Institute Professor Harold 'Doc' Edgerton’s 80th Birthday Party at MIT
EDGERTON: That's a television. We're on television. Be sure to keep on smiling. We could get us a contract out of this.
[INAUDIBLE] all his drugs, right?
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Marty.
MAN: Doc.
EDGERTON: Marty, say hello to Rebecca.
MAN: Hi, Rebecca.
EDGERTON: My granddaughter.
MAN: Oh, that's wonderful. All right.
EDGERTON: That's Mary Lou. You know Mary Lou.
WOMAN: She's the one that was almost--
EDGERTON: She hadn't come out of the factory yet. This is Ellen.
WOMAN: Hi.
MAN: Hi.
EDGERTON: This is Sylvia.
MAN: Hi, Sylvia.
EDGERTON: This is O'Keefe. Morning, O'Keefe.
MAN: Hi.
EDGERTON: Glad to see you.
MAN: Happy Birthday.
EDGERTON: We tried to get ahold of you. You're a hard man to find.
MAN: No, I didn't--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
WOMAN: I wasn't sure if it was '72 or '73.
EDGERTON: I was a lot smart them.
WOMAN: It's a nice picture. Could you sign it for them? Put your name on there. Sign it on my back.
EDGERTON: I'll put this name on it.
WOMAN: That way I'll know.
WOMAN: Thank you.
EDGERTON: What happened to the cake I gave you boys?
BOY: We ate it.
EDGERTON: It's all gone? Maybe they've got seconds over there. What do they have?
BOY: Steak sandwiches.
EDGERTON: Better not. You'll have a stomach ache and then blame it on me.
INTERVIEWER: What's thing in your hand?
EDGERTON: That's a model of a gob of milk splashing in a cup, made out of wood. You know, we work with dynamic things and have you been in the other room and seen double pillar hydraulic cavity machine? You haven't either. I know you haven't. I can tell by looking at your face.
INTERVIEWER: But what I am interested in, do you have a particular favorite fast photograph stop that you particularly like? Any one of the photographs on the wall?
EDGERTON: Like I've got a daughter here and a granddaughter and two granddaughters and my wife and a great granddaughter. Now can you say which one's favorite? You can't, can you? Did you see my great granddaughter here? One-year-old. And she's right in the middle of it here but she's drinking cider.
INTERVIEWER: Is that the baby in the stroller? She's darling.
EDGERTON: Her mother is a doctor over to the, an intern, an intern over to the Children's Hospital.
INTERVIEWER: How many years have you been here, Professor?
EDGERTON: I came here in 1926 to spend one year and got stuck. I haven't been able to get out.
INTERVIEWER: Do you attribute anything in particular to your good fortune in photography?
EDGERTON: Well, am I lucky to land right in the middle of a place where it was needed. You are very fortunate if you land a good place where there's something you want to do and you like to do.
INTERVIEWER: Is there any area of photography that you haven't delved into as much as you like?
EDGERTON: Oh, sure. It's a big field. I just work in high speed areas. That's all I do. Just a little bit. I'm really an electrical engineer because it's all done with electricity. You saw these bulbs flash around here. They're all batteries and capacitors and electronic lamps.
And if you want to know all about it, I wrote a little book, Electronic flash, strobe. And if you have trouble sleeping at night and take sleeping pills, do you? If you did, you'd get one of those books, you wouldn't need those pills any more.
INTERVIEWER: A real sleeper.
EDGERTON: Oh, it really gets them.
INTERVIEWER: Which one of those fast speed photographs was the most difficult?
EDGERTON: Oh, the ones I haven't got yet. Let's see. What am I working on? I'm working on the drops now. I started working on them in 1934. On drops of rain and water and stuff I'm still working We got a lot of them in the back room. And I got some stews working on it. We're probably working on it for another 1,000 years.
