His father was Latvian, and his mother was “a Lithuanian peasant who spoke twelve languages”. Julius Sumner Miller was born May 17th, 1909 in Billerica, Massachusetts, and was the youngest of nine children. Professor Miller reached thousands of students in the course of his nearly 40-year teaching career, and inspired millions more throughout North America and Australia via television programs like The Mickey Mouse Club and Miller’s own show entitled Why Is It So? His love for science is indeed infectious, as you can see in this segment about the shock value of capacitors. He was completely fascinated by physics, and deeply desired to understand it as best he could so that he could share the magic with people of all ages. Professor Miller’s was a shouting, leaping, arm-waving, whole-bodied approach to physics demonstrations. Imagine if Cosmo Kramer were a physics professor, or if that doesn’t give you an idea, just picture Doc Brown from Back to the Future (1985) with a thick New England accent and slightly darker eyebrows. His demonstrations are dramatic, delightful, and about as far away from boring old math as possible. In pictures, his stern face commands respect. Professor Julius Sumner Miller was energetic and enthusiastic about physics to the point of contagiousness. And while it’s true that the student must be willing to learn, having a good teacher helps immensely. The fun is in the hands-on learning, the lab work, the live action demonstrations of Mother Nature’s power and prowess. Let’s face it - for the average person, math and formulas are not the most attractive side of physics.
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