Letters : Feedback fooled
New York
Ed Subitzky and I were delighted to see our work finally appear on the pages
of New 杏吧原创.
The final item in Feedback (14 June),
on “the ultimate disclaimer notice”,
sent in by Adam Quantrill, is in fact an extract from a science humour piece we
wrote in 1990 that was published in The Journal of Irreproducible
Results in 1991.
Strangely, we did submit the whole piece to New 杏吧原创 in 1990,
thinking it might do for an April Fools’ Day issue but it was turned down much
to our disappointment.
However, by the strange karma of modern communications the piece, having
found its own way onto the Internet and having knocked around there for years,
caught the eye of one of your readers, who sent it to the Feedback column.
Somehow the piece fulfilled its own destiny by sneaking in the back door of the
magazine when no one was looking.
Letters : . . .
Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia
I suspect that Smolin is being far too hard on his own theory when he demands
that natural selection produces only universes of the most efficient possible
design for spawning new universes. After all, many species of living creature
are less than perfectly adapted to their ecological niche and individuals are
often even less so.
It would be no surprise if our Universe, while well adapted enough to
survive, produce life and reproduce, had rather less than the most efficient
possible design. In fact, the surprising thing would be if it did.
Letters : Child universes
Rochdale, Greater Manchester
If Lee Smolin is to challenge the self-evident anthropic principle
(“depressing . . . cartoon science . . . no testable predictions”), he’ll have
to do better than his Darwinian universe by “cosmological selection”
(“Thank heavens for black holes”, 24 May, p 38).
As an ontology the anthropic principle is faultless. It allows for the
continual advance of science while asking no deeper questions about the nature
of truth. If it didn’t exist there’d be no physicists to be “depressed” by
it.
By contrast, Smolin is “happy” to endorse the idea of many
universes鈥攁ll of which exist beyond the event horizon of a black hole.
Have not Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking shown well enough that all science
can possibly say about such regions is that they are singular (thus proving that
the event horizon is a boundary science cannot cross).
Letters : Acid sparks
Abingdon, Oxfordshire
The report of Bruce Railsback’s findings on the effect of lightning on rain
acidity had one surprising element鈥攖he statement that lightning seemed to
provide some unknown but rapid mechanism of acid formation
(New 杏吧原创, Science, 31 May, p 17).
In my introduction to elementary science we were taught that in 1784 Henry
Cavendish synthesised nitric acid by passing a stream of electric sparks through
moist air and that an industrial process for producing nitric acid had been
based on this principle.
I don’t doubt the validity of Railsback’s findings but they, or the way that
these were reported, gave the impression that the exercise lacked historical
scientific background to an extent that suggested a reinvention of the
wheel.
Letters : Clean hands
St Albans, Hertfordshire
I was very interested in the letters published in
Last Word on 17 May which
all agreed that soap does not kill germs. During the recent infestation of our
local water supply with the protozoan Cryptosporidium, the water
company Three Valleys Water sent us a notice to boil water for drinking but
assured us that the infected water was safe to use for bathing and laundry.
When I asked the company if the water was safe to use for washing dishes, I
was assured that it was because “soap and detergent will kill the germs”. In the
light of your letters I am wondering if Cryptosporidium is especially
vulnerable to ordinary soap and detergent, or if I was misled by a water company
on a subject that is the basis of its business.
Letters : Mystery pathogens
Address withheld
It is not hard to find within your pages references to previously unknown
pathogens. For instance,
This Week (7 June, p 6) carries a report in which it is
stated that some cases of potentially fatal infections occurring in the US are
caused by “mystery pathogens”.
Again, in In Brief (14 June, p 13)
reference is made to pathogens in a
spider’s bite that are so far unidentified. Indeed, not so long ago you ran a
feature on the huge numbers of bacterial species that are unidentified because
they cannot be cultured (“Life unlimited”, 10 February 1996, p 26).
Is it not therefore ironic that your reviewer David Cohen connives with the
author Elaine Showalter in her complacency about illnesses thought to be
relatively new (Review, 14 June, p 45)?
What if it were to be the case that Gulf
War syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome were caused by one or more than one of
these same mystery pathogens? A pathogen does not have to be fatal or to raise a
generally detectable immune response to be a cause of morbidity.
As a former microbiologist suffering from one of the illnesses spoken of, I
treated myself with enormous doses of antibiotics and improved dramatically. To
raise a cheap laugh by mocking disease activists is rather unworthy of your
magazine.
