Adventures in Science: Interview with Winners of the Seventeenth Annual Science Talent Search

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Watson Davis: Our Adventures in Science guests today are some of the winners of the 17th Annual National Science Talent Search, for the Westinghouse scholarships and awards conducted by Science Service.

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Watson Davis: This is the top nationwide selection of the boys and girls, now high school seniors, who are most likely to be the creative scientists of tomorrow.

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Watson Davis: Long before the Sputniks and our Explorer went into orbits, the young scientists of America were preparing for our scientific future.

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Watson Davis: Next Thursday, the 40 Science Talent Search winner will arrive in Washington from all parts of the nation, to attend the Science Talent Institute.

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Watson Davis: They'll meet leading scientists, including Dr. James R. Killian, Assistant to President Eisenhower for Science and Technology.

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Watson Davis: They will visit leading science laboratories, judges will interview them, and 34,500 dollars in scholarships and awards will be distributed.

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Watson Davis: And let's see what these young scientists have done in the way of experiments. A science project must be done as part of the entry in the Science Talent search.

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Watson Davis: There's also a tough science aptitude examination, while teacher recommendations and scholarship records count heavily, too.

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Watson Davis: From Washington, there is one of the winners, Paul Joseph Devine Jr., age 17, a senior at Gonzaga High School.

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Watson Davis: Paul, your project, your original project was a theory of quantum electrodynamics. [[Laughing]] Perhaps you better tell us what quantum electrodynamics are.

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Paul Devine, Jr.: Well, Mr. Davis, quantum electrodynamics is really just the scientific word for light. Specifically, light.

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Paul Devine, Jr.: It -- My report was the attempt to develop a theory about light, which would enable scientists to deduce how light behaves in any given situation. Say when it -- When light hits a mirror.

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Watson Davis: Well now, haven't other people tried to do this before?

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Paul Devine, Jr.: Well, some scientists around 1927, 1930, or so, have tried it. They used very involved mathematics any physical conceptions. But the main difficulty with all of their theories is that they involve the notion of probability.

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Watson Davis: Does yours involve probability?

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Paul Devine, Jr.: No sir. I started out using two assumptions which do not involve probabilities at all, and so far I have been able to keep probabilities out of my theory altogether.

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Watson Davis: Well now, are you going ahead with this theory and do you expect to publish it, Paul?

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Paul Devine, Jr.: Well, I'm going to generalize it. Right now it is valid only for light or radiation, I'm going to try to generalize it for matter in general, and produce other theories of matter.

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Paul Devine, Jr.: And gravitation, such as Einstein's theories.

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Paul Devine, Jr.: I planned to do these for, perhaps for degrees in college.

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Watson Davis: Well, thank you Paul for giving us this light on electro-thermodynamics. Now, in quick succession, let's hear from a few more of the Science Talent Search winners speaking through tape recordings from across the nation.

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James Gaidis: It is James Gaidis, 17, from the Baltimore City College, Baltimore, Maryland.

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James Gaidis: It's funny how much my life has changed since I became one of the Westinghouse's top 40. Before I'd been busy, but now I was becoming entangled in forms, publicity, and my project. My report was based on plans I had to build a transistorized transmitter and receiver, both in small cases.

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James Gaidis: When Westinghouse implied I had already built them in the publicity reports, I worried a little for I was having troubles. Special parts suddenly became scarce. I've noticed that I was becoming too clumsy to work with miniature parts.

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James Gaidis: And one failure followed another. Thus, it was very surprising when friends of my mother's offered me their help. Friends with whom we have not been in contact for years.

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James Gaidis: My family, my friends, my teachers all offered me their help if I needed it. I found that I have friends I never knew before.

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James Gaidis: Things are coming along much better now. I suppose the initial shock has worn off. And I hope to fulfill the trust the Westinghouse has placed in me.

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James Gaidis: Because I am trying to attain a well-rounded education, I try not to concern myself only with studies. I participate in school activities and sports, too. I especially enjoy football and baseball.

