Here in Richmond Hill and everywhere, we can hardly number all the good things created by the use of the cell phone, such as emergency matters, crime prevention, convenience in communication, enormous effects on the economy, and on and on.
We cannot just cast the cell phone aside – it’s too convenient. What would we do without it?
The cell phone didn’t just begin recently. Its basic principles have been here since the beginning of nature, and it took great scientists to discover them.
As history puts it, specifically on March 10, 1876, a young scientist named Alexander Graham Bell spoke these words into his apparatus: “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”
Watson, his assistant, heard these words clearly. The transmission of these words came through wires.
Then a few years later, a 21-year-old scientist named Guglielmo Marconi from Italy built a transmitting apparatus. But his transmitter didn’t depend on wires to transmit a signal. It transmitted the signal through space.
So one day in the summer of 1895, he set up his transmitter and antenna and transmitted a signal to a receiver over a hill about a mile away. Guglielmo concluded that since his theory proved possible, it could be transmitted from coast to coast.
Then along came research in solid-state electronics. And so today, look at what we are doing. All we have to do is whip out our cell phone, which operates in the micro range, and we can talk to anyone anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice.
I even use the cell phone as a two-way radio talking to my wife in the house while I’m out in the yard.
We have come a long way since those years, 1876 and 1895. However, we are hearing questions like: Is the cell phone, operating in the microwave range, a long-term health risk?
Why have certain countries warned against the use of these portable phones, especially by minors, due to health risk uncertainties?
What about groups of scientists who argue that long-term proof of safety is impossible?
Why is the science and research community studying the effects of the micro wave on the human being in reference to brain cancer?
Are we absolutely certain of cell phone safety? Ten years hence should be ample time to tell.
Even if we have to deal with all these questions, the cell phone is still a miraculous gift.

Bond lives in Richmond Hill and can be reached at fsb007@aol.com.