A Glance Ahead at the Surprises Science Hasin Store for Us and a Prophetic Picture of Our

Great American Cities Half a Century Hence

As thevWife Sit* at the Telephone to Talkto Her Hu&band m His Office, She Will

See Him and His'.Desk" and All ther - Surrounding Room as Plainly as if

She-Were There with Him.

By Hugo Gernsback,Editor of Radio News* Science and Inven-

tion, and The Experimenter.Member-; of American Physical Society.

FEW-, people have patience- with aprophet. Most people live .only to-day^ to-morrow is an unknown

quantity. .Tfee remarkable thing about thescientific prophet is that, as a rule, hiswildest flights of imagination have provedabsolutely inadequate to the progress thatactually occurred long before the timeassigned In the prophecy was reached.

When Jules Verne wrote his propheticbooks some fifty years agor he was ridi-culed not a-little. He had "'invented" thesubmarine, almost down to the last nutand bolt He even had it propelled elec-trically, and there were few things he hadoverlooked; When his story first ap-peared, it was held.that the device wasimpossible. Twenty years later hisprophecy had been fulfilled.

When we look back fifty years, it isamazing to find the tremendous progressthat has been wrought by electricity, themysterious fluid. •

Fifty years ago there was no telephone.There was no skyscraper, because we hadno electric elevators. There was no elec-tric light, there were no moving pictures,there were no electric trolley cars, noelectric trains, no tunnels under rivers be-cause we had no electric trains to keepus from suffocating. Wireless telegraphyfifty years ago would have been held aspreposterous. The suggestion to send apicture from- New York to Londonthrough the air without wires would havecalled forth a storm of ridicule.

How will this world look 'to us fiftyyears hence?

If the rate of population is maintained,as it has been in the past, all large citieswill at least be three or four times as largeas they arc now. A city like Chicago, forinstance, will probably have 10,000,000inhabitants. New York City will probablyhave anywhere from 12,000,000 to 15,-000,000, with other cities in proportion.How will this tremendous population betaken care of, as, for instance, going toand from work?

In ail our large cities transportation hasbecome well nigh intolerable. It seemsthat it will be necessary^to have streetsarranged in such a way that the varioustraffics can be taken care of in a moreadequate manner than is possible today.Every city will probably have a so-calledbelt line, similar to that shown in ourillustration. The top level will be forlight passenger vehicles, autos and thelike.- There is no doubt that all of these willbe propelled electrically by that time. Inthe accompanying illustration you sec awire line running along the top of thestructure. This line will give its powerby radio, not only to the automobiles,buses, etc., but it will serve to propelpedestrians as well.

Each pedestrian will roll on electricskates, such as have been constructedeven today. An insulated wire runningfrom the skate to the head or shoulderof the skater will be sufficient to takethe power from the radio power line, an-1we shall then all be propelled electricallyat a pace at least four or five times asfast as we walk today.

Underneath the first level in the pic-ture we have the elevated railway much as.it is now, electrically propelled, of course.This railway, however, will -make muchgreater speed than we now know, due tothe different manner of construction, asv/ell as to better track-and other vital ele-ments of construction. Below the elevatedrailway we have continuous moving plat-forms. There will be three such movingplatforms alongside of each other. Thefirst platform will move only a few milesper hour, the second at eight or ten milesper hour, and the third at twelve or fif-teen mile's, per hour.

You step upon -the slowest moving onefrom terra firma and move to the fasterones and take your seat. Then arrivingat your station, you can either take thelift to the top platform or else you canget off upon the "elevated level" and takethe fast train there, which stops onlyevery thirty or forty blocks. Or, if youdo not wish this, you can descend by thesame ejevator down to the local subway.

