SCIENCE OF THE DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19892, 10 March 1928, Page 5 (Supplement)

SCIENCE OF THE DAY.

TELEVISION TESTS. It is reported that startling success has followed six weeks of secret experiments carried out by the Baird Television Electric Company between New York and London. According to Mr. O. G. Hutchison, an official of the company: "The ago of the electric eye has arrived, enabling people to sweep the earth and seo their friends. All the experiments with New York have been carried out under most secret conditions. For six weeks we have been carrying on research work from London, and recently we have been able to establish contact with New York. On several occasions it has been possible to see the faces and hands, although features have been indistinct." That the Television Company have the courage of their convictions is seen in the fact that they have taken commodious and up-to-date offices in Long Acre, and a small stafE of clerks are busy with an increasing volume of correspondence. Mr. Baird, the inventor, is a young Scotsman with a decided Scots accent. When it was suggested to him that the company would be establishing a television service between Britain and New Zealand he smiled modestly and said: " I am afraid that is a long way off yet." Mr. Baird reiterated his original assertion that distance has little to do with the technique of television and that it is a matter of wireless technique, television as we know it to-day, he said, being dependent for its success upon the rapid transmission of electrical impulses either by wireless or by wires. The first attempt to " see" across space was actually made twelve months agq, but lack of power was the main cause of failure. The great interest which Mr.' Baird's invention aroused in scientific circles was witnessed at the Leeds meetings of the British Association, when queues of scientists waited to see his demonstration of television between that city and London. THE SUN'S LONG LITE. , The sun will continue to supply us with heat and light for one hundred and fifty billion years, says a French astronomer. Until now it has been thought that the sun would burn out in ten million years' time at the most. This new calculation is based on the latest discoveries of the atom's construction.

AN INTERESTING MIRROR. Based upon the theory that the elevation from the eyes to the highest point of the head is almost exactly the same in all persons, regardless of height, a mirror has been installed in a store in Portland, Oregon, with a scale so placed that the figure at the point where one's eyes are reflected gives one's height. HISTORY IN LEGENDS. An Indian chief has dictated to his secretaries a history of his tribe from the creation of the world as it is related in legends. Erland Nordenski, the Swedish explorer, who has just returned from Panama, has brought back a copy of the history, which he regards as one of the trophies of hi 3 expedition. His special interest was the Cuna tribe of the Atlantic coast. They are people of good intelligence and culture who cling to their old traditions. The chief who dictated the history employed two secretaries, one familiar with English, the other with Spanish. - - 4 IMITATION OP THE SUN. Imitation of the sun as a means for heating churches or other rooms with high ceilings has been originally and successfully applied in Amsterdam. Dr. Willem Lulo'fs, director of the municipal electricity works in that city, has_ invented such "a system, which is now in use m the new synagogue in Gerard Dou Street. Two electrical heat reflectors have been placed on the lower part of the ceiling of the building, enabling the heat rays to reach everybody in the auditorium with its seating capacity of 260 people. The contents of the room amount to 1000 cubic metres. The results are surprising. As soon as the installation is turned on one feels an agreeable sunbeam-like heat as on a fresn spring day, warming one through without giving any sense of suffocation or humidity so often apparent in rooms heated with water or steam pipes.