Mechanical Matchmaker (1924)

How do you know that someone is “The One?” Gernsback tackled that question in 1924 with an idea for an invention that was supposed to inject some science into the world of romantic attraction.

From the April 1924 issue of Science and Invention magazine:

How much would the average man or woman give to know beforehand if his or her prospective married life is to be success or failure? At present, marriage is a lottery. It seems impossible to predict beforehand how your prospective mate will turn out in the future. Through certain fundamentals, which can easily be ascertained, one can be reasonably certain as to one’s choice. We take extreme care in breeding horses, dogs and cats, but when we come to ourselves we are extremely careless and do not use our heads nor the means that science puts in our hands for scientific breeding. There are certain basic tests which can be made today and which will give one a reasonable assurance of married happiness.

Gernsback devised four different tests that were supposed to scientifically decide if two people were compatible including a physical attraction test, a sympathy test, and a body odor test. All of these tests involved people being hooked up to machines to determine what their heart rates were doing as an observer carried out the test.

But it was the fourth test that was arguably the weirdest. It was called the sympathy test and involved someone firing a surprise gunshot into the air. Seriously.

If both people are deemed to be too startled by the shot, they’re viewed as being too nervous and shouldn’t be paired up under the theory that one person should have nerves of steel. But if I’m sitting across from someone who doesn’t flinch at the sound of a surprise gunshot nearby, I’m not sure I’m going to think that’s a normal person I’d like to spend the rest of my life with.