NIGHT EYES FOR MAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 32, 30 April 1927, Page 12

NIGHT EYES FOR MAN

CATS’ MONOPOLY GONE AN INVISIBLE RAY Seeing in the dark is no longer the monopoly of cats and noctural animals. Science can now give this power to man. Television, which was first successfully demonstrated a year ago, has made a further advance, and its clever young inventor, Mr. J. L. Baird, has produced an invisible ray by means of which objects in complete darkness can be perfectly shown upon a screen in another room or building. In Mr. Baird’s earlier 'demonstrations it was necessary for the persons being “transmitted" to sit before an intensely brilliant light—so bright as almost to blind the sitter. It was recognised that before the “televisor" could be feasible commercially this great difficulty must be overcome, and experiments with this purpose have been so successful that it is now unnecessary to have any light at all. The sitter can be seen just as plainly when in complete darkness. This is made possible by the harnessing of rays outside the human spectrum, but which the sensitive “electric eye” of the apparatus easily detects. This development opens up astounding possibilities. Apart from its possible importance in warfare, it may revolutionise many aspects of our normal, everyday life. The unseen rays have been found to be far more penetrative in fog than the most powerful beam of light known to man, and they should greatly simplify the operation of ships, aeroplanes and trains in murky weather. Even to think of trains running to time in a “London particular" may seem a Utopian dream, but it is one which the new invention may eventually bring about. And there are a thousand and one other uses to which the televisor could be put.