Haphazard Inventions

They Have Given Way to Man Who Knows What He Wants to Do and Studies to Accomplish It.

“The day of haphazard inventing and haphazard discoveries is rapidly passing,” said a local electrician to a writer for the New Orleans Times-Democrat the other evening. The up-to-date scientist grapples with a certain problem, he knows what he wants to get, he understands the laws bearing on the subject, and he sits down calmly to dig it out. Look, for example, at the new system of long-distance telephony just perfected by Prof. Michael Pupin of Columbia University and sold for $200,000 cash and $17,500 annual royalty! It is the biggest scientific sensation of the day and well deserves to be, not only on account of the importance of the invention, but because it sharply marks the line between the old and the new methods. Ever since the telephone was invented, trouble has been experienced in preventing waste of the electric current and keeping enough of it on the wire to operate remote instruments. It was known perfectly well that this waste or leakage was due to vibrations, which became worse and worse as the line was lengthened, and it was also known that the vibrations could be deadened or ‘dampened’ by putting occasional coils around the main cables. But nobody knew the laws that governed the vibrations themselves, so sometimes the coils would operate and sometimes they wouldn’t, it was all guesswork.

“Well, that was the problem your Prof. Pupin sat down to solve five years ago — not with experimental machines, but with simple pencil and paper. He saw at once that it was primarily a question of mathematics, and for at least three years he toiled away, slowly evolving the much-needed law of mechanical vibration. At last he rounded it out, and the rest was a mere matter of application, although he was occupied a couple of years longer building cables for purposes of demonstration. One of them was 630 miles long, coiled up in one immense cellar, and it is said that that part of the work cost, altogether, nearly $150,000. Who was the financial sponsor of the undertaking hasn’t been stated and in that connection it is an interesting circumstance that Pupin and Tesla, who are fellow countrymen — Serbians — are the only two eminent electricians of the day who have ample wealth placed at their disposal for the development of their ideas. Much curiosity has often been expressed as to Tesla’s unknown banker, for he is personally poor; and, in the case of Prof. Pupin, it is clear that some generous capitalist was at hand, ready and willing to back genius to the hilt. Rest assured, the big things of the future will be found by highly trained specialists, who know exactly what they are going after and who are supplied with unlimited funds. The result will then be merely a matter of so much brain-grind.”