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

While these are inventions thatj open new vistas and widen man's earthly range beyond the micro- scope and telescope, we have ample proof that these forces are not con- fined to the surface of our planet. This world of ours actually spins in a boundless, inexhaustible labora- tory. Radio beams flash through the ozone layer to probe through the dust of interstellar space. The plane that soars 40,000 feet to learn the secrets of cosmic rays, or the rockets that carry automatic recording in- struments more than 100 miles into space, are but feeble short-distance efforts of man to pierce the upper atmosphere. Radio is Relative of Light Planes and rockets are mechani- cal devices and they meet the resis- tance of Nature. But radio, radar and television, travel on wings more closely allied with Nature. They will encounter less opposition as they mingle with meteors, the nebu- lae and galaxies. Radio, like sun- light, travels 186,000 miles a second. Indeed, radio is a relative of light and the shorter the radio waves, the more their kinship becomes ap- parent. The radar "peep" that echoed from the moon was more than a faint signal of hope to radio scien- tists and astronomers. To them it was as important as the first feeble transatlantic signal to Marconi's ears when he plucked the letter "S" from the ocean air. That flash of three dots in the Morse code told him that world-wide radio commu- nication was possible. Similarly, the radar signal from the moon proved that man might some day reach out to touch the planets; it revived speculation on interplane- tary communication and inspired great hope for interstellar scientific exploration. With electronic com- puters, sensitive photoelectric cells and infrared eyes that see in the dark, the mystery story of the up- per altitudes will become available for man to read. The telescope with its giant mirrors is no longer the only exploring eye for discovery above and beyond the earth. Man's perspectives and concepts of the universe are rapidly being broad- ened by science. TURN ON A TELEVISION CATHODE-RAY TUBE, AND ITS FACE LIGHTS UP WITH A PICTURE OF THE UNITED NATIONS MEETING IN NEW YORK, OR THE 80th CONGRESS OPENING IN WASH- INGTON, OR THE ARMY-NAVY FOOTBALL GAME IN PHILADELPHIA. Radio and radar have proved that space is not empty and we know now that it is accessible to man. He may even learn how to use the moon and the planets as radio sounding boards and reflectors, to bounce or relay broadcasts and to mirror television pictures. The moon is only 240,000 miles, or radiowise less than 2 sec- onds away. It looks like a good radio concession! We may find fu- ture broadcasters staking claims for Saturn, for Jupiter, or for Mars and Venus as well. If it is within the scope and power of the inhabitants of another planet to eavesdrop on our radio and television broadcasts as well as on the multiplicity of radiotelegraph messages and news, our planetary neighbors must have a comprehen- sive idea of what sort of people we are and what sort of a place this world has turned out to be. It would be interesting to learn what our neighbors above really think of us below. Netf Opportunities Let no youth of today deplore the lack of opportunities. Look up at the Milky Way and behold a myriad of challenges for any lifetime. Sci- ence through radio and radar is providing new tools with which to explore electronics, chemistry and physics. New resources are to be found in space which may be cap- tured and brought to earth, to be harnessed or synthesized for the welfare of mankind. The chemistry of the atmosphere with its nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, the "noble gases" and perhaps other yet to be discovered elements or particles, represents in- triguing continents of exploration. We now hear of a new component — the meson — believed to result from the interaction of the primary cosmic ray with atoms in the atmo- sphere. The so-called meson is esti- mated to have a mass 200 times that of the electron. Herein may exist a clue to devising a new source of energy to be harnessed and con- trolled by man. The mystery of the atom, includ- ing its nuclear physics and the curi- ous chemical isotopes, traces un- limited frontiers that beckon youth, just as the telegraph instrument enchanted the newsboy Edison. The dots and dashes that imprinted mes- sages on his imaginative mind now find their modern counterpart in the explosions of atomic fission— in radar pulses and in the impact of cosmic rays. [6 RADIO age;