Heavy water
Peter Hadfield reports on the theory that earthquakes in Japan may be related to air pressure due to the time of year (This Week, 26 November). I have two objections to this theory.
I deem it far more likely that the effect of increased water pressure would be the likely culprit. During the winter, the water is denser, and thus heavier. I suspect that this would “outweigh” the effect of denser air by several orders of magnitude.
Contrary to the position reported in the article, that higher air pressure would have no effect on the Philippine Sea plate because it lies underwater, I believe that if one examines the situation carefully, one is forced to come to the conclusion that higher air pressure means more weight on the surface of the sea as well, which in turn means more pressure transmitted to the sea floor.
In short, higher air pressure would be felt by both plates, whereas higher water pressure would have the dual effect of pressing down the Philippine Sea plate, while “lifting” Japan up. This may just reduce the friction between the plates sufficiently to allow then to slide relative to one another, when they are about to move.
Gravitational waves
With reference to the LIGO gravitational wave detector (“Gravity’s secret signals”, 26 November), can anyone explain how the wavelength of the light is not also shrunk as a gravitational wave passes through? Surely, if the “fabric of space” is being distorted, then any measuring we do in that space will not show a difference, as our “ruler” is also distorted as part of that space. Or is this just an example of an analogy stretched beyond its elastic limit?
After reading your report on the search for gravitational waves, a simple question 鈥� what is the “likely” wavelength of gravitational waves?
Your article discusses at length the techniques for detecting distortions caused by the waves but makes no mention of their probable wavelength 鈥� any suggestions?
According to Kip Thorne, the theoretical physicist who first proposed LIGO in the 1970s, light travels too quickly to be significantly distorted by gravitational waves passing through the 4-kilometre detector arms.
The wavelength of the gravitational waves measured by LIGO will be between 300 and 30 000 kilometres. This is short wave gravitational radiation, says Thorne.
At longer wavelengths, one wave can cover the diameter of the Solar System or even the distance to nearby stars. Gravitational radiation created in the big bang is predicted to have wavelengths roughly the size of the Universe 鈥� Ed.
We have named gravitational waves correctly
Rubbish retained
Your review of PsychoDarwinism: The New Synthesis of Darwin and Freud (5 November), made a glancing reference to anal retentiveness as a strategy for manipulating parents.
May I suggest that this condition merely reflects an increasingly refined diet and has no psychological relevance? Our local hospital admits three or four toddlers a week suffering from severe constipation.
The computer dictum, “rubbish in; rubbish out” appears to be reversed when applied to diet: “rubbish in; no rubbish out”.
Lonely hearts
Where have all the Jobshares gone? If you are an enthusiastic applied biologist with a good research background plus numerous other talents, how do you make contact with others of the same species for that irresistible application for joint employment?
There is apparently no local jobshare register, no help from job centres, careers offices or journals. Am I the only person who wants to work part time but preferably not alone?
Answers please.
On odds
I believe I can shed some light on the confusion over the odds for the five ball matching in the National Lottery (Letters, 10 December). The odds of matching exactly five of the six balls are, as David Franklin stated, 54 200 to 1. But this includes those combinations which also match the “bonus ball” (which are treated as a separate category with its own prize and own odds: 2.33 million to 1).
Taking just the combinations which match five without also matching the bonus ball lengthens the odds to 55 500 to 1. In terms of combinations: out of the 13 983 816 possible combinations 258 will match five, six of these will also match the bonus ball leaving 252 matching five without the bonus ball.
On the question of rounding the three match odds to 57 to 1: I suspect that they took the 1 in 57 correctly quoted by Camelot and assumed that 1 in N is the same as N to 1, whereas it should be N-1 to 1, that is, 56 to 1.
I calculate the odds for three correct numbers to be 56.66 to 1, so it would seem to be correct to round this to 57 to 1. The published figures are always rounded “up”, presumably so that the organisers cannot be accused of overstating the chance of winning.
Firstly, Franklin’s calculated odds of 56 to 1 for winning the “Match 3” prize, are correct. The mistaken odds of 57 to 1 probably arose from a confusion between odds and probabilities. The probability is 1 in 57 and this is the same as odds of 56 to 1.
Moon magnetism
I greatly enjoyed reading Susan Blackmore’s article “Alien abduction, the inside story” (19 November). I wonder if she has read Asimov’s “Foundation” series. In these stories Asimov proposed the concept of emotional alteration or control via electromagnetic fields, but suggested that affecting specific memories or thoughts in a predictable way was impossible because only a few neurons were involved.
Michael Persinger’s magnetic fields seem to have induced fairly strong sensations and I wonder if the type and intensity of response to specific electromagnetic fields differs much between subject. The article has set me thinking 鈥�
Are those who claim electrical storms affect emotions correct?
Do the relative positions of the Earth, Sun and Moon significantly affect electromagnetic fields, thus providing an explanation for those who swear that the phase of the Moon affects behaviour?
