100 miles, it might save a crop desperately needing water. One [music] day soon, we may be able to form such a rainstorm over areas of our choice. [music] [music] One day we may be able to dissipate storms by firing rockets and chemicals [music] into them and destroy tornadoes and hurricanes at birth by exploding clean atomic bombs. These are thresholds for tomorrow. The weather is tied to events in the seas, on the sun, and across the earth. Today, we're getting so much data that only electronic devices can handle and distill them. This combination of data and electronics [music] has made more accurate forecasts of weather possible. But this is only a beginning. Today we see the possibility that explosions on the sun may have an effect on our hurricanes, tornadoes, and storms. Satellites will serve as watchd dogs of both the sun and the earth. Already, cloud pictures sent down by the Tyro satellite have [music] pinpointed the birth of storms. These are crystals growing into a new form of machinery with no wheels and no moving parts. These crystals are at the heart of Tyros, computers, and the modern age of electronics. Scientists have discovered that the atoms and electrons in crystals are so arranged that [music] the tiniest bits will transmit energy and even amplify it. And on them depends the new art of micro miniaturaturization, reducing large amounts of electronic equipment into the smallest possible package. Crystals have personalities as varied as people. Some carry electricity, some [music] block it. Some absorb energy and then throw it back amplified. Some absorb light to create electricity. Now we're learning to melt crystals and reform them in the composition needed to do the [music] right job. Micro miniaturaturization promises a variety of living aids. Already we have miniature hearing aids and [music] electronic canes for the blind because of crystals. Because of crystals, coronary patients have tiny heart pacers taped [music] to their chests to help correct heart action. As crystal technology advances, we approach the time when transistorized radios [music] and corrective devices will be swallowed or implanted in the body to report on health and predict illness. >> [music] >> This is a man-made crystal. It is used in miniaturized equipment such as this. Each crystal wafer [music] contains 50 circuits. Each circuit this size. Crystal wafers must be cut by [music] diamond saws to only 20,000 of an inch in thickness. But even this is not thin enough. They must then be spun on polishes to smooth them and reduce [music] their thickness. [music] [bell] Then they are segmented for each segment no matter [music] how small is sufficient to transmit and amplify energy on the crystal and [music] under a microscope. The metal wiring is then printed. On the very thinnest of crystals, the metal is merely vaporized to form electrical connections that are only molecules thick. The crystal [music] and its solid state machinery are leading on in fantastic directions. The ruby crystal [music] absorbs light, sends it back a thousand times more powerful. This ruby light can be made so tiny it can perform surgery on a single living [music] cell. and so powerful it could serve as a ray weapon to destroy spacecraft. Beams of such ordered light are being used to carry the human voice. In this experiment, scientists are talking over a beam of light emitted by a gas made to perform like a crystal. The time is approaching when a beam [music] of light shining through empty pipes will carry hundreds of television channels and hundreds of thousands of phone conversations. [music] Communications carry thought. But what is thought? It is common knowledge that a machine cannot think, really think. Or can it? This magnetic mouse run by a computer makes errors, learns from those [music] errors, and doesn't make them again as it moves toward an electronic goal at the end of the maze. >> [music] >> Even when a new problem is presented to it, the mouse searches and backtracks [music] until it comes to a point which it recognizes and then proceeds toward the goal. Is this thinking? A computer is the electronic mind of the mouse. But computers actually do the series of logical [music] tasks which men have planned for them to do, such as figuring out how to get to the end of a maze. It does tasks extremely fast, thousands of times faster [music] than a living brain. >> [music] >> Computers have formed the basis of a new billiondoll industry, providing man with an invaluable tool to extend the [music] speed and power of his thinking, his planning, his organizing, monitoring the steps by which a satellite is launched, a part manufactured, [music] an idea developed, a nation defended. But computers must be told what to do. Must be programmed by people before they can work with the facts that are to be fed into them. First there is a problem. Then the facts to be gathered. Then the variables to be [music] considered. Then the material must be discussed and analyzed and criticized by all the members of the team for months or even years. [music] This is the work of the think factory. Thousands of engineers, mathematicians, and psychologists formulating programs for the computer while the machine waits. These are the problems men are working on to be solved by the computer. How should this satellite be launched? Will this airplane wing fly at supersonic speeds? How fast will a forest fire spread on the basis of these conditions [music] of wind and humidity? [music] Can we separate correct [music] tax returns from those which underestimate income? When did the solar system begin? [music] What combination of beef, pork and ve will produce the most profitable hot dog? [music] With what design should this chemical plant [music] be constructed after the first 5 minutes of a surprise enemy attack? What industries, what roads, what railroads would be destroyed? How [music] many people would