Letter: Student misery
We hear much of the government’s concern about the lack of qualified
scientists and engineers. This concern appears to manifest itself in a bizarre
fashion. As well as removing the rights of postgraduate students to housing
benefit and making them ineligible for both student and access loans, we
now find that the Department of Education and Science has refused permission
for the Medical Research Council and the Science and Engineering Research
Council to increase the ‘miserable’ (SERC Review Panel) levels of postgraduate
stipend on the customary date of 1 October.
The stipend may be increased on 1 April by the current inflation rate
of 10.6 per cent. This delay will cost each postgraduate between 120 Pounds
and 250 Pounds, representing a 5.3 per cent decrease in the value of the
stipend. While this figure is bad enough, the removal of the benefit rights
will mean a much more substantial decrease.
In view of the very real hardships faced by undergraduates and postgraduates
alike, and the relatively low value placed on qualified scientists and engineers
in this country, is it any wonder that the number of students entering science
and engineering has declined steadily?
David Gray London
Letter: Chinese junk
Your article on space debris is an important reminder of a form of pollution
that is so easily forgotten (‘The junkyard in the sky’, 13 October). There
are, however, a couple of errors that should be corrected. Firstly, the
statement that there have been no major break-ups since 1988 has been superseded
by the explosion that fragmented the last stage of the Chinese rocket that
launched the Feng-Yun weather satellite (and a couple of inflated balloons).
I have tracked several pieces and it is clear that scores of smaller
objects will have resulted. These are all orbiting at around 800 kilometres,
which as your article points out is already the region of high density of
orbital debris.
Secondly, atmospheric drag does not ‘slow down’ satellites in low orbit,
it actually speeds them up.
Russell Ebest Edinburgh
Letter: Sound credit
While it is very flattering to have one’s work recognised in New 杏吧原创,
I feel that I must correct an error (‘Researchers sound out polymer production’,
Science, 13 October). Our results were not the first to demonstrate that
polymers could be produced using ultrasound. This was done in solution by
Arno Henglein in Germany during the 1950s and, more recently, Peter Kruus
in Canada has studied bulk polymerisations. While our published work extends
these as far as yield and product characterisation is concerned, we would
not claim primacy for the technique.
Gareth Price University of Bath
Letter: High-flying ozone
While Alec Vans idea of using bottled ozone looks great for regenerating
the ozone layer, it would not work. Ozone does not last in bottles because
it is too unstable. Even with Concorde flying at Mach 2, the bottles would
contain no ozone.
However, as it is a wonderful idea, I’d like to take it further. British
Airways, which now has both high-flying jets and a new environmental unit,
might like to take this idea on board and buy some ozone generators. I can
recommend a few brands which are light and would run happily using Concorde’s
auxiliary power units.
Rick Gould Manchester
Letter: Museum motion
We zoologists, geologists, and vertebrate paleontologists, at the 50th
anniversary meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Lawrence,
Kansas, wish to protest the proposals of the director and trustees of the
Natural History Museum to close down research in major taxonomic areas in
zoology, entomology, botany, and paleontology. We are concerned that this
would irreparably damage the taxonomic foundations of knowledge of the diversity
of life and the history of this diversity.
We are especially concerned that the proposed ending of research on
living and fossil birds and mammals will ensure the virtual destruction
of taxonomic research based on the international collections housed in the
museum.
We call upon the museum’s trustees and the British Government to reconsider
these proposals, which are so detrimental to the health of international
science.
Michael Woodburne, Robert Hunt Society of Vertebrate Paleontology University
of Nebraska Lincoln, US
Letter: Second wind
Editing introduced an error into my article on the Danish offshore wind
programme which I should like to correct (Technology, 20 October). Under
its Energyplan-81, the Danish government set a target of meeting 10 per
cent of the country’s total electricity consumption – not energy as stated
in the published article – from renewable energy sources before the year
2000. This, by coincidence, is of the same order of magnitude as Denmark’s
potential offshore wind resource, estimated at 3 billion kilowatt-hours
per year. The government’s new energy 2000 Programme announced in April,
foresees the contribution from renewable electricity rising to reach 12.7
petajoules per year by 2005, a ten-fold increase on the level in 1988.
Could I also clarify one other point, the complaint that land-based
wind turbines are ‘noisy and unsightly’? I was careful to point out in my
original draft that going offshore ‘avoids potential problems with noise’;
and that noise ‘is not normally an issue except at very low wind speeds,
and then only for near-neighbours. Three-bladed Danish machines are actually
remarkably quiet. Where noise is considered a nuisance it can often be sorted
out by fitting more acoustic insulation or increasing the cut-in speeds.
In the last resort, if these measures fail the wind turbines can always
be moved somewhere else.’
As for wind turbines being ‘unsightly’, my own view is that small clusters
of three-bladed wind turbines can and do look very attractive provided they
are carefully cited in the landscape. I only wish that people living in
Britain had more opportunity to see them.
Mike Flood Milton Keynes
Letter: Top of the pops
Glyn Jones may well think Tomorrow’s World has the most likeable team
on science television and that their professionalism shines (‘New directions
for science on TV’, 13 October). From one viewer’s point of view I must
say that of all the science programmes on television, Tomorrow’s World is
the most amateur to watch (often embarrassingly so) and trivialises the
items it covers by compressing them into short slots.
