''Popular Science'' (1935–1949) is a series of

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

s, produced by

Jerry Fairbanks Gerald Bertram Fairbanks (November 1, 1904, San Francisco — June 21, 1995, Santa Barbara, California) was a producer and director in the Hollywood motion picture and television industry. Biography Fairbanks survived the 1906 San Francisco eart ...

and released by

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

. The ''Popular Science'' film series is a

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

entertainment production – the only attempt by the movie industry to chronicle the progress of science, industry and popular culture during the first half of the 20th century. The series, filmed in

Magnacolor Magnacolor was a color motion picture process owned by Consolidated Film Industries. Magnacolor was an offshoot of William Van Doren Kelley's 1918 subtractive color process Prizma and utilized the same bi-pack color process. Magnacolor was succ ...

, was the first to profile: father of

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

Philo T. Farnsworth Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor and television pioneer. He made many crucial contributions to the early development of all-electronic television. He is best known for his 1927 invention of t ...

(1939),

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

and his architectural school (1942), building

Hoover Dam Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on Se ...

(1935), building the

San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, known locally as the Bay Bridge, is a complex of bridges spanning San Francisco Bay in California. As part of Interstate 80 in California, Interstate 80 and the direct road between San Francisco and Oakland ...

(1936),

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

-nominated ''Moon Rockets'' (1947), the

Electron Microscope An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...

(1942),

Jet Aircraft A jet aircraft (or simply jet) is an aircraft (nearly always a fixed-wing aircraft) propelled by jet engines. Whereas the engines in propeller-powered aircraft generally achieve their maximum efficiency at much lower speeds and altitudes, je ...

(1946), the birth of

Plastic Surgery Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery includes craniofa ...

(1937),

Telephone Answering Machine An answering machine, answerphone or message machine, also known as telephone messaging machine (or TAM) in the UK and some Commonwealth countries, ansaphone or ansafone (from a trade name), or telephone answering device (TAD), was used for a ...

(1936),

Fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy but ...

from Corn Cobs (1949), Rust Heinz and his Phantom Corsair car (1938), world's first full-scale (whole body)

X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

technique (1936), the "Mechanical Brain"

Computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

(1948),

Contact Lenses Contact lenses, or simply contacts, are thin lenses placed directly on the surface of the eyes. Contact lenses are ocular prosthetic devices used by over 150 million people worldwide, and they can be worn to correct vision or for cosmetic ...

(1936), the Northrop "

Flying Wing A flying wing is a tailless fixed-wing aircraft that has no definite fuselage, with its crew, payload, fuel, and equipment housed inside the main wing structure. A flying wing may have various small protuberances such as pods, nacelles, blis ...

" (1948). The series also promoted Paramount with a tour (1938) of the then-new

Fleischer Studios Fleischer Studios () is an American animation studio founded in 1929 by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer, who ran the pioneering company from its inception until its acquisition by Paramount Pictures, the parent company and the distributor of i ...

facility in

Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

, which produced animated cartoons for Paramount. The series was created by independent

film producer Jerry Fairbanks in May 1935. Produced with the cooperation of the editors of ''

Popular Science ''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...

'' magazine, the series introduced its audience to advances in

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

and

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

, home improvement, planes,

trains In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often know ...

and

automobiles A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as ...

, as well as an assortment of strange and whimsical

inventions An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an i ...

. During its 14-year theatrical run, the ''Popular Science'' film series was honored with numerous awards and acclaim, including 5

nominations. The ''Popular Science'' series also received a Special Commendation from the US Department of War in 1943 for its unparalleled coverage of American military technology involved World War II. This film series has been a staple on

for decades, most recently shown on the

American Movie Classics AMC is an American multinational basic cable television channel that is the flagship property of AMC Networks. The channel's programming primarily consists of theatrically released films, along with a limited amount of original programming. ...

cable network, hosted by

Nick Clooney Nicholas Joseph Clooney (born January 13, 1934) is an American journalist, anchorman, and television host. He is the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney and the father of actor George Clooney. Early life Clooney was born in Maysville, Kentucky, t ...

and Bob Dorian. The series, as well as the rest of the Jerry Fairbanks film library, is owned by Shields Pictures, which released a DVD in 2008 of some of the original ''Popular Science'' sequences.

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