Letters : Premature eruption
Cambridge
I attended the second Santorini Congress in 1978 and the third in 1989. At
the second congress it was still possible to believe, as the theory reported by
Bob Johnstone assumes, that the eruption of Santorini was contemporary with the
fall of Minoan Crete and caused it (“Who killed the Minoans?”, 21 June, p 36).
There were already difficulties with the theory, including the knowledge that
excavated sites, even on the exposed north coast of Crete, failed to show the
signs of tsunami destruction so vividly described in Johnstone’s article. Among
others, the expert I. Yokoyama came from Japan to discuss the tsunami
question.
At the third congress, all had changed. The eruption, as redated by several
independent methods, occurred at least several decades earlier than the
destruction of the Minoans. This eruption was not so huge as had been thought:
it did not create the present crater, but enlarged an existing one. The tsunami,
if any, was too small to have left archaeological traces. Crete apparently got
off lightly and soon recovered, as it has from floods and earthquakes many times
since. That, as far as I know, is still the position.
The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 had nothing to do with the fall of the Dutch
East Indies in 1942. On similar grounds, the eruption of Santorini is unlikely
to have had anything to do with the fall of Minoan Crete.
Letters : Cruel undercut
Hitchin
Alison Motluk explores the problem of universities subsidising research
contracts through not charging for overheads (“When the sums don’t add up”, 19
July, p 18). As an industrial researcher who has lost several projects to
university departments because they could undercut our commercial rates,
precisely and knowingly through not including overheads, I am delighted to see
this unfair competition exposed.
Research in British universities is superb, and should be properly funded.
There are other people competent to do commercial consultancy and development
projects: even, dare I say it, able to do them better, through leavening their
technical abilities with the fruits of their industrial experience.
The universities have been drawn into this position largely as a result of
years of underfunding under a monetarist regime. We can only hope that this
situation will now be rectified and that they will be able to concentrate on the
research they should be doing for our long-term intellectual and commercial
wealth.
Letters : Do the boiling up
Birmingham
I too am concerned by Three Valleys Water company advising customers that
water contaminated with Cryptosporidium should be boiled before
drinking, but is safe to use for bathing and laundry [and dishwashing], because
“soap and detergents will kill the germs” (Letters, 5 July, p 51).
Far from being “especially vulnerable to ordinary soap and detergent” as
Barry Garraway asks, Cryptosporidial oocysts are extremely resistant to most
disinfectants, detergents and soap, but can be destroyed by high temperatures.
If a water supply is found to be contaminated by Cryptosporidial oocysts, the
water supply company should advise customers to boil all water used not just for
drinking but for all culinary purposes, including washing dishes, as this
organism is known to infect with particularly low doses.
Water used only for laundering purposes is unlikely to be consumed and
therefore need not be boiled.
Letters : Cat among the atoms
Matt Probert and Mike Towler should not be surprised at the unpopularity of
John Cramer’s transactional interpretation of quantum theory (Letters, 5 July, p
52). His reciprocal transactions between past and future just wrap the medieval
doctrine of final causes in modern theoretical clothes. The doctrine is
incompatible with modern science.
Probert and Towler disagree with John Bell (Speakable and Unspeakable in
Quantum Mechanics) and Richard Feynman (Lectures on Gravitation)
that quantum mechanics has problems that need fixing. Here is one. Modern
experiments confirm that a single quantum atom can be in two places (millimetres
apart) at once. But a single classical cat, made of many atoms, can’t. How many
atoms do you need before the quantum laws fail?
That is the problem of the elusive classical-quantum boundary. In Niels
Bohr’s time no one could experiment near the boundary, but they needed to apply
quantum theory to atoms, molecules, nuclei and radiation. Bohr showed them how
to evade the boundary problem with a working compromise called the Copenhagen
interpretation.
Atom traps and interferometers now provide experimenters with remarkable
control over individual atoms. The classical-quantum boundary might be in their
sights within a few years. So theorists need to solve the problem that Bohr
evaded. There are now alternative theories with dynamical laws that resemble
quantum mechanics for atoms and classical mechanics for cats. Some of the modern
ones might help the experimenters by showing them where to look for that elusive
boundary. For more about this, see the March issue of Physics World,
which has two relevant articles on experiments and one on the theory, also found
at (http://www.iop.org/).
Letters : Lip service
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Michael Gro脽 objects to dubbed movies on the grounds that most of us
experience some irritation when lip movements do not match the soundtrack
(Forum, 7 June, p 50).
