The idea for the course came from the drive to upgrade science education in the US after the Soviet Union's successful launch of
Sputnik in 1957. Learning of a plan by the New York State Commissioner of Education,
James Allen, to spend $600,000 on a refresher course for science teachers, Edward Stanley, Director of Public Affairs and Education at NBC, decided the network could do the same nationwide for not much more money. The
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education was also planning a pilot project on using television in teacher training. Major funding for the program came from the
Ford Foundation and from various corporations. The title came from a phrase Stanley used to explain the idea to
James Killian, science advisor to
President Eisenhower. Physics for the nuclear age was the topic of the first year's course, which was broadcast from 6:30 to 7:00 in the morning Monday through Friday. The second course, in chemistry, was preceded by a rebroadcast of the physics course at 6:00 am. usually in the afternoon by instructor preference. The first two seasons used three cameras; after the loss of the Ford Foundation support, this was reduced to two. The total budget was between $1.2 and $1.5 million a year. The program attracted more viewers and a wider variety of viewers than NBC had expected: 400,000 for the physics course, 600,000 for chemistry, and one and a half million for American government, and including high-school classes (two of them for blind students), more than 800 engineers in the
San Francisco Bay Area, nuns, 500 inmates of
San Quentin State Prison in California, parents of students studying science, and other members of the public, including many 6–14-year-olds. , one eighth of the viewers were teachers, four fifths of those science teachers. At its peak the program was shown on 172 stations, including some
ABC and
CBS affiliates and
public television stations. Each course had an accompanying textbook, and about an hour of homework was assigned for each lecture;
Season 1: Physics The first course began on October 6, 1958, and consisted of 165 lectures under the title
Atomic Age Physics by
Harvey White, head of the physics department at the
University of California, Berkeley. had seven
Nobel Prize winners appear as guest lecturers,
Season 2: Chemistry For the second season, on chemistry, the lecturer was
John F. Baxter of the
University of Florida, and NBC broadcast the program in color. The physics course was repeated during the preceding half hour,
Season 3: Mathematics The
Contemporary Mathematics course that began in fall 1960 was divided in two ways: each week, the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday classes were for college students and the Tuesday and Thursday classes for teachers; and in addition, the first half of the course was
Modern Algebra, taught by
John Kelley of Berkeley and Julius H. Hlavaty of
DeWitt Clinton High School, New York, respectively, and the second
Probability and Statistics, taught by
Frederick Mosteller, chairman of the department of statistics at
Harvard University, and Paul Clifford of
Montclair State College. The number of institutions offering credit for the course rose that year; probability was not commonly offered at the time. Some high schools also gave credit for it.
Gottfried Noether, then at
Boston University, helped develop the course and administer it at the institutional level. It was the first college-credit course in social studies to be available on national television; the audience included over half the high-school social science teachers in the US. For the fifth season, in 1962–63, there were plans for a course in economics, but NBC decided the cost of the program was too high, and instead the government course was repeated. and series titled
Wall Street for Everyone and
Sex in American Culture. ==Reception==