Mr. Wizard's World

Flash Paper - Mr. Wizard crumples paper into a ball to simulate a shooting star. He explains that a real shooting star burns because of the friction of the atmosphere as stellar dust enters it. He gives Leila a large sheet of Flash Paper to burn which produces a huge flame. Mr. Wizard illustrates the concept of inertia by showing Christian a cup on top of which is a block of plastic supporting an orange. Using the handle of the broom, Mr. Wizard knocks the plastic out of the way so that the orange drops into the cup. Inertia keeps the orange in place and once the plastic block is started, inertia keeps it moving out of the way. You know where to locate the Panama Canal. It’s the man-made waterway that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific across the Isthmus of Panama. As the ship leaves the Atlantic to go the fifty one miles to the Pacific, is it going east or west? Hero’s Voice - Scott is given a remote control to a robot. It enters the room and introduces itself. It's name is Hero. Scott attaches the remote control. The side of the robot is opened to reveal the unit which controls speech. Mr. Wizard instructs Scott as he programs Hero. The robot repeats all the sounds of which it is capable. Scott moves the dial that controls pitch and speed. Nipple Expansion - Tanis is asked to guess how much gas is in a 12 oz. can of soda. She makes a guess based on volume marks on the side of a nursing bottle. She pours the soda into the nursing bottle and Mr. Wizard caps it with the nipple without a hole in it. Tanis shakes the bottle. The pressure of the gas released by the agitation expands the nipple until all of the 12 ounces of the liquid flows into the enlarged nipple. Exercise For Cows: Well, cows jog along at two to four miles an hour on a special track developed by dairy scientists at Utah State University and the U.S. Agricultural Service. Years ago, dairy cows moved around in packers but today they are kept in pens and fed a prepared diet. As a result, they’re out of shape. Before putting a cow on a jogging program, scientists check its heart with an electrocardiogram. Doctors recommend a similar test for people before they start jogging. They record data on the cows before and after exercise to find out if there is any correlation between running speed, distance, and milk produc­tion. Reaction Time - Carolyn is shown a simple way to measure reaction time. She is to touch numbered squares out of numerical order on a piece of paper. Her first try times out at 12 seconds. Try #2 is seven seconds. Try #3 is four seconds. Obviously, practice can reduce reaction time. Mr. Wizard holds a ruler with marks that indicate how far it has fallen and thus how much time has elapsed. When he lets it fall, Carolyn is to catch it as quickly as she can. Her reaction time averages about .2 second.

Sugar AND Acid - Tanis holds sugar in aluminum foil with lab tongs over flame at the stove. It turns black. Mr. Wizard explains sugar is made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. When you heat up sugar, you drive off oxygen and hydrogen, leaving the carbon. Straw Oboe - Mr.Wizard and Eugene make straw oboes by pinching the tips and cutting off the corners of the flat part at 45 degree angles. They each blow into their straw oboes and create sounds. Ant Farmers: It’s obvious why this ant is called a leaf cutter. With its special jaws, it can quickly cut off a section of leaf the right size to carry away. The ant itself or another one waiting below will carry the piece of leaf to the colony’s underground nest. They’re so efficient, they have been known to strip a farmer’s grove completely bare of leaves in a single night. Rolling Pin Code - Leila is confronted by a strip of paper with letters of the alphabet on it. It's a message with the letters rearranged. Mr.Wizard wraps the paper around a cardboard tube. The letters line up but make no sense because it’s the wrong cylinder. Equal Solids - Christian identifies small plastic geometric figures as a cylinder, cube, cone, sphere, a rectangular solid, and a pyramid. Mr. Wizard asks him to guess which is the biggest and which the smallest. Christian chooses the rectangular solid as the biggest and the sphere as the smallest. Hawaiian Volcano - When there is a violent eruption of a Hawaiian volcano, molten lava from deep within the earth spews forth with awesome power. As the hot lava works its way to the surface, gases that have been under tremendous pressure are suddenly released. The lava is blasted into the air. Remember, this is rock. Heated to as much as 2,000 degrees Fahr­enheit, the rock becomes a thick gooey fluid that pours out of the vent and collects within the crater. Swallow Upside Down - Heather bites into an apple and is asked to take a breath and swallow at the same time. She tries and declares: It doesn't work! Inside her throat is a sort of trap door that closes when she swallows to prevent food from entering her lungs. Mr. Wizard demonstrates how food goes from mouth to stomach by having Heather squeeze a marble down and then up an uninflated balloon. He has her stand on her head as he feeds her apple pieces. She chews and swallows them up to her stomach. Crush Egg - Michael is challenged to crush an egg with his hand. Hard as he tries, he finds he can't do it. He breaks the egg into a dish to prove that it was a real egg. He can't break the egg because the pressure of his hand is spread over the entire surface of the egg. The egg also has a strong shell, a liquid inside (a liquid is very difficult to compress), and finally, it is dome‑shaped - a strong form.

