Tag: wireless telegraphy

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Artur Fürst, “The Masters of the Universe” (1911)

The other day a ship arrived in the port of New York, its passage from Europe to America constituting an important event in the history of technology. The steamship Bosnia carried on board a station for wireless telegraphy, and, with its help, it was possible for the first time to create a wireless telegraph connection from the suburb of Nauen near Berlin to the immediate proximity of the port of New York.

During its entire passage across the ocean, the Bosnia stayed in contact with the Telefunken station at Nauen. However much the ship’s propeller churned up the ocean, however many hundreds of kilometers the steamship put behind itself and the coast of Europe, it kept pulling along the power of ether waves mysteriously in its wake, and the little apparatus in the telegrapher’s cabin kept reporting with its sharp, clear tick-tock, tick-tock, the contents of the newest newspaper dispatches with the same clarity you would expect traveling across the English Channel or in view of the Statue of Liberty.

The distance from Nauen to New York amounts to 5,200 kilometers. It would take six to seven days to cover it using the fastest means of transportation for people and goods. An electric vibration travels from Berlin to the American coast in a fraction of a second, and it will not even be tired when it finally arrives, performing the task it was entrusted with on this side of the ocean both powerfully and willingly.

What tremendous power! And who is its master?

A man in a blue shirt sits in the humble, whitewashed room of a little country house, holding a smoky, short-stemmed pipe in one hand, and casually moving a delicate switch, a telegraph key up and down with the other. This movement occurs in a particular rhythm in which the trained ear can discern the letters of the Morse alphabet, which, as you know, is composed of combinations of short and long electrical currents. The man at the button is an ordinary telegrapher, and does not exert any more intellectual or physical energy on his work in the little room in Nauen than he would were he to send a telegram over the Imperial Prussian wire from the location of the post office in Treuenbrietzen to Füterbog.

However, the steamship Bosnia is traveling to the port of New York, 5,200 kilometers away, and the cool-headed man with the short-stemmed pipe can transmit the newest messages from around the world to that place across land and sea, across mountains and valleys and storm-tossed waves. What gives him this power?

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If we step out of the little house into the open air, we will immediately see the Nauen telegrapher’s powerful assistant. There is suddenly, in the middle of the unspeakably flat Märkisch landscape that sprawls for miles in horrifying silence, a quite thin, very high tower (fig. 4), erected like a harsh exclamation point. It rises up a hundred meters, sticking out considerably above many church spires. Attached to the top of this tower is a web of wires that spreads out in every direction, and that, seen from below, resembles a very delicate spider’s web. From above, the web of wires contracts and expands in the most manifold connections and interlacings, until its last branch terminates in a row of low steel masts that are positioned in a circle at a distance of three hundred meters around the tower. This web is called an “antenna” (fig. 5), and it is the true master of the universe, because the movements the telegrapher makes in the little room closing an electric current with the key only serve in charging the antenna for a shorter or longer time with powerful electric impulses.

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Every time the telegrapher presses down the key, a 100,000 V current gets shot into the antenna, and since this current does not flow directly but alternates many thousand times per second, it creates in the web of wires movements of the ether we call “electric waves”. They propagate into space in all directions with a speed of 300,000 km/s, and nothing is able to stop them en route—no storm, no mountains, no object, and no event. They will also make it from the tower at Nauen to the Telefunken station on board the steamship Bosnia, which is just arriving in the port of New York, and they are able to create dots and dashes, the letters of the Morse alphabet, on a moving paper tape with exactly the same rhythm as the Nauen telegrapher presses down his little button for a shorter or longer amount of time.

Nowadays people are already accustomed to counting on wireless telegraphy as a matter of fact, to viewing it as one among humanity’s many possessions. The legions of the mindless already find nothing special about it other than that you can send messages from one coast of the ocean to the other without any connecting wires, just as, a few months after the invention of television, these same people will consider it to be self-evident to be able not only to speak with their dear uncle in Kyritz over the wire but also to see him in the flesh hundreds of kilometers away.

On board the steamship, there is a small glass tube filled with fine metal filings, which completes a local circuit whenever electric waves hit it, and this little tube, called a “coherer”, makes the massive cables, which cost millions, redundant! It is the most sensitive construction that exists, and it will soon be able to detect ether waves around the entire circumference of the earth.

Because people will not be content with the route from Nauen to New York. In 1906, the large German Telefunken station had a range of 3,600 kilometers, which means that its telegrams were received at Tenerife [in the Canary Islands]. In 1909, Nauen was already sending its electric waves 4,500 kilometers away to Capo Blanco [in Mauritania on the west coast of Africa], and, in 1911, they reached 5,200 kilometers.

