The Absent-Minded Professor was one of the first Disney films to be colorized (for the 1986 video release), and, along with 1959's "The Shaggy Dog" and 1963's "Son of Flubber", it is one of Disney's few black-and-white films to be produced after 1941. Professor Brainard (Fred MacMurray) (pronounced BRAY-nard) is an absent-minded professor of physical chemistry at Medfield College who invents a substance that gains energy when it strikes a hard surface. This discovery follows some blackboard scribbling in which he reverses a sign in the equation for enthalpy to energy plus pressure times volume. Brainard names his discovery "Flubber", which is a
Albert George Wilson he became founding editor of the astronomical magazine "Icarus". In 1966, he accepted the position of associate director of McDonnell-Douglas Corporation Advanced Research Laboratories (DARL), which he held from 1966 until 1972. Wilson then became an adjunct professor at USC, teaching courses in philosophy and science until his retirement. After retiring Wilson was associated with the "Institute on Man and Science" and the "Institute of the Future", lecturing and consulting for both groups. He discovered a number of asteroids, and also co-discovered the periodic comet 107P/Wilson–Harrington with Robert George Harrington. The object is also known as the minor planet 4015