RADIO & PEACE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 29 November 1927, Page 9

RADIO & PEACE

POWER FOR GOOD ILLIMITABLE WONDERFUL POSSIBILITIES. Mr J. Sydney Williamson, a Canadian authority on wireless, recently wrote an article from which we quote the following:— Could Archimedes, the ancient Greek mathematician come back to earth for but a single day he would be startled and amazed at the many marvels of this modern age. and perhaps the one which would be to nim the greatest source of pleasure and wonder would be radio; the transmis sion of sound from a tiny instrument, by means of waves of electric energy, which can be picked up thousands <n miles awav across the ether and re transposed into sound by an infinitesimal portion of electricity and a few bits of wire

“Give me a lever big enough and I will move the world,’’ he once said Metaphorically speaking radio ac tivity is that lever. foC it can become the most potent factor for international goodwill the world has ever known. In a few short rears, which are but grains on the sands of time, this latest child of modern magic h°s been evolved from a dream, through the stages of crude experiment to its present state of near-perfection. Space has been conquered by that invisible we know by the name of electricity and the raw of the first five of the senses —sound— has been extended in a way that would have been dubbed witchcraft a couple of centuries ago. Its power for good is almost illimitable. . Already within the past few years it has been made possible to I converse directly with peoples in other lands thousands of miles away of whose existence mankind in wncral was only dimly aware through the medium of the school °nd the daily press. Now they are almost nextdoor neighbours and' thoughts and ideas are being exchanged between • them with a facility that was hitherto undreamed of. National ideals, na. tional music and national sentiment are being broadcast bv radio and received by listeners-in all ever the globe. A FAMILY OF NATIONS. In the general radio exchange the world is almost becoming a family of nations, and nations’ misconception of nation slowly being erodicated and in its place truth and understanding coming into their own. Sound has conquered distance! Scarcely’ had radiotelephony been brought within the reach of the masses than still another wonder was revealed to the world—television. This latter, which has extended the range of the second sense —sight—. just as radio has done for sound, is still mo.e or less in its experimental stages. Pictures have been carried hundreds of miles over the ether by radio energy. While the pictures are lacking in detail, it is being mode more perfect day bv day and before very long the televisional set will be as much a necessity to home comfort as is radiotelephony. With in the past few months it has been demonstrated that it is possible to converse with a person hundreds oi miles away and at the same time actually see him. If it is possible to transport sir-lit and sound across the either it is not altogether improbable that before many years have passed we wil l a iso he able to span the earth with the senses of feel, taste and smell i-v means of radio-activity. And i* these are possible, why not that vague, indefinite sixth sense, which many term mental telepathy? Nowadays man is dealing in a concrete way with the abstract things of life; so much so that scarcely anything seems impossible. This new and wonderful method of education, through the agency of radioactivity, has wonderful possibilities. May* it not be the avenue leading to the much-predicted millenium ?