INTERVIEWER: John, what was the one you told me about--
EDGERTON: There's nothing to that. You just set the apple up and shoot it. That's the--
INTERVIEWER: How did you conceive of the idea? How did you put it together, the apple and the--
EDGERTON: Well you've heard of William Tell, haven't you? Well, everybody shoots through apples. So we figured, well, I'll shoot through the apple too. And when I was in Switzerland, I used that as a calling card, my apple with a hole in it.
Every Swiss, you give him a card like that, his eyes light up in about 100 carat lamps like just, they love that bullet picture.
INTERVIEWER: At what speed was it taken?
EDGERTON: A millionth, less than a millionth of a second. One millionth of a second. It's actually about a third of a millionth of a second. I ordered 10,000 of them. I was going to give everybody here one. But they didn't come.
For some reason I don't know. They're probably in the subway or somewhere. But if you want one, call me up and my secretary will send you one.
INTERVIEWER: Is there a copy of it down on the wall?
EDGERTON: I don't know whether there is or not. But there will be thousands of them here tomorrow. And if you want a bullet with a hole in it The bullet goes in one side and it splices out. And then it comes out the other side with another nice big fluff. That's what they're trying to make in that thing over there.
They took a-- that's an atom bomb coming out of that one. Did you see it?
INTERVIEWER: So what's the next step after all this work?
EDGERTON: I've got to get rested up. Oh, I'm retired. Didn't you know that? I've been retired for how many years?
MAN: Oh about 20.
EDGERTON: 20. I'm retired.
INTERVIEWER: No, for the students, for the students that are following in your footsteps working in this field, where are they going?
EDGERTON: I don't see any students in my footsteps. You mean these guys here?
INTERVIEWER: What type of photography will they be working with?
EDGERTON: Their father is an expert with making prints and making photos. Gus Kayafass. They're his kids. They can learn everything from him and outshine him. I don't know how to--
INTERVIEWER: What will the technology of photography be when they're of age?
EDGERTON: I haven't any idea and I don't want to influence them. You know, they're the younger generation. We want to leave it pure for them. We don't want to mess it all up for them, do we?
There's a lot of things I can't do. I just say, push that over. That's for the next generation. And that takes it off of me. Because I'm retired. Course, I get [INAUDIBLE] once in a while, but.
INTERVIEWER: I was going to say, you've accomplished a great deal already and even since retirement, I believe.
EDGERTON: I get around a little bit and I enjoy what I'm doing. I think that's the important thing, and in this field, there's so many things to do, it's just fantastic. You ask me what it is, I don't know because tomorrow I never plan anything. Well, I'm working on drops right now. If you want to see those drops, they're in the back room. Have you got this on TV?
Well, come on in. I'll show you those drops going uphill. You ever see a drop go up? Well, let's get out of here. Let's go down go down this way and see the drops going uphill. This way. That baby.
Now, you want this water to go up, you want it to go up? Come on over, Janice. Where are you?
INTERVIEWER: What exactly are you doing here?
EDGERTON: Want it to go up? Want it to go up? Drop that mic out of there. Want to see it go up? Want to see it go down?
[WHISTLES]
Down!
INTERVIEWER: Oh!
EDGERTON: Isn't that something?
INTERVIEWER: How is that doing that?
EDGERTON: It's magic.
INTERVIEWER: No.
EDGERTON: There's a strobe here, which is flashing 60 times a second and the water is being pumped 60 times a second. And if the flashes are in synchronism, then it stands still. See they Making little disc right there.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
EDGERTON: Did you see that disc? The ordinary light is making it blur. If he turns that light out then there won't be any blurriness in there. Like that over there. See that?
INTERVIEWER: So what I'm seeing is actually an illusion then, caused by the strobe?
EDGERTON: The drops are coming 60 times a second and the flashes, if they come 60 times a second, the drops will stand still. That's the strobe principle. And we exploit the heck out of that here. That's our main business.
These flashes here are only a few minutes of a second in length. So the drops from the flash are stopped. And if you keep stopping them over and over, in the exact same place, they look like one drop. That looks like one drop. You like that [INAUDIBLE] take home? OK.
[SNAP]
[LAUGHTER]
Aren't you lucky?
INTERVIEWER: What other applications are there, Professor?
