The Nature of Things - Rubber and Plastics

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.

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.

The fifth programme in the series, 'Rubber and Plastics' explores the properties of polymers – molecules composed of repeating structures, typically connected by covalent bonds. As Bragg puts it, they are the chemical equivalent of a pessimistic men wearing "both braces and a belt" and tying them to each other.

With Ri demo technician George Coates he presents a series of live demos to reveal the unique structure of polymers and rubber as well as creating a number of different plastics and artificial fibres.

There are some delightful anachronisms here – from the wonder shown by the audience at the "marvellous new substances" (some flown in especially from America) to Bragg's address to the male members of the audience about the benefits of artificial fibres when "smoking our pipes at home". The smoking theme continues as George Coates creates a plastic ash tray and their last demo is particularly delightful with members of the very formal audience stretch rubber bands across their foreheads.

View more Nature of Things episodes in the Ri Archive Collection.