Euro codes
To correct Joona Palaste’s letter
(22 August, p 50), the ISO currency code
for the euro is EUR. The code XEU refers to the European currency unit
(Ecu).
Rain and roadkill
Here in Littondale this summer we have had so much rain it’s not only
mayflies that have had trouble distinguishing the roads from streams
(This Week, 25 July p 16,
and Letters, 29 August p 50).
Driving along the wet lanes, every 50 metres or so one encounters an
insectivorous streamfeeder, the yellow wagtail, possibly taking advantage of the
insects fooled into thinking they were on a stream.
The abundance of misplaced insects may also account for the hedgehog
mortality (I see about two dead ones per day an a 15-kilometre stretch) as
they exploit this food source. Perhaps different coloured road surfacing
and better drainage might reduce the hedgehog death rate.
Many rural roads in Lanarkshire in southern Scotland are surfaced with red
shale, a byproduct of shale oil extraction. Could this provide an opportunity
for a comparative study of the effect of road surface colour on the insects and
their predators?
For crying out loud
The conclusions of Dennis McBride regarding his research into infant colic
make no sense at all in the light of individual or gene selection
(This Week, 22 August, p 11).
The question which should be asked is: “What is in it for the
crying child (or the genes which induce it to cry)?”
His conclusions fail to answer this. Instead, the theory that “parents who
are less patient are weeded out of the gene pool” is strongly suggestive of the
long discredited theory of group selection.
No experience needed
So the disease of spin-doctoring has infected the job market
(Letters, 22 August, p 51).
Paul Garcia writes: “In a previous post I was responsible for
short-listing candidates for mathematics jobs, and the crucial factor was the
quality of the application鈥攏ot the qualifications or experience. I have
seen many apparently well-qualified people who simply cannot put together a
decent application.”
It may just be sour grapes, but as a composer I have often suspected that
those expert in the skills of self-puffery and hype tend to do better in the
arts regardless of talent. I am shocked to find that meretriciousness can gain
you a job in mathematics.
Garcia is actually stating that his prime criterion for selection for
interview was the ability to put together a good application. How this relates
to the ability to do mathematics I fail to comprehend.
Bridge too late
The developers of the San Diego span may like to proclaim theirs as the
world’s first advanced composite bridge
(This Week, 15 August, p 13)
but it is a bridge too late.
The Bonds Mill bridge has been carrying juggernauts across the Stroudwater
Navigation in Gloucestershire, Britain, for four years, with frequent
interruptions when it is raised to allow boats to pass underneath.
Price on nature
Brian Adams’s scheme for resolving planning disputes raises more questions
than it answers
(Forum, 18 July, p 50). His answer to the difficulties of
quantifying non-marketed environmental services in social cost-benefit analyses
is to divide “concepts” into two arbitrary (and by no means mutually exclusive
or exhaustive) classes: “tangible” and “intangible”.
Under his scheme the tangibles would be given the standard monetary cost
assessment, while the intangibles would be collectively ranked and scored by “a
team chosen for its knowledge of relevant factors”.
Ay, there’s the rub! Who chooses the team, on what criteria, and in pursuit
of what hidden agenda? Presumably, Adams would be upset if the team were biased
towards those with a vested interest in commercial “progress”, just as others
would object to a team made up of “anti-development” Greenies. Cost-benefit
analysis was developed precisely to avoid people’s dissatisfaction with this
arbitrary, “winner takes all” process.
The legitimate quest by environmental economists to value, in monetary terms,
society’s willingness to pay for trade-offs between natural capital assets and
manufactured assets represents a new and honourable attempt to move the planning
process away from old-fashioned “top-down” decisions by those in power to a more
consensual “bottom-up” assessment of society’s preferences.
Bringing environmental and other non-marketed costs and benefits into the
calculus of decision-making offers greater hope for achieving sustainable
development than the traditional process of deferring decisions to the arbitrary
judgments of those in power, with vested interests to protect. It also opens the
door to more radical solutions, rather than the simple “Road A versus Road B”
scenario鈥攐ptions such as adopting electronic road-pricing measures to
ration a town’s scarce road space during peak periods so as to obviate the need
for either of the road proposals.
Incorporating non-marketed goods and services into valuation assessments, if
done properly, can satisfy society’s willingness to pay for improvements in both
quality of life and material standard of living.
Proof is impractical
With regard to your comments on alternative medicines
(Editorial, 22 August, p 3),
according to the WHO, 80 per cent of medicine in the world is herbal. In
the US, there are more consultations with alternative practitioners than
GPs.