EDGERTON: Oh, there are so many. It's like saying what's a microscope good for? Just to look at everything small. What's a strobe good for? To look at anything that moves. And everything moves fast but you can't see it. The human eye's no good at all.
If I turn the strobe off on this thing, you can't see anything. That's because--
INTERVIEWER: Nothing.
EDGERTON: Your eyes are marvelous. But they're no good for anything that moves faster about 10 times per second. This is moving 60 times per second. There are 60 drops a second coming out of there. And you and I can't tell it.
But with a strobe, there they are. In engineering work, you've got to know what's going on. So you find out all these things that are happening in the fast world, and the faster it goes, the better it is for us.
INTERVIEWER: I saw something that you would have enjoyed this morning. It was a video tape camera that took frames at 2000 per second. Just made by Kodak. I was amazed. It showed an explosion and then stopped it along at times along the way.
EDGERTON: High speed photography. That's what we work on here all the time, how to get things--
INTERVIEWER: So it must be a principal taken from of your work then.
EDGERTON: Well, taking pictures at a high rate of speed, yeah. But there are lots of ways to do it. That's their way of doing it.
INTERVIEWER: That's fascinating, sir. Again.
EDGERTON: Good. Good. Thanks for coming in.
INTERVIEWER: Happy Birthday.
MAN: If I can get you to stick around and turn this on and off a couple of time.
EDGERTON: Oh, sure. Can you show without your light?
MAN: Yeah. Are you going to try. This very actinic light.
MAN: Let me just get myself set up here. We'll get rid of that over there.
WOMAN: Faster, faster.
EDGERTON: There it is, going uphill now.
MAN: The iridescence, that's what it is. Real nice.
EDGERTON: You want it to go the other way?
MAN: [INAUDIBLE] periodic light will do it. Then what you see, then you see this whole long stream.
BOY: Can I try it?
EDGERTON: Yeah.
BOY: [INAUDIBLE] do you make it?
EDGERTON: This knob way up here. You're a little bit too short. Gotta to eat more, more, lunch.
MAN: [INAUDIBLE]
EDGERTON: Wait till he gets through shooting, then you can play with it all you want. We'll get you a chair here so you can climb up.
MAN: Can you make it go up, down, put your finger in there like you did before? No, no, between the drops.
BOY: Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
EDGERTON: Yeah. It's one that you can't do but I can push this up and make the drops go between, see? Miss each other. Or you can put them down so they hit each other. Or make them hit them a little bit sideways.
INTERVIEWER: What would happen if you put your finger right in the center?
EDGERTON: You'd get wet.
INTERVIEWER: Oh.
[LAUGHTER]
EDGERTON: Do you want to drive?
WOMAN: No, sir.
EDGERTON: Go ahead. This is fluorescein dye in here. We got another one over here in the [INAUDIBLE]. If you want to look at the original, you have to walk around a little [INAUDIBLE]. There's another one there. We're drippy around here. We work with drips all the time. As I say, we've gone to great distances [INAUDIBLE].
[SIDE CONVERSATIONS]
[WATER RUNNING]
[CROWD NOISE]
(SINGING) Since I held you in my arms. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you, so please don't take my sunshine away.
[MUSIC - "YOU ARE MY SUNSINE"]
[APPLAUSE]
MAN: "She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain."
EDGERTON: OK. Well, I've got a greater reason "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain."
(SINGING) She'll be coming round the mountain when coming round Whoo! She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes. She'll be coming round the mountain. She'll be coming round the mountain. She'll be coming round the mountain when she come.
[MUSIC - "SHE'LL BE COMING ROUND THE MOUNTAIN"]
EDGERTON: Dimmer picture. Have to put the film in this thing so I can use it [INAUDIBLE]. Want to turn on the light now.
[HIGH BUZZ]
[HIGH BUZZ]
Seems to be OK. [INAUDIBLE] Motor's on.
MAN: Oscillator's off.
EDGERTON: Oscillator's off. It's ready.
MAN: And.
