Adventures in Science: Interview with George W. Bailey

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Watson Davis: Our "Adventures in Science" guest today is George W. Bailey, Executive Secretary of the Institute of Radio Engineers.

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This organization is the professional association of almost all the engineers interested in electronics.

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Mr. Bailey is also past president, or rather recent past president, of the American Radio Relay League.

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He was the president for quite a number of years of this amateur organization.

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Mr. Bailey, we're gonna talk about the future of electronics, it's got a marvelous future, hasn't it.

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George W. Bailey: That's true, Mr. Davis.

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Watson Davis: Well, what did you see in the way of the future; we have radio, we have television, we have radar, a great many things are already happening.

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I suppose that it'd been very difficult to have guessed a decade or fifteen years ago what radio or electronics was like today.

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George W. Bailey: That's true. No one fifteen years ago would've had the temerity to even hint at devices that are almost commonplace today, Mr. Davies.

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Watson Davis: And yet, we're going to ask you to look a few years in the future, Mr. Bailey.

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What do you see around you today electronically that does give us some idea of the future?

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George W. Bailey: With development of devices which are coming more into popular use. For instance, electronic computers.

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We all know about those marvelous machines, but they're gradually being developed for everyday use and offices and throughout business concerns, and they'll undoubtedly be a tremendous future there.

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Watson Davis: Those really do go back to what was called radio, electronics.

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Because most of their components are electron tubes and they're going to... are they going to take over some of the work in the world? Not only doing sums, but keeping track of records, do you think?

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George W. Bailey: Oh yes, undoubtedly. They're developing what they call memory tubes now that store knowledge and the whole success of electronic computers depends upon reliability.

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And it's only recently that tremendous reliability has been achieved in vacuum tubes.

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Now, for instance, there is a cable from Havana to Key West in which there are four repeaters which contain vacuum tubes which have been sunk a mile down in the Atlantic Ocean.

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And it would cost many thousands of dollars just to change one tube. And today, there have been...the device has been in operation for two years and looks as if it would go twenty years.

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Watson Davis: Well, you mentioned, Mr. Bailey, memory tubes. Can one go out and buy a memory tube, and use it personally? I'd be very much interested in that.

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Watson Davis: And will this memory tube connect a name with a face by any chance?

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George W. Bailey: No, Mr. Davis, it won't do that, but it will store information. It's rather technical. But it is a device that delays in receiving information, and then acts on it as in the case of computing.

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George W. Bailey: A great number of equations or questions can be fed into a machine, and the machine remembers them and answers them.

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Watson Davis: You've got to add memory tubes to wire-tapping and recording and that sort of thing. I suppose in the long run it'll do the human race good, rather than harm, however.
George W. Bailey: Well, I think so.

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Watson Davis: You mentioned electron tubes. There are some new devices aren't there, that are even presumably more reliable than the electron tube?

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George W. Bailey: Well, I don't know they could be said to be more reliable, Mr. Davis, but there is a new device called the transistor, which is a very small device. It would rest comfortable on your thumbnail.

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George W. Bailey: And it seems that it might replace the vacuum tubes in a great many cases.

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George W. Bailey: Of course, up 'til now we've all thought that the vacuum tube was the champion of the world. Now, whether this is going to be a David that does away with a Goliath of vacuum tubes, no-one knows.

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George W. Bailey: But it certainly is going to be used in a great many places. Particularly small places.

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George W. Bailey: Take a wristwatch, it's possible even now to make a wristwatch, Mr. Davis, with very tiny batteries and a transistor that you can wear on your wrist and run by batteries.

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George W. Bailey: Some day, it may be that we'll have central stations which will emit power which will correct that watch every 15 minutes. Or every minute.

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Watson Davis: And we'd be dependent upon the central stations for time in the same way that our electric clocks are dependent on controlled, regulated frequency of the alternating current.

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Watson Davis: What about some of the other things that are going to happen? Oh, by the way, aren't these transistors made with a metal that most people have never heard of? Germanium?

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George W. Bailey: Yes, that's right. A metal called Germanium and they use a little piece in each one, about as big as the point of a pin.

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Watson Davis: How soon do you think you're gonna have these wristwatches available to the public?

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Watson Davis: Available to the public?

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George W. Bailey: Well that's difficult to say. Mr Davis, you know in asking me these questions reminds me of an instance which happened in 1930, when the empire state building was built.

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George W. Bailey: The top structure was strengthened because, at that time, they thought that dirigibles would be the coming mode of transatlantic travel.

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George W. Bailey: Well, of course, we know that dirigibles were outmoded, and that very great structural strength enabled the radio men to put an antennae up there, which is one of the electronic wonders of the world.

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George W. Bailey: With 5 television stations and 3 FM stations.

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George W. Bailey: That's illustrative of how difficult it is to look ahead.

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Watson Davis: Well that does show that we don't always know where progress is going to go.
George W. Bailey: True.

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Watson Davis: What about the use of radar for controlling traffic. That's being done now isn't it, to a certain degree?

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Watson Davis: Clocking the speed of cars on highways and that sort of thing?

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George W. Bailey: Yes it is, you remember that many years ago Nikola Telsa had an idea that radio power could be dissipated throughout the country.

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George W. Bailey: And so picked up on radio receivers, but of course that never worked out.