Letters : . . .
Darwin, Australia
A link between crime and toxic chemicals, and in particular metals such as
lead and manganese, was found by Masters in a “provocative new analysis”.
Another association between behaviour and toxic chemicals was suggested when
children and rats exposed to PCBs in the Great Lakes studies were seen to react
more to negative events.
High levels of cadmium or lead, mineral deficiencies or sensitivity to
certain foods were found in all 100 offenders in Peter Bennett’s study, soon to
be published in the Journal of Nutritional Medicine. This is the same
Peter Bennett who, as a police superintendent, observed dramatic behavioural
improvements in all eight juvenile offenders using the “few foods” diet, as
shown in the BBC documentary Little Monsters.
The results of diet and chemical studies appear to be converging: behaviour
can be affected by a wide range of food and environmental chemicals.
Letters : Chemical crimes?
London
Pollution causes crime? Sure, Roger Masters found high pollution levels in
areas with high levels of violent crime
(This Week, 31 May, p 4). But the
correlation probably isn’t caused by toxic chemicals disrupting neurological
mechanisms.
As Masters notes, poverty is also strongly correlated with both. What happens
is that well-off people simply don’t live in polluted areas, but use their money
to buy nice green surroundings. The only people who will live in areas subject
to industrial and high levels of traffic pollution are those who can’t afford to
move away.
Similarly with crime: people who have well-paid jobs don’t need to resort to
messy crime to make a living, nor do they build up the same frustrations against
a society which offers them no legitimate way to achieve status and respect.
Social “toxins” are powerful causative mechanisms, whatever the physiological
damage inflicted by toxic chemicals.
I hope Masters’s study also reveals the proportion of males and females among
those whose violent urges are vented in crime, and how the age profiles of
people with violent behaviour correlate with (cumulative) exposure to chemical
toxins and physiological reactions to them.
Letters : . . .
Germany
Although we very much appreciate being mentioned in the New
杏吧原创, we feel obliged to inform you that our press release concerning
the project “Uniforms for employees of the Ruhr University in Bochum” that you
referred to (Feedback, 24 May)
was written especially for April Fools’ Day.
Over the years, the press and PR office of the university has established a
tradition of inventing “true lies” to celebrate the day (Aprilscherz in
German).
Unfortunately (or fortunately, if viewed as evidence of the quality of our
Aprilscherz), in this case you fell for it. Please do not be overly
annoyed, as many German newspapers, radio and TV stations did the same.
However, all our press releases should be considered to be
serious鈥攗nless they are issued on 1 April.
Letters : . . .
London
There have been various technological uses suggested for black holes, for
instance for energy production, transport or weapons. If any of these can be
made to work and it is possible to produce black holes artificially, then the
greatest number of child universes will be generated by those universes which
contain technological civilisations.
Such civilisations might even deliberately design their equipment to produce
large numbers of child universes, as an altruistic act to increase the number of
life-bearing universes.
Letters : Spud test
Witham, Essex
The letter on tasteless potatoes (Letters, 17 May, p 51)
reminded me of the
time when I joined ICI at Billingham in 1935. The story going round was of an
enthusiastic member of the research department reporting the results of tests
which showed the considerable increase in the yield of potatoes by the use of
fertilisers.
The researcher was halted by the chairman Alexander Fleck (later Lord Fleck),
who asked in his broad Scottish accent: “But do they make guid chips?”
Letters : Time dilation
Sevenoaks, Kent
Your observation about Connex South Central’s “91.59 per cent on time” claim
was well made (Feedback, 24 May).
But actually it’s worse than that. Train companies also try to pervert the
English language by defining “on time” (or “to time”) as not more than 5 minutes
over the timetabled arrival time鈥攊n other words, late. So a journey
supposed to take 30 minutes can, in railspeak, be 15 per cent late and still “on
time”.
The inevitable result of this form of thinking is that they will consider a
train 10 minutes late to be really only 5 minutes past the “on time” limit, and
slowly but surely “to time” will become “not more than 10 minutes” late.
Another example of railspeak: “the 08.24 service is running 15 minutes late”
鈥攁 curious sense of the word “service”.
Letters : Model example
Perth, Australia
I wonder if the aerodynamics expert Mark Drela was aware of the body of
research done by Michael Selig and others on low Reynolds number aerodynamics
(“Where aircraft fear to go”, 31 May, p 34).