Homemade Volcano -Michael has made a volcano out of paper mache, vinegar, and baking soda. Mr. Wizard's is made of asbestos paper. Michael fills the crater of the model with ammonium dichromate and Mr. Wizard adds broken up sparklers (Michael calls them sparklees). They add a gunpowder fuse. Michael lights the fuse while Mr. Wizard turns out the lights. The model erupts with flashes of fire and sparks. Dropper Diver - A medicine dropper is suspended in a transparent plastic bottle filled with water. Mr. Wizard contends it is a magic medicine dropper that rises and falls on command. Gia is doubtful. How Many Stars? -When you look up at the sky at night, how many stars can you see? On a moonless night with no clouds you could count as many as 3,000 stars but that is not even the half of it. On the other side of the earth you could count 3,000 more. Heat Spiral - Billy describes a Christmas ornament that works on the same principle as the paper heat spiral going around on top of a lamp. Mr. Wizard shows him how to make the spiral out of paper. They examine a spool and pencil set on top of a lamp shade. A needle has been inserted into the eraser. On the needle he places a needle and sets it spinning to show that the combination is a good bearing because there is little friction. He adds the paper spiral to the thimble. It spins because the light bulb heats the air around it making the air expand. Heat From Your Body - Stacey examines a chart with the recommended number of calories for boys and girls of varying ages. Stacey is 12 years old so she needs 1,200 calories per day. They are going to illustrate each form of heat transfer using a hot electric iron. If she touched the iron, heat would be transferred to it by conduction; hand over hot iron, convection; alcohol on hand feels cool, evaporation; hand near iron, radiation. Paper Fold - Warren is challenged to fold a piece of paper more than eight times. Warren knows the trick and folds it only six times. Computer Plane - This is an outline of the supersonic airplane but not a real one. It’s a mathemati­cal model of the plane that was fed into a computer along with the calculated stresses on the surfaces indicated by the various colors. With the computer controls, the model can be rotated and flexed to see what happens to the stresses. Walk Through Paper - Leila is told to cut a hole in an 8½ by 11‑inch piece of paper big enough to walk through. She says it's impossible and cuts a large circular hole which obviously is much too small to walk through. Mr. Wizard shows her a pattern of cuts that are a series of slits resembling a maze. After making the cuts, the opening is large enough to put over her head and down over her body. She steps out of it. Mr. Wizard produces a paper already cut with slits that are closer together. They drape the cut paper around the doorway. The hole is large enough for Leila to jump through.

