Letters: Degrees of danger
John Emsley presents a curious argument (‘An accidental waste of time’,
Forum, 9 March). He says that holders of BSc degrees must accept some responsibility
for their own actions in laboratories. Of course-everyone must accept responsibility
for their actions.
But it takes a long and illogical leap to get from that truism to his
main argument, which appears to be that the Health and Safety Executive
is imposing unnecessary or inappropriate controls on laboratory workers.
I feel sure that the HSE will be able to justify the advice it gives.
In my experience its distaste for unnecessary paperwork is as great as anyone
else’s. My interest is in Emsley’s faith in bachelor degrees as a basis
for safe working.
My society has been concerned for many years about the inadequacies
of tertiary education in preparing ‘qualified’ people for controlling danger.
Many first degrees, even in ‘high risk’ fields such as chemical and civil
engineering, pay astonishingly little attention to risk assessment and control.
To assume that holders of first degrees are automatically qualified
to recognise the hazards and assess the risk arising from their lab work,
and to devise and apply appropriate controls is a recipe for disaster.
As our 1989 report Education and Training in Health and Safety: The
Neglected Imperative makes clear, effective health and safety education
should be an integral part of tertiary education. When it is, then Emsley’s
approach may have more justification. But even then, prudent research managers
will need a system for ensuring that adequate consideration of health and
safety has formed part of the project planning, and that supervisors are
aware of their responsibilities, both moral and legal, for students in their
charge.
David Morris, Chairman British Health and Safety Society Aston University
Birmingham
Letters: Degrees of danger
After reading John Emsley’s article I was tempted to write the following
Control of Substances Hazardous to Health assessment for Isaac Newton.
Date: 19 September 1665
Experimenter: Newton, I.
Practice: Sitting under an apple tree.
Potential exposure: Risk of apple falling.
Person exposed: Persons under the tree.
Risk: Chance of bump on the head.
Measures taken to remove risk: Don’t sit under the tree. Place warning
sign.
Where would we be today?
Colin Smith Ashurst Wood West Sussex
Letters: Encrypt and survive
Feedback notes the efforts of the US government to restrict the export
of software incorporating its Data Encryption Standard. Of course, such
efforts are futile. But why continue to recommend the American software
package which has fallen foul of US governmental paranoia? Cypher systems
incorporating DES have been written in Britain, and are available at lower
cost than the American product.
As the British Armed Forces Minister said, availability is not the problem.
Security systems only work if they are used. It is ironic that government
departments, happy to inflict interminable multipart forms and lengthy waiting
periods on any member of the public who applies for the most trivial of
permits, can’t be bothered to spend a few minutes a day to protect national
security.
Iolo Davidson Tetbury Gloucestershire
Letters: American crisis
Daniel Greenberg is half right: the ‘crisis’ in American science is
not phoney, but it is self-inflicted (Talking Point, 2 February). The genuine
crisis concerns the large numbers of productive and original scientists
who have lost all research support or never obtained any; the many more
who have been forced to divert much of their research effort to proposal
writing; and the large numbers of quite good PhDs who are unable to obtain
permanent employment even 10 years after their degrees.
The reason for this crisis is the growth of ‘big’ science and academic
empires at the expense of the individual university scientist. This is the
result of the exercise of political influence by the leaders of big science
and an excessively competitive system of grant awards which prefers groups
to individuals, and ‘sure-thing’ research to risk-taking.
The solution is not to ask for more science money from Congress, but
to cancel a few gigaprojects, distribute the money in small grants, and
train fewer research students.
Jonathan Katz Washington University, St Louis Missouri, US
Letters: Galactic matters
Jayant Narlikar writes that Hubble’s observations provided ‘a dramatic
confirmation’ of general relativistic prediction that the Universe is expanding
(‘What if the big bang didn’t happen?’, 2 March). I don’t think this is
entirely correct. Hubble’s observation that galaxies are moving away from
each other suggests only that they were once closer together. It in no way
confirms that the Universe is expanding.
To infer from observations of motions of local galaxies that it is expanding
is anthropomorphism in disguise. We could implicitly be assuming that the
corner of the Universe that man can observe constitutes the entirety of
everything that exists.
The conclusion that the spreading galaxies necessarily means that sometime
in the past all matter and space was concentrated in the form of a primordial
atom with infinite density, temperature and pressure and with a diameter
equal to zero may be called Twainian Extrapolation. Mark Twain wrote in
Life in the Mississippi River that since the river ‘has shortened itself
two hundred and forty-two miles’ in 176 years, therefore, ‘in the Old Oolitic
Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi
River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck
out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing rod. And by the same token any
person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower
Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New
Orleans will have joined their streets together.’
I guess that Twain lacked the imagination of big bang theorists to conceive
a time when the Mississippi River was an infinitesimal drop of water of
infinite density and zero diameter.
Ahmet Gorgun Pearl River New York, US
Letters: Galactic matters
Jayant Narlikar’s stimulating article does not point out that the theory
he and Fred Hoyle developed to explain the red shift can be verified fairly
easily on the Earth. They suggest that ‘new’ electrons (and protons) are
less massive than ‘old’ ones. The mass of the electron would depend on the
amount of the Universe it could ‘see’. If an electron created on Earth was
less than eight minutes old, for example, it could only ‘see’ the mass of
the Earth and the moon, as to do more would need signals travelling faster
than light. More than eight minutes, and it would see the Sun, and so on.
