WHAT NEXT?

Evening Star, Issue 21320, 26 January 1933, Page 2

WHAT NEXT?

FIELD OF INVENTION OPINIONS OF SCIENTISTS' What shall wo invent next? Answers to this query, given by leaders in the held of invention, and quite remarkable for their diversity, aro given out by ‘ Science Service ’ in a special features series. Orville Wright wants a sun-power motor; Lee Do Forest, on the other hand, would tap the bowels of the earth for his heat; Flihu Thomson wants solar energy turned into the electrical form; I’upin stands for democracy minus the professional politician; Arthur D. Little asks for docent homes at small cost; S. M. Kiutner, Wostinghou.se vice-president, wants ether waves in sines now unknown ; Dr E. F. Northrop, not content with one objective, yearns for television, a crime-detector, and protection against germs and insects. Dr Leo_Dc Forest says : “ I believe the next groat invention (or group, for several inventions arc required to solve the problem) will be practical television, first in the theatre, then in the home, by wire and radio. “ But this is not, in my opinion, what the world needs most. The urgent need of mankind is for unlimited sources of power, at costs so low as to revolutionise our methods and condi■tins of working and living. “ Such power lies a few miles beneath our feet. The next generation will see man delving and boring, not lor fuel, coal, oil nor mineral wealth, but to tap the limitless fountains of heat, by Some durable means which will permit us to send down water and got back high-tomporature steam, or some equivalent energy absorbing and emitting medium. “ Then electric power will bo at outdoors for heating, for cooling outhouses, 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 like that of day. “ 1 Knowledge is power,’ the Sage lias 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 u more perfect civilisation, a better psychology throughout the peoples of the world. If 1 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 conceive the possibility, is some direct method of converting the radiant energy of the sun into electric current with high efficiency, It docs seem that such a thing may bo 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 bo other sources of energy of which wo know too little, but the radiation from our sun is the most evident source. “ Looking forward, 1 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 the Westinghouso Company writes from Pittsburgh : ‘‘The question of the next great invention somewhat suggests the statement of the Irishman that he wished ho know whore lie was going to die, because if lie did ho would not go there. “This is the way it is witli us; if wo knew what the next great invention was going to bo we would start on it right now.” THE UNEXPECTED. “ 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 bio-physical accomplishments in the study of the human body and better control of diseases relating thereto; control of insects by radiations, or they might even think of power transmission by radio moans, along with other possible groat inventions that will follow the discovery of moans for producing and detecting ether-waves in tho now unknown regions of wave-lengths, “ In thinking over qnist inventions [ cannot escape the feeling that lias so frequently come to me of how little wo appreciated the need for many of them until after they were here—that is, tho world to us appeared just as complete before as after these inventions were made.”