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Alert for aliens
OPINION LETTERS Who’s biased now?
Alert for aliens
From Brian Josephson, 1973 Nobel prizewinner in physics Your article on human rationality (26 May, p 32) asks: “Have you ever, against your better judgement, nurtured a belief in the paranormal?” It continues: “If you buy into any of these beliefs, you are probably suffering from confirmation bias – the mind’s tendency to pick and choose information to support our preconceptions, while ignoring… evidence to the contrary.” Have the journalists at New Scientist ever considered the possibility that their own beliefs in this regard might be the product of confirmation bias? Thus, when you hear other people say paranormal phenomena are delusional, you register this information, but when experimental evidence is reported that supports belief in the paranormal you ignore it, telling yourself without consideration of the details that the experiments must be flawed. In the case of the belief that rock stars are most likely to die aged 27, you may well be right to dismiss this, but other cases may not be so certain. Cambridge, UK
From Alessandro De Angelis, physics coordinator of the MAGIC telescope Astronomer Geoff Marcy assumes that extraterrestrials might try to communicate with us by pointing
Squid wrap
lasers at Earth (31 March, p 28). This possibility has been studied. If they know about our civilisation, such beings would point at the telescope dish with the largest reflecting surface. If our mutual position in the Milky Way allows it, their first choice would then be the MAGIC gammaray telescope in La Palma, Canary Islands – with a reflective surface of 240 square metres. We plan to take it seriously and look at our data for evidence. However, our colleagues at the
Enigma Number 1701
Lit up SUSAN DENHAM The display on my calculator shows 9876543210. As usual, up to seven illuminated strips are used to display each digit – the 8 using all seven, for example. There is just one special 10-figure number with the property that it is a perfect
power of the total number of illuminated strips that it uses. With a little calculator effort it is possible to answer the following: How many illuminated strips does this special 10-figure number use?
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 11 July. The Editor’s decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1701, New Scientist, Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to [email protected] (please include your postal address). Answer to 1695 Odd one out: 185 The winner K. H. Kirklin of London, UK
32 | NewScientist | 9 June 2012
VERITAS gamma-ray telescope in Arizona have already studied some of their data, searching for pulsed laser signals, and they have found no hint yet. Rest assured: if we find something we’ll tell you. Udine, Italy
From Abigail Newis Ron O’Dor’s conundrum of how to stop captive squid flying into tank walls at night is a concern (19 May, p 39). Has he considered lining the tanks with bubble wrap? Not only is it widely available, cheap, waterproof and malleable, it could even be an effective way of recording the animals’ night-time activity, by observing deflated areas each morning. This would not be the most scientifically controlled experiment – especially if the cephalopods appreciate the cathartic properties of bubble wrap as much as humans do – but it would make for a delicious soundtrack. London, UK From Jim Franks At last, I realise that the strange canard-type flying fish I saw en route from England to Antarctica in 1957 were actually squid. They were definitely squirting out a jet of water, and I am sure they also seemed to beat their leading wings at times. Aviemore, Highland, UK
Earlier spin From Timothy Johnson, Heriot-Watt University In your story “Roulette beater spills his secrets” you wrote that in the 1970s, Doyne Farmer, then a graduate student, used the world’s first wearable computer to beat roulette tables in Nevada’s casinos (12 May, p 12). I believe the first wearable computer was conceived in 1955 and deployed in 1961 by Edward
Thorp and Claude Shannon of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They revealed their work in 1962 in Thorp’s book Beat the Dealer. Edinburgh, UK The editor writes: n Thorp’s project involved an analogue computer, very different to the first wearable digital computer deployed by Farmer.
