Lacquer jitter
I was interested to see that a mystery which has been with us since the early 1960s has finally been solved, with the discovery of Microbacterium hatanonis in hairspray (15 March, p 7). Forty or so years ago, when “beehive” hairstyles were literally the height of fashion, a creature known to thousands of teenagers as the “lacquer bug” could be guaranteed to chew its way through the fashionable pile of hair and the lacquer required to hold it in place. It was also widely believed that this same creature was responsible for the stinging eye syndrome experienced by men after a night spent at a dance with the side of their faces pressed against their partner’s head.
Mirror, mirror…
Being egocentric, we are attracted to people who look like ourselves (22 March, p 32). However, this presumes we know what we look like. Evolutionarily speaking this has only recently been possible with the advent of quality mirrors and latterly photographs and video: without these aids individuals would have only a vague impression of their appearance.
It may be that knowing what we actually look like has distorted our behaviour. For example, we seek mates who smell different and this increases genetic diversity (23 July 2005, p 12). Should we not similarly be attracted to people who look different to ourselves? Perhaps this been subverted by seeing ourselves in the mirror.
Unhappy anniversary
I am certain that Jules Verne would have been pleased to learn he is the namesake of a spaceship (22 March, p 24), but I am not sure he would have been pleased by the timing of its launch. On 9 March 1886, Verne was shot in the left leg by his beloved nephew Gaston. He was permanently crippled, and Gaston Verne was declared incurably insane. In the 19 years until his death, Jules Verne always regarded 9 March as a tragic anniversary.
For the record
鈥� David Lambert is at the Allan Wilson Centre at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand, not the University of Auckland as we said (29 March, p 17).
On the cards
Feedback shouldn’t be surprised that Euler’s constant e appears in the number of ways of making a linear picture from 24 cards (8 March). This number is e times 24 factorial 鈥� which is 24 脳 23 脳 22… 脳 2 脳 1 and written 24!, which to the nearest whole number works out as 1,686,553,615,927,922,354,187,745, not 1,686,553,615,927,922,354,187,744 as reported.
The number of pictures is the number of ways of choosing any set of cards, and arranging them in any order. Given n cards, there is one way of choosing all of them, and n! ways of putting them in order.
There are n ways of choosing n-1 cards and (n-1)! ways of ordering them, giving another n! pictures. There are n 脳 (n-1)/2 ways of choosing n-2 cards and (n-2)! orderings of each set, giving another n!/2 pictures; and so on.
The eventual total works out as n! 脳 (1 + 1 + 1/2 + 1/6 + 1/24 +… +1/(n-1)!). The expression in brackets is the first n terms a well-known infinite series that approximates to e. The difference between this number and n!e is the sum of the terms missed off which 鈥� when you have 24 terms is not large.
The difference of 1 corresponds to the picture made of no cards at all, which the makers of the postcards are not counting. Mathematicians and Zen masters might disagree.
Act responsibly
Dan Hind is spot on: this is an age of “hoodwinking” (19 January, p 46). For a start we should severely curb persuasive advertising. If this results in a serious decline in consumerism, so much the better, as this would make a major contribution to cutting carbon dioxide emissions.
The next step should be to require that business schools’ curricula put social and environmental responsibility before company interests.
Double-blind reviewing
I read with interest your article on the double-blind peer review process revealing gender bias (19 January, p 7). Though bias by gender is the easiest to detect and possibly the only one that can be measured, there may be more.
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians introduced such a peer-review process for its in the mid 1970s. The editor at the time observed that it seemed to reduce a tendency by those peer-reviewing articles to accept the bona fides of eminent authors without really checking the data. Doing so can of course allow scientific fraud.
Algebra of the universe
Two apparently disjoint subjects discussed in the same issue 鈥� quantum uncertainty and the Riemann hypothesis 鈥� have a surprising and important mathematical connection. Louis de Branges’s purported proof of the Riemann hypothesis (22 March, p 40) is certainly confusing and flawed, but it is not as incoherent as some believe.
Once his paper is tackled systematically a valid solution of the Riemann hypothesis may rapidly emerge: de Branges’s use of quaternions is significant, and I expect the solution to be based on a generalisation of the complex number system called a geometrised Clifford algebra 鈥� for which the mathematician David Hestenes has coined the term “geometric algebra”. Quaternion algebra is embedded naturally in geometric algebra.
De Branges may not have an unequivocal proof of the Riemann hypothesis, but he is surely not far off. Interestingly, Hestenes and others have also recast aspects of quantum mechanics in the “universal mathematical language” of geometric algebra, providing strong geometric insights into the Bohmian mechanics that underpin Mark Buchanan’s article on quantum uncertainty (22 March, p 28).
It is surely no coincidence that geometric algebra is useful in such disparate areas of research. It is a staggeringly powerful mathematical formalisation that may also in due course have a role to play in the unification of gravitational and quantum physics. Although over 40 years old and with a reputable genealogy rooted in the 19th century, geometric algebra is currently little more than a minority mathematical sport. Perhaps it will quickly gain “street cred” if it turns out that it is implicated in a proof of the Riemann hypothesis.
Time's up
Amanda Gefter writes, almost correctly, that I proposed that “time must not exist in a quantum theory of the universe” (19 January, p 26). Replace “must not” with “probably does not” and I agree. I think Peter Fyfe is right to alert would-be time travellers to this possibility (15 March, p 23), but I do not deny the existence of “any time but the present”.