The main reason for the expansion of transmission range is the increase in the electric energy of the station’s engine room, along with refinements of many individual apparatuses. At first, people worked with an engine with 35 horsepower. Today, there is a motor with hundreds of horsepower. It would be nothing to increase the horsepower many times over, but unfortunately the corresponding increase of voltage in the antenna’s oscillating current would be unworkable.

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For the problem of isolation already presents significant difficulties. In the Nauen telegraph house, the 50,000 V electric current created in the engine room, which can easily be transmitted, charges a powerful battery made of Leyden jars (fig. 6). If the current discharges, then oscillating electric sparks of 100,000 V, which create the vibrations in the ether, will jump the gap between a number of metal plates countless times per second. At the site of the wireless station, the antenna, which is attached to the tower outside, serves as a conductor for these spark gaps, since the network of wires leading up into the air increases the range of the vibrations enormously. At the place where the connecting wire passes from the spark gap to the antenna through the wall of the house, there is already, even at the present voltage, a huge porcelain isolator with a length of two meters (fig. 2). It keeps the 100,000 volts in check. There’s no way of managing a higher voltage. So, this constitutes a limit for the time being.

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However, there is no doubt that the work already in motion will make it possible to keep increasing the voltage. And then wireless telegraphy will continue its victory march.

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In the meantime, the power of ether waves has already conquered a new domain. On the Dutzendteich Lake in Nürnberg and the Wannsee near Berlin, you can see a motor boat driving around whose movements are controlled from the shore (fig. 7). Nobody is on board, and the turning of the helm, the starting and stopping of the machine, the discharge of warning signals for approaching ships—everything is brought about from dry land. It is a really strange, very wonderful sight to see the boat gliding through the water so sure of its goal without any crew, and the occupants of a passing steamship or a sailing yacht, none the wiser, must be as startled at the sight as if Hauff’s ghost ship were suddenly passing by.

The magician here, too, is the waves of the ether. On the shore, there is once again an antenna hung up on a high mast, and, just as in telegraphic communication, the electric vibrations sent through the antenna influence a coherer on board the ship, which is connected to a receiving antenna secured between the ship’s masts. Whenever the antenna on shore sends out vibrations through the push of a button, the coherer on the ship completes circuits that are fed from storage batteries on board.

In and of itself, it is not difficult to bring about effects like turning a steering wheel or stopping a gas motor through the completion of various circuits. What is surprising about this remote-controlled boat is that the steersman on the shore is able to complete various circuits according only to his own desire using the influence of the one coherer, which, of course, is the only one he can use—that is, using a circuit at one single location. One push of the button on dry land and the wheel turns to the left, another  push, and, with that, the antenna influences the coherer, and the warning signal sounds, then the wheel holds course or the motor suddenly stops.

Merely reporting the fundamental idea of the invention would not do justice to either the event or the inventor, the teacher Wirth. For the time being, it can remain his secret. There are no small number of possible uses for this invention—admittedly, only after further perfection in practice. The navy would be able to use torpedoes without launching tubes and without even needing to shoot them—simply put them in the water, since they could be controlled wirelessly from on board a ship to reach their target. People would also be able to send a rescue boat to anyone in danger on a stormy sea without endangering any of the rescue party. And the perfected invention would also open up many further fields of application.

Admittedly, it is first necessary to tune the receiving apparatus on board to the point where it would only pick up oscillations from the intended antenna. Otherwise, for example, one side in a naval battle would be able to easily defend themselves using the oscillations coming from their enemy’s antenna. For this situation, Wirth also claims to have found a solution.

The telegraphers at Nauen are also working on the problem of keeping their messages secret by tuning their apparatuses to particular wavelengths. Some of them have already succeeded, but there’s still a long way to go here, as is the case for the other Telefunken stations. For the time being, Nauen’s enormous range, as great for receiving as for transmitting, is able to capture any wireless telegram transmitted anywhere in Europe. It is almost omniscient: It knows everything that plays out in the ether.

Source: Artur Fürst, “Die Beherrscher des Weltraums,” in Die Wunder um Uns: Neue Einblicke in Natur und Technik, 11-20 (Berlin: Vita, 1911).

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Wired Radio and the Telephone Newspaper

One of the most interesting ‘roads not taken’ in the history of the radio is surely that of “wired wireless.” In America, the radio could have gone the path of the telephone and become a wired network that directly connected transmitters to receivers through various operations of switching. In fact, there were several analogous attempts in Europe to create a telephone newspaper, most famously, the Telefon Hirmondó in Budapest.

Even though wired wireless couldn’t cover the same broadcast area as wireless radio, telegraphy, or telephony, it has several advantages of wireless technology. As Randall Patnode argues, wired wireless appeared to solve three of the main problems in early wireless transmissions:

  1. Wires would reduce interference caused by atmospheric disturbances.
  2. Wires would eliminate interference caused by neighboring stations and prevent any eavesdropping on transmissions.
  3. Wires would solve the financial problem of who would pay for broadcasting. Wired radio would’ve allowed for the creation of a subscription-based service, and if content distributors could collect payments directly from listeners (as in the European model for financing national broadcasting), then there would be no need for on-the-air advertising to finance broadcasts.

