Glass in fiction
Anyone interested in the idea of “slow glass”
(24 February, p 55) may like to
know that the story mentioned by your correspondent Mike Smith was written by
Bob Shaw and entitled “Other Days, Other Eyes”. A worthy addition to any sci-fi
collection.
Furious fans
I liked Feedback’s comment on fandom and Fandom
(3 March).
But you could have
added that fandom (the community of science-fiction fans) is as sore as a
collective gumboil about the whole affair. They have set up several websites and
a discussion group to support an unfortunate woman whose website, fandom.tv, the
Fandom company tried to close down using the very unsubtle technique of
threatening letters from lawyers. See www.fandom.tv for more information.
(More than anyone could want, in fact.)
Impact in a teacup
I was dismayed to find a table in your magazine showing that the chances of
catching an asteroid in the back of the neck are the same as those of dying in a
plane crash鈥�1 in 20,000, apparently
(3 March, p 42).
That’s just not true, is it? How many people altogether have been killed by
asteroids, ever? True, if you include extinction events that happen once every
100 million years, perhaps that increases the odds a bit, but that presupposes
that Homo sapiens lasts 100 million years and in that time doesn’t
manage to invent a decent asteroid deflection system. Even then, I suspect that
the number of people killed in 100 million years’ worth of plane crashes would
far exceed the population of the planet on the big day.
Estimates of the risk of being splatted by a space rock should be based on
the chances of that happening within, say, the next 100 years, because by then
we will probably have an effective tracking and deflection system. In any case,
the obsession with asteroids is only really gripping for rich Westerners who
don’t have enough things to worry about. If saving lives was the issue, the
money could be far better spent elsewhere.
Another thing puzzles me. Why does everyone talk about tracking near-Earth
objects with telescopes? Why not simply put a radar station in orbit and
illuminate the asteroid belt as the Earth travels around the Sun? After all, air
traffic controllers don’t track aircraft with telescopes, do they?
No forest, no ape
Discussing orang-utan rehabilitation in a scientific forum is long overdue
(3 March, p 26).
There are almost 1000 individuals of this critically endangered
species in rehabilitation centres in Sumatra and Borneo. That is why orang-utan
rehabilitation remains both a welfare and a vital conservation issue.
Yet your article ignores the key factor affecting the survival of
orang-utans. It is not which method of rehabilitation works, but habitat
protection. If no forest survives, every other effort is doomed.
It was wrong of Aisling Irwin to write that the “survival of the likes of
Peno and Jarwo [two orphans] may determine the fate of the orang-utan”. The wild
orang-utan population is, as Irwin says, plummeting towards extinction, but no
amount of rehabilitation can, by itself, reverse that decline.
To talk of mistrust and criticism between the groups working in the field is
unhelpful at best and inaccurate at worst. We are all working鈥攊n a spirit
of cooperation鈥攖o ensure the survival of the red ape.
Ancient ESP
While I applaud Robert Morris’s no-nonsense approach to telepathy
(3 March, p 46),
I don’t understand why he refers to ESP as something “new”. In the age of
the Internet, e-mail and mobile phones, the need to transfer thoughts in an
anomalous way seems less important now than it must have been hundreds or
thousands of years ago. If ESP exists, surely it is one of the earliest forms of
communication.
The Ganzfeld experiment is one of the best scientific procedures for
detecting possible anomalies under strictly controlled conditions. But its main
flaw is that its success rate, however impressive, is ultimately limited by the
very nature of its target: like love, ESP cannot be forced. Spontaneous
psi鈥攑sychic phenomena鈥攃an occur in many places, but are unlikely to
happen in the lab.
Some parapsychologists argue that Ganzfeld still produces positive results
without an active “sender” because psi may not be bound to space and time as we
know it, and unconsciously we seem to be able to receive information from the
environment regardless of distance.
Parapsychology is a controversial yet legitimate and growing field of
science. The fact remains, however, that ESP won’t replace the telephone any
time soon.
