Letters: Automated athletes
I was interested to read that somebody has applied for a patent to ‘bar
code’ athletes in order to automate the results of athletic events (Patents,
27 July).
I write as project organiser of the Nottingham Microcomputer Club Marathon
Results Service. We have been assisting the Half Marathon Committee of the
Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service over the last eight years to produce
the results of their event.
In 1985, 1986 and 1987 we used bar codes which were printed as a tear-off
portion of the Half Marathon Competitors Number. We do not at the moment
use the system but we wish to reserve the right to do so in the future.
As our system has been on view for a number of years and in the public
eye I wonder whether anybody else may obtain a patent for a system which
appears to be very similar.
Mike Johnson Beeston, Nottingham
Letters: Greenhouse fixes
Mirrors built on the Earth’s surface would reflect light away before
it is absorbed and transformed into heat. Mirrors built on deserts could
cool the deserts, perhaps leading to increased rainfall. Cities at present
are warmer than their surroundings: adding mirrors to houses and skyscrapers
with flat roofs would counteract this. Anyone with a flat roof can do their
bit to reduce the greenhouse effect.
Robert Walker University of Oxford
Letters: Greenhouse fixes
I believe that global warming can be reversed by placing a thin mylar
sheet in space tinted to cut out part of the solar spectrum between Sun
and Earth.
Thornton Page Houston Texas, US
Letters: Greenhouse fixes
New 杏吧原创 reports (This Week, 24 August) that recent volcanic activity
may reduce mean global temperature by 0.5 掳C for the next two to four
years. Vernon Kousky is quoted to have said, ‘I expect we’ll soon be hearing
someone saying ‘let’s light up a few volcanoes to stop global warming’.’
He is a bit late. My letter in New 杏吧原创 on 25 May 1990 said: ‘Erupting
volcanoes are known to blow reflective compounds into the upper atmosphere
with resulting immediate global cooling which lasts for years. If global
warming were detected then similar shielding could be artificially generated
while causes of the warming were corrected.’ Several workers at UMIST have
published investigations of methods to utilise the effect suggested in my
letter.
John Latham reports (Nature, 27 September 1990) that bursting bubbles
in oceans would generate atmospheric salt-water droplets which would behave
as a ‘synthetic volcano’. He calculates that the required amount of salt
release is ‘modest’. Richard Courtney Cheltenham Gloucestershire
Letters: A-level 'failure'
I would like to add to the recent Talking Point discussion, ‘Time for
a new approach to A levels’ (31 August).
My A-level results were disappointing – a fail in maths, E in physics
and just one good B grade in geology. Fortunately though, I persisted and
after a year of geology at Hull University I was accepted by Liverpool University
to study my original choice of geophysics. I now have a respectable second
class degree from a department of international standing.
For my twin sister, A levels were a good judge of her ability and after
gaining grades of A, B and C in the three sciences, she went on to a PhD.
She would be the first to admit, however, that I am as well qualified in
my field as she is in hers, and there is no shortage of work in the oil
industry for me, despite the recession. If I had taken heed of the A-level
examiners I would probably have steered away from science altogether. As
it is I listened to my own intuition and feel I am better off for it.
Gillian Allinson Manchester
Letters: Reinventing wheels
I have just come across the feature article on ‘buckyballs’ (‘Great
balls of carbon’, 6 July).
I find in the account a striking example of the isolating effects of
specialisation in science. How can a team of chemists not know some of the
fundamental facts of solid geometry; facts like, you can’t make a sphere
out of hexagons because three of their 120 degrees angles fit together exactly
on a plane surface; facts like the number of vertices in a pseudo-icosahedron?
I ask myself how much research time is being occupied by scientists
specialised in one discipline painstakingly ‘rediscovering’ basic knowledge
in another branch of science. The easiest thing would surely have been to
call on someone who knew about polyhedra; they call it interdisciplinary
collaboration.
Stephen Bell Petone, New Zealand
Letters: Poisonous pots
Marty McFarlane describes the high levels of aluminium found in Malawi’s
ground water as ‘potentially dangerous’ (‘Aluminium menace in tropical wells’,
3 August).
Of greater concern may be the widespread use of aluminium (alloy) cooking
pots in Africa. To what extent do these contribute to the aluminium diets
of many communities, particularly their poorer members who usually end up
‘scraping the bowl’?