Or at least those were the claims made by early proponents of the new technology. Nevertheless, due to patent disputes and questionable business practices, wired radio never really took off….

Squier,-Multiplex-Telephony-and-Telegraphy-patent
Squier’s patent application for multiplex telegraphy and telephony (from George Owen Squier, Multiplex Telephony And Telegraphy By Means Of Electric Waves Guided By Wires (1919), p. 68).

Significantly, wired radio and the telephone newspaper were both offshoots of advances in the field of “multiplexing,” the ability to transmit multiple messages in a single information channel. The Hungarian inventor Tivadar Puskás‘s (1844–1893) introduction of the multiplex switchboard in 1887 slightly predated the American inventor George Owen Squier‘s (1865–1934; pronounced “Square”) experiments with multiplex telephony and telegraphy.

All of this seems to be a subset of the case, “rock music as a misuse of a military device,” as Friedrich Kittler put it. But it seems like more work could be done from a media studies perspective on the parallels between wired radio and telephone newspaper, each of which usually gets discussed in its own terms.

Sources

Thomas Steinfeld’s presentation on the history of muzak at the IFK conference “Auf der Tonspur” reminded me of this interesting “road not taken” in the history of wireless. There’s an excellent article by Randall Patnode on the American history of wired radio called “Path Not Taken: Wired Wireless and Broadcasting in the 1920s.” There are also a couple of posts on “wired radio” over at the Modern Mechanix blog.

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The Wireless Century, by Robert Sloss

Here’s my translation of Robert Sloss’s “Das drahtlose Jahrhundert,” from Die Welt in hundert Jahren, pp. 27-48.

The Wireless Century
by Robert Sloss
translated by Erik Born

The Albatross had been flying quietly and safely over the ice fields for more than 48 hours, when the motor suddenly stopped and woke the captain from a deep slumber.

“Hey, Kettner, what’s going on,” he called, stepping out of his cabin onto deck, to the lieutenant.

“The power’s gone,” came the answer. “But I just plugged in the backup battery, and there’s nothing more to say. You can see for yourself that it’s working.”

And, indeed, the Albatross flew off on its course really wonderfully.

“No message from the ship?” asked the captain, proceeding to the helm, and, just as he asked, there came a convulsive flash like lightning and a metal crackle from the telephone apparatus at his feet. He picked up the combination receiver-transmitter at once and secured it to his head.

“The ship’s talking with us,” he said. “The generator isn’t working.”

“How long can the damage last, then?” asked the lieutenant, and you could tell how much he took the flying ship’s misfortune to heart.

“They can’t tell,” was the answer from the captain, still listening to the telephone, “but in any case, they won’t be able to provide us with any more power in the foreseeable future.”

“Then it would be better to land,” the lieutenant suggest, “and save up our batteries for any possible scenario.”

And as the captain nodded in agreement, he turned the airplane at once toward a sheet of ice about a mile away to the South. Here the machine was brought to a smooth landing, moored and anchored securely by both men.

“Yup,” the captain said, noticeably depressed by the incident. “It’s what I feared. In 1918, Steinmetz was only able to search the North Pole discovered by Cook because it was possible for him to turn off his generators on the Spitsbergen. We, on the other hand, will have to be content with a single one, and for that matter, we only have it on one ship. I know, Kettner, I know what you want to say. I know that the South Pole is in such an unfortunate place that there’s no mainland near enough to be able to operate securely. Our handicap consists precisely in that, since Steinmetz was always able to get enough power from the colossal stream of energy for one or the other of his generators. We, on the other hand…”

“We won’t let this accident discourage us, captain,” said the lieutenant. “Just think of how much control we have over the direction and power of electricity, and how much wireless power Steinmetz lost at the time. No, no, it’s admittedly a pity that we only have one generator, but I’m certain that we’ll obtain just as much power from our ship from Melbourne as his did from Niagara.”

“You might be right,” said the captain, “but it’s still a hell of a story. Besides, we can at least determine where we are, and you, Kettner, just see to it that you light a little fire under the people, they need to hurry, for, I’ll be damned if the journey is interrupted this time and we don’t get to the pole.”

And while Lieutenant Kettner switched on the receiver, the captain went back to his cabin. But the lieutenant was still maintaining his connection, when the captain, sextant in hand, rushed up to him breathlessly.

“Kettner! Buddy! Man! Do you know where we are? Much closer to the pole than Steinmetz was to the North Pole when he set up the last camp from which he then undertook that prosperous flight. And do you know what that means?…That we can reach our destination in three hours. That we will reach the South Pole even if the ship leaves us hanging, because our batteries have to be enough.”

