Eccentric Cycles
BIZARRE bikes are back! In bicycling’s early days, granddaddy went wild over eccentric cycles. Then, bike tastes leveled off. But the comeback of the bicycle industry has changed things.
In 1948, almost three million bikes (eccentric and otherwise) were turned out. Currently, the U. S. owns 14 million cycles - a fifth of the world’s total. Even exclusive Skidmore College bowed to the trend and introduced a course in Bi-Psychology!
So, purloin a peek at the two-wheelers on these pages and you’ll begin to realize how far the fad has gone since you last looked.
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Creating MOVIES in a TEST TUBE
Cobwebs of rubber cement, ice cream from potatoes, candy windows, rain that is not wet, these and others movie chemists conjure.
by EARL THEISEN
IN THE motion picture world it is not possible to control nature. The movie-makers must fabricate artificial snow storms; glass that will not cut; fogs that can be controlled; bubbling, hot lava from volcanoes that are not erupting; and thousands of other things which are needed in creating movies. It is the chemist with his test tubes and laboratories who makes effects possible in great movie production. He is called upon to satisfy the various demands of the director at a moment’s notice.
To produce the effect of brisk coldness, such as vapor coming from the breath of an actor, dry ice, which is made from carbon dioxide, is placed in the mouth. Because of the extreme cold of this dry ice, the result is a mist coming from the mouth similar to the one seen in cold climates. So as not to freeze the mouth, the dry ice is placed in a container in the actor’s mouth. This same chemical “dry ice” is used in scenes where steaming tea kettles and boiling water is seen. The dry ice makes the water seem to boil.
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This article also contains pictures of an early version of a breathalizer called the “Drunk-O-Meter” and an early automatic speed trap camera.
COPS ON THE CAMPUS
At the Traffic institute, veteran officers —finest in the country—are pumped full of facts on how accidents happen and how to help motorists behave
By Clifford B. Hicks
SEVENTEEN HUNDRED police officers from every section of the country have been learning the finer points of traffic enforcement at Northwestern University’s Traffic Institute since 1936. It’s not entirely coincidence that the national death rate per 100,000,000 vehicle miles has been cut more than half—since 1936.
Even faculty members don’t suggest that the institute is solely responsible for this startling reduction in fatalities. Yet during the past 12 years those 1700 officers, crammed with knowledge of how accidents happen and what to do to prevent them, have taken over key positions on traffic police forces throughout the country. And the institute’s sister organization, the Traffic Division of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, has probed traffic enforcement in 60 cities, counties and states and made recommendations that invariably have brought surprising slashes in the accident rate.
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This seems like a really good way to kill your dogs, not to mention just cruel. I don’t really know how fast dogs can run, but 35 mph seems a bit high, doesn’t it?
Car Exercises Dogs
With six racing dogs to keep in top shape, Dewey Blanton of Columbus, Ohio, has developed a “canine exerciser” that fastens to his station wagon. Blanton built a frame to support a long plank beside the vehicle. Springs fastened to the plank are attached to the dogs’ collars, permitting the dogs to run wide. Longer chains keep the dogs in check. The broad plank bumper prevents injury to the dogs as they race along at 35 miles per hour. Best of all, the dogs seem to love the exerciser.
Stage Your PUBLICITY SHOT
By RICHARD W. EMERY
COMPETITION in the sale of publicity shots is keen and it takes more than just luck to sell an editor. The successful free-lance photographer knows that a good publicity shot must be built around a basic idea that will attract a great amount of attention. If not, his work will never see print. The basic idea may be to entertain, instruct or arouse curiosity, or its purpose may be to kindle a desire to possess something, to go somewhere or to do some particular thing.
There are many reasons for planning setup shots. Advanced planning enables you to create a picture in which the basic idea is presented forcefully and in such a manner that the picture completely tells a story or strongly conveys one thought.
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Rumpus-Room Clock
DESIGNED BY JUAN OLIVER
IF THE game room must have a clock—and time is all too likely to pass unnoticed there if none is provided—let it by all means be an amusing one. The smiling gentleman illustrated will tactfully remind you and your guests when it’s time to call it a day, and just as cheerfully welcome you back again for hours of fun. He can be kept on the home bar, on one of the shelves behind it, or wherever he will be in plain sight.
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Transatlantic Roller Coaster Designed to Bomb U.S.A
Hitler’s blueprints found; mighty winged missiles were to be used in 1946
WHEN the Allied invasion upset the Nazis’ plans, they had a supersonic, 3,000-mile-range rocket in the works. Already in the blueprint stage was its successor —a true rocket bomber of equal speed and range. Actual sketches and plans for it are shown on page 110.
Rocket projects were Hitler’s equivalent of America’s Manhattan District Project. Blueprints for atomic bombs are still tightly guarded secrets, but the Nazis’ detailed plans for push-button, transoceanic war have now been exposed. They are a clue to developments that may reasonably be expected if there is another war.
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Lenses Promise No-Hands Phone
BEING a good engineer, Dr. Winston E. Kock is a lazy man. He thinks it’s too much trouble to lift up a handset every time you want to talk over the telephone. His idea of a telephone is a little black box you never touch—just talk and listen to.
Since Dr. Kock is a physicist-engineer for Bell Telephone Laboratories, he did something about his idea. He developed lenses that focus sound, a necessary preliminary to the lazy-man’s telephone. The telephone itself is still only an idea, but the lenses have been made and should have many uses.
You can understand why lenses are necessary if you’ve ever held an old-fashioned telephone receiver near the transmitter. The transmitter picks up the receiver’s sound, which keeps going around the circuit until it is a howl. A lens would direct the receiver’s sound at the user and keep it away from the transmitter. (”Intercom” systems do have combination receiver-transmitters, but you must press a switch to talk—more work than holding a handset.
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