Back in the mid-1950s there was a half-hour TV show entitled: "Science Fiction Theater". Naturally, this was one of my must-see TV shows which aired on Saturday evenings. It was also a precursor to other more famous - and better produced - shows like "The Twlight Zone" and "The Outer Limits".
I was in my early teens and had utterly convinced myself that I was destined to become an astronaut and hoped to be the first man on the moon! Of course, those hopes were dashed a few years later when I entered college and only earned a "D" in my first college math course - and flunked Chemistry 101! Ahh... the clash of dreams and reality!
But this chapter isn't about the career dream re-adjustment I was forced to make a few years later. This is about a teenage 'scientist' and the typical stupid risks teenagers are prone to take in pursuit of a dream. It's also about how easily a young mind can be influenced by prevailing popular culture.
One of the earlier episodes of Science Fiction Theater was titled, "The Negative Man", and featured Dane Clark as a worker in a science lab who has an accident involving some high powered electrical equipment. He's nearly killed while getting zapped in the head with vaguely described "energy waves". He recovers and, as you've probably guessed, has acquired greatly enhanced intelligence and sensory perception as a result of his accident. From there the rest of the storyline follows a rather hackneyed path involving a fair damsel in distress that our hero rescues making use of his enhanced powers. Pretty mundane stuff.
However, my young teen brain was intrigued by the notion of using electricity to enhance one's mental powers.
My parents had nurtured their budding young "scientist" by allowing him to set up a crude 'laboratory' of his own in a portion of the detached garage out back. There I conducted experiments mostly involving the mixing and burning of various rocket fuels. I also became adept at making gunpowder and other explosive combinations... which led to BIG problems later on! But that's a story for another day.
During this time I was constantly scrounging the junk piles of local industries for any cast off items that I could possibly use. Most of the odds and ends I picked up remained junk that got tossed out later on by either me or my dad. Some things I hauled home simply to tear apart to see what they were made of. One such item was a large industrial battery; probably used in a forklift or truck. Upon cracking this open, I found the electrodes inside to be rods of densly compacted carbon, approximately a foot long. They were about the same size and shape of a stick of dynamite; only black. Just their look intrigued me.
After viewing the Science Fiction Theater episode about the 'brain-zapped' guy who got smarter, I started fooling around with the 'black dynamite' electrode using regular 110 volt AC house current. I rigged a circuit to light up a single 60 watt light bulb, but used the electrode as part of the circuit. I was very interested to learn that the battery electrode actually had a great dampening effect on the flow of electricity as the 60 watt bulb could only emit a dim reddening of its filament when I closed the circuit. The electrode was a very poor conductor of electric current! At least it was for 110 volt AC house current. Ah HA!
Thus emboldened, I separated the electrode from the wire going to the light bulb and held that wire in one hand while very gingerly and lightly touching the electrode with a fingertip of my other hand. Ooooohh tingle TINGLE!
Now I wasn't a TOTAL idiot! I was aware that it was entirely possible to electrocute oneself with ordinary house current if one established a solid connection to a circuit with two parts of one's body. But I had established that as long as one of those body connections was through this highly resistant electrode, apparently the most one's body would feel would be a weird and exciting TINGLE! And I was fascinated enough with this phenomenon to sit there, tingling for several seconds, holding both the wire and the electrode while staring at the dim reddening of the bulb filament like a transfixed zombie! Okay; maybe I WAS a total idiot!!
Enthused by the experience of 'knowing' I wouldn't be electrocuted by house current as long as I used the carbon electrode to slow it down, I focussed on how to direct this diminished current through my brain rather than from hand to hand. The thought of "old Sparky", the electric chair, immediately came to mind. I envisioned the metal skull cap the executioners used as an entry point for high voltage electricity into the condemned's body. But, of course, I didn't need to shave my head. Nor did I need a sponge soaked in salt water to facilitate the electrical flow. I only wanted a diminished 'trickle' zipping through my brain.
I fashioned a sort of crude tiara from a thin strip of aluminum to fit around my upper cranium and attached one wire to it. I also acquired a push-button switch that I could hold in one hand and wired that into the circuit. I figured that would be my 'failsafe' mechanism. If I felt I was getting too much "juice", I could simply stop pressing my thumb on the button and break the circuit. It never occurred to me that when a person starts getting a lethal charge of electrical current surging through their body, their muscles could involuntarily clench. In my case, I could be tightly gripping the push-button switch and unable to release the button! But the boy scientist's research hadn't gotten that far.
I did consider that I didn't really want electricity going any further than my head. After all, the idea was to boost my brain; nothing else. So my solution was to lie flat on my back on the cold, hard concrete floor of my 'laboratory' with the carbon rod under my neck at the base of my skull. That way only a few inches of 'head matter' separated the two contacts. My entire lower body wouldn't be exposed... and I had my failsafe button switch in one hand. What could possibly go wrong?!
I lay there for several seconds staring up at the rafters of the garage with my thumb nervously caressing the surface of the button. Last moment doubts began to assail me. But then I thought of Dane Clark suddenly able to solve complex math equations... and able to sense when the woman he loved was in danger. I pressed the button.
Well, Gentle Reader, I'm afraid the climax to this story is rather anti-climactic. Nothing much happened. But then you already know that because I'm still around to tell the tale.
Oh, I definitely felt more tingling. Wanting to give myself a good 'dose' this time I kept the button pressed for 20 seconds or more... until the tingle around my upper skull began to feel more like a burn. And the carbon rod across the back of my neck felt like hot iron. I released my thumb from the button, sat up and removed my 'tiara'. I put away my "brain booster" device.
Disappointingly, I didn't 'feel' any smarter. Maybe it would take a little while for the effect to mainfest. But the next day at school did not bring forth any displays of academic brilliance. The ultimate proof that my intelligence was NOT enhanced lies in the fact that I subjected myself to a couple more "brain boost" sessions over the next few days. Isn't there an old saying about how a stupid person keeps repeating failed experiments, somehow expecting different results?
But in my defense I will again point out that at the time I was a YOUNG teenager. And teenagers are notorious for taking stupid risks.