[WHIRRING NOISE]
EDGERTON: OK. [INAUDIBLE] cycles. I gotta load the camera. Thanks.
MAN: [INAUDIBLE] volts on the air pressure.
EDGERTON: You were a little slow on getting me going last time.
MAN: OK. Check the timing on.
EDGERTON: Thirty cycles?
MAN: Yep. This looks about right.
EDGERTON: OK. Everything's on.
MAN: OK. We're all set. Ready?
EDGERTON: Yeah.
MAN: Go.
[WHIRRING SOUND]
EDGERTON: You only get one of them, but that's all right. OK, [INAUDIBLE]. OK. turn off the lights. OK, turn them on.
[BLOWING AIR]
OK. [INAUDIBLE] process. Let's go.
MAN: I gave you about 25 feet of film, about 17 or 18 turns.
EDGERTON: OK.
MAN: How many microfrags do you want on this machine?
EDGERTON: Leave it in the middle.
MAN: OK.
EDGERTON: Got my motor plugged in? Got my motor plugged in? Yeah.
MAN: OK, you're going to watch me.
EDGERTON: I'm watching you.
MAN: OK. Pump on.
EDGERTON: When you see the light, go throw it.
[WHIRRING SOUND]
OK. There's your film.
[BLOWING AIR]
MAN: Got any more chips in there?
EDGERTON: No, no more chips. Goodbye.
[BLOWING]
WOMAN: OK?
EDGERTON: Yeah.
[WHIRRING SOUND]
WOMAN: OK. Again.
[WHIRRING SOUND]
WOMAN: Do it again, would you?
MAN: [INAUDIBLE] out?
WOMAN: Out.
MAN: Out. Ready, go.
[WHIRRING SOUND]
WOMAN: And rolling.
[WHIRRING SOUND]
EDGERTON: What are you trying to do, Peter?
PETER: Well, I think we got it just about right this time. Because look the alignment is better and this is wider. So we'll get more of a feel when the drop breaks up, we won't have as much shadow area as we have had in the past.
OK. I like your idea of adding this two centimeter wire here because then we have a way of looking at the size of the drops as they fall and as they break up in the field. And timing lights there. And that should work just fine.
So we'll have an idea of what the films speed is. So when I start up, if we're lucky, the event will occur in this space and we'll be able to see the drops as they're breaking in two.
EDGERTON: The first drop?
MAN: Yeah. And if those guys that I've been reading about are right, then what we should observe is the drop sort of flexing over and breaking up through the middle and forming a bubble and bursting. So I think we should go with it. I think the fan pressure is just about right to do that.
EDGERTON: All right.
MAN: OK. You ready?
EDGERTON: I'm ready. Let's go.
MAN: OK. Everything is on.
EDGERTON: Everything's on.
MAN: OK. Go.
[WHIRRING SOUND]
EDGERTON: Really. Looked like you got it.
MAN: Well, let's develop the film and see what happens.
EDGERTON: All right. Go on up to the drop zone [INAUDIBLE] OK, put her in the soup. Here we go.
[BEEPING/BUZZING]
EDGERTON: Any time. Turn on the lights, Peter. Yeah, they're fixed. See how clear they are now. Which is the front end of this film?
PETER: Probably the blackest one, blackest point.
EDGERTON: There's no pictures up to that point. Here it starts. So we'll tear this piece off and throw it away. Consign that to the wastebasket, will you? Thanks a lot. Now we're going to run this all the way through and find where the drops come.
Well, we got a more uniform exposure with that heavier diffuser. This carbon paper, you ought to make it thicker in your movie. See down there? We need those though to tell us what speed we're running.
MAN: How many frames between timing lights?
EDGERTON: 40. How many do you want? It's 1200 frames a second. Not seeing any drops yet. Boy, you're awfully slow about getting that cup out of there, Peter. A tenth of a second is 100 pictures. See any drops there yet? [BEEPING/BUZZING] Here we go. Here we go. Hold on. Drops, plenty of drops. That's where they start, right there. How many frames you want before the action comes?
PETER: Give me about three.
