A NEW MICROPHONE.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18072, 14 May 1924, Page 11

A NEW MICROPHONE.

GREAT RESULTS EXPECTED. The perfection of an electric ultraaudible microphone invented by Dr. Phillips Thomas, which it is claimed will permit scientists to record sound vibrations which now are too rapid or too faint for the, human ear to catch, Was announced recently by the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. In its experimental stage, according. to S. M. Kintner, director of research for the Westinghousc' Company, the microphone has been used successfully to transmit by radio the highest notes of the voice, and of musical instruments which the-ordinary transmitter' and re J ceiver reproduce as mere noises. Mr Kintner declared the device has been perfected and simplified to a point where it could be used by vessels at sea in picking up the warnings of foghorns or othe,r sound warnings be-j-oiul the range of the human ear ; ;-in. studying tho. .finer sound vibrations- of organs of the human body, such as theheart and brain, and- in the realm of the entomologist, who has tried in vaiii to pick up sounds known to be made by tiny insects, but inaudible to humans. V-The ultra-audible microphone will do for the human ear what the microscope does for the eye, V Mr Kintner said, . , Dr. Thomas's device coasists of ring, of - insulating material on. the inner side of which two tiny electrodes, are set opposite. A high voltage is passed through the electrodes, producing a soft, purplish glow discharge as ■it flows through the air between them. , This flowing light, it is, claimed, is highly sensitive to. sound., vibrations,, ■flickering with the'sounds and causing changes in the flow- of current which can be transmitted to reproducing machines or recorded by a stylus. . Heads of the department of entomology at the American Museum of Natural History declared that the new microphone, if made available ' to science/ would open a vast realm' of 1 study- to' the entomologist. ' - ) It has' long been known, they said, that certain birds, insects, and * even' animals which to the human ear were dumb, m'ade vocal or body ( sounds in communicating with each other.

Male arid female insects undoubtedly called to each other by sounds too pitched for the human ear, they said. ' ""