Science: Unblinking Eye

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The demonstration began with two pretty girls on a stage being televised by old-style equipment under glaring lights. When some of the lights were switched out, the girls faded off the television screen set up in front of the audience. The old camera could not see them. Then R.C.A.'s new "image orthicon" pickup tube went into action, and the girls reappeared on the screen, brighter than ever.

More lights were turned out, but the girls still smiled self-consciously from the screen. At last, in the flattering light of a single candle, the girls on the stage looked lovely but dim. Their televised images on the screen were as bright as if seen in a well-lit room. The image orthicon, 100 times as sensitive as earlier tubes, had actually amplified the light reflected from their faces.

The most startling—and corniest—stunt came last. With the studio in pitch darkness, the television screen showed a radio announcer making stagy passes at one of the girls. From a balcony, an infrared projector was shooting "black light" on the stage; the all-seeing image orthicon (sensitive to infra red) was spying on the couple.

The new tube does not solve television's basic problem: how to scare up enough programs which people will want to look at. But it helps greatly by widening the range of events which can be televised. It can watch a parade, a ball game or a presidential inauguration in any kind of weather. Indoors, it can see by the ordinary lights of a stage or an auditorium.

Beyond television broadcasting, the new tube has fascinating possibilities. Some are military. Perched in the nose of a pilotless bomber, the tube could watch the terrain below, projecting what it sees on a screen in a guiding airplane many miles behind. By watching the screen, an operator who remains in faraway safety could steer the bomber cross-country by remote control.

There are also various peacetime uses. The tube's unsleeping eye can watch a railroad yard, a traffic bottleneck or an industrial process, reporting what it sees to a distant screen. Since it is non-human and expendable, it can be stationed in dangerous places (e.g., near an atomic explosion). Properly set up, it can see without being seen. According to rumor, the FBI has already put in an order for a round dozen.