Far and away the best programme of the current bunch is Antenna. Its
format allows flexibility in the timing of items, it treats the viewer as
if he or she has a brain, and avoids Horizon’s problem which is a voice-over
narration that induces boredom.
A weekly Antenna would seem to be the best solution if what is required
is a true science programme on a regular basis.
David Wood Shrewsbury, Shropshire
Letter: Retiring sorts
There must be many retired scientists and technologists like myself,
who, having accomplished all the household chores that one finds on retirement,
become frustrated by the fact that their expertise seems no longer to have
any outlet. Some continue with more or less lucrative consultancy work,
but I am sure there must be many like myself, who, though not wishing to
take on the full-time commitment that usually involves, would be very ready
and willing to offer their services on a less demanding basis to industry
or the academic world in exchange for expenses and little or no fee, and
the satisfaction of keeping their minds active.
With this in mind I have written to the SERC, suggesting that a register
should be drawn up of people in my position and inclination, and made available
to anybody that might be able to make use of the services offered, but so
far without positive response.
Do many of your readers share these views, and if so should we set up
our own register?
George Matthews Wadebridge Cornwall
Letter: Solar engine driver
The article on solar energy by Peter Spinks prompts a few comments (‘Plug
into the Sun,’ 22 September). Spinks perpetuates a pattern which readers
may have noticed in similar pieces elsewhere: most of the worlds are about
photocells – their efficiency, the effort expended to reduce their cost,
and so on – while the facts and figures in the same article support the
solar thermal machine’s claim to a much higher cost-effectiveness and immediate
competitiveness without a need for scientific breakthroughs.
Why is it that photovoltaics get so much attention while solar thermal
does almost all the useful work? At least 90 per cent of the world’s solar
electricity comes from prosaic but effective solar steam power-plants (chiefly,
Luz in Southern California), while most of the R&D effort continues
to go into photovoltaics, which still cost at least three times as much
per kilowatt-hour of electricity.
And why so much talk of photovoltaic effiency when the only thing that
matters is the cost per kilowatt-hour? Solar heat is cost-effective right
now, solar thermal electricity is nearly so, and photovoltaics are way behind
and not catching up. But the ratio of investment in the three is the inverse
of their effectiveness. And what do we say about fusion, which gets much
more money that all three combined, with a cost/effectiveness approaching
infinity divided by zero? Things are indeed topsy-turvy in energy and R&D.
To be candid, I must note that my company works on solar Stirling machines
with essentially no government support but which, as the inverse ratios
about would suggest, promise to beat out everything else.
William Beale Sunpower Incorporated Athens, Ohio, US
Letter: Sea horse
It was interesting to learn from Eric Laithwaite’s review of Beyond
2000: How One Man Revolutionised the Law of Physics how one letter in one
word can revolutionise The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, who, according to
Laithwaite or whoever set up his words in print, rose the morrow morn ‘a
saddler and wiser man’ (Review, 20 October).
Well, why not. All that unpleasant business with a dead albatross might
well cause a sensitive mariner to give up the whole seafaring game as a
bad job and turn to a nice, safe line in leatherwork.
Ralph Estling Ilminister Somerset
Letter: Code of conduct
Copywright and other intellectual property rights are not solely to
encourage the dissemination of new ideas. Whether we admit to it in our
statutes, they also serve the time-honoured practice of rewarding people
for their efforts (‘Rights and wrongs of software,’ 29 September).
Software is a strange animal, having some elements of written works
(which suggests protection should be by copyright) but also having elements
of a machine (making patent protection more apt). Sadly, on close analysis,
software does not fit easily into either of the copyright and patent baskets.
Its direct use in running a computer or the value of fragments of code
when combined with other code are not the way of books. Its reproducibility
by hitting a button and lack of hardware structure are foreign to the classical
notion of patentable machines.
Consequently, the patent and copyright statutes and their attendant
jurisprudence have creaked when asked to serve software.
It would be wrong, though, to deal with such a cauldron of creativity
by requiring, as suggested by the Free Software Foundation, that software
creators should renounce all proprietary rights in software which they create.
I would guess that this view is not shared by those investing most heavily
in software development.
In practice, we must hone patent and copyright systems to adapt them
to, and have them absorb, software.
US jurisprudence is beginning to determine the extent to which copyright
will be permitted to cover the ‘look and feel’ and ‘structure, sequence
and organisation’ of software. In Europe, there are contrasting views in
EC directorates as to what level of reverse engineering of software should
be permitted by copyright law. Patent offices around the world are gradually
coming to terms with what may be patented and how patent applications covering
software should be examined.
The outcome will be a healthy compromise; intellectuall property statutes
will bend to embrace software; software creators will secure a limited and
reasonable monopoly to encourage them and their investors to do it again;
and there will still be a milieu in which the development of new sotfware
will be permitted and encouraged.
Stuart Wilkinson Patent and Trademark Institute of Canada Mississauga
Ontario
Letter: Call Correct
So Jeff Hecht wants an ‘access code’ to let only the ‘proper people’
reach him on the phone (‘Another wrong number,’ Forum, 20 October). He already
has such a code – it’s called a telephone number. Just go ex-directory,
and then give your number only to the ‘proper people.’ Problem solved.
Chris James Winchester Hampshire