Keep to the ground
I don’t like the sound of the flying cars
(“I’m just flying down to the supermarket”, 29 May, p 24).
Is it remotely likely that the safety and
maintenance systems needed to keep aircraft flying would not be necessary for
flying cars? And in a mass market, would they be enforced?
What about noise intrusion, which is much greater from an engine in the sky
than from one on the ground? At 8 kilometres a litre, what about air pollution?
And with a price tag of $60 000, the idea that they can replace cars in
the developing world is pie in the sky: a million of them would pay for
$50 billion of roads and bridges鈥攁nd leave $10 billion over
to buy ordinary cars with.
I think that flying cars will just be another way for the rich to make life
less pleasant and more dangerous for the rest of us.
Letter
Don’t cities have enough noise, pollution and privacy problems without adding
another layer of traffic? Not to mention the environmental cost of thousands of
“vertiports”.
This hardly encourages people into public transport or lowers our reliance on
fossil fuels.
Pavlov's dogs
Robert Matthews says that psychologist James McConnell “did something that
would have landed Pavlov in a bit of trouble had he tried it with his dogs:
McConnell cut the worms in half”
(Review, 5 June, p 50).
Clearly Matthews is unaware of the rather unsavoury denouement to Pavlov’s
experiments, in which the dogs were indeed cut in half or, to be more precise,
beheaded. The heads were kept alive for long enough to demonstrate that they
still salivated in response to the conditioned stimulus of a bell ringing.
As far as I know, nobody got into any trouble over this. Thankfully, things
have changed since then . . . or have they?
Under wraps
Legally, there is a straightforward answer for software users baffled by
licences that claim to be binding once unsealed but which cannot be read without
breaking the seal
(Feedback, 29 May): don’t panic.
In Britain at least, any contractual terms governing the use of software and
purporting to be binding upon opening the packet, cannot bind the user unless
they are brought to their attention before they open the sealed packet. It is
impossible to be bound by something that you have not had the opportunity to
read. The result is that any licence that cannot be read until the packet is
opened is a waste of paper.
For a shrink-wrap licence such as this to be effective, it should either be a
separate document that can be read before opening the packet, or there should be
a statement on the outside of the packet to the effect that, by opening the
sealed packet, the user will be bound by the standard licence, a copy of which
is available on request. Another method is to wrap the package in clear plastic
film, through which any relevant licence can be read.
It is usually down to us lawyers to draft such licences and to advise on
their use鈥攂ut it is then down to companies to follow this advice and use
their licences properly. Although infringement of intellectual property rights
in software is another matter entirely, I am sure that there are a number of
companies who are not protected by their licences in the way they believe
themselves to be.
Melting snows
Fred Pearce reports on the melting Himalayan glaciers
(This Week, 5 June, p 18).
When I first climbed the summits of Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya 30 years
ago, I was told their equatorial snows would disappear before the end of the
century. Happily, this has not happened. Although diminished, the snow-clad
summits still grace the East African landscapes. Perhaps the Himalayan glaciers
will last more than 40 years.
As for the valleys drying out, I remember when learning about the English
Lake District being intrigued by calculations which showed that a
600-metres-deep glacier filling the Langdale valley and moving a few inches a
day would carry the same quantity of water per year as the current Skelwith
stream. Certainly, the valleys show no signs of drying out in spite of the loss
of their ancient glaciers.
Do we expect the rate of precipitation to fall when mountains lose their snow
caps?
Medieval string
During a rather earnest late night conversation with an in-law regarding the
nature of space and time, I found myself being referred to a passage in a not
altogether scientific-sounding book, The Truth Behind The Bible Code by
Jeffery Satinover. The author states that a Jewish scholar in the Middle Ages
called Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, or Nachamanides, was responsible for a
reasonable treatise on the big bang. I was incredulous to read a section
allegedly quoting Nachamanides discussing the creation event:
“The pencil beam of upper light that formed the Universe in its seed state
was composed of ten aspects or dimensions. During the six days of creation, six
of these ten aspects became so small that we are only capable of detecting
four鈥攖he four dimensions of physical existence.”
This account of the beginning of the Universe is startlingly consistent with
my admittedly sketchy knowledge of superstring theory. The passage is cited as
coming from Nachamanides’s “Commentary on the Torah, Genesis 1:1”, translated by
Gerald Schroeder in Genesis and the Big Bang. I would be grateful to
any readers who could confirm or refute this translation, as I find it a little
far-fetched.
Eggcel
Further to Simon Hogg’s revelation of a flight simulator in Excel 97
(Feedback, 12 June),
you might be interested to know of a small 3D maze in Excel
7.0, a pinball in Word 97 and a Magic 8 ball in Access 97. Such hidden
functions, or Easter Eggs, are much more common than you might think.
All this and much, much, more is revealed at www.eeggs.com/
Digital disease
I think I’ve discovered a new, computer-age disease: M眉nchausen’s by
proxy var technologica.
I met someone today who believes that their computer has suffered from nearly
every virus going. Initially sympathetic, I soon realised that some of the
events described either could not be real (such as pornographic photographs
loading instantly when the computer was turned on) or were unlikely to have been
caused by a virus.
As they continued to tell me that they knew their PC had various viruses on
its hard drive (and knew exactly what activated them), it dawned upon me that
they were manifesting a form of M眉nchausen’s by proxy.