A more cogent argument for retaining the original soundtrack with subtitles
is the powerful but almost effortless language learning that takes place while
reading subtitles, listening to a partially-understood foreign language and
watching the action. Although British audiences learn little Swedish when
watching subtitled Ingmar Bergman classics, Swedes attain most of their
undoubted fluency in English by watching subtitled English language films and TV
programmes. This is because they begin at a very early age, as soon as they can
read鈥攐nly films and TV programmes for the very young are dubbed in
Scandinavian countries鈥攁nd watch a wide variety of screened material in
English every week, in addition to learning English in school.
It seems very likely that the Scandinavian preference for subtitles, rather
than a difference in the quality or amount of language teaching, is the reason
that English is spoken more fluently and understood more widely in Scandinavia
than, for example, in Germany, France, Italy or Spain, where dubbing is far more
common.
As the number of TV channels available to audiences everywhere is about to
expand by several orders of magnitude, is it too much to hope that dubbing will
soon be replaced, or at least supplemented, by using additional channels to
screen the original version at the same time, with subtitles in an appropriately
wide choice of languages?
Letters : . . .
Schofields, New South Wales
Due to sloppy engineering practice, many broadcasters routinely transmit
programmes where the picture is delayed relative to the sound. This means that
dialogue is heard before the actors open their mouths鈥攕omething I find
extremely irritating, but most people never seem to notice.
Gro脽 should be grateful he doesn’t live in some Southeast Asian countries.
Due to the poor literacy rates, subtitles aren’t an option and many countries
just have one man and woman doing all the dubbed voices. (And quite often, the
translating and sound effects as well).
Letters : Wet and cold
rkoksvik@estec.esa.nl
Your article on the possibility of overheating causing anxiousness while
diving in a wet suit was interesting as accidents due to panic attacks are well
known but not well understood (This Week, 5 July, p 5).
However, one should be aware that hypothermia is also a dangerous situation
to get into. There are many thicknesses of wet suits and it is obviously
necessary to choose the right amount of insulation. I have seen divers in a wet
suit as thin as 3 millimetres frozen to the bone after one hour in water as warm
as 27 掳C.
Some form of protection is always advisable in tropical waters due to a whole
range of beasties that can cause nasty injuries, even death, on contact with the
skin.
Letters : Tiger tally
Godalming, Surrey
Your report on estimating Siberian tiger numbers in the Russian far east by
using trained sniffer dogs was most interesting, and the World Wide Fund for
Nature (WWF) would welcome any new survey technique that can accurately estimate
tiger populations (This Week, 12 July, p 18). However, given the large area the
tigers inhabit and the ecological differences such as habitat, prey densities
and weather conditions which affect tiger distribution and abundance, it is
misleading to extrapolate a census from the Lazovsky reserve (1200 square
kilometres) to the whole of the tiger’s range.
The reality is that any method used in the Russian far east will always be an
estimate, unless it involves sight record techniques such as camera traps.
Unfortunately, the latter would be impractical due to the sheer scale of the
task involved: the entire Siberian tiger range stretches north to south nearly
1000 kilometres in mostly mountainous terrain.
The winter census survey conducted by the USAID Russian Far East
environmental policy and technology project, with financial assistance from WWF,
covered 193 500 square kilometres, and a simultaneous count also occurred in
February 1996, as in previous years (1979, 1985), covering 134 621 square
kilometres. Monitoring by repeated systematic counts using the same methods is
extremely useful because the counts provide indications of trends and local
abundances.
Throughout the survey every effort was made to ensure individuals were not
counted more than once. Indeed, tiger tracks can be sexed and plaster casts of
paws can be made to separate same-sex tigers whose ranges may overlap.
Because the 1995/96 survey covered a larger area than previous surveys, the
current trend cannot be established. As a result of the survey we now know that
there are more tigers than previously estimated, but whether the tiger
population is stable, increasing or in decline has yet to be determined.
Recent evidence collected by Russian scientists suggests that each year at
least 10 per cent of the tiger population is poached. This is why it is critical
that we keep up efforts to combat poachers such as anti-poaching brigades,
enforcement of international laws and environmental education programmes, and
continue to monitor the status of tiger populations throughout their range in a
systematic, easily replicated manner.
Letters : Blow ye winds
Reading
Feedback (12 July) asks how you get any other than a southerly wind at the
North Pole.
Well, if the wind is coming from the South it is also going South so you have
both South winds and North winds. The only winds you don’t get at the pole are
East and West.
Letters : Elephant's Marmite
Aberdeen
Feedback has passed on the appeal from Los Angeles Zoo for recipes to
encourage elephants to swallow their medicine (19 July).
My experience with my cats and dogs has shown that some animals like salty
foods. I have given my cats pills covered with Marmite, a technique that has
proven very successful.
Letters : Pun passed over
London
Regarding your article (This Week, 12 July, p 12) about the loss of Japan’s
Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS): how on earth did you resist the
temptation to title the piece “Adios ADEOS”? An example of extraordinary
self-control.