Superadio: Recent Discover May Herald a New Radio Era
April 1947 Radio-Craft

April 1947 Radio-Craft [Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Radio-Craft, published 1929 - 1953. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.

Superadio: Recent Discover May Herald a New Radio Era

By Hugo Gernsback

On December 18,1946, Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore announced the discovery of what they termed a new method of radio reception.

By using it, radio broadcast waves may be picked up and detected without the use of radio tubes, electric current, antenna, or condensers.

The discovery was made accidentally by Dr. Donald H. Andrews, Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Chester Clark of the University staff, with Peggy McEwan, a laboratory technician. They were experimenting with an infrared bolometer, developed during the war for "seeing" in the dark. Connected to the bolometer was a strip of Columbium nitride. The latter, about the size of a pin, was placed in a cryostat, which is an instrument that cools objects down to about 15 degrees above absolute zero, or roughly minus 444.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

A loudspeaker was in the bolometer circuit because the scientists found this arrangement more useful than a more complex visual method of checking their results. The experimenters were astounded when suddenly the loudspeaker began to emit a radio program from the local station WBAL.

Later experiments confirmed the fact that the strange phenomenon was due to the tiny strip of Columbium metal, which when cooled to a few degrees above the absolute zero point, became superconductive. In this state the metal becomes highly sensitive to radio frequency currents and acts as a receiver capable of operating a small loudspeaker. Other stations aside from WBAL were brought in on the speaker in subsequent experiments.

The bolometer used by the Johns Hopkins scientists is a copper mounting about one inch in diameter. It contains a threadlike ribbon of Columbium nitride, connected to two wire leads. This is the heart of the bolometer, which is exceedingly sensitive to infrared waves. But that it was even more sensitive to radio waves caused a sensation!

Said the scientists - with commendable restraint:

"No claim is made for the device as a revolutionary discovery which will change all accepted methods of radio reception.

"But the inescapable fact is evident that a small ribbon of Columbium which has been nitrided does, under proper operating conditions, become radio-receptive."

To better understand what happens when metals are cooled to a temperature approaching absolute zero, I quote from my article in the February, 1928, issue of Science & Invention (page 883):

"Science now knows that outer space contains no heat whatsoever, and that all space is at an absolute zero," which, expressed in figures, is minus 459.4 degrees Fahrenheit. These are well-known facts, and have been known for years, but the experiments of excessive degrees of cold by Professor Kamerlingh Onnes at the University of Leyden, made during the past few years, have given us a great deal of food for thought. Professor Onnes, by means of liquefying helium, has been able to approach absolute zero closely, reaching the low temperature of minus 457.6 degrees F. At such extremely low temperatures, a number of astonishing things begin to happen.

"It is well known that an electric current heats. If the conductor passes enough current it becomes white hot, as for instance the filament in an incandescent lamp. But if you took the same electric lamp bulb into outer space hundreds of miles above the earth's surface and tried to light it up with the identical current, a most surprising thing would be seen. You would find. that it no longer would light, for the simple reason that at such extreme colds, all conductors of electricity lose their resistance entirely. Professor Onnes was able to send tremendous currents through very thin conductors that would ordinarily have become white hot and burned up or volatilized. Under such extreme colds, conductors are termed supra-conductors, because they become supra-conductive to the electric current. But that isn't all. Inasmuch as metallic wires in absolute zero lose all resistance, once an electric current is started in a conductor, that current will keep on flowing without stopping. Here we have a sort of perpetual motion, but of course it requires so much power to obtain it that it would not be practical."

The unimaginative will no doubt say that radio is not likely to be revolutionized by the discovery of the Johns Hopkins scientists. It may be contended that the expensive and cumbersome apparatus to generate the excessive cold would make such a radio receiver totally impractical. Granted for the moment. But what will the story be in 10 or 15 years when new research has shown that the same results can be had with comparatively simple and inexpensive means? Radio progress has a habit of picking up unusual odds and ends and turning them into spectacular results. Without the old Edison effect, there would have been no radio tube. Without Hertz's spark coil there would have been no electromagnetic waves to detect and consequently no wireless nor radio.

At this moment the radio phenomenon of the Columbium metal - while superconductive - is not understood at all by scientists. There are several theories on the action, but none so far has given a full explanation. In due time the veil will be lifted - and then we will have real surprises. When that time comes our radio receivers will certainly be totally revolutionized - our entire concepts of radio may well be changed completely.

It is even possible that the radio phenomenon of superconductivity may be linked with another imperfectly understood old radio phenomenon:

Ever since radio broadcast started in the early twenties, newspapers from all over the world reported most unusual and unorthodox radio reception. In Boston, for example, a cold-water faucet a block away from a radio broadcast transmitter gave out music or speech when turned on. A few blocks away a housewife almost fainted when a frying pan on a gas stove emitted music and lectures that could be heard throughout the flat. Similar strange radio sounds have been reported in the press for years.

The radio engineer shrugs this off as "an imperfect contact effect". But it is not too easy to understand just why a faucet or a frying pan should become a sonorous loudspeaker without any radio apparatus and electric current - even if near a broadcast station.

Many years ago, on a trip from New York to Bermuda I was on deck of a steamer in a somewhat foggy night. Suddenly the overhead two-wire antenna became very audible! The operator was transmitting with an old de Forest spark transmitter. I was far away from the wireless shack, consequently I could not hear the transmitter itself. But the antenna gave out peculiar, weird, crackling sounds and I could follow the code easily. This phenomenon has been verified by others. It doesn't occur at all times, but only when conditions are right.

Others have heard speech and music issue from overhead radio antennas of broadcast stations at certain times.

All this proves that there can be radio reception without orthodox radio receiving instruments, such as radio tubes, conventional tuning devices, and electric current.

Evidently there is more to radio reception than meets the eye. To quote Shakespeare:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

* Recent astronomical researches indicate the temperature in open space of the universe is 3 to 4 degrees above absolute zero. - H. G.

Source: Professor Donald Menzel, Harvard Observatory.