| Show A PEEK AT TOMORROWS S inventions national resources committee advises careful planning to take fullest Advant advantage ag e of scientific innovations 0 OUR UR country might have presented a vastly diff different er scene if at the turn of the present century the government had been able to foresee the development of the R telephone ephone el the automobile he airplane the motion picture i rayon and radio likewise it we today can foresee the future development of some inventions we already have and some we probably will have then we will be equipped to build for ourselves and our posterity a fuller existence this according to the federal national resources committee is the reason for its recent word report on the social implications of new inventions the report says president roosevelt holds out hope that we can anticipate some of the effects of major inventions and make plans to meet new situations that will arise as these new inventions come into widespread use with this white house benedic tion ls expected that the becom ions of the laborious document will become a guidepost for the coordinated co long term planning to prevent or reduce future depressions with their economic maladjustments and social upheavals that characterize the new deal cites thirteen inventions to apply its theories the committee recommends that another committee commatee to be known as the natural resources board be created this would be a sort of technological telescope which would constantly peer into the future and predict what scientific advances would be made its qualified observers would be commissioned to ordinate coordinate co the work of the many special planning boards which exist in 47 states counties and 1100 cities this board and the many other planning boards throughout the nation ought immediately to concern themselves with the study of 13 inventions vent ions the report declares these are the mechanical cotton picker air conditioning equipment plastics the photoelectric photo electric cell artificial cotton and woolen like fibers made from cellulose synthetic rubber prefabricated houses television facsimile transmission the automobile trailer gasoline produced from coal steep sleep flight aircraft planes and tray agriculture dr william F ogburn director of research tor for the report tells a few of the ways in which governments individuals and industries suffered because they failed to foresee the development of certain industries dus tries highways are too narrow he contends the metropolitan area could have been planned better much crime could have been prevented industries could have been located to better advantage here he be injected a little of the political philosophy 0 of f the present administration the growing inadequacies of small local governments could have been foreseen he said and the transfer ansler tr ot of some of their functions to a more capable centralized government would have been facilitated the question that na naturally y arises is will the second third of I 1 the twentieth century see the rise of such great indu industries tries based on new inventions as was seen in the first third there may very well be equally significant inventions during the next phase of our national growth as in the one just concluded Cent most important invention for instance all are agreed that one such invention is the electron tube said to be the greatest invention of the twentieth century its most brilliant form is the photoelectric cell popularly known as the electric eye this eye sees every everything thin g that the human eye can see and more it is even said to be able to detect certain types of counterfeit money it will distinguish colors better than human beings can do when it is joined with another form of the electron tube the va vacuum cu tube it becomes able to act on what it sees thus it sees a waitr waitress ess approaching a door with trays in both hands and at once swings the door open for her to pass unlike a human being it does not suffer from fatigue for instance in a f factory a atory it can watch the tin cans go by on a belt pick out the detective defective ones letting only the good ones go by this monotonous work can be done without strain for as long hours as the manager wishes find new uses constantly that it will cause unemployment is obvious but it will also lighten the tasks of the workmen indeed it brings the automatic factory and the automatic man one step closer it may be used to regulate automobile traffic to measure the density of smoke to time horse racing to read to perform mathematical calculations al cu hardly a month passes without some new use of the photoelectric cell being reported indeed it will require decades to learn the many things this versatile instrument can do there are other such new inventions inventions which will carry the nation on to even greater achievement during the years to come I 1 the full effects of artificial fibers have not yet been felt the influence of the airplane has just begun even the familiar telephone will have many new and profound effects when long distance telephoning becomes more widespread upon the distribution ot of population between metropolis and smaller city upon the physical separation of management control from production upon remote controls in in general trailer may alter living the telephone wire may be used to record messages bulletins even newspapers in the home and office nor are the influences ol of the very common automobile matters of past history either the new social and economic unit ol of population called the metropolitan area so encouraged cou raged by the automobile is in its infancy while the trailer may be destined to change the habits of living and working of vast numbers of the people dr ogburn points out that there is little advantage in planning the use or distribution of our natural resources unless we know what uses Z y w I 1 Y d A 1 I va A e technologists will find for them we must be able to foresee whether oil will be made from coal whether plastics will take the place of wood whether alcohol will be used as a motor fuel whether more foodstuffs will be produced chemically the nation now faces the second third of the twentieth century he says what may be expected of technological development how far reaching will be the effects of the mechanical cotton picker will the surplus labor of the south flood the northern and western cities will the governments plan and act in time once the spread of this invention tion is certain the influence on negroes may be catastrophic farm tenancy will be affected the political system of the southern states may be greatly altered in another field science has gone far on the road to producing artificial climate in all its aspects which may have effects on the distribution 1 i 1 4 of population upon health upon production and upon the transformation ot of the night into day talking books for blind then again television may become widely distributed placing theaters into millions ot of homes and I 1 increasing even more the already astounding possibilities of propaganda to be imposed on a none too critical human race talking books may come as a boon to the blind but with revolutionary effects upon libraries and which together with the talking picture and television may affect radically schools and the educational process the variety of alloys gives to metals amazing adapt abilities to the purposes of man the use of chemistry in the production of new objects in contrast to the use of mechanical fabrication on the basis of power continues to develop with remarkable rapidity in the production of oil of woolen like al automobile trailers will ing t changes in lives iu few years says the boards lepori aw tz al ll 11 one of the most important inventions which will be developed in the be next few years is the mechanical cotton picker shown at left another is television a broadcast is shown above fibers of substitutes for wood and of agencies of destruction so the immediate future will see the application of new scientific discoveries co that will bring not only enticing prospects but uncertainties and difficulties as well the fe report ort continued continue 4 the a ar r conditioning developments which lower inside temperatures during hot weather may or may not within the next generation affect southern souther n cities and stimulate the growth of factories in warmer regions technological unemployment the report said that while new inventions often save labor and therefore cut down the number of jobs their developments often require i quire e new industries creating new jobs the question whether there wilt will be a large amount of unemployment during the next period of business prosperity rests only in part on the introduction of new inventions and more efficient industrial techniques says the report for instance even if industrial techniques remained the same the volume of production would have to be greater in the future than in 1929 in order to absorb the increase in the working population and keep unemployment to the level of that date one of the greatest necessities for planning in anticipation of the development of inventions arises in the time lag between the birth of an invention and its full application the report declares it points out that tor for the 19 inventions voted most useful and introduced between 1888 and 1913 the following intervals were an average between the time the invention was conceived which may have been centuries before and the first working model or patent years from that point to the first practical use 24 years thence to commercial success 14 years and to important use 12 yearn years making it roughly 50 years from the first real work on the invention ven tion the time lag between the first development and the full use of an invention is often a period of great social and economic maladjustment meni as for example the delay in the adoption of work mens compensation and the institution of safety first campaigns after the introduction of rapidly moving steel machines the report said this lag emphasized the need for planning in regard to inventions a 6 western newspaper union |