die? Could the nation survive? >> [music] >> A computer is an electronic device that can store information in an [music] electronic form and use it in a logical way. [music] Programs and data fed into computers are from the files in men's minds. >> [music] [music] >> These are human facts, human questions, human problems that this new adjunct of the human brain is helping to solve. This is a computer automated freight yard. Freight out of Michigan, Delaware, Saskatchewan. [music] Cars of the Southern Pacific, New York Central, Lacawana, uncoupled, rolled, switched, speeded, weighed, shunted, hooked up again, and sent rolling away automatically. [music] [music] Much that is within these cars was produced with the help of computers and automation. Steel rolled automatically. Aircraft and auto parts manufactured automatically. Oil cracked for gasoline automatically. Paper mil automatically. [music] A concordance to the Bible prepared by computer printed [music] automatically. Untouched by human hands. [music] A heck of a way to run a railroad. [music] Untouched by human hands. Not by a long shot. Man still [music] makes the railroad run, but supported by electronic machines that [music] were programmed by men. >> [music] >> I don't do anything but press those two buttons. Sometimes I use my thumbs, sometimes I use my wrists, and sometimes I lay my whole arm across. Only time I sweat anymore is when the sun is 10 and something outside. These computers [music] are taking complex specifications to program an automatic machine tooling operation. In the future lie industries which are planned, fed, and operated by computers, and machines which will actually repair and reproduce themselves, a blessing. [music] and a problem, one of the biggest management and labor will be facing. The president and Congress have recognized that automation must not be used against man, but for man, so that we may all benefit from what automation can bring us in the years ahead. The endless accumulation [music] of facts cluting our libraries, industries, and laboratories is being computerized, not only microfilmed [music] and stored, but also retrieved for men who need answers. There will be computers [music] to find legal data for court cases and even to suggest possible judicial decisions for lawyers and judges. There will be computer medical centers to which doctors can submit data on their patients and [music] receive back suggested diagnosis. That time is not yet with us. When it arrives, will man be dwarfed [music] by the machine? Our most complex computer is not as [music] complex as a single brain cell. And the brain has a billion cells. In the realm of thinking, [music] man still stands preeminent. What is thinking and learning? These two young people [music] appear vastly different in size, yet they are not. The floor is tilted and the perspective purposely confused. Using facts and logic, your mind comes to the truth. Today, [music] when so much depends on the mind, scientists are trying to learn how we think. Zoolologists are learning about learning from the octopus. Into the pool, a white disc is lowered in the vicinity of a crab, which the octopus wants. When the disc is [music] present, the octopus is shocked as it touches the crab. Soon the octopus [music] knows not to go for the crab when the white disc is in the pool. It has learned to avoid danger. Memory and learning are evidently stored in some part of the brain. So, the zoologologist removes a lobe of the octopus's brain suspected of storing [music] the memory. If this is correct, the octopus will have forgotten his lesson. The test is repeated. [music] The octopus has forgotten. On higher animals such as monkeys, more complex experiments are being pursued. Every part of the brain gives off electrical impulses, but the pulse of these waves varies at times of learning, excitement, or sleep. [music] >> [music] >> Electrodes are connected to various regions of the monkeykey's [music] brain. These lead to an electrophilograph machine which keeps a record of the impulses. Stress reaction is to be studied as the monkey is whirled in a centriuge. [music] What is being learned about how the brain operates [music] under stress will help in preparing man for voyages to outer space. One day, astronauts brain waves will be monitored and they will be told when they are unable to perform efficiently [music] and to switch to automatic controls. [music] Neurologists are also studying the way in which the human brain reacts and makes decisions. Electrodes are attached to the skull and other parts of the body. This is an attempt to relate brain wave patterns and physical reactions [music] to learning and stress. A flashing light will be followed by a loud noise and the woman will learn through experience [music] to avoid the noise by pressing a switch off button when the light is seen. [music] The minute electric currents set up in her brain as she reacts and learns are picked up by the electrodes and recorded. >> [music] >> The problem has been mastered. The brain wave recorded for study. Study into the electricity and chemistry of the brain is leading to [music] an understanding of the mind. It has shown that the brain waves of schizophrenics and extreme juvenile delinquents differ from normal brain waves. Drugs are perhaps [music] the leading aid to therapy today. Here, two wild monkeys are to be injected, each with a different new drug. In the first monkey, injection of one drug has made his fear disappear. In the other, the second drug has not only made his fear [music] disappear, but has made him lethargic as well. The results of this research with animals [music] have already been put into use in treatment of the mentally ill. Thousands of Americans are [music] now patients in mental hospitals. An estimated 18 million more need help. [music] The new chemicals have permitted thousands of patients to live at home while their