EDGERTON: Three feet? Well, how about two?
EDGERTON: Two feet. There, you can have it.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
We'll have to examine these with a magnifier to be sure that any action on there will eventually and make enlargements out of it. So that all of the data, information will be in these report. There's 1200 pictures a second going by.
These drops, you'll probably see it. It's a long time. You got us a little extra [INAUDIBLE]. Move it over into the water.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
Soak it long enough to get the hypo out of it, most of it. This is a very thin emulsion so it hypos pretty quick.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
This is the shot we made just before. We widened the field just a little bit so you got a little better picture. Keep putting the scratches on the film there.
[BUZZING/BEEPING] You're also good at the movies too with the-- you haven't caught up with them yet. The reason I like this film is because it's very fine grained, so there's a tremendous amount of detail in the pictures. You know, over 60 millimeters, it's big. Now we're going to take it out and hang it up on the--
[WHIRRING SOUND]
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
Got it all stranded up, have you?
PETER: Yeah. Yeah, I'm ready.
EDGERTON: Roll camera.
EDGERTON: All right. Turn it on. Let's go.
[WHIRRING SOUND]
EDGERTON: [INAUDIBLE]
[BUZZING/BEEPING] What's up here? See it?
PETER: It still looks likes a fin shape to me. I don't see where it's--
EDGERTON: OK, it's a fin-shaped thing. It's a film. It's been blown off the edge.
PETER: Yeah, but the film never assumed historical state.
EDGERTON: Who cares? Who cares?
PETER: I care.
EDGERTON: You're trying to make it look like the guy's picture in their book, which has nothing to do with it.
PETER: OK. all right. OK, so here it comes, all right? Look at that, kabam.
EDGERTON: You got hit from that other one.
PETER: Is that what happened? Because it looked like it was blowing out through the middle anyway. So you're trying to say that that little drop popped it?
EDGERTON: Yeah, it popped it.
PETER: OK, so that secondary drop is coming now, falling right down through the center.
EDGERTON: Right down through the hole.
PETER: Of the drop. But notice a secondary bubble is forming around the outside.
EDGERTON: Over here. Yeah, along the other side also.
EDGERTON: OK. Yeah, all right, go ahead.
PETER: And that comes up.
EDGERTON: Yeah. Beautiful. Look at that.
PETER: And tries to envelop, tries to form a full bubble. But somehow it's popped.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
EDGERTON: No keep going. Keep going. Now it's breaking away into small drops.
PETER: Right.
EDGERTON: Beautiful.
PETER: And now it disintegrates into virtually nothing.
EDGERTON: Yeah. Now these others, the air is being pulled down so the velocity is not enough to break these others up.
PETER: But we can gain a velocity reading [INAUDIBLE]. [BUZZING/BEEPING] But wait a minute. Look at the distance between that second drop. Yeah, look at that.
EDGERTON: That means these are slowing up.
PETER: OK. Now does that continue to happen? Let's look at the next one down. No, now, now they seem to be fairly regular.
EDGERTON: Yeah, now they're regular. That's because the air is going down with them.
PETER: Yeah, but now look at this one coming in here.
EDGERTON: That's all right. That's the way it is.
PETER: OK. So, I'm going to send you, I'm going to run it back.
EDGERTON: All right, run it backwards.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
PETER: OK, so here comes the drop. Going through the field. Kabam. Now look at the spacing between these other drops and what's going on there. Now let's look at that again.
MAN: This time don't put your hand in there.
WOMAN: Dr. Edgerton, what is this liquid here.
EDGERTON: It's fluorescein die. You It doesn't hurt you.
MAN: Is that segregated?
EDGERTON: Yeah. But you're eyes can't tell it. Your eyes are no good for anything that moves fast. This pump is moving 60 times a second. See it move too? See it? It's actually pumping 60 times a second.
MAN: That just spits it out?
EDGERTON: And then it makes the drops come out. Watch it. Hey, don't go away. You're ready?
MAN: OK.
[WHISTLE]
[LAUGHING]
WOMAN: Oh, my goodness.
