The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1930. LIFE IN THE FUTURE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 886, 1 February 1930, Page 10

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1930. LIFE IN THE FUTURE

SCIENTISTS assert that a cornet player may be broken up completely in a solo on his instrument if he chances to see a person in the audience sucking a lemon. The automatic reaction to the acid lemon juice produced by mere sight of the fruit draws the eornetist’s mouth into a shape which makes the production of a good tone all hut impossible. What (readers may fairly ask) has the ruin of a comet solo , by the untimely appearance of a lemon to do with life in the future ? It is associated with the subject simply because a radio j listener in Paris recently puzzled scientists and temporarily gave | them the prospect of a new marvel. He declared that when listening to a broadcast of the church service from the Cathedral j of Notre Dame, he also smelt the smoke of the burning candles in tlie churcli. Was it possible, it was asked, that smell sensations might be picked up accidentally by the microphone? Psychologists soon provided an appreciable answer. The sensitive 1 arisian merely had been a victim of a fairly common malady known as “synesthesia” or a mixing of the sensations. Nerve impulses leaked across his brain and affected the centre for smells. So, thank Heaven, there is as yet no prospect or danger ■ of life in the future being marred by tlie wireless transmission of odours from ancient cities. Television is certain to become a commonplace development instead of a wonder, but there is little chance of the invention of smelevision. Great inventors are confident that life in the future will be a wonder-time of comfort and high levels of living. We are only at the beginning of the industrial age and the creation of purely automatic machinery. Even Mr. Henry Ford has assured a scientific interviewer that the industrial life into which the world is about to enter “will he less noisy, more beautiful, more just, more conducive to higher standards of comfort for all’ than is the present age.” If the famous automotive millionaire were a young man eager to tie up with something that has a great future,.he would “go digging after the airplane.” Much o± the progress of future life will be accomplished in the air. But engineering inventors, it seems, must first concentrate on the improvement of airplane engines so that these may possess at least, four essential characteristics; first, slow speed; second reliability; third, perfect balance; fourth, the use of a fuel four or five times more powerful than petrol. Mr. Ford does not worry about tlie future supply of fuel for internal-combustion engines capable of driving aircraft safely all over the world. The masters of science already can get powerful fuel from truit, from apples, weeds and sawdust—almost from anything that can be fermented. Indeed, “there is enough alcohol in one year s yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery to cultivate the field for a hundred years.” Someone, of course, wiU have to discover a cheap method of production, but that merely is a matter of incidental and probably accidental detail, the time may come when, after the world’s petroleum wells have run dry, the farmer will he more interested in the production of summer fuel for motorists and flyers than in the provision of winter feed for a dairy herd. Farms of the future may be equipped with alcohol bowsers instead of barns. Then there is the wonderful prospect for future generations in the development of the uses of electricity. Scientists inventors, and engineers foresee the possibility of a great transformation in the design and construction of residences. Houses j llave to be insulated so that they will he cooler in summer and warmer or at least more evenly heated in winter. There is apparently no reason, except perhaps an economic one, whv housework should not be done automatically by electric machinery. Even Mr. Edison cannot see why any handwork should be necessary in the manufacture of a garment. Why should not a machine be designed to take in cloth at one end and diop out the finished coat or trousers at the other ? Why not indeed , But even in this initial age of electricity and automatic machinery, many people, particularly in Auckland, would like + See i m 7 er^ ed quite soon a machine or something that would ?nw! C rie ? into homes more cheaply so that its users might enjoj some of the American advantages of the electrical age. • tn and fancl ® s as to modern invention may carry one far ' ■ + • y 7 ‘°T coutem l>lation,” hut those who keep their effects *T nds T m Want to kn °w what may be the effects of the promised age of purely automatic machinery and a ' without hand-labour. Today, not even the scientists or the greatest inventors can discover or invent anythin- for the with the 0 ” ° f U ?u m ? loy v n ® nt and P° vert y- TJnlessthese. together th the mass of bad polities which defy the resources of political inventors be dispersed and finally done away with! life in the future will be no better than life is with this generation. Perhaps than oi!fs f and tha rf P ° Sterlt f Sh °?] d be assurod of a life less noisy than ours, and a life more beautiful and more just, for it is beine bequeathed a tremendous load of debt and many hard days of reckoning. Meanwhile, let the wizards of electricity and swift movement switch on all the joys they can invent