Word: infra
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...that in men. . . . Birds do not see blues and violets at all. This helps in their distance vision because the haze which hangs about distant objects and which, for our eyes, renders them more or less invisible, for birds does not exist. Birds, on the other hand, see infra-red radiations which, for us, affect only the temperature sense of the skin and not the retinas...
...Macneil transferred his equipment to a British boat for demonstration behind smoke screens. The Macneil fog-eye, like the Macneil thermoelectric sextant perfected last year (TIME, July 25), functions according to Commander Macneil's thesis that every object not at Absolute Zero (-459.4° F.) radiates heat-like infra-red rays. A two-foot, concave, silvered glass mirror in the fog-eye collects infra-red radiations of objects, focuses the rays on a sensitive thermocouple which translates the infra red rays into faint currents of electricity. A compact amplifier which Physicist Edward Elway Free built for Commander Macneil, builds...
...waves, but differences of temperature in itself. At night, or in a fog. the electric eye sweeps the horizon. When it encounters an iceberg it loses heat. This loss of heat is recorded, the position of the iceberg determined. Now Macneil is trying to make it record even the infra-red rays from the stars, to chart a ship's position at night...
Inventor Macneil began his pursuit of infra-red rays as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. During the War he considered how to apply his researches to a nautical instrument, fixed on the sextant. Because no U. S. workmen could make the delicate apparatus required, he went to Holland. In February 1931 he guided the Mauretania across the Atlantic with his thermoelectric sextant, which was later adopted by the British Admiralty. Last week he announced he was ready to begin commercial production. A ship will need but one thermoelectric sextant which will cost about $2,000 instead...
Inventor Macneil was not the only one playing last week with infra-red rays. At Schenectady, General Electric Co. installed in its main office an infra-red drinking fountain. When a drinker lowers his head over the fountain he intercepts the rays and a stream of water is turned on. Drinkers were at first too awed to drink...