As even the mass of the local cluster of galaxies is only an infinitesimal
fraction of the mass of the Universe, then any ‘new’ electrons created in
the last few hundred million years would have only a tiny fraction of the
mass of ‘normal’, primordial electrons. These could be transported to the
Earth as cosmic rays, or as parts of larger particles. We would expect really
‘new’ electrons to be very rare, but older ones to be more common: older
ones could get to us from half way across the Universe at nearly the speed
of light and still retain a significant levity.
So one test of Narlikar and Hoyle’s theory would be to measure the mass/charge
ratio of a very large number of electrons. This could be done quite simply
in the laboratory by measuring their mass-charge ratio in a mass spectrometer
or, for that matter, in a television picture gun. If a few turned up light,
then you have your proof.
If the charge alters in line with the mass, then an experiment like
the Millikan oil-drop experiment could measure charge alone. Indeed, historians
of science have commented on the amount of variation that Millikan saw when
trying his oil-drop experiment. Maybe another look at his data would show
that he had already discovered the ‘charge-light’ electron some time ago.
William Bains Royston Hertfordshire
Letters: Harsh light
Your article ‘A brighter smile for the Cavalier’ raises some points
of importance for the conservation of works of art (Technology, 23 February).
The description of the physical properties of the Optivex ultraviolet filters
is quite correct, in that these significantly reduce the transmission of
radiation with a wavelength of less than 400 nanometres. Unfortunately,
the article gives the impression that ultraviolet radiation alone is the
cause of deterioration.
In reality, both ultraviolet and visible light are damaging. In museums
and galleries ultraviolet light is eliminated not because it is necessarily
more damaging, but because its removal does not affect the colour appearance
of the objects on display.
The assertion that the use of these filters makes it possible to ‘shine
brighter light on the paintings while offering them better protection’ sets
a dangerous precedent. That ultraviolet filtration can reduce damage is
not in dispute, providing the overall light level is not increased. If the
light levels are raised, the additional deterioration caused by visible
light will soon exceed the reduction in damage afforded by the filter.
These filters are an important development. If used as part of a lighting
regime which limits exposure to both visible and ultraviolet light they
may reduce deterioration and help to avoid wiping the smile from the Cavalier’s
face.
David Saunders National Gallery London
Letters: Satellite owners
Your story on the oil fires in Kuwait contained an error (This Week,
2 March). The Meteosat spacecraft is a purely European satellite, operated
by the Eumetsat organisation from the European Space Operations Centre at
Darmstadt in Germany and funded primarily through the national meteorological
organisations, and not by any US agency as your article implied. It does,
of course, form part of a global network of meteorological spacecraft, including
US and Japanese satellites, for monitoring weather systems and, incidentally,
large scale pollution, but it is a distinctly European contribution to this
task.
Chris England, Vipin Gupta Imperial College, London
Letters: Sail logic
Your Star Trek correspondent Robert Erck is mistaken in his understanding
of the solar sail article by Colin McInnes (Letters, 23 February). The sail
is not in a Keplerian orbit, so normal results for orbital mechanics do
not apply-the sail can move inward or outward in the Solar System by orientating
the sail appropriately; as explained in the article. An increase in sail
velocity is quite feasible.
Fraser Gordon University of Essex, Colchester
Letters: Smart response
I hope that the letter from James McKinley will not stop people applying
for the Small Firms Merit Award for Research and Technology (Letters, 9
March). In any competition, by definition, there have to be winners and
losers. In the 1990 SMART Stage I competition, 1415 applications were received
(a 70 per cent increase on the previous year) and we made a record 180 awards.
It is not practical to discuss the reasons for rejection with unsuccessful
applicants, but many seminars and workshops are held for intending applicants,
so that they can be made aware of the requirements for success. In addition,
it is worth noting that we are happy to let applicants have the results
of the patents searches done on the more promising applications.
I am glad that McKinley still feels that it is worth entering the SMART
competition and I would urge others to do so by the closing date (12 April).
Further details can be obtained from the Department of Trade and Industry
and its regional offices or the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland offices.
Other government support is also available for new, high technology
enterprises. Recently, we have announced three initiatives to support technological
innovation. One of these, SPUR (support for products under research), supports
innovative product or process development by firms with 1 to 500 employees
and is not a competition.
Lord Hesketh, Minister of State Department of Trade and Industry London
Letters: Protective rubber
With reference to your recent article on protecting buildings from earthquakes,
the concept of rubber mounts was evolved by C. J. Derham and A. G. Thomas,
physicists at the Malaysian Rubber Producers Research Association, in 1973
(‘Standing up to earthquakes’, 16 February). A feasibility study was published
in 1974. The need for access to a shaking table brought about the joint
effort from 1976 with James Kelly of the University of California at Berkeley
for which special grants were obtained from Malaysia and the US.
Geoffrey Allen Kobe Steel Ltd, London
Letters: Prose possessed
Little Albert though noble and bright, maybe, is mazefuddled (2 March).
His portrait, perhaps, is scribblescrabbled by the artist as an old old.
Your mamaman is spending momomoney he hasnt got buying ququarks he cant
find on their ownsome while he himself reads Finnegan’s Wakea goodreed Ive
never heard of. Ah! A solecism from Cilicia in your attic.
James Joyce awrote one called Finnegans Wake. Sea or see? Possession
is an illusion this time. All we own is on loan. Shem and sham and a shame
on you.
Adrian Bowyer University of Bath