Figures Prove You Lose $300 If Letter Chain Is Unbroken

You can’t lose,” said the chain letter fans, I but Dr. C. R. Fountain, of Peabody College, Nashville, Tenn., estimated that everyone would lose at least $300. Each one in the dime chain expected to receive more than 15,000 dimes.

“In order to bring that about,” Dr. Fountain was quoted as saying, “the chain would have to keep spreading until it reaches everyone 15,000 times, when each person will have to give back all the dimes he takes in. Then we will all be back where we started—only each one will be out the amount he spends on postage, or about $300.”

In the case of the one dollar chain, in which a person receiving the letter had to get a dollar bill from two friends, mathematicians calculated that when the chain had reached its thirty-third stage in passing from one person to two others, to four others, and so on, a total of $17,179,926,032 would be in the purses of chain letter fans. This sum is approximately $3,000,000,000 more than the total amount of money actually existing in the United States. Chains up to $25 were started throughout the country.

This is rather big-brotherish.

YOUR FINGERPRINTS

A Guest Editorial
AMERICA can have widespread fingerprint identification only through education concerning its benefits. Here is an agency which can be looked upon by the average citizen as proof of identity and of good standing in a community. It must be looked upon as his protector in case of accident, amnesia, loss of identity or death, through circumstances which make his identification under ordinary means impossible.
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Sylvania & Univac

“Blueprint for Tomorrow”, “Office of the Future”—these are phrases used to describe Sylvania’s new Univac Data-Processing Center. For Sylvania is creating, with the Remington Rand Univac, a nerve center for its entire decentralized operations. It is utilizing Univac’s electronic speed and unrivalled accuracy to establish a priceless storehouse of up-to-the-minute management information. This will be available for rapid and truly enlightened management decisions at all levels, and at all locations.

Every alert executive should know the significance of this new step towards automation in business. To get the complete story of Sylvania and Univac, write for EL278, “Is This a Blueprint for Tomorrow’s Offices?” Room 1702, 315 Fourth Avenue, New York 10, N. Y.

Remington Rand Univac
Makers of: Univac I • Univac II • Univac Scientific • Univac File-Computer • Univac 60 • Univac 1.20 • Univac High-Speed Printer
DIVISION OF SPERRY RAND CORPORATION

Daring Bird-Man Soars At 10,000 Ft. On Homemade Wings

FOR three years Clem Sohn, parachute jumper of Lansing, Michigan, dreamed of the time when man might go aloft and soar like a bird. Recently his dream became a reality.

Clad with foot-webbing and home-made wings of airplane canvas, he bailed out of a ship at an altitude of 12,000 feet. During the first 2,000 feet of his fall, he kept his wings folded at his side while he tested his leg-webbing. Slowly, he opened his wings to check his descent, and for more than a minute he banked, looped, climbed and zoomed to right and left. At 6,000 feet he pulled the rip cord of his parachute and floated back to earth.

While aviation authorities who witnessed the stunt failed to see any practical value in man’s new “conquest of the air,” Sohn was already at work designing bigger wings and planning future aerial maneuvers.

PEACE MAKER
They called this weapon the Peacemaker. In the hands of the Western lawmen, it brought peace and order to the turbulent frontier.
In the West today, Sandia Corporation engineers and scientists explore new frontiers in research and development engineering to produce modern peacemakers . . . the nuclear weapons that deter aggression and provide a vital element of security for the nations of the free world. Read the rest of this entry »

I think their marketing department might want to rethink this slogan. Perhaps “the best” or “highest quality” might serve them better.

149 SKF BEARINGS
are on this, the Largest Airplane in the World
NO time to think about bearings … not when the altimeter registers ten thousand feet… not when a hundred trusting passengers are dozing in their seats behind.
No time to wish that the bearings had been purchased upon performance rather than upon price… not when the twelve roaring motors on the wing will continue to roar only so long as the bearings stand up … nor when the twenty-four engine generators are running on them, and lighting dynamo, radio installation and fuel pump depend upon them.
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When a man-size spider walks a giant web, when scissors draw the villain’s blood or a lobster spits in the waiter’s eye, put it down to

TV TRICKERY

SEATED AT A SIDEWALK TABLE in a Paris cafe, a customer watched in fascination a huge, freshly cooked lobster placed in front of him by the waiter. Each time he reached for the lobster the huge shellfish swiftly moved its large claws protectingly over its head. Reaching for a hammer, the would-be diner attempted to hit the lobster but each time the claws parried the blow. The man finally called the waiter to see what he could do with the reluctant lobster. As the waiter bent over to inspect the lobster and its strange actions more closely a stream of water hit him in the eye.
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How THREE COLOR MOVIES ARE MADE

WOULD you like to know how the color in a Walt Disney Silly Symphony or in “La Cucaracha” is obtained? Have you ever wondered how a motion picture film, in which each picture is about the size of a postage stamp, is colored so it can be magnified 35,000 or more times and still retain the beautiful coloring of a Silly Symphony?
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The plane that helped win the war now helps win the peace
—the Douglas C-54
Last August nearly 4,000 Moslem pilgrims bound for Mecca were stranded in Beirut 800 miles from the holy city.

In one of the finest demonstrations of international good will, the Department of Defense provided a “magic carpet” in the form of the Military Air Transport Service to speed these pilgrims on their way.
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Device Measures Musical Talent
A YARDSTICK for the measurement of musical talent, an automatic tone-variator, is now being used at Northwestern University to determine students’ ability to determine exact tonal pitch.
The machine contains 14 tuning-forks, set within one-quarter tone of each other. Two notes are struck in quick succession, and the students are asked which note was higher. Those that can detect the higher note consistently are keenly encouraged to study music. They are considered to be musically apt and talented.
Students with less sensitivity to tone are advised to study instruments with broader tone distinctions such as pianos and other keyboard instruments.

Telephone Device Audibly Announces Exact Time
DESIGNED primarily to reply to thousands of daily requests received by telephone exchanges for the correct time, a machine invented by John W. Wells, of Stockton, Calif., audibly announces the exact time at three second intervals. The device uses less than 20 feet of movie film to record a 24-hour cycle of hours and minutes.
The sound waves are transformed from the film by a scanning optic and a photo-electric cell which travels the length of the film and returns every six seconds. The time is announced in hours and minutes at every trip of the scanning unit.

Electronic “brains” rely on COPPER!
Today, electronic computers pre-test the performance of guided missiles . . . forecast next year’s sales . . . build safer bridges . . . and guide 5,000 freight cars a day through the mazes of 65 trunk lines in a single railroad yard.
You simply dial your instructions to these modern computers; they obey faster than thought.
But they need copper to operate.
Like nerves to the human head, copper wires transmit impulses to and from electronic “brains”. Other vital computer parts are of copper, too.
Perhaps your product doesn’t need to “think” . . . just act. Make it of copper and you make sure of performance no substitute can equal.
COPPER & BRASS
RESEARCH! ASSOCIATION
420 Lexington Avenue, New York 17, N.Y.
… AN INDUSTRY SOURCE OF TECHNOLOGICAL AID. INCLUDING A LIBRARY OF TECHNICAL LITERATURE AND A COUNCIL OF SPECIALISTS
COPPER OR ITS ALLOYS PROVIDE THESE ADVANTAGES: