Letter: Natural gas
In your editorial of 7 April you appeared to be casting doubt on the
environmental advantages of natural gas as a fuel.
The main policy options for combating global warming are to use energy
more effectively and to move to less polluting fuels. Natural gas, when
displacing other fossil fuels, contributes to both policy objectives in
terms of lower overall greenhouse gas emissions than either oil or coal,
and greater efficiency in most applications (which in turn leads to further
reductions in emissions). The combined effects give natural gas significant
environmental advantages over other fossil fuels in shaping the fuel mix
to meet future energy requirements while minimising the environmental impact.
The current policy debate in the UK is focused on the use of natural
gas, rather than coal, for power generation. For the equivalent amount of
electricity generated, the overall effect of greenhouse gas emissions from
the natural gas supply chain is approximately half that from coal, taking
account of the carbon dioxide and methane emissions appropriate for each
fuel. Indeed, in the case of the supply of natural gas through the British
Gas system to power stations, these loads are supplied directly from the
high pressure transmission system which is designed and constructed from
welded steel so as to be virtually leak-free.
In addition, the sulphur emissions from natural gas-fired stations would
be only about one per cent of those from coal fired stations fitted with
flue-gas desulphurisation equipment, thereby contributing substantially
to reductions in acidic emissions.
Ivan Whitting Director of Corporate Affairs British Gas, London SW1
Letter: Money matters
Martyn Kelly considered the lack of ‘proper psychological gestalt’ as
a more important factor limiting the performance of first-class research
in tropical Africa (Creating the right atmosphere, Forum, 7 April). My 25
years experience in the university system in tropical Africa has convinced
me that the lack of adequate funding is the single most important factor
militating against the performance of any kind of research.
Salaries paid to scientists are extremely poor (equivalent to Pounds
sterling 50-Pounds sterling 250 a month). Equipment, recent literature and
supporting facilities hardly exist in most universities due to the lack
of money. Most universities are turning out graduates who have done little
or no practical work.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, during an oil boom, some Nigerian
universities turned out first-rate research. A privately run African centre
of excellence (International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Nairobi)
has shown what can be done by Third World scientists with modest financial
investments.
Statespeople who make grandiose statements about the development of
science and technology in their countries but provide few pennies for its
development are simply wasting their time.
Ray Kumar Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Letter: Genetic saviour
I was astonished to read some remarks of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
to the Royal Society (This Week, 31 March), that ‘we have to rely on advances
in genetics to enable us to engineer the necessary changes’ to save European
nature reserves from the effects of rapid global warming. Is this how she
justifies her government’s sluggish record in reducing greenhouse emissions?
Does she expect the global ecosystem to be similarly saved? I see a parallel
in her attitude: her peers in the early years of atomic power expected modern
science to develop reliable methods of radioactive waste disposal, as well
as a meterless source of energy.
Patrick Campbell Bondi, Australia
Letter: Real economics
The review by David Pearce of Marilyn Waring’s book If Women Counted:
A New Feminist Economics (Review, 14 April) could convey the impression
that Waring is some kind of ‘green’, unfamiliar with real economics.
Waring has a PhD in economics, spent nine years in the New Zealand Parliament
(1975-84), including chairing the Parliamentary Accounts committee, and
has since 1984 been on advisory panels for the United Nations, seriously
considering the present system.
She is respected by ‘real’ economists – I recently attended a speech
she gave in Canberra to Australian government officials. Waring is a clear,
concise thinker and writer, and very down-to-earth. Her desire to incorporate
the values of wild places and women’s work in the National Accounts is hardly
‘a fruitless search for a new economics’. She has practical and thought-provoking
suggestions already tried in many countries she has visited.
I thoroughly recommend this book.
Rosemary Spiota Canberra, Australia
Letter: Flip-flop
Jim Lesurf’s article, ‘The rise and fall of negative resistance’ (31
March) was most interesting. However, your readers should be aware that
it is not necessary to use an esoteric gallium arsenide Gunn-effect device
to observe this phenomenon. The first transistor ever made, Bardeen and
Brattain’s point-contact transistor, exhibited negative resistance. This
characteristic was exploited by the makers of early transistorised computers
because it was possible to make a bistable circuit (‘flip-flop’) using only
one transistor. Junction transistors do not possess this advantage.
Andrew Wylie London NW6
Letter: Crystal clear
I very much enjoyed the article on genetic algorithms and simulated
annealing (‘Natural solutions give their best’, 14 April). However, something
is seriously wrong with their description of the behaviour of metal crystals
during annealing; it seems to have become inextricably tangled with magnetic
domain theory. Individual metal crystals are not distinguished by the orientation
of the individual atoms, but by differing orientations of the lattice planes.
Annealing generally leads to the growth of some crystals (‘grains’) at the
expense of others. So the most important thermally activated phenomena are
those which occur at the grain boundaries, rather than in the interior.
The ultimate result of annealing is normally expected to be a regular
assembly of 14-sided grains. It is a pity that the authors state that no
real metal will ever form perfect crystals because, in their terminology,
a perfect crystal is what others call a ‘single’ crystal. It so happens
that the annealing of a suitably strained polycrystalline metal is a well-known
method for the preparation of single crystals.
