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Modern Magic in Light

“Music” Played by Colors, Statues Dance to Help Solve Problems of Illumination

By ROBERT E. MARTIN

THE marvels of light from its crude yesterdays to its present brilliance, with a glimpse of future splendors that now seem quite incredible, are shown to visitors at a unique permanent exhibition. It is a museum and a laboratory with a factory adjacent. We see what has been, is and may be in the field of illumination.

Light used to be regarded as just something to see by. Here we find it is a force, a substance, an aesthetic material.

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Army Recruited from Idle Men

WARS AGAINST FIRE and FLOOD By Robert E. Martin

A YEAR ago the Government, with incredible swiftness, created the Civilian Conservation Corps. Two ends were sought in its creation. It was designed first of all to take out of the ranks of the unemployed 300,000 young, single men with dependent relatives. Of equal importance was the intention to use the labor of these men in conserving the vast timber and soil resources of the country.

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How Much Longer Will Our Big Cities Last?

Like the dinosaur, which grew too bulky for its own good, our mammoth cities are doomed to extinction, say scientific prophets. Disintegration began when Lindbergh hopped the Atlantic, foreshadowing the day of interurban planes, as told here.

by RUSSELL J. MORT

SCIENTIFIC prophets looking into the future proclaim that our mammoth cities, the likes of which the world has never seen before, are doomed to obsolescence. In time, cobwebs will enshroud the cloud-piercing Empire State building and dandelions will grow on Fifth Avenue and Wall Street, they believe, after exhaustive studies into the trend of the times.

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Too Much Nudism Is the Bunk

ARGUMENTS for last summer’s fad of nudism based on the theory that the absence of clothes is good for health, are exploded editorially in the New York City medical periodical, American Medicine. Reasonable exposure of the skin to air, sunlight and the water of rivers or the sea has full medical support. Old-fashioned heavy and impervious clothing was condemned long before modern ideas of nudism were thought of. The point made by the medical editors is merely that it is not necessary to expose all of the body to air or sunlight or to expose it all of the time. The authorities are skeptical also of the moral and mental benefits claimed for nudism.

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Flood-Lights Revealing Beauties of Night

More than Twenty Millions of Dollars Spent in Year to Illuminate Outside of Nation’s Buildings

FROM the time primitive man stumbled about in the darkness with a torch to the modern electric age, human ingenuity, in banishing night by artificial illumination, has developed until today it has reached a brilliant climax in the art of floodlighting. Assembled in bat-teries a n d focused on towers, monuments and lofty skyscrapers, great masses of electric lights serve as an aid to advertising and to emphasize architectural beauty. Last year, it is estimated that nearly $20,000,000 were spent in the United States alone for flood-lighting equipment.

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I wonder which idea readers in 1924 thought was more plausible; mind reading automatons or cell phones. Whatever the answer, one thing is clear: we need to come up with some way to use the word “radioplasm”. Google only returns two hits on this word and one of them is in another language.

Reading Thoughts by Radio

Can thoughts be read by radio? “Madam Radora” seems to prove that they can. Madam is not a human being, but a life-size automaton shown at the Permanent Radio Fair in New York. Her “thoughts” and movements are controlled entirely by wireless; no wires of any kind are attached to the table whereon she rests, and a liberal reward is promised the person who can prove that this is not true.

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I found this article incredibly interesting. It seems like the computer technology of 1960 was just barely up to the task of processing the census data. Not to mention the sheer human scale of the census operation. Check out some of the stats from the article:

On April first, 160,000 of these politically appointed door-to-door canvassers—largely housewives, widows or part-time workers—will set out armed with 1,080,000 pencils, 260,000 pocket-type sharpeners, 2,850,000 scratch pads, infinite patience and considerable ingenuity

For comparison, here are articles about the 1940 and 1950 censuses (censi?).

Also here are some really nice ads for UNIVAC 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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NOSE COUNT, 1960

By Richard F. Dempewolff

THIS IS THE YEAR we count off again, take a look at ourselves to see how we’ve grown, where we’re heading and how we’re doing. Ever since 1790, when the Constitution authorized a “decennial enumeration of the population,” the Bureau of Census has had to brace itself each year ending with zero, and charge into the monumental task of inventorying American noses, one by one.

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Why 2,000,000 Americans Are Dope Fiends

DR. WM. I. SIROVICH, a leading authority, tells here the amazing facts about the illegal dope traffic, which in recent years has assumed the proportions of a national peril. He is a member of Congress and a physician, and is leading the fight for an international agreement to stem the blighting tide of habit-forming narcotics that pours into this country from abroad.

By JOHN E. LODGE

IN THE United States, one out of every sixty persons is a drug addict. During the decade from 1920 to 1930, the number of narcotic victims in America has doubled, tripled, quadrupled. One ton a year of crude opium and its derivatives would meet the legitimate medicinal and scientific needs of the nation. Yet, last year, approximately 200 tons were smuggled into America. The amount of morphine consumed is thirty-five times that required; and, with a smaller population than that of Germany, France, and Italy combined, we import ten times as much crude opium as these three nations together.

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TOBACCO SMOKE NOT HARMFUL ACCORDING TO MINE TEST
To test the effect of tobacco fumes, three men were confined in a closed chamber where the air was so smoky that it was impossible to see across the room. The atmosphere was so irritating to the eyes that it was necessary to wear goggles. After an hour and a half, samples of the air and the blood of the smokers were taken for analysis. The experiment was made by the bureau of mines, and, as a result, it was decided that the harm from smoking indoors, or in mines, is negligible.

Women Win Honors in Science

Miss Henrieite Swope, daughter of Gerard Swope, it pictured at Ak-Bulak, U. S. S. R., where she viewed the recent solar eclipse.

Dr. Maud Slye of the University of Chicago, above, soon will publish her conclusions regarding the inheritance of cancer based upon the breeding of 130,000 mice in the past 25 years. Engineer Vera S. Glebovskaya, at right, tests in Leningrad an inclinometer used to determine the incline of oil well shafts.

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Talk about times changing. The headline looks like it’s about the perils of gay marriage but it’s actually about the horrifying thing single and working parents today call daycare.

He has two mothers … but still he’s lonesome

Johnny Rogers has two mothers. He sees his real mother for only a few moments each evening — because she has to work all day.

His substitute mother is organized charity, which does the best it can for him during the day.

If Johnny’s father were alive, things would, of course, be different. But unfortunately he put off taking out life insurance; that is why Johnny’s mother cannot give the child her full time now.

You may think this just couldn’t happen to your child. Why not get the suggestions of an Equitable agent and make sure it won’t?

The Equitable agent is trained to recommend a plan to fit your requirements exactly. This is what is meant by The Equitable Case Method. The special conditions of your case are considered—the ages of your children, your income, whether or not you own your own home, and other vital factors.

THE EQUITABLE LIFE ASSURANCE SOCIETY OF THE U.S.

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Uncle Sam Counts Noses

HOW AMAZING MACHINES HELP TAKE THE CENSUS

LAST month the census taker came to call. He unfolded a big white sheet of paper and began firing questions. Name? Age? Birthplace? And so on until he knew all the answers, and departed with his pencil-checked list. All over the country, 120,000 fact finders were doing the same. So far as foresight in planning could provide, they overlooked no dwelling’s occupants; they even visited auto trailers, marking them with stickers to avoid recounting!

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