Word: seaborg
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Over cocktails, an eminent U.S. chemist expressed his concern about the dearth of young people interested in scientific careers. A television producer in search of programs overheard him. "If you feel that way," he said, "you should do something about it." So the chemist, Nobel Prizewinner Glenn T. Seaborg, co-discoverer of plutonium, and the TVman, Program Director Jonathan Rice of San Francisco's educational Station KQED, got together. The result of this collaboration, a series of ten half-hour television lessons called The Elements, will begin in January over the 22 educational TV stations...
Chief scriptwriter and star of the show is tall, earnest Chemist Seaborg, who believes that "science should be a part of the repertory of a cultured man." The films were put together with a paltry $44,000 budget by Rice and the staff of KQED, one of the most adventurous educational stations. In most of them Seaborg chats cannily about his favorite subject: nuclear science and the elements, "the building blocks of nature." His props include batches of the nine-odd man-made elements (plutonium, berkelium, etc.), batteries of blinking lights, clicking radiation counters, and black and white checkers...
Nevertheless, said Seaborg, industry and government shortsightedly allocate funds piecemeal, harnessing university laboratories to small projects with constant red tape and supervision. "It should be possible to say to more [topnotch] scientists: 'Here is some money to keep you going. Run along and do whatever you want . . . All we ask is that you work hard . . . don't even do that if you can get more accomplished in another...
Just as important, said Seaborg, pure research should be encouraged as the best training for the nation's short supply of young scientists and engineers; in such work develop the Einsteins and Tellers of the future...
...present neglect be corrected? Chemist Seaborg's suggestion: double the outlay for pure science. The resulting increase in scientific knowledge, he believes, would make a bigger basic research program "the greatest bargain the American people ever received...