EDGERTON: Isn't that pretty?
WOMAN: Isn't that pretty?
[WHISTLE]
EDGERTON: Turn the knob. Makes a difference. The whistle has nothing to do with it. I like that. It's pretty, isn't it?
MAN: It is pretty.
EDGERTON: That just made these kind of squirts. It squirts so hard since the water is already there, so--
MAN: It spreads it out.
EDGERTON: It spreads it out. Then you make it how fast or slow as you like. Yeah, we get a lot of mileage out of these things.
MAN: Well, I've seen your progress.
WOMAN: [INAUDIBLE]
EDGERTON: You fellows, since you've been so cooperative, you get a prize. One for you.
MAN: Thank you.
EDGERTON: One for you.
MAN: Thank you. That's the way they make applesauce back at MIT. We don't recommend it because, we don't recommend it. it's a little too--
MAN: Busy?
EDGERTON: Yeah, applesauce goes all over the place.
WOMAN: Oh my goodness, yeah.
MAN: Setting that on a piece of brass.
EDGERTON: That's a cartridge.
MAN: That's what I recognized.
EDGERTON: That's a souvenir. And on the back it describes grab some--
WOMAN: Now that's something, isn't it?
MAN: What does that look like without the light on it?
EDGERTON: You see the envelope of the thing.
MAN: Pretty little snowflake.
EDGERTON: Sure is. That surface tension, see, is pulling it together.
MAN: So you can see its buddy right there splatter and spray [INAUDIBLE] getting back to a stream again.
EDGERTON: It does. I gave a lecture at a college back east. And I hooked this pump up backwards. When I first plugged it in, it squirted water all over me. And the students enjoyed than to no end. I bet they did.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
Look at that how it moves. Moves periodically. [INAUDIBLE] There's plenty of room right around here. Come on in. We're just trying to help out here, showing this stroboplex.
WOMAN: It's really pretty this way.
EDGERTON: That's what I think.
WOMAN: Look how it is down there. See the little-- see how that-- isn't that pretty?
EDGERTON: Droplets come together.
WOMAN: When you show the light on it. That's what causes it?
EDGERTON: Yeah. Well the surface tension is pulling this up here. It's a circle and the edge of it, the edge of it is pulled by surface tension into drops. And then it gets into drops down here. And this is really pretty down here. But it's not coherent. Each time is different.
WOMAN: Oh, my, yes.
EDGERTON: For the top here, each one is exactly the same so you've got a nice, stroke image.
MAN: Do you want the slow speed now?
EDGERTON: Yeah. That shows the details of little drops like the little drops are hanging below in a drop in that one. Once in a while it's kind of double. You just see the ripple going right through it. Then when you do it the other way, you can see the liquid coming out of the bucket down at the bottom there.
MAN: Going up here.
MAN: You make water run up hill.
EDGERTON: Yeah.
MAN: All you need is a light. So is a magic light. It makes the water go backwards. It's good for ecology experiments. Everybody is worried about the water, what's going to happen to it. Well, here the water just keep going around in a circle.
WOMAN: That's just a piece of stainless steel kettle cleaner? Down in the bottom?
EDGERTON: Yeah, just kettle cleaner. Yeah.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
EDGERTON: Hello, Sandy.
SANDY: Hi.
EDGERTON: Thanks a lot for coming over. I want you to say hello to Ellen Dixon.
SANDY: Hi.
ELLEN: Hi.
EDGERTON: Sandy Young. She's going to do some acrobatics for the [INAUDIBLE]. Be sure to watch. You're going to run the camera for me. I'm going run the lights. We're going make a team. Try to catch her in the air. Would you take, would you come over here?
Could you do us a nice cartwheel and land over here? [INAUDIBLE] tight. Let's do it once. I just want to watch you this time. All right. Go ahead. Isn't that easy? All right. Now, come back. This time I'm going to flash the light on you. You don't mind, do you?
SANDY: No.
EDGERTON: All right, when I flash the light, go right ahead. Ready?
