The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1920. MOMENTOUS DISCOVERIES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3415, 20 February 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1920. MOMENTOUS DISCOVERIES.

With which 119 incorpc,,.tc-' “The Taihape Post. 3:} Wa.imurino= News."

It has been stated that the world may be on the eve of great discoveries, and no one was surprised, nor did it concern any one to the extent of calling forth pa'f'-Ji‘cular comment or criticism. It may be noted that nothing is more true thanthat the world has been on the eve of great events, great discoveries and great inventions, continuously, for a long time past. In the transmission of intelli gence discoveries, developments and progress ‘have bordered very closely i on the miraculous, while in locomotion by road, sea and particularly by air, engineering feats. have indeed given ‘cause for marvel Who, a few years ago, would have believed it possible to perfect a flying machine -to carry men and supplies from England to Australia‘? Yet that almost unbelievable feat has been accomplished, and ‘the pioneer airman, who performed it frankly and confidently declares ‘to lthe world that within a short period. a weekly service will be establisliecl .18- ' tween Britain and her Antipodes. As we may be sure that air transit ‘will still further improve in the future, as it has done in the past, it is quite reasonable to believe that very ‘shortly the world will be circumnavigable iin a fortnight. A round trip of -this lglo-be in only two weeks! How can a ‘commencement be made in: limiting ‘the possibilities of man.’s intelligence? (The stamina and daring of the men ‘who have successfully piloted a ‘flying imachine half round the Earth fills us with admiration and awe. So ;;..lch so that we forget for the time being who and what made such a flight "possible. The accomplishment of ‘the !feat so arrests our attention and ex'cites our wonder that we omit to re,member that the exactitude of enginleering, and almost superhuman skill 3in the workshops, evolved the means whereby that hero of the air RossSmith, has ‘made his name famous. Forty years ago we accounted the engineer who worked to the thickness of a hair, or a piece o.‘? thin paper sur-' passingly clever, butisuch work ‘is positively coarse when placed beside’ what engineers are doing -to-day, Stipulations for accuracy of engineers’ work are increasingly more and more exacting, and this. equally applies in that other Wonder-working sphere Where electricians and mechanics are competing with air flight engineers: and aeronauts in the production ofj world startling results. It is 7% unusual for the engineer of to-day to Work to a ten-thousandth p’.".l‘. of an inch, and this fac-t excites curiosity as to where he acquired the material having all the necessary qualities that make such work practicable and Possible. Determining calculations and computing strains drag ‘in the mathematician, in fact the modern air marvel is the miracle of the methema.tician, the metallurgist and the mechanic of a slup.‘rkind. Sea navigation is the development of numberless centuries; aerial navigationhas come to a stage of utility as if by magic, 3113 Yet much, very much, more is Dmmised We are told thy aeroplane and airship builders that passenger and freight traflic will soon be quite in general practice, and past experience compels belief in what is promised. The engineer and the chemist

are changing, Or have changed, meth-

ods of war; if “Brit.tania rules‘ the waves” in the future it will not be by battleships, but by airmen, who with one bomb the chemist has suppiled him With. “Can almost momentarily destroy every vestige of life on the largest battleship afloat Days of the old picturesque sea-fight,‘ the glories of Drake and Nelson, will have -their cou~nte-rpart. in the bravery and heroism ‘if 3~il‘mell- Generations to come will dimly realise the crude, cumlbel-_ Some fighting by Which Nelson saved his Empire. and thereby paved the Way for the greater and more wonderful battles of the air of the future‘. Britain is selling or scrapping her hat. lleships and only retaining monsters from which target practice commences at ten miles. The British Navy, of which Britons have been justly proud, is Dassing rapidly, and no one can say at this moment just what it will eventllallY become, but it may be noted‘, that as Britain has ruled the waves of the ocean, so she is determined to be l second to none in the waves of the! air. Wonders of invention and dis-] COV€l‘Y crowd so fast upon he worldlfl, that human expectancy and surprise l are being Worn threadbare, and people are becoming surprised at nothing. Inl the transmission of intelligence evenl greater wonder-working is proceeding, l more Sllrprisillg and awe-inspiring Ibecause the forces, utilised are more‘ subtle than those upon which the aer- l ial mechanic is experimenting. The; telegraph, a last century invention, is * shaping for the scrapheap; the telephone, a much more recent deverop ment, is already immeasurably outclassed by the discovery of Wireless telegraphy and wireless telephony. ‘A recent cable seems to indicate that people will shortly -"be equipped with a small instrument in their homes. beside which -they may sit and not’ only listen to the news. of the world as events are being enacted, but can also actually have a vision of the very scene enacted before them. The faint sounds first heard by wireless are now magnified many thousands of times; less resistance, greater power, more perfect control is increasing the distance over which messages are transmittable, until it is actually believed that communication can ibe established with other planets ifthere are intelligent beings in a high state -of civ'ilisa.tion thereon -to communicate with. No one has yet discussed the effect wireless telephony is going to have upon society; counter inventions must 'come if ordinary conversa’t'ions even’ :are conducted near the simple-looking ‘little receivers and transmitters or ls‘o'lTnds, for no sound will "be safe from {their in-telligentlike qualities and ‘processes. While a motor passenger or an aerial traveller ‘is on his journey he may actually be able to discuss the object of his visit with the person me is going to see, that -is, of course. ‘if credence may be -given to the latest reports of wireless discoveries. Tflliy lmay it be said -thjat the world is not ionly on the eve of great discoveries. ,but that it is already the scene of molmentous marvels. What has already ‘been achieved in aerial ‘traflic St-Ilfi in wireless communication of intelligence has not yetbeen digested sufficiently to disclose what effect it will have upon the future of mankind generally, for both may only be regarded las on the very «thres'hr;id to still greater discoveries.