CHAPTER X. REMARKS. THEORY. ACCOMPLISHMENTS. MAXWELL'S HERTZ'S DISCOVERY. THE FUTURE.The history of wireless telegraphy and telephony is a striking example of how it is possible for scientists laboring in the field of pure research and stimulated by accumulated knowledge and imagination to arrive at discoveries of the most vital importance. Heinrich Hertz and Clerk Maxwell in experimental effort to attain other results unwittingly laid the foundation of this art.In 1867 Maxwell proposed the theory that light is not mere mechanical motion of the ether, but consists of electrical undulations. These undulations are partly magnetic and partly electrical. Moreover, according to the theory, the phenomena of electromagnetism and also that of light are due to certain modes of motion in the ether, electric currents, and magnetism, being due to whirls, or body displacements in the substance of the ether, while light is due to vibrations to and fro.Twenty years later Hertz discovered the most convincing experimental proofs of Maxwell's wonderful theory, and succeeded in producing electromagnetic waves in such a manner that their propagation through space could be examined, and it readily showed that while they were much longer than the ordinary waves of light, they possessed the same properties, were capable of being reflected, polarized, refracted, etc., and traveled at the same speed.The waves that Hertz produced are theelectromagneticorHertzianwaves of radiotelegraphy.Many thousand commercial wireless stations dot the face of the earth. Daily time signals, weather reports and storm warnings flash to ships far out in the ocean from government observatories. Late at night, in the midnight hours, when the world is asleep, powerful land stations commence to whisper press dispatches, and the next morning the ocean daily, containing the same news as our morning paper, is laid on the breakfast table of the ocean greyhound. A distress signal sends revenue cutters scurrying along the coast, and brings rescue to hundreds of imperiled lives. The Navy Department issues an order, and a few minutes later it is in the hands of the commanding officer of a fleet, a thousand miles away. Wireless links two continents across a table, and yet this wonderful apparatus is so simple that a sixteen-year-old boy can build instruments with a little guidance and listen to a far-distant station, 1,500 miles away, spell out its news.FIG. 150.—An amateur wireless telegraph station.FIG. 150.—An amateur wireless telegraph station.FIG. 151.—The high-power Naval wireless telegraph station under construction at Washington, D. C.FIG. 151.—The high-power Naval wireless telegraph station under construction at Washington, D. C.Wireless telegraphy is part of the established order of things. The wireless telephone is practical for limited distance, but is not a commercial rival of the telegraph. Great distances are claimed, but they are matters for proof and speculation.There is no immediate possibility that wireless telephony will take the place of local exchanges. If the time ever does come that it in any way tends to supplant the line telephone for some uses, it is more than probable that each subscriber must have his own generating station and call up direct.There is a very decided field of opportunity for wireless telephony for long-distance work. The present systems of long-distance wires are very expensive to construct and maintain, and are subject to the whims of storms and the elements.Wireless telephones will not only transmit the speech more clearly and distinctly, but have the further advantages that the initial cost is very much lower than that of wire lines, the maintenance is almost nil in comparison, the depreciation is smaller, the number of employees required is less, and a break-down is limited to the inside of the station, where it could be quickly remedied by the substitution of a duplicate spare piece of apparatus.Furthermore, no franchises or rights of way would need to be purchased. No serious difficulty would be encountered because of interference.Wireless telephony, like wireless telegraphy, but to an even greater extent, is peculiarly suited for the conveyance of marine intelligence. Wireless telephony occupies a unique position in this regard-no operator is required. The additional expense of an operator is an objection to the wireless telegraph in many cases, and forbids its installation. Anybody can operate the wireless telephone. It is also much quicker-words can be spoken more rapidly than they can be put into Morse signals and translated.FIG. 152.—--The curved lines represent the radius of the government high power wireless stations and show the zones over which direct communication may be had with ships.FIG. 152.—--The curved lines represent the radius of the government high power wireless stations and show the zones over which direct communication may be had with ships.FIG. 153.—The aerial system of a transatlantic station.FIG. 153.