Dry Ice Fog - A paper fence on the floor is to keep in a cloud, because they're going to experiment with dry ice, so called because it changes from a solid directly to a gas and does not melt. Stacey drops a small piece into a jar of hot water. The white bubbles are filled with carbon dioxide gas and water vapor. She adds a little detergent to the jar. Copious bubbles are produced which roll down the sides of the jar. They add many pieces of dry ice to the sink full of hot water. Water vapor spills out of the sink onto the floor. They appear to be walking in a cloud. Napkin Suction - Anna puts a drop of water on a paper towel which absorbs the water. They briefly discuss capillary action. Mr. Wizard has her fill a glass to the top with water. He places four pieces of paper towel on a saucer. Anna inverts the saucer and papers and places them over the glass. Mr. Wizard inverts the whole set up. They note that some of the water is absorbed by the towel producing a partial vacuum. Anna picks up the glass. Air pressure has glued the saucer to it. CRAWLING CELL - This is not a close-up of the sun or a picture of an explosion. It is a living individual cell similar to those you have inside of you. The cell is that round part in the middle and those lines around it are the result of an experiment by Dr. Albert Harris. COMPUTER GRAPH - Stacey enters with a list of students and grades from a science test. She wants to make a bar graph. Mr. Wizard shows how to enter the data into the computer. Stacey reads the instructions from the computer screen and enters the proper information. They print out the results which Stacey will take to class. STARCH TEST - On the table are samples of flour, sugar, typing paper, soda cracker, and aspirin. Angela knows starch comes from corn and wheat, is in foods like spaghetti, and is put on clothes to make them stiff. When iodine combines with starch, a blue black color is produced. Angela is challenged to determine which of the five items contain starch. LIZARD AUTOPSY - Lizards like this one live in the warm regions of every continent. But this one lives in the National Zoo in Washington, DC. And one of its cage mates that appeared to be healthy has just died. Why? FIND YOUR PULSE - As clues to guessing his heart rate, Mr. Wizard asks Michael to compare animals of different sizes and their heart rates: baboon = 100 times per minute; lion = 50; elephant = 25. Michael notes the smaller the animal the faster its heart beats. He guesses his beats 75 times per minute because he figures he is a little smaller than a baboon whose rate is 100 beats per minute.

HOT AIR BALLOON - Scott and Jason prepare to launch a hot air balloon made of paper. The launcher is a stove pipe with a base of bricks. Mr. Wizard instructs Scott to light the newspaper inside the brick base. Jason holds the balloon open over the top of the cylinder. As the air inside the balloon is heated, it weighs less than an equal volume of cooler air. Gravity pulls the colder air down and the warmer air is forced upward carrying the balloon along with it. NYC to TOKYO - Tanis is asked to select the shortest route from New York to Tokyo and determine if it would go over California, British Columbia, or Alaska. She says it looks like the shortest route would be over California, but says she took a trip with her father from Calgary to Germany and flew over Greenland. She's not sure why. Mr. Wizard explains that the wall map is a Mercator projection that distorts areas. WHISPERING TUBE - Mr.Wizard speaks through a paper tube and says: Now hear this. Now hear this. Billy recognizes it as a message on a ship and assumes tubes are used in case microphones are knocked out, they can still communicate. HERO’S HAND - Leila is introduced to Hero, a robot designed to teach robotics. Mr. Wizard asks her if she'd like a glass of milk. Hero has been programmed to serve it. Leila pushes a button on the robot. It picks up a glass of milk, turns to Leila, and sets the glass down in front of her. Leila says: Thank you. ROBOTS IN THE FACTORY - Watch this welder at work. Each weld will be exactly in the right place and its all done by a machine with no one at the controls. That is one definition of a robot. How does it know exactly where each weld is supposed to be? OPTICAL ILLUSION - Mr.Wizard has drinking straws lined up on the table and asks Stacey to pick the longest. She assumes they are the same length. He cautions her that he expected she would know about optical illusions and so could fool her. He points out he could have cut off one of the straws. She thinks he is simply trying to trick her. She uses another straw to compare the two in the illusion. She finds one straw much shorter than the other. I-BEAM - Michael is to be an engineer and build a bridge over an imaginary river between two bricks using three pieces of wood. He puts a single piece of wood between the bricks. It sags when he steps on it. He adds strength with a second and then the third piece of wood. The bridge still sags. Mr.Wizard explains I-Beams.

