I just heard yesterday that Philip Morrison died. Maybe you’ve never heard of him. But you’ve heard him.
He was a brilliant physicist. He played a major role in the Manhattan Project in WWII, and went on to do all sorts of great work, including pioneering the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
I knew his work two ways. One was through his great articles for Scientific American which I read as a kid (when I was much younger I used to wait for my dad to read the magazine, then I would grab it; I could hardly understand much of it, but I was laying the groundwork for my own life’s work). I just searched on Morrison’s name at the SciAm website and got 209 results!
But to me, and to a lot of people around my age, he will always be known as the hobbit-like voice narrating one of the best short documentaries of all time: Charles and Ray Eames’ Powers of Ten. You know the one: it starts with a guy snoozing on a picnic blanket, then zooms out, showing first Chicago, then Illinois, then the Earth, then the solar system, planet rushing by, the great void between stars, then stars, the galaxies, the Universe… then it zooms back in. When we get back to the sleeping man’s hand, we don’t stop there. We go in, zooming in more and more, past cells, chromosomes, DNA, carbon atoms, and finally passing through a proton made of quarks, vibrating madly.
All the while, Philip Morrison’s trademark voice was narrating this, telling us how far we’ve traveled, teaching us the powers of ten and scientific notation. It’s one of the greatest teaching tools of all time. It played on a loop at the Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, and my class went there for field trips practically every school year when I was a kid. I must have seen the film dozens of times (given the topic, maybe I should say tens of times), listening to that weird voice going over the science of the journey. I would sit in the small darkened room, no bigger than an office worker’s cubicle, and stare in fascination. I loved the astronomy, of course, but there was something about zooming in, descending down into space until there was literally no matter to see, wondering what happened if you got yet even smaller… I was like a bird in front of a snake, fascinated despite the chill I felt.
That film was one thread in an tapestry of people and events that makes me who I am today: a scientist, a skeptic, a critical thinker. I never knew Philip Morrison, and that saddens me. But he was a part of my life despite that, and a part of a generation’s life. He showed us the whole Universe, from the impossibly large to the incredibly small, and for that I thank him.
April 26th, 2005 at 1:24 pm
I also remember this movie from when I was a child. I’m not sure where I first saw it, maybe the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. I spent a lot of time there when I was a kid. About two years I saw it at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. I immediately recognized the unique voice. It is such a classic science piece.
April 26th, 2005 at 7:59 pm
The sad thing is that I’ve never actually seen Powers of Ten. I did have a flip-book of it, though; I think it had a separate picture for every half-order of magnitude, and you could flip through them to get the zoom effect. One of these days, I should find the video.
April 27th, 2005 at 9:55 am
Check this fabulous on-line tutorial inspired in the Powers of Ten documentary, by Matthew J. Parry-Hill, Christopher A. Burdett and Michael W. Davidson from the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory:
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/
Really awsome!
April 28th, 2005 at 6:50 pm
I’m not sure exactly when “Powers of Ten” was produced, but I have book from the late ’40s of the original Dutch (?) production called “Cosmic View.” It’s the earliest book I’ve seen on this teaching technique, and uses a girl on a picnic blanket as a starting point with a mosquito on her hand. About 15 years ago the Canadian Film Board produced a 5 minute short called “Cosmic Zoom” which did the same thing as “Powers of Ten” only without narration. It’s a little too touchy-feely for me since it requires some external explanation to make sense. This one had a boy and his dog rowing a boat down (I think) the St. Lawrence Seaway. Still used the mosquito, though!
- Jack
September 19th, 2005 at 12:00 pm
I went to Chicago, to the Museum of Science and Industry three times to see “Powers of Ten” which I first saw in high school in the 60′s.
Unfortunately when I took my Mom to see it in Chicago ten years ago, the video was not working. I went again on September 18th, 2005, and the video was still not working. If you are fortunate enough to find it working you can find the video booth in the Granger Basic Hall of Science, up the Blue Stairs on the second floor. I asked a docent and was told that the film did not exist.
Perhaps by coincidence, Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” was missing from the Art Institute of Chicago on both occasions.
Hopper’s “Nighthawks” was there – so at least one thing relevant to astronomy was present.
October 31st, 2005 at 10:03 pm
I flew to Boston on August 8, 1996 to meet with Phil Morrison at his invitation. He said to be at his home at 3:00 p.m. and he arrived directly on the dot. We talked Physics for 1 hour. He told me to get into a Ph.D. program and I did. By far, Phil was the smartest man I ever talked with and he had a way of making me feel that I was almost as smart as he. That’s why he was such a great teacher and that’s what makes for a great teacher.
He sent me an autographed book that he wrote and I will always remember the man who helped me to reach greater potential.
George M. Frenn