—The aerial system of a transatlantic station.The wireless telephone enables a passenger on board ship to communicate direct with his home by relaying the message over the line wires. By the same means the captain of a ship can call his home office and communicate with the owner of the vessel.Telegraphs and telephones are the nerves of the world, carrying swift messages from its brain centers to its hands, annihilating distance in thought. All differences between men as individuals and people as nations can be traced to the lack of close contact. Reduce or annihilate all distance in thought and action, and mankind would possess unbounded opportunities for peaceful economic and healthful development. No force more vital than the possibilities of wireless has ever presented itself or could be demanded to attain such an end. Such a statement, in the light of actual developments, might even be considered conservative, and is neither absurd nor the dream of a vivid imagination. The greatest obstacle to all efforts in radically new directions is the resistance of the human race. The antagonism of prejudice and skepticism can only disappear when the world as a whole grasps a new proof and learns to appreciate it. Inertia must be overcome, and the great masses set to thinking and striving toward an end before the aweing genie finally bursts forth and amazes the Aladdins of science.Within the memory of older men and women are primers of science, which speculate about the developments of electrical force, and guardedly discuss its possibilities.And now, electricity—this mysterious agent-has multiplied the muscular strength of man a billion times. The tasks of Hercules are now but chores to be accomplished by the closing of a switch. Mighty rivers roar through intake and turbine to drive the wheels of industry in a distant city and turn the night into day. Any attempt to chronicle all the applications of this wondrous power would be absurd. Such is electricity to-day.Only a few years ago Langley launched his famous aerodrome over the waters of the Potomac, while the world stood by and sneered, ridiculed a man whose work is now one of the classics of aeronautical literature, and scoffed at a machine whose principles embodied the conclusions of years of careful thought and scientific effort.A decade later and aeroplanes have become a living reality. A man and a little frame of sticks and canvas can throw off the fetters of gravity and go soaring dizzily two miles up into the blue sky, and daring more, come skimming and diving back to earth with motor dead. Such wonders only came to pass, however, when numbers of men accepted the problem as one to be solved by trying, and bent their energies toward its solution. Science has not reached the limits of its resources. It never will. The art of wireless may always be embarrassed by novelty in many directions.FIG. 154.–Fong Yee, a Chinese amateur wireless operator at Oakland, Cal., who is also an aviator and has been summoned home by the republican Chinese government to demonstrate apparatus of his own invention to the Chinese army.FIG. 154.–Fong Yee, a Chinese amateur wireless operator at Oakland, Cal., who is also an aviator and has been summoned home by the republican Chinese government to demonstrate apparatus of his own invention to the Chinese army.One of the greatest steps forward toward the day when methods and appliances regarded as permanent as the mountains will pass and be considered only as the curious remnants of a cruder age is the interest of 200,000 wireless amateurs in the United States. Some of these will develop into men who will bring some of the wonders of the future to their full fruition.FIG. 155.—Tesla world power plant (experimental station).FIG. 155.—Tesla world power plant (experimental station).What is this great change that can be coolly and precisely forecast? Along what lines will these wonderful developments come? The answer is "wireless"-not the wireless of a Marconi or a De Forest, but the wireless of a Tesla--of "high potential magnifying transmitters"-of "nodes" and "loops"--of oscillatory currents that leave their conductors behind-the "wireless" of the day when a system is introduced enabling any person to reach any other on the globe, not simply through a spoken word or thought conveyed, but visually a perfect transmission of images which will enable one person to see another, as though that other were by his side-"wireless" of a time when the great operations of commerce and industry will be vitalized by huge wireless power stations, turning the machinery of factories, lighting cities, or sending swift aeroplanes and ships darting to the farthest points of the earth.Of course, there may be something of the dramatic in such assertions, but they are founded upon scientific facts, and, if imaginary, are scientifically imaginary. The wonderful mysteries of oscillatory currents, whose natural medium is the ether, currents which object to being confined to wires and cables, and defy all ordinary laws; currents that will melt masses of metal with the violence of an explosion, but yet pass through the human body without producing any sensation; currents that will instantly manifest themselves 2,000 miles away from their source, with no visible means of propagation, are the open sesame to the treasures of a wonderful future.There are many places in the world where water power is available capable of generating almost unlimited electrical energy. The present difficulty lying in the way of its utilization is the limitation of electrical transmission by wire, for not only is the cost of long lines of copper tremendous, but power can only be carried in this manner for limited distances. Central distributing wireless power stations could send the power of Niagara, which alone might be made to supply a fifth of all the power in the United States, and the energy of Victoria to the ends of the earth with little loss. The Great Falls of Zambesi, in the heart of Africa, could be made to run the subway trains, the factories, lights, railroads, ferries, trucks, heaters, etc., in that vast, most complex, most bewildering and inspiring city of the Western World, the City of New York. Ocean vessels would no longer carry thousands of tons of coal, locomotives would not wheeze and cough a trail of soot and smoke through the country, chimneys would cease to belch, and aeroplanes would travel silently and swiftly overhead.FIG. 156.