Keyboard kid
The limited sensory input鈥攖he keyboard鈥攐f the software-based
“toddler” Hal will be reflected in its perception of experience
(3 March, p 21).
The lack of variety in its input of sensory data will limit the “imagination”
that colours the program’s use of language.
The absence of distracting input may reflect not only the limitations of
Hal’s processing potential, but also the inflated assumption that it can
actually learn like a child. If we do not even fractionally comprehend the
reality of a child’s total developmental experience, how is it possible to
create a computer that can? The computer is as limited as the cognitions of its
creators.
A data input system that could be attached to, and interpret, the developing
child’s motivations and interactions with the environment would go part of the
way toward reflecting the development of language. Cognitive psychology is
limited by the need to use language to access perceptual processes. Most people
will have experienced moments when language fails to reflect what’s going on in
their heads鈥攖heir “internal conversations”, which may either be
linguistic, or nonlinguistic sequences of images, say. Language is a product of
mental activity and therefore not central to what it is to be a sentient
beings.
The research that underpins artificial intelligence reflects these
limitations. If maths is another type of language, what of art, music, dance,
physical theatre and other sensory languages? All of these are part of the
mental activity fuelling the human imagination and the compulsion to live beyond
the confines of one’s own cognition.
Hal is unquestionably a significant step forward in the development of AI,
but it falls far short of matching the abilities of a young child.
There's life in the old dogs yet
Be grateful for your youth, Ben Craven
(3 March, p 56), for it allows you
to get away with thoughtlessly repeating the kind of sad, tired rhetoric about
older people that gets trotted out by ill-informed careers teachers.
If your assertion were true, there would be little point in Britain’s Open
University, and, certainly none in the University of the Third Age (U3A)
education courses for the elderly.
Similarly, mature students at universities would be an inefficient waste of
money and not, as is so often the case, highly motivated achievers who get much
more out of their degree courses than the production-line undergrads who say
“I’m here because my teachers told me I was good enough and it was an excuse to
leave home.” That path can spit you out of the other end of the educational
meat-grinder with no appreciation of society or, indeed, of what education is
for or about.
On the other hand, it is quite possible that some older members of society
have become so used to the kind of assertions that Craven makes that they
actually believe them鈥攚hich makes them effectively true.
Stop learning if you wish, and blame it on age. But I and many others will be
laughing up our sleeves at each new “conclusive” study that hits the news.
Well aged
Feedback’s paragraph on archaeological dating
(3 March)
reminds me of the time a dignitary was visiting an archaeological team at work. He asked one of
the team: “How old is that rock?”
“Four million and two years, three months.”
“Goodness, I never realised dating was so accurate. How do you do it?”
“No problem. When I started work at the site it was four million years old
and I’ve been here two years, three months.”
Meet the Mr Men
Having been shown by my children how to use a computer and surf the Net,
human vanity being what it is I straight away entered my surname鈥攁nd up
came an article in New 杏吧原创 in which I appear in a list of names
showing “nominative determinism”, as a planning inspector
(Feedback, 20 May 2000).
Fussey is a common surname around the Humber, but it is only the braver ones
of us鈥攐r those who have never read the Mr Men books鈥攚ho venture past
Goole.
In my last job I took over from a Mr Jolly and one of my daughters is
currently going out with a Mr Greedy.
Einstein's uncle
The article about Keith Devlin’s idea that maths is a form of gossip and
similar to following the plot of a soap opera
(3 March, p 19)
reminded me of a story about Albert Einstein’s uncle Jacob.
Young Albert did not like algebra, and his uncle is supposed to have aroused
his curiosity by telling him to think of it as a detective story, where x was
the criminal who had to be identified by following the “clues” in the equations.
Once the boy had grasped this idea he never looked back.
Snail mail
Feedback asks readers to supply examples of e-mails taking a long time to arrive
(3 March).
While working as postmaster at a British university that had
better remain nameless, I answered a support query as usual but got a surprising
reply.
Something had gone wrong with the time-stamping of the original question,
resulting in its apparently having been sent in 1934. My answer, correctly dated
1995, was therefore, on the face of it, 61 years late.
