Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

telerisioi s: he DOW by radio, k Japan- i«l4ttl«- cclyas dieaid *iea •Lderiiici Terftkli icy o'iier KJS tiiioo. eit telereioi as oD tie Thewcr called at my office. We talked of communications and the future. I could see that the threat of compe- tition between radio and plane bothered him. In reading the news that a plane had flown a film from Iwo Jima to Washington in thirty hours he saw an ominous cloud darken the future of electric com- munications. Most certainly planes would pick up speed and deliver mail even faster. Then I told him I had no such fear for the future. Radio travel- ing 186,000 miles a second is faster than any aircraft or even a mail- carrjing rocket. A radio signal cir- cles the globe in one-seventh of a second. Before a mail-laden plane could get off a runway in Australia, radio could be delivering mail from Melbourne—in Washington or Lon- don. Furthermore, radio could tele- vise an important scene or event, any^vhere, so that all the world might see it instantly and simulta- neously. Radio travels with the speed of light. Television is light and radio combined. I told my friend that in the fu- ture, a person will write a letter or a message that will be put on a belt moving in front of a television eye. In a split second that letter or mes- sage, exactly as written, will appear in England, South Africa or China. There, it will be automatically re- produced by a photographic process for delivery in minutes—not hours as required by even the fastest air- plane. My friend began to smile. His conception of the future of com- munications was changing. He was startled when I told him that even- tually we may be able to take a sealed letter or document and flash it across the hemispheres without opening the envelope. That again is a television possibility—and it's not fantastic. If X-rays can look through the human body and through steel, why should it not be possible for the television eye to look through a paper envelope? This would make possible a radio mail system. Science and Security Atomic energy, radar, electronics, television, jet propulsion, plastics and airplanes are the craftsmanship of scientists. They are the archi- tects of our future. It is not war alone but also science that trans- formed the world within the past six years. The chief effect of the two atomic bombs was not on the two Japanese cities which they de- stroyed, but on the human mind. As science reconverts to peace, the evi- dence of all this will become clear. War was a potent force in the cru- cible of Destiny. In war, we used science to defend democracy, to defeat its enemies, and to destroy their false philoso- phies. In peace, democracy must advance the use of science for a bet- ter life and make its benefits avail- able to all. While we strive to obtain these benefits, we must not neglect the problem of preserving peace by ade- quate preparedness. For the dan- gers which face all of us from the new forces released by science, must not be ignored. We should adjust our military and industrial estab- lishments to pi'oper peacetime pro- r "TINY, INVISIBLE THINGS OF LIFE ARE ONLY BEGINNING TO REVEAL THEIR IM- PORTANCE. THE ELECTRON IS THE KEY TO THE WORLD OF THE INFINITESIMAL." "MAN WILL BE ABLE TO LOOK AROUND THE WORLD BY TELEVISION WITH THE SAME FACILITY THAT HE NOW LIS- TENS AROUND THE WORLD BY RADIO." "SCIENCE THREW A MIGHTY SWITCH AND RELEASED THE ATOMIC BOMB." portions as quickly as possible; but we must maintain them at a level that safeguards our national secur- ity. Our nation must not dissipate the moral and physical strength it now possesses in a world that is far from stabilized. Other nations, too, will benefit from our earnest efforts to substitute world peace for world war, if America is prepared with trained men and modern means to meet the perils of the terrifying forces science has discovered. If we fail in this, democracy will fail. Let us, therefore, recognize the twin necessities of science in democ- racy and democracy in science. Let us see to it that in our new- won freedom, the scientist retains his liberty to think, to speak and to woi-k unfettered. Let us teach our youth the great responsibilities of science and encourage them to travel its highways of progress. Let them be bold in thought and daring in pursuit of the vision of their dreams. At the same time, let us not ig- nore the fact that the dangers man- kind faces, call for vision, courage, exploration and action not only in physical sciences but also in the political and social sciences. For all the world is now one neighborhood and the best guarantee for our own security and prosperity, is the se- curity and prosperity of our neigh- bors as well. Democracy in its hour of tri- umph demands that America be strong and help to make science a useful servant, not the master of mankind. [RADIO AGE 7]