FIRE WRITING - Mr. Wizard shows Christian a sheet of paper on which a solution of potassium nitrate was painted and allowed to dry. Christian touches various points on the paper with a lighted punk. The paper burns only where there is potassium nitrate because it releases extra oxygen and that section burns forming a trail. PAPER TOWEL TUBE - Angela examines a paper tube from inside a roll of paper toweling. Mr. Wizard shows her a picture of three geometric figures and asks her to define them. She names and defines a rectangle, a parallelogram, and a trapezoid. She is to guess which shape will be formed when she opens the tube along the spiral line produced when the tube was formed. She guesses it will be a parallelogram. They open up the tube. She sees that the two sets of the opposite sides are parallel, therefore it is a parallelogram. FISH BOMBING RUN - This plane is on an unusual mission: a bomb run in the rocky mountains of Colorado. The target is that lake down below. The pilot, Wayne Russell, of the Colorado State Division of Wildlife starts his dive. He has to be about 100 feet over the water and flying no faster than 80 miles per hour. Then bombs away! HOW A BIRD FLIES - A flying bird on a video monitor helps Mr. Wizard pose the problem of how a bird can fly. He has Jennifer blow over a piece of paper to reduce the air pressure there. The normal pressure underneath forces it up. She blows over paper curved like a wing shape which also moves upward. They look at a real bird's wing and note it's shape. Jennifer asks what makes the bird move forward? IMPOSSIBLE HOLES - Scott is going to cut a piece of paper to make it look like another piece in which there appears to be two impossible holes. A sheet of paper is plain on one side plain and the striped on the other. While hiding it from Scott, Mr. Wizard folds it to produce the strange holes. When Scott can see the finished piece, he realizes how one side of the paper has been turned over after it has been cut. Mr. Wizard shows him how to cut, fold, and flip one side of the paper to make two “impossible” holes. BLEACH ART - Leila is not impressed with the artistic quality of the art work Mr. Wizard has displayed around the kitchen. He challenges her to paint something of her own using construction paper and bleach. The chlorine in the bleach breaks down water (H20) releasing the oxygen which does the actual bleaching. She uses various common items to paint her own design on a sheet of construction paper. Mr. Wizard tries to guess what it is until Leila identifies it as a jellyfish. WOOLLY APHIDS - What look like balls of wool are the so‑called woolly aphids, small insects that suck plant juices. Ants milk the aphids for the sweet liquid they excrete and attack and kill any insect that might prey on the aphids. TRICKS WITH GRAVITY - Tanis tries to get up from a chair while Mr. Wizard holds his index finger on her forehead. She can't get up. She gets up from a chair and notes how she shifts her center of gravity from the seat to her feet in order to stand up. COMPUTER EXPLOSION – Mr. Wizard narrates a computer’s description of pressure and indicated explosions. HOME MADE FIRE EXTINGUISHER – Mr. Wizard shows Christian how to use water, vinegar and sodium bicarbonate to make a home-made fire extinguisher.

