RADIO PROPHECIES

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11538, 15 January 1932, Page 3

RADIO PROPHECIES

POWERHOUSES LIKE SUNS:

WAGING WAR WITH ROBOTS

What ds the future of wireless, apart from such obvious things as television and greatly improved tvfiroless communication generally? That th e : human race will some day .Send ail their merchandise across the world by wireless waves is distinctly possible ; the art -lo.s will bp converted into electrical particles—‘transmitted. as wifeless waves at their;con'Stnhtj speed of-186,000 miles -a second, and then , rec9n.ver.lcd back t o . their original form* at-the receiving end (writes Ov .FL .Daly , in. , “Popular Wireless’:-’)., , . , ■;

Th a embryo stage of this is seen in tho ease of electro-plating, wherethe particles, of silver t ravel through t he! iiauid- to .tho ‘article "which is being; electro-plated. •■•- • ••“■A--"-It is. even .po,sgibJc that, in ... sojne future, time man himself mav travel as a wireless wave in the same wnfr—conyerting himself into electrical particles'. at the transmitting end and being reconverted back again at'life receiving station. •* ; - 1 -y> . As (Marconi foreshadows, nil future communications of the world are bound ,bo be by wireless. All Nature’s methods of communication are hy ft be wireless or ether rays, as we can, see in the ca se of the beat''and light'rays from tile' sun; there are no electric lighting or • .'power*, lines, connecting the earth to the sun. \Ye get,'our light and power hy wireless. All; our 1 great electrical' prhvcr: stations of the future will be like l’t.tie radiating, their light and power ;bv wir.cless, and gone for e/er will be th e oresent-dav electric lightand pouter lines and wires. Nor' will there be any overhead, or ytiilarground telephone or telegraph -wires; for; every liOuee will have its own wireless- telephone for use ihv tho samq .manner as the ordinary v-ire te'ephone. of the Post Office •o-dnr;-. Certain types of wireless waves yvill enable us -to control, tho weather, rid the air of fog and smoke ; other rays will, fertilise the ground and make crops grow twice as qnicKly las at. present— already this. ‘ has been done in the infant science o! electro-culture, as it is called, f While humanity may still continue to wage war for many centuries to come, it is likely that owinu to the facilities provided hy wireless control, no human being will actually take part in them; in fact an international law may make it illegal for human beings to fight in the flesh, and all wars will have to be fought via the medium of wireless c-ont 101fed battleships, tanks and aeroplanes. -These manless battles will be directed from control rooms in the capitals of me countries engaged. Crewless battleships will be manoeuvred by wireless control and television from Whitehall. Big guns will have disappeared from the decks of the vessels, and in their plac-c wireless- death rays will spit forth, milting hostile era ft and boiling the sea with their intensity. Chess-playing by wireless is the beginning of this. . - All our transport- will some day bo wireless controlled. Huge liners infinitely larger than any .present-day ocean greyhound may cross ‘he Atlantic without a captain ‘or-chief engineer—and only a skeleton crew both the course of the vessel and the engines being controlled by wireless from ports like London or New York. The Indian Air Mail pilot, instead of accompanying the machine, will sit in the control tower of the super-Croydon of to-morrow and control t lie course and destinies of the ’plane more safely and securely than if he were actually holding the joystick with his hands. In the realm of medicine and stiraerv, wireless possibilities are just as greet. N-ravs, radium rays and ultra-violet light ive merclv wireless rays of th P same family which g'-vc-ns- concerts. Just as some wireless rays will kill, others will bring life and heaLn: certain wireless rays may revive the drowned or those "ho. bv accident might dies of shock in the usual wav. The complete interior of the earth will be surveyed bv wireless, and wo shall know exactly how much cold, silver, copper, coal, water and radio-active substance there is in the earth. Anyone will be able to go into a shop and buv a map of the world showing all mineral deposits and their location. _ Radiogeosconv, as this new science is called, is now well advanced.