DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 101, 20 July 1927, Page 14

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

MUSIC BY THE LIGHT SOCKET (Copyright, 1927.> TT 13 now announced by the Press that the electric light socket will become a throat for the radio. All you will have to do will be to plug in on an ordinary light socket, and you can hear music furnished by the special programme people, and thus your electrical equipment will furnish you light and sound at will. The messages will not come through the air. but along the electric wire, and will be delivered to the electric cables through microphones by a special process at certain central offices. It is. proposed to pay for the expense of this by charging the user of the device a small rental. This intrigues the imagination. The radio itself was a wonderful thing, and how anyone could bring a little box into his room anywhere, or carry it in his automobile, and have it catch the whispered messages of the air for him, is something still to marvel at. There seems to be no limit to the uses to which electricity may be put. Some people say that life itself is but a form of electric energy. Certain it is that the whole universe is filled with this strange power we call electricity. No man knows what it is. He can only tell how it acts. It is like the wind. “Thou knowest not where it cometh nor where it goeth, but only hearest the sound thereof.’’ Electricity is more and more entering into the field of transportation. Automobiles are thick throughout the country, and electric trains in some sections carry passengers. More marvellous than this, however, is to see a huge load of sand or brick whisked along the highway by electric power. There seems to be no limit to the capabilities of this strong giant. Since the days when Franklin drew the electric fluid from the clouds by a kite, and a silken string down to the present time, electricity has amazed mankind by its development. The transportation of power through the air without wires is not a remote possibility. The coming age may well be cailed an electric age, just as the past was the age of steam and coal. The electric battery, storage battery, for moving automobiles and tramcars, has not been perfected so as to become universally practicable, but the end is in sight, and some of the most ingenious minds of the race are engaged in the problem.