FIREPROOF HANDKERCHIEF - Michael touches a lighted match to a handkerchief. A flame covers the handkerchief which is not even scorched. Mr. Wizard shows him the mixture of alcohol and water into which the handkerchief was dipped. He explains that the alcohol burns at a relatively low temperature. The water on the handkerchief keeps it from reaching its kindling tempera­ture. That's why the handkerchief doesn't burn. FLASHED SIGN - A cardboard sign is flashed several times at Arlette. She attempts to read what is on the sign. Each time she says: A dog is man's best friend. When Mr. Wizard holds the sign up for her to read slowly, she realizes that the is is repeated. Only when Mr. Wizard points to each word does she see that the last word is fiend and not friend. FISHING BEARS - A study shows what happens when 70 or 80 brown bears come together to fish for the salmon swimming upstream to spawn. The scientists keep their distance so as not to interfere with the bears normal be­havior. BALANCE GLASS ON CARD - Nicola is challenged to balance a glass on a playing card. Mr. Wizard shows her that it can be done. She knows it must be a trick, because it would be impossible to balance a glass on a card because it's so thin. LYE AND ALUMINUM - Christian, wearing safety gloves, sprays a long sheet of aluminum foil with oven cleaner in spite of the fact that Mr. Wizard points out that he is doing what is not supposed to be done. Christian crumples the foil into a ball. He then reads the instructions on the spray can which cautions not to spray on aluminum. The crumpled foil begins to smoke and bubble. WATER HYACINTH - This is one of the fastest growing plants in the world. A single plant like this can double its weight in just seven to ten days. It was brought to the United States about one hundred years ago. TASTE AND SMELL - Mr.Wizard dries Tanis’s tongue and on it places white powder. After she swallows, she identifies it as sugar. They note that she couldn't tell what it was until she swallowed and her tongue became wet. In order for her to taste anything, it must be dissolved either in water (as in a soft drink) or in the saliva in her mouth. FLIGHT SIMULATOR - You’re a Navy pilot flying over the ocean in the middle of the night. Down there ahead of you is your carrier and you’re coming in for a landing. But you’re not in a plane. You’re playing a computer game with a serious purpose. You’re in a flight simulator. BREAKING A SLAT - A piece of plywood is on the table with a few inches of it over the edge of the table. Mr. Wizard asks Jennifer what will happen when he hits the part over the edge with his hand.

HOMEMADE HYDROGEN - Mr. Wizard shows Christian how to make homemade hydrogen using safety glasses and always in the presence of a teacher or adult. ICE CUBE LIFT - Michael tries to remove an ice cube from a glass of water with a short string. Mr. Wizard explains that he will need salt in order to lift the ice cube. WHAT'S THIS ? - Can you recognize this portrait of a famous person? What’s the minimum amount of info needed to make out this face? KITCHEN GEYSER - Mr. Wizard shows Carolyn a homemade geyser. On the stove is a large beaker of boiling water with an upside down funnel in it. When there's enough steam pres­sure inside the funnel, the water in the stem is pushed up and out the top producing the effect of a geyser. BALLOON INTO BOTTLE - Paul is supposed to get a balloon filled with water into a bottle. The balloon is much too big to go into the neck of the bottle. Mr.Wizard performs one of his most famous tricks. WHITE CELLS - These are germs that could be inside of you right now. With time lapse photography they’re multiplying faster than normal but it’s been estimated that inside every human being there are more bacteria than all the people whoever lived. STRONG SALT - Tanis puts a piece of tissue paper over the end of a cardboard tube securing it with a rubber band. Tanis pushes a piece of a broom stick through the tube as a plunger and punches out the tissue paper. Mr.Wizard helps her replace the tissue paper and Tanis adds a couple inches of table salt to the tube. Much to her surprise, she finds she can't break the tissue paper over the end! CURVES OF CONSTANT WIDTH - Mr.Wizard shows Christian how 2 figures with equal diameters create smooth movements. LONG LETTERS - Shana tries to read a sign with tall, narrow letters. Mr.Wizard shows her the trick to reading the letters.

RADIO CONTROLLED PLANE - Mr. Wizard shows Jason how to fly his radio-controlled model airplane. SQUARE ON BALLOON - Mr. Wizard shows Angela how inflating and deflating the balloon changes the legibility of images on it’s surface. ARMADILLO PATIENT - The armadillo is one of the very few known animals that can become infected with leprosy. Dr. Eleanor Stores investigates how to fight leprosy in the armored tanks of the animal world — the armadillo. FOLDED PAPER FLIPS - Mr. Wizard shows Nicola a piece of paper with an arrow pointing up drawn on it. He shows her a trick way to fold the paper that turns the arrow down. VECTREX DRAWING - Mr. Wizard explains that behind the computer monitor screen an electron beam moves back and forth very quickly to sense where the light pen is and recording its position that resembles drawing a line. OLDEST LIVING THING - As you drive through California’s Mojave Desert, you see creosote bushes. Dr. Frank Vasek, a botanist, carefully measured the probable age of one such bush and found it to be almost 1,200 years old. The oldest living thing on earth — a creosote bush. TOUCH - Mr. Wizard explains to Stacey through the use of pins, just how sensitive the human body is to touch. SECRET INKS - Mr. Wizard shows Eugene how liquids such as orange and grapefruit juice, milk, and sugar water can be used as secret inks. FIREPROOF MONEY - Mr. Wizard shows Arlette play money that supposedly will not burn. Arlette doubts it. Watch Mr. Wizard prove paper money won’t burn under a match flame.

