Letters: Birthday influence
Donald Gould was upset about people’s belief in astrology (Forum, 20
July), but did he mean the results or the explanations?
The latter may well be nonsense, but there are many good reasons why
the birth date will influence a person’s development. A child born in December
will all through school be half a year younger than the class average and
correspondingly weaker and more childish. The same holds in all age-graded
competitions from athletics to chess to military service, since they are
based on year of birth.
The birth date also influences the mother’s vitamin status during critical
parts of pregnancy as well as the age when a child can first play outdoors.
A quick check of famous athletes shows that they were mostly born early
in the year, at least in the northern hemisphere. How about down under?
Erik Sundstrom Sandviken, Sweden
Letters: Mind fields
Susan Blackmore’s answers to the question, ‘Is meditation good for you?’
(6 July), did not reflect the overwhelming majority of evidence from more
than 500 research and review papers written on transcendental meditation
in the past 21 years. These studies, which were authored by more than 360
researchers from over 200 universities and institutions in 24 countries,
have appeared in more than 100 different peer-reviewed scientific journals.
A simple explanation for the wide range of benefits demonstrated in
this research is that TM produces a unique state of restful alertness, during
which the intrinsic self-repair mechanisms of the body normalise the damage
caused by everyday stress and strain. As a result, physical and mental health
improve and adaptive efficiency increases.
Are higher states of consciousness possible? The main principle of developmental
biology is that experience stimulates gene expression. Laboratory animals
raised in enriched environments develop more complex and adaptive nervous
systems. Research indicates that experience of the physiologically unique
state of transcendental consciousness is an ‘enriching’ experience that
stimulates the further expression of psychological maturity and cognitive
abilities – including the increase in intelligence shown by more than a
dozen studies.
Finally, more than a dozen studies, published in peer-reviewed journals,
show that large groups of TM experts radiate a statistically measurable
influence of harmony and peace into the surrounding environment – as indicated
by decreased warfare, crime, traffic accidents, and increases in quality
of life indicators.
To understand this startling discovery, it is only necessary to postulate
that consciousness works like every other phenomenon in nature. Physicists
now understand the world in terms of underlying, unbounded, quantum fields.
What appear to be separate particles are really just excitations or waves
on these underlying fields. Moreover, quantum mechanical fields support
action at a distance – for example, radiating waves, like those from a television
broadcasting station, which produce effects far from their source. If consciousness
is in accord with the laws of physics, that would mean that it, too, is
a field, and that it can support radiating field effects.
In theory, TM allows the mind to experience an unbounded field of pure
consciousness that lies at the basis of nature. The projected results of
this experience, individual growth and social harmony, have been documented
in an extensive body of published research.
TM is its own reward. The motivation for spreading it is not money.
The prospect of a peaceful world and the blossoming of full human potential
is enough.
David Orme-Johnson and Robert Oates, Jr. The Maharishi International
University Iowa, US
Letters: Biggest telescope
According to ‘Feedback’ (29 June), the 60′ Mount Wilson telescope was,
in its day, the world’s largest. However, later in the same issue, reviewer
Marcus Chown takes an author to task for making the same claim.
As a connoisseur of items of useless information, I like to get my facts
right. Can you help?
Rory Allen London
Marcus Chown writes: The 72′ telescope built by William Parsons in Ireland
in 1845 was the world’s largest until the construction of the 100′ telescope
on Mount Wilson in 1919. However, the earlier 60′ telescope at Mount Wilson
was a modern one using 20th-century technology and was in a different league
to the 72′. Perhaps this is where the confusion arises: the 60′ was the
largest effective telescope in the world.
Letters: Ripley revealed
‘Who or what Ripley was I do not know’ (Ariadne, 27 July). He was Robert
Leroy Ripley, born in California in 1893. He went to New York in 1910 to
work as a sports cartoonist. But his fame rests on the ‘Believe it or not!’
series (vividly described by Ariadne), which he began writing and illustrating
in 1918 and which was syndicated in newspapers worldwide. That title earned
Ripley a place in all the dictionaries of quotations. He died in 1949.
Robert Allen Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
Letters: Planet from hell
As we now appear to have a new planet attracting a lot of interest (Science,
27 July), the International Astronomical Union should speedily move to approve
whatever its discoverers decide to call it. ‘Planet X’ and ‘the first planet
outside the solar system’ can become a tiresome title during the years it
will take for the IAU to make a decision.
