Stuck here on Earth, like it or not
While a permanent human presence on other worlds may be desirable, Nick
Deane is right to point out the fallacy of the idea that “a new frontier” will
help us solve problems back home
(27 January, p 51). But he doesn’t mention the
reason most of us and our descendants must remain Earthbound.
We are all held by the Earth’s large and powerful gravitational field. We
simply can’t export, say, one billion of our surplus population to a new
off-Earth colony (perhaps on a terraformed Mars) because of the colossal amount
of energy it would take to get everyone into low-Earth orbit. Some 70 billion
kilograms of human flesh and bone is an awful lot of mass, even if we had
diamond-cable space elevators to do the job.
Although the “new frontier” proposed by Americans such as Robert Zubrin,
president of the Mars Society
(New 杏吧原创, 2 September 2000, p 34;
9 September 2000, p 9)
is an enticing idea, the most we are likely to see in the
coming century or two are some self-sustaining off-Earth colonies of a few
million people. For the rest of us鈥攚hether we are 10 or 15
billion鈥攈ome will be planet Earth, whether we like it or not.
The blame game
Most senior civil servants have no scientific education, as Steve Gerrish says
(New 杏吧原创, 3 February, p 52),
but you don’t need a finely
honed intellect to understand that when something doesn’t work you have to try
something else. Many civil servants are moral cowards.
However, our politicians are the real authors of the legislative incompetence
we have suffered for decades鈥攖he BSE and depleted uranium debacles are
only the latest examples. This is because many of them are lawyers. They are
trained to look for someone to blame rather than solve the problems themselves.
They have little concept whatsoever of creative thinking, of tossing around
ideas to get the one that will work. Disturbingly, their antics are generally
viewed as a quaint if rather distasteful form of English eccentricity. It is
high time we all woke up and spoke up before something really bad happens. One
only has to look at Edward McSweegan’s letter “Pox warning”
(same page)
and Fred Pearce’s story “Dark future”
(same issue, p 19),
for examples. What’s the point
in looking for someone to blame if these come to pass?
Penguins' revenge
I’d like to suggest that the British Antarctic Survey construct a trebuchet
or ballista and load it with rugby balls painted with a bold black and white
pattern. They would then take the loaded machine to the Royal Aircraft College,
Cranwell for its next passing out parade. When the parade stands to attention,
the device will be discharged, propelling the balls over the heads of the
assembled graduates. Observers will be strategically placed to count the number
of rookie RAF officers who fall over.
To use live penguins, while adding an audible dimension, might incur the
wrath of the animal rights lobby.
Letter
When the British Antarctic Survey persuaded the Royal Navy to fly helicopters
over penguins to see if they would fall over
(10 February, p 5), their research
was flawed. Clearly we don’t know in what detail penguins perceive objects
flying overhead, but it seems to me likely that they would pay most attention to
and feel most threatened by a large pair of outstretched wings.
Helicopters do not have pronounced wings and the experiment might have been
more revealing had the Royal Navy used a slow, low-flying Hercules aircraft with
its enormous wingspan and a high-speed Tornado.
It is also probable that penguins do not fall over but, as Adrian Bowyer has
suggested (16 December 2000, p 54), lie down on their backs when they feel
threatened so their white fronts are almost invisible against the snow.
Gravity rules
I was fascinated by Marcus Chown’s article entitled “Mass medium”
(3 February, p 22).
It seems that the proposed explanation for gravity depends on
the modification by massive bodies (by way of the electronic structure of
matter) of the sea of virtual particles which is generated in empty space as a
result of quantum fluctuation, thus providing a weak and long-distance
electromagnetic force which we call gravity.
However, would such a force between two bodies not be modified in the
classical way by an intervening body with a different permittivity to
electromagnetic interaction than free space? Thus a satellite would experience a
lesser gravitational pull to a planet when an atmosphere intervened, because of
its differing electrical permittivity. Is there any evidence of gravitational
attraction being modified by intervening matter. Similarly, high electrical
charges should also exert a gravitational effect towards neutral matter. Is
there any sign of this?
Letter
In his distressing article Marcus Chown exposed the naked personal ambition
that is driving scientists to threaten the very existence of the tiny Higgs
boson.
For years governments have let scientists pursue the defenceless boson at
public expense. We now learn of cruel lab experiments, such as “random battering
by the jittery vacuum”. This should be a wake-up call to everyone.
It is not too late to save the remaining wild Higgs bosons from
extermination, but we urgently need legislation to stop damage to its fragile
habitat. Come on New 杏吧原创. Live up to your campaigning
tradition!
