INVENTIONS TO COME.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 15 October 1925, Page 8

INVENTIONS TO COME.

PROFESSOR ’ S LIST. A method of maintaining traffic and laying cables without constantly digging up the roads is badly needed if only it were eheay. A means of providing a silent roadway which has good wearing quafities is almost a national necessity. 'The way, to disperse fogs might be found if sufficient attention was .given to the realm ol statistics and atmospheric electricity, writes Professor A. M. Low in. the Daily Express. . The Englishman’s home may be his castle, but it is decidedly cold in the winter. TVe burn coal which we pick in small pieces under the ground instead of absorbing its energy by converting jt into oil and pumping it into a main generating station for .distribution electrically over the countrv. We are not even content with the fact that England s past greatness was based on coal, for we fritter it away on our dwellings and; allow most qf the heat to go up the chimney, while our backs grow cold .with draughts froni the badlyfitting • windows. There is a tremendous need for a simple heating system which could be fitted easily in any house;-and which would warm, cook., and ventilate. ... “We have yet to find a loud speaker caii be, both loud and truly- accurate. What.loud speaker or gramophone, with its wonderful range of music at our choice, can really produce a song so that the living person might be at our elbow? Where is the truly stereoscopic .cinematograph mid the colour photography method which gives nsin a hand camera a picture in its natural state of true colour? How badly every office needs some means by which speech can be conveyed to paper without the intermediary ol a typist, a box o'f chocolates and a typewriter. Tlie pocket, dictatophone has yet to be produced which would enable us to attend to our correspondence in the train instead of wasting half our time in getting from place to place. Television is badly needed in a more accurate form than exists to-day. New amusements and new games are required at a time of. mental stress on tlie curve of progress. Simple foods which eon Id be taken during busy moments without inconvenience are necessary, while medical methods, let ns hope, will not require another century before a shortsightedness or chill can be cured permanently and directly by simple means.,. , ; . ? Tlie inefficiency of.; artificial : light is a,scientific-scandal, for our,-best-lights - seldom use more than 21- per cent of tlie energy, we; buy for tliein. ! The remainder of tlie 'money that fills other people’s pockets is- mostly wasted as heat. Yet artificial light is one of the dividing discoveries between savagery and 'civilisation.. - Wliat happens to . a small corner of London when the electric lights fail? Perhaps it is that the span : of life is insufficient for our mental capacity*; this too may be cured ■by grafting in the years to come. It is pathetic that we shoo'd need to exhaust ourselves with speech before we can convey - a thought. , , .' It is worse still that- tidal power, etherie energy, solar power, and the force of the wind cannot be used because there is no known method of successful electric storage, without great cost and loss. The whole future of the civilised races -depends upon the constant speeding up of everything we do and every thing we think.. .Unemployment might be cured by -universal electrification and by the discovery of a means for transmitting electrical power through tlie ether to countries •which are barren of natural power and heat. . ■