The Receiving Set

In radio and television, for instance, the Other Men were technically far ahead of us, but the use to which they put their astounding inventions was disastrous. In civilized countries everyone but the pariahs carried a pocket receiving set. As the Other Men had no music, this may seem odd; but since they lacked newspapers, radio was the only means by which the man in the street could learn the lottery and sporting results which were his staple mental diet. The place of music, moreover, was ta...

 The Bird Clouds

We supposed at first that the mental unity of these little avians was telepathic, but in fact it was not. It was based on the unity of a complex electromagnetic field, in fact on "radio" waves permeating the whole group. Radio, transmitted and received by every individual organism, corresponded to the chemical nerve current which maintains the unity of the human nervous system. Each brain reverberated with the ethereal rhythms of its environment; and each contributed its own peculiar theme to...

 What if Extraterrestrials Spoke in Music?

Might interstellar communication not be messages but music--perhaps a 600 part invention, each part on an adjacent frequency channel? If there were more conventional representation of frequencies for example, the full frequency range corresponding to the range between 1420 and 1667 megahertz would we have the wit to distinguish this music from noise. Other forms of such many-part interstellar musical inventions might exist which each A civilization provides one part. Might we be able to recog...

 Science Because it is Fulfilling

To prove to an indignant questioner on the spur of the moment that the work I do was useful seemed a thankless task and I gave it up. I turned to him with a smile and finished, 'To tell you the truth we don't do it because it is useful but because it's amusing.' The answer was thought of and given in a moment: it came from deep down in my soul, and the results were as admirable from my point of view as unexpected. My audience was clearly on my side. Prolonged and hearty applause greeted my co...