In my view, all possible instants 鈥� the present one and umpteen others 鈥� exist on an equal footing, in much the same way that mathematicians say the integers do. Moreover, if quantum mechanics really is universal, I think the belief that you did actually experience what you call past instants commits you to a form of many-worlds interpretation. I call it the many-instants interpretation.
Compulsion will fail
I am concerned that Rachel Nowak did not consider the particular difficulties inherent in compelling people experiencing their first episode of psychosis to undergo treatment (22 March, p 8). Since we cannot yet pinpoint who will and who will not develop schizophrenia, those involved in the process of so-called involuntary outpatient commitment (IOC) would largely need to rely, as Nowak says, on “a parent or a room-mate” to report a first psychotic episode.
The big problem with this is that schizophrenia is poorly understood among non-professionals, frequently being confused with multiple personality disorder. How can anyone depend upon people to report a disorder when a large proportion don’t know what it is?
If IOC is to have any hope of reliably reaching its main target group, a public education campaign would be needed to remove the misconception that schizophrenia is about having a multiple personality, and replace it with an understanding of the symptoms of schizophrenia. But since one explanation for violence by first-onset schizophrenics is that they haven’t yet learned to recognise delusions, it’s possible that such a campaign would remove the need for IOC, by increasing the likelihood of a person recognising their own symptoms.
From Mark MacDiarmid
While legislators and the public may well be satisfied with the bald idea of involuntary outpatient treatment for people with serious mental health issues, it is extremely difficult to structure such systems so that they provide more than symbolic gratification while avoiding clear human rights abuses. The majority of people with schizophrenia and other forms of mental illness do not display criminal behaviour; their biggest problems are generally social, and frequently involve issues such as isolation and homelessness.
Many people suffering from mental illness have had difficult experiences with public health systems. Combine this with the fact that psychiatric medicines can have upsetting side effects, and it is obvious that the risk of non-compliance with compulsory treatment orders is significant.
So what are the sanctions? Here in New South Wales a non-compliant patient generally ends up back in hospital; any future admission will be greeted with more coercive, more pre-emptive treatment. Legally compelling people to undergo treatment therefore provides negative feedback into the existing medical and social problems.
Preventive involuntary outpatient commitment orders definitely have a place, albeit a limited one, but their very coerciveness means that for the vast majority of mentally ill people they represent a risk to mental health, not an optimal treatment strategy. Implementing effective strategies for dealing with the medical and social aspects of serious mental health issues is extremely challenging, but my experience tells me that interventions that emphasise the provision of social support have some chance; those relying on coercion next to none.
Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia
From James F. R. Wright
I am amazed that information about recognising mental heath conditions is not taught in schools, as for example contraception is.
Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, UK
Carbon TV
You describe a way around difficulties in downloading very large amounts of data to see good-quality TV pictures on home computers (15 March, p 36). But for peer-to-peer distribution to work, participating computers would have to be left on for considerable periods of time, possibly all the time.
This would have a substantial impact on the greenhouse effect. While my computer consumes only 150 watts, about half what my TV uses, leaving it on for extended periods would consume more power over the whole day than watching the programme on television, which is switched on only for the duration of the show.
Likewise, streaming digital radio to a computer consumes vastly more power than hearing the programme on a home stereo FM tuner 鈥� mine uses only 5 watts.
Much of the progressive increase in demand for electricity in most western countries is due to proliferating electronic gadgetry. Faced with disastrous climate change, we cannot afford such luxuries.
Strategic offence
Your editorial on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, also known as Star Wars) lacked understanding of the role originally intended for it (22 March, p 5). Considering the much greater explosive yields of modern thermonuclear weapons compared with those of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic devices, plus the fact they are designed to explode at ground level and the accuracy of current missiles, it is clear these weapons are meant to destroy hardened targets: command, control, communication and intelligence (C3I) centres.
It is thus clear that the role of modern nuclear weapons is to deliver a pre-emptive strike, whose primary purpose is to destroy the ability of the other side to mount any retaliation. No such strike could hope to be 100 per cent successful, so some form of protection from the odd missile fired in response is desirable. It is here that SDI comes into its own.
It is highly unlikely that Russia ceased developing the accuracy of its ballistic missiles. This should give pause when one considers the fact that relations are beginning to cool between the east and west. It is difficult to imagine any new cold war lasting very long.
You recently reported difficulties in upgrading the W76 warhead fitted to Trident missiles (8 March, p 15). This could be an opportunity to step back from pre-emptive strike capability.
If warheads were limited by treaty to atomic devices only, which have a maximum yield of about 20 kilotonnes, rather than thermonuclear devices, which have yields orders of magnitude higher, they would only be capable of destroying soft and semi-hardened targets and thus leave the C3I centres intact.
Grammar underlined
We may not have the Acad茅mie Fran莽aise (29 March, p 28), but English does have a central authority defining the language. It is the Microsoft spelling and grammar checker. In practice, people take its spellings instead of the dictionary (sometimes accepting completely the wrong word) and many meekly accept its recommended changes of grammar and style. Now that tools such as email are marking up what they deem incorrect, it may be computers not people that create future English.
From Martin Saville
Michael Erard mentions a number of writers who imagined how the English of the future might develop. One of the earliest to do so must have been Max Beerbohm in his 1912 pastiche Enoch Soames, in which the eponymous poet hero sells his soul to the devil in exchange for being transported forward 100 years to the reading room of the British Museum, to see how posterity has judged his work.
Soames finds himself dismissed in phonetic English as a fictional “thurd-rait poit hoo beleevz imself a grate jeneus” and Beerbohm’s story is decribed as “a sumwot labud sattire”.
I imagine many modern-day teachers of English will find this prophetic.
Biddenden, Kent, UK