Light Beam Casts Chat 24 Miles in Adirondacks
Broun, at Schenectady, Interviews Distant Scientist
Schenectady, Nov. 22, 1932 — A group of scientists at Schenectady tonight talked with another group at Lake Desolation, twenty-four miles away, over a light beam projected across the lower Adirondack Mountains.
It was the longest narrow-casting experiment on record. During a part of the experiment, John Bellamy Taylor, who developed the method of transmitting sound over light waves, was interviewed by Heywood Broun, newspaper columnist, who was at Schenectady while Taylor was at Lake Desolation.
A searchlight mounted on a building at the General Electric Company’s plant projected its beam upon a thirty-inch mirror which was part of the receiving apparatus at Lake Desolation.
To the scientists at the Adirondack lake the searchlight appeared as a distant, twinkling star. Taylor’s voice came over the beam slightly distorted, but occasionally it was heard clearly.
“Do you suppose it might be possible in fifty or a hundred years to communicate with Mars over a light ray?” Broun asked Taylor.
“It might be within the range of possibility,” Taylor replied, laughing, “but one difficulty would be how to inform the Martians what apparatus to set up.”
The longest previous narrow casting experiment recorded took place last spring when communication was established from Schenectady with the Navy dirigible Los Angeles two miles away.