MUSIC IN THE AIR

A few years ago a scientific curiosity, now a musical instrument ready to take its place in homes and orchestras, such is the history of the invention of Prof. Théremin, a young Russian scientist, for literally extracting music from the air. The picture on our cover shows this new instrument in its latest form, as demonstrated at the recent New York Radio Show, preparatory to being placed on the market.

The air from which the music is drawn is the space between the hands of the musician and the antennae of the instrument. Everyone who fooled with radio in the early days of 1922 remembers the squeals that so often used to emanate from the loud speaker, or head phones. With many of the old regenerative sets, the squeal would start if the hand was brought near, in order to turn the dials. This, of course, was the result of the changing capacity between the parts of the set and the hands of the operator.

These squeals, that have long since been banished from radio, have been tamed by Prof. Théremin, and made to produce sweet melody. At no time does the performer touch the instrument, but merely waves his hands back and forth. Bringing his right hand towards or away from the vertical rod regulates the pitch, while the distance of his left hand from the loop on the side controls the volume. In this way a musical sound of any pitch or volume may be obtained.

One advantage of the instrument over those of the present day is that jazz cannot be played on it. Only a legato can be obtained, as one note runs into the next.

TWIN CARBON

Carbon is the latest chemical element to be shown to have a twin. Last winter two California physicists showed that oxygen, long supposed to be single, was not only double, but triple. Now Dr. Arthur S. King of the Mt. Wilson Observatory, and Dr. Raymond T. Birge of the University of California, have found a kind of carbon that is heavier than the ordinary form. Carbon is one of the most essential eléments in living matter.

These experiments heated carbon in a vacuum in an electric furnace to a temperature around 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. When the light that it emitted was analyzed with a spectroscope, the usual bright bands of the spectrum appeared, including a very prominent green one. Close to this, however, the photographs showed another, very faint and previously unknown.

Ordinary carbon is of mass 12, in the scale used for measuring the mass of the atoms. Dr. King and Dr. Birge announce that the new band can be explained by the presence along with ordinary carbon of another kind, or isotope, of mass 13. They are unable to estimate the relative proportions of the two kinds, but the heavier isotope must be present in very small quantities, for the band is hundreds of times fainter than the strong one.

NEW YORK TELEPHONES AUSTRALIA

America talked with Australia through regular telephone instruments for the first time last week, when officials of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company exchanged greetings with the Australian telephone officials in Sydney. The occasion was an informal demonstration of the practicability of connecting the transatlantic telephone channel operated by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and British Post Office with the new short wave radio telephone channel operated by the British General Post Office between Great Britain and the Australian continent, that may soon be open for commercial use. The directive short-wave transatlantic radio channel that is now in regular use for European service was used in the demonstration instead of the long-wave channel so that the voices of the speakers were carried a total distance of 15,000 miles by the short-wave system of transmission interconnecting the wire systems of the United States and Australia.