01 October 2004

Michael Banks on inventing the future

Forrest M. Mims III

In this issue of The Citizen Scientist, Michael A. Banks concludes his fascinating three-part account of the amazing life and career of Hugo Gernsback.

To this day, Gernsback remains a towering figure in the worlds of amateur radio and science fiction. He has also inspired generations of amateur science writers, including Michael Banks, who has been a professional freelance writer since 1983. His publishing credits include books on model rocketry, computing, the Internet, telecommunications hardware, and other subjects. He is particularly interested in the history of communications technology in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Following in the Gernsback tradition, he has also written several science fiction novels.

Besides being a polished writer, Mike is an avid model builder. He also enjoys aerial photography, household automation, automotive electronics, and building reproductions of early electrical devices.

With a background like this, it's no wonder that Mike chose to contribute his series on Hugo Gernsback to The Citizen Scientist. After all, most members of the Society for Amateur Scientists have in some direct or indirect manner been influenced by Gernsback.

Poptronics was the last in the long line of magazines published by Gernsback Publications. In one sense, the Gernsback era ended with the final issue of Poptronics in January 2003. Yet the Gernsback legacy lives on in The Citizen Scientist, which is in part modeled after Science Probe!, a Gernsback Publications magazine devoted to amateur science that was founded by publisher Larry Steckler, named by Harry Helms and edited by me.

Science Probe! was published as a quarterly from 1990 to 1992. Although combined subscription and newsstand sales of Science Probe! reached an impressive 60,000 issues, financial difficulties at Gernsback Publications forced the magazine's closure after only eight issues.

The Internet was in its infancy when Science Probe! was being published. There were so many problems and delays sending articles back and forth between Gernsback Publishing's Long Island office and Texas that we resorted to Federal Express.

Today, the web greatly simplifies the publishing of a science magazine. No one can know how Hugo Gernsback would have used the web to promote amateur science. But Michael Banks' series about Gernsback has served as good inspiration for the future of The Citizen Scientist.