Television at 3/6 a Look!

Manawatu Times, Volume 65, Issue 237, 7 October 1940, Page 5

Television at 3/6 a Look!

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN j “New Zealanders very nearly had the chance of experiencing television at the Centennial Exhibition, ’ ’ said Mr. D. W. Jamieson, of the Public Works Department in his lecture on “ Electricity 7 * to tho Royal {Society on Friday night. 4 ‘lt would have cost 3s 6d a look, and even at that price there would have been little profit. The war scare killed this opportunity, because the English firm negotiating to bring out the television apparatus wojild not risk £30,000, which was tho cost of tho equipment. Television, the ‘ baby of tho electrical world* is only ten years old and is so expensive that commercial firms cannot support it here. Only in U.S.A. is it used commercially. In England, it is financed by tho Government under the BBC. “Electricity marvels in the medical world are X-ray equipment, such as the million volts apparatus at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London where special walls and screening have to bo used. Then there arc electro-photographic records of tho beating of the human heart, showing very fine variations of sound, and of muscular and nervous disorders. There is even an electric apparatus for recording brain waves. Pods respond to the electric currents pulsating in the brain and record them on a paper chart. Abnormalities are indicative of brain diseases. “The newly discovered microscope, something like X-ray apparatus, has marvellous possibilities and is tremendously more powerful than tho present microscope.” Mr. Jamieson illustrated his fascinating lecture in the wonders of electricity with interesting slides on the latest achievements and equipment of electricity. i