"Quo Vadis?"

Progress, Volume V, Issue 12, 1 October 1910, Page 15

"Quo Vadis?"

Some Predictions of Thomas A. Edison.

In a recent interview Thomas A. Edison expressed the belief that there will be found at some time a new power, a force to be drawn from the ether, an as yet undiscovered something that will cause as great a revolution as electricity has caused.

"I cannot guess what this power will be," he said, "nor how it will be discovered, but its discovery will be an accident. There are many forces at work around us, but we shall not find them unless something happens that will reveal them to one of our five senses. Something will have to happen to agitate or excite this force and transform it into light, or heat, or some other manifestation that we can understand through our senses. "There are any number of undulations in the ether right here in this room, but what they are we don't know. To illustrate our ignorance: Once when dining with a learned physiology professor of the Universit t y of Berlin I shook my forefinger at him and asked him what made it move. He couldn't tell. There you have a form of motion that we don't know anything about — we don't know what it is.

"And so, there is yet to be a .discovery in the domain of motion in the ether, something that we shall be able to carry on wires to great distances, and that, perhaps, will afford us power, but I cannot guess what it will be."

In the mean time, while this hypothetical force remains undiscovered, what may we expect electricity to accomplish in the immediate future?

"Lots of things," said Mr. Edison in reply to a question along this line. "It is the power of to-day and nearly everything which requires power or motion will soon be in the form of electricity. It will almost entirely displace gasoline in automobiles. In vehicular transportation in the cities of the United States it will bring about a complete revolution. The railroads cover this country with a vast network, yet almost everything that is now pulled to them or pulled away from them is drawn by horses. People do not realise the magnitude of horse traffic, and that is why I say electricity will revolutionise this phase of motive power. * ' The greatest invention in the electrical field, in my judgment, was the dynamo; then the telephone, and then the incandescent light as a unit. Of all human inventions, not my own, I should rather have invented the steam engine, because of what it has accomplished for civilisation.

"There will be a vast improvement in the telephone, especially as to volume of sound and clearness of articulation. Today you cannot send over the telephone a message which contains a lot of, say, Hungarian names. The articulation ought to be better than on the phonograph and it must be made. I believe the telephone will eventually displace the telegraph on railroads."

Replying to a question as to which of his inventions he thought most likely to receive the homage of posterity, Mr. Edison said at once:

"The phonograph, because of its sentimental side. In the development of the phonograph and the moving picture we have now reached a point at which we can make the picture sing and speak very naturally, and the public will get this invention in the near future.

"Another big advance in the electrical field will most likely be along the line of high efficiency in the wind motor, which will produce power for isolated communities, and there is also hope for the sun motor in the arid regions."

"Progress in electricity will continue during the next twenty-five years," he declared emphatically. "The demand for everything is unlimited. The more light you have the more light you want. And in its possibilities electricity seems unlike almost anything else — unlimited. What the farmer produces is limited, but the demand is always strong upon him.

"As to the various methods of applying the means, there is, of course, a question as to which is best. It is likely that there will always be a tussle between the slot, the trolley and the storage battery car, for instance."

In reply to a question Mr. Edison declared that of all his work the incandescent light and motor system was the most difficult.

"The public sees only the electric light," he said. "It does not appreciate the difficulties of the details. I sweat blood for six years, and took out 130 patents on various systems," he said, "but the light itself is all that is apparent to the general public."

He expressed the belief that steam has reached the point of its highest development, especially on the railroads, unless they widen the gauges, and declared his opinion that the use of electricity will become general in railroading.