May I suggest the following, which are all deities of the netherworld
for which Pluto and Charon, the last two planetoids discovered, were named:
Hades, Dis (or Dis pater), Rhadamanthus, Erebus, Orcus, Cerberus, Minos,
Osiris, Persephone, Prosepine, Proserpina, Persephassa, Despoina, Kore (or
Cora), Hei, Loki and Satan.
Considering the description of what conditions are like on the surface
of the new planet, with temperatures above melting and the surface under
constant gamma-ray bombardment, I cannot think of a more apt candidate for
the title of Hades.
Wilson da Silva Sydney, Australia
Letters: Tomato tile
I would like to remove the ‘je ne sais quoi’ from your journalism. There
are several errors in your article on the Community Bureau of Reference
(BCR) programme (This Week, 17 August).
The tomato paste reference tile was asked for by the food industry for
reasons outlined in your article and was not ‘dreamed up’ by the BCR. This
was not for purely cosmetic reasons: tomato paste colour is an important
quality criterion.
The tile is not being distributed to manufacturers, it is being sold
on request, as are all reference materials produced under the BCR programme.
Colour reference tiles have been used for measurement of tomato paste
colour for many years, mostly produced in the US and conforming to US standards.
These are no longer available and it was felt that for several reasons concerned
with accurate measurement a uniformly coloured tile was required for Europe,
not as suggested, a series of different shades of red.
M. Kent Skene Aberdeenshire
Letters: Bacteria balls
Following my letter to New 杏吧原创 (Letters, 2 June 1983) on the transmission
of bacteria within a cricket team by the current habit of transferring saliva
and sweat to the ball in a vain attempt to affect the shine and hence the
swing, I was interested to observe the epidemiology of the ‘virus’ which
is currently running through the English team and the lack of any attempt
to minimise its spread.
I refer, of course, to the indisposition of first Ian Botham and then
Phillip De Freitas in the last test at the Oval. Both these players appeared
on the field shortly after being unfit and I suspect they were still carrying
the ‘virus’ which had made them ill. I can only conclude that the England
management do not read New 杏吧原创.
Roy Fuller Reading, Berks
Letters: Boiler efficiency
Debora MacKenzie’s article ‘Energy Standards worry Boilermakers’ (This
Week, 17 August), is somewhat misleading.
Britain is not opposing the proposal to set standards of energy efficiency
for hot water boilers. We support the objective of the draft directive,
but we want minimum energy efficiency standards which are cost-effective
as well as challenging.
As the article says, 60 per cent of boilers now sold would not meet
the standard. But the majority would fail by less than 3 per cent; whereas
the margin of error in the measurement process is + 2 per cent. Of those
that fall further below, most are small back boilers using less than 50
gigajoules (500 therms) a year. To replace these with boilers conforming
to the present draft directive would be very disruptive, even at normal
renewal times, and would cost at least 拢300, and often 拢1,000
or more extra for each household, to achieve energy savings of about 拢10
a year. That is not energy efficiency, but energy conservation at any price:
just the image which energy efficiency must avoid if we are to maximise
its uptake.
Furthermore, the proposals overlook the space heating value of heat
from the boiler casing, which often obviates the need for a radiator in
that room. Overall, the period when casing heat is not useful for space
heating is less than 10 per cent of boiler operating time. (Continental
boilers have insulated casings because they are generally installed, not
in the living space but in a cellar or outhouse.)
We are seeking amendments to the directive to allow different efficiency
requirements for small back boilers, due credit for useful heat emitted
from casings and proper treatment of tolerances to avoid the risk of large
numbers of boilers failing on a technicality.
David Heathcoat-Amory MP Department of Energy London
Letters: Stomping potatoes
The item ‘Stomping foot’ stalks the Urals’ (This Week, 17 August) reminds
me of neurology lectures in my medicine study before the war about potato
picker’s disease, caused by people picking potatoes the whole day long on
their knees.
It was a consequence of pressure on the peroneal nerve. The people were
pressing their knees into the loose ground after taking out the potatoes.
Because their feet were in constant inward rotation the head of the fibula
and the peroneal nerve immediately behind it were under constant pressure
the whole long working day. Chemical scares were not prevalent at the time
to prevent insight into this simple explanation.