“May I provide the ship with that information?” asked the lieutenant, who of course shared his superior’s enthusiasm.

“Yes, dear Kettner, do so.”

On the ship, the news naturally stirred up loud cheers.

“They’re going wild,” said the lieutenant. “They congratulate you on the terrific success. They’re asking whether they’re allowed to pass the news on further. They assure you that they’ll do everything to put the machine in operation again.” And suddenly he grinned, “Conners from the International News Agency wants to put the news in the morning papers in London and the evening papers in New York. But he’d really like an interview with you. Is that okay?”

The captain laughed. “That’s one enterprising fellow,” he said. “Say that I’ll gladly be available for him later on. Is there anything else? Hasn’t my wife asked about me?”

Kettner relayed the question to the ship that lay hard on the ice barriers of Mount Erebos, and the answer:

“No. But as soon as she calls, somebody will let you know.”

“Good. So then let’s eat something and then make ourselves comfortable and sleep. We’ll need our powers yet.”

And with these words, the captain was already proceeding to the fireproof cabin, and soon both researchers were busy at work preparing their meal on the electric hot plate, and when their coffee was steaming and their pipes were stuffed and set on fire, there came over both them that cozy mood in which you talk little and yet in being silent say so much.

Suddenly, however, the captain lay the pipe aside. “Kettner,” he said, “I have an idea. What would you think about starting up all our batteries and trying to connect ourselves with the world through the telephone using the wireless station in the vicinity. That would really be something for the world to talk about. Here, not a hundred miles from the South Pole and…yes, let’s try. How late is it?”

“10:27 local time.”

“Good. We’re approximately at the 180th Meridian. So it’s about 10:30 at night in London and 6:30 in Bermuda. She’s at home. Kettner, please connect me to my wife.”

A GREAT OPERA AT THE SOUTHPOLE

Kettner connected the half-dozen light, though immensely powerful, battery cells together, made the necessary movements with his hand, pushed the button down, and the general call signal went out into the ether. The lieutenant listened carefully but no answer came; then suddenly he smiled: “Okay, now I’ve got her; the Bermuda Station answered. Yes…with Frau Captain Kingsley…that’s right.”

A bolt flashed and a strange drone was heard.

“The cold influenced the tone a little bit,” he said, “the apparatus has the sniffles. Okay…we’ll correct that right away…yes…that’s right…please, captain, your wife is on the apparatus.”

The captain immediately put down the apparatus for listening and speaking, and he switched on the television, so that he could not only speak with his wife but also see her in the finely polished metal mirror that was screwed onto the apparatus, observing each of her movements and facial expressions. The conversation lasted for a quarter of an hour and even longer, since they had a lot to say. He gave a very precise report of his voyage over the eternal ice and the incident that prevented him from being at the South Pole already. She was naturally proud of her husband’s immortal triumph, and before she broke off the conversation, she let the captain’s little daughter, his darling, come to the telephone.

“It’s magnificent, Kettner,” said the captain. “If we’ve succeeded in this, then we can also try to establish a connection with New York. It’s right around time for the theatre there. What would you think about enjoying a little music and listening to the opera for an hour or so. — Should we?”

Instead of an answer, Kettner gave the call sign again. The crackling bolts sparkled, flashed and blazed. “In five minutes we’ll have the music. Should I plug in the megaphone receiver?”

“Of course. Do you already know what they’re playing?”

“Yes, “Der Held der Lüfte.””

“Oh,” the captain shouted. “By Redfer, the Wagner of our times? That goes splendidly well with our present situation.” And now the two men sat and listened, here in the polar region’s eternal ice, to the sounds and voices of the New York Opera.

But right in the middle of the commotion came a different sound. A call. A veritable spray of bolts rained down.

“Well, what’s going on? Hurray!” he called out suddenly. “The generator on the ship is working again. We have power. Lieutenant, I’m now due at my place on the helm.”

And five minutes later the delicate airship lifted off, swaying high in the air, and glided over the ice fields – off to the pole.

WONDERS THAT WE ENCOUNTER

I could go on in this style, God knows how long, and tell wonders on top of wonders, without straining my phantasy in the least, since all the things in the course of the “story” up to this point, which have sounded so wonderful, are actually problems that have been already solved today, or that are by no means part of the realm of pious wishes or overwrought hopes and expectations. No, they are facts that are only waiting to be introduced into our practical life, just as the telegraph and telephone and phonograph have been.

The Berliner Graf Arco and the American De Forest and the Dane Paulsen have provided proof that a distance of 4 to 500 English miles is not any serious obstacle for a wireless telephone conversation, and that music and song can be transmitted wireless, just like all other human or other voices. And as for “seeing” the person with whom one is speaking, this problem has also already been solved, even if a certain level of perfection has yet to be reached, a level for which we won’t have to wait 10 years, not to speak of the hundred years. And as for driving an aeromobile with this astonishing power that we call a “wireless” one, why not? Just in the last years we’ve solved the problem of this application of power, and a heavy string of barges (“Treidelzug”) was set in motion in a “wireless” way. But as for the speed of airships and flying machines, we’ve seen for ourselves that speeds of 90 km/h can already be reached, and at the last “Congress on Flight” the position, by no means sanguine, was represented that we will be able to increase this speed to 500 km “every day.”

