Letters: Praise for Thatcher
While I am honoured to be the subject of Feedback (15 January), I think
it is only fair to your readers to point out that the debate in the London
Review of Books was not about Margaret Thatcher’s ‘scientific expertise’.
It was about whether her claim to have influenced President Reagan’s SDI
(‘Star Wars’) policy was justified.
My contribution to that debate was to use US sources to show that she
in fact had played a decisive role in keeping US policy within the terms
of the arms control treaties, in particular the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)
Treaty, which the US had agreed with the Soviet Union. The original purpose
of the Reagan Star Wars programme was to deploy ABM systems in space contrary
to the Treaty; her successful intervention restricted the Star Wars programme
to one of research, not deployment.
Her scientific background enabled her to take an intelligent interest
in nuclear issues and not just leave them to ‘experts’. While it is not
strictly necessary to have a physics or chemistry degree to understand the
consequences of nuclear war, or even the greenhouse effect, it helps. An
education devoid of any meaningful scientific component, such as that enjoyed
by the majority of both Thatcher’s and John Major’s cabinets, all too often
leads to ‘ministerial muddles’ (to adapt her words) when complex issues
involving science arise.
Norman Dombey University of Sussex
Letters: Praise for Thatcher
I haven’t read Thatcher’s memoirs, but I seem to recall that her only
published scientific work concerned a study on the properties of Langmuir-Blodgett
films. According to recent reports, Japanese scientists now have reasonable
expectations of making computer memories with a density of one terabit per
square centimetre, based on these properties. Funny old world, isn’t it?
Brian Clement Crickhowell, Powys
Letters: Choc horror
Indeed, we chocoholics have cause to worry about the loss of our favourite
flavours (This Week, 25 December). Although John Spence’s unit does a wonderful
job of conserving South American wild cocoa trees, of milk chocolate grade,
work soon to be published (in Euphytica, by myself) suggests a more pressing
problem for the cocoa addict.
Throughout the complex history of the West Indies, a succession of colonial
powers introduced many cocoa types. The resulting hybrid populations provided
the world with an array of special dark chocolate types with flavours unique
to each island. The pressure of land use is far more critical in the small
island states of the Caribbean than in cocoa’s native South America. This
wonderful chocolate box of exotic flavours is currently being lost at an
alarming rate, as the Caribbean turns from agriculture to tourism. Lovers
of quality chocolate must wish Spence’s unit every success in securing both
their own future and the survival of this delicious Caribbean heritage.
John Warren Agriculture and Food Research Council Aberystwyth
Letters: Mind and spirit
‘Ghosts don’t make biological sense,’ says Michael Whalley (Forum, 25
December) and, to back this up, he uses a rather primitive argument based
on monism versus dualism. I think we can legitimately use the same argument
to ‘disprove’ the existence of consciousness. But that is the only thing
I am absolutely certain of (my own at least). If a line of argument can
be used to disprove something we know is true, then the line of argument
must be false.
The features are the same: when does consciousness enter the evolutionary
process? Does a sperm have half a consciousness?
When we blow a bubble, there is a point when we can set the bubble free
from the pipe. Can consciousness and spirit be something that is nurtured
by, grows out of, but still is the expression of a complex, highly organised
system? I am saying that the idea of spirit does not violate a monist philosophy.
Whalley’s mechanistic arguments are about fifty years out of date. These
days we talk of different things as being aspects of the same thing. Our
spiritual and biological natures are like different faces of the same prism.
Fred Potter Borth, Dyfed
Letters: Mind and spirit
Whalley’s argument against the evolution by humans of a nonmaterial
soul is as unsustainable as the old difficulty over how to evolve an eye.
There is no reason why either could not be developed gradually through normal
selective processes.
Kevin Jenkins Seascale, Cumbria
Letters: Art and science
Contrary to Georgina Ferry’s claim, for decades (her phrase) there have
been artists and others associated with the arts who have sought to understand
and engage with science in multifarious ways (Review, 25 December). It is
true that they have been and remain in a minority. It is also true that
their success has been limited and hence, for example, there are few great
20th-century works of art which are also deeply scientific or informed by
science. Contrast the historical relations between great works of art and
religion.
杏吧原创s have rarely bothered, and, when they have done so, have failed,
to counter antiscientific sentiment and expression in the arts. More importantly,
however, they have failed to support artists wishing to engage constructively
with science. This may partly be because they think that what artists say
and do is unimportant or irrelevant to the well-being of science and scientists.
What is true is that 1993 was something of an annus mirabilis for discussion
of relations between the arts and sciences, and this gives hope to those
of us who strive to promote such intercourse. 1994 will show whether the
momentum can be sustained and increased. Ideas for practical projects abound
and there are now three organisations in Britain devoted specifically to
these matters: my own organisation, ASCENT (the Association for Art, Science,
Engineering and Technology) in Edinburgh; Interalia in Bristol, and most
recently, Arts Catalyst in London. If, out there, there are any scientists
(or engineers) who have some influence in the spending of what are usually
termed ‘arts sponsorship’ budgets, please take heed, and get in touch.
Colin Sanderson Newbridge, Midlothian
Letters: Popular 'ology
I noticed with interest Ann Colley’s letter (25 December), in which
she attributes the growth in psychology student numbers to the efforts of
the British Psychological Society. However, since the society scarcely deigned
to notice pre-degree psychology during the 1980s, when much of this growth
occurred, it seems an unlikely explanation.
