WIRELESS AND WAR
The subjects of War and Wireless cover a multitude of closely allied ills.
It is only natural that wireless should first have been applied to Love and War. I remember well one of the most remarkable applications of wireless mentioned in the press in the early days was that of a cable sent to an unfortunate man in mid-ocean, informing him that an all too successful arrival of twins had taken place.
War is, of course, a natural process a little less educated, and more unkind, in consequence, than birth control.
Most inventions are first applied to the science and art of warfare. Perhaps we should not regard this as all to the bad, for War has a remarkable capacity for acceleration.
Development of the wireless valve was greatly assisted by the War: the aeroplane, the art of plastic surgery, and many other human benefits have arrived more rapidly from the same cause.
Let us see, therefore, what wireless can do now, and what it may accomplish for the future of organised destruction.
Mentally, the fittest should survive, in both the realms of invention and physiology. It is only a few years since wireless was of no intrinsic value for ordinary land warfare, by virtue of the fact that interference was extremely easy, and that any coded message could be so easily decoded.
At present wireless messages are chiefly of service where secrecy is not of such importance as speed; but an enormous number of experiments are being conducted upon beam wireless, directional wireless, and in the combination of the Radio oscillation with some other oscillations such as those of visible or invisible light. By these means secrecy will be obtained when we discover how to use small powers for long distance, but at present Radio is chiefly of value as a time-saver.
The pilot in an aeroplane can talk to his base: he will soon be able to write and transmit vision from a plane which could be controlled by wireless. The time will come when low-flying wireless planes will explore, and render visible at many miles distant, places where no human pilot could remain for any length of time in safety.
It is not long ago that we rejoiced because a damaged ship was able to call for help by wireless, but we have only to look back to a recent war to remember an occasion when one ship was totally unable to call assistance because its wireless was jammed. In other words, enemy interference was possible.
This should show us how far we have yet to go in an utterly new and very little understood science.
We began with sparks, we progressed to coherers, and now we have valves; but let it not be thought for a moment that the valve represents finality to any thinking being.
Broadcasting at present has really become so universal only on account of the exceedingly public nature of wireless, for, when we are able to obtain accuracy of tuning and direction, we shall not only use the latter to guide ships at sea, but we shall have correspondence which can be conducted with a reasonable degree of secrecy. We shall have special wave-lengths for the Government, special wave-lengths for Parliamentary debates, and the Divorce Courts. We shall not conduct our conversations in such a manner that any schoolboy with a piece of wire, a needle, and some sugar, can promptly listen in.
The very idea suggests a new “Peeping Tom.”
As far as communication is concerned, we shall have whole armies in instantaneous touch with each other: it may indeed make real secrecy more difficult. It should always be recollected that when we refer to wireless speech, wireless control, and Radio Vision, we do not necessarily mean the same form of electrical wave by which we now broadcast a comic opera.
It is with oscillation that we are really concerned, and we may discover many forms of electronic vibration at present occupying portions of the so-called spectrum which are as yet very little understood.
It may be impossible for the Commander-in-Chief of the future to conceal a document from the eyes of wireless; and who knows but that the electrical operation of thought may be reduced to a science so that our very ideas are not secret without protection?
How many of us to-day could risk all our thoughts being known? It would probably improve moral standards if they were published: science tends to effect an average improvement.
We have never yet really seen the extraordinary value of wireless in war. If we had solved the problem of selection, the transference of speech by phonograph records dropped from aeroplanes would never have arisen.
Undoubtedly, we shall see wireless controlled tanks, submarines, and torpedoes on both land, air, and water. All will be accurately controlled, and they will possibly be able to find their way home and to operate from a distance while out of sight.
Even to-day it is possible for an aeroplane to operate a torpedo, to steer it properly, to slow it down; and for a pilot of an aeroplane many miles away to work his will upon it with a reasonable degree of accuracy and with the help of a gyro control.
The day will undoubtedly come when the problem of defending an island is not that of the mainland itself but of all its dependencies.
No large town could live for long if it were bombed from a distance by wireless, if gassed and poisoned from a distance, were it not for the balance of protection and defence which is usually maintained by nature.
We shall in the future, see forms of electric death and heat-rays which may materialise not as a direct projection of heat but as some form of oscillation which produces heat only when striking a metallic object.
We have been so often told that power can be transmitted by Radio that we are apt to look upon this statement with contempt. This is quite wrong: power will one day be transmitted by wireless; power can at present be inductively sent over quite a large air gap, though the energy available quite close to any wireless station is practically negligible to-day.
When motor-cars and ships are controlled or stopped by wireless, it is not the wireless which does the work; the therial oscillation merely sends signals to the ordinary operative mechanism.
Much excitement has been caused by the alleged injury of aeroplanes and motor-cars by wireless, but how is it that they can afterwards proceed? Do we forget that the petrol engine has to be restarted, and that, if allowed to fire when a car was in gear, it might be damaged and would probably not operate the moving parts?
If wireless power could be directed in such a form that it could be conveyed along a wave of “atomic” oscillation, many more valuable ends might be served than the enforced landing of aeroplanes.
Our clocks could be corrected by wireless, experiments could be conducted upon the nature of light and ether in various forms. We might decide the mode of propagation of light and thought, and investigate the apparent motion of the electron along the electro lines of force.
What an opportunity for study to the man of medicine! What a chance to find out how the oscillations of life are connected with those we partially understand.
What a chance for the burglar to discover the presence of hidden spoons as a mass of metal by means of wireless; what a chance for the surveyor and the seeker after oil to use this all-prevailing sense of oscillation and even to discover the meaning of radiation.
Oscillation—that is all we mean by Radio; and oscillation is at the base of life itself. It will not be long before travellers by air, land, and water, will be no longer alone.
That they will be able to converse with their homes may seem no advantage, but that they can remain in touch with the rest of mankind is most obviously desirable.
If this were understood to-day, I should not need to make noises with my lips or require the simulacra of these noises to be produced upon paper to convey my thoughts. If thought is a process of energy-conversion—and who will deny it?—what form of screening prevents its use, and why should its reception be confined eventually to life upon this particular and very troublesome planet?
It is remarkable how little is known of wireless: the very simplicity of its painfully standardised features is a trap for the unwary. It is a universal science, but we do not yet know the correct diaphragm size for a loud speaker, nor how damping should be employed. The finest apparatus is available to all, and yet we do not understand the fullest range of wave-lengths. The study of radio-active materials and short wave radiation may in one day produce the cold-emitter valve, abolish the outside aerial, and bring to our closer understanding some of the many senses now so atrophied in mankind, that we can only speculate as to their existence. I doubt much if the schoolboy of the future will greatly esteem the radio expert of this century.