The reply we got back was “Thanks for your answer, and congratulations on
improving the turnaround time of your service.”
Black air
I was delighted to see the controversial “dark sucker” theory mentioned in
New 杏吧原创
(Last Word, 24 February). It reminded me of Flann
O’Brien’s The Third Policeman, which mentions the following theories of
the supposedly fictional scientist de Selby: “…all commentators have treated
de Selby’s disquisitions on night and sleep with considerable reserve… he held
(a) that darkness was simply an accretion of ‘black air’, i.e. a staining of the
atmosphere due to volcanic eruptions too fine to be seen with the naked eye and
also to certain ‘regrettable’ industrial activities involving coal-tar
by-products and vegetable dyes; and (b) that sleep was simply a succession of
fainting-fits brought on by semi-asphyxiation due to (a) . . .’black air’ is
highly combustible, enormous masses of it being instantly consumed by the
smallest flame, even an electrical luminance isolated in a vacuum. . .”
Creative in court
What a cheek鈥攍awyers not creative
(24 February, p 54)? Roger Taylor is
misguided: of course we are. We have to be in order to make a living. Clients
pay us to think up legal means of achieving their aims.
Suing because the client has lost out and wants compensation is only part of
what we do鈥攁nd that, too, sometimes requires creative thinking.
The BSE problem was exacerbated not because most MPs are lawyers and were
trying to find someone to blame, but because those in charge were denying first
the existence and then the scope of the problem. Why? Because the Ministry of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food鈥攖hen responsible both for farmers’ and
consumers’ interests鈥攈ad a classic conflict of interest. That’s something
which we working lawyers avoid like the plague.
As for looming problems generally, we try to get our clients to take avoiding
action, not stand in the way of the steamroller and then blame the driver for
the remodelled anatomy.
The point is that whatever their training, politicians actually need the
courage to take unpopular decisions. I am sorry if Roger Taylor was frightened
by a writ in his childhood, but we lawyers are not ogres obsessed with devouring
innocent bystanders. Suit or white coat, we are just as creative as scientists
and yes, some of us do have an understanding of science as well.
Cartel buster
In your article about overheating computers, you have forgotten or ignored
British designs
(3 March, p 32).
ARM produces the RISC Processor, which now
operates up to 800 megaherz and consumes milliwatts of power. Compare this with
the Intel Pentium chips, which can burn your finger and require fans to keep
them cool.
ARM processors are used in a non-Windows computer design by three
manufacturers in Britain.
It saddens me to see that the one remaining true alternative to the
Intel/Microsoft cartel is ignored by the media.
Picture this
The electronic photo frame of elderly relatives seems like a fantastic idea
(3 March, p 22).
It could be expanded to include an alert system for emergencies
(used to contact the local hospital, the ambulance service and the family) and
even more importantly, a Family Birthdays Reminder System to save one from
potentially sticky situations.
Very strict controls would need to be exercised to protect privacy, however,
and I suspect that the level of encryption I would demand on all communications
would be higher than the worldwide intelligence agencies would be happy
with.
A chair with brains
While vacuuming the lounge the other day it occurred to me that, rather than
develop an intelligent robotic vacuum cleaner
(10 February, p 26),
it might be easier to develop intelligent furniture, which automatically moves out of
the way when it senses a vacuum cleaner approaching.
Balancing gravity
In geophysical prospecting, the strength of gravity is commonly measured by a
simple spring balance. But that is not convenient when searching for a place
with minimum strength of gravity.
James Battis of the US Air Force Research Laboratory has apparently found a
way around that problem
(3 March, p 23):
“Rather than measuring the absolute
strength of gravity, he looks at the gravity gradient” using a gravity
gradiometer.
The Hungarian physicist Lor谩nd, Baron E枚tv枚s (1848-1919)
refined and extended the Michell-Coulomb torsion balance, so as to measure all 6
second derivatives of the gravitational potential鈥攖he “curviness” of the
gravitation plot, in effect. From 1890 onwards, E枚tv枚s applied that
torsion balance very extensively, for geophysical exploration and for testing
the equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass.
