Recording recording
The article about fibre-optic networks delivering “super-teachers” to every classroom 鈥� in other words, “distance learning” (Forum, 28 January) 鈥� puts me in mind of the story (largely apocryphal, I suspect) of the professor who was indisposed on the day of a vital lecture.
In order not to disappoint his students he arranged to make a recording of his lecture and play the video to them. So successful did this venture prove to be that he resolved to implement this labour-saving teaching technique on a permanent basis.
Deciding one week to make an unannounced visit to the lecture theatre, in order to assess for himself how well the system was working, he was greatly surprised to find the room entirely empty 鈥� save for his video recorder, surrounded by 25 other VCRs.
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Red hot herbicide
It was disturbing to read about the continuing ecological problems with herbicides used as antifouling agents on small boats (This Week, 14 January). What surprised me was that no mention was made of the idea of making a paint containing an additive based on ultra-hot chilli peppers, which you described in Technology (22 May 1993).
I recall that initial results were highly promising 鈥� the algae or whatever hated the taste 鈥� while there were no doubts about eventual biodegradability. Can someone enlighten us or give us an update?
Elephant graveyard
Laura Spinney says that “The idea of secret valleys where elephants go to die was probably dreamt up by hunters hoping to find a vast pile of ivory” (Review, 28 January).
However, this idea has a very long pedigree and Daniel Defoe mentions one aspect of this idea in his novel Captain Singleton published in 1720.
Defoe described a crossing of Africa (roughly from Mozambique to the Gold Coast) and near a lake the travellers found that “the ground was scattered with elephants teeth, in such number, as is incredible”.
Later on he refers to seeing “2000 elephants in a row” as they formed a battle line to frighten their predators.
Defoe was a businessman, spy and novelist and he drew on many contemporary accounts for his novels. So although this crossing of Africa was well before anyone from the West achieved such a passage, he was probably relying on merchants’ reports from the coastal areas of Africa.
Smart hedgehog
Back in the 1960s my wife and I were travelling along a country road at night when we both saw a hedgehog run across the road in front of us, stop for about a second, then resume its dash across the road to the safety of the verge (Forum, 14 January, and Letters, 4 February). We were both startled by this behaviour 鈥� which was certainly as untypical then as it would be now.
Our reaction as you would expect was to consider that hedgehog as behaving in a new way for hedgehogs, and we naturally speculated then as we would now that with a bit of luck for the hedgehog species this trait might get incorporated into the hedgehog’s genes as a valuable adaptation.
It is galling and not very polite to be told in New 杏吧原创 25 years later that there is “not a shred of evidence” for our observation.
Einstein was my 鈥�
Reading your article about Albert Einstein’s summer house in Caputh, Germany (In Brief, 21 January), I was startled to find a reference to “Einstein’s last living relative”.
As the wife of his son-in-law, Eva Kayser is presumably not a relative at all, but even if she were, she is certainly not the last 鈥� there are several Einsteins in Israel, and my own grandmother was his second cousin. I remember her going to the US in the fifties to visit him, and my father (aged 92) was recalling his own conversations with Einstein during his boyhood in southern Germany only this week.
Whiter than white
On pages 30 and 31 of the 21 January issue (“Day of the comet”) there is a picture of Jupiter from “behind”, with the Sun almost grazing the edge of Jupiter’s disc. Jupiter is mostly dark and the background is of course black.
Reading the adjacent text about 250 millimetres away, I realised that the sun was blazing brilliantly to the side 鈥� far brighter than the white of the paper. Looking straight at the sun, it appears somewhat brighter than the white of the paper round the picture, but not nearly to the same degree.
It’s quite startling, isn’t it? The effect 鈥� of white appearing brighter against a dark background 鈥� is in fact a classic optical illusion 鈥� Ed
Bridge too many
Fred Pearce’s article on the Oresund link (“How to build greener bridges”, 21 January) raises important issues for the future development of transport and the environment in Europe. The bridge connecting Malmo and Copenhagen is very bad news indeed because it will generate substantial amounts of extra traffic, the majority of which will be local (an M25 effect).
Both Malmo and Copenhagen will experience a dramatic increase in travel by car and a dramatic relocation of economic activity to take account of the new nodes of high (car) accessibility. This will require substantial amounts of new motorway construction including Malmo northwards to Lund and through the southern suburbs of Copenhagen. The environmental consequences of new motorway construction in southern Sweden will be as dramatic as damage to the Baltic and the stimulation of additional lorry trips will ensure a large increase in health-damaging air pollution.
The Oresund link is a major shift towards non-sustainability and will make both Malmo and Copenhagen less attractive places in which to live and work. The economic impact will be confined to relocation effects. If either city gains it will be at the expense of another location and even then at a very high cost in terms of new greenfield sites, new motorway interchanges and the abandonment of existing sites of economic activity in Malmo and Copenhagen.
Economy, environment and society will suffer in the pursuit of illusory economic goals and mobility for the sake of mobility.
