Why is it so?

“Watch it now! Watch it!” 

He would say it with obvious enthusiasm and kid-like glee.

It was infectious.  You could not not be enthralled and intrigued by the man. Well,  Actually, no.   It was strange, I couldn’t figure out when I was young WHY NOT EVERYBODY was not totally gaga about him and his science.  Why is it so?


Julius Sumner Miller didn’t know. But even if he did know, he would not explain it. For he wanted you to FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF. And that’s the way he did his science. No long explanation, no lecture — just watch it, now — and be amazed, and if you are interested you could explore it for yourself — now that he asked the right question and demonstrated the natural phenomenon in a scientific way.

Watch it.

Why is it so?

Why is it so?

Not everybody was fascinated by him as I was.   My interest in science was not shared by most kids and adults that I knew.  Mr Wizard, Disney documentaries on science, space travel explained by Werner Von Braun — science in any form.  Yep, a nerd.  Julius Sumner Miller, Inventor Rational — the king of us all.  No, most aren’t  of the Rational Temperament, those who are typically interested in science —  probably 92% of ordinary folk of the other Temperaments are not that interested.  Oh, well.

Inventors are keenly pragmatic, and often become expert at devising the most effective means to accomplish their ends. They are the most reluctant of all the types to do things in a particular manner just because that’s the way they have been done. As a result, they often bring fresh, new approaches to their work and play. They are intensely curious and continuously probe for possibilities, especially when trying to solve complex problems. Inventors are filled with ideas, but value ideas only when they make possible actions and objects. [Please Understand Me II]

His Temperament was evident very early.

All 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. 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. To a few I got the answers in reading. To some I got the answers in dialogue with my Mama and my Papa and with my teachers. Some I thought out – not too well, to be sure – but I was learning to THINK. By this device – ever questioning – ever uncertain – I gathered up a rather massive body of knowledge. [Julius Sumner Miller]

So here we have an array of questions on THINGS – JUST THINGS – some simple – some not so – but all, I hope, of an inviting kind. I urge you to engage yourself with a question, bringing to it the passion which living creatures do in abundance possess but which too often lies hidden for want of a proper stirring. You will, I hope, be as was Pascal, ‘inflamed with the desire’. The hope I have here is simply summed up: 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”. Or, more simply in my own phrase, “WHY IS IT SO?” [Julius Sumner Miller]

Quote1.pngWhat we do, if we are successful, is to stir interest in the matter at hand, awaken enthusiasm for it, arouse a curiosity, kindle a feeling, fire up the imagination.Quote2.png — Julius Sumner Miller

4 thoughts on “Why is it so?”

  1. I had never heard of him, he was before my time – but thanks in part to the idea of another rational I have been able to see him present via youtube (Bernoulli pt 1) and am about to watch more. Enthusiasm, joy, exudes a sense of ‘Yes, this is truly cool’. Thanks for bringing him to my attention.

  2. In the Jewish Passover ritual, the Four Questions(“Father, why is this day different from other days”) seem geared to Rational children.

      1. Really? Maybe some Jewish father hundreds or thousands of years ago had a son that he didn’t know what to do with and invented the Four Questions just for him.

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