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Transcription: [00:00:11]
{SILENCE}

[00:00:23]
{SPEAKER name="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.

[00:00:33]
{SPEAKER name="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.

[00:00:44]
{SPEAKER name="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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{SPEAKER name="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.

[00:01:01]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
They'll meet leading scientists, including Dr. James R. Killian, Assistant to President Eisenhower for Science and Technology.

[00:01:10]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
They will visit leading science laboratories, judges will interview them, and 34,500 dollars in scholarships and awards will be distributed.

[00:01:19]
{SPEAKER name="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.

[00:01:29]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
There's also a tough science aptitude examination, while teacher recommendations and scholarship records count heavily, too.

[00:01:38]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
From Washington, there is one of the winners, Paul Joseph Devine Jr., age 17, a senior at Gonzaga High School.

[00:01:47]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
Paul, your project, your original project was a theory of quantum electrodynamics.
[[Laughing]] Perhaps you better tell us what quantum electrodynamics are.

[00:02:00]
{SPEAKER name="Paul Devine, Jr."}
Well, Mr. Davis, quantum electrodynamics is really just the scientific word for light. Specifically, light.

[00:02:08]
{SPEAKER name="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.

[00:02:27]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
Well now, haven't other people tried to do this before?

[00:02:30]
{SPEAKER name="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.

[00:02:49]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
Does yours involve probability?

[00:02:52]
{SPEAKER name="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.

[00:03:04]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
Well now, are you going ahead with this theory and do you expect to publish it, Paul?

[00:03:09]
{SPEAKER name="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.

[00:03:24]
{SPEAKER name="Paul Devine, Jr."}
And gravitation, such as Einstein's theories.

[00:03:28]