Wireless PossibilitiesLow, A. M. (Archibald Montgomery)
Science
Wireless Possibilities
Low, A. M. (Archibald Montgomery)
Radio
To use a light beam along which we can talk, to use a light beam
initially and to turn it into light when required, is by no means
difficult; it suggests the direct method of wireless vision, but from
the mechanical aspect the problem is still less complicated. The
difficulties of Radio Television to-day are constructional; in the far
future it may be a question of pure physics.
There is, at least, one simple method of sending photographs
by wireless with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Distance,
re-broadcasting, relaying are, none of them, of any great technical
importance. Interference is certainly a difficulty, for in the case of
a picture the eye cannot distinguish between faults so easily as the
ear can automatically separate unpleasant noises from music.
If an ordinary photograph is transferred to a copper plate, either
flat or round, and a contact finger is allowed to pass over it,
clearly the resistance between the plate and the finger will vary with
the thickness of the photographic film. If this resistance is used
to modulate the transmission in place of an ordinary microphone for
speech, the current at the receiving end can be picked up, amplified,
and used to mark darkly, lightly, or not at all, upon a prepared piece
of paper which is affected by the passage of an electric current.
By these means good photographs can be reproduced, and doubtless in the
future we shall be able to sign our cheques by the rapid transmission
of motion; we shall be able to trace criminals, send out their
finger-prints, and carry on very many classes of business which, at
present, require our bodily attention.
[Illustration: Fig. 3. If light passes through the negative to be
transmitted on to a selenium cell which modulates in place of a
microphone, the wave can be picked up, amplified, and made to open or
close a shutter. This permits another light to record, spot by spot,
the reproduction of the original photograph.]
What a help to the man who objects to a large city. Why could he not
conduct his business from his house in comfort instead of having his
spats washed every week in order to maintain his financial reputation?
There is a still more rapid method of transmitting a photograph: it is
to allow the light from an ordinary lamp to pass through a spot upon
the negative and then to a selenium cell. Selenium is so constituted
that its resistance to the passage of electricity varies with the
amount of light to which it is exposed. This property has been used to
light up and to extinguish ordinary street lamps, for demonstration
purposes.
If a selenium cell is used in place of the ordinary broadcasting
microphone, the transmission can be modulated in accordance with the
passage of the light through a black spot on the negative, such as part
of a top hat, or a white spot, such as a white face or part of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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