Electric Communications, the Past and Present Illuminate the Future

The paper is intended to stimulate thought. The art of conveying intelligence to a distance is looked at broadly in terms of the underlying physical dimensions of energy, time, and space. These dimensions connect each individual with the outside world. The original information, which is to be transmitted, itself partakes of them as does the system over which the information is to be projected. One sees in the free electron in vacuous space the ideal means for supplying the appropriate carrying energy and of renewing it en route. In the time dimension, or its inverse, the frequency spectrum, one can trace an underlying trend which courses through the whole history of electric communications and that now leads to very high frequencies and an enormous accretion in intelligence-carrying capacity. In the spacial dimension, of distance and direction, one recognizes not only the conquering of distance but also the conserving of space by the directing and guiding of the radiation, representing further advance in the kinds and amounts of intelligence that may be conveyed. Altogether the trends toward new electronic instrumentalities, the higher frequencies, and wave propagation more sharply demarked in space, spell enlarged opportunities and new horizons.