Patently helpful
Contrary to Barry Fox’s article (This Week, 7 January) the closure of the London office of the Patent Office Search and Advisory Service does not mean that Southeast inventors no longer have access to patent information. As Barry Fox often reminds readers through his patents column, the British Library houses the national collection of patents, some 36 million from Britain and abroad, which can be consulted free of charge.
Patent information specialists at the library show visitors how to carry out searches and will answer basic enquiries by ‘phone.
Staff in the library’s patents online service undertake worldwide patent searches on behalf of inventors. A search to identify patents in a particular technical area will cost between 拢120 and 拢150 on average.
Inventors in other parts of Britain can access patent information through their local patents information network (PIN) library. A full list of participating libraries is available from the PIN liaison officer at the British Library.
All of these resources will provide the inventor with information with which they can judge the novelty of their bright idea but they do not, of course, provide advice on patentability, which may have to be obtained from the Patent Office or a patent agent.
The British Library’s patent collections are based at the Science Reference and Information Service, 25 Southampton Buildings, London WC2, the old Patent Office Library, and general information is available on 0171 412 7919.
Electric motorway
Your correspondent Fenton Robb makes some valuable suggestions on the introduction of electric vehicles (Letters, 7 January and 11 February), but other approaches are possible and may not need government support.
Volvo, the car and truck manufacturer, is experimenting with a battery-powered vehicle equipped with a clean, efficient turbine/generator for topping up on other than local journeys.
I regularly travel between Paris and Calais via the A1 and A26 autoroutes. The outer lanes of these motorways are filled with heavy trucks travelling nose-to-tail at their maximum permitted speed of 90 kilometres per hour, slowing down on each upward slope, and braking hard on each descent. Occasionally, a lorry driver maddened by boredom pulls into the inner lane, and car brake lights blossom for several minutes as he crawls past a colleague. A few hundred metres away, sleek TGVs and Eurostar trains slide by, picking up their power from overhead lines, and returning energy to the grid when braking.
If a catenary power system was fitted to the slow lane of these motorways, and corresponding pick-ups were fitted to heavy turbo-electric goods vehicles with regenerative braking, potential and kinetic energy could be conserved. Given auto-steering using buried cables (already existing in prototype), speed control using distance sensors already available, and possibly computer safety monitoring, truck drivers could turn on to the autoroute at Calais, and awake after a good night’s sleep at Marseilles, with fully charged batteries and full fuel tanks.
Since these autoroutes are run by efficient, cost-conscious private companies, no taxpayer’s contributions would be needed. Capital installation costs would soon be covered by economic user charges. Operators would gain in speed, safety, reliability and reduced employee’s health and welfare charges. Finally, the private motorist would have less chance of becoming the filling in a steel sandwich, or being kippered in diesel fumes.
Care with coppices
Fred Pearce’s article “Seeing the wood for the trees” (14 January, and Letters, 11 February) does not address the most important environmental impact of energy crops. This concerns the siting of industrial coppice in relation to existing wildlife habitat, particularly nature reserves. It is essential that energy crops do not replace new environmental schemes which would have far greater conservation benefits. This is a very real threat.
The Energy Technology Support Unit is currently drawing up a series of best practice guidelines for biomass energy development. In this The Wildlife Trusts argue that energy crops should not damage existing wildlife habitat or, critically, prejudice future expansion in areas of greatest potential (for example next to sites of special scientific interest).
It is also essential that planning applications for wood-burning power stations should undergo an environmental impact assessment which includes their effect on the wider countryside. Without these safeguards industrial cropping will simply replace intensive farming next to nature reserves with little or no benefits for wildlife.
* * *
After reading Fred Pearce’s article, I was struck by the thought that the canal system could be used to transport coppiced wood cheaply and in an enviro-friendly manner to existing power station sites, as an alternative to creating new power stations in woodland.
Moving large quantities of freight slowly, steadily and economically was what canal systems did very well. Development of the canal network through the new national forest and coppice biomass woodlands would provide an economical unobtrusive transport system as well as an extremely attractive addition to the leisure and tourism industry.
Off the rails
You rightly draw attention to the benefits of trams and light-rail (LR) in helping solve urban transport problems (Focus, 28 January). What you do not say is that the Government’s actions in this direction are still not matching up to its fine words.
Every conceivable obstacle has been put in the way of the West Midlands LR scheme 鈥� the latest is Dr Mawhinney changing the rules (unilaterally) yet again, saying that since LR schemes are of local value, local councils must now find a significant fraction of their cost, a criterion not applied to Manchester and Sheffield.
The result is that, at the drop of a hat, the West Midlands councils are now faced with finding an extra 拢25 million, and this at a time when local authority grants have been savagely slashed. Unless this money is found within a month or so, it is probable that the West Midlands LR scheme will collapse.