Have others come across this condition? Do computer engineers find themselves
being called out to machines made “sick” by sufferers of this complaint? Are
sufferers altering the settings and parameters to make them behave as if they
have a new virus? More research needed, I believe.
Airing the problem
Nell Boyce’s article on hospital bugs overlooks one very important point
(This Week, 5 June, p 11).
On 14 December 1997, I was admitted to my local NHS hospital with a broken
femur. This was a simple operation, and I was ready to be discharged in 14 days.
However, I got a bad lung infection that turned to pleurisy, and I was in agony
for three days before action was taken. I was discharged after a further
fortnight and needed a long convalescence.
As in most hospitals, I was breathing stale air from other patients in the
wards. One can positively taste it. I wrote to the chief executive pointing out
that a simple ventilating system would avoid this. He replied that the opening
and closing of the doors changed the air sufficiently. That, of course, is
downright nonsense.
Ventilation systems must be installed in hospitals providing for heated input
of fresh鈥攏ot recycled鈥攁ir, giving at least 2 changes every 24 hours.
The normal radiators could be dispensed with. I am certain the reduced infection
and mortality rates would easily make up for the cost.
Letter
An A10’s Minigun may be able to fire at the rate of 3900 shells per minute
but it never actually fires 3900 shells in a single minute and therefore
wouldn’t “release 234 kilograms of DU a minute”. A10s, like all other gun-armed
warplanes, carry only enough ammunition for a few short bursts of firing.
Home of Colossus
The code-breaking Colossus may have been the first electronic digital
computer, but it was neither designed nor constructed at Bletchley Park
(Forum, 29 May, p 50).
Thomas H. Flowers, who designed it and organised its
construction, worked at the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill. In
1943, the Bletchley Park team had asked for help with their own design (which
became known as the “Heath Robinson”), and the tape reader for it was made at
Dollis Hill.
Flowers thought that the associated circuits were not well designed, and that
the machine would never achieve the speeds that were needed. He proposed the use
of thermionic valves for carrying out logic and for replacing one of the
punched-paper tapes by what we would now call a shift-register 200 bits
long.
The Bletchley Park team thought that a machine using over 1000 valves would
be unreliable and refused any support for it. The machine was nevertheless built
in great secrecy at Dollis Hill. When it was demonstrated to them, the Bletchley
team accepted it and asked for more like it as soon as possible. Ten more were
built by the Post Office factory in Birmingham.
I designed the optical parts of the tape readers for both Heath Robinson and
Colossus.
Future on a wave
If Tam Dalyell was really concerned about “devastating our planet”
(Thistle Diary, 5 June, p 55),
he would eschew nuclear power, the technology with
potential for the most catastrophic devastation鈥攁s Chernobyl has
shown.
It is revealing that apologists for nuclear power such as Dalyell try to
strangle at birth promising renewable energy solutions such as wave power.
Nuclear power is a dinosaur in the coming age of genuinely renewable energy.
Renewables such as wave and wind power offer major environmental benefits plus
considerable job opportunities for Britain鈥攕o long as the country’s world
leadership in technologies such as wave power is not sacrificed to prolong the
life of the doomed nuclear industry.
Dalyell denigrates the Islay wave-power device because it produces little
energy, just 75 kilowatts. However, the report to which Dalyell refers makes it
very clear that the device is a prototype. It is due to be replaced this summer
by a device many times more powerful (500 kilowatts), itself small by the
standards of the machines that will soon follow.
Rob Edwards has already described these developments in New 杏吧原创
(“The Big Break”, 3 October 1998, p 30).
His article includes an assessment by Gordon Senior, chairman of the government task force on wave
power: “We could generate half of Britain’s electricity requirements from waves
by 2040. I am convinced we can do it.”
Because of an editing error, Tam Dalyell’s column stated that nuclear
energy produces 30 per cent of England’s energy and 50 per cent of Scotland’s.
In fact, these figures refer only to electricity production
Uranium in war
Your article on the use of depleted uranium (DU) by US forces in the Balkans
was remarkably one-sided
(This Week, 5 June, p 20).
Granted, the article does mention that Doug Rokke’s claims are disputed by
the official organisations involved. However, it ignores the overwhelming
evidence supporting these organisations’ positions.
The recently released Rand report states: “There are no peer-reviewed
published reports of detectable increases of cancer or other negative health
effects from radiation exposure to inhaled or ingested natural uranium at levels
far exceeding those likely in the Gulf. This is mainly because the body is very
effective at eliminating ingested and inhaled natural uranium and because the
low radioactivity per unit mass of natural and depleted uranium means that the
mass of uranium needed for significant internal exposure is virtually impossible
to obtain.”
Under their control
Congratulations on your editorial on corporate control of science
(Editorial, 5 June, p 3).
You are absolutely correct about the public reaction to the
Strangelove-type images created by the behaviour of the ever fewer corporations
involved in food production.
Genetic engineering is being used to take control of every step in the
production of food, from the patenting of interesting genetic material to the
farmer who is obliged to sell his produce back to his corporate suppliers, and
is sued and harassed if he doesn’t play the game, all the way through to the
supermarkets鈥攚here the European public have experienced corporate and US
bullying tactics.
What they鈥攖he corporations and the US government鈥攔epeatedly refer
to as “sound science” we should read as the “corporate science”, to which your
editorial refers. Thank you for that lead. Those of us who wish to keep
democratic control of food and medicines alive will need to watch that
space.