Letter: Batting chance
It’s certainly not curtains for Bechstein’s bat (This Week, 25 December).
The conservation needs of all 14 British bat species are detailed in the
Action Plan for the Conservation of Bats in the United Kingdom, published
by the Bat Conservation Trust. Although Bechstein’s bat was once common,
it is now so rare that it offers limited opportunities for its conservation
requirements to be identified. But English Nature is attempting to do just
that, by enticing it into bat boxes. Nobody is writing it off!
P. A. Racey London
Letter: Sole survivor
While reading your 8 January issue, in a post-Hogmanay daze, I was intrigued
to see an illustration of a moulded rubber soul (Technology). This struck
me as a very useful invention, and I immediately decided to buy a few gross
with the intention of distributing them, free of charge, to the occupants
of the Houses of Parliament. When I read the text, however, I was disappointed
to discover that the article was about footwear and I can only assume that
one of the members of your staff is an unreconstructed Beatles fan.
John Hislop Aberdeen
Letter: Meant to miss
I read with interest Peter Pesavento’s article ‘Two weeks that killed
the Soviet dream’ (18 December). Sadly one Russian claim in the article
– although basically repeated widely – does not stand up to analysis.
Once the L-1 circumlunar programme was acknowledged, Russian literature
has repeatedly claimed that Zond 4 was intended to fly around the Moon.
Pesavento repeats this claim, with a Russian source now claiming that the
reason Zond 4 went away from the Moon was because of a malfunction in the
attitude control system.
I hope to demonstrate once and for all that this claim is totally untrue.
The launch profile for Zond/L-1 missions called for the Proton booster’s
Block D fourth stage to shed its two ullage motors as the rocket stage/spacecraft
combination approached the equator northbound for the first time, about
an hour after launch. Over the equator the Block D would ignite for a second
time to place the Zond on its planned deep space trajectory and then separate.
Because the trajectory of Zond towards the Moon was relatively fixed and
the launch profile was also fixed, this means that the launch time was governed
by the position of the Moon relative to the launch site.
Looking at the known circumlunar Zond missions and also the Russian
unmanned Luna series shows that for a launch towards the Moon the lunar
Greenwich Hour Angle (GHA) is about 240degrees (there is a range of plus
minus 20degrees due to a variation in trajectories used, but the argument
still holds). When Zond 4 was launched, the lunar GHA was nearly 60degrees
and this clearly demonstrates that the launch time was carefully selected
for a flight away from the Moon. Any problems with the spacecraft itself
after launch are totally irrelevant to this argument – unless one wants
to claim that the spacecraft was accidentally launched either 11 hours early
or 11 hours late.
Phillip Clark Heston, Middlesex
Letter: Cubic ice
The article ‘All about Ice’ (18 December) mentions the crystalline
structures of ordinary hexagonal ice and refers to Kepler’s understanding
‘that the most efficient way to pack spheres is in a hexagonal array’.
There is a closely related cubic arrangement which is, geometrically, just
as efficient. The arrangement of the oxygen atoms for hexagonal ice is,
however, not based on close packing of equal spheres; the structure of hexagonal
ice is considerably more open than that of hexagonal close packing.
Mention is also made of ‘a form of ice with a different crystal structure
altogether’. This is associated with an ice structure in which the oxygen
atoms are arranged in a diamond cubic form; ice with this arrangement is,
in fact, cubic and is, structurally, closely related to ordinary hexagonal
ice. The geometry of both ice crystal forms can be regarded as suitably
arranged, similar hexagonal layers of oxygen atoms.
Strong evidence for the cubic form of ice was produced in Germany more
than fifty years ago. The cubic form was confirmed both here and in Japan
in 1956. It was produced by condensing water vapour on to a cold (-120 掳C)
surface, the cubic arrangement determined by electron diffraction. Since
then a great deal of work has been done on various aspects of cubic ice.
N. D. Lisgarten Imperial College, London
Letter: Betting on bettongs
I congratulate John Wamsley and Earth Sanctuaries for promoting the
conservation of threatened Australian mammals through private enterprise
(This Week, 4 December) and I support their efforts, but it is unfortunate
that your writer has repeated some of Earth Sanctuaries’ claims without
checking them.
The brush-tailed bettongs (which are not the rarest of Australia’s kangaroos)
and numbats, both reintroduced to Earth Sanctuaries’ properties, originated
from Western Australian (WA) populations which are thriving because of research
carried out by the WA Department of Conservation and Land management (CALM).
Fencing is but one method of controlling foxes – in the south west of WA
widescale fox control has been achieved through low-intensity baiting. This
has resulted in several species of threatened mammals returning to their
former abundance within baited areas. Fencing has its place in the introduced
animal control armoury, but will be too expensive (in both initial and maintenance
costs) to be used in the large areas that many mammal species require to
maintain viable populations. CALM will shortly commence a project to control
foxes over an area of 400 000 hectares; this is in addition to the tens
of thousands of hectares where fox control is already in place.
The claim that Australian governments are failing to protect wildlife
is far from the truth. Although more could be done, many threatened species
have been the subject of extensive research and are being managed via recovery
plans. The recovery plan for the brush-tailed bettong, for example, has
the achievable aim of removing this mammal from the list of endangered species
by the end of 1995.
Andrew Burbidge Department of Conservation and Land Management Wanneroo,
Western Australia
Letter: Shifting sands
I read Marek Zukowski’s letter about his grandfather (Letters, 13 November)
with great interest: at some date between 1946-1951 His Majesty’s Stationery
Office published a monograph on the application of electro-osmosis to the
running sand of a site chosen by the Todt Organisation for the construction
of U boat pens at Trondheim.