Everything that we can now send and achieve through the wire, we can also send and achieve in a wireless way. This is the truth that is currently revolutionizing all the perspectives and methods of our scientific and mechanical world, and we can be glad about this fact, even if the copper magnates won’t make a happy face about it and will wish that the devil takes the wireless century, which is not only in the offing but already coming.

The principle on which the wireless transmission of power is based is one of the simplest that science knows, and it can never change, unless the world and the structure of the world themselves change.

We all know that seeing is only made possible through the light that reaches us in waves which pierces our light-sensitive visual nerves. Just like every sound passes through the atmosphere of the air in waves and pierces our eardrum, which vibrates under their influence, and makes hearing possible for us. In exactly the same way, an electric impulse, regardless of where it comes from, moves in waves through the aether, which surrounds every molecule of every material and leads the electric vibrations through the air, through the water, through the earth, and through ramparts and walls. And it is possible to pick up these vibrations everywhere, provided that you have a receiver (or “Empfänger”) tuned to the right wavelength at your disposal.

As soon the field of wireless is cleared up as expected, everyone will have their own pocket telephone through which they can be connected to anyone, regardless of where they are, whether on the ocean, in the mountains, in their rooms, or on a train rushing there, on a ship traveling there, on an aeroplane gliding there through the air, or on a submarine traveling there through the depths of the ocean. Everywhere, people will be connected with the rest of the world, will be able to speak with it and communicate with it, and will see it, if they want to see it, and regardless of whether they’re a thousand feet deep under the earth or under the mirror of the ocean, and everyone will be seen even in the smallest of their movements.

THE TELEPHONE IN THE VESTPOCKET

Citizens of the wireless age will go around everywhere with their “receivers,” which will be affixed to their hats or somewhere else and set to one of the myriad vibrations with which they are looking for a connection at the moment. Regardless of where they are, they will just need to set the voice indicator (“Stimm-zeiger”) to the appropriate number they want to talk to and the person being called will instantly be able to hear his headset vibrating or giving a signal, and will be able to decide whether they want to answer or break off the connection.

So long as they don’t leave inhabited and civilized areas, they won’t even need to have their “sending apparatus” with them, for there will be “sending stations” on every street, in every omnibus, on every ship, every airship, and every train, and naturally, the apparatus won’t be lacking in any public place or in their homes. So you’ll never find yourself in a tight spot.

And in the attempt to produce all apparatuses in the smallest possible space, the “receiver,” in spite of its complexity, will be a wonder of miniaturization.

This system of being tuned for very particular oscillations can be made comprehensible through a fact everyone knows, that if you sing a particular tone near a piano that’s open or a violin, the corresponding strings of the instrument immediately begin to vibrate with it and to sound with it. And just as a deep tone oscillates in long waves, and a higher tone in short waves, so in wireless telegraphy and telephony, the length of the vibrations that are sent out can be controlled precisely through your own apparatus.

The wireless telephone apparatus, which now is still stuck in its childhood, is rather large and cumbersome. But in the beginning, Bell’s telephone also demanded its own rather spacious cell, while today, we already have pocket telephones, with which we can communicate pretty well at a distance of five, six kilometers, and there are already researchers in the field of wireless who, on rainy nights using a normal umbrella that provides the necessary antenna, can pick up messages from the aether with a receiver that is not larger than a pill-case. But only when this apparatus becomes so perfected that even mere mortals will be able to use it, then our customary lifestyle will be influenced by it much more than did the introduction of our customary telephones.

On the way from and to work, you will no longer need to strain your eyes with newspapers, since you’ll be in touch with a “spoken newspaper” in the subway, or the railway, or on the bus, or wherever you’re traveling just then, and even if you’re walking on the street, and you’ll find out about all the events of the day, all the political events and all the markets that you want. *(There is already such a “spoken newspaper,” which has not yet “gone wireless” though, in Budapest among other places.) And if that doesn’t suit you, and your sense is oriented to higher things, then you’ll be connected to every theater, every church, every lecture and concert hall, and you’ll be able to participate in performances, sermons, and symphonies, indeed, the enjoyment of art from the whole world will become open to you, for the centers of “Telharmonie” will be able to connect you with Paris, Vienna, London, and Berlin, just as with your own city. This accomplishment of the wireless age will be reached, by the way, in a short time; even now the preparations are already in the works to supply Greater New York with such a wireless telephone connection, since it was found that this telephone can pass on tones and sounds much clearer than the telephones with wires that we’ve used up to now. The only problem, still far away, is designing our receiver apparatuses to be so sensitive that they can pick up all the vibrations, and having the impulse for transmission so much in our power that it goes directly to the receiver corresponding to it without stretching out in every direction and dissipating like the waves that spread in every direction when you throw a stone in the water.

