Off-screen
Julius Sumner Miller was born inWe are approaching a darkness in the land. Boys and girls are emerging from every level of school with certificates and degrees, but they can't read, write or calculate. We don't have academic honesty or intellectual rigor. Schools have abandoned integrity and rigor.From 1963 to 1986, Miller was the visiting lecturer for the physics department of the
Television
In 1959, Miller began hosting his educational program, '' Why Is It So?'', on KNXT (now''How do you do, ladies and gentlemen, and boys and girls'' ometimes adding some others like: ''and teachers, and fathers, and mothers, and people''
''I am Julius Sumner Miller, andphysics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...is my business'' hereupon often presenting the subject of each lesson after the characteristical phrase: ''And my very special business today is ...''/blockquote> Around 1963, Miller was also one of the team of celebrity lecturers in theUniversity of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...'s pioneering "Summer School of Science", broadcast early in the morning during Australia's long summer holidays in January. Fellow presenters included physicistHarry Messel Harry Messel, , (3 March 1922 – 8 July 2015) was a Canadian-born Australian physicist and educator. Life and work Messel was born in Canada to Ukrainian parents. He was born in Levine Siding in Manitoba, and brought up in Rivers, Manitoba. ...and the molecular biologistJames Watson James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and ...fresh from his triumphant co-discovery of the helical structure of DNA, but decades ahead of his work on theHuman Genome The human genome is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and in a small DNA molecule found within individual mitochondria. These are usually treated separately as the n ....My first TV series on demonstrations in physics – titled ''Why Is It So?'' – were now seen and heard over the land. The mail was massive. The academics were a special triumph for me. They charged me with being superficial and trivial. If I had done what they wanted my programs would be as dull as their classes! I knew my purpose well and clear: to show how Nature behaves without cluttering its beauty with abstruse mathematics. Why cloud the charm of a Chladni plate with aMiller's on-air popularity was due to an enthusiasm not normally associated with serious science. Shows would be liberally sprinkled with phrases such as "He who is not stirred by the beauty of it is already dead!" and he also liked to trick the audience. A common ploy would be to hold up an empty glass and ask guests to confirm it was empty....then chide them for not noticing it was full of air. Before each demonstration he would usually ask for a show of hands to indicate which of several results they expected. Often he would then add "hands up those who don't care". In 1964, Miller suffered a near fatalBessel function Bessel functions, first defined by the mathematician Daniel Bernoulli and then generalized by Friedrich Bessel, are canonical solutions of Bessel's differential equation x^2 \frac + x \frac + \left(x^2 - \alpha^2 \right)y = 0 for an arbitrary ...?heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr .... Scheduled to give a lecture in Australia, he sent Sydney University a telegram saying; "I've dropped dead here." He would suffer a second heart attack in 1986. In 1966, questions from his show with an answer to the previous day's question were published as "Millergrams" in ''The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...'' newspaper. A selection of 112 of these questions was published as a book ''Millergrams; Some Enchanting Questions for Enquiring Minds''. Further books were published in 1967: ''The Second Book of Millergrams: Some More Enchanting Questions for Enquiring Minds'', and 1988: ''Why is it So?: The Very Best Millergrams of Professor Julius Sumner Miller''.Sample Millergram: Q32: A juggler comes to a footbridge of rather flimsy design. He has in hand four balls. The maximum load is no more than the juggler himself and one ball. Can he get across the bridge by juggling the balls, always having at most one ball in the hand (and three in the air)? A: No. A falling ball exerts a force on the hand greater than its own weight. Rather, a "thrown" ball exerts greater force than a "held" one. That is, the additional force equal and opposite to that imparted to a flung ball, in addition to the juggler's mass, would exceed the bridge's tolerance (the bridge can tolerate a juggler and held ball, but not the additional downward force associated with forcing a ball "up").Miller appeared as "The Professor" in the Canadian series ''The Hilarious House of Frightenstein ''The Hilarious House of Frightenstein'' is a Television in Canada, Canadian children's television series, which was produced by Hamilton, Ontario's independent station CHCH-DT, CHCH-TV in 1971."Fit and 40: CHCH Channel 11 was built on one man's ...'' (1971), in a 4- to 5-minute segment each episode where he demonstrated physics experiments and explained the principles involved. In 1974 Miller made "The Professor and the Enquiring Minds" in Australia that was shown on the 7 network stations. This consisted of a panel of three school students who were peppered with questions about what they expected to happen in the experiment Miller then conducted, and were then asked to explain the results of the experiment. In the 1970s, Miller was also an occasional guest on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' was an American late-night talk show hosted by Johnny Carson on NBC, the third iteration of the ''Tonight Show'' franchise. The show debuted on October 1, 1962, and aired its final episode on May 22, ...'' in the United States.
Commercials
During the 1980s, Miller appeared in a famous series of Australiantelevision commercial A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...s forCadbury Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational confectionery company fully owned by Mondelez International (originally Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second largest confectionery brand in the world after Mar ...chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ..., using his stock phrase "Why is it so?", demonstrating a simple scientific principle, and describing how each block of chocolate "embraces substantial nourishment and enjoyment," and contained "a glass and a half of full-cream dairymilk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. Immune factors and immune ...." The ads were sufficiently popular to be played for some years after his death. While in Australia, Miller also appeared in ads fornon-stick A non-stick surface is engineered to reduce the ability of other materials to stick to it. Non-stick cookware is a common application, where the non-stick coating allows food to brown without sticking to the pan. Non-stick is often used to refer ...saucepans andAmpol Ampol Limited is an Australian petroleum company headquartered in Sydney, New South Wales. Ampol is the largest transport energy distributor and retailer in Australia, with more than 1,900 Ampol-branded stations across the country . It also ope ...petroleum, which included demonstrations of real principles of physics, albeit briefly.
