Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony

2 WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY Throw a stone into a pool of water. A disturbance is immediately created, and little waves will radiate from the spot where the stone struck the water, gradually spreading out into enlarging circles until they reach the shores or die away. By throwing several stones in succession with varying intervals between them it would be possible to so arrange a set of signals that they would convey a meaning to one who is initiated, standing on the opposite side of the pool. The little waves are the vehicle which transmits the intelligence, and the water the medium in which the waves travel. Wireless telegraph instruments are simply a means for creating and detecting zvaves in a great pool of ether. Scientists suppose that all space and matter is pervaded with a hypothetical medium of extreme tenuity and elas- ticity, called luminiferous ether, or simply ether. Although ether is invisible, odorless, and practically weightless, it is not merely the fantastic creation of specu- lative philosophers, but is as essential to our existence as the air we breathe and the food we eat. By imagining and accepting its reality, it is possible to explain and under- stand many scientific puzzles. The universe is a vast pool of ether. It is all-pervading. There is no void. It is dif- fused even among the molecules of which solid bodies are composed. The study of this substance is, perhaps, one of the most fascinating and important duties of the physicist. Ninety million miles away from our earth is a huge flaming body of vapors and gases, called the sun. This seething mass of flame and heat furnishes us more than mere winter and summer and night and day, for we on this earth are not living on our own resources, and the real work of the world so necessary for even bare existence is accomplished by the energy of the sun stored up in coal, in plants and trees and mountain torrents.