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George W. Bailey: But it seems possible, Mr. Davis, with new ceramic tubes and very high power and very high frequency, we may be able to beam radar down city streets and perhaps control lights on the dashes of automobiles.

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George W. Bailey: Maybe control their speed. Also have a conversation directed to the drivers to police and to taxi cabs.

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Watson Davis: [[Laughing]] Well that's a new way of backseat driving, isn't it?

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Watson Davis: It's going to be rather fearful, it seems to me, in the future, if you're -- When you're driving you have a crossing policeman yelling directions at you by way of radio.

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Watson Davis: Do you think that there is a possibility of actually transmitting power for other useful purposes? I mean for primary power purposes by high frequency?

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George W. Bailey: Well, all I can say, Mr. Davis, is that it's a lot nearer now than it was in Tesla's time. How near, no-one knows.

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Watson Davis: And what are these tubes that are being used for this purpose. You mentioned ceramic tubes?

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George W. Bailey: Yes, it seems almost certain that in the future, glass will disappear as part of a vacuum tube and some of the material used, such as ceramic material.

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George W. Bailey: You know a tube's a combination of the airports and metallurgists and mechanical engineers and the radio engineers.

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George W. Bailey: And I think they're a great future in high frequency tubes of other construction than glass.

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Watson Davis: Well, we can let our imagination play on that, because there are so many applications that can be made of power through the air in this way.

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Watson Davis: Although, it's really been one of the fantastic ideas of comic strips in the past that many engineers didn't really give much credit to.

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Watson Davis: Now I'd like to talk about the possibility of radio control -- Electronic control, let's call it, of factories.

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Watson Davis: Is there a possibility we'll have factories without people in them, except to repair the--

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George W. Bailey: Electronic devices in the future?

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George W. Bailey: Well, it may be, but it seems rather remote. In all probability, we shall have the factories, but the processes will be controlled electronically.

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George W. Bailey: But I think it'll be a long time before we'll get away from people themselves.

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Watson Davis: Well, for that-- For that matter, how about radio down on the farm?

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George W. Bailey: That is already in process of development, Mr. Davis. Very extraordinarily. There is a machine which right now will -- Can be placed on a field and will pick red tomatoes and disregard the green ones.

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George W. Bailey: There's another machine that will thin out beets between plants, thinning only the green leaves in a certain area.

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George W. Bailey: [[Laughing]] There seems certain to be in that field, and I mean literally in that field, great development.

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Watson Davis: Well that's very interesting. I want to ask you about amateur radio. We know that you were a HAM in your day. Perhaps you still do operate an amateur station. Mr. Bailey, do you?

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George W. Bailey: Oh yes, every day!

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Watson Davis: Well that's marvelous. How many radio amateurs are there in the country now?

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George W. Bailey: I suppose about 80,000 in this country, Mr. Davis. Probably 100,000 in the world.

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Watson Davis: And a great many of the radio engineers of today got their start by being -- Working in amateur wireless, it used to be called years ago

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George W. Bailey: Oh yes, and many of them today are still HAMs, as we call them. They say you scratch an engineer, you'll find a HAM underneath, as a radio amateur.

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Watson Davis: Yes, well that's very interesting. What about the possibility of just a person who wants to start in now?

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Watson Davis: I think it's been rather simplified, hasn't it, to get an amateur license? You don't have to learn quite so much code.

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George W. Bailey: Yes, that's true. There is a novice class, which is good for a year, which you only have to know 5 words a minute. I'd recommend it for anyone, young or old, as a great hobby.

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George W. Bailey: It's useful, too, as a good citizen.

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[[Crosstalk]]
Watson Davis: I think that's the American Radio Relay League at West Hartford, Connecticut.
George W. Bailey: That is correct, I see you know already about that.

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Watson Davis: Well, I wanted to be a radio amateur, but I never had time when I was young.

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George W. Bailey: Well, you've been a great help to us, Mr. Davis. In amateur radio.

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Watson Davis: What do you-- What else do you suggest with regard to amateur radio as they're doing a good deal in connection with civilian defense and definitely nearly every day they, they -- Large number of American amateurs talk with all sorts of people overseas at the ends of the earth. So--

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George W. Bailey: Yes, and-
Watson Davis: [[crosstalk]] It's a fascinating field.

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George W. Bailey: That's true. Also, they're getting to be great deal of mobile radio, in other words, the chaps have stations in their cars.

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George W. Bailey: I know of 2 or 3 chaps here in New York who going home to work out going home from work to Long Island talk regularly with other countries like England and France and Germany and so forth.

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Watson Davis: Just while they're running along in their -- That's very amazing. I wanted to ask you, Mr. Bailey, isn't the future of electronics very inviting to young men and women?

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George W. Bailey: Yes, it is, Mr. Davis. If I were a young man or a young woman, I would most certainly go into electronics. It's possible to go into electronics in one of two ways.

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George W. Bailey: One is to go to a secondary school, so-called a school for technicians, in which you may get a diploma or degree in two years.

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George W. Bailey: But, if you can afford it, by all means go to college and get a degree in four years. But there is a tremendous future for technicians and there is a tremendous future for engineers.

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Watson Davis: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Bailey. Our "Adventures In Science" guest for today has been Mr. George W. Bailey, executive secretary of the Institute of Radio Engineers.

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