In the late 1940s, the US economy was still shifting over from a
war-footing and just gearing up for the great boom of consumer
spending in the 1950s and on. That meant people still had to be
thrifty and “clever” Such as by turning their homes into horrible
rat-mazes just so they could say they had an extra bedroom.
Want to know why so many postwar renovation projects involve
knocking out crappy, non-load-bearing walls? This is why.This has to be some
kind of parody, right?
From The
ArchivesAPRIL
1948APRIL 1948
by ANTHONY FORDHAM
I
T TOOK you about one second, or 1,000,000 microseconds, to
read the title of this article. On that basis one microsecond may
seem short enough to satisfy everyone, but to the modem
electronics engineer it is a fairly long time. Describing a new
electronic gadget, its inventor informs us that each dial division
corresponds to 0.0132 microseconds; in other words, he is measuring
down to a ten-thousandth of a millionth of a second.
That’s slicing it rather fine, but if it is worth a few dollars to you, you
can buy a pulse generator that will deliver bursts of power adjustable
down to 0.1 microsecond. You can order it from an advertisement—
nothing special about it—plug it into a wall socket like an electric iron,
and you’re a member of the microsecond-splitting fraternity yourself.
It’s economical to operate, too—consumes only 40 watts.
Is all this just a scientific stunt? Hardly, unless the major part of
radio and electronic development during the last war and be-tween
the two wars is to be so regarded. Actually it represents a major
technological revolution. If some Rip Van Winkle radio engineer
awoke today he would hardly recognize the science he pioneered.
Where he figured mainly in kilocycles, he would hear his younger
colleagues talking megacycles and thousands of megacycles. Where
he was concerned with the production of continuous waves, he would
find bursts or pulses of energy playing as important a role.
The technique of producing these pulses would seem especially odd
to him, for if he worked with vacuum tubes before his long sleep he
would remember that the first rule was to avoid overloading andTHE HEADLINE OF THIS ARTICLE
jumped out during the monthly visit to the
(vast) PopSci archives, but as we read deeper
we realised this seemingly dry piece on how
scientists measure microseconds is actually
something a bit special.
In a scant 1500 words, writer Carl Dreher
name-checks pretty much every major
technology of the 20th century - radar,
X-rays, computing, “atomic” power, radio
broadcasting, navigation, communications
in general, and photography.
It’s astonishing to think it was written just
three years after the end of World War II.
The Ultimate
Post-War Tech
Feature?
Measuring the split flashes of time that are
microseconds makes possible many modern
miracles of science.By Carl Dreher
POPULAR SCIENCE - APRIL 1948 - PAGE 16374 POPULAR SCIENCE