Benedict Tucker Nairobi, Kenya
Letters: Logical fallacies
The letter from David Orme-Johnson and Robert Oates Jnr (Letters, 7
September) appears to demonstrate that Transcendental Meditation enables
one to cram more logical fallacies into a smaller space than would otherwise
be possible.
For instance: Enriched environments favour development of more complex
nervous systems. TM is associated with an increase in intelligence (whatever
that is). Therefore, TM is an enriching experience.
And: Consciousness is a natural phenomenon. Quantum mechanics is also
a natural phenomenon and suggests action at a distance is possible. Therefore,
consciousness can support action at a distance.
No doubt transcendental meditators believe that all white birds are
swans as well.
Stephen Bamber Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
Letters: Greenhouse fixes
White plastic sheeting laid on the Arctic and Antarctic seas would extend
the icecaps, reflecting more heat back out of the atmosphere and cooling
the globe.
Paul James London
Letters: Optical mites
Sometimes, on looking through the viewfinder of my camera, I see a mite
wandering across the field of view. I first noticed this some six years
ago and every now and then I see a mite corpse, all shrivelled, stuck to
the internal optics of the viewfinder. I suppose several generations of
mite have now enjoyed the comparatively unexciting confines of the insides
of my camera during these past years. Images of these inhabitants never
appear on my photographs as they only inhabit the viewfinding part of the
camera.
I am puzzled by certain aspects of this habitation. What are the creatures
living on and how can they survive in such a barren environment? Could there
possibly be male and female mites keeping the population going for such
a long time?
Philip Mann Newbury Berkshire
Letters: Reinventing wheels
In response to R. R. Hamilton (Letters, 24 August), Bucky defined ‘geodesic’
in the following manner: ‘Of or pertaining to great circles of a sphere,
or of arcs of such circles; as a geodesic line, hence a line which is a
great circle or arc thereof; and as a geodesic pattern, hence a pattern
created by the intersections of great circle lines or arcs, or their chords.’
The carbon molecule C60 with 60 vertices as well as R. R. Hamilton’s
geodesic dome with 92 vertices are both variations of Bucky’s geodesic geometry
based on subdividing the surface of a sphere. The existence of a geodesic
dome with 92 vertices does not thus make naming the C60 molecule
‘buckminsterfullerene’ a misnomer.
Shoji Sadao New York, US
Letters: Vital air power
I agree with Mary Kaldor (Talking Point, 10 August) that the interplay
between military and civil technology R&D raises a number of issues
which deserve public debate. However, she misses the point when she discusses
the use of air power in the Falklands and Gulf wars.
During the Falklands War there was never any question of drawing a conclusion
‘that aircraft carriers are obsolete’. They were the only means of deploying
the air power which made such a significant contribution to the destruction
of the Argentine Air Force and winning the war in 45 days.
Similarly in the Gulf War, the extensive US bombing effort achieved
a considerable softening up of Iraqi troops which in turn led to their swift
capitulation after only 100 hours of land fighting and a very low level
of allied land forces casualties. Clearly there comes a time when the effect
of aerial bombardment has a diminishing rate of return, but those troops
that were on the ground have no such qualms as Mary Kaldor’s in knowing
how important this campaign was.
Francis Milner Captain RN (Rtd), HMS Invincible Glastonbury, Somerset
Letters: Serbs and Scots
In a recent article (Forum, 31 August) Raymond Harrowell referred to
Nikola Tesla as a ‘Croatian electrical engineer’. In fact, Tesla was a Serb,
the son of a Serbian Orthodox priest. He was born in 1856 in the village
of Smiljan in Lika, which is one of the regions of Croatia currently being
contested by the indigenous Serbian population. To call him a Croat would
be much like calling an Englishman a Scot.
Miroslav Radojevic University of Leeds
Letters: Paper dams
Not all Greens are against hydro-electric plants (Letters, 31 August):
most Greens in this area, including myself, are very much in favour. But
they need to be carefully designed, to prevent environmental damage. The
North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board was acutely aware of this – the reports
on the public inquiries that preceded the building of some of its schemes
ran to thousands of pages. Building was stopped in the early 1960s for reasons
that have also generated thousands of pages of print.
Hydro plants can be well worthwhile in the long term, but they bring
no quick profits. It is impossible to imagine a privately owned company
going through the trauma of one of those marathon inquiries for the sake
of profits in the distant future – which means that the privatisation of
Scottish Hydro has, for the time being, removed any hope of building being
restarted here.
