Letters: Messy maths
I am an A-level maths student, and I could only nod my head and sigh
in despair when I read William Bown’s ‘This is the way the maths will end’
(Forum 14 September).
I used to absolutely loathe maths; partly because I am a naturally messy,
careless person who lost many marks on ‘missed out minus signs’ and ‘bad
presentation’, and partly because of the blinkered, automatic methods we
were indoctrinated to execute. I much preferred the arts (although again,
messiness lost me many marks, whilst substance gained me little credit).
I believed and believe that humans are not error-free robots. We are
naturally curious and creative organisms, sometimes disregarding laborious
tasks, such as addition, which bores the creative mind, in search of flair,
originality, and higher things. The mental realisation of a method is so
much more important than the tedious processes of carrying the method through
‘to get the right answer’. Any old machine can or will be able to do that.
Anyway, fate assured me of a scientific higher education, and only now
is my full consciousness being stimulated, as my secondary education draws
to a close.
Daniel Somers Surbiton, Surrey
Letters: Faraday failure
The bicentenary of Michael Faraday’s birth, which fell on 22 September,
was a lost opportunity.
The life and work of this major scientist has not been adequately set
before the public. This failure stems in part from the lack of debate among
the parties involved. The various institutions organised their own events
with little coordination or clear overview. Many were wasted opportunities
which should have been used to engage a public that is usually uninterested
in science and scientists.
None of the professional groups appears to have addressed the issue
of how their interests might best have been served by this bicentenary.
As a result the commemorative meetings were largely self-congratulatory
and inward-looking.
The major public event – the service at Westminster Abbey – was simply
irrelevant. It was a disrespectful way of celebrating Faraday (who, as an
unswerving dissenter, refused to attend any Anglican worship). Moreover,
it conveyed the impression that the scientific community is more concerned
with its standing among the English establishment than with communication
to the wider public.
It would have been fitting to commemorate Faraday’s life and work by
some more durable and meaningful memorial than conferences, exhibitions
and an Abbey service. Education should have been the main beneficiary. The
National Portrait Gallery’s children’s pack is exemplary, but there should
have been a dozen other such educational ventures. Also, young researchers
of promise could have benefited from ‘Faraday scholarships’ founded on a
scale befitting the scope of Faraday’s achievements. Faraday was, after
all, a man whose life shows us how important it is to nurture talent.
Geoffrey Cantor, University of Leeds, and Dr David Gooding, University
of Bath
Letters: Last word on GREP
Sorry guys (Letters, 21 September and 5 October). GREP stands for Global
Regular Expression Print, and CAT is short for concatenate.
D Rothwell Swindon, Wiltshire
Letters: Last word on GREP
The mail command, BIFF, was not the name of Thompson’s mailman’s dog.
The BIFF command software was written by a postgraduate student at the University
of California, Berkeley, in the mid-1980s and is named after her dog. I
know this is true because I was there.
Malcolm Solomon Palo Alto, California, US
Letters: Dining on soap
My sympathies go to A. Gotzsche (Letters, 5 October) since we suffered
a similar devastating invasion of mice a while ago.
I was very interested to see that he has followed the dietary wisdom
of the mice in rejecting white sugar. I wonder if he would like to learn
from our mice, too, and enjoy a bar of soap?
B E Mounter Sleaford Lincolnshire
Letters: Squaring the circle
Ian Dunbar (Letters, 28 September) says we cannot, by an act of will,
make the value of pi other than what it is.
Some years ago I was told about the legislature in one of the more backward
American states at the turn of the century. They decided that life would
be a lot simpler if pi were exactly three, and passed a law to that effect.
Unfortunately I cannot now find any documentation to support the story:
can your readers help?
Peter Burrows Epping, Essex
Letters: Saddle soreness
You recently drew attention to the problem of saddle soreness in cyclists
(This Week, 21 September and Letters, 12 October). Contrary to the impression
given, the problem is widely recognised, and has been openly discussed for
as long as bicycles have been in use. In a letter to The Lancet (May 16,
1896) Mr Arthur Roper described some of the symptoms as follows:
‘There was usually a slight difficulty in passing urine and a difficulty
in getting rid of the last few drops, so that if one was unhappily hurried
or disturbed in the final stage of this somewhat commonplace operation a
familiar and uncomfortable trickle down the left thigh marked that one was
in more or less senile condition.’
The problem, excessive pressure on the perineum caused by the saddle,
was well recognised: the Patent Office was handling fifty applications yearly
for new designs of saddles. Many of these were designed to relieve the pressure
on the perineum and consisted of two independently sprung pads to support
the buttocks. Mr Roper had obviously devoted a great deal of thought to
the problem, and had a saddle made to his own design. Presumably these modifications
were ineffective as they have not survived and saddles have changed little
since the bicycle was invented.
