Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-16
W0rMS Acu0 the Sea
uru Message 1908 Mas the First Step Our Modern
Oft Zding Present Net0rks Wn ana Wr"
Channels the G,eatr Accomplishments the Future

radio or wire circuit depends upon the amount
of light reflected to the cell from the object
that is being pictured At the other end the
current is translated back into light again
and 1t Is easy enough, illuminating the original
by moving pencil of powerful light to make
a similar moving light reflect all the shadows
and high lights upon Photographic Aim.
But that process takes time-more time than
the eye will adapt itself to-a minute or more
to transmit even small photograph. But the
eye must see the whole thing in a twentieth
OF second, or it sees it only piecemeal.
Some of the most marvellous achievements Of
science have gone into the effort to speed up
the action Of the photo-electric cell so that
whole scene can be Illuminated so swiftly and
the fluctuations in the cell transmitted so
speedily that the whole thing is done in the
fraction Of q second
It is no small trick, for example, to coat the
inside Of glass bulb with film of rubidium
no thicker than an atom. 1t would take mil
lion or more such layers of this rare metal to
make sheet as thick as the paper on which
this Is printed The eye cannot detect its
presence, but the light waves do. They've done
that in the Bell Telephone laboratories and
by means of this new cell have been able to
transmit motion picture film, showing each
one-inch by three-quarters frame" completely
In the time during which the eye can retain q
single impression. But that is long way from
television that can be used for commercial
purposes.
I ASKED David Sarnon, vice president and
general manager of the Radio Corporation
of America, how soon his company would begin
to broadcast the Yale-Harvard foot ball games.
1T would be easy to say television Is here
and to broadcast light reflections on the basis
of Neutrality-suspicious." said Mr. Sarnoff.
ut would be easy and 1t might be profitable,
but it would not advance the day when sight
is added to sound in an adequate service to
the home through the medium Of radio COM
munication. Television is still in an expert
mental stage"
"Television may, in the course of years, be
expected gradually to take its place side by
side with radio-telephone broadcasting," was
as far rs Gen. J. G. Harbord president of the
Radio Corporation, would go. DR.. Alfred N.
Goldsmith, president of the Institute Of Radio
Engineers, was equally guarded.
TeIevtslon appears to the radio engineer as
most interesting subject for laboratory re-
search and other experimentation, he said
Human obstacles in the way Of television
may be more difficult to overcome than me-
chancal or electrical difficulties" said J. Andrew
White, president of the Columbia Broadcasting
System. DR.. Lee De Forest, inventor of the
audion tube, believes that the first step will
be little motion picture plays in silhouette,
Such silhouettes can be broadcast now, DIR.
Alexanderson told me, but they are hardly
what many have been led to look for.
And there, so far as television is coz rerned.
we are. Coming in some form, sof ; day
perhaps. Nobody knows when, II at an.
More important than television are theNN
searches of scientists into means of speeoing
up communications between individual and
individual. Seeking a metal more magnetic
than soft iron, DR.. @. w. Elmen, telephone
physicist, discovers an alloy of iron and nickel
permalloy. A thin ribbon Of permalloy, $500
miles long, wrapped spirally around a copper
CORE gives the Western Union cable which
carries signals across the Atlantic six times
as fast as the old Ones Now from the arbitrage
rooms in Broad street broker can cable an
order to the London Stock Exchange and get
back an acknowledgment of its execution in
less than one minute! Wrapped with an Eng
lish improvement on permalloy-mumetal-th
Western Union cable carries four messages each
way at the same time between Newfoundland
and Ireland. Radio tubes and methods trans
NIT the electric impulses along these modern
cables.
II Ado hitched to wires carried the CONVEX.
Sation between President Coolidge and the
King OF Spain. President Hoover NAV talk to-
Mussolni over copper WIRE for Elmen himself
has made still further improvements upon his
permalloy, and the new metal perminoar-
cobalt added to the iron and nickel--makes n
transatlantic telephone cable possible. It VIII
be laid as soon as the demand for time ON
the overseas radio talking circuits justifes the
expense Already both the 50O-meter channel
and the Short-wave channel Of Is meters ara
almost continuously in use.
Radio does the pioneer work; the wires follow
as soon as It pays to run them. Radio Is the
pathfinder Of communications. 1t IS unlikely
hat mill 20 Iaxz -