A MANHUNT IN THE WIRELESS WAY

In recent times, the fabulous art of the wireless transmission of images has been perfected so extraordinarily that it is no longer a toy, but rather doubtless called to play a very large role in the configuration of our future living conditions. And when this invention reaches the height of perfection, we will have to register a new series of daily wonders. Here, for example, is a scene that will play out every day in a hundred years or less.

The first lieutenant of the electro-turbine ship “Onward” stumbles into his captain’s cabin. “Captain,” he says, “we are receiving the wireless message from the New York Police that President Kramington has embezzled a million dollars from the New York City Bank and taken to flight. It’s suspected that he’s on the way to Europe.” The captain reads the description contained in the profile and smiles sarcastically.

“Apart from the white beard and the white hair, there’s nothing there that would distinguish the thief from other mortals, and since he probably colored his hair and shaved off his beard, we’ll hardly be able to find him, if the good ol’ police doesn’t at least send us his picture.”

In the same moment, the second lieutenant comes and, on behalf of the telegraph officers, hands over the photographs that the New York Police immediately sent after the profile on the wireless.

“Man alive!” the captain says, “That’s the man in the luxury cabin. I suspected him for a long time already. He’s acting like an old missionary who wants to go back to Africa, and claims that he’s sick from a fever. In spite of the change that the guy’s taken on, the similarity is unmistakable. The expression in his eyes and the way he holds his head are of the kind that I can’t be deceived. Let New York know that we’ve found their man.”

And to grasp that in the future it will no longer be possible for a criminal to come across the ocean without falling into the hands of justice, we only need to imagine that in the future entire ships, and not only the few large ocean steamers, will be provided with the apparatuses of wireless telegraphy. It is certain that this age will not only come, but is not too far in the distance. In this way, then, the cumbersome formalities of extradition will be frequently avoided. The German criminal who wants to reach America on a German steamer will be recognized on the high seas, in the way just depicted, and with the message to the Central Berlin Authorities another message will go to a nearby German warship simultaneously to catch the criminal simply on the high seas. Furthermore, the quick process will often be able to circumvent a panic in the market or disgruntlement about it; for usually the thief will be in the hands of justice before his theft becomes known in print and through it to the public at large.

Sending images and photographs to moving ships, trains, autos, and airships will become simple through the use of both, today “wired” methods and from now on “wireless.”

The method developed by Professor Korn, who had been in Munich and is now in Berlin, is based on the property of Selenium, conducting a large or small amount of electricity, which stands in a very particular relationship to the light that falls on this metal. Thus the various intensities of light and shadow that show up on a negative image can be sent over an electrical wire to a distance, and transferred there to customary photographic film that can be developed in the usual manner. The somewhat disjointed manner of images received like this, which appears unpleasant and very disturbing for landscapes and images with more precise details, can be avoided through the method developed by Edourad Belin in Paris. There, they make a dense charcoal drawing of the photograph to be sent, and over this charcoal drawing, the fine sapphire point of a stylus travels, by means of a rotating cylinder, that pulls in spiral lines over the whole surface of the image, lines that only stand a twentieth of a millimeter apart from each other. The difference in height on the surface of the drawing, which neither the eye or the feeling can notice, is enough to be transferred to the lever that holds the stylus, and this movement can be transferred further to the receiver at the receiving stating, where it has an effect on a point of light that through its greater or lesser intensity, just as in Korn’s system, acts on a film, that is then simply developed.

Another wonder of our age is Gray’s telautograph, which is able to send a written manuscript through the wireless aether. Just imagine what a great role this possibility will play in the future in the plays of our writers of sensational comedies.

Scene: A jail, heaven knows where. Time: One hour before the execution of someone innocently condemned. The mother and the bride of the condemned pray, by the will of God, to defer the execution, because a new petition for pardon has been sent to the Emperor. But a postponement is possible. The execution has to take place punctually at the determined time, and the Emperor is far far away on one of his voyages in Scandinavia or the Mediterranean. “Without the Emperor’s signature,” comes the answer, “no postponement is possible. The executioner is ready, the executioner will fulfill his office. All hope is lost with that. But no. The heroine of the play rushes to a wireless station. She knows the Emperor’s number that otherwise only his confidantes know. She calls him and speaks with him, the one who is busy, God knows where, with hunting or with state business. And suddenly a flash, a crackle, and on the paper unrolling slowly, there appears the Emperor’s writing. He has signed the pardon. She hurries back and comes just in time to stop the execution.

