The Nature of Things - Oil, Soap and Detergent

About this video

Lawrence Bragg explores the Nature of Things.

A series of six outside broadcasts filmed at the Royal Institution in the late 1950s and early 1960s, The Nature of Things was presented by William Lawrence Bragg with the assistance of Bill Coates.

'Oil, Soap and Detergent' is the third programme from the series.

Coates recalled Bragg once remarking to him: ‘never talk about science, show it to them', which is what The Nature of Things set out to do. Like the Christmas Lectures, the programmes were structured around a series of demonstrations and were filmed as a lecture in the Ri's theatre. Although the filming took place with an audience of adults, the series was aimed at children and broadcast on children's television.

Original recording: 4 November 1959. Transmission: 26 November 1959.