Letters : Noah's rock
Sevenoaks, Kent
A few years ago I was fascinated by a TV documentary on an American
businessman who spent all his money on expeditions to Mount Ararat to explore a
rock feature supposed to be Noah’s Ark.
The photo in your article on Australian geologist Ian Plimer suggests that
the same feature is still causing excitement among the faithful (This Week, 30
November, p 4). The documentary showed why: it really does look uncannily like
the outline of a huge, buried, rotted ship.
It may, however, help Plimer’s battle against the creationists to point out
that, rather than vindicating Genesis, the “Ark” rock may do the opposite.
If you visit any tourist cavern, the guide will invariably point out and name
any formation which even remotely suggests a recognisable shape, and history
shows this to be a universal tendency. The next step, of course, is for the
popular imagination to embellish the Giant’s Footstool or Devil’s Punchbowl with
some fanciful tale to explain its provenance.
I believe that future Biblical critics will come to accept that the “Ark”
rock produced the tale of Noah, and not the other way round.
Letters : Let them be
London
Surely it is in the interest of all humanity that scientists learn to respect
other belief systems (Forum, 4 January, p 41)? In his plea for the exhumation
and study of a 9300-year-old skeleton, Arturo Sangalli completely ignores the
horrendous history of the pillage of Native American remains in the past
century鈥攆ar beyond the requirements for scientific research. Thus the need
for a law to stop it.
Thousands of Native American skeletons moulder in academic storerooms across
the US. Is it any wonder that archaeologists are made to jump through such hoops
to justify their need for yet another one? If this one is so terribly important,
could not a few hundred others be returned by way of exchange?
It was also not so long ago that Europeans were horrified by the idea that
corpses might be dug up and investigated. And whatever their beliefs about the
part corpses play in an afterlife, the desecration of graves is considered
humiliating and criminal by peoples worldwide.
I myself practise no particular religious rites and am sympathetic to
scientific investigation鈥攁s long as the procedures and methods are humane.
It also seems completely rational to me that the mysterious crossing from life
to death should be accompanied by rituals and taboos.
Letters : Where's the cash?
Winchester
So the Labour Party “appreciates the true value of the scientific community”
(Forum, 4 January, p 42). Labour will have to come up with a more realistic and
practical policy for science to convince me that it is fit to be in charge of
Britain’s publicly funded research.
Labour’s policy to encourage more young people to enter science and to
promote the status of science is laudable. However, this policy will be
pointless if more funds are not made available by government for basic
scientific research.
At present there are not enough jobs to employ more than a fraction of our
highly trained postdoctoral scientists and no amount of status will help find
the salaries of scientists currently in employment or allow them to replace
their nearly obsolete capital equipment.
The fact that no mention is made of Labour’s intentions regarding the
desperate shortage of funds for publicly funded science, despite the implied
criticism of the present government’s level of support, is disappointing. It
signals to me that Labour does not want to meet the problem head-on, but plans
to tinker with related but secondary manifestations of the root cause of the
present malaise affecting science in this country.
Letters : . . .
Thetford, Norfolk
Why isn’t Tam Dalyell Labour’s science spokesman? Here at least is a man who
understands the subject and is prepared to give the existing government credit
where credit is due. Both science and education ought to be above party
politicking.
Letters : Cheap shields
Chepstow, Gwent
I am a little puzzled about the pessimistic tone of the article regarding the
shielding of Mars missions from stellar and cosmic radiation (This week, 4
January, p 9). This issue has been tackled many times by both the scientific and
science fiction community. Many ideas have been put forward for achieving the
necessary levels of shielding in a minimalistic way.
Two main ones stand out. The first, described 20 years ago by Gerard K.
O’Neill in his book The High Frontier, is to provide the living
quarters with a reasonable amount of shielding, but have a small, heavily
shielded compartment at the centre of the spacecraft to act as a “storm shelter”
where the astronauts go when radiation levels peak. They would also sleep in the
storm shelter to minimise their total exposure throughout the mission.
The second idea is to utilise water as the shielding material (
Nature, vol 330, p 709). Although it is probably not as good as lithium
hydride, it is much better weight-for-weight than aluminium at stopping
high-energy particles. And on a long mission to Mars, water certainly has a few
other uses, reducing the overall cost of the shielding.
Perhaps the designers of the Mars mission would do well to have a look at the
vast literature on this subject and see whether it would really cost $30
billion to stay within existing dosage limits.
Letters : Spread of excellence
Milton Keynes
Your comment on the recently announced results of the Research Assessment
Exercise (RAE) in British universities regrets that only Oxford and Cambridge
match the likes of MIT, Harvard and Stanford (Editorial, 4 January, p 3). But,
in a country geographically smaller than California, why should we regret that
we only have two Stanfords?
The excellence of British science as a whole is what matters, not the number
of institutions among which the research is spread. The RAE assessed individual
departments, not universities, and the results showed that the majority of
research of international excellence takes place in departments outside
Oxbridge.