More likely is the way that pre-degree psychology introduces students
to the world of scientific reasoning, in areas which they encounter from
day to day. They learn to formulate and test hypotheses, to explore the
relationship between hypothesis-testing and theory-building, to wrestle
with experimental control, reliability and validity – and, most importantly
of all, to understand the difference between unsubstantiated opinion and
scientific evidence.
It is here, I believe, that the secret of psychology’s growing popularity
lies. The efforts of the British Psychological Society are laudable, but
hardly the cause.
Jane Penny Leeds
Letters: Private records
The danger of new laws killing off ‘potentially life-saving research’
(‘Personal privacy v public health’, 11 December) engaged the attention
of both researchers and legislators during the drafting of the Australian
Privacy Act 1988. Under the Act, guidelines for the protection of privacy
in the conduct of medical research, prepared by the National Health and
Medical Research Council (NHMRC) are submitted for approval by the Privacy
Commissioner.
In developing guidelines it became evident that research workers believed
that most people do not object to their records being used, without their
consent, for medical research aimed at finding causes of, and ways of preventing,
disease. This belief did not appear to have been systematically explored.
In 1990 questions about use of records were therefore included in a probability
sample of 396 men and women in the state of Victoria who were being interviewed
for other purposes. Altogether 350 people (88 per cent) indicated that they
agreed to patients’ records being made available without their permission.
Of these 350, 164 indicated unqualified agreement and 186 approved under
certain conditions of which guarantee of confidentiality was the main one.
It seems that the majority of people in our community accept the view
stated in 1985 by the Medical Research Ethics Committee of NHMRC, that ‘privacy
is a conditional right, an instrumental not an absolute value’. It also
seems that the long-sanctioned practices of medical research workers and
those concerned with preventive medicine continue to accord with a majority
view in our society.
Richard Lovell Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria, Australia
Letters: Bose statistics
Surprisingly, your article on Bose (‘The man who chopped up light’,
8 January) contains two seriously wrong statements: that Bose statistics
apply only to particles which are not conserved, and that the statistics
of coin tossing apply to electrons.
The essential feature for both photons and electrons is that the particles
cannot be labelled: they are truly indistinguishable, as explained in your
article. The additional feature for electrons and other fermions is that
they observe the Pauli exclusion principle: no two can be in the same state.
Neither bosons nor fermions obey the classical (Maxwell-Boltzmann) statistics
of coin-tossing.
For non-conserved particles, such as photons, the number of particles
adjusts itself so that it costs no energy to add one more (zero chemical
potential). This adjustment of photon number gives rise to the black body
spectrum.
Bose statistics gives a statistical preference for configurations with
many particles in the same state. For photons this manifests itself as laser
light. For conserved bosons, such as helium-4 atoms, it manifests itself
as superfluidity.
H. E. Hall University of Manchester
Letters: Bubbling up
Anik Egan (Letters, 15 January) is correct. Hitting mugs of stirred
hot drinks makes music. With practice you can ascend through two or three
octaves. Coffee works, but best of all is Horlicks (a rich malty brew).
For good results, use a mug which, when empty, produces a good ring
when tapped. A cracked mug will work, but the fundamental pitch is clouded
by messy harmonics. It is vital to use very hot milk, on the verge of boiling
over when mixed with the additive of your choice.
The reason for the pitch change on tapping the mug after stirring is
simple. All bodies have a fundamental resonant frequency which depends on,
among other things, the bulk modulus and Poisson’s ratio of the material
from which they are made. Stirring incorporates air into the mixture. The
little bubbles will lower both of these moduli for the liquid part of the
resonant system. As they float to the surface with time, the whole thing
becomes more rigid. Up go the notes.
Pat Whitworth Nairn, Scotland
Letters: Bubbling up
The hot chocolate phenomenon is well known and has been the subject
of several papers in learned journals.
The sound that is heard when a spoon strikes the side of the mugful
of any liquid includes the resonant frequency of the volume of the liquid
column. This frequency is, of course, directly proportional to the velocity
of sound in the liquid.
When either powder or granules are dissolved in water the air trapped
within and between them is released into the liquid as a vast number of
tiny bubbles. The velocity of sound in the resulting mix of air and water
is considerably less than in water alone. Hence the resonant frequency of
freshly made hot chocolate or coffee is low and rises as the bubbles float
to the surface leaving bubble-free water.
John Naylor London
Letters: Weapons of control
Vincent Kiernan appears to have been taken in by the public relations
hype surrounding so-called ‘nonlethal weapons’ (‘War over weapons that
can’t kill, 11 December).
Way back in 1970, US congressman James Scheur commented that: ‘As a
result of spinoffs from medical, military aerospace and industrial research,
we are now in the process of developing devices and products capable of
controlling violent mobs without injury. We can tranquillise, impede, immobilise,
harass, shock, upset, stupefy, nauseate, chill, temporarily blind, deafen
or just plain scare the wits out of anyone the police have a proper need
to control and restrain.’
The 1972 Security Planning Corporation report on nonlethal weapons to
the National Science Foundation listed 34 different types using electrical,
optical, acoustic, thermal, kinetic impact, chemical irritant and barrier
devices to produce control effects.
Alas, many of these weapons are, in reality, far from nonlethal. They
can and have killed, maimed, scalped and otherwise permanently injured innocent
bystanders at demonstrations.
The real danger posed by such weapons is that they will be used at
a much lower level of conflict, where lethal force would be illegal or counterproductive.
As reports of the use of irritant gas by Bosnian Serbs at Vitez indicate,
these weapons augment rather than replace lethal force.
As military scientists search for a new role at the end of the Cold
War, any of us might become future targets, since in reality these weapons
will form part of the future’s technology of political control.
Stephen Wright Omega Foundation, Manchester