VISION USA, NO 72 (1978)

[Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] the country that gave us hot rods and hula hoops has a new fad. Skateboards. They look as if some mad inventor decided to combine skating and [Music] skiing. Skateboarding started off as just another toy. But what made it into big business was the discovery of a new type of plastic called urethane that allowed the skateboards to go faster and maneuver more easily. That's when the wheels really began to [Music] roll. With the speed and flexibility of the new wheels, every child on the block began to act as if walking was obsolete. [Music] The dangers of skateboarding on city streets brought about dozens of skateboard parks where safety equipment can be rented. Like ski slope, there are runs for beginners and halfpipes for advanced and bowls for variety. As in competition ice skating and skiing, there's freestyle where you invent your own tricks. In just a few short years, these youngsters have raised the pastime to the level of professional sport. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Practicing to enter a skateboard competition. This young man is polishing his freestyle routine. [Music] At speeds of up to 60 km an hour, the racers hurdle down the concrete slopes in a race against the clock. At those speeds, you've got to be a wizard on wheels to miss all those cones. [Music] What started as a fad seems to be capturing the imagination of youngsters around the world. It would probably not be much of a surprise if the little boards with wheels turned up in the Olympic Games of the [Music] future. A world without man-made works of art is as unthinkable as Earth without its natural wonders. Many of the world's most treasured antiquities are slowly being destroyed by industrial pollution. [Music] Modern technology caused the problem and it may also have provided a solution. At the University of California at San Diego, a young physicist, Dr. John Azmus, has been perfecting ways of using laser light beams to restore works of art. While using a laser to make three-dimensional pictures of decaying statuary, he made the astonishing discovery that light from his laser gun can clean marble and stone. Now, the reason lasers can be useful in art conservation is that they can produce very concentrated beams of light so that you can achieve a a very localized interaction at a particular location. They produce very short pulses so that there isn't time for the heat to go into the material and damage it. And finally, they give you a a light that is monochromatic, a single color. And the single color that can then interact selectively with one particular color of material that you wish to remove. The ruby laser is activated by what is called a flashlight. This is a hollow quartz tube that's filled with xenon gas. The function of the laser is to convert nondirectional white light into a very highly columnated intense beam of red light. And this is accomplished by a ruby rod. This ruby rod is a circular cylinder and it and the chromium atoms in the ruby absorb the light that's emitted from the uh xenon gas in the flash lamp. What you do in the laser is you control the emission of light. And the way that you accomplish this is by putting mirrors at the end of a ruby rod. And this builds up just like something that you're quite familiar with. Conventional methods of cleaning and restoring art are much too slow to keep up with the rate at which the world's art treasures are decaying. By training students in laser art restoration, the doctor hopes to arrest that decay. Dr. Aszmus simply lines up on his target, a valuable bust of Julius Caesar, and fires. The intense heat of the laser beam boils off buildup and crustations, but reflects harmlessly off stone or marble. [Music] He and his assistants are discovering just how versatile a tool a laser is. The laser works extremely well in small areas such as the stone capitals of arches. For larger surfaces, Dr. Aszmus is developing a different system of cleaning. He plans to cluster a number of glass lamps filled with xenon gas at the top of a crane. He can then sweep over large areas, cleaning several feet per blast of light. The hollow quartz tubes filled with xenon gas transform diffused light into intensely coherent beams, much as the laser does. Experimenting with different wavelengths and intensities of light. The laser can be adjusted to clean different colors and [Music] textures. Light from the laser gun can even be fine-tuned to clean priceless [Music] paintings. This archway in Florence, Italy, the left side of which has already been cleaned, is a dramatic illustration of the doctor's handiwork. [Music] Rare books and manuscripts that might otherwise have been destroyed by age and pollution can now be restored in record [Music] time. Thanks to Dr. John Azmus, art restorers the world over have available a new tool in the battle against pollution. [Music] Almost daily, front page headlines describe a failure of man or equipment that has resulted in death, injury, or property damage. Why did it happen? Who was responsible? What went wrong? It was to answer questions like these that Failure Analysis Associates of Los Angeles was formed by Dr. Dr. Alan Tettleman, a university professor of metallurgy, and Dr. Bernard Ross, a mechanical engineer. Dr. Gerald Gardner, a New Zealander, is a consultant in human factors. Assisted by colleagues from allied fields and top university graduate