While quite a number of the scientific predictions made in _Ralph_ have come to pass, many more are still unrealized. I have, however, little concern that all--or most of them--will come about in the not too distant future. I am certain that _all_ of them will be commonplace by 2660, the time in which the action of this novel moves. Perhaps I can do no better than reprint the foreword of the original 1911 "_Ralph_": This story which plays in the year 2660, will run serially during the coming year in Modern Electrics. It is intended to give the reader as accurate a prophecy of the future as is consistent with the present marvelous growth of science. The author wishes to call especial attention to the fact that while there may be extremely strange and improbable devices and scenes in this narrative, they are not impossible, or outside of the reach of science. We are now at the beginning of a new and fantastic era--the electronic-atomic age--an age that makes the impossible come true overnight. If _Ralph 124C 41+_ can fire the present-day young minds with the same enthusiasm for scientific research and accomplishment as it did their fathers in the past, I shall feel amply repaid in having instigated this new, 1950 edition of _Ralph_. Hugo Gernsback _New York, May 1950_ PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION Ralph 124C 41+ first appeared as a serial in the author's first magazine, "Modern Electrics," in 1911. This magazine was first devoted exclusively to radio activities. At the time the story was written the word "radio" had not yet come into use. We were at that time still using the term "wireless." It has been necessary, in view of scientific progress since the time the story was first written, and in order to present the book to a much wider reading public, to rewrite much of the story and to make many changes. Yet, the ideas and conceptions embodied in the original manuscript have been little altered. The author appreciates that many of the predictions and statements appear to verge upon the fantastic. So was Jules Verne's submarine "Nautilus" in his famous story "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." Verne's conception of the submarine was declared utterly ridiculous. Nevertheless, the prophecy was fulfilled. In fact, Verne's imagination hit far below the mark in what was actually accomplished by science since the book was written. Lest you think that the author has gone too far into the realms of pure imagination, place yourself in the position of your great-great-grandfather being told about locomotives, steamships, X-rays, telegraphs, telephones, phonographs, electric lights, radio broadcasting, and the hundred other commonplaces of our lives today. Would he not have condemned such predictions as the height of folly and absurdity?