Rigorous, and thus worthy, clinical trials are very expensive. The results of
one large high-quality trial may conflict with another, as was shown recently in
studies to determine whether tamoxifen prevents breast cancer in at-risk
women.
The costs of conventional drug trials are recovered by the drugs being
patented, which would be impossible for the bulk of alternative treatments. The
call for alternative medicine to be research-based is entirely impractical on
financial grounds.
According to the US Office of Technology Assessment, only 20 per cent of
conventional treatments are proven. So if medical care providers were to require
research, 80 per cent of conventional treatments would be affected. Healthcare
in developing countries would become virtually impossible.
It would not be equitable to make one rule for alternative medicines and
another for conventional.
Letter
Surely you’ve heard of Bombay duck (a fish dish).
Letter
When working in Nigeria 10 years ago, I was party to the following
conversation between our cook and an American.
“What’s for dinner, Peter?”
“Jumping chicken.”
“Jumping chicken? What the hell is that?”
There followed a very good impression of a large frog.
Jumping chickens
You discuss a frog known as a “mountain chicken” and conclude:
“We hope that giving animals the names of other animals like this will not
become a trend. Knowing what the items listed on restaurant menus really consist
of can be tricky enough at the best of times”
(Feedback, 22 August).
In several Far Eastern countries where dog is a delicacy, but locals have
realised that Western tourists don’t approve of eating it, restaurants that are
frequented by tourists tend to describe dog on the menu as “urban deer”.
Quantum queries
I wish to complain most strongly about the use of the pejorative term
“die-hards” to describe scientific critics of “quantum weirdness”
(“Why God plays dice”, 22 August, p 26).
The term could be taken as a compliment if it
ranks one alongside Albert Einstein and Fred Hoyle. But in common parlance it’s
an insult that disparages the person and encourages readers to ignore their
views. It should have no place in your scientific editorial vocabulary.
A related complaint is that the box labelled “Sceptics”, which purports to
give the alternative view, gives marginal arguments only and devotes most of its
space to supporters of quantum weirdness.
I supplied you with my review in press for Contemporary
Physics, which gives pointers to a substantial body of the scientific
alternative, but you chose not to use it.
Gone with the effects
I was pleased to see how modern technology is being used to restore and
preserve the classic Gone with the Wind, but dismayed to read that the
restorers had gone on to “hide some of the special effects that will look
unconvincing to a 1990s audience”
(This Week, 22 August, p 16).
Films such as this are not only a work of art but also a historical
record鈥攁nd should be respected as such. Of course, special effects are
supposed to look convincing, but are judged in the context of the tools
available at the time. We do not have the right to deny future generations the
opportunity to observe the skill (or otherwise) of the film-makers.
By analogy, I would not expect a painting sent off for cleaning to come back
with anything other than the dirt removed.
My advice to EDS, the company that is restoring the film, is to repair
physical and chemical damage and then archive that copy. They are then free to
“improve” to their heart’s content. At least the charm of some of these early
movies will not then be lost.
Long 2000
David Hughes’s comments on The Calendar by David Duncan
(Review, 22 August, p 45)
made me aware that 2000 will be the first occasion since the
adoption of the Gregorian year by Britain in 1752 that a century year has been
allocated 366 days.
As is well known, the Julian year of 365.25 days (initiated in 46 BC by
Julius Caesar) was too long and by 1582 the Spring Equinox occurred on 11 March.
Pope Gregory ordered the correction of this by suppressing 10 days of that year
and changing 5 October into 15 October.
To avoid further drift it was decreed that February would only have 29 days
in a century year when the year number was divisible by 400. Presumably Roman
Catholic countries observed the rule in 1600, but England, Scotland and Wales
have waited until now.
Two-pound trick
I was interested to read that your new 拢2 coin seems to be falling apart
(Feedback, 15 August). Interestingly enough, the recently introduced
$2 Canadian coin had similar problems. They seem to have been solved, so
perhaps you should talk to the Canadian mint?
By the way, the coins that fell apart wound up being quite valuable. If you
have any broken coins around, I suggest you keep them.
Clear about clearing
I greatly enjoyed Charlie Pye-Smith’s report on our studies of forest
fragmentation in the Amazon, which suggest that rainforest remnants could be
important sources of greenhouse gas emissions
(This Week, 22 August, p 12).
