WONDERS OF ELECTRIC WAVES.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12754, 29 March 1910, Page 1

WONDERS OF ELECTRIC WAVES.

' Lecturing recently at the Marine Laboratory at Cullorcoats, Mr. H. Morris-Airey, lecturer on Physics at the Armstrong College, Newcastle, said although tlie names "Marconi" and "wireless 'telegraphy" had become almost synonymous to the general public his contribution to the final result became confused with tho work of others, and he was neither tho discoverer of electric waves nor the sole inventor of the apparatus for detecting them which made wireless telegraphy possible. He was, however, the. first to signal over large distances, and to attract the attention of the public to the now power. The diiFerent systems of wireless telegraphy vary in the manner in which the electric waves are produced and despatched, and also in the methods employed for their reception, but they all depend upon the transmission of dots and dashes by means of electric waves. Tlie Cullercoats radio-tele-graphic station at Brown's Point, with its two modern systems — De Forest and Poulsen — is an example of a wireless station of the first rank. Its huge antenna, which is a familiar object to a!I visitors at the seaside, enables messages to be received from ships many hundred miles distant and even from such remote places as Algiers. It has been possible by means of the Poulsen sj'stem to impress on the electric waves nob only simple dots and dashes, but also the rapid fluctuations corresponding to spoken words, and hence to telephone by electric waves. In this manner wireless telephone communication has been, made between Copenhagen and Berlin, a distance of nearly 200 miles, dispensing with the expert i knowledge of the Morse code necessary i for ordinary telegraphy. The marvels achieved do not stop here — the wircjless transmission of pictures is already an accomplished fact, and the- possibility of seeing by electric waves is almost certain. It is quite possible that future picture shows will not ho content with cinematograph illustrations of past^events, but will enable us to sec on a screen contemporary events — scenes of interest in foreign lands, which we shall be ahle to inspect at tlie same instant as the spectator who has spent time and n-onej- in travelling to the place; we may not only sec but hear the present ation of opera in towns whose distance ' precludes a personal visit. Wo shall have attained a mastery over time and space only to be compared with the ' powers of the genii of the "Arabian , Nights." f Such a powerful weapon, it need hardly be said, has not 'been neglected I hy those whose interest it is inthe development of war material. Wireless j companies of engineers are an essential I to every field force, electric waves have been harnessed to steer torpedoes and ', even large launches, mines can be fired by wireless waves, and it does not need much imagination to understand that this new method of communication has revolutionised tho methods of employirent of a fleet, the members of which are now under no necessity to remain in such closo touch with one another ns in the pre-wireless days.