The assessment was conducted at department level for funding purposes, but
the relevant unit for scientific purposes would be the individual scientist.
There are many scientists of international standing in departments that received
less than a 5 rating, indeed most may be in such departments.
The problem is that such people are invisible to the crude instruments
currently being used to measure research excellence, though collectively their
contribution to science must be at least as important as that of Oxbridge.
Letters : One and all
Tintagel, Cornwall
New 杏吧原创 is very interesting to read because its articles cover
a very wide spectrum of subject matter. However, I believe it could be even more
intriguing were you to include more cross-fertilisation between the various
disciplines.
For example, “All for one, one for all” (14 December, p 28) considers the
tussle over the concept of the “superorganism”, in which apparently individual
random activities seem to result in an overall system activity which is
coordinated for survival.
As an ex-beekeeper I am aware of the apparently tightly controlled and
structured behaviour of the 30 000 plus individuals who make up a bee colony. I
am also acutely aware of the apparently perfect socialism which rules within the
colony and the totally ruthless and destructive capitalism which operates
between colonies. However, it requires but a reasonably observant eye to realise
that the “hive mind” is illusory.
Should the wrong stimulus be given, a colony will launch a vicious and
defensive attack that, far from being coordinated, relies on weight of numbers
and which is scornful of casualties. Each bee fights its own campaign.
There is food for thought in this for those who write so enthusiastically
about artificial intelligence and who appear to be unaware that the human
brain鈥攊ndeed any brain鈥攊s not a digital computer as we know it. Is
it not likely that several million neurons, each pooping-off in its own small
environment, would produce an overall superorganism effect that could explain
the brain’s ability to think illogically and abstractly?
Letters : . . .
Edinburgh
Could the pleasure that some people get from shopping derive from an instinct
to gather inherited from our hunter-gatherer ancestors?
The excessive gathering and storage of food could confer an evolutionary
advantage if your community were subject to periodic food shortages. Excessive
shopping could be an unwanted vestige of this previously advantageous
instinct.
Since gathering was primarily a female chore, it would also explain why most
shopaholics are women.
Letters : Happy fools
by e-mail
Timothy Jennings nicely demonstrates the similarities between science and
belief (Letters, 4 January, p 45).
My Oxford English Dictionary derives “silly” firmly from the
Germanic/Teutonic sele (via selly), meaning (roughly) happy,
with no trace of Arabic origin or any meaning of “wise”.
So what do you believe? I go for happiness over wisdom, but then I don’t use
an analyst.
Letters : Soil solution
by e-mail
Caspar Henderson states that “all techniques for cleaning polluted soil are
more expensive than simply removing it” (“The other big issue”, 4 January, p
12). This statement is out of date and incorrect.
Bio-Logic Remediation Works uses ex situ bioremediation to clean
soils contaminated with hydrocarbons ranging from oils to tars rich in
polyaromatic hydrocarbons. Our treatment prices (usually 拢15 to 拢25
per tonne) on our numerous full-scale projects have always been cheaper than
local landfill costs (for more information see
http://www.biologic.demon.co.uk/bio-logic.html).
Letters : Cool calendar
Stoke-on-Trent
Hazel Muir’s article about the Vatican’s observatory made fascinating
reading鈥攅specially for an ex-pupil of the Jesuits (“Heavenly visions”,
21/28 December, p 30).
However, I am not sure that I agree with her when she says that the Julian
calendar had become “hopelessly out of line with the seasons” in the 1500s. When
this country finally got round to adopting the Gregorian calendar in 1752, the
Julian calendar was still only 11 days out (though the dropping of 11 days led
to riots in the streets because people thought that Parliament was taking away
11 days of their lives).
I think that the relative accuracy of the Julian calendar (which the Russians
went on using right up until 1917) is a tribute to the ability of the
astronomers whom Julius Caesar hired in the 1st century BC, and the fact that
the Gregorian calendar solved the calendar problem once and for all is a tribute
to the abilities of astronomers in the 16th century. It was the old Roman
calendar (before the reform brought about by Julius Caesar) which was hopelessly
out of kilter with the seasons.
And don’t forget that 2000 will be a leap year, unlike 1900 (because it is
evenly divisible by 400)鈥攁s decreed by the calendar’s rules about century
years.
Letters : Berrymania
Newcastle upon Tyne
Although not a shopaholic myself, I recognise the impulse to go on and on
(“Can’t stop shopping”, 4 January, p 22). When picking fruit in the summer at a
local farm, I find it difficult to stop at enough for one meal. I pick on until
I have filled several large baskets. I then have to turn the berries into jam.
Like pretty clothes and perfumed cosmetics, fruit is colourful, attractive and
smells wonderful.
Again, as a historian, I find research compulsive. I must go on and on to
find yet another fact. To find the long-sought signature in an old manuscript
gives a wonderful feeling, a real “high”.