If we were to encounter such a play on the stage, we would no longer wonder about its “improbability” in the near future, since the problem of transmitting handwriting has already been completely solved today, even if it hasn’t been made available to the general public. With the help of two silk threads, Gray’s telautograph transfers the shaky movement that a stylus causes, writing on a quickly unrolling roll of paper that runs over these two silk threads. This movement is taken over by a receiver at the receiving station, and it causes the corresponding movement of a very thin, open ink tube that passes on the same written marks that were created at the receiving station, to more paper unrolling in the same way. Naturally, in this way, you can transmit not only handwriting but also any other drawing and all signs. We are unable to account for everything that the telautograph will be able to achieve in connection with the wireless transmission of images for identification over long distances, since this will lead us to areas that must seem completely fantastical to us today, although they are doubtless nothing other than the truth. The truth of the future, anyways. Bank deceptions will no longer be possible, there will be no more false statements or fake checks. Everybody will be known to every bank personally, as it were; for when they’re connected to you, they’ll see you, know your writing, see you writing your signature yourself, and all of that even if the bank is Berlin and the customer in Mexico. The wireless century will thus be many things, even if it doesn’t make an end of all crimes. It will be a century of morality, for as is well known, morality and fear are one and the same.

THE END OF SPACE AND TIME

Monarchs, chancellors, diplomats, bankers, officials, and directors will be able to carry out their businesses and give their signatures wherever they are. Directors or one and the same business will be able to hold a legal meeting easily, even if one of them is at the summit of the Himalayas, another at an oasis in the African desert, the third at some spa, and the fourth just then on an aerial voyage. They will see each other, speak with each other, exchange their files and sign them, just as if they were all in one place. Nowhere, wherever you are, will you be alone. Everywhere, you will be in connection with everyone and everything. Everyone can see anyone they want, entertain themselves with anyone, play whist, skat, and poker, or chess and checkers with anyone, and even if the partner is a thousand miles away. You can also participate in every pleasure and every distraction, just as every one else can enjoy them. You can see the dancers of the King of Siam just as well in Paris as in your study, as you can be present at a performance of the great opera of Monte Carlo in your compartment on a trip. There is nothing that you won’t be able to do. You can see all the famous people of your age with your own eyes, and, if they let you, speak with them. Yes, perhaps an apparatus will even be invented through which you can shake their hands.

And traveling will undergo a fabulous reconfiguration in the wireless century. It will connect tremendous security with enormous speed. Already, the “wireless technicians” have not invented the aerophor, but also perfected it so that an automatic signaling apparatus can automatically signal to locomotive conductor whenever another train is running on the same stretch of track and is at a distance of only two English miles. Naturally, the apparatus also indicates the direction this train is moving in. With that, the conductors of the trains on both sides are in the position to slow down or to stop or possibly to drive onto another track. But, in any case, a crash is completely impossible. The same apparatus warns sailors in bad fog and announces the distance of another ship crossing their path or that they’ll cross in their path. And any other obstacle for the ship at a certain distance will be signaled to them through the apparatus, indicating the precise distance it is away. Yes, people have constructed the apparatus in such a way that when signaling danger, it not only gives the signal to stop to the machine room, but even brings the machines themselves automatically to a still-stand.

In the future, you’ll be able to travel wonderfully, whether on the sea or under the sea, whether on the earth or under the earth or above the earth in our newly conquered empire of the air. But whoever does not want to travel in spite of all that, will be able, as mentioned, to travel the whole world in the comfort of his own room. There will be no more time and no more distance, and we will all be able to present at a catastrophe, as recently in Messina and Calabria, sitting safe in our houses regardless of where it happens. We will simply let ourselves be connected to the scenes of disaster in a wireless way, and whoever doesn’t have enough with the sight alone, but rather wants to taste the sensation in a most terrifying way, will hear, if he wants, the people’s pained whimpering, the death rattles of the dying and the cries of the hungry and the curses of the mad. We will be able to participate in every event like this. The whole world will just be one single place in which we leave. No space will divide us any one, we will be everywhere, assuming that we’re still around at all. —Even this image, which I have sketched out, is in no one one that we will achieve only first in a hundred years. No. The apparatus that makes it possible has already been invented and was only patented last December by a young New York inventor, Rothschild. And in principle, it’s nothing more than the brilliant combination of the kinematograph, telautograph, telephone, and the great inventions that preceded all of those.

In political life, as well, wireless telegraphy will play an extraordinary role. The process of voting, for example, will be able to be completely centralized, and the election can be carried out just in the imperial capital. Everyone will be in the position to cast their votes from where they are at the time and every voter will be identified simply through comparison with the voting lists that will contain not only their names and positions, but also photographs. From the highest glaciers, from the fields and bogs of the marshes, you’ll be able to cast your vote, and the chief of state, if he wants and in whatever way he intends to do this, will have the opportunity to create an image from the people’s votes that is true to reality, for Emperors and Presidents will no longer be instructed by the report of some advisor but will himself be able to be present, sitting in his castle, at every assembly, at every protest, and will be able to be connected with anyone from who he believes he’ll receive information that is true to reality. The voice of truth will be able to penetrate into closed off palaces and resound there no longer unheard.