Unfortunately in my numerous office moves since I returned to civilian
practice, I have seemingly lost the monograph. Maybe other readers will
recall the affair.
Tom Harrison Chelwood, Bristol
Letter: Final flash
In response to the letter from Reginald Titt about his ‘bonfire bomb’
(Letters, 18 December): the active part of the reaction between air (oxygen)
and charcoal is the charcoal surface. Underlying carbon is brought up to
reactive temperature by surface heat dispersion. As grains get smaller,
the proportion of (burning) surface area to remaining bulk solid at the
appropriate ignition temperature increases to infinity. Therefore, the
last bit goes out with a flash of glory.
Ron Brown Tamworth, Staffordshire
Letter: Spoiled scientists
Because I so enjoyed his book, The Meaning of Quantum Theory, I was
the more disappointed at Jim Baggott’s dreary and pessimistic vision of
science in ‘Must we dance to the tune of others?’ (Forum, 18 December).
If ever a bunch of clever people talked themselves down, it has to be this
generation of academic scientists who have simply failed to think through
their predicament. Like spoiled children, they petulantly blame everyone
but themselves for failing to anticipate the ceiling which their costly
researches would encounter sooner or later.
Given the also increasing demands of health, welfare, education, Third
World, world population, you name it, the best that science can expect is
steady state financing, which is what it enjoys at present. The steady state
requires minuses as well as pluses, the abandoning of one research to make
way for another, that is, difficult choices which the scientific community
refuses to make, and then blames others who do it for them.
Britain’s expenditure on basic science has continued to increase, in
real terms, these last twenty years, but not of course at a rate to satisfy
everybody. Come on Jim, you and your colleagues are made of sterner stuff
than you suppose. The prospect of you and others just standing there and
wringing your hands in despair is unworthy of your calling. ‘The Last Man’
does not imply the Last 杏吧原创 but just more sensible and socially responsible
scientists.
Sir Graham Hills Beith, Ayrshire
Letter: Great games
Nigel Harvey (Letters, 11 December) might be interested to hear from
someone who not only attended a Science and Engineering Research Council
graduate school, but benefited greatly from it. I attended the course held
at Brunel in May 1992, at which point I was roughly half way through my
PhD at Warwick University, studying condensed matter physics. Up until this
course, my thoughts had not focused at all on career choices. I went on
the course primarily to get away for a week and to meet some non-physics
postgrads.
Harvey states that 拢6 million of the SERC’s money has been spent
sending 18 000 postgraduate students for management ‘games’. First, the
week was anything but ‘playtime’; twelve hours of intensive work per day
is more than I have spent on physics except recently, while writing my thesis.
Second, and more important, 拢350 per student is very little considering
that SERC pays a research studentship for the purpose of training people
in research, and you might expect to be shown at some point the various
ways in which that training can be applied. There are not enough jobs in
universities to support all PhD students after they finish, even if they
all wanted to stay in academia, which many do not. Finally, students are
not ‘randomly excluded’ from attending these courses; most simply do not
apply to go on one.
Harvey suspects that the money would be better spent on doing research
rather than on dubious management training. However, after a week at Brunel,
not only was I aware that there are interesting jobs other than in research,
but I had been shown where my own strengths and weaknesses lie, which has
subsequently led me to apply for, and be offered, a job with the Department
of the Environment.
My course at Brunel was probably the single most productive week of
my entire PhD, and I would advise any SERC student who wonders what else
they might do with their lives to go on one. But then I would, wouldn’t
I?
Patrick Mahon Prestwood, Buckinghamshire
Letter: Irrational atheism
So religion is not just a powerful mental aberration, but mankind’s
secret and most powerful survival weapon. Anthropologists have clearly misidentified
my species, we’re not H. sapiens but H. credens!
But we who would be wise can surely borrow survival skills from the
world’s more successful religions. Fanaticism and missionary zeal for a
start. Belief that the god of science will honour and reward those who
work in its cause. Someone (just like Moses or Joseph Smith) must discover
some reasonable commandments for us all to preach to others. We need a priesthood
(the Royal Society will do for now), some stirring songs, and a place where
the faithful can be whipped into a frenzy of reasonableness. Can anything
be developed, I wonder, out of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science?
John Worley Havant, Hampshire
Letter: Irrational atheism
I found Ridley’s article particularwly offensive in its assumption that
religion is perforce ‘irrational’. I regard my beliefs as highly rational;
they are just not scientific, any more than my rationally defensible view
that Dickens was a great author is scientific.
There is a conceit in the view that scientific methods and principles
can be applied willy-nilly to all human experience, from economy to music.
The idea that scientific theories can be imported – even metaphorically
– into the world of culture is simply and self-evidently fallacious.
Andrew Morton Lockerbie, Scotland
Letter: Irrational atheism
It seems analogies are out When Paley’s watch is up for grabs;
But Dawkins, Ridley and their ilk
Employ a pack of metaphors When Darwin’s dogs are used to hunt
The phantom they confuse with God.
It seems a virus of the mind Has made them blind. It’s very odd.
R. H. L. Disney University of Cambridge
Letter: Irrational atheism
Mark Ridley bases his article ‘Infected with science’ (25 December)
on the premise that religious belief is irrational.
He also claims that faith in God can increase peoples’ faith in their
own value, and hence give them the courage to continue when they might otherwise
have given up. If this is the case, then religious belief will on average
be advantageous to the person who holds it.
If so, then the rational course for any reasonably self-interested person
would be to attempt to acquire religious faith, not to reject it. So the
kind of determined atheism shown by Mark Ridley, Richard Dawkins and others,
must therefore be either irrational or evidence for a lack of self-interest
on their part – perhaps sufficient to call the entire theory of evolution
into doubt.
Linda Bailey Dromara, County Down, Northern Ireland