treatment continues. Learning in today's world has become increasingly complex. There is more to learn and more people to [music] be taught. Teachers have been harder to come by than students. [music] And so, scientific ingenuity has been at work creating assistant teachers [music] to make learning go further and faster. We're on the threshold of the era of the teaching machine by which programmed information is [music] presented mechanically or electronically. [music] Results have been astonishing. A one-year 8th grade algebra [music] course completed in 6 months without homework. A logic course finished in onethird of the time with higher average grades. More complex electronic machines linked to computers offer [music] a wider latitude of information with visual aids and sound. [music] With such machines, instructors are relieved of the burden of wrote [music] teaching and students by learning at their own pace are relieved of the anxiety of keeping up with the class [music] and they do better. The machines also judge whether answers are right, wrong or incomplete, [music] what lessons should be restudied and automatically grade the student. [music] [music] These teaching machines even have emotional responses programmed into them. Congratulations, your automated history lesson is ended. The teacher is not replaced [music] by mechanical progress. He is given more time to concentrate on creative teaching. Language laboratories utilizing tape recorders [music] are being established at schools and universities in order to teach foreign languages. Students can record their pronunciation and compare it with master takes and the instructor can listen in to check on the progress. >> Most of the class hour is spent in speaking the language. Basic conversation can be mastered in a few weeks. A supplementary system in which teaching tapes are played at night while the student sleeps has resulted in full language facility in two months. In the classroom, the students practice can be piped to the entire class so that all can compare how they're progressing. automated teaching machines tomorrow will go far beyond this. A central computer will teach and administer an entire school district. >> [screaming] >> To understand learning better, scientists have begun to listen to porpuses with respect. For we've recently found that porpuses speak a sort of [music] baby squawk that seems possible of translation. If man could learn to converse with the porpus, as the Navy is attempting to do, the animals natural underwater tracking [music] ability used to catch fish might be utilized. Porpuses could search out mines and other dangerous [music] objects and report back to a submarine or ship. >> Porpuses can be taught in only a few hours to associate sounds of words with their objects, a ball, a ring, [music] a hat, and then retrieve them on order. The learning ability of the porpus has been found to equal that of a 6 to 8year-old child. [screaming] One startling finding has been the apparent ability of the porpus to mimic the human voice. When tapes of the porpus' voice have been slowed down, they seem to reveal words used by THE TRAINER. [screaming] EXPERIMENTS ON how the porpus swims have been equally [music] startling. It is more efficient than the best designed torpedoes. The secret seems to lie in the skin which [music] can be inflated, hardened or rippled when the porpus wants to speed, turn, or stop. If one designed a ship with such a changeable skin, [music] it would have unparalleled efficiency. That is what the Navy hopes to do. This new field of biionics, the study of animal systems so that men can duplicate [music] them, is being pursued intensively by the military. They're studying the sonarlike voices of bats and owls, the infrared sensing tongue of the snake, the eye of the beetle, and the [music] ear of the moth. The animal world is being looked at a new as man seeks knowledge and attempts to apply it. [laughter] These are exciting times in [music] the history of that small water species which crawled onto the shores of land and flourished and grew to be [music] a man. The mind has fostered the survival of man and he still survives and is powerful. [music] Now our power is being extended by machines which given logical goals in advance can even at times surpass us. [music] But machines have no humor, no compassion, [music] no ethics, no morality, no urge to say, "Let's stop playing chess and discuss an idea together," or try and perhaps fail. But, said Robert [music] Browning, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp." Or, "What's a heaven for?" [music] The searching is [music] at the heart of it. Not for a heaven on earth, but for what? Certainly for that intangible element known as human progress or happiness. [music] There are so many ideas everywhere and there is adventure in ideas when men reach for them and build with them. So many [music] ideas spring up from scientists that the mind boggles at the prospects and the dangers. For there is danger in thought. [music] There has always been. If a little knowledge is dangerous, wrote Thomas Huxley, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger? [music] Rather, it is with ourselves that the safety, the progress, the happiness lies within our minds [music] which have conjured up the present and can control its future. We retain freedom to think, not the [music] machine. Ours is the responsibility to be wise, of our youth, to learn and prepare. [music] If man could grasp the power of matter and the secret of life itself, surely he can forge [music] his own destiny for the sake of God and men. Wisdom, the proverbs tell us, wisdom is the principle thing. Therefore, get [music] wisdom and with all thy getting, get understanding. Heat. Heat. [music] [music] >> [music] >> Heat [music] [music] [music] [music] up here. >> [music] >> was produced by NBC News which is solely responsible for its content.