Loss of an old friend

I listen to a number of Pod Casts during the day as I work and pound on the keyboard some for enjoyment and others to learn what is happing in the field that I work in. This morning I was listening to, actually watching this one is a video pod cast, Geek Brief TV and heard the host announce that Don Herbert had passed away yesterday. I suddenly felt as if I had lost a friend even though I had never met the him and I'm quite sure the man did not even know I existed.

For those of you in the younger set that might not know Don Herbert was known to at least two generations as Mr. Wizard. This is the name he took as the host of the program that he started in 1951 after selling the idea to network executives at NBC in their then new medium of television.

I already had an intuitive nature about things related to science when I found the show several years latter and immediately became a big fan. I have to say that this program along with some other influences led me down a path of science, electricity, electronics, radio and latter computers. There are some people who have a natural talent for teaching and of that group a smaller subset have the ability to interact with their students in a way that makes the material interesting in a way that draws the student in and makes learning fun. Don Herbert was one of those special people. He leaves behind a legacy of scientist and ordinary people who developed a love of learning from him.

You can learn more about Mr. Wizard at this web site.