Perhaps there’s room for a grant proposal here.
Letters to the Editor
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Observer noise
The study of parapsychology is disturbing because it challenges some of the fundamental principles of the scientific method. In the case of the thought experiments described in your article “Psychic powers: what are the odds?” (26 November), the independence of the experimenter from the experiment is at issue.
The separation of the observer from the observed is of course nowhere absolute. At the quantum level the limit is defined by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and by the philosophical speculations of the Copenhagen school.
A different type of interaction operates in the “softer” social and medical sciences. An anthropologist, for example, cannot study a cultural group without influencing, and being influenced by, that culture. One day we may have a social-scientific uncertainty principle to define this effect.
In considering the attempts to prove psychokinesis such as Robert Jahn is doing, one can speculate that the observable effect may never exceed experimental noise. Conceptually, if such phenomena are real they could be influenced not only by the individual actually involved in the experiment but by all interested parties who are thinking about it at the time: the designer of the experiment and all the friends who wish him or her success. On the other hand, sceptics who conduct the identical experiment could equally displace the outcome in the opposite direction.
Parapsychology may therefore always be impossible to prove. This argument is not new. The efficacy of miracles has been debated for centuries, and proof of their validity has long relied on the presence or absence of “faith”.
Another point: if psychokinesis does exist it must be weak or the (honest) influence of strong-willed scientists on the outcome of their work would by now be evident, rather than lost in a background of experimental noise.
John McCrone’s otherwise well-written article contains one factual error that should perhaps be corrected, namely that when “Jahn 鈥� went public with his research in 1986, he was demoted from dean of the engineering faculty to an associate professorship and left in no doubt that he would have been booted right off campus if it were possible”.
In point of fact, we had been publishing and speaking publicly about our research for several years prior to 1986, during which period I served both as Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and as Professor of Aerospace Sciences, as is the Princeton custom. While it is true that a number of my faculty and administrative colleagues had expressed reservations about the work, no explicit threats to my retaining either position were ever directly voiced to me.
My decision not to seek reappointment as Dean in 1986, after fifteen years in that chair, was based on a number of personal and professional considerations, including my desire to devote more effort to my two research programmes. At that time, I simply returned to a full-time role as (full) professor in my home department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, which position I retain today.
No “demotion” was explicitly or implicitly involved; to the contrary, this return has proven professionally and personally advantageous to me.
Battery blues
The limitations imposed on the electric car by the present battery technology (as described in “All charged up and nowhere to go”, 3 December), could be overcome if a more systemic approach were to be made to the design of the car and its energy supply system. Instead of making the batteries an integral part of the car and recharging them on board, it would seem more sensible to make them easily replaceable on filling station forecourts. Payment would be for the net electric charge received.
Suitable battery handling equipment could make battery replacement as speedy as refilling a fuel tank. Recharging could be confined to off-peak times and could be carried out more safely and cheaply at filling stations than at home. Battery exchange could be made at unmanned sites, all round the clock; something not really practical with liquid or gaseous fuels.
To obtain the full economic benefits of scale in the early years of electric car technology, the design of batteries should be modular and suitable for all makes and sizes of vehicles, and compatible with handling equipment in all forecourts.
No significant “green” effect will result if, as suggested in the article, only rich customers will be able to afford to buy electric vehicles. Governments and local authorities trying to popularise the use of electric vehicles could do so by bearing the capital cost of the batteries, by leasing them to vehicle owners, and by supporting the development of battery exchange sites throughout the country. Priming the market pump in order to reach the critical sales levels needed for really low cost vehicle production should be needed for only a few years.
Double whammy
As a retired BT engineer with over 40 years experience of street works, to me the most disturbing aspect of the damage to trees by TV cabling is that in many cases the excavations are unnecessary (Forum 3 December)
BT has had for decades in most suburban areas an extensive underground duct system with plenty of space for additional cable 鈥� but, as Barry Fox points out in the same issue (Technology), BT is not allowed to compete.
Since, as Cyril Bracegirdle says, the cable companies are mainly American owned, this puts the British public on the receiving end of the double whammy of unnecessary environmental damage and seeing the profits from it float over the Atlantic.
British opt-out
In brief reply to Bruce Reed’s comments (Letters 10 December) on my letter of 12 November, even when a British contribution to the European Union budget in respect of research and development is included, the government’s spending on R&D is now less, in real terms, than in 1984/5 by about 拢1 billion per annum 鈥� and still falling (Forward Look 1994, HMSO).
Bruce Reed is right to draw attention to the British Treasury’s insistence, unique in the EU, that a proportion of the EU funds returned to Britain for support of R&D should be counted against 鈥� and so reduce 鈥� Departmental budgets. The intention of the EU to raise the overall level of R&D investment in the EU countries 鈥� not to replace national spending 鈥� is thus being thwarted in this country by another “British opt-out”.