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James Gaidis: But really, do you think it practical that a baseball player could get up to 100,000 dollars a year for entertaining some people for a few hours while a scientist gets perhaps a fifth as much for serving all people a lifetime?

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Elvera Erlick: This is Elvera Erlick, 15 from Overbrook High School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Elvera Erlick: My project involved the discovery of a new product in the breaking down of an ordinary and common chemical compound which is generally used in Chemistry I classes in high school.

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Elvera Erlick: I detected the odor of ammonia despite the fact that the teacher's directions, the laboratory's manual, and my own textbook stated that no ammonia was being involved.

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Elvera Erlick: I must admit that I was at first rather reluctant to question the validity of my discovery against that of the textbook. And I was slightly disillusioned to find that the textbook could be wrong.

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Elvera Erlick: However, out of curiosity I continued my experiments and proved definitely that I was getting ammonia.

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Elvera Erlick: At this point I began to theorize and I attempted to discover why the decomposition was reacting as it did. My theory still needs work but now I feel fairly well substantiated.

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Elvera Erlick: I definitely benefitted a great deal from my work because it involved the learning of new techniques and an original thought process.

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Elvera Erlick: I also regret my lack of knowledge, skill, and experience at this point, and am eagerly looking forward to the time when I can really delve into research.

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Dushan Mitrovich: This is Dushan Mitrovich, 18, of Newton High School in Newtonville, Massachusetts. The project I submitted to the Westinghouse Science Talent Search is the flying platform.

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Dushan Mitrovich: This is a vertical take-off and landing, or so-called VTOL, type of aircraft. The field of VTOL aircraft is still very new and from what I know of it I believe it holds great practical possibilities for the future.

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Dushan Mitrovich: I became interested in this field in 1955, when the Hiller company announced the successful flights of their man-carrying flying platform.

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Dushan Mitrovich: I decided to study the flight characteristics of such a platform by designing and building a flying model, with which I could experiment myself.

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Dushan Mitrovich: Basically, this model works on the same principle as that used on the Hiller platform. Working on my project I was faced many times with really hopeless looking problems.

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Dushan Mitrovich: Every flight of the platform, and it did fly, was a suspense. From each flight, I learned something, and all the time I had new problems to work on.

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Dushan Mitrovich: It is very gratifying, indeed, that my work on this project, has given me the opportunity to be chosen as one of the 40 winners of the Science Talent Search.

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Jane Shelby: This is Jane Shelby, 17, from Teaneck High School, Teaneck, New Jersey. For my project in the Science Talent Search, I calculated the orbit of the third stage rocket of Sputnik 1 from the observations of an amateur team that I organized.

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Jane Shelby: The team plotted the position and time of the satellite on two consecutive mornings. In order to do this, we had to get up at 4AM, which seems to be an inseparable part of Sputnik spotting.

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Jane Shelby: After changing the observations to the proper form, I plotted them on a globe and calculated the period of the orbit.

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Jane Shelby: From that, I was able to compute the average height and velocity of the satellite.

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Jane Shelby: I have been on several early morning alerts with the Moon Watch Team in New York City and I observed Sputnik with the Cambridge Massachusetts Moon Watch Team. I haven't seen Explorer yet, because it is too far south to be seen in New York, except under very unusual conditions.

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Jane Shelby: But I do hope I will have a chance of seeing the first US satellite before it comes down.

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Jane Shelby: As you may have guessed by now, astronomy is my main interest and I intend to make a career in research in astrophysics.

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Jane Shelby: I'm lucky enough to live in the time when space travel is just getting started. If possible, I'd like to take advantage of the exciting opportunities for astronomical research that will be available in the next few years.

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Jane Shelby: The Earth's atmosphere, useful though it is, is an awful nuisance to astronomers because it keeps out a very large proportion of the light from the stars. An airless place, such as a moon, would be an astronomer's paradise. I hope very much that I will be one of the lucky people to do research there.

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Allan Pestcoe: This is Allan Pestcoe, 17, of Miami Beach Senior High School.