Are other people addicted in this way? Do stamp collectors or researchers in
scientific fields get a “high” when they find something?
Have psychologists looked at what happens in people’s brains when they
achieve a success, be it finding a perfect fruit for freezing, a rare stamp or
the breakthrough that confirms a scientific theory? Does the thrill, such as
Watson and Crick must have felt when they saw the beautiful structure of DNA,
release chemicals in the brain?
Certainly compulsive shoppers suffer as a result of their addiction, but I
suggest that they are showing an extreme form of a compulsion that many people
feel.
Letters : . . .
Please note: The Microcredit Summit mentioned in Letters, 14 December, p 51,
takes place in Washington DC on 2-4 February.
Information can be obtained from: Microcredit Secretariat, c/o RESULTS
Educational Fund, 236 Massachusetts Avenue, NE, Suite 300, Washington DC, 20002,
USA; fax: 001 202 546 3228; email: Results@action.org. The British contact is:
Sara Murphey, RESULTS Education, Tel: 01926 435430; Fax: 01926 435110; e-mail:
100416.3624@CompuServe.COM
Letters : . . .
Edinburgh
Rodilla might like to see a postcard I have from the town of Hel in Poland on
the Baltic Coast.
Letters : Hell and back
Kirriemuir, Angus
Vicente Rodilla, who inquired about the whereabouts of Hell (Letters, 30
November, p 55) may be interested in the Run Thru Hell 10-mile race advertised
in the January issue of Runners’ World. This Hell lies between Chicago
and Detroit.
Letters : . . .
Liverpool
One is sometimes tempted to wonder which came first: the subject of the paper
or a fortuitous get-together of researchers who didn’t dare let a good
opportunity slip.
Take the classic paper on “The wave antenna” by Beverage, Rice and Kellog
(Transactions of the American Society of Electrical Engineers, vol 42,
p 215). Maybe there was commercial sponsorship even then, back in 1923?
Letters : Little Green Books
Auckland
I have just read your item concerning the paper by Vincent, Van and Goh
(Feedback, 30 November, and Letters, 4 January, p 45). A few weeks ago when
marking the scripts from a BSc degree third-year physics paper here in Auckland,
I noticed a peculiar concatenation of certain student names that had escaped my
attention while I was presenting the course.
In this paper there were three Asian/Pacific islands students. The result, I
was gratified to realise, was that in three little green booklets (in contrast
to the original little red one) we had the collected thoughts of Ma’u, Tse and
Tung.
Letters : Done to a turn
Teddington, Middlesex
We enjoyed reading your article about microwave heating systems for houses
(“Not cooking but warming”, 21/28 December, p 54) and wondered if there would be
a turntable in the middle of the room to put the couch on?
Letters : Fix-it Feynman
Harrogate, North Yorkshire
As a teacher of physics, I feel that current generations really do miss out
on the opportunity we had to get “hands-on” experience with relatively cheap
technical items (Forum, 21/28 December, p 77).
I have read a number of biographical articles about Richard Feynman recently
and have been struck by how much he was influenced towards a career in physics
by early attempts to repair the broken wireless sets of neighbours. (I found
jumble sales an excellent source of pre-war valve radios to mend or
cannibalise).
Despite his brilliance in later life as a Nobel prizewinner, Feynman comes
across as a man who conceptualised his ideas in terms of “models” built up from
practical experience. He stood out from many traditional physicists by this
“suck it and see” approach and only later would he apply rigorous mathematics to
prove the predictions of such models.
Yes, Mr Passingham and his ilk at government surplus shops have been
responsible for many becoming hooked on technology. It would be good to think he
has seen your article; I am sure it would bring a smile of satisfaction to his
face.
Letters : Weighty nose
Andover, Hampshire
Mark Leather’s hot air and nitrogen rocket, made from a 5-gallon drinking
water bottle, displays a couple of important design flaws (“Here’s one we blew
up earlier”, 21/28 December, p 36). The directional instability was probably not
due to the fin design but to a lack of mass in the nose cone.
Stability of this nature can be tested by tying a 7-metre rope around the
bottle and swinging it around one’s head鈥攊f the bottle fails to keep
pointing in the direction of travel it requires more nose weight and/or bigger
fins. This must be the case both full and empty.
Secondly, readers should be aware that a 5-gallon water container is not
designed to take high pressures and is liable to explode at the point of
firing鈥�3-litre, or better still 2-litre soft drinks bottles can be
pressurised to at least 13 bars without distortion.
To my knowledge the largest ever successful launch of such a rocket was a
2-stage 15-litre vehicle built by myself and fellow aeronautical engineer
Richard Newlands at the 1995 Largs International Rocket Weekend. This rocket
travelled some 80 metres powered by water and compressed air.
The same event also featured the first known “dual fuel” aquajet. However,
whisky and beer proved a poor fuel and an even poorer use of important
resources.