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May 1964 Radio-Electronics
 [Table of Contents]
Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics.
See articles from Radio-Electronics,
published 1930-1988. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.
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 Careful what you wish for,
because you might just get it. We almost got it here in the U.S., a year or so ago
in the form of Nina Jankowicz, aka "Scary Poppins," based on
the bazaar video she posted. She was the candidate for ordination into the top post
of a proposed new "Disinformation
Governance Board (DGB)," akin to George Orwell's Ministry of Truth. Fortunately,
reaction to her nutty past quickly nixed not just her, but the DGB. Technology visionary
Hugo Gernsback, in this 1964 issue of his Radio-Electronics magazine, lamented
the growing amount of bad science getting passed off as good science because there
was not some central vetting agency to separate the figurative
wheat from the chaff. With the encroaching
Marxism occurring worldwide these days, I wonder whether Mr. Gernsback would
still make this claim: "A National Facts Center must be built and operated by
the Federal Government." Based on his record of championing private industry and
academia - at least in its state of being in his day - I doubt it. I will point
out, though, that 1984 was published in 1949, so surely Gernsback knew
of the dangers of such concept in the wrong hands.
... Billions of Haphazard Facts Will Soon Drown Us ...
Hugo Gernsback, Editor-in-Chief
In our December 1959 issue, we wrote: An important government official, commenting
on the chaos of electronic research, recently rebuked American research scientists
for failing to make use of available Russian data. This occurred in early October,
1959, during the Chicago meeting of the National Electronics Conference, and was
described in a news report:
"John C. Green, director, Office of Technical Services, Department of Commerce,
said his office began translating Soviet scientific reports more than a year ago
and, because of the impact of Russia's sputniks, had expected these translations
to total 25% to 50% of its sales of science papers. Actually, he said, they amounted
to only $50,000 out of the total of $500,000, or 10%.
"Mr. Green offered several reasons - researchers don't want new sources of information
because they are already floundering in reports; some still discount the worth of
Russian data, and others simply don't know the Russian translations are available.
"What scientific research needs," Mr. Green declared, "is a new professional
- 'an information scientist' - to peruse the mountain of information and dispense
relevant data to working researchers."
"Floundering in reports" is stating the condition far too mildly - "drowning
in reports" would, in our opinion, be more to the point.
How could it be otherwise in an industry that mushrooms at such a fantastic rate
of growth that it doubles its new inventions and devices every few years? What will
the electronics field be in 10 years, 25 years, 50 years hence?
Today we have millions of electronic facts available to our researchers. Soon
there will be billions of facts - what then?
Several times in recent years, research teams have developed 'new' devices, only
to find that identical ones had been in use elsewhere for a different purpose. They
had been fully described in technical papers, too.
Since 1959, an urgent situation has become well nigh desperate.
Useless, uncoordinated research and effort badly dog every industry today. Duplication
in all endeavors is universal. Inventions or ideas are duplicated and "re invented"
periodically in countries all over the globe.
The amount of effort and money that goes into these foolish duplications is not
only wasted but a constant source of embarrassment to their authors.
• Thus a technical description of radar was originally publicized with text
and picture in the December 1911 issue of Modern Electronics. But the idea lay dormant
for 24 years. Then, with great fanfare, it was "re-invented" in 1935 by various
persons.
• Early in 1964, the War Department made public its hitherto highly classified
"television bomb" under its code name of "WALLEYE." This nonnuclear bomb, with a
television camera in its nose, guides a bombardier to his distant target and is
then exploded from its carrier plane, even in an overcast. It was fully described
and illustrated 13 years ago by the writer in the January 1951 issue of Radio-Electronics.
Every inventor and thousands of technicians are only too familiar with these
duplications and constant re-inventions all over the world. Not only are huge sums
and fortunes expended endlessly on these useless redundancies, but every corporation,
every large business is plagued with lawsuits from the original inventors and patentees.
OOne would think that patent offices the world over would know every patentable
idea in every classification. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hundreds
of thousands of patents are not worth the paper they are printed on - the same ideas
were printed and explained in countless books, magazines and in the press years
and decades before the patents were issued. Why?
• There are only so many patent examiners and they cannot see everything,
in dozens of different languages. Hence, worthless patents are issued in every nation
that has a patent office. Such patents then must be contested in court after they
have been granted.
For this reason, the French - probably the first to do so - grant their patents
"Sans garantie du Gouvernement" (without any guarantee by the Government). They
learned from sad experience that a patent, in the majority of cases, was also an
invitation to a patent suit.
The U.S. Patent Office is now hopelessly behind in its work. It takes an average
of 3 to 4 years to obtain a patent. At the beginning of 1964 nearly 250,000 U.S.
patent applications were pending! Experts tell us that we have far too few patent
examiners, of whom most are grossly underpaid, despite the arduous, intricate work
they have to perform.
It is also a sad state of affairs that, when finally a patent has been issued,
the art has often long surpassed the patent - it has become antique and often useless,
unless it has fundamentally new features. And such patents are rare.
How long is this unnecessary chaos going to go on, particularly in the United
States, which has probably far more technical ideas, patents, processes and inventions
than many other countries combined? Patent processing techniques must be revamped
before we bog down in such an avalanche of facts that it will take us decades to
extricate ourselves. We repeat here what we have suggested several times in the
past:
• A National Facts Center must be built and operated by the Federal Government.
Only the Government is big enough to build and run such a center. It would be far
larger than even the Pentagon. Nor would the information which it supplied be free
- not any more free than present Patent Office services. Whatever information was
demanded by any industry or individual would cost a scheduled statutory fee.
• The center would be equipped with possibly the largest array of electronic
computers in existence. Every important scientific, electronic and industrial fact
would be coded and carded, as well as cross-indexed in various categories. All these
billions of facts would be fed to the computers in such a manner that, upon inquiry,
the proper information could be given, often within seconds.
These facts and information would not come solely from American sources. That
would defeat the whole purpose. Facts would be culled from every country of the
world - only in this manner could the center be all-comprehensive.
The Facts Center would have to be closely allied with the Patent Office - each
would be dependent upon the other.
In this manner industry, researchers, inventors and others would not have to
waste their time any longer in useless research - the key to their problem would
be forthcoming within minutes from the Facts Center. To be sure, the key itself
would solve no problems - it would state, however, where your vital information
could be found. It would be an immense shortcut for all research. - H. G.
Posted June 19, 2023
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