CHEAP ELECTRICITY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5290, 22 June 1928, Page 3

CHEAP ELECTRICITY.

POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENTS. DREAMS OF THE FUTURE.. Electricity through the air and as free as ojr is, the dream of physicists and scientists. Deep-thinking, farseeing electrical engineers are convinced that such phenomena will yet Jjtome a practical reality. A quest tons made recently amongst electrical engineers and. scientists, in Sydney to ascertain their answer to the question!, “What is Electricity ?” They one and all declined to answer the questian in a simple manper (states the Sydney Morning Herald). Most specialises were satisfied 1 to fall back on the standard definition —that electricity is a powerful physical agent which makes its existence manifest by attractions aqd expulsions, thereby producing light and heat, commotions, chemical decompositions,, and . other phenomena,WORLD’S GREATEST ROMANCE. Radio and electricity, sisters in science, are the world’s greatest romance. Their tremendous potentialities for the future are, as yet, only dimly realised. This is demonstrated in a remarkable manner in an. exhibition a,t the Sydney Town, Hall. Some of the world’s greatest scientific man vels are exhibited there; yet they are givem but a passing riotice by the average visitor. Take the electric home, imagine how it would thrill and excite a vis- < itor entirely unacquainted with electricity. One can easily realise the in-' credulity, and even consternation, or profound fear, which would be shown by a visitor being introduced to the wonders of electricity for the first time. His guide through this ihome would) turn a switch and produce intense heat as if by magic; then he . would show how water was boiled, food cooked,' clothes washed, dried and ironed without any ostensible human agency ; wind would be produced from an unknown source; a dark room would be flooded with light, and from a simple-looking box in the corner there would proceed human speech and song, and the sweetest of music, Truly the visitor would! have cause for surprise. But even this would 1 'riot end the wonders. Downstairs: the visitor would see carriages runining on rails without any visible mea,ns of propulsion,' and observe them' stopping and starting at certain stages simply because various coloured lights appeared on the top of poles. In another part of the hall he would have a practical demonstration of the discovery by Benjamin Franklin, through his kite, that electricity and lightning are essentially the same, and would have thunder artificially produced by the breaking of an electric circuit in a manner similar to that which elec, trie contacts and discharges produce thunder in the elements ELECTRICAL DEVELOPMENT. In '6OO B.C. Thales discovered that amber, when, rubbed with silk, became of alternately attracting and repelling light bodies such as feathers, dried leaves, and portions of flowers. The .word “electric” was first used in 1600 by Gilbert, in his book “De Magneto,” in which, he was the first to propound the theory that magnetis-ni and electricity were two emanations of one fundamental force. He showed how sulphur, glass, lodestone, and other matter had the same property as amber to produce electricity when rubbed with some other material. This discovery led to the construction of various frictional machines for the production of electricity, a. problem which, during the seventeenth century, was pursued with great earnestiiiess by physicists ;a,nd experimenters. Some wonderful discoveries were made quite accidentally. The most. Important of these was In 1746, by Cunaeus, who received a ‘severe shock when handling a vessel containing water which wajs in communication with an electrical machine. This led* to the construction of the Leyden jar, which, in essential details, is the same as the series of positive and negative plates in. the electric batteries n>o'w used in radio sets and motor-cars. Newton and other scientists advanced the production of electricity along frictional lines. | , The generation of electricity for light and power is due almost entirely to the marvellous discoveries made by Michael Faraday from 1820 onwards. His first great discovery of practical significance was that an electric passing through a conductor ■’ induced a similar charge in a neigh. Louring conductor. One form of his experiment was the rotating of a copper disc between the poles of a powerful magnet. He found that a conductor attached to the disc was traversed by electricity, and that such a conductor was capable of conveying the current for great distances. This important observation laid the foundation for the subsequent inventions leading to the enormous and powerful turbo-generators now installed in Hugegenerating stations throughout the worldi About the mididle of the 17th century Henry Cavendish discovered that electricity travelled along the surface the conducting wire and did not to its core. Why this is so is a problem that has puzzled scientists from that day to this. The great expense respecting the development of electricity is n(ot in its. production, but in its transmission from the generating station to’ the factory or the home. When current is transmitted in bulk copper wire of thick dimen-sions,-heavily insulated, hajs to be employed. between the powerhouse and Ahe disstribut'ing station, where the current is “stepped down” by transformers so that its general dissemination: may be harnessed and pantrolled 1 through lesser wires not so heavily insulated, CURRENT WITHOUT WIRES. Many millions sterling are invested throughout the. world in copper wires for the safe and efficient conduct of electricity. How these wires may be ■eliminated, and the cost of electrical * transmission correspondingly reduced, X is a problem now being seriously * tackled! from different angles by lead- ' ing scientists and experimenters. Sir -pliver Lodge has. propounded the

theory that what is known as space is not a vacuum, but is filled with atoms composed of electrons and protons, which are positive and negative electricity, in his figurative; and expressive language Sir Oliver asserts that there are as many atoms in a lOoz glass of water as there are glasses of water in the Atlantic Ocean, ■and tha.t if Adam had been provided with the means of removing the atoms in a glass of .water at the rate of two per second, and had lived down the ages, his task would still be far from completion. A further assertion by Sir Oliver is tha,t if the energy of the atom-could be used there would.be sufficient power in a glass of water to propel the largest existing liner from London to New York and ba.ck again. Sii’ Ernest Rutherford, the brilliant New Zealand scientist, now Professor of Physics, in the Cambridge University, in ,a series of lectures in Sydney a short while ago sh,owed how he was endeavouring to break up the atom and u'S.e the nuclei Jor the generation of power. Already wonderful success has attended his experiments.