CHAFFEE SEES FUTURE IN NEW TELEVISION

"I think that television has a very possible future, and when perfected, will be an attainment of which the American people will be proud", said Professor E. L. Chaffee '11, professor of Physics, to a CRIMSON reporter yesterday. Professor Chaffee was commenting on this most recent invention, experimented with on Thursday at the Bell Telephone laboratories in New York, when Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover spoke over the telephone in Washington and was seen and heard in New York.

Project Long Planned

"This project of seeing over the telephone is not a new idea," continued Professor Chaffee, "it has been thought of ever since the invention of the telephone, but it was only last Thursday night that it was accomplished. Among many others J. F. Jenkins of Washington, The General Electric Company, and the Bell Telephone Company, have been foremost in the experimenting with television. I think that great credit should go to the Bell Telephone Company for its success in both the Trans-Atlantic Telephone, and in television.

Picture Transmitted at High Speed

"Before Thursday's experiment, of course, stationary pictures were broadcast for long distances, but this is the first time that moving pictures, of moving objects, have been seen over the wires. Television consists in rapidly transmitting still pictures, in speeding up the picture at least 100 times faster than would be necessary to transmit a stationary object or picture. The picture is produced by the passing of a bright light over a screen. Up to this time, and even now, the great difficulty in broadcasting moving objects has been brought about by a lack of intense light. Until a means can be secured of producing a very intensive light, television will be hard to perfect. However, I believe that this obstacle will be overcome in time."

Continuing, Professor Chaffee said, "it is very doubtful if television will ever be of as general use as radio now is for several reasons. In the first place, to operate television correctly calls for more technical skill, than most people possess. Then too, the apparatus used in sending pictures over wire, is very bulky and expensive."

Movies May Come to Parlor

Asked concerning the possibilities of the broadcasting of moving pictures through space, Professor Chaffee said, "Anything that can be sent over wire can be broadcasted on the radio. It is improbable, but highly conceivable, that in a decade or two, some of the wealthiest people of the country will view motion pictures in their own living rooms. However, the expense of the apparatus will exclude most of the population from this luxury