[CLICKS]
Perfect. Now, let's get on the camera, Ellen, and there's a push button on there somewhere, trip release. And I'll say, open and then we'll start. We'll start taking some pictures. Get ready. One, two, three, open.
[CLICKS]
Like all photographers, they have to take at least two.
ELLEN: OK.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
We're rolling.
EDGERTON: Hello. Sandy.
SANDY: Hi.
EDGERTON: I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Say hello to Ellen. Ellen Dixon. Miss Young, would you perform a couple of, what are you going to do?
SANDY: Cartwheels.
EDGERTON: Cartwheels? Terrific. OK. Stand up there. Be careful. We're getting you up in the air a little bit so we can get a picture from a low camera.
SANDY: OK. And be sure to hit that corner over there. when you come down. And this light, I want to see you do it just like you're going to do it so Ellen can judge it. All right, ready Go. Perfect.
Now this time I'm going to flash the light on you. Don't get excited when it flashes and you're upside down there. Ignore the light. Ready. All right, go.
[CLICKS]
Fine. Now we're going to make it more difficult. We're going to turn out all the lights. So the strobe lights will take over and Ellen is going to go over and man the camera or lady the camera and aim it at you. And she's going to open the shutter up on the bulb when I say go. And then we'll let the light go flash, flash. Let's try it now with the lights on once more. Ready?
[CLICKS]
Perfect. Now somebody turn out the lights and we'll make it difficult. And it will take a little time to-- open that door so we get a little light in here. I can't see anything. That's the idea. A little more. Little more. All right now, go ahead. Get ready. One, two, three, four, five, six. Perfect.
Now, Ellen, you got your finger on that button?
ELLEN: Yeah, I got it.
EDGERTON: All right. I want you to put it on bub and open the shutter when I say open. And then we'll take a series of pictures of her on the film. Get ready, open.
[CLICKS]
Perfect. OK. Let's try it again. Wind up the film, Ellen. Set your camera on bulb. You all set?
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
Two, three, go.
[CLICKS]
Fine. Perfect. All right. Turn on the lights. Now that's all there is to the [INAUDIBLE].
ELLEN: OK.
EDGERTON: Here we go. Bulb. Open.
[CLICKS]
Perfect. OK. Let's Turn off the lights now. Wind up your film. We'll develop those and we hope that we have it, preserve for posterity. And I hope we've got a real good picture. Promise me you'll put on the wall.
SANDY: Oh, OK.
EDGERTON: OK. OK. And if not, we'll try again some day. And good luck in your big contest with the Coast Guard. Don't want to show those poor kids up down there. Give them a hard time, OK? Bye.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
ELLEN: I'm rolling.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
Rolling.
EDGERTON: When I say bulb, open it up, Ellen. Open.
[CLICKS]
OK, now you can close it and wind the new film.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
[CLICKS]
That's wha'ts called a blinking light. [INAUDIBLE]
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
Here we go. Can you swim too?
[LAUGHING]
Do you dive?
SANDY: Yeah.
EDGERTON: I'll bet you can. Most people from California are really good in diving, swimming. We've got a nice pool though. That high board's--
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
Are we getting ready for this epic? That's what they call a movie sometimes.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
Terrific.
[CLICKS]
Don't waste too much film.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
MAN: [INAUDIBLE]
ELLEN: OK. Right. Good.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
Action. One more time. Good.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
Action.
[CLICKS]
One more time. Action.
[CLICKS]
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
Action.
[CLICKS]
One more time. Action.
[CLICKS]
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
Action.
[CLICKS]
EDGERTON: I'm going to start this lecture off. Come on in. There's no space except the floor. You'll have to sit on the floor. But that's all right. It's a steam heated floor. Oh, there's a chair. There's one over there, Allie. Come on in. Come on in. Come on in. I'm going to start this lecture off by reading a personal letter. Is that all right. Do you mind reading other people's mail? This is addressed to the Massachusetts Institute of Teck, T-E-C-K.
