WHAT NEXT?

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 10, 13 January 1933, Page 6

WHAT NEXT?

FIELD OF INVENTION'

OPINIONS ;0F SCIENTISTS

What shall we invent next?

Answers to this»query, given by leaders in the field of invention, and quite remarkable for their diversity, are given out by "Science Service" in a special feature series. . Orville Wright wants a sun-power motor; Leo De Forest, on the other hand, would tap the bowels of the earth for his beat; Elibu Thomson wants solar energy turned into the electrical form; Pupin stands for domocracy minus the professional politician; Arthur D. Little asks £oi decent homes at Bmall cost; S. M. Kintner, Westinghouse vice-ptesi-dont, wants ether waves in sizes now unknown; Dr. E. Fk Northrup, not content with one objective, yearns for television, a crime-detector, and protection against germs and:insects.' . v . ' '■',' , Dr. Lee Do Forest erays: . «I believe the. next great invention (or group,; for several inventions are required to solve the problem)" will be practical television, first in the theatre, thpn in the home, by wire and radio. "But this is not, in my opiaion, what the world needs most. Tho urgent need of mankind is for unlimited sources of power, at costs1 so low as to revolutionise our methods and conditions of working and living. .- ('Such power lies a few miles beneath our feet.. The next generation will see man, delving, and boring, not for fuel, coal, oil, nor. mineral wealth, but to tap the limitless, fountains of heat, by some durable moans which will permit us to send down water and get back high-temperature steam, or some equivalent energy absorbing and emitting medium. "Then electric power will be at our doors for heating, for cooling our houses, for purifying our air, propelling our vehicles .(supposing suitable storage batteries)—doing all manual work, in factory, farm, and home,-speeding and enormously increasing vegetable and crop growth, illuminating homes, streets, and all country .roadways with light lik? that of day. - :.C . -, "'Knowledge is pow% the Sage has said; but power will bring knowledge and-leisure to acquire it, and the immeasurable blessings'which follow in its train." . ■=~ - -.- ./ ' But Elihu. Thomson would go up for his energy instead of down. He writes"Some, people would be inclined to answer that what the world needs most is a more perfect civilisation; a better psychology throughout, the peoples of the .world*. If I may be.permitted to limit myself to the 'greatest future invention,', or what the world needs most in. the mechanical aspect- of things. I would,say the 'greatest future invention,' of which I can.cortceive the possibility,, is some direct method of converting the radiant- energy of the sun into, electric current with high ■efficiency. It does seem that auch a thing may be a possibility, and "that solar energy may in years to come be relied" upon to furnish directly electricity for all the services, that are possible with it. There may b,b other sources of energy pf which wo know too little, but the radiation from our sun is themost evident source, _ "Looking forward, I can see no period when the efforts of the inventor or discoverer ,may not be expected to be fruitful' in. the service "of man." . # Vice-President Kintner of tho Westinghouse Company writes from Pittsburgh: • : ",.-;•' "The question of the next great invention somewhat suggests the statement :of the Irishman that he wished ha knew. where • he. was going to die, because if ho did he would not go there. This is the way it is with us; if we knew' what the next great invention was going to be we would start on it right now. : THE UNEXPECTED. J' Almost anybody that you would ask this question would say—'television,' air conditioning,' or some other development that now offers immediate hope of accomplishment;:but, in addition to those,,, one might look forward to biophysical accomplishments in the s.tudy of the human body and better control of diseases relating thereto; control of msocta by radiations; or. they might even think of power transmission by radio,means, along with other possible great inventions that will follow the discovery of means for producing and detecting ether-waves in the now unknown regions of wave-lengths. "In thinking over past inventions I cannot, escape the feeling that has so frequently come to me of how little we appreciated ..the need for many of them until after:,.they were 'here—that is,: the world' to us appeared just as complete before aa: after these inventions were made." '■''■:'