Leading the blind
The University of Alberta has a soulmate in Cornwall. Just like the university
(Feedback, 10 February),
the Truro Leisure Centre has lots of signs
directing swimmers and exercisers to the Changing Rooms, Way Out, Fire Exit and
so on. The signs are plastic and have the notices in letters and in Braille. The
only trouble is the dots are flush with the plastic and so can’t be felt at all.
In any case almost all the signs are too high up to touch.
At least the Braille dots are a different colour from the plastic. Nice try,
but no banana.
Realms of glory
I was pleased by the spirit of reconciliation inherent in Phill Chadwick’s
letter “Angelic order”
(10 February, p 57). However, as he freely admits, his
list is incomplete.
A commonly used hierarchy is:
The first circle: Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones
The second circle: Dominions, Virtues and Powers
The third circle: Principalities, Archangels and Angels
The Archangels in this list are not to be confused with the Holy Angels, who
are Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Chemuel, Jophiel and Zadkiel.
Not being a particle physicist, I shall leave the complete renaming process
to people who are better qualified. However, I think that this ought to include
a revision of the names of all the elementary particles. Other particles could
take on names of the cardinal virtues. For example, instead of red, blue and
green quarks, we could have faith, hope and charity quarks. This would
complement nicely the charm, truth and beauty quarks and lead to a new theory of
virtuoso dynamics.
This new theory means it is now possible to state the exact number of angels
that can fit on the head of a pin (I’ve left the calculation as an exercise for
the reader). It also means that there must be a seventh quark somewhere. Six is
an imperfect number whereas seven represents completeness. There would then be a
correlation between the number of quarks and the cardinal virtues.
Letter
Phill Chadwick fails to mention Beelzebub, the magnetic monopole. Also,
perhaps the serpent in the Garden of Eden was a superstring?
Slow glass
I read with great interest your news item “Light stops dead”
(27 January, p 4).
It seems that American researchers say they can stop and start light, and
suggest that it holds the key to quantum computing. I’d like to suggest a much
more interesting application of this technique鈥攖he development of slow
glass. I first came across the idea in a sci-fi book in the late 1960s.
You need a sheet of “material” which doesn’t actually stop light but slows it
down to travelling only in a few centimetres a year. Now imagine placing a plate
of the material two centimetres thick out in the mountains for, say, two years
and then bringing it back for your city window. Over the next two years, the
mountain view would slowly emerge from the other side. The author had another
version in which a pane of slow glass absorbed light during daytime and released
it for the night-shift workers.
It was a great idea, but there would be a drawback: what happened if, say,
you dropped the pane of glass that had been absorbing mountain light for two
years? Just how much light energy would be released? Might it not be the
equivalent of a small hydrogen bomb? If so it would give a whole new meaning to
the concept of “safety glass”.
Do as I do
I was struck by the statement in Alison Motluk’s article “Read my mind”
(27 January, p 23)
that “a strong spinal cord inhibition prevents you from involving
your own motor neurons in an activity that you are observing”. I think you
missed the most obvious exception to this phenomenon. If you watch someone hold
their breath, such as in a movie when the person is swimming underwater, you
often hold your own breath involuntarily. Perhaps the mirror neuron effect is
strongest with breathing since this is controlled by the brain stem and so is
less inhibited by the spinal cord.
Letter
I was fascinated by Alison Motluk’s article on mirror
neurons鈥攑articularly the aspect of watching other people’s movements. I
teach classical guitar and am often aware of a vague physical unease when I’m
watching pupils whose shoulders, arms and hands are tense. Could this be on
account of the incongruity between their neurons and mine? Or is it just
aesthetic disappointment?
Taking sides
Unlike Lee Angus
( 27 January, p 53),
I assume that Ben Sewell (Feedback, 6 January) does
know how to make a DIY M枚bius strip. He was trying to find
one on sale in his local stationery store to perhaps justify the label “2-sided”
on their pads of paper.
I don’t know of any commercial paper product in the form of a M枚bius
strip, but I can suggest two examples in other materials, one of which you might
find in a computer store.
Ink ribbons for dot-matrix printers are made in the form of a continuous
loop. Since the width of the ribbon exceeds twice the height of a printed
character, the available ink can be doubled by following two parallel tracks
along the ribbon. This is achieved by making the ribbon in the form of a
M枚bius strip.
As I remember, continuous loop recording tapes were made in the form of a
M枚bius strip so you had two parallel tracks (or two pairs of stereo tracks)
without having to turn the cartridge over.