Best to do nothing
A few thoughts inspired by Duncan Graham-Rowe’s article on quantum code breakers (1 February, p 16):
Surely, any future technology, including quantum computers, exists in an indeterminate state of creation, awaiting an observer to bring it into actual existence?
Any future technology 鈥� including quantum computers 鈥� will, therefore, exist one day. It is simply a matter of time before some observer somewhere collapses the waveform to bring it into existence.
In other words, the more we want something to exist, the sooner it will, because more people will be prepared to look for it and they will do so for longer than for something we want less.
In other words, if quantum theory is right we don’t need to actually do anything in order to achieve success. We just need to want success and it is ours for the taking.
A couple of years ago I remember reading in New 杏吧原创 about theorists who were proposing that determining the solution to a problem with quantum computers would be possible without running an algorithmic solution-finder (a program). All that would be necessary would be to wait as long as the algorithm would have taken to return a result and the result would appear “on screen”, so to speak.
At the time, I remember thinking that in case there would be no need to even turn the computer on. All that would be necessary would be to wait as long as if the computer had been turned on and the algorithm had been run.
Surely this means that we have no need of (quantum) computers at all. All we need to do in order to discover the answers to the mysteries of Life, the Universe and Everything is sit on our hands for as long as it would take us to invent the things, turn them on and run the algorithms.
As far as I can tell all this means is that I now have a scientifically orthodox argument for doing nothing all day.
Felicity, philicity
The chemists who discovered aurophilicity were good on their gold but weak on their Greek (8 February, p 49).
If gold atoms really do like each other, in an exclusive commitment/long-term relationship kind of way, I think they ought to go for chrysophily. If the relationship is less serious and they’re just happy to be together, why not use Latin? But get the spelling right: aurofelicity.
Biblical sky
Regarding the word ethnoclimatology, you say “How about the famous English saying: ‘Red sky at night, shepherds’ delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherds take warning’?” (1 February, p 43).
Might I suggest that, despite the fact that this is an English rhyme concerning the weather, its origin is certainly not English. Quoting from the New English Bible (Matthew, chapter 16, verses 2 and 3): “But Jesus answered, ‘When the sun is setting, you say, “We are going to have fine weather, because the sky is red.” And early in the morning you say, “It is going to rain, because the sky is red and dark.” You can predict the weather by looking at the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs concerning these times!'”
The Gospel of Matthew was written almost two thousand years ago. I wonder how long that weather lore had already been in existence when Jesus quoted it to the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Letter
You can cure hiccups by taking tiny sips of liquid as rapidly and as close together as possible, in order to swallow as many times as possible in a short time. This works because the hiccup mechanism simply doesn’t have a chance to engage. Five to ten seconds is usually enough, because it is almost always enough to block one hiccup to stop the whole process.
Famous friends
Anatomist Henry Acland’s adventures with the tunny fish in 1857 had an almost magical quality (8 February, p 50).
Perhaps this was because his recent travelling companion was Henry Liddell, father of Alice, whose adventures “in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass” were recounted by that other Christ Church scholar, Charles Dodgson (otherwise known as Lewis Carroll).
Art and science had not yet divided intellectual life. Liddell is renowned in his own right for the Greek-English lexicon, and Acland’s friend John Ruskin, who wrote of his amazing calm at breakfast time on the grounded ship, was an author, art critic and champion of the artist J. M. W. Turner. He later became Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Oxford.
How many modern scientists can boast such an assembly of defenders and friends?
Hiccup cures
I am not surprised that a link has been discovered between the sucking mechanism and hiccups (8 February, p 16). What does surprise me is that no one seems to have thought that sucking may also be the cure.
Babies frequently get hiccups. When my children were younger I noticed that the quickest way to get rid of their hiccups was to suckle them. I wondered if sucking through a straw would have the same effect. It does 鈥� the hiccups disappear immediately.
Perhaps this is also why drinking from the wrong side of a glass is supposed to work. Presumably the only way to get the liquid into the mouth is to suck it in.
Friendly poisons
The revelation that small doses of dangerous chemicals could actually be beneficial (15 February, p 10) agrees with the suggestion that low doses of ionising radiation (above normal background level) can also have positive effects on the body.
