Letters: Alfred's not there
Feedback (29 June) notes there is now only one asteroid still missing;
Alfred. This could be because Alfred does not exist. There is an Alfreda,
but that’s not exactly the same, and besides, is not lost.
I think Feedback was referring to Albert.
Philip M. Bagnall Society of Meteoritophiles Wallsend, Tyne & Wear
Letters: Off-peak pollution
Much has recently been made of the hydrogen-powered car (Technology,
29 June), but claims that they are ‘pollution-free’ are more than just over
the top. The view generated for the public of this latest technical fix
is so glaringly incomplete that it almost smacks of dishonesty.
In all reports that I have seen, the little give-away is that hydrogen
stocks are replenished using off-peak electricity. If enough people are
recharging their cars overnight – as would presumably be the intention –
then our sleeping hours would become a time of peak demand.
What is really needed now are all-inclusive calculations that can give
us a whole picture, and make possible an honest comparison between the additional
power station fuel requirements and conventional oil usage.
Dave Howells Green Party Swansea
Letters: Sight from sound
If you care to stick your fingers in your ears when crossing a busy
road you could well be surprised to find how difficult it is to rely on
sight alone and how much you normally rely on what you can hear.
The Philips patent application 410 045 mentioned in Patents (Technology,
29 June) as using a video camera to convert sight into sound asks the blind
to do just that and then to rely on a machine to tell them only what is
in front of them. Obviously they cannot listen to the normal sounds and
those from the machine at the same time.
It is praiseworthy to provide at least a partial alleviation. But how
much better if it were based on the real needs of the ultimate user – instead
of just on the technology of the inventors – and if it let the blind both
hear and receive the substitute stimuli at the same time.
A. L. Ibbotson Barrow Bridge, Bolton
Letters: Answer to existence
I’m hoping this letter will inspire a reply from one of your readers.
I live in the heartland of religious Australia on the North-West coast of
Tasmania. I am constantly under ‘creationist pressure’ from the various
religious denominations in our small farming community. Despite frantic
efforts on my part to disseminate evolution as the most likely cause of
our existence I’m still not getting through.
So please, someone, I need a simple, concise, logical and brilliantly
worded answer to the creationists to enable me to continue my battle against
ignorance and mumbo-jumbo doctrines!
Andrew Nichols Tasmania, Australia
Letters: In the can
With reference to Nick Beard’s problem of how to distinguish a shaken
beer can from an undisturbed one (Letters, 6 July), I have a beautifully
neat and cheap diagnostic procedure – the law of sod.
Let me choose randomly one of the two beer cans and I will invariably
choose the shaken one. Furthermore, should I attempt to upset the system
by replacing my first choice, the second can amazingly identifies itself
as the one with the built in shower.
I can only suggest that anybody wishing to go to a party with me should
wear a raincoat.
Mark Wilkins Ashton, Bristol
Letters: In the can
Surely the easy answer is to estimate the internal pressure of each
can, by applying external thumb pressure? It ought to be possible thus to
determine which can has had its internal pressure increased by shaking.
I must, however, admit to not having tried it.
Chris Finn Beverley, East Yorks
Letters: The kids are right
The arrow and vector notations in Figure 2 of ‘Culture clash: children
and science’ (29 June) will be confusing enough for pupils, but to state
that they are wrong to say that the forces acting on the six balls will
be different is not defensible. They will be different. For similar balls
(an implicit assumption) the force of gravity is the same no matter what
the balls’ position on their trajectory, but no account is taken of the
force opposing motion due to air resistance. In only one case will there
be no air resistance – when the ball is stationary. This being the case,
one must know the extent of the learner’s prior knowledge before deciding
whether their response is consistent with the theory from which it came.
According to the presentation of the data given, a pupil is ‘wrong’ if he
holds the more refined theory that includes air resistance.
C. B. Faust Loughborough, Leicestershire
Letters: The kids are right
I could not help but wonder about the selection of answers given in
Figure 3.
Obviously from the information given the answer should be ‘There is
light in sections 1 and 3. No decisions can be reached about sections 2
and 4.’
‘Schrodinger’s Cat’ Brighton, Sussex
Letters: The kids are right
Obviously most children took the meaning to be ‘in which sections is
there enough light to see by’. This explains the preponderance of the ‘red’
answers (sections 1 and 2).
P. G. Sussman Penally, Tenby Dyfed
Letters: Preventing AIDS
Your views on the Seventh International AIDS Conference in Florence
(Comment, 29 June) are most appropriate.
May I reinforce your comments on the central importance of social and
behaviourial research in AIDS, and the fact that this area of research seems
in general to receive insufficient recognition for its actual and potential
contribution to prevention. For its part, the Economic and Social Research
Council has run a series of conferences this year in an attempt to bring
together behaviourial researchers and policy makers, and plans a further
conference next year which, it is hoped, will involve several researchers
from African countries.
The emphasis given at the conference to high-tech biomedical interventions
and to the commercial exhibitions as opposed to those of non-profit organisations
(of which we were one) reflects the relative priorities of the Western
countries. We would not doubt the importance of research into medical treatments;
but, at the same time, it is important that national and international conferences
give due weight to the social and behaviourial sciences, particularly in
the absence of effective medical intervention.
Peter Linthwaite Economic and Social Research Council Swindon
Letters: Loadsadosh
I refer to your remark (Forum, 15 June) that ‘the English university
which came nearest to going broke was Bristol’. Not true.