Death
In February 1987, Miller became ill while visiting Australia and returned to the United States where he was diagnosed withleukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' .... Miller died six weeks later on April 14, 1987, inTorrance, California Torrance is a city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area located in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city is part of what is known as the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay region of the m .... As per his will, Miller's body went to the University of Southern California's School of Dentistry; no services were held at his request.TV and Classroom Physicist : 'Professor Wonderful,' Julius Sumner Miller, DiesLos Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...April 16, 1987
Foundations
Professor Miller's wife, Alice Brown Miller, wanted to perpetuate the memory and achievements of her husband, and so conceived the idea of the Julius Sumner Miller Foundation, which was established in 1998. Through an offer by Cadbury-Schweppes Pty Ltd, the Cadbury-Julius Sumner Miller Scholarship for Academic Excellence was set up to provide undergraduate scholarships in the School of Physics at theUniversity of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si .... In 1993, the Australian Science Foundation for Physics established the Julius Sumner Miller Fellowship in his memory. The fellowship is currently held byKarl Kruszelnicki Karl Sven Woytek Sas Konkovitch Matthew Kruszelnicki (born 1948), often referred to as "Dr Karl", is an Australian science communicator and populariser, who is known as an author and a science commentator on Australian radio and television. K ..., best known as "Doctor Karl" for his appearances on Australian radio and television as a science commentator and author.
Popular culture
In 1966, Miller devised a word game, "Milleranagrams," which was published in Australia by John Sands Limited. The game, whose only materials were 200Scrabble ''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...-like letter tiles, required players in their turn to draw an unseen tile from the "pool" then either make a word from their stock of tiles or add a tile to a word already on the table (rearrangement of the letters being permitted, hence the name) to form another word. Miller remains popular in Australia, where he is still quoted. The phrase ''As Professor Julius Sumner Miller often asked, "Why is it so?"'' and its variations are still often used in newspaper articles that pose questions, even those unrelated to science.Miller in the news
Recent newspaper articles quoting Julius Sumner Miller
Bibliography
*''Time : selected lectures on time and relativity, the arrow of time, and the relation of geological and biological time and on men of science'',Shakespeare Head Press Arthur Henry Bullen, often known as A. H. Bullen, (9 February 1857, London – 29 February 1920, Stratford-on-Avon) was an English editor and publisher, a specialist in 16th and 17th century literature, and founder of the Shakespeare Head Press, ..., 1965 *''Millergrams; Some Enchanting Questions for Enquiring Minds'', Ure Smith, 1966 *''The Second Book of Millergrams: Some More Enchanting Questions for Enquiring Minds'', Ure Smith, 1967 *''Quiz Questions in Physics'', Horwitz-Martin, Australia 1967 *''Physics Fun and Demonstrations'',Central Scientific Company Central Scientific Company was founded in 1900 in downtown Chicago. It was formed out of what was left of the Olmstad Scientific Company. Central Scientific manufactured and distributed science teaching equipment for schools, colleges, and univ ..., 1968 *''Why It Is So'', ABC books, 1971 *''The Kitchen Professor'', ABC books, 1972 *''Why It Is So: Heat and Temperature'', ABC books, 1973 *''Why It Is So: Sound and Electricity & Magnetism'', ABC books, 1973 *''Why It Is So: Mechanics, Heat & Temperature, Sound and Electricity'', ABC books, 1978 *''Enchanting Questions for Enquiring Minds'', Currey/O'Neil, 1982 *''Why is it so?: the very best Millergrams of Professor Julius Sumner Miller'', Australian Red Cross Society, Ringwood, Vic; Penguin Books, 1988 *''The Days of My Life: an autobiography'', Macmillan, 1989.
Discography
Albums
*''Professor Julius Sumner Miller (Professor Wonderful) Relating Stories of Isaac Newton'' (Walt Disney Productions The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...1964) *''Professor Julius Sumner Miller (Professor Wonderful) Relating Stories of Galileo'' (Walt Disney Productions 1964) *''Professor Julius Sumner Miller (Professor Wonderful) Relating Stories of Benjamin Franklin'' (Walt Disney Productions 1964) *''Professor Julius Sumner Miller (Professor Wonderful) Relating Stories of Michael Faraday'' (Walt Disney Productions 1964)
References
External links
Youtube Channel
Julius Sumner Miller Foundation
* * ttp://www.abc.net.au/science/features/whyisitso Why is it so? site at Australia's ABC.net.au featuring original episodesbr>Julius Sumner Miller 1909–1987, Physics Department, University of Sydney.
"The Drama of Really Cold Stuff" and Julius Sumner Miller , GeekDad , Wired.com, 12.07.07
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Julius Sumner 1909 births 1987 deaths 20th-century American educators 20th-century American physicists American television personalities Male television personalities People from Billerica, Massachusetts American people of Lithuanian descent American people of Latvian descent Boston University alumni University of Sydney faculty United States Air Force Academy faculty El Camino College faculty Deaths from leukemia Deaths from cancer in California Ford Foundation fellowships