Wireless PossibilitiesLow, A. M. (Archibald Montgomery)
Science
Wireless Possibilities
Low, A. M. (Archibald Montgomery)
Radio
When the day comes when we can tune with absolute accuracy; when we
can combine waves with accuracy and obtain a directional beam with the
shortest waves for re-broadcasting purposes, then we shall obtain real
happiness from the results.
Parliament must have its special wave length, the divorce courts of
the future will be broadcasted to prevent people from catching cold by
waiting outside. It will be quite easy for the Judge, at a doubtful
passage, to press a switch and to say, “I think we will cut that out.”
One can imagine broadcasting of the future linking up every city from
China to London; one can see special wave lengths for men, and equally
special wave lengths for women. And we shall forget the time when ships
at sea with ancient sets interfere with the murdering of music by the
local amateur.
It has been said that, at present, those in authority find it necessary
to choose special voices for the wireless broadcast-delivering. What
an idea! The public want to hear everybody. They want to have local
events broadcast, irrespective of the operator. They do not want a
perfect voice, they want a perfect personality, and it is rather the
wireless that must be altered to take any reception than the human
voice whose very characteristics delight us.
We are too accustomed to relying upon our senses. We are apt to think
that the ear is most delicate. It is nothing of the kind; it cannot
even hear notes that delight the heart of a dog, and if one pictures
life with the brain of a man, the ear of an antelope, and microscopic
eyes, together with the nose of a dog, some little idea of the
inefficiency of those few senses which we slightly understand can be
obtained.
To live in any town would be impossible: the smells of Bond Street
instead of pleasing the dog would tell us of rotting animal matter and
alarm us to distraction. We could never sit down upon a beautiful piece
of grass without listening to the worms and imagining ourselves with
them. We could not bear to drink water for the peculiar bodies we would
see in it. The wind in the trees, the people walking down our street or
into our rabbit-warrens of flats, would sound like a battle from afar.
It is only a question of relative senses, easily tested by anyone
who has the patience to fit an effective microphone to the amplifier
purchased in mahogany case at the local “store.”
Wireless inaccuracies abound; anyone who hears its music will agree,
but what of their effect upon our bodies!
The air, popularly speaking, must now be full of radio oscillations,
and if you tell me that they are negligible in effect I may believe
you, but if I hear there is no effect at all, I know that it cannot be
true.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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