—Twenty-five foot sparks from a Tesla transformer.FIG. 156.—Twenty-five foot sparks from a Tesla transformer.It is easy, in the face of certain facts, to conjure up situations which would be pleasant and make for the betterment of the world. Any one whose imagination is vivid enough can make a prediction, but when the great truth is accidentally revealed, or experimentally confirmed, as the case may be, and rendered absolutely sure of accomplishment, will its incalculable consequences continue to baffle the imagination and carry us further into the land of wonderment? Only the future knows.THE END.AdvertisementBOOKS FOR HOME STUDYOPPORTUNITYPRACTICAL SCIENTIFICTECHNICALEACH BOOK IN THIS CATALOGUE IS WRITTEN BYAN EXPERT AND IS WRITTEN SO YOUCAN UNDERSTAND ITTHE NORMAN W. HENLEY PUBLISHING COMPANYPublishers of Scientific and Practical Books 132 Nassau StreetNew York, U. S. A.Any book in this Catalogue sent prepaid on receipt of price.Advertisement
CHAPTER X. REMARKS. THEORY. ACCOMPLISHMENTS. MAXWELL'S HERTZ'S DISCOVERY. THE FUTURE.The history of wireless telegraphy and telephony is a striking example of how it is possible for scientists laboring in the field of pure research and stimulated by accumulated knowledge and imagination to arrive at discoveries of the most vital importance. Heinrich Hertz and Clerk Maxwell in experimental effort to attain other results unwittingly laid the foundation of this art.In 1867 Maxwell proposed the theory that light is not mere mechanical motion of the ether, but consists of electrical undulations. These undulations are partly magnetic and partly electrical. Moreover, according to the theory, the phenomena of electromagnetism and also that of light are due to certain modes of motion in the ether, electric currents, and magnetism, being due to whirls, or body displacements in the substance of the ether, while light is due to vibrations to and fro.Twenty years later Hertz discovered the most convincing experimental proofs of Maxwell's wonderful theory, and succeeded in producing electromagnetic waves in such a manner that their propagation through space could be examined, and it readily showed that while they were much longer than the ordinary waves of light, they possessed the same properties, were capable of being reflected, polarized, refracted, etc., and traveled at the same speed.The waves that Hertz produced are theelectromagneticorHertzianwaves of radiotelegraphy.Many thousand commercial wireless stations dot the face of the earth. Daily time signals, weather reports and storm warnings flash to ships far out in the ocean from government observatories. Late at night, in the midnight hours, when the world is asleep, powerful land stations commence to whisper press dispatches, and the next morning the ocean daily, containing the same news as our morning paper, is laid on the breakfast table of the ocean greyhound. A distress signal sends revenue cutters scurrying along the coast, and brings rescue to hundreds of imperiled lives. The Navy Department issues an order, and a few minutes later it is in the hands of the commanding officer of a fleet, a thousand miles away. Wireless links two continents across a table, and yet this wonderful apparatus is so simple that a sixteen-year-old boy can build instruments with a little guidance and listen to a far-distant station, 1,500 miles away, spell out its news.FIG. 150.—An amateur wireless telegraph station.FIG. 150.—An amateur wireless telegraph station.FIG. 151.—The high-power Naval wireless telegraph station under construction at Washington, D. C.FIG. 151.—The high-power Naval wireless telegraph station under construction at Washington, D. C.Wireless telegraphy is part of the established order of things. The wireless telephone is practical for limited distance, but is not a commercial rival of the telegraph. Great distances are claimed, but they are matters for proof and speculation.There is no immediate possibility that wireless telephony will take the place of local exchanges. If the time ever does come that it in any way tends to supplant the line telephone for some uses, it is more than probable that each subscriber must have his own generating station and call up direct.There is a very decided field of opportunity for wireless telephony for long-distance work. The present systems of long-distance wires are very expensive to construct and maintain, and are subject to the whims of storms and the elements.Wireless telephones will not only transmit the speech more clearly and distinctly, but have the further advantages that the initial cost is very much lower than that of wire lines, the maintenance is almost nil in comparison, the depreciation is smaller, the number of employees required is less, and a break-down is limited to the inside of the station, where it could be quickly remedied by the substitution of a duplicate spare piece of apparatus.Furthermore, no franchises or rights of way would need to be purchased. No serious difficulty would be encountered because of interference.Wireless telephony, like wireless telegraphy, but to an even greater extent, is peculiarly suited for the conveyance of marine intelligence. Wireless telephony occupies a unique position in this regard-no operator is required. The additional expense of an operator is an objection to the wireless telegraph in many cases, and forbids its installation. Anybody can operate the wireless telephone. It is also much quicker-words can be spoken more rapidly than they can be put into Morse signals and translated.FIG. 152.