Separating out the By and For
Still thinking about the relation of science and entertainment. It's actually quite old, though the connection has been severed since 1946 as Deepstate gradually subsumed more and more branches of science, finally including medicine this year.

Trying to separate out examples of scientific research sponsored BY entertainment, vs science itself performed AS entertainment.

Of the major developments in the last 200 years, about half were sponsored and triggered BY the human need for entertainment and beauty. In chemistry, dyes are all about beauty. Dyes turned out to be a broadly useful category, leading to all sorts of catalysts and processes.

In electronics, modulated radio and TV were solely for entertainment. Semaphores and electric telegraphs had been initiated by governments and mainly used by business. The first work in wireless by Marconi and Lodge was mainly for governments and business. After that, amateurs started playing around, seeking ways to spread music. Amateurs merged smoothly into broadcasting for commerce and entertainment, not for government.

The phonograph had mixed motives. Edison intended it first for office use, and the dictaphone continued to serve business for many decades. He quickly realized that entertainment was far more profitable, and all later developments were purely for and by entertainment. Photography and movies were always for and by entertainment.

Getting closer to the Trinity House model:

During the 30s, about two dozen LOCAL radio stations were running separate experimental transmitters, developing TV and shortwave and FM. They weren't all in the coastal cities. KMBC in Kansas City was one of the major players in TV research. RCA was also a massive source of both entertainment and research.

Were there any uses of science FOR entertainment before 1880? If you include religious displays, definitely. The first steam engines in Greece were built to impress the masses in religious parades. Early clocks were entertainment centers and calibrators of religious services at the same time. Several of the major researchers in the telegraph era enjoyed giving public displays of science, basically doing magic. Faraday made money and spread the reputation of research with dramatic stage shows.

The connection began to decay in 1946 when Deepstate launched a campaign to bring all research into Deepstate. By 1958 the campaign was well advanced, as Ike famously warned us. Electronics for entertainment was already offshoring to Japan in 1958, as US companies and universities found that cost-plus government contracts were richer and MUCH less risky than trying to advance beauty and enjoyment. By 1970 the split was pretty much complete. The Web, designed by and for NSA, marked the end of science BY and FOR entertainment. Now science is genocide and genocide is science.

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Here's a 1940 example of real research without an immediate utilitarian purpose, by WOR in NYC:

A beam of light, originating on the roof of WOR's studio building at 1440 Broadway, New York, and ending more than a mile away at 444 Madison Ave., site of W2XOR, WOR's FM transmitter, will be used experimentally to carry programs from studio to transmitter. Principle of using light to transmit music is well known and has often been used in scientific shows such as the General Electric "House of Magic ", but this is believed to be its first adaptation for actual broadcasting.

The light beam is being set up as an emergency circuit in case of mishap to the existing telephone wire link and the research will also include work with fog-piercing infrared rays for use in weather that would block normal white light.

All the pieces come together in this one little item. WOR was using its experimental FM transmitter, trying out new ways of communication that had been demonstrated in a scientific magic show, aiming to serve entertainment as well as government.

Can you imagine two dozen LOCAL stations, radio or TV or phone systems or anything at all, conducting their own research now?

Labels: Entertainment, From rights to duties, Trinity House

  ¶ 5:04 PM