EDISON, THE PROPHET.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14209, 25 May 1910, Page 7

EDISON, THE PROPHET.

FUTURE SOLUTIONS OF PRESENT PROBLEMS.

Thomas A. Edison has been talking to the •'lndependent" about some of the wonders and problems which make this old world such an interesting place in which to live. Radium, for instance, moves him to enthusiasm, the greater perhaps because even Air Edison himself hasn't got on confidential terms with the substance. He has some of it though. Oh, yes. Says he: "1 have a spinthariscope, which is a tiny bit of radium, of the size that will go through the eye of a needle, mounted over a. piece of willemitc. It has been shooting oil' millions or sparks tor the six years that 1 have had it, and 1 expect it will be shooting sparks the same way for thousands of years. bile. only small quantities of radium have been isolated, it exists every«here, in water, rock and soil. The possibility of harnessing this force for our use is somewhat of a speculation. A I radium clock has been made, and it will go several hundred years without winding. "The problem of fuel is one of the big problems of the future. We may iind out to-morrow how to get all the power from our fuel—wo get only 1.5 or 20 rent, now—and on the other hand jr. may take a long time. Water power is being rapidly developed. Maybe the utilisation of the tides will follow. More jiractieal are windmills connected with storage batteries to lay up tlie energy of the winds in electrical form. "Sun eiijjir.es are promising contrivances. In Arizona, there is a 30 horsepower sun engine ruu by focussing the rays on water and using a steam turoie. In steaming voleanotes there is power which might bo converted into eiectricity and distributed. "'!.o get rid of friction in our machines is one ot' our future problems. The only machine without friction that we ko'.v is tlie world, and it moves in tile resioLless ether. "The monorail does not appeal to me. It was a fundamental mistake that our railroads were built on a 4ft. yi'ii. gauge instead of a Oft. guage, which we will probably have to come to yet. "The aeroplane of the future will, 1 think, have to be on the helicopter principle. A successful air machine must be able to defy the winds. If right's aeroplane had one-twentieth part of its suriace the wind would not alfect it. "The helicopter principle is the only way to rise above atmospheric conditions. By increasing the velocity of propeller revolutions the size of' the machine can lie, diminished, and thereby we vanquish the hostility of the Wind. A helicopter could have foot-size phi lies distributed on a 1< K) to 101 l foot circle, and controlled from the centre by wires.

"Chemical food lias been worked out pretty well, hut it won't be :i commercial proposition. There are lots of synthetic things being made, but you can t beat the iarin as a laboratory 'ii that line.

"J'he clothes of the future will be so cheap that every young woman will bo able to follow the fashions —and there will be plenty of fashions. Artificial silk that is superior to the natural article is now made of wood piup. I think that the silkworm barbarism will iu fifty years, just as the indigo of India went before the synthetic production of indigo in German laboratories. "In 200 years, by the cheapening of commodities, the ordinary labourer will live as well a.s a man does now with £40,000 annual income. Automatic machinery and .scientific agriculture will bring about that result. "Xot individualism, but social labour, will dominate the future; you can't have individual machines and everv man working for himself. Industry wiil constantly become more social and interdependent. There will be no manual labour in the factories of the future. The men in them will bo merely superintendents watching the machinery to see that it works right. ''The work day, 1 believe, will bo eight hours. Every man needs that much work to keep him out of mischief and to keep him happy. But it will be work with the brain, something that men will be interested in, and done in wholesome, pleasant surroundings. Less and less man will be used as an engine or as a. horse, and his brains will be employed to benefit himself and bis fellows." ~-