—--The curved lines represent the radius of the government high power wireless stations and show the zones over which direct communication may be had with ships.FIG. 152.—--The curved lines represent the radius of the government high power wireless stations and show the zones over which direct communication may be had with ships.FIG. 153.—The aerial system of a transatlantic station.FIG. 153.—The aerial system of a transatlantic station.The wireless telephone enables a passenger on board ship to communicate direct with his home by relaying the message over the line wires. By the same means the captain of a ship can call his home office and communicate with the owner of the vessel.Telegraphs and telephones are the nerves of the world, carrying swift messages from its brain centers to its hands, annihilating distance in thought. All differences between men as individuals and people as nations can be traced to the lack of close contact. Reduce or annihilate all distance in thought and action, and mankind would possess unbounded opportunities for peaceful economic and healthful development. No force more vital than the possibilities of wireless has ever presented itself or could be demanded to attain such an end. Such a statement, in the light of actual developments, might even be considered conservative, and is neither absurd nor the dream of a vivid imagination. The greatest obstacle to all efforts in radically new directions is the resistance of the human race. The antagonism of prejudice and skepticism can only disappear when the world as a whole grasps a new proof and learns to appreciate it. Inertia must be overcome, and the great masses set to thinking and striving toward an end before the aweing genie finally bursts forth and amazes the Aladdins of science.Within the memory of older men and women are primers of science, which speculate about the developments of electrical force, and guardedly discuss its possibilities.And now, electricity—this mysterious agent-has multiplied the muscular strength of man a billion times. The tasks of Hercules are now but chores to be accomplished by the closing of a switch. Mighty rivers roar through intake and turbine to drive the wheels of industry in a distant city and turn the night into day. Any attempt to chronicle all the applications of this wondrous power would be absurd. Such is electricity to-day.Only a few years ago Langley launched his famous aerodrome over the waters of the Potomac, while the world stood by and sneered, ridiculed a man whose work is now one of the classics of aeronautical literature, and scoffed at a machine whose principles embodied the conclusions of years of careful thought and scientific effort.A decade later and aeroplanes have become a living reality. A man and a little frame of sticks and canvas can throw off the fetters of gravity and go soaring dizzily two miles up into the blue sky, and daring more, come skimming and diving back to earth with motor dead. Such wonders only came to pass, however, when numbers of men accepted the problem as one to be solved by trying, and bent their energies toward its solution. Science has not reached the limits of its resources. It never will. The art of wireless may always be embarrassed by novelty in many directions.FIG. 154.–Fong Yee, a Chinese amateur wireless operator at Oakland, Cal., who is also an aviator and has been summoned home by the republican Chinese government to demonstrate apparatus of his own invention to the Chinese army.FIG. 154.–Fong Yee, a Chinese amateur wireless operator at Oakland, Cal., who is also an aviator and has been summoned home by the republican Chinese government to demonstrate apparatus of his own invention to the Chinese army.One of the greatest steps forward toward the day when methods and appliances regarded as permanent as the mountains will pass and be considered only as the curious remnants of a cruder age is the interest of 200,000 wireless amateurs in the United States. Some of these will develop into men who will bring some of the wonders of the future to their full fruition.FIG. 155.—Tesla world power plant (experimental station).FIG. 155.