In courtrooms, as well, wireless telegraphy will play a powerful role. Witnesses will no longer have to be brought from far away, but will simply appear before the court, while they just stay at home or take care of their business. Consequently, the costs of court procedures will become much cheaper; the waste of time won’t be as great as it is now, and nobody will have to wait for hours in the court building. A call will be enough, and any witness, even if at the North Pole, will be at the scene in an instant. In the same way, confrontations will arise. In a wireless way, the murderer in Chicago will be placed across from the principal witness who is perhaps in Siberia. Both witnesses will stand across from each other face-to-face, and here as there you will be able to follow and participate in the whole court proceedings. The only disturbing thing will be the time difference, so that some witnesses will have to testify in the middle of the night when they participate in a trial for which the local time difference is so significant.

THE WIRELESS AGE AND FASHION

Scene: An elegant boudoir on 5th Avenue in New York. A bride, the daughter of a multimillionaire, is completely beside herself and drowning in tears. A horrible accident happened. Her bridal toilet has been ruined; a cigarette burned a hole in it. So next Saturday it will be impossible for her to go to the wedding, and she’d rather not even get married. And covering up the damages somewhat with a point, not for the whole world. Either the dress is immaculate or she won’t put it on. A secret tailor? Doesn’t even occur to her. The dress have to be from Paquin. From this world-famous company, existing over 100 years, that was already her first choice in 1908. “But baby,” the groom calls, “it’s really simple. We’ll get connected with Paquin on the telephone, choose a bridal toilet, give your measurements and have the dress be sent to us through a wireless aerial motor.” In this moment, it was as if the young bride’s pain flew away. She rejoices loudly, claps her hands, and gives the command to bring her apparatus. Five minutes later the Parisian models are already strolling over to her with the bridal toilet she chose. The measurements were taken exactly and indicated, and six hours later the happy bride now has her dress again, which is ten times as pretty as the one her groom had ruined. In general, shopping in this age will be an even greater pleasure than it is now. You’ll be able to wander through all the department stores simply from your room, and stop in every department that you want to view of where you want to choose something. The clerks will spread out the wares in the department stores, just as now; the (female) customers will not themselves be in the department stores, but wherever they happen to be. At home by themselves or in company somewhere else. And they’ll be able to make a selection and have all their girlfriends participate, and everything will appear before their eyes as in the flesh; for naturally, all the images will be able to be seen in their natural colors.

The influence of wireless telegraphy will also be extraordinary for marriage and love. Lovers and married couples will never be separated from each other, even when they are hundreds and thousands of miles away. They will always see each other, always speak, in short, the golden age of love will set in and the age of widows will be destroyed; for in the future, the corporeal wise will always be persuaded of what her husband is doing; but the husband will know exactly what, and whether, his wife thinks of him.

War will also be essentially modified through the wireless age. Cutting through cables and destroying telegraphic lines will no longer slow down the movements of an army. There will be no more commands that are understood incorrectly, and the commander will not have to wait for a report on the course of a battle, but will have an overview of the whole battlefield himself, and not only the one battlefield but the whole land in which the military operation is proceeding. He will even be in the position not only to set the large columns of the army in motion according to his will, but even the small divisions. His general’s gaze only will decide; for, in his room or in his barracks, he will see everything, the movements of his armies, as well as those of the crowd of enemies. The reporting will naturally be at an extraordinary height; for everything, even the smallest little paper, as every subscriber to it, will be permitted the luxury of being present at the events of the war and seeing all the details from their rooms. In short, all these wonders of wireless telegraphy will make the coming age into a tremendous unbelievable one.

Unbelievable? Not really. We have already experienced wonders that are just as great. Only thirty years ago there was no electric light, no telephone, no gramophone, and no phonograph. We have now created these great wonders, and what I have presented is nothing more than the general application of them; it is only what will certainly come, and, in part, already exists. But totally different possibilities are available. It is possible that a farmer will be able to grow fruits that are six to ten times larger than they are now. It is probably that he’ll harvest the fruits six to ten times per year rather than one to two times. It is possible that a doctor will cure a city inflicted with a pandemic disease by having an electric cyclone wave of wireless energy flow over it. Prophets of the weather will no longer announce the weather, but rather make it. Sunshine and rain will now depend on people’s wills. Everywhere on earth, we’ll chase out winter and every storm through electric heat waves that will spread an eternal spring across the lands. And a new Marconi will perhaps establish connection with the inhabitants of Mars and thereby reveal the secrets of other worlds.