Evening star., 1927-04-12

movie" pictures, whereby any mum
Der of receiving instruments may re
produce the scene 'as is" while II
is progressing. Tomorrow every
home will have its own movie screen
whereon visions of scenes at the
uttarmost parts of the earth may he
witnessed. We shall all see the war
in China.
x 81
A radio wave travels at the same
speed as light, a little faster than
5000 miles a second From some
stars light has been racing toward
earth at that speed hundreds of years
but, beyond the range of such laggarc
light, may we now receive messages
broadcast many millions of miles far
ther than any that have been photo
graphed through the astronomers
telescopes?
What will be said then of the sol
emn promise of c. Francis Jenkins,
inventor of the only broadcasting
television device. who declares that
within a few weeks he will have SO
perfected his apparatus that trans
mitter carried in an airplane 1.000
yards or so above Shanghai VIII in
stantly depict upon an unlimited NUM-
Der of screens in the United States
and everywhere else the Chinese
mobs and the bomharding of the great
city by the fleets of the European
powers. That will be a movie" with
real thrill. IT is coming before next
Christmas. The laboratory demon.
stration is already some two years old.
but the method has been greatly de.
veloDed.
Through a Jenkins invention the
United States Weather Bureau and
Navy. since last September, have been
sending daily by radio pen-and-inlS
weather maps to ships at sea. Within
the last fortnight this apparatus has
become a two-way instrument, so that
n ship in midocean can instantly
send back through the ether any writ
ten message or any drawing or chart
made with a lead pencil.
An aviator in the sky above a bat
tlefield can sketch the field and troop
movements and instantly transmit the
field sketch to headquarters. That
Jenkins device reyolutionizes military
tactics as marvelously as did the in
vention of the Wright brothers. 1t is
only one fortnight old. While that
is not television, il is so closely re-
lated to the revolutionizing marvels
Of invention that one suggests the
other. Tomorrow the lead pencil
sketch map above battle will be sup
plemented by true vision of the whole
field, by the commanding general.
through the televisual apparatus in
the scout airplanes. The United
States has not acquired a monopoly
on the Jenkins weather map nor the
pencil sketch map. and foreign ma
tions are eagerly negotiating for their
use.
4 y
Calculating scientists, Jealous Of
their reputa ton for exactness of state
ment, deprecate the fancy that through
the radio and television one may yet
recapture the waves of sound and
sight originating in the years past
But they do not prove its impossibility
in view of recent scientific progress
THE shot which was heard around
the world" If taken literally, must
still be circumnavigating the globe, IL
science still adheres to the theory Of
the indestructibility of matter. Sound
travels a mile in about five seconds,
hence it took that shot three days and
eleven hours to reverberate around
the world just once. 1t is still circuin-
navigating, or perhaps echoing from
the atmospheric roof which defects
radio waves
So the speeches of the patriots Of
the Revolution are still vibrating
somewhere. And the radio sound
waves Of voices Of Cen Washington
at Yorktown, and of other patriots
of the past, are still flying through
the air.
Visions of ancient scenes may some
day be tuned in, when our skill in
creases, so that one may work with
fractions Of sound waves or radio
waves, rs DIR. Coblentz works with bis
tiny thermocouple. Ten years ago.
scientists said that no waves less than
5000 meters in length were practi-
cable; today amateurs are performing
miracles with waves less than 200
meters long. What of the "home.
opathy" OF wave fractions? VIII such
pick up vibrations now invisible and
inaudible?
when viii a sound wave tune i'm on
some radio and recapture Patrick
1enry's speech, Give me liberty or
give me death"' or hear again Nathan
Hale's regret that he had but one life
TO give his country? What il some
rejecting roof" of space far beyond
the suns of distant universes, should
turn back echoes of the light which
started starward when Moses divided
the Red Sea, Those waves exist
in space. Catch them. ye
scientists Bring them back that we
may get new inspiration from our an
ceStors,
Impossible? Too many waves for
man to select any SO long past? Yet
does not the telephone select the par
ticular timbre of a voice? And the
radio by the turning of a knob pick
up the ether waves from San Fran
cisco or South Africa. Australia or the