WAR BY ELECTRICITY

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11669, 8 April 1916, Page 11

WAR BY ELECTRICITY

AN INVENTOR'S PREDICTIONS. (By GUGLIELMO MARCONI.) The nest war will most certainly be more scientific than this one. Engines of destruction are bound to grow more enormous and fantastic. Inventors are working everywhere* to this end. Means are being devised to improve torpedoes and use tliern in other ways. For a long while efforts have been 'made to control sea torpedoes from a distance. It is difficult to do, but not .impossible. ■Finally, I have heard of an air torpedo for use by Zeppelins which a Swedish captain is said to have invented. All this, is not much when we reflect that electricity has great surprises in store for us. Electricity has infinite power, yet it has not yet been employed as an arm of destruction. I don't say we shall see in the future battlefields without guns, rifles/ grenades or bombs, but theoretically it is possible. It is obvious that if electrical apparatus could invented to throw out waves such distances as to blow up powder, w© should see some extraordinary things. One man placing two wires in contact might blow up battleships at sea, munition depots and arsenals in a single minute. Suddenly, as though with a magic wand, ammunition boxes would blow xip on the battlefield and shells explode in the very mouths of guns. would spontaneously go off in the soldier's belt. This would mean a reversion to bayonet or sword fighting. The most fantastic dreams of Jules *Verne and "Wells are of little compared with the possibilities modern science opens up. I am now working on war inventions and not an apparatus that will enable men to see through walls, as has been said. My activities are being bent to things of more immediate value.