It is. Should read it. And it is addressed to The Director of Photography, comma, Art, question mark. And they got it down where, you know where everybody writes in, say i want a list of catalogs and stuff. You know they get about a 100 of these a day, asking for something. But they didn't know who the director of photographs was.
But they knew that-- well, the next line is inquiry on Harold E. Edgerton. So they sent it up to me. But it's not my letter. It's addressed to Massachusetts Institute of Teck. Dear sirs, Today for the first time I saw work done by Harold Edgerton's splice of a drop of milk.
That's the thing up there. It's been around since 1936. So where in the devil has this lady been all these years? And I want to see more. I'm very excited with this photograph. I want to know about this man and his working. Is it possible? Well, that's all I do is tell me what I'm doing. It's no problem.
Now the next line is the text of the sermon you're going to hear today.
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
Please tell me all you know and how I can learn more.
[LAUGHING]
Where is this letter from? It's from a young lady in Austin, Texas. Any of you ever been to Austin, Texas? Two of you, huh? Well anyway, the next she says, please send books, catalogs, articles, so forth. The next line I enjoyed. Very much. I hope he is still alive.
[LAUGHING]
So it's written right there. I read he was born in 1903 and I might have missed him. I hope not.
[LAUGHING]
[BUZZING/BEEPING]
[INAUDIBLE] We do this. Put a lot of information on the same picture. And let me tell you some of the technical problems. If the golfer has white pants, then you'll photograph his pants about 10 times in one position. So the first thing you do is you catch the golfer and you wrap him up in black velvet.
I found right off quick you can't wrap his head up. He has to his head stick out when you hit a golf ball. You have to do-- so that's his head. And now, the club, you paint it white and you use a black velvet background and you cross lights so that you illuminate it from the side. You get the picture?
And then you can run a strobe at 100 times a second and you can measure the velocity of how he starts and how he hits it. You can measure the velocity of the club before it hits the ball. You can measure the velocity of the club after it hits the ball. It's lost some energy.
You can measure the velocity of the ball. And you can even give the golfer information he isn't the slightest bit interested in, such as the velocity of his tee.
[LAUGHING]
Now, Gussie Moran, she didn't want to wear that black velvet gown. She just got this fancy costume on. So I said, OK, Gussie. But hit the thing up in the air where it won't be against your dress, see? So it's up there.
There's the tennis ball going up, coming down, being hit, on its way. And I'll let you figure out how you arrange so that the ball is exactly there and it comes down exactly there when they hit it. That's the home problem for the day.
Now this picture illustrates that you're in trouble. See the illumination isn't right. And there's too much action. And you can't tell what's going. There's a tennis racket there and a ball here. Everything is wrong. So I almost threw this negative in the wastebasket but I didn't make a print of it. If you want to see that print, it's down in the Museum of Modern Art on the wall.
This picture was made in the Boston Garden of a pole vaulter going over a--
MAN: Two.
WOMAN: I didn't get that [INAUDIBLE].
MAN: Two. Two. Two. Got it.
MAN: Check out the ducks.
WOMAN: OK, count to about 10 and just start coming out of the water for me.
MAN: OK. There we go.
MAN: There you go.
EDGERTON: Hey, look. You see them slide on the ice? They landed and slid. Stu feeds them a lot. See, that's why they come in here. Isn't that a beautiful drake?
[QUACKING]
MAN: No reaction.
EDGERTON: They say, we know you're a foreigner.
MAN: Does the lake ice over completely, 100%?
EDGERTON: It sometimes gets about that thick. And he's got an iceboat and I rowed all across once with an iceboat.
MAN: How do you do that on the ice?
EDGERTON: Rides on the on things like skates. Look at those things slide. When they land, they just slide on the ice.
MAN: I guess we're ready to take things apart.
EDGERTON: The cover's up there. Yeah. OK.
MAN: Pretty easy.
EDGERTON: Yeah. That was an easy operation.
WOMAN: Cut, I'm cut.
EDGERTON: Did you see those ducks slide on the ice?
WOMAN: Who's going to get the ducks?
MOS stop while the light is good. [INAUDIBLE]