science

Meeting of Minds

Meeting of Minds is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Meeting of Minds rather than just read about it. In short: Meeting of Minds is a television series, created by Steve Allen, which aired on PBS from 1977 to 1981. The show featured actors playing historical figures, but in a talk show format.

Key takeaways

Meeting of Minds belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Meeting of Minds to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Meeting of Minds from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Meeting of Minds is a television series, created by Steve Allen, which aired on PBS from 1977 to 1981. The show featured actors playing historical figures, but in a talk show format. Guests would interact with each other and host Steve Allen, discussing philosophy, religion, history, science, and many other topics.

Origin Steve Allen originally created the concept for Meeting of Minds in the late 1950s. He intended to broadcast it as a segment of his weekly The Steve Allen Show television program but the show's sponsor, The Chrysler Corporation, raised objections and the segment plans were cancelled. Five years later, however, Allen and an acting troupe finally performed the segment on Allen's nightly Westinghouse show. Then, in 1971, Allen attempted to revive the concept as part of a syndicated talk series. The first episode was a critical success, and the program won three local Emmy awards. Allen then personally financed the development of six additional one-hour programs, which were ultimately produced by PBS beginning in 1977.

PBS series 1977–1981 The series was filmed at television station KCET in Hollywood, California. As nearly as was possible, the actual words of the historical figures were used. The show was fully scripted, yet the scripts were carefully crafted to give the appearance of spontaneous discussion among historic figures. Guests included: Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Paine, Francis Bacon, Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Daniel O'Connell, Catherine II, and Oliver Cromwell. Typically, each episode would be split into two parts, broadcast separately, with most or all of the guests introduced over the course of the first part, and the discussions continuing into the second part. A total of 24 episodes (or 12 two-part episodes) were produced. Actors made multiple appearances as different guests over the course of the series; this was particularly true of Allen's wife, Jayne Meadows, who appeared in 18 of the 24 episodes (playing nine distinct characters). There was also one major departure from the usual format, in which William Shakespeare was joined by several characters from his plays, with Meadows playing the role of the "dark lady" of his sonnets.

The show won many awards, including an Emmy Award. Meeting of Minds nominations:

Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series – 1978: Steve Allen, Writer; Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actress in a comedy or drama series – 1978: Beulah Quo; Outstanding Lead Actress for a Single Performance in a drama or comedy series – 1978: Jayne Meadows; Outstanding Achievement in Video Tape Editing for a Series – 1977: Terry Pickford, Editor and a Peabody Award. The scripts are available for public performance. Because of their educational nature, Allen did not attach a royalty to such performances.

Similar series The Canadian television series Witness to Yesterday, created by Arthur Voronka, aired three years before Allen's Emmy-award-winning local program. Unlike the Meeting of Minds round table format, Witness to Yesterday employed a one-on-one interview format that focused on a single historical figure each episode. Steve Allen appeared on a 1976 episode of Witness to Yesterday as George Gershwin. Another Canadian TV series, Titans, followed a similar format. It was originally broadcast in 1981–82. In French-speaking Canada, a version titled Les grands esprits ("The Great Minds") aired on Radio-Canada from 1982 to 1989. It was based on the original concept, with the scripts adapted and translated for the viewers by Jean Boisvert.

References

Further reading Allen, Steve (1989). Meeting of Minds: the complete scripts, with illustrations, of the amazingly successful PBS-TV series. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. pp. 4 vol. ISBN 9780879755508. OCLC 20802027.

External links Official webpage for the Meeting of Minds program List of guests and the actors who portrayed them Meeting of Minds at IMDb Meeting of Minds at The Interviews: An Oral History of Television

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Meeting of Minds

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Meeting of Minds claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Meeting of Minds before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Meeting of Minds ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Meeting of Minds

In research: Meeting of Minds appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Meeting of Minds in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Meeting of Minds is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1970s American documentary television series, 1970s American variety television series, 1977 American television series debuts, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Meeting of Minds outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Meeting of Minds in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Meeting of Minds means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Meeting of Minds out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Meeting of Minds in simple terms?

Meeting of Minds is a television series, created by Steve Allen, which aired on PBS from 1977 to 1981. The show featured actors playing historical figures, but in a talk show format.

Why does Meeting of Minds matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Meeting of Minds?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Meeting of Minds.