[Illustration]
The operators of most machines sit where they can see what they are
doing, or where they can get signals from helpers. But there is one that
does things in a new way. Its operator just watches television in his
cab. He never sees the parts of his machine at work. Instead, he looks
at the television screen. A television camera on the roof of the
building photographs what is going on below. This is what the eye of the
camera sees: One machine that gathers up pieces of scrap metal and dumps
them into a squeezer; the squeezer that presses the scraps into neat
bundles; a conveyor that loads the bundles into a railroad car.
The operator watches the moving picture. Then he pushes levers that
control the loaders and other levers that send a car on its way when it
is full. The only thing he can’t do is switch on a regular TV program
and watch a show while he works!
[Illustration]
The time may come when people who operate other kinds of machines will
find television helpful in many ways. Meantime, scientists who know how
television works also know how to make the most wonderful machines of
all. Instead of saving muscle-power, these machines save brain-power.
They solve very complicated mathematical problems at lightning speed.
In fact, they are called “thinking machines.” They add, subtract,
multiply, divide and do figuring that many college professors can’t even
do.
Partly for fun, and partly to discover new things, the thinking-machine
experts have also invented mechanical animals. They’ve made turtles that
can walk all around a room without bumping into anything. They’ve made a
little wire-whiskered mechanical mouse that can actually sniff about
until it finds something it is supposed to find--just the way a real
mouse sniffs out a piece of cheese. The machine-mouse even “remembers”
where it went, and it runs straight to its cheese the next time.
The machines you’ve read about in this book are mostly outdoor machines,
operated by one man or a small crew of men. These are only a few of the
marvellous inventions that you can find at work every day. Of course,
there are hundreds and thousands of others in factories, making cloth,
shaping automobile parts, printing books, doing the important work the
world needs done. But, no matter how marvellous and complicated they
are, they will never be as wonderful as the men who have invented them
and built them and used them. When we talk about machines, we’re really
talking about people.