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Monday, November 1, 2010

Time Traveler?


I was very intrigued when I read a news article about a film-maker believes he has found evidence of time travel in footage from a Charlie Chaplin film premiere shot in 1928. You can go to youtube or the still as above.

George Clarke, from Belfast, says he has been puzzled for more than a year by the film which appears to show a woman talking on a mobile phone. He has posted the video on YouTube where it has notched up more than 2.2 million hits in just ten days, reports the BBC. Mr Clarke was checking the extras on a Chaplin DVD box-set and began watching a clip of the 1928 Hollywood premiere of The Circus.

"As I sat back to watch it I realised in the first 30 seconds there's a lady strolling by with her hand up to her ear which looked quite familiar in today's society," he said.

"So I wound it back and watched it again, zoomed it in and slowed it down and got other people in to check it out. Everybody had the same reaction - it looks like she's talking on a mobile phone."

He has since showed the clip to a number of people, including the audience of a Belfast film festival but says no-one has been able to provide an explanation. Since posting it on Youtube, the clip has provoked nearly 18,000 comments, divided between those who believe in the possibility of time travel, and that someone also pointed out that this is not an uncommon item in 1920s.

A quick check at Siemens website that in 1924, Siemens had a patent for a compact, pocket size carbon microphone and the photograph of a middle aged man holding which looked like a mobile phone in 1924 which looked like this:-


According to the Siemens website, for a while, the carbon amplifier patented by Siemens played a major role in hearing aid technology and significantly raised the volume of hearing aids.

The electrical energy controlled by the carbon microphone was not fed to the receiver directly. It first drove the diaphragm of an electromagnetic system connected to a carbon-granule chamber. Current was transmitted across this chamber from the vibrating diaphragm electrode to the fixed electrode plate.

The amplified current produced mechanical vibrations in the electromagnetic hearing diaphragm that were then transmitted to the ear as sound.

Which do you believe?