CATHODE RAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 November 1943, Page 2

CATHODE RAY

NO LIMITS TO ITS USE. ROTARY CLUB ADDRESS. . An informative address on the Cathode Ray and how it worked was given at today’s luncheon of the Masterton Rotary Club by Mr W. L. Butler, who gave a demonstration with the actual apparatus. The cathode ray tube is a special type of vacuum tube in which electrons emitted from a cathode are concentrated into a beam. This beam is placed under the control of electric or magnetic fields, or a combination of both. A specially prepared screen at the end of the tube upon the beam strikes becomes flucjescent at the point of impact, resulting in the visible image or pattern of the electrical phenomenon under observation. One remarkable thing, said Mr Butler, was that the ingenuity of the human mind had not yet devised associated apparatus that could fully utilise the versatile possibilities of the tube. There were no limits to its use. It was widely used in the commercial and scientific worlds. Some of its uses were the reproduction on the Oscilloscope of mechanical defects or errors translated into electrical energy; the designing o'f patterns for weavers; the picturisation of electrical phenomena in the laboratory; the checking of electrical equipment to ascertain how the [components were working; checking [up on music, while it was of great value in the medical world.