science

The Battle of Brains

The Battle of Brains 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 The Battle of Brains rather than just read about it. In short: The Battle of Brains is a 13-minute 1941 Canadian documentary film, made by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) as part of the wartime Canada Carries On series. The film, directed by Stanley Hawes and produced by Stuart Legg, contrasted modern warfare with the First World War.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

The Battle of Brains is a 13-minute 1941 Canadian documentary film, made by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) as part of the wartime Canada Carries On series. The film, directed by Stanley Hawes and produced by Stuart Legg, contrasted modern warfare with the First World War. The film's French version title is Sur le front scientifique.

Synopsis During the First World War, campaigns were frozen into inaction, mired in a trench warfare stalemate that lasted years. During the Second World War, the lessons of the last war were not learned as France built a supposedly "impregnable" Maginot Line. In 1940, the static Maginot fortifications were easily outflanked by Nazi Germany's rapid mechanized legions. In modern mechanized ground warfare, both Great Britain and Canada learned the principles of tactical warfare and applied them in training and in battle. In Africa, Empire armoured units were successful in traversing large expanses of the Sahara Desert, successfully launching surprise attacks against Axis forces. War has not only become a battle of "men and machines" but also of "brains". In Canada, scientists at the National Research Council (NRC), university and industrial laboratories are in the forefront of research. The close relationship of science and warfare is evident when Andrew McNaughton, the former head of the NRC, becomes the commanding officer of the First Canadian Infantry Division (part of VII Corps). Canadian scientists and technicians use wind tunnels to design aircraft, decompression chambers to help pilots cope with battle at high altitudes, X-rays to test forgings, and create precise measuring instruments to ensure that cannon barrels are made to exacting standards. Science has also been harnessed to create other potent weapons of war such as aircraft and submarines. New technology has been introduced to make weapons more effective including the use of radio direction finders and degaussing apparatus on ships to protect against magnetic mines and torpedoes. With scientists and military tacticians working together, weapons of war have now become more effective and proved the value of "the battle of brains".

Cast General Andrew McNaughton

Production Typical of the NFB's Second World War documentary short films in the Canada Carries On series, The Battle of Brains was made in cooperation with the Director of Public Information, Herbert Lash. The film was created as a morale boosting propaganda film. The Battle of Brains was a compilation documentary that relied heavily on newsreel material including "enemy" footage, in order to provide the background to the dialogue. Additional on location photography at Canadian aircraft and munitions factories came from Stuart Legg. The deep baritone voice of stage actor Lorne Greene was featured in the narration of The Battle of Brains. Greene was known for his work on both radio broadcasts as a news announcer at CBC as well as narrating many of the Canada Carries On series. His sonorous recitation led to his nickname, "The Voice of Canada", and to some observers, the "voice-of-God". When reading grim battle statistics or narrating a particularly serious topic, he was known as "The Voice of Doom".

Reception The Battle of Brains was produced in 35 mm for the theatrical market. Each film was shown over a six-month period as part of the shorts or newsreel segments in approximately 800 theatres across Canada. The NFB had an arrangement with Famous Players theatres to ensure that Canadians from coast-to-coast could see them, with further distribution by Columbia Pictures. After the six-month theatrical tour ended, individual films were made available on 16 mm to schools, libraries, churches and factories, extending the life of these films for another year or two. They were also made available to film libraries operated by university and provincial authorities. A total of 199 films were produced before the series was canceled in 1959.

See also The Home Front (1940), a NFB documentary on the role of women on the home front in the Second World War Rosies of the North (1999), a NFB documentary on the Canadian Car and Foundry in the Second World War

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

External links The Battle of Brains in the NFB collection catalog Watch The Battle of Brains at Media Collections Online, Indiana University Libraries

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Battle of Brains

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Battle of Brains 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 The Battle of Brains 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 The Battle of Brains 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 The Battle of Brains

In research: The Battle of Brains 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 The Battle of Brains 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: The Battle of Brains is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1941 Canadian films, 1941 English-language films, 1941 films, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Battle of Brains 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 The Battle of Brains in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Battle of Brains 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 The Battle of Brains out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Battle of Brains in simple terms?

Why does The Battle of Brains 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 The Battle of Brains?

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 The Battle of Brains.