David Fisher Cardiff
Letter: Islamic science
Roderick Grierson is right: the questions I am attempting to answer
in my Explorations in Islamic Science are difficult and I do not claim to
have easy answers (Review, 24 March). However, my arguments – of necessity
– are complex, and by presenting them in a simplistic, one-dimensional,
manner he has seriously misrepresented my views.
For example, it does seem ‘naive’ if one simply states that Chinese
people have certain characteristics. I start by showing that cultural traits
are functions of world views and proceed to argue that according to the
Chinese philosophy of life the Chinese should have certain characteristics
– an altogether different point.
Similarly, I am not daft enough to think that Western science cannot
solve such problems as ‘malaria or diarrhoea’. The argument is that the
science policy of many Muslim countries, which is based on Western priorities,
cannot solve the problems of Muslim societies because their R&D activities
are geared to solving other, external problems.
Moreover, it is not difficult, as Grierson seems to indicate, to separate
the history of Greek philosophy in the Islamic world from the history of
science in the Islamic world. In Islamic history, philosophy, or falsifa,
always meant Greek philosophy and it followed its own path, based on its
own school of thought. I tried to differentiate between the two not because
I assume that ‘it is in the nature of things for Muslims to have been victims
of Western cultural aggression’ but because Greek philosophical thought
contained many notions which were, and are, anathema to Islam.
My intention in the book is not, as Grierson states, to ‘defend contemporary
Islam from the threat of Western science’ and to replace ‘Western science’
with some irrational activity. Indeed, I spend a great deal of time in the
book isolating ‘irrational’ trends in contemporary discussion and arguing
for objective, systematic inquiry. Scientific activity does not become irrational
simply because one makes it socially and culturally relevant to Muslim societies!
Ziauddin Sardar London NW9
Letter: Research first
Terence Kealey thinks that granting bodies should not waste taxpayers’
money on academic research but should ‘line up at least one company prepared
to develop the product’ (Letters, 14 April). Is this like trying to find
industrial sponsors for the early days of research in jet engines, superconductivity
or chromatography? Very often the researcher feels at a gut level that he
or she is on to something important and it is almost impossible to convey
this to the sceptics. The only answer is to stop talking, write a good proposal
and trust that the Science and Engineering Research Council will continue
to support top quality science and research training. However, I must admit
that more industrial links in the early stages of potentially useful research
would be much appreciated by academics. Is anyone out there interested in
hollow porous silver wires? Arthur Banister University of Durham Lousy supervisors
Stephen Harris’ article on the selection of PhD students (‘In search
of the ideal student’, Forum, 21 April) presents a supervisor’s view. Supervisors
have all the power, influence and status; a PhD student has virtually none
of these.
To redress the balance, here are some ‘lousy supervisor’ stories. How
about the supervisor who, when he got wind of the fact that his two students
(who couldn’t take him any more) were about to write to complain, wrote
a long letter himself complaining of their lack of dedication, incompetence,
dangerous lab practice, and so on? The students were powerless to defend
their names and they dropped out of scientific research.
What about the supervisor who is never there, knows nothing about the
methods or equipment and takes longer to comment on a draft chapter than
you took to write it? How about one who pinches your work, fails to acknowledge
you on papers, at conferences and to colleagues; or the one who appropriates
the best equipment and never uses it? What about the one who recruits you
as a post-grad and then clears off to Borneo? And finally, how about that
ubiquitous species who recruits research assistants, allows them to register
for higher degrees and – you know what is coming – does not give them enough
time or encouragement to ever work on their research projects, keeping them
busy in technical support roles? I would argue that potential PhD students
have to be very careful about selecting their supervisors.
Barbara Tomlins Burnham Bucks
Letter: Human biologist
Lynda Birke convincingly argues that the real importance of conserving
habitats and promoting biological diversity is that it provides scientists
with ‘living laboratories’ in which to ‘do good biology’ (Forum, 24 March).
I’m embarrassed: I feel such a fool. There was I thinking that wildlife
conservation was primarily important in allowing other species besides our
own to survive, and hopefully to thrive. As a biology undergraduate I’m
forever making the same old mistake of not regarding other species simply
as suitable ‘biological material’, but as rather wonderful creatures that
have inherited the same world to live in as myself.
As one of my lecturers recently said to me: ‘If that’s how you feel,
you should be studying humanities, not biology.’ Is he right?
Jerry Simon Rowlands Gill Tyne and Wear
Letter: Tough courses
We would like to give the warmest thanks to Jon Turney (‘Science by
degrees’, 21 April) for drawing attention to a pressing educational problem,
adding only that the problem is not limited to physics. It is happening
to other subject areas too.
We have a son studying mechanical engineering at university, whose experience
closely parallels the plight of physics undergraduates so eloquently described
in the article. It has been traumatic enough, as parents, to watch a son,
able, hard working, conscientious, always regarded as a high achiever at
school, suddenly gasping for breath simply trying to keep up with courses
that are flying past the undergraduates at supersonic speed. The shock,
frustration and disorientation experienced by the students themselves can
be imagined. The workload is crushing, the schedules impossible – though
the teachers will not admit it – and no time is allowed for proper absorption
of facts and ideas.
There is simply far too much to cover, and who says there are three
years in which they can do it? Beginning in October of the first year, the
poor souls hit their final exams by the last week of April in the third
year, so there are just two and a half years inclusive of vacations in which
to run the race. Is this the way to train the nation’s scientists and engineers?
R. D. Dyson, K. K. Dyson Kidlington Oxon