—Tesla world power plant (experimental station).What is this great change that can be coolly and precisely forecast? Along what lines will these wonderful developments come? The answer is "wireless"-not the wireless of a Marconi or a De Forest, but the wireless of a Tesla--of "high potential magnifying transmitters"-of "nodes" and "loops"--of oscillatory currents that leave their conductors behind-the "wireless" of the day when a system is introduced enabling any person to reach any other on the globe, not simply through a spoken word or thought conveyed, but visually a perfect transmission of images which will enable one person to see another, as though that other were by his side-"wireless" of a time when the great operations of commerce and industry will be vitalized by huge wireless power stations, turning the machinery of factories, lighting cities, or sending swift aeroplanes and ships darting to the farthest points of the earth.Of course, there may be something of the dramatic in such assertions, but they are founded upon scientific facts, and, if imaginary, are scientifically imaginary. The wonderful mysteries of oscillatory currents, whose natural medium is the ether, currents which object to being confined to wires and cables, and defy all ordinary laws; currents that will melt masses of metal with the violence of an explosion, but yet pass through the human body without producing any sensation; currents that will instantly manifest themselves 2,000 miles away from their source, with no visible means of propagation, are the open sesame to the treasures of a wonderful future.There are many places in the world where water power is available capable of generating almost unlimited electrical energy. The present difficulty lying in the way of its utilization is the limitation of electrical transmission by wire, for not only is the cost of long lines of copper tremendous, but power can only be carried in this manner for limited distances. Central distributing wireless power stations could send the power of Niagara, which alone might be made to supply a fifth of all the power in the United States, and the energy of Victoria to the ends of the earth with little loss. The Great Falls of Zambesi, in the heart of Africa, could be made to run the subway trains, the factories, lights, railroads, ferries, trucks, heaters, etc., in that vast, most complex, most bewildering and inspiring city of the Western World, the City of New York. Ocean vessels would no longer carry thousands of tons of coal, locomotives would not wheeze and cough a trail of soot and smoke through the country, chimneys would cease to belch, and aeroplanes would travel silently and swiftly overhead.FIG. 156.—Twenty-five foot sparks from a Tesla transformer.FIG. 156.—Twenty-five foot sparks from a Tesla transformer.It is easy, in the face of certain facts, to conjure up situations which would be pleasant and make for the betterment of the world. Any one whose imagination is vivid enough can make a prediction, but when the great truth is accidentally revealed, or experimentally confirmed, as the case may be, and rendered absolutely sure of accomplishment, will its incalculable consequences continue to baffle the imagination and carry us further into the land of wonderment? Only the future knows.THE END.AdvertisementBOOKS FOR HOME STUDYOPPORTUNITYPRACTICAL SCIENTIFICTECHNICALEACH BOOK IN THIS CATALOGUE IS WRITTEN BYAN EXPERT AND IS WRITTEN SO YOUCAN UNDERSTAND ITTHE NORMAN W. HENLEY PUBLISHING COMPANYPublishers of Scientific and Practical Books 132 Nassau StreetNew York, U. S. A.Any book in this Catalogue sent prepaid on receipt of price.Advertisement
The history of wireless telegraphy and telephony is a striking example of how it is possible for scientists laboring in the field of pure research and stimulated by accumulated knowledge and imagination to arrive at discoveries of the most vital importance. Heinrich Hertz and Clerk Maxwell in experimental effort to attain other results unwittingly laid the foundation of this art.
In 1867 Maxwell proposed the theory that light is not mere mechanical motion of the ether, but consists of electrical undulations. These undulations are partly magnetic and partly electrical. Moreover, according to the theory, the phenomena of electromagnetism and also that of light are due to certain modes of motion in the ether, electric currents, and magnetism, being due to whirls, or body displacements in the substance of the ether, while light is due to vibrations to and fro.
Twenty years later Hertz discovered the most convincing experimental proofs of Maxwell's wonderful theory, and succeeded in producing electromagnetic waves in such a manner that their propagation through space could be examined, and it readily showed that while they were much longer than the ordinary waves of light, they possessed the same properties, were capable of being reflected, polarized, refracted, etc., and traveled at the same speed.
The waves that Hertz produced are theelectromagneticorHertzianwaves of radiotelegraphy.
Many thousand commercial wireless stations dot the face of the earth. Daily time signals, weather reports and storm warnings flash to ships far out in the ocean from government observatories. Late at night, in the midnight hours, when the world is asleep, powerful land stations commence to whisper press dispatches, and the next morning the ocean daily, containing the same news as our morning paper, is laid on the breakfast table of the ocean greyhound. A distress signal sends revenue cutters scurrying along the coast, and brings rescue to hundreds of imperiled lives. The Navy Department issues an order, and a few minutes later it is in the hands of the commanding officer of a fleet, a thousand miles away. Wireless links two continents across a table, and yet this wonderful apparatus is so simple that a sixteen-year-old boy can build instruments with a little guidance and listen to a far-distant station, 1,500 miles away, spell out its news.