Ron Maughan University of Aberdeen, Scotland
Letters: African energy
I would like to compliment Kate de Selincourt for her article ‘South
Africa takes the apartheid out of power’ (7 September).
The comparison of energy per unit of Gross Domestic Production in the
article is correct, showing that South Africa uses 2.5 times as much energy
as Britain. However, this is typical of the developing countries, where
reliance is placed on primary economic production and where the manufacturing
sector has not been developed. This can be seen in the energy per Gross
Domestic Product for other African countries. For instance in comparison
with Britain, Zimbabwe uses 4.1 times as much energy per Gross Domestic
Product, Malawi uses 7.3 times as much, and Mozambique uses 20 times as
much.
The most serious energy problem in South Africa, and in most of the
other African countries, is the shortage of energy at the lowest income
level of the population. In parts of Africa, women spend up to ten hours
per week foraging for a diminishing wood supply. The provision of electricity
to these areas is one solution but not always the most desirable in terms
of the allocation of scarce funding for the social advance of that sector
of the population which has been most disadvantaged by the policy of apartheid.
Funding is also required for schools, hospitals, and other social services.
R K Dutkiewicz University of Cape Town South Africa
Letters: Science and fun
Paul Wymer (Forum, 5 October) is right to question the role of ‘interactive
science’ for promoting public understanding of science and education in
general – though he does sound rather jaundiced. What switches people on
and helps them to learn and think creatively are fundamental questions that
interactive science helps to answer. It is now perfectly clear that hands-on
experience attracts and stimulates many people of all ages. This is a great
discovery, that supports the belief that science centres do educate. Direct
evidence of this, however, is hard to establish because the aim is deeper
than teaching answers to quizzes. The aim is rather to instil curiosity,
with sufficient basic principles to inspire learning for its own sake. This
would indeed make science central to our culture.
The next important step is systematic research to discover what is and
what isn’t learned, and feed the findings into the design of science centres
and schools.
Richard Gregory The Exploratory, Bristol.
Letters: Science and fun
During the summer my wife and I took two nieces, aged 6 and 7, to the
Launch Pad at the Science Museum. Some of my time was spent in observing
the reactions of children to the exhibits. Active participation was clearly
more to their liking than the passive observation and reading required in
other parts of the museum. But I share the doubts expressed by Paul Wymer
that little scientific understanding seemed to be occurring.
It is possible that having fun in a museum will lead the youngsters
into a interest in science which will blossom later. That would be ample
justification for the Launch Pad. But does it happen that way? My own preference
would be for retaining the fun element but not at the expense of understanding
some of the scientific ideas involved. This would require a different mode
of operation, and perhaps more staff, but a few experimental runs would
show whether it was effective.
Colin Cooke St Albans, Hertfordshire
Letters: Science and fun
My two children have been going to the Exploratory in Bristol and learning
‘hard’ science, both on their own and with parental help, from the age of
four. They demonstrate their understanding daily. My seven year old daughter
wants to live in Bristol so that she can visit more often. It is hard to
think of a better way of getting children, especially girls, interested
in science.
Incidentally, the Exploratory also provided us with the equipment to
settle a violent family argument about the length and mass of pendulums
– or who should go faster on the swings, my son or I.
Susan Howard Newport, Gwent, Wales
Letters: Real terms
In his Thistle Diary (28 September), Tam Dalyell quotes Arnold Wolfendale,
the Astronomer Royal, and the related comments by the education secretary,
Kenneth Clarke, on the worth of funds for science.
Tam Dalyell calls this a desperately important debate, and so it is,
but it is also a dialogue of the deaf. Kenneth Clarke’s point is that the
science budget has risen by 23 per cent in real terms over the past 11 years
or so. It may be assumed that ‘real terms’ means that the Budget pounds
were adjusted according to British inflation, which is measured by the changes
in the General Retail Prices Index, RPI for short.
RPI measures the change in the cost of a fixed basket of goods and services.
The five groups of items filling this basket are: food, housing, travel
and leisure, personal expenditure and alcohol and tobacco. That’s the lot.
No liquid air, no NMR equipment, not even the teeniest cyclotron.
Arnold Wolfendale is quoted as having said that one can argue about
the index of inflation to use for scientific research and that ‘undoubtedly’
it was 1 to 2 per cent greater than the standard Treasury value. If only
we knew the true figure. In order to obtain a number which would make a
direct comparison in Kenneth Clarke’s terms possible, let us assume that
the inflation of science research costs is actually 2 per cent above the
British RPI. Over 11 years (and using compound interest) this gives us 24.3
per cent for the increase in real terms required. As Mr Micawber said long
ago, even 1.3 per cent in the red spells trouble. (23 – 24.3 = -1.3).
P. G. Sussman Penally, Dyfed, Wales