My knowledge of this research comes
from designing and flying high performance model sailplanes that operate at
Reynolds numbers of 300 000 and below.
Selig has been designing and testing aerofoils specifically for this flight
regime in a specially designed wind tunnel. In the article it states that it is
not possible to mimic the flight of an aircraft at Reynolds number 300 000.
The wind tunnel at the University of Illinois routinely tests aerofoils for
use in model gliders at these Reynolds numbers. Perhaps the design work would
have been easier if Drela flew F3B Triple Task gliders.
These gliders fly efficiently at low Reynolds numbers using special laminar
flow aerofoils designed to reduce problems with boundary layer separation and
reattachment.
Letters : Space polluters
Gloucester
Has it not occurred to anyone else that there is an obvious way to start
addressing the space junk problem (Forum, 17 May, p 49).
Companies in any Earth-bound industry are expected to safely and effectively
deal with their hazardous waste products. If any new company can’t afford to
clean up after itself then it is out of business before it starts. I would argue
that if Teledesic can afford to invest in the technical expertise needed to get
its satellites into orbit in the first place, it must also be able to afford to
tidy up after the job is done and on an ongoing basis. This goes for any other
company planning to “pollute” Earth’s orbit.
Money raised from such companies could pay for the setting up of a
salvage-type operation which would act as an orbital garbage collection service
on behalf of orbit users. Companies expecting to make a vast fortune from the
service their satellites will provide should work this into their financial
budgets and put up or shut up.
Letters : Quantum ghosts
University of Cambridge
Your article claims that the ghostly multiple existences of
Schr枚dinger’s cat and other objects “follow unavoidably from the [quantum]
theory” (“Crossing the quantum frontier”, 26 April, p 38).
In fact, this and
other common paradoxes (particularly the “measurement problem”) stem solely from
the interpretation of the theory. The article assumes implicitly that the
meaning of the equations is given by the well-known Copenhagen interpretation,
but this is by no means the last word on the subject.
The author describes the development of Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber theory and
quantum state diffusion theory, which in our opinion apply patches to equations
that do not need fixing. John Cramer clearly demonstrated this in his own
“transactional interpretation” of quantum mechanics (Review of Modern
Physics, vol 58, p 647), which is based on the Wheeler-Feynman theory of
electrodynamics and the Wigner time-reversal operator. If one accepts this shift
in our understanding of the same mathematics then there is no measurement
problem, largely because the state vector is postulated to have an objective
reality.
Given the success of the transactional interpretation in eliminating the
problems associated with the Copenhagen orthodoxy, and the further bonus of an
explicitly visualisable model for quantum processes, we find it surprising that
so few people have paid attention to Cramer’s work. Are the “daring physicists”
mentioned in your article daring enough to do so?
Letters : Chance for all
Marrickville, New South Wales, Australia
Margaret Wertheim’s comments on James Gilbert’s book Redeeming
Culture (Review, 24 May, p 44)
outline the connection between science and
religion in popular culture. Many readers are no doubt aware of Albert
Einstein’s statement: “Science without religion is lame, religion without
science is blind.” I believe that the cosmic religious experience is the
strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.
According to the review, Gilbert suggests that a synthesis between science
and religion is ultimately impossible. In their bookThe Matter Myth,
Paul Davies and John Gribbin insist that theologians should restrict themselves
to subjects that are outside the scope of science. This, of course, ensures that
experts in the field of religion should make no attempt to combine these fields
of study鈥攜et Davies apparently allows no reciprocal restriction on
scientists dabbling in the field of religion, as evident by his claim that
scientists are working toward and will eventually attain “the mind of God”.
Stephen Hawking concludes A Brief History of Time with the
suggestion that when scientists have finally attained “the answer to everything”
the general public should be invited to share in discussing this subject, yet he
apparently sees little value in contributions from nonscientists in attaining
that final answer.
Letters : Taming turbulence
by e-mail
John Casti hypothesises that a truly non-Turing machine might depend on
physical principles which we currently find uncomputable and unpredictable
(“Computing the uncomputable”, 17 May, p 30).
To the best of my knowledge, the principle that fits this bill best isn’t so
much quantum theory as that of fluid turbulence鈥� the proper algorithmic
modelling of which has so far eluded physicists and the heftiest supercomputers
on the planet.
Letters : . . .
A supercivilisation in the far future, when most stars have burnt out, could
get its energy by pushing neutron stars into one another to form black holes. A
lot of the mass energy of the neutron stars released in the process could be
harvested.