On the other hand you can take aninter-urban subway, or if you desire youcan go still further-down^where you strikethe long distance subway^ traveling at therate of about two hundred miles per hour.This willbe at a depth of 400 feet.-

The .lower street level is given over totrucking only. There are no pedestrians,on this level. «-

Fifty years hence our scientists willhave solved the problem of controlling theweather, at least as far as our cities arcconcerned. Huge high frequency electriccurrent structures, placed on top of ourlargest buildings, will either diapel threat-

Cities Will Grow Bigger and the Great Pressing Problem of Transportation of Persons and Things Will Be Solved by Moving Plat-forms, Avenue* for Wireless Propelled Skaters, and Tunnels at Enormous Depths Below the Surface, While the Weather Con-

trol Station Will Provide Rain or Sunshine at Will.. ' • • • ' '," . . • • ' • • . From Drawing Copyright b y "Practical Electrics.'

ening rain, or, if necessary, produce rainas needed during the hot spells or duringthe night. ,

The qUesti6n is often asked: "What ef-fect do radio stations have on living- beingsand on plants?"

At the present time there is practicallyno effect for the simple reason that thebroadcast stations, as well as. the com-mercial radio ' stations, send out/a verydiminutive amount of power.

Fifty years from now, with super-radiostations generating millions or billions ofkilowatts, the situation will probablychange. The beneficial .action will thenbe felt by everyone, no matter where,located on this globeV By that time, thehigh frequency currents will have be-

•come sufficiently powerful to have a vital-izing effect on every human being. Weshall all be electrified then in the fullmeaning of the term. , _ • ' , .

Not only that, but plant life will also

be greatly stimulated, as recent high fre-quency experiments on plants have shown.Our crops and plants will grow practically

, two to ten times as quickly and the cropswill be more productive under this electri-.ficatioji. Under, such stimulation it will

, be quite possible .to raise'crops at leasttwice or perhaps more often during theyear; and the most interesting part aboutthis is that it will cost the farmer abso-lutely nothing except for fertilizer. Andthis he requires anyway./ Outside of these effects there are, how-ever, other physiological effects on thehuman body that should be mentioned.TSvery one knows of the Beneficial effectthat we experience when we * grasp thehandles 'of a small electrifying; machine,known better under the popular name.ofthe electric shocking machine. Tech-.nically this is known as Faradization.

We know how this treatment stimulatesour'nerves, how it injects new vitality

into us, and how in popular parlance it"peps us up." If we could be under suchstimulus twenty-four hours a day and,as we all know, it is perfectly harmless,it certainly ' would increase our working-efficiency to a very marked extent. Itwould probably do away with sui-hcommon ailments as headaches. It wouldimprove our digestion. Rheumatism wouldbe practically unknown, and the "nervouswrecks" would only be found in ancienthistories. In a small way, the electrifica-tiqn effects just mentioned may be ac-tually experienced today in the vicinityof any large radio station.

For instance, the Government stationat Arlington, Va. (NAA),. is so powerfulthat if you walk underneath the aerialwires, which are 800 feet above yourhead, you will experience a tingling sen-sation on the soles of your feet as youstep on the moist earth. If an automo-bile drives along the road underneath

the aerial you are able to draw stingingsparks from the car a.nd from the oc-cupants, because the automobile, due toits rubber tires, is insulated - from tha'conducting ground, while you, standingon the ground, are not insulated. Now,then, the power of NAA is comparativelyweak compared with the radio super-sta-tions we shall have in the future.

Perhaps it will be possible for childrenUTHjcr such electrification to grow up morequickly without bad effects. Under con-stant electrification it may be possible,fifty years from now, that a child of sixwill be mentally and physically equal tothe youth .of eighteen today.

The future city will receive its powerby radio, of course, from distant water-falls, or from distant sunlight powerplants. Tremendous quantities of energyare going to' waste today, all of which canbo collected and sent to our large centersby wireless.

Everybody Will Be His Own Taxicafc.With a Simple Wireless Arrangement inYour Hat or Using Cane of Parasol.

You Will Go to Business or Shop-ping on Electric Skates at Any

Speed You Desire.

