When you look at this magazine cover what's the first thing you think?
This is a monthly publication, costing 25 cents and ran from 1924 to about 1926. It has a picture of an ordinary bloke (he's ordinary because he is not wearing a white coat) with some home-made gadgetry doing something rather scary but exciting looking. The magazine says "the Experimenter" and is marketed to the masses. This particular edition promises to show you how to make a Tesla Coil. How many of us know what a Tesla coil is? I don't really, just that it is something to do with electricity.
My first thought when I saw this was "why don't we do experiments like that now?" It looks scary and dangerous and tantalising and exciting. We are scared our kids might hurt themselves. If we want a monthly magazine now it has some little gizmo to collect and to slot into the right slot, or complete the model or to tell us what to do. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)
I think we've been struck down by whitecoatitus. We no longer experiment or play around to find out about things. Maybe there are old geezers out there with their sheds for experiments but they are a dying breed and maybe from the generation that bought this magazine and grew up experimenting.
These days we generally just accept what the science books tell us. We don't get to really understand what it is all about and what really makes things work. I get the impression that even the scientists don't really experiment these days and spend a lot of time on theories. And why has experimentation been left to the scientists anyway?
It just takes a fresh mind to look at things and maybe find a better way. A fresh mind carrying out experiments in their garden shed is as worthy as a top-notch scientist in his study! Maybe more-so?
[The Experimenter covers can be found on the excellent MagazineArt.org database. More info on Tesla.]
Original Comments:
I like how you made the connection for the guy in the garden shed making a discovery.
I am going to HAVE to buy that book!
I think we have another good read on the shelf, this time from (or about) Tesla! That is also supposed to be funny... I like humour and what a great way to absorb information and clarify our thoughts.
Seriously Doris, I love the way you write.
Minerva
Re your comment on my blog..you MUST...simply MUST respond to those stirrings....
GO GIRL....
Minerva
And to Manny Festo: my advisor had an ad on his door that was a woman standing by a telescope saying "When I observe for hours on end, I make sure I wear X Brand Shoes - they're so comfortable!" It was hilarious. Of course, in reality professional astronomers spend hours in front of a computer, not a telescope. :)
As a result of all this, I am thinking we must get on and get our own home experimental lab going. Mr Doris still has his original Chemistry and Chemical Magic "Playbook of Science" dated 1912 that he used to use for ideas for his experimentations as a youth. It suggests all sorts of lethal chemicals, that Mr Doris used to be able to source even in the 1960s. One of the best bits (not that I have read the book) is at the end of the preface:
In conclusion, if a word of advice may be addressed directly to the boy reader, it is this: Never be content merely to read about an experiment ; that is, to see it only through the mind of the writer and the artist. Always perform it yourself, even if at first in a manner more or less crude : that is to see it with your own mind - the only real way to see it all ; you have made it your experiment and your knowledge. No man can take it from you ; it is yours for all time.
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That was the era when only boys were referred to in such instances!