An article in 'The Times'

I suppose one should not always believe what one reads in the papers, but I was excited to see an article - with accompanying photograph - about Paul and his Telectroscope in the Times newspaper today:

"His 21st-century Telectroscope will allow people at one end in London to see those at the other, in New York. It opens later this month, just by Tower Bridge.

Jutting into the ground will be a 40ft-long (12m) Victorian-styled tubular optical instrument, 6ft in diameter. It will look something like a giant’s telescope. The device is so large that its maker had to take the other end to New York by ship. The twin machine will be sited near the Brooklyn Bridge.

For £1 a go, people will be able to wave down a massive viewing pipe into the earth and see others in New York waving back. Its aperture is so wide that two or three families can look down it at the same time."

There's some comfort here in the fact that this was not the April 1st edition... and as usual, Paul is very compelling when he describes the history behind his project. But I'm really no nearer understanding whether he has managed to dig a tunnel and build his devices or not.

Comments

[Stephen Herbert]

I was amused by The Times' journalist's idea that the Telectroscope would perhaps use the 'modern version of the telegraph, broadband internet cable'. Despite such popular books as The Victorian Internet (Tom Standage 1998), there is still a conception of the internet as 'new'. Somewhere around here I have a picture of an experimental broadband webcam setup, c.1890 - I'll see if I can find it.........

Stephen

[timw]

Ooh yes please. I'd love to see that.

best

timw