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Some I thought out – not too well, to be sure – but I was learning to think.Įach ten-minute episode comprised a lesson in some aspect of ‘quantum physics today’. To some I got the answers in dialogue with my Mama and my Papa and with my teachers. What is the Earth made of? Why is the sky blue? Why is the sunset red? How does a bird soar? Why does a brook gurgle? How does an earthworm crawl? Why is a dewdrop round? Why does corn pop? Why does a wood fire crackle? And a thousand like questions. Writing on his own early childhood and its influence on his philosophy Sumner Miller explains:Īll of a half-century ago – when I was a little boy on the farm in my native New England – I remember asking all kinds of questions. Or, more simply in my own phrase, 'Why is it so?’

To stir your imagination, awaken your interest, arouse your curiosity, enliven your spirit – all with the purpose of bringing you to ask, as young Maxwell put it, 'What’s the go of it?’ – or, as Kepler had it, 'Why things are as they are and not otherwise’. In the preface to his book, Millergrams (1966), a collection of questions and answers originally published in The Australian newspaper, Sumner Miller expresses his core aspiration for his audience: His infectious enthusiasm, animated delivery, wild expressive eyebrows and eccentric turn of phrase meant that science could be fun and entertaining as well as educational. For over two decades, from 1963 to 1986, Sumner Miller and his silent laboratory assistant ‘Mr Anderson’ entertained a surprisingly large ABC television audience in a series of lectures and demonstrations dedicated to questions of physical science. Why It Is So, which was recorded live from the Physics Department of the University of Sydney, featured the iconic Professor Julius Sumner Miller, a professor of Physics from El Camino College, California.

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