FIG. 150.—An amateur wireless telegraph station.FIG. 150.—An amateur wireless telegraph station.
FIG. 150.—An amateur wireless telegraph station.
FIG. 151.—The high-power Naval wireless telegraph station under construction at Washington, D. C.FIG. 151.—The high-power Naval wireless telegraph station under construction at Washington, D. C.
FIG. 151.—The high-power Naval wireless telegraph station under construction at Washington, D. C.
Wireless telegraphy is part of the established order of things. The wireless telephone is practical for limited distance, but is not a commercial rival of the telegraph. Great distances are claimed, but they are matters for proof and speculation.
There is no immediate possibility that wireless telephony will take the place of local exchanges. If the time ever does come that it in any way tends to supplant the line telephone for some uses, it is more than probable that each subscriber must have his own generating station and call up direct.
There is a very decided field of opportunity for wireless telephony for long-distance work. The present systems of long-distance wires are very expensive to construct and maintain, and are subject to the whims of storms and the elements.
Wireless telephones will not only transmit the speech more clearly and distinctly, but have the further advantages that the initial cost is very much lower than that of wire lines, the maintenance is almost nil in comparison, the depreciation is smaller, the number of employees required is less, and a break-down is limited to the inside of the station, where it could be quickly remedied by the substitution of a duplicate spare piece of apparatus.
Furthermore, no franchises or rights of way would need to be purchased. No serious difficulty would be encountered because of interference.
Wireless telephony, like wireless telegraphy, but to an even greater extent, is peculiarly suited for the conveyance of marine intelligence. Wireless telephony occupies a unique position in this regard-no operator is required. The additional expense of an operator is an objection to the wireless telegraph in many cases, and forbids its installation. Anybody can operate the wireless telephone. It is also much quicker-words can be spoken more rapidly than they can be put into Morse signals and translated.
FIG. 152.—--The curved lines represent the radius of the government high power wireless stations and show the zones over which direct communication may be had with ships.FIG. 152.—--The curved lines represent the radius of the government high power wireless stations and show the zones over which direct communication may be had with ships.
FIG. 152.—--The curved lines represent the radius of the government high power wireless stations and show the zones over which direct communication may be had with ships.
FIG. 153.—The aerial system of a transatlantic station.FIG. 153.—The aerial system of a transatlantic station.
FIG. 153.—The aerial system of a transatlantic station.
The wireless telephone enables a passenger on board ship to communicate direct with his home by relaying the message over the line wires. By the same means the captain of a ship can call his home office and communicate with the owner of the vessel.
Telegraphs and telephones are the nerves of the world, carrying swift messages from its brain centers to its hands, annihilating distance in thought. All differences between men as individuals and people as nations can be traced to the lack of close contact. Reduce or annihilate all distance in thought and action, and mankind would possess unbounded opportunities for peaceful economic and healthful development. No force more vital than the possibilities of wireless has ever presented itself or could be demanded to attain such an end. Such a statement, in the light of actual developments, might even be considered conservative, and is neither absurd nor the dream of a vivid imagination. The greatest obstacle to all efforts in radically new directions is the resistance of the human race. The antagonism of prejudice and skepticism can only disappear when the world as a whole grasps a new proof and learns to appreciate it. Inertia must be overcome, and the great masses set to thinking and striving toward an end before the aweing genie finally bursts forth and amazes the Aladdins of science.
Within the memory of older men and women are primers of science, which speculate about the developments of electrical force, and guardedly discuss its possibilities.
And now, electricity—this mysterious agent-has multiplied the muscular strength of man a billion times. The tasks of Hercules are now but chores to be accomplished by the closing of a switch. Mighty rivers roar through intake and turbine to drive the wheels of industry in a distant city and turn the night into day. Any attempt to chronicle all the applications of this wondrous power would be absurd. Such is electricity to-day.
Only a few years ago Langley launched his famous aerodrome over the waters of the Potomac, while the world stood by and sneered, ridiculed a man whose work is now one of the classics of aeronautical literature, and scoffed at a machine whose principles embodied the conclusions of years of careful thought and scientific effort.
A decade later and aeroplanes have become a living reality. A man and a little frame of sticks and canvas can throw off the fetters of gravity and go soaring dizzily two miles up into the blue sky, and daring more, come skimming and diving back to earth with motor dead. Such wonders only came to pass, however, when numbers of men accepted the problem as one to be solved by trying, and bent their energies toward its solution. Science has not reached the limits of its resources. It never will. The art of wireless may always be embarrassed by novelty in many directions.
