An experiment

An experiment by Hans Dominik is a technical-scientific future story. It appeared anonymously in 1913 in the annual book series Das Neue Universum (Volume 34) and in the collection of utopian short stories from the new universe when the world ran out of coal and iron , published in 1980 by Heyne Verlag as paperback no. 3754 .

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In 1913 no way had yet been found to actually travel to the neighboring planets on earth. Even so, it was still widely believed that intelligent life existed on the other planets . In this short story, Hans Dominik describes how radio signals actually connect to intelligent beings on Mars . In fact, a few years later in the New Universe, an attempt by an American millionaire was reported to establish a connection to Mars using light signals from hundreds of powerful searchlights. The ideas of this short story were actually implemented in a somewhat different form from around 1960 in the SETI project .

To the short story

The German engineer Rudolf Kaempf presents the American billionaire John Brown, who was once called Hans Braun, with his plan for establishing contact with the neighboring planets on earth. The Indian Soma Ata is involved as a helper - this is reminiscent of the characters in Hans Dominik's novels The Power of Three or The Legacy of the Uranids . As a means of establishing this connection, he suggests electric waves - in 1913 there were already the first major transmitters for worldwide connections by telegraphy.

The wavelength of the radiation should be an integer multiple of a kilometer so that information about the unit of length is sent at the same time. In order to be successful, a transmission power of around one million horsepower is required, otherwise the huge distances cannot be bridged. The Niagara Falls should supply the necessary electrical energy .

In the power plant, 10 huge coupled generators each generate an alternating current of 30 kHz, from which the transmission frequency of 300 kHz, corresponding to a wavelength of 1 km, is mixed together. A huge Tesla transformer increases the transmission power to 10 million volts (utopian, because the air is not sufficiently insulated). The huge power is radiated via a 30 km high antenna, which is carried by gas balloons inserted at a distance of 300 m (500 m antenna length would have been sufficient for the specific wavelength - at that time radio development was still at the beginning).

The experiment itself is started at night, at the time of a Mars opposition . After a few announcement pulses, first 3, then 4, then 5 and in a second group 5, 12 and 13 pulses are sent. Then an answer from space is obeyed. Hans Dominik has the engineer Kaempf scream exuberantly: “Hurray, Mister Brown! The experiment was a success! Our devices work excellently and in any case reach one of our neighboring planets. We have telegraphed into space the lengths of the sides of the first two Pythagorean triangles with whole numbers. Our message has been sent back to us, and the unknown sender has at the same time given us the side of the third Pythagorean triangle. Your millions, Mister Brown, have not been thrown out the window, because tonight we have had an interplanetary connection without a doubt, and probably for the first time since our earth was established. ”Kaempf deduces from the fact that the planet that answers is Mars that the wavelength of its transmitter is one forty thousandth of the circumference of the earth, but the wavelength of the signals received is one forty thousandth of the circumference of Mars.

Shortly afterwards, the decimal system and the arithmetic symbols for the basic arithmetic operations are specified. Half a year later, shortly before the connection was broken due to the excessive distance, Mister Brown received a report on what had been achieved. With the help of coordinates, analogous to vector graphics , a book with drawings of Mars was created, which Mister Brown opens: “A human-like face looked at him, the forehead a little higher, the eyes a little bigger than it is usual on earth , Mouth and chin noticeably small, but otherwise quite human. "

For the next Mars opposition, the engineer wants to construct devices that enable direct image and sound transmission.