This university has not been in debt, is not in debt and has no intention
of being in debt. Like most large organisations, it has overdraft facilities
with its bankers. It has not had to use them. It did report a trading loss
of Pounds sterling 4.4 million in its 1989/90 working. That loss was accommodated
by payments from the university’s reserves.
This year the university is on target to break even and plans to report
even better results in its trading for the following year. Bristol is, and
intends to remain, one of Britain’s best and most successful universities.
Don Carleton Information Office University of Bristol
Letters: No CFCs to burn
Sharon Beder’s claim that the Australian government plans to destroy
CFCs and halons while allowing their production and import (‘The burning
issue of Australia’s toxic waste’, 8 June) is neither accurate nor logical.
There will be no simultaneous production and destruction of CFCs and
halons. Despite the definition of production in the Montreal Protocol as
the amount produced less the amount destroyed, the Commonwealth’s Ozone
Protection Act makes no allowances for destruction in setting production
and import quotas. Australia declared at the London meeting of the parties
to the Montreal Protocol in 1990 that it would phase out both production
and (net) consumption no later than 1997.
The Australian States and Territories are implementing the recommendations
of the national Strategy for Ozone Protection (1989). Virtually all use
of CFCs and halons in new products will cease by 1995. By 1997 only recycled
refrigerant will be available for servicing equipment still running on CFCs.
The major states have legislation requiring the recovery of CFCs and
halons from equipment being serviced or decommissioned. A national, industry-sponsored,
CFC recycling scheme is in operation. The industry predicts there will probably
be no surplus CFC available for destruction.
However, the bulk of the halon bank is surplus to the needs of permitted
essential uses. The strategy recommends the destruction of the halon bank
rather than allow ozone layer depletion resulting from its eventual emission
to the atmosphere. The most recent estimate of the halon bank in Australia
in 1995 is around 7000 tonnes.
Warwick Forrest State Pollution Control Commission New South Wales Government
Australia
* * *
Sharon Beder replies: The State Pollution Control Commission, the regulatory
agency for New South Wales, now seems convinced that there will be no CFCs
and just 7000 tonnes of halons to destroy. But that’s not the line taken
by the state’s Waste Management Authority, the organisation that must dispose
of the rubbish. In its continuing advocacy of the need to build Australia’s
first incinerator, the authority still maintains that there will be a stockpile
of 80,000 tonnes of CFCs and halons to burn. Perhaps the commission and
the authority should start talking to each other.
Letters: Birth of Babbage
Could we have some agreement on the year and place of birth for Charles
Babbage? Newnes Encyclopedia and Britannica have given 1792. One has given
Totnes and the other Taunton as the birthplace. Glyn Jones informs us he
first saw the light of day in what is now the Elephant and Castle area of
London (‘The life and times of a computing pioneer’, 29 June).
The Babbage Museum, sponsored by ICL, is situated in Totnes and was
opened by one of his descendants, who might be expected to have reliable
data about the time and place of birth. There it is agreed he was born in
Totnes in 1791.
G. K. Gray Manchester
Letters: Willing participant
Ann Oakley has expressed reservations about trials at the Royal Marsden
Hospital to test use of Tamoxifen for prevention of breast cancer (Talking
Point, 22 June). As a participant since last year, I can assure her that
good information is provided about the possibility of side effects, as well
as advice about individual risk of disease. I myself have experienced problems,
which may be nothing to do with Tamoxifen – I could have been taking the
placebo. I was advised to cease the tablets forthwith, but may resume in
six months to clarify whether they caused my problems. From the first day
it was made clear that there would be no stigma in dropping out of the trials,
and in any event surveillance is offered for fifteen years, reassuring to
those of us who are conscious of enhanced risk of the disease.
My understanding is that pharmaceutical assistance with the menopause
will only be offered if this transition causes problems. I cannot see that
awareness of the menopause as a natural process should deter attempts to
relieve discomforts that may ensue. Childbirth and dying are also examples
of natural processes for which over-medicalisation should be resisted ,but
to deny symptom relief is plain callous.
One is bound to feel humble as a well person attending a hospital where
the majority of attenders are experiencing potentially life-threatening
disease. Not only does the openness of Dr Powles and his colleagues inspire
confidence, but I have been struck that the ethos of the Royal Marsden incorporates
a frank, friendly and informative manner in all transactions. Staff treat
individuals as equals, to be respected. Would that these values could be
transmitted through the health services as readily as the outcome of clinical
researches!
Lynette Domoney Southampton
Letters: Only one Eve
The article ‘The case against Eve’ in the issue of 22 June leans towards
the view that modern humans evolved in several places simultaneously. I
have difficulty on theoretical grounds in understanding how this could have
happened.
Reproductive isolation creates the conditions in which speciation can
take place by the divergence of isolated populations from the parent species.
How, then, could isolated populations of Homo erectus simultaneously evolve
in parallel without diverging, producing widely scattered populations which
fulfil the criteria that define membership of a single species? The theory
that modern humans evolved in Africa from a single population of Homo erectus
and spread out from there accords better with current evolutionary theory,
regardless of whether their radiation involved conquest or mixing with the
locals. If reproductive isolation leads to speciation in butterflies and
brachiopods, why should humans be any different?
David D. Scarboro Reading, Berkshire