students, the scientists probe the reasons why things fail. [Music] They have investigated everything from automotive parts to scuba gear to bridges and airplane crashes. Why did a boom from a crane snap off, hurdle to earth, and kill a man? A man died because this piece of metal failed. And like a team of highly trained detectives, they mean to find out why. Was it metal fatigue, an overload, or a fatal human error? The results of their investigation may well determine whether there was negligence involved and what can be done to prevent such an accident in the future. Dr. Ross looks at the overall structural view. He is a specialist in reconstructing accidents. Before this investigation is complete, the failed part will be sketched, photographed, measured. Even the very atoms of which it is composed will be examined. Dr. Tedleman begins the first in a series of microscopic examinations of the fractured crane boom. He'll be looking for the degree of corrosion and searching for the telltale signs of the initial failure site. Each step of the analysis must be photographically documented. To determine the toughness of the material, the scientists conduct an impact test, ever increasing the weight until failure occurs. The specimen of pipe being placed in the field of view of an electron microscope has been carefully sliced and polished to reveal its micro structure. Somewhere in this micro world, magnified from 10 to 50,000 diameters, are the clues that will reveal the solution to why the pipe failed, why a man lost his life. One out of 20 cases is an accident truly related to a improper manufacturer or defect in fabrication or a poor engineering design. The test results revealed that metal fatigue played no part in the accident, nor was it defective [Music] manufactured. The crane had been severely overloaded and that's human error. Yes. Well, over the past 10 years, we've probably been involved in over 2,000 accidents and uh we certainly have an understanding as to how many are mechanical, metallurgical, how many relate to human factors. uh I would say that overall uh 85% of all accidents do involve a human operator or some error or difficulty that has been contributed by the operator himself. Failure analysis demands not only superb scientific training but an inquisitive mind and inductive logic. Since a certain number of accidents are inevitable, the scientists and failure analysis have their work cut out for them. What went wrong is a question they'll be trying to answer every day. [Music] Okay. On stage for Rita's closing number. That's Rita Floyd and Animal, please. On stage. On stage. Okay. Everybody ready for that closing? I get it. Don't Don't answer that phone. No, Buzzy, do not answer that telephone. Oh, but Kermit, all these terrific funny things happen when I do answer it. I'm aware of that. I'm aware of that. Fuzzy, is there no end to this running gag? Not puppets, not marionets, and certainly not people. The Muppets are a happy combination of all three. Well, I guess that puts an end to this running gag. Yeah. and also to all the incoming [Music] calls. Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch. Appealing Muppet characters that children around the world have come to know and love on television Sesame Street. The father of all these zany characters is Jim Henson, a young man who has become one of the foremost puppeteers in the world. You got the Simon sound ready? Ernie, along with all the other muppets, was born in Henson's fertile imagination. Oh, wait a second. Oh, okay. You're feeding your cow. And then what happened? Uh, yeah. Well, then I came along. At his New York workshop, Henson and co-puppeteers use a mirror to help rehearse a Sesame Street sketch. Yeah. My meow. Your cat up a Yeah. Up a tree. Up a what? A tree. What kind of noise does a tree make? Russell. Russell. Very good. Okay. And then what happens, sir? Some of the muppets require three hands to operate. This keeps puppeteers falling over each other's feet in the beginning, but it also provides the characters with much richer animation. No, no, no. The fire department. That's who you call the fire department. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Called the fire department. They had a big ladder and uh they climbed up the ladder and got my out of the tree. That's a wonderful story, sir. I'm glad to hear it. Thank you for coming by. Thank you for listening. It's really helped telling it again. [Music] At his office on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Jim Henson supervises a variety of Muppet projects. It seems to me that it might be better to use the little guy Harvey Muskrat for that part. If we're going to make that change, I have to get that to Dawn right away cuz he started. Besides educational programs, Muppets star in industrial films, television specials, and their own weekly television series, The Muppet Show. Muppets pop up in a variety of forms in books, records, toys, and games. Why don't I give you mine? In the workshop, a permanent staff of eight bring Muppet characters to life. [Music] New muppets are always being created and old ones rebuilt. Henson oversees the construction of each muppet, testing for ease of manipulation and adding his distinctive touch here and there. Make regular shoes out of them, but they'll be a little Did you know when you sit here looking at him, you sit there with your teeth out? Did you are you aware of that? No. I guess that's what happens cuz his