Science: Television

For centuries men have dreamed of the eye that would penetrate stone walls and miles of space. Last week sight at a distance (television) came true. In Manhattan, in the auditorium of the Bell Telephone Laboratories, Walter S. Gifford, President of the American Telephone & Telegraph Co., talked to his Vice President, General J. J. Carty, in Washington, D. C. Said President Gifford, dapper, cheery: "Hello, General, you're looking fine. I see you have your glasses on." Out of the loudspeaker, General Carty's bass voice boomed: "Does it—ah—does it flatter me?" President Gifford carefully viewed the changing smiling features of the General on the glass in the yellow frame before him. "Yes," he said, "I think it's an improvement."

In Washington, Secretary of Commerce Hoover talked next. Over the telephone wires his voice, his face, the minutest movements of his lips and head were brought to the watchers and listeners in Manhattan. As he spoke into the transmitter, small circles of light moved across his face, so rapidly that they seemed to bathe it in a uniform bluish light.

The variations in light and shade, changed into electrical impulses, traveled to Manhattan over the wires. There the moving picture was reassembled. On a small screen (2 x 2½ in.) the speaker's face and movements appeared distinct and clear; on a large one they were distorted badly. Later the watchers in Manhattan saw vaudeville acts broadcast from the A. T. & T. Co. studio at Whippany, N. Y., 40 miles away.

Significance: Television, requiring bulky and expensive apparatus, does not yet loom as a standard addition to the home telephone. But theatre audiences, in the not too distant future, may see super newsreels of prizefights, launchings, inaugurations, broadcast directly from the scene of the event with all their attendant noises. While not yet perfect, television had reached its highest stage of development in last week's demonstration. Engineer Ernst Frederick Werner Alexanderson of the U. S., with his seven beams of light, John L. Baird of England, with his super-sensitive photo-electric cell and infra-red rays, C. Francis Jenkins in Washington, Edouard Belin of France, these had hounded success for many years. But it remained for Dr. Herbert Ive's,* bearded, bespectacled chief of the Bell television research staff, to correlate the achievements of his predecessors and direct the work of many men to last week's success.