I would, however, like to propose one small change in the text. Pye-Smith
concluded his story with the statement that: “Laurance says that governments
should encourage patterns of forest clearing that minimise fragmentation.”
I would prefer to say that I “strongly discourage patterns of forest clearing
that lead to fragmentation”. While this distinction may seem subtle, I would not like
to be seen as “encouraging” further forest clearing in the Amazon鈥攊n
any way, shape, or form.
Letter
Aren’t Bob Holmes and his experimental ecologists missing a point or two?
Unlike them I do not want to conserve all species because they are vital to
ecosystem productivity, or even because of some airy-fairy moral or aesthetic
reasons.
I want every last one because if we lose it, we can never use it. It’s as
simple as that.
Spare all species
It seems that our current economic obsession with short-term profitability
may have infected ecological studies as well
(“Life support”, 15 August, p 30).
It may well be that the productivity of a grassy knoll isn’t that much better
with 30 species, rather than four. But this seems to overlook the main problem,
which is surviving 50 million years or so. The notion that “minor” species are
largely irrelevant and only worth saving from some aesthetic perspective or, God
forbid, only useful for new medicines, misses the point.
I’m sure mammals fitted this minority description perfectly in those days
when T. rex was a lot cockier a species than it is now.
Litter louts
Feedback
(29 August) talks about protests made to Yoplait that its discarded
yogurt containers were dangerous to skunks. The protesters focused on the wrong
word, “dangerous”. The key word is “discarded”.
Heaps of things are dangerous to wildlife, but if they don’t get into the
open, the problems do not arise. Skunk-friendly containers are fine, but what if
they cause problems for other animals? The simplest solution is to ensure that
people don’t discard yogurt containers (or anything else) where wildlife could
come across them.
Photos don't fit
The pioneering work by the physics department of the University of Kent has
made it possible to put a picture on a small portion of the magnetic strip on plastic cards
(This Week, 29 August, p 9),
but I am afraid that the banking industry in Britain is unlikely to be a purchaser of this technology.
This is because in 1991 the banks, through the Association of Payment and
Clearing Services, decided that photocards (in any form) were not the way
forward for the industry as a whole in its fight against plastic card fraud. We
agreed to pursue a better solution that did not put the onus of identification
on untrained retail staff.
As a consequence, and following three and a half years’ development,
including public tests in Northampton and Dunfermline, the industry decided only
last month on a programme of reissuing all 104 million bank and building society
payment cards with cards containing an embedded microchip (but also retaining
the magnetic strip). The roll-out of this new technology will commence early
next year, as will the conversion of cash machines and more than 500 000
terminals in retail outlets.
Although, for the time being, customers will continue to authorise
transactions by signature in shops and by PIN (personal identification number)
in cash machines, the power and security of the chip will make it possible to
introduce, at some future date, a better verification method, perhaps utilising
a unique biometric identification of the customer.
Letter
Your article about the suggested significance of randomness and so-called
nonlocality perpetuates a serious misunderstanding of the significance of
Schr枚dinger’s equation and hence of his cat.
Schr枚dinger’s cat possessed the fundamental characteristic of all
quantum cats鈥攊t was a dead or alive cat. In the same way the electron and
positron from the pion decay are quantum particles, so have either up or down
spin. To conserve spin one is in each state.
This has been so with every such pion decay anywhere in the Universe since
the big bang. Human observers came very late onto the scene and are not required
to be present for the quantum states to be resolved. Their sole involvement in
experiments is to collect and pass on information that both the electron and
positron knew from the instant of their creation鈥攚hich has which spin.
Since each necessarily knew from the start which spin it had, there is no
instantaneous transfer of knowledge, for it travelled at the speed of the
particles from the point of the pion decay. The fundamental point is that
Schr枚dinger’s equation does not calculate a superposition of states but a
superposition of the probabilities of states鈥� since it only ever
calculates probabilities.
Observation resolves which of the probabilities is true. No more and no
less.
Mark Buchanan writes: It could indeed be so, but this wouldn’t change the
matter regarding nonlocality. If each particle “knows from the start” what spin
it has, then since ordinary quantum theory says nothing about such definite
spins, there must be some better (though perhaps unknown) theory that does.
Bell’s theorem shows that if the predictions of any such “hidden variables”
theory are to agree with those of quantum theory, then that theory must contain
some mechanism for nonlocal signalling between particles. Logically speaking,
whether or not you imagine the spins as being definite all the while, you must
accept some peculiar nonlocal links between them.