HOMEMADE HOT AIR BALLOON – Mr. Wizard shows Michael a plastic garment bag from a dry cleaner can act as a Hot Air Balloon. GLUE POWERED WATER BUGS - Mr. Wizard uses (lycopodium) powder and glue on the surface of water that creates surface tension tension . The chemical is added to the glue to make sure it wets the surface onto which it is applied. When the drop of glue is placed on water they appear to be like water bugs. APPLE FLOWER - This is what is left of a flower that has been under your nose many times. The parts you can see here are the anthers and the sepals The other parts have grown into a fruit that is so heavy that it hangs upside down on the tree. BINARY NUMBERS - Computers can't read decimal numbers. Instead they read binary numbers so called because they are represented by a series of switches which are either on or off. Mr. Wizard shows Jason 0 through 9 in binary. LUNG CAPACITY - Mr. Wizard explains that the expanding diaphragm makes more room in your chest and outside air pressure forces air into the lungs. When the diaphragm moves upward, some of the air is forced out. To illustrate, he has Michael inhale and exhale. INDESTRUCTABLE CONTAINER - You’ve seen products torture tested but nothing like what this container goes through. It’s slammed into armored plated concrete. It’s cracked. It’s punctured with a steel spike. It’s slashed by a metal eye beam. It’s burned in a roaring fire and finally held under water for eight hours. Yet after going through all that, its contents are still unharmed. What’s all the testing about? SPOON INTO GLASS - Stacey is challenged to get a spoon into a glass without touching the spoon. The secret is to use a second spoon as a lever. SUSPENDED BOOK - Mr. Wizard and Tanis hold up a book using a rope and note that it sags in the middle like the cables of a suspension bridge, clothesline, or a chain between two posts. Mr.Wizard explains what a vector is and that scientists diagram its force by the length and direction of an arrow.

DANCING SPAGHETTI - A large container of water has two tablespoons of baking soda dissolved in it. Vinegar and baking soda, an acid and base, when mixed, produce carbon dioxide gas. Tanis breaks up spaghetti and adds the pieces to the beaker slightly heavier than water. She predicts that when vinegar is added to the water, the carbon dioxide gas will cling to the spaghetti floating it to the top of the solution. She adds the vinegar. They add moth balls to the water. They go up and down with the spaghetti. CENTIPEDES - Centipede means 100 feet in Latin. Quick quiz: Do centipedes actually have 100 feet? DRIBBLE GLASS - Mr. Wizard shows Eugene a glass jar submerged in a sink of water. He lifts the upside down jar partially out of the water and notes that the water level does not fall because air pressure can support the weight of the water. When he raises a plastic glass partially out of the water, the water remains in the glass. falls. Mr. Wizard explains that he made a hole in the glass. When he lifted the glass, he held a finger over the hole so no air could flow in. When Eugene tried it, he didn't cover the hole. PAPER CLIP JOIN - Mr. Wizard folds a piece of paper and places a large and small paper clip on it. He asks Jennifer which paper clip will go the greatest distance when the paper is pulled so as to unfold it. She guesses the big one. When the paper is pulled, the two clips fly off but are linked together! HIBERNATION - By the time the ground is covered with snow , many animals have migrated to warmer climate. But not all of them. Some are tucked snugly under the snow spending the winter in a sleep-like state called hibernation. HERO COUNTS - Christian describes a horse he saw at a circus who responded to its trainer calling out three by moving his foot three times. Christian taps the plastic bucket with a soup ladle three times. The robot, Hero, says three. Christian taps the bucket several more times and the computer answers correctly each time. Finally, the robot says: I am getting tired of this game. Let's try something else. WHAT DO YOU HEAR? - Mr.Wizard tells Leila that her brain makes many quick calculations and that they are going to test the combination of her brain and ear in a hearing test by clicking spoons behind her head. THE PITCHER PLANT - You probably recognize these as belonging to the famous pitcher plant family. This variety grows in bogs of the northern United States and southern Canada. Basically, a sweet smelling nectar attracts insects. Once inside, the insects slide down the slippery walls into the water at the bottom. Downward pointing hairs prevent it from escaping and it soon drowns. Digesting enzymes and bacteria in the water will gradually digest the yellow jackets trapped by the innocent-looking pitcher plant. DROP BALLS AND CARD - Leila, at the top of a slide at the playground, gets ready to drop a softball and a piece of cardboard at the same time. Mr. Wizard wants Michael to guess which object will hit the ground first.

