Five Points West Regional Branch Library Hosts Math & Science Day This Saturday, July 29
For more than 20 years, the Math and Science Day Committee, a community organization, has sponsored science fun for children. Exposing kids to the fun side of science is the goal and helps put science in a positive light for youth as a potential occupation.
This year's theme is titled "All Together Now," the name of the Birmingham Public Libraries' 2023 summer reading program. Like the theme implies, the need for good science keeps a community together in spite of tragedies, bad weather, pandemics, and emergencies of all kinds. When problems like these occur, good thinkers with scientific solutions are often what is needed most. Good science should be fair to all people, improve the lives of all people, and inspire creative areas for later generations to investigate.
Along these lines, this year's featured scientist, Lewis Latimer, once said:
Like the light of the sun, it [electric lighting] beautifies all things on which it shines, and is no less welcome in the palace than in the humblest home.
This quote is by the man who designed and patented several versions of long-lasting filaments that made the light bulb feasible. He spoke in favor of providing electric lighting to the poorest and most isolated citizens, a concept still being debated today for people unable to access wi-fi and cell phones.
This year, Birmingham's children will do simple experiments using paper circuitry to illustrate the contributions of Lewis Latimer, who worked alongside inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison. In one project, the kids will construct a paper diorama of a downtown street and hook up battery operated circuitry to light the block. They will also toy with some of the creative ideas explored by movie star and amateur inventor, Hedy Lamarr.
Latimer's parents were enslaved, apprehended by the law after they tried escaping enslavement; they received their freedom because abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass took up collections to buy their freedom. Latimer often spoke against the persecution of his people in the 1800s.
Latimer perfected a version of the light bulb with a long-lasting filament and also patented ideas of his own, for the good of others. In later years, the patent artist was sent to London to train the English on how to install and repair electric lights, wrote the primary textbook on this new science, and even taught glass blowing, the art of making the blubs.
Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, whose stage name became Hedy Lamarr, learned to play piano and dance ballet as a child. She was a Jewish immigrant who quit school in her teens and came to the United States after her acting skills were discovered. She had a concern for America's war-time efforts and Jewish persecutions during the 1940s.
The kids will stir up one of Ms. Lamaar's chemical experiments, showing how to enable soldiers to make their own soft drinks using cola flavored sugar cubes. Her most important discovery, however, was how to block radio wave signals of war-time enemies and protect communication signals of friendly nations.
Surprisingly, her frequency hopping invention, one of the few war-related mechanisms patented by a woman, is related to the workings of the player piano. Though her paper tape prototype was rejected by the Navy, signaling principles similar to ones she used are what make it possible to use GPS and wi-fi electronics today.
"Sometimes an inventor's discoveries don't get recognized as important until 50 years later," says Dr. Preston Scarber, one of the event organizers. "People formally untrained as scientists may be just as smart as the big named professionals. Besides this, their pioneer work and creative energy have had a large impact on our modern world of communications and computers."
Parents should attend with their children. Everybody can learn something new, and parents can help their offspring appreciate the world of science.
By Winfield & Elinor Burks
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