P. W. Agnew Scottish Green Party Aberfeldy, Tayside
Letters: Loaded wires
Barry Fox in his report on colour videophones (Technology, 31 August),
mentions that ISDN will ‘not work on domestic telephone lines, because the
stream of 64 000 pulses (bits) a second cannot travel far down twisted pairs
of wires’.
In fact, ISDN allows two 64k bits-per-second channels and a 16k bps
channel to travel down a twisted pair of wires, to subscribers within 5
kilometres of the exchange. This is known as the U-interface for basic-rate
ISDN. The more capacious primary-rate ISDN provides 30 64k bps channels
and does require either fibre-optic or coaxial lines.
Michael Croot University of Otago Dunedin, New Zealand
Letters: GREP for meaning
While New 杏吧原创 has admirably carried several articles on the computing
world in recent issues, these articles have all been oriented toward the
IBM PC. Since the introduction of the new ‘cheap’ Macs, the Mac has become
much more popular, and is used in many scientific institutions. Some coverage
of the Macintosh, as well as PC systems, is easily justified.
Robert Ryans County Armagh Northern Ireland
Letters: GREP for meaning
Ariadne’s anecdote (24 August) about the electronic bulletin board with
a conversation about such things as ‘GREP’ and ‘AWK’, actually highlights
a significant problem.
GREP and AWK are commands in the Unix operating system, which has now
essentially taken over as the only operating system for computer workstations
and supercomputers. Unix was written in the early 1970s by Ken Thompson
at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, who needed an operating system to run
a ‘Space Travel’ game. Just for fun, Thompson decided not to make the commands
‘intuitive’. Thus, ‘type’ became CAT, ‘help’ became MAN, ‘search’ became
GREP, and so on. The Unix mail command BIFF was actually named after the
mailman’s dog.
There is good reason for the current ascendancy of Unix – it is written
in a high-level language, which makes it portable, and so cuts down on development
costs for new computers. On the other hand, there is no reason why a portable
system which uses ‘intuitive’ commands like TYPE or SEARCH, could not be
developed. The need to learn and use words like GREP scares away a significant
number of users who otherwise could become computer-literate.
It seems odd that in 1991 we are still suffering the consequences of
Thompson’s little joke back in 1970.
David Brenner Columbia University New York, US
Letters: Hungarian mish-mash
In ‘Budget Blues in Budapest’ (4 August 1990), Vera Rich outlined the
harsh and depressing financial restrictions faced by scientists in Hungary.
After visiting the country twice, I can only say that the situation facing
environmentalists and conservation organisations is at least as bad.
Hungarian environmentalists deserve support, as they have an innovative
approach to grassroots conservation which many Western organisations could
learn from. One project hopes to set up monitoring groups along the Danube
which will note changes in the river’s water quality and identify sources
of pollution. Local people will be encouraged to take part.
Although the programme could complement the government’s woefully inadequate
pollution monitoring programme, there is very little hope of any support
from this quarter. On the behalf of my Hungarian colleagues, I would be
grateful if the readers of New 杏吧原创 could donate any items of equipment
relevant to water sampling/pollution testing work to: Szilagy, Laszio Goncol
Association, Vac, 2600 Pf 184, Hungary. Even ‘old-fashioned’, redundant
items would be welcomed.
Les Wallace Forth Valley Friends of the Earth Falkirk, Scotland
Letters: Pledge in place
Judging by the number of phone calls to us, it seems that all ‘green’
people in Denmark are among your subscribers.
The reason for the calls was the story that Denmark has switched to
the ‘pledge and review’ proposal and abandoned our commitment to reduce
carbon dioxide emission by 20 per cent before 2005 to return to the 1988
level – and, further, that the move weakens attempts to establish a common
position for European Community countries (In Brief, 10 August). Nothing
could be more wrong.
First, the target on the emission of carbon dioxide is included in the
Danish plan ‘Energy 2000’, which was approved by the Danish Parliament in
April 1990 and has not been changed.
Secondly, the ministers of energy and environment of the European Community
agreed at a meeting on 29 October 1990 that the Community as a whole should
stabilise its emission of carbon dioxide in the year 2000 at the 1990 level.
Neither has that commitment been changed.
Thirdly, the ‘pledge and review’ proposal is meant as a supplement to
the commitments and should not replace them.
Stig Moller Minister for the Environment Copenhagen, Denmark