For all we have some pretty good science programming in the UK, what with Jim Al-Khalili, Brian Cox, Sky at Night and more, we're missing the Heinz Wolff and Johnny Ball style characters who bring their subjects alive for children.
It'd be great to have a science-based equivalent to Horrible Histories.
For older children or adults, "Everyday Miracles" had only 2 episodes but they were both pretty good. Also the presenter was really doing experiments and going around factories where they make stuff showing exactly how things are made.
Perhaps not targeted at children specifically but probably child friendly (PG?) I enjoyed the Great War series on YouTube. It is giving a week by week account of the events in WW1 as it happened 100 years ago. I haven’t kept up to date with it as it’s a serious commitment but it is a great concept.
I recall meeting him at a Royal Society Christmas lecture when I was a teen. I was sat in the front row - and he asked for a volunteer. Needless to say, muggins volunteered - to stick his naked hand in a flask of liquid nitrogen, it transpired.
And this is how I first experienced the Leidenfrost effect, and understood just how effectively boiling liquids can self-insulate.
He was an astoundingly good teacher, and an inspiration, to me, at least.
He was very clear about dipping my hand in slowly, and not moving it at all, as that would’ve shaken off the boundary and resulted in frostnip - but this was the 90’s, when getting kids to put their hand in cryo was just one of those things you do.
Its gentle rivalry and lack of melodrama would be great to see again. It would need a new presenter now of course, and they’d be pretty big shoes to fill.
I loved seeing Heinz Wolff on TV as a child for two reasons.
First, like Johnny Ball, it was great to see a quirky, odd shaped personality on TV instead of the usual slick drama school, artsy or journalist types.
For a nerdy kid like me Heinz was a wonderfully fun roll model.
Second, Heinz was German. In a country where sections of the media* still go on about the Second World War at every political dealing with modern Germany, Heinz was a well known “nice German”.
People like Heinz Wolff, Bauhaus and Kraftwerk made me a deutschophile. The irony that he came to England from Germany as a Jewish refugee is not lost on me.
*(My family lost my grandfather and two others fighting but it’s ridiculous how the tabloids still blame current generations of Germans for the past whilst pushing their own dodgy agendas).
A very sad loss, and it's a great shame that we didn’t get more of The Great Egg Race. I met him briefly while working as an assistant at Space School at Brunel University one year.
I once attended a lecture he gave to an international audience. However the Americans in the room complained that they couldn't understand anything he said.
It'd be great to have a science-based equivalent to Horrible Histories.