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Allan Pestcoe: For 5 years we at Miami Beach have been using radioisotopes for student experimentation. We have worked in many fields: chemistry, biology, and physics. Some of the experiments we have done concern the chemistry of uranium, absorption of minerals by bacteria and molds, and removal of contaminated materials from surfaces.

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Allan Pestcoe: A large part of our work concerns botany. The experiments I reported on in my search paper concern the effects of herbicides, weed killers, on the absorption of sulphur in the leaves of plants, and the movement rates of both sulphur and phosphorus in leaves.

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Allan Pestcoe: A relatively large amounts of radioactive materials we use, for high school that is, require a rather elaborate radiation protection procedures. Having lead and concrete shields protects us from radioisotopes that emit gamma rays, very penetrating type of radiation.

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Allan Pestcoe: Less dense materials, such as glass, wood, plastic, and in some cases concrete, are used for handling radioisotopes emitting beta rays, a less penetrating type of radiation.

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Allan Pestcoe: Of course, we are very stringent in our protection procedures. We well recognize that radioisotopes are tools that must be handled with care. The laboratory of which I am the director has at present a staff of five students. Our program is designed to exceed the level of normal high school science and to give advanced training to receptive individuals.

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Neil Nininger: This is Neil Nininger, 18, from from Tamalpais High School, Mill Valley, California.

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Neil Nininger: Science intrigues my imagination and in my reading of chemistry and physics, I've followed any interesting paths of inquiry. In my backyard shop, I found a modern frontier.

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Neil Nininger: I have a forged spark coil, which started me on the line of experimentation, which has led me to my Westinghouse Science Talent Search placing.

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Neil Nininger: With a simple hand-vacuum pump and my spark coil, I made glow discharges in rarefied gases, like a neon sign.

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Neil Nininger: It was an exciting experiment and easily done. By connecting a test tube to the hand-vacuum pump, and holding the spark wires up to the glass I got a purple glow in the tube.

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Neil Nininger: That was the starting point for many more experiments.

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Watson Davis: Those you have heard are only a few of the top young scientists of the nation.

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Watson Davis: In addition to the 40 coming to Washington in the next few days, there are 260 Science Talent Search honorable mentions, whose promise is so outstanding that they are being recommended to the Universities and Colleges of the nation for entrance and scholarships if they need them.

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Watson Davis: Now almost every kind of science activity is represented in the Science Talent Search. A solid rocket fuel was experimented with by a Vermillion, Ohio boy. A Newton, Massachusetts boy made a cyclotron atom smasher that fits in a room in his home, and costs only 150 dollars.

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Watson Davis: A scintillation counter was made by an Albany, California boy, from salvaged parts of outdated equipment. Dyes were made from 50 plant and animal materials by a Marshfield, Wisconsin girl. While a Cheyenne, Wyoming girl experimented with ways to keep potatoes from spoiling.

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Watson Davis: Two boys, one from Kenmore, New York and the other from Washington D.C., worked on the mysteries of cancer. And in Choteau, Montana a boy collected, preserved, and identified 400 insect specimens.

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Watson Davis: Time-lapse photography was used by a Long Island City boy to study a common, but little known swamp plant that devours insects.

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Watson Davis: While there are many thousands of young scientists in the nation's secondary schools, about a quarter of a million of them are doing science projects, very much like those you heard described.

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Watson Davis: And they'll be showing them in thousands of science fairs, in the high schools, and then the best of them will go to some 150 local and regional fairs, that will send their best to science exhibits to the National Science Fair to be held in Flint, Michigan in May.

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Watson Davis: Here is evidence certainly that Soviet Russia is not ahead of us in skill, enthusiasm, and knowledge of young scientists.

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Watson Davis: If you're a student in elementary or high school, or if you know someone who is, do you want to know how to get into science and engineering, a free booklet -- A free leaflet is available, just write a postal card to Science Service, Washington 6 DC, asking for the leaflet 'How To Get Into Science and Engineering'

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Watson Davis: It's free, I'll repeat the address, the address is Science Service, Washington 6 DC.

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