It appears that either the Government is still prepared to fund only one LR line at a time, and prefers Croydon (submitted long after the West Midlands scheme, be it noted) because it is in London. Or (more likely) it is not interested in public transport and does not want LR at all, its real preference being for road vehicles and motorways because this is what the roads lobby wants.
Limits of science
Peter Rowland doesn’t like religion (Letters, 21 January and 11 February). It isn’t “grown up”.
He hopes future humans will have a “non-mystic 鈥� more scientific outlook”.
Sounds reasonable. Yet science has never made any progress on the question: “Why is there order in the universe?” (Or any other question starting with “Why 鈥�?”)
Nor on the question: “How should we live our lives? (i.e. “How should we use the information and gadgetry science provides?”).
No mechanism exists by which “science” (the “nonmystic” kind) can address these questions.
Apart from succeeding in trivia quizzes, it’s uncertain whether possession of that kind of scientific knowledge has been a net gain for us humans.
Science could benefit us. But first we’d have to acknowledge that science can only ever be a part (a small part) of the totality of what humans know and need to know.
* * *
I am a parent and grandparent just like Peter Rowland. I am also a philosopher, psychologist and metaphysician. I am Me, wonder of wonders. I am the centre of my universe. The difference between my Me and a child’s Me is that I fully recognise that everyone else is Me too. This means I have great respect for every living thing.
Why does the oh-so-grown-up scientific mind believe that it is arrogant to think consciousness is wonderful? Surely arrogance is the belief that we can scientifically manipulate this wonderful Universe to serve our own narrow self-seeking ends.
I love science because at its best it is a search for truth, but there are two ways of seeking truth. There is the empiric-thinking way, the way of the scientist. There is also the intuitive-feeling way, the way of the mystic.
The mystic who dismisses the scientist’s way is only perceiving half the picture and is in danger of losing his head. With no head how can he think clearly and how can we then trust what he teaches? The scientist who dismisses the mystic’s way is in danger of losing his heart. With no heart how can he understand what arrogance really is?
My intuitive feelings tell me that I am Me, truly a wonder of wonders. I believe them. My empiric thinking shows me that you are also Me and that means that you must be a wonder of wonders too.
Bother about boys
The article about Britain’s “lost boys” (This Week, 4 February) reminds me of the urgent need to include the study of statistics within the National Curriculum core. There seem to be many projects analysing examination results at present and they all seem to fit into the same rough model.
The assumption is made at the beginning that there exists some measure of pupils’ ability that can accurately predict performance. This is an enormous assumption. A search is then made and the best predictor is employed. The article states that the best measure in this study was shown to be the reading score between age 10 and 12, but we do not know how much scatter there is. It might be the best but there is still a fault with the model.
The statistics wallahs then fit the best straight line to the data. The fundamental mistake in my view is to label any pupil who appears above the line as an overachiever and those under the line as underachievers, rather than simply accept that the fault is with the model not the individual.
If Copleston High School wishes to improve its results with this method of identifying the underachievers, it should simply ensure that it does not teach reading skills to anybody under 12 years old. They will soon find that they have a whole cohort of overachievers when they take their GCSEs.
More seriously, if teachers had ever been able to find one sure-fire way of ensuring progress for everybody then it would have been bottled long ago. To my mind, the best teachers are interested in the individuals not the statistics.
* * *
I see boys are getting their comeuppance again (Comment, 4 February). My older lad’s a good case in point. Brought up with constant politically-correct monitoring, he’s still right off the rails by eight.
He was encouraged (strongly) to adopt non-stereotypical interests. His baby room was mauve (you know 鈥� pink and blue make mauve). But at four he began using his teddy bear as a machine gun until we confiscated it. We gave him ballet lessons, finally downgraded to tap, but after two years he couldn’t stand it any more. My wife makes him beautiful shirts and other clothes, but he constantly reverts to stereotypical black tracksuits. I buy him expensive role-playing games but he gets beat-’em-up shareware off the front of magazines.
When encouraged to draw a house with Mummy, Daddy, Luke and Edgar standing in front, he will end up drawing strange bits of shoot-’em-up technology which pursue each other from page to page to the accompaniment of peculiar vocal plosives and glottal stops. And as I take him round the beautiful flower gardens of Felixstowe, he insists on doing ninja kicks at the aloes and yuccas. He won’t step on insects though, unlike his less macho younger brother, “because they are alive”. The worst of it is, he has this idea he would like to become a scientist 鈥� but even this now looks a bit of a long shot.
I was thinking I should castrate him, but reading that leader has given me another idea: “Luke! Come here 鈥� I’ve just bought this excellent shoot-’em-up! You and I are going hunting tonight, son! You take the joy stick, I’ll have the mouse! Eddie’s on the arrow keys 鈥� looking for his first kill! Here they come 鈥� the monstrous regiment! Pam-pam-pam-pam-pam-pam-pam-pam-pam-pam 鈥� aim right between the earrings. YEAH!!!”
Does it have to come to this?