LIGHT SCULPTURE - Jason and Mr. Wizard examine a light sculpture by Bill Parker in which electrical arcs of various colors appear inside a glass sphere. PAPER PLATE ILLUSION - Two identical pieces from the rim of a paper plate are held one above the other. Which is longer? BACTERIA STICKER - This is a much magnified view of a bacterium. If it multiplies inside of you and makes you sick, it’s sometimes called a germ. FLASH FILL - Stacey can easily identify which of the two photos Mr. Wizard has shot of her was taken with flash because she can see both sides of her face. ICE CUBE STICK - Mr.Wizard and Leila squeeze cubes together to the count of twenty seconds. When they examine the cubes, they find the pressure has melted the two surfaces. When the pressure was removed, they were frozen together. CHILDHOOD OF A CHIMP - A man puts on a black mask. Another man puts on a white mask. They enter a bare room and sit on two squares painted on the floor. What do you suppose they are up to? A clue! A young chimpanzee is put into the room with them. Watch! COMPUTER WORD PROCESSING - Stacey at the computer automatically changes the same word in each of several sentences. Mr. Wizard identifies the operation as global search and replace, meaning the word processor searches the whole document for the old word and replaces each one with the new word. POUR ALONG STRING - Surface Tension. Mr.Wizard has him put a glass rod at the top of the glass and then pour the water. The water runs down the rod and into the measuring cup.

GIANT BUBBLES - At a picnic table Mr. Wizard and Scott are making very large bubbles. Scott writes down the formula: six parts distilled water, one part clear dish washing soap, and one part glycerin to be mixed and allowed to set overnight. WATER STRIDER - You may have seen this small insect skimming over the surface of a pond or a stream. It’s a water strider that can walk on water without even getting its feet wet because, as you can see, it doesn’t break the surface. BANANA SURPRISE - Scott peels a banana only to find that it has been sliced while still inside the skin! Mr. Wizard shows him how to use a needle and thread to pierce the skin and pull the thread through, cutting the banana. HERO FOLLOWS - Heather calls Hero, the robot, to her as if it were a pet. The robot maintains its distance from her as she steps toward and away from it. The robot is sending out a high frequency sound to stay a given distance from her. SNAKE TRACKER -In front of you is one of the deadliest snakes in North America — an eastern diamondback rattlesnake. You can’t spot it because it blends so well with its surroundings. If you had taken a couple of steps forward, you have been bitten because there it is right there. How can you locate a snake if you can’t see it? UPHILL FUNNEL - Funnels taped together appear to roll uphill on a ramp. Paul measures the distance from the center of the funnels when they are at both ends of the ramp and determines that the funnels are actually rolling downhill. As the funnels roll forward, they roll downward through the space between the two sides of the converging ramp. MUSCLE PAIRS - Mr. Wizard points out that his arm muscles are constantly making adjustments when he tries to hold still. WING BEE - During the hunting season, sportsmen all across the country gather the wings of the birds they’ve killed. The scientists record the species, age, and location of each bird. The survey gives wildlife managers a picture of the waterfowl harvest so they can realistically plan for the next hunting season. BOTTLE PICK UP - Mr. Wizard challenges Leila to pick up a glass soda bottle with a drinking straw.