Indeed, some of the sunlight powerplants can be located right in the heartof the city, if desired, and such plants willbe sufficient to take care of the powerfor our office buildings and smallermanufacturing shops.

The tops of our tallest buildings will beflat and glass-covered. They will haveairplane landing platforms on which allkinds of airplanes, or even the trans-Atlantic planes of the future will land.

O.ur large office buildings, or, for-thatmatter, private houses, will have real gar-dens with large trees on top of the roofs,as has already been tried experimentallywith smaller plants in some of our largecities.

All of our buildings and houses are duefor a great revolution. In the Winter-time all of our buildings will be warm,and in the Summertime they will be cooj.The future buildings and houses will befashioned along the principle of a ther-mos bottle. Each wall' will be double,and' the space between the "walls will befilled with cork or some other poor heatconductor.

At the present time as soon as we hea*.a room the heat is dissipated throughthe walls and through the windows. Byhaving double walls and double or tripl"window panes, a small electric heater willkeep a big room warm. In the Summer-time, on the hottest day, our rooms will benice and cool, because no heat can get intothe room. All year around, windows willbe kept closed, the same as they are nowin the Winter; of. course, there will besome ventilation in-order to give us air,but this air will be cooled in the Summerand heated in the Winter.

We must stop here, -dfirst, for lack ofspace and second, because we do not wishto be ridiculed. We dp not wish to delveinto the future of what will be going oninside' of these buildings, because weprobably would riot be believed.

The following arc some of the impos-sible things that will have become pos-sible fifty years hence:

By that time, we shall be able to sendall sorts of materials by radio. If youthink that it is impossible to transmit acarload of coul thousands of miles, youneed only go back less than fifty years,when it would have been thought equallyimpossible to have the street cars; of Syra-cuse, N. Y., run by the power generatedby Niagara Falls. Today no one thinksanything of this.

To anyone who doubts that solids canbe transported through space it should bepointed out that the same thing is beingdone right now. Every time an X-raypicture is taken, solid particles leave theX-ray tube, being shot right through theglass walls of the tube. These small parti-cles, which are being shot at tremendousspeeds, then impinge upon the photo-graphic plate, if such is in the path, wherethey blacken the plate, which we seevisually after the plate is developed.

.A similar action takes place withradium. Alpha and Beta particles, whichare given off by radium, are just assolid substances as bricks or pieces ofsteel. These particles are shot off fromthe radium substances.

In time it will be possible to do thesame thing by radio, tn other words, letus say, a brick will be disintegrated intoits elements and radiated out into spacethe same as radio waves, or light waves,are now radiated, to be reassembled atthe receiving station.

This may seem quite incredible today,but it is not at all so to the up-to-datescientist who can see into the future.

Fifty years hence, we shall not beusing'our wasteful electric bulbs either,which waste over OS per cent of the-energy put into them. We shall have coldlight, and we shall utilize nearly all th"energy, instead of ihrowihg,,riearly all ofit away in wasteful heat. '• .

Movies by radio! Why not? You willbe -able to have a moving picture pro-duced in some central plant and projectedin your home, on your yacht, or on yourcamping trip, the "picture being- sent byradio, an»5 received and projected uponyour screen. All this is perfectly possible.

Fifty years hence, we shall surely havethe "telephot," whereby we shall be en-abled to see each other over the phone,instead of being satisfied with the. voice,as we are today. Much progress has beenmade on this invention, and many modelsbuilt, and while so far .nothing practicalhas. been developed, we are getting thereby 'degrees.

The. chances are that if someone run?across this fifty years from now, he willseverely condemn the writer of this forhis great lack of imagination, for, nomatter how wild the predictions may seemnow, they will .look very tarne fifty yearshence. If someone had tried to explainradio to you fifty years ago, or the X-ray,or radium, he would have been put downas ripe "for the insane asylum, and youmay rest assured "that we arc no differenttoday.

(C) 1625, by American Weekly, Inc. Great BrlUUi HSghts Bcsorved.