SCIENCE SIFTINGS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 27, 12 July 1923, Page 54

SCIENCE SIFTINGS

| •= By "VOLT" I 3

How do you Read? Few people see the whole of each letter as they read. Most of us glance only at the tops of them. You can test this for yourself by placing a straight-edged piece of paper along a line of print. Cover the bottom halves of the letters and you have no difficulty in reading it; but if the upper parts are hidden, reading becomes a difficult business. Reading speeds vary enormously. The average man can get through about 20,000 words in- an hour. & Fast readers will easily double this speed and still take in what they are perusing;. The greatest speed ever achieved was ihat of a famous man of learning w ho could read and remember more than 50 words a second. He is said to have read six novels a day. If each line of print was 3d- inches in length, and there were 40 of them to the page, his eyes must have travelled rather more than a mile and a quarter from side to side in half an hour. How do you Walk? How do you walk Do you proceed in a straight line or zigzag from side to side? <:# If you watch a number of pedestrians you will find that rime out of ten bear to the right, return to their proper course, and then start swerving to the right again. This is because our. right leg is more fully developed and stronger than our left. A left-handed person usually swerves to the left in walking, for in his case the left side is the more powerful. If a man is slightly deaf in his left ear he will swerve to the left. If his other ear is affected he will go in the opposite direction. This is because the deaf stoop slightly on the side on which they can hear least. Short-sighted people will swerve to the side on which they have their worst eye. Even people who are perfectly well physically and whose bodies are evenly developed zigzag in their walk. This is because their thoughts wander and their logs have not sufficient guidance. Time-Saving invention for Typists. The newest idea in talking machines does not use wax records. Instead it employs a cellulose thread, as fine as thin cotton, upon which the little nicks and notches made by the.sound-waves are recorded. The machine, which is called- the Parlograph, is rneapt for the business man. Instead of dictating his letters to a typist, he speaks into the mouthpiece of the machine, whilst the thread runs from one reel under the stylus to another. As soon as he has finished a batch of letters he rings for his typist, who receives the finished reel of thread and takes it to her room. There she puts it on to a reproducing machine, to which are attached a pair of telephone headpieces. • She then sits down to her typewriter, dons the telephones, and touches the starting lever. The machine reproduces what has been dictated, and she writes it straight away. You can see at once what a great saving of time this is. Instead of spending half her time in taking down, and afterwards in reading, shorthand notes, the typist can remain busy at her machine. As the thread passes under.the sound-box of the recording machine the sharp-edged stylus, which is always moving up and down with the vibrations of the diaphragm, cuts little notches of various depths in its surface. The stylus ' of the reproducing machine follows these, and so causes its diaphragm to give out the sounds originally made by the " dictator. One great advantage of the method is that the thread , "records" take up little room. The whole of a long letter ( can be recorded on a* few feet of fine thread, and thousands/ of these talking threads can be filed away for future reference in a small cabinet.