The torsion balance is more complicated than the spring balance gravimeter
and the user needs greater skill, but until about 1945 it was more accurate than
the gravimeter. Consequently, the E枚tv枚s torsion balance was the
leading instrument used for geophysical prospecting until about 1950.
By 1958 it was still a useful instrument for geophysical prospecting,
measuring the second derivatives of gravitational potential as a supplement to
the first derivative measured by the gravimeter. In particular, the
E枚tv枚s torsion balance was convenient for finding places with minimum
strength of gravity.
No cuddly bunny
I am sorry to have to disagree with Thomas Delacour’s “cuddly bunnies” view
of human evolution and history
(3 March, p 56),
but I would have thought the
evidence was clear that to be “taxed, robbed, raped, tortured or killed” was
most definitely an “essential” part of the process that has made us what we are
today鈥攁nd not to understand that that is our background is to dangerously
misread human nature.
We have evolved many instinctual and cultural mechanisms to protect us from
our fellow man or woman, just as the deer has evolved its long legs to run from
dogs. If deer were not running animals, they would not be deer as we know
them.
Fate of twist
Your correspondent Colin Singleton gives two examples of commercial products
incorporating M枚bius strips
(24 February, p 55).
The ink-ribbon example sounds clever enough to be true, but the audio tape
example certainly is not. Continuous-loop tape cartridges cannot have any twist
in the tape: the magnetic coating is only present on one side. This is because
the reverse side is subject to friction and other mechanical abuse from pinch
rollers and other parts of the tape-threading mechanism, and the magnetic
coating is too fragile to withstand this.
Early warning
I was interested to note that the link between smoking and lung cancer had
been discovered by two researchers in Nazi Germany during the Second World War,
pre-dating Richard Doll by some seven years
(3 March, p 25).
I have on my bookshelf A Text-Book of Nursing by Groves and
Brickdale. The first edition was published in 1912 and this, the second edition,
came out in 1917. Under the heading “Cancer of the Lips and Tongue” is the
following: “In both, the patients are usually men over the age of fifty who have
been great smokers, using a short clay pipe.” Clearly someone had noticed the
link between smoking and cancer a long, long time ago.
Boiling viruses
Do your readers think microwaves could destroy viruses or other organisms,
using the following method? Measure the resonant atomic frequency of the
organism or its nuclear structure (or the beat frequency, if it’s a complex
organism) from an extracted sample. Duplicate and amplify the frequency and
transmit this through the infected target with a safe wave of some
sort鈥攕ound, magnetism or radio.
If the frequency is correct, would the virus boil up without damaging healthy
cells? I believe viruses are quite fragile, and a slight rise in temperature
would kill them but leave other cells alone. A low dose of safe radiation could
be effective.
Correction
In “Sick to the stomach”
(10 March, p 18), we reported on the
work of Ian Langton. This should have been Ian Langford.
Robot munchies
If researchers at MIT succeed in growing muscles on demand, I think there are
better uses than the military exoskeleton mentioned
(24 February, p 22). If they
can grow big chunky morsels of meaty muscle, will it automatically taste like
chicken or pork or beef?
Please put my name down on the waiting list for the guaranteed BSE, scrapie
and foot-and-mouth free “spare ribs” machine. Alternatively, one could build
entirely edible robots.
Glucose-based structures with meat muscles? Yummy.
Letter
As a science graduate now wholly engaged in teaching English to foreigners, I
have noticed a peculiarity of the language that I honestly believe may explain
some of the incompetence of politicians and civil servants in understanding
scientific matters.
We have to teach foreigners that to say in English “I don’t think that
English food is very good” is the same as the foreign-sounding “I think that
English food is not very good.” Similarly, “I don’t believe there is a problem”
is the same as “I believe that there is not a problem.”
Surely, to the ministerial ear, “There is no evidence that there is a problem
to humans” is the same as “There is evidence that there is no problem to
humans.”