FIG. 154.–Fong Yee, a Chinese amateur wireless operator at Oakland, Cal., who is also an aviator and has been summoned home by the republican Chinese government to demonstrate apparatus of his own invention to the Chinese army.FIG. 154.–Fong Yee, a Chinese amateur wireless operator at Oakland, Cal., who is also an aviator and has been summoned home by the republican Chinese government to demonstrate apparatus of his own invention to the Chinese army.
FIG. 154.–Fong Yee, a Chinese amateur wireless operator at Oakland, Cal., who is also an aviator and has been summoned home by the republican Chinese government to demonstrate apparatus of his own invention to the Chinese army.
One of the greatest steps forward toward the day when methods and appliances regarded as permanent as the mountains will pass and be considered only as the curious remnants of a cruder age is the interest of 200,000 wireless amateurs in the United States. Some of these will develop into men who will bring some of the wonders of the future to their full fruition.
FIG. 155.—Tesla world power plant (experimental station).FIG. 155.—Tesla world power plant (experimental station).
FIG. 155.—Tesla world power plant (experimental station).
What is this great change that can be coolly and precisely forecast? Along what lines will these wonderful developments come? The answer is "wireless"-not the wireless of a Marconi or a De Forest, but the wireless of a Tesla--of "high potential magnifying transmitters"-of "nodes" and "loops"--of oscillatory currents that leave their conductors behind-the "wireless" of the day when a system is introduced enabling any person to reach any other on the globe, not simply through a spoken word or thought conveyed, but visually a perfect transmission of images which will enable one person to see another, as though that other were by his side-"wireless" of a time when the great operations of commerce and industry will be vitalized by huge wireless power stations, turning the machinery of factories, lighting cities, or sending swift aeroplanes and ships darting to the farthest points of the earth.
Of course, there may be something of the dramatic in such assertions, but they are founded upon scientific facts, and, if imaginary, are scientifically imaginary. The wonderful mysteries of oscillatory currents, whose natural medium is the ether, currents which object to being confined to wires and cables, and defy all ordinary laws; currents that will melt masses of metal with the violence of an explosion, but yet pass through the human body without producing any sensation; currents that will instantly manifest themselves 2,000 miles away from their source, with no visible means of propagation, are the open sesame to the treasures of a wonderful future.
There are many places in the world where water power is available capable of generating almost unlimited electrical energy. The present difficulty lying in the way of its utilization is the limitation of electrical transmission by wire, for not only is the cost of long lines of copper tremendous, but power can only be carried in this manner for limited distances. Central distributing wireless power stations could send the power of Niagara, which alone might be made to supply a fifth of all the power in the United States, and the energy of Victoria to the ends of the earth with little loss. The Great Falls of Zambesi, in the heart of Africa, could be made to run the subway trains, the factories, lights, railroads, ferries, trucks, heaters, etc., in that vast, most complex, most bewildering and inspiring city of the Western World, the City of New York. Ocean vessels would no longer carry thousands of tons of coal, locomotives would not wheeze and cough a trail of soot and smoke through the country, chimneys would cease to belch, and aeroplanes would travel silently and swiftly overhead.
FIG. 156.—Twenty-five foot sparks from a Tesla transformer.FIG. 156.—Twenty-five foot sparks from a Tesla transformer.
FIG. 156.—Twenty-five foot sparks from a Tesla transformer.
It is easy, in the face of certain facts, to conjure up situations which would be pleasant and make for the betterment of the world. Any one whose imagination is vivid enough can make a prediction, but when the great truth is accidentally revealed, or experimentally confirmed, as the case may be, and rendered absolutely sure of accomplishment, will its incalculable consequences continue to baffle the imagination and carry us further into the land of wonderment? Only the future knows.
THE END.
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BOOKS FOR HOME STUDY
OPPORTUNITY
PRACTICAL SCIENTIFIC
TECHNICAL
EACH BOOK IN THIS CATALOGUE IS WRITTEN BY
AN EXPERT AND IS WRITTEN SO YOU
CAN UNDERSTAND IT
THE NORMAN W. HENLEY PUBLISHING COMPANY
Publishers of Scientific and Practical Books 132 Nassau Street
New York, U. S. A.
Any book in this Catalogue sent prepaid on receipt of price.
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