There were few admissions to hospital. After the person stopped crawling
on his or her knees the disease soon cured itself. Nowadays potato picking
is done by machine. The disease has vanished in this country.
H. J. Oterdoom Groningen, Netherlands
Letters: Maths on the brain
Mathematics has always consisted of two essential and complementary
parts. Firstly, the essential logic, and secondly, the informal verbalised
explanation. So what has changed? – except that now William Bown (‘New-wave
mathematics’, 3 August) says the computer screen can provide the explanation
in visual form and replace part or all of the verbal communication.
What is necessary is a much more radical change of paradigm; the recognition
that mathematics is a very late evolutionary development and is entirely
the product of the physical processes taking place in human brains. That
is to say, physics circumscribes mathematics and not vice versa. When engaged
in mathematics the human brain is simply a device that produces (if the
mathematician is lucky) well-formed formulae. What is needed is a view which
addresses the questions a) why is it that human brains are the only mechanisms
among brains generally to have this mathematical ability, and b) how can
it be the case, if mathematics is so significant to physical laws as it
appears it is, that it is only now at this late stage of evolution that
mathematics itself has become manifest as a phenomenon.
Peter Marcer The Society of Information Systems Engineering Keynsham
Letters: Family mystery?
Kevin Davies is right to stress the significance of molecular genetic
research in understanding MND (‘The mystery of motor neuron disease’, 17
August). However, the fact remains that this needs to be supported by more
sophisticated epidemiological studies. The small proportion (around 10 per
cent) of cases assumed to be familial may in fact be far higher. Some studies
have indicated that the familial rate is as high as 20 per cent. This is
due to a number of factors, including the probable underestimation of the
disease in long deceased family members.
More importantly, recent work on mortality statistics by Riggs in the
US and our current work in Britain suggests that environmental factors may
play a far smaller part in the aetiology of the condition than has been
previously thought. Age-adjusted rates for MND have been relatively stable
for more than 30 years. Davies fails to mention that the many attempts to
replicate studies of environmental toxins have proved either inconclusive
or negative. It seems likely from our investigations that a genetic or pre-disposing
factor restricts MND to a small sub-population, which may be related to
a larger sub-population of unaffected carriers. However, without an improvement
in national and international data on the mortality, prevalence and incidence
of the condition, laboratory based studies may do little to solve the ‘mystery’.
Stuart Neilson The National Register of People with MND, Brunel University,
London
Letters: Chaos in the corn
You state as a fact that the Mandelbrot set corn circle discovered from
the air on Monday 12 August (In Brief, 24 August) was created by hoaxers.
You provide no evidence for this assertion. Your assumption is that it must
have been a hoax because any alternative explanation presupposes an intelligence.
Since that is impossible, ergo it’s a hoax.
But consider the hoax hypothesis less frivolously: the circle must be
created at night, without detection (for example, by police vehicle patrols
from two counties bordering the Mandelbrot field). A crop of Hornet winter
wheat at Zadok’s growth stage 91 (brittle straw), within a few days of harvesting,
must be precisely layered, without damaging the tens of thousands of fragile
stems by trampling or machine-rolling, and without shedding more than a
negligible proportion of ripe seed heads. No sign of crushing must be left
in the access lanes (the tramlines left by tractor wheels). There must be
no damage to the soil or mark left at the nine pivotal points of the associated
circles.
What secret method can have been employed to produce ten circles, the
smallest of them barely discernible but perfect in symmetry and free from
damage, when practical experience (in broad daylight) on my own farm, with
rollers, brooms, feet and hands have all produced results that any experienced
circle watcher could readily recognise as man-made?
That sceptical but knowledge-able crop circle expert, Paul Fuller, has
issued (The Crop Watcher, April 1991) a long series of questions which must
first be answered by the hoax hypothesisers to explain features found in
some or most of the 1700 plus formations studied over the past ten years.
Arising from these are the almost total absence of ‘serious’ claimants,
detections, specific allegations or prosecutions, or of any signs of damage
or mistakes which even the best trained cadres of hoaxers must occasionally
experience when creating elaborate nocturnal pictograms of diverse and delicate
geometric patterns.
Montague Keen Sudbury, Suffolk