his teeth are sticking. Henson continually experiments with internal mechanisms and remote control devices to further animate the Muppet [Music] characters. For Hensen, muppet making means combining free thinking and creative discipline. [Music] As the puppet uh takes shape, it changes and evolves into something totally unlike what was ever designed in the first place. Then then also the puppeteer himself will come in at that point. And uh and then they add a whole new dimension which just comes from his personality and and the kind of personality he lends the characters. The gradual process of creating the distinctive voices and personality traits of Muppet characters begins with a script run through. But you never And in the distance, the sound of an approaching motorc car, two beer cans fly down and land at Kermit's feet. Unfortunately, you'll be seeing more of them. Uh, that was a bunch known as the Riverban gang. Uh, like Ma and EMTT and Frogtown Hollow in Waterville, they're all part of EMTT Honor's Jug Beyond Christmas. Sometimes it appears that the Muppet character is taking over the Muppeteer. Yeah, that whole totally totally catotic. It's very liike. Yeah, it's exactly the way Lizzie move, which is neat. My friend right here, man. We have Do we have a concert tonight? What? Yeah. Yeah, sure we do. Sure we do. She get here. I get nervous. I get nervous. Look at that. My top fell off. Oh, dang. Boy, this has turned out to be better than I thought. Well, the old mother was mother of us all. Well, the old woman was mother of us all. Something like that. Not bad. Ain't I seen you on TV? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You look familiar. Perhaps you've seen me on educational children television. Jim Henson has elevated puppetry from stiff wooden figures to joyous caricatures of human nature. [Music] [Music] code three fire alarm 1213 East Red Cedar. Code three fire alarm 1213 East Red Cedar Circle one engine respond. What might have become a devastating fire in any other town will likely be stopped in a matter of minutes in this community because this is the Woodlands, a brand new town near Houston, Texas that the residents claim is the safest in America. The reason for this is that every home in the community is wired for two-way communications. The heart of the system is a central computer that electronically sweeps each home every 6 seconds for signs of trouble. If an alarm has been triggered, it is instantly detected [Music] here. The computer has a memory storage unit that instantly recalls and then prints out pertinent information about the source of the alarm. The terminal unit in each subscriber's home flashes the code for the type of emergency that exists, police, fire, or medical. The monitor board at the central computer station identifies the source of the alarm and types out the name, address, phone number, even the medical history of the citizen in distress. From the time the computer is triggered until a vehicle is on its way to the scene is less than 30 seconds. Any home in this community of over 4,000 people can be reached in 2 to 3 minutes. Because of the quick response time, there's never been a loss of life due to fire in the 2 years that the woodland system has been in existence. [Music] Fire prevention is a big part of the program. Department representatives check home and business sensing devices on a regular basis as part of their effort to educate the community. Many residents of the Woodlands also have intrusion detection systems that are directly tied to the central computer. A sheriff's car can be at any home in the town within [Music] minutes. The sheriff's department educates residents of the community about preventive measures effective against attempted [Music] intrusions. In a medical emergency like this, seconds count. A medical alert alarm has been installed in every [Music] home. The alarm is instantly transmitted by the computer to a teletypewriter that prints out location of home, residents names, medical history of persons living there. The same information is simultaneously transmitted to an ambulance. The call goes out for trained medical volunteers who are on standby. Medic one EMS volunteers Lisa Dosset and Gloria notified by a paging device. The volunteer rushes to the scene of the emergency [Music] 413. Elapse time from alarm to arrival 2 minutes 30 seconds. [Music] Quick response time, trained medical technicians, modern life support equipment, and citizen volunteer participation make residents of the Woodlands feel a lot more secure in an emergency. [Music] If for any reason the community hospital cannot handle a patient, they are taken by helicopter to a hospital in nearby Houston, [Music] Texas. A bonus of the cable system is two-way communication during town meetings. As the size of cities has grown, getting together to discuss and vote on various local issues has become unwieldy, sometimes impossible. The community of Woodlands wanted to avoid that, and they did. Now all town meetings are televised via the cable to every home in town. If for any reason citizens can't attend in person, they can watch the proceedings from the comfort of their home. When it is time to vote on an issue, the push of a button gets the computer's attention and then another button casts the vote. Through the innovation of modern technology and citizen participation, the residents of the Woodlands feel secure in the safest town in the land. Heat. Heat. [Music]