POLARIZING FILTER - Jason looks at the surface of a small wading pool through a pair of polarizing glasses. He notices that the reflection disappears with the glasses on and he can see a rock in the center of the pool with greater detail. PHONE BUTTON TONES - Stacey dials 12 by pushing the 1 and 2 keys at the same time on a touch tone phone connected to an amplifier. The same tone is produced when Stacey presses 2 and 3 at the same time. She finds that each row of buttons has its own tone and when a single button is pressed, the sound is a combination of tones from the rows in each direction. PATIENT SIMULATOR - Meet Harvey, a patient who never gets well even though he’s been given thousands of medical examina­tions. In fact, Harvey’s job is to be sick… BALANCING TRICKS - Mr.Wizard balances a small piece of wood in the shape of a quotation mark on Jennifer's finger by adding a belt to the slotted section. Jennifer is able to balance a toothpick stuck into a potato in which are two forks. Mr. Wizard supports a coat hanger with the center covered with paper. A plumb bob hangs down over the paper. Jennifer draws a line on the paper alongside the string of the plumb bob as they suspend it from three different positions. They note the point at which all three lines cross. This is the center of gravity of the coat hanger. SEEING STEAM - In describing what is happening to water in a kettle on the stove, Billy says he sees steam coming from the top. Mr. Wizard points out that what he can see is not steam. SPOTTER PIGEONS - You’re flying over the open ocean on a rescue mission with the U.S. Coast Guard. There’s a man down there in the water somewhere in that very big ocean. It may take hours of searching and if you stop concentrating or glance down on the instrument panel for more than a moment, you could miss him. Why not get some help from pigeons? LOST RECTANGLE - Mr.Wizard solves Jason’s Geometry problem of squares and rectangles. BRAIN SCAN – Detecting energy with a brain scan. WEIGHT TEST- Eugene weighs his hand in water.

FLOUR EXPLOSION - Mr. Wizard asks Stacey to put a burning match into the powder. Under strict protective measures.The match is extinguished. He sprinkles a spoonful of powder over a candle flame. The powder bursts into flame. They note that in the spoon each grain does not get enough oxygen to burn. When sprinkled over the candle flame, each grain can burn easily. PENDULUM - Michael examines a pendulum made from a coffee can filled with sand and hanging from a rope. Mr. Wizard pulls back on the rope and has Michael touch the can and keep his hand there. Michael notes that the can does not return all the way back to his hand. HIDDEN LEAF COLOR - All summer long, these leaves were green because they contained chlorophyll, the green chemical that manufactures food for the tree. In the autumn, people see the changes in the leaves and they say they’ve changed or turned color, but that’s not exactly accurate. HOW SIRENS WORK - Mr.Wizard explains to Nicola how sirens work. MAPPING A GUITAR - The guitar — even though your favorite music group has been making new sounds with it, the instrument itself has been around since the sixteenth century. And in all that time, no one knew exactly why a guitar sounded like a guitar. BLOWN OUT CANDLE - Tanis tries to blow out a candle behind a flat piece of wood. She can't. Mr. Wizard replaces the wood with a glass jar and Tanis blows the flame out. She thinks the difference is because the glass jar is rounded and the wood rectangular. CARD ILLUSION – Watch Mr.Wizard trick Billy with a clever playing card illusion. AURORA BOREALIS - The excited molecules in the air near the north pole create the curtains of color you call the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights. COME-BACK CAN - Jason watches Mr.Wizard roll a coffee can along the desk. When it reaches the other side, it rolls back. The reason it does, involves potential (stored) and kinetic (moving) energy. CRUSH GALLON CAN - Mr.Wizard empties the hot water and gives the can to Michael to blow up like a balloon. It takes two strong puffs, but Michael eventually gets the can almost back to its original shape. Watch this one, it’s cool!