It is always unwise to assume that the danger of a poison is directly proportional to the dose at all dose levels. We have long known that “the poison is the dose”.
Magnificent Magueijo
It was very refreshing to read your interview with Jo茫o Magueijo (8 February, p 46). While there are still young people coming up through the system that can see through the crap, we may just save British science.
No Robocops here
Brian Rappert might wish to attend the regular personal protective equipment training and certification in my own police force, Avon and Somerset Constabulary (15 February, p 34). It is true that high-voltage electrical devices are the most universal tools of torture, but in the wrong hands many other items of police equipment can be used as well. These include the humble pen, office chair and lavatory bowl, but these three are also vital for an efficient police service.
It is made crystal clear to officers that they are individually accountable for their actions. They may be investigated thoroughly at court and called upon to justify the level of force used. Phrases like “I used the Taser because the company said that it was appropriate” or “I used a 5-second shock because that is what it said on the box” will cut no ice in a court or disciplinary hearing.
Although a police officer’s tool of choice is communication, in Britain we are also usually equipped with handcuffs, CS spray, a baton and very occasionally a firearm. Each of these options has benefits and drawbacks. Any use of force can cause short or long-term injuries and can be used inappropriately or excessively. Equally, any of these can be used appropriately to achieve a legal aim while maximising safety to all. The Taser has both advantages and disadvantages that officers are experienced at assessing. It could provide another option to use at incidents, but it is unlikely to turn them into Robocop.
Gravity tweaked
With reference to the letter from Paul Dear (15 February, p 24), I am at a loss to understand how modification of “some interaction with other matter that declines with distance” differs from tweaking with the law of gravity?
Scrappy shield
David Hunter doesn’t seem to realise the difference between zero gravity and microgravity (8 February, p 27). In proposing a shield made of space junk to protect the International Space Station he misses a fundamental problem with objects in low-Earth orbits. There is a gradient in the gravitational field that would cause any uncoupled arrangement of scrap to tumble and separate. The scrap items further away from the Earth, even by only a few metres, would have a different decay rate (see Johannes Kepler). Not only that, but such a field would surely interfere with docking and radio communications.
Hunter’s suggestion reminds me of a letter in the US magazine Popular Science about 1943. It was from a well-intentioned contributor to the war effort. At the time, there was a reported problem with the supply of helium for balloons. The contributor suggested that air could be collected from the mountains (because it was lighter) and used to lift barrage balloons.
Current clarification
In our paper to Science (vol 299, p 1042), we reported observations of an electrical voltage generated by the flow of liquids along a sample of single-walled carbon nanotubes. Your report on our work quotes two anonymous groups as saying that they find our observations unconvincing in relation to its possible application as an electrical generator (25 January, p 15).
We would like to clarify that we reported the measurement of flow-induced voltage only, and not the current. Under the conditions of our unaligned nanotubes sample, the current was too small to be measured, due to the fact that the nanotubes in the interior of the bulk sample are not in contact with the flowing liquid. Thus only those nanotubes on the surface, a relatively small fraction, are actually involved in the voltage generation 鈥� but with an extremely high internal resistance. This should be kept in mind in the context of any application relating to power generation. We are currently addressing this.
Sensible states
I read David Chandler’s news story with some amusement (25 January, p 4). The article said that US President Bush has been “defied over greenhouse gas cuts” by “a rising tide of state legislators and senators”.
Perhaps Chandler is unfamiliar with the fact that not imposing a federal mandate gives individual states the freedom to make decisions that are sensible for them. Sweeping, broad-based quotas on a nation the size of the US make no sense whatsoever.
So while the feds are being mired down in the usual rhetoric of party infighting and cross-party accusations, the system itself is working as designed 鈥� allowing the states the individual liberty to make sensible decisions at the local level.
Alien species on Mars
I wonder about the ethics of farming on other planets (15 February, p 20). The well-intentioned introduction of non-native organisms to new locations is often viewed by later generations as the release of a weed or pest into an inappropriate ecosystem. The absence of predators, competitors and diseases in the new location allow the introduced life forms to spread almost unchecked.
This phenomenon has been well documented many times on Earth. Is it responsible behaviour to treat the Martian soil with microbes to shift carbon dioxide from the planet’s atmosphere to the soil, and then introduce a cotton plant able to survive in the resultant conditions?