Curious prizes From Marc Abrahams, founder of the Ig Nobel prize ceremony Your review of Philip Ball’s book Curiosity (19 May, p 50) ends: “Yet for all its erudition, his book does not quite succeed in capturing the difference between Nobel and Ig Nobel prizewinning curiosity.” Nobel prizes recognise (in theory and usually in fact) curiosity that led to extremely good things. Ig Nobel prizes recognise curiosity that made people laugh, then think – regardless of whether the outcome was good or bad, valuable or worthless. Curiosity sometimes leads to Nobel prizes. Sometimes it kills cats. Sometimes it does both. And thanks to (Nobel laureate) Werner Heisenberg’s curiosity, we suspect it may do both and neither. The review seems to imply that curiosity that leads to good outcomes is good. The best tool for identifying that kind of curiosity, I am told, is hindsight. Cambridge, Massachusetts, US
Electric extras From Roy Harrison In your look at alternatives to oil (19 May, p 34), the statement that “as electricity generation becomes cleaner, the emissions of electric vehicles will fall further still” is open to challenge. It is normal policy to allow all non-fossil fuel power stations to produce all the power they can all
Alert for aliens
From Brian Josephson, 1973 Nobel prizewinner in physics Your article on human rationality (26 May, p 32) asks: “Have you ever, against your better judgement, nurtured a belief in the paranormal?” It continues: “If you buy into any of these beliefs, you are probably suffering from confirmation bias – the mind’s tendency to pick and choose information to support our preconceptions, while ignoring… evidence to the contrary.” Have the journalists at New Scientist ever considered the possibility that their own beliefs in this regard might be the product of confirmation bias? Thus, when you hear other people say paranormal phenomena are delusional, you register this information, but when experimental evidence is reported that supports belief in the paranormal you ignore it, telling yourself without consideration of the details that the experiments must be flawed. In the case of the belief that rock stars are most likely to die aged 27, you may well be right to dismiss this, but other cases may not be so certain. Cambridge, UK
From Alessandro De Angelis, physics coordinator of the MAGIC telescope Astronomer Geoff Marcy assumes that extraterrestrials might try to communicate with us by pointing
Squid wrap
lasers at Earth (31 March, p 28). This possibility has been studied. If they know about our civilisation, such beings would point at the telescope dish with the largest reflecting surface. If our mutual position in the Milky Way allows it, their first choice would then be the MAGIC gammaray telescope in La Palma, Canary Islands – with a reflective surface of 240 square metres. We plan to take it seriously and look at our data for evidence. However, our colleagues at the
Enigma Number 1701
Lit up SUSAN DENHAM The display on my calculator shows 9876543210. As usual, up to seven illuminated strips are used to display each digit – the 8 using all seven, for example. There is just one special 10-figure number with the property that it is a perfect
power of the total number of illuminated strips that it uses. With a little calculator effort it is possible to answer the following: How many illuminated strips does this special 10-figure number use?
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 11 July. The Editor’s decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1701, New Scientist, Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to [email protected] (please include your postal address). Answer to 1695 Odd one out: 185 The winner K. H. Kirklin of London, UK
32 | NewScientist | 9 June 2012
VERITAS gamma-ray telescope in Arizona have already studied some of their data, searching for pulsed laser signals, and they have found no hint yet. Rest assured: if we find something we’ll tell you. Udine, Italy
From Abigail Newis Ron O’Dor’s conundrum of how to stop captive squid flying into tank walls at night is a concern (19 May, p 39). Has he considered lining the tanks with bubble wrap? Not only is it widely available, cheap, waterproof and malleable, it could even be an effective way of recording the animals’ night-time activity, by observing deflated areas each morning. This would not be the most scientifically controlled experiment – especially if the cephalopods appreciate the cathartic properties of bubble wrap as much as humans do – but it would make for a delicious soundtrack. London, UK From Jim Franks At last, I realise that the strange canard-type flying fish I saw en route from England to Antarctica in 1957 were actually squid. They were definitely squirting out a jet of water, and I am sure they also seemed to beat their leading wings at times. Aviemore, Highland, UK
Earlier spin From Timothy Johnson, Heriot-Watt University In your story “Roulette beater spills his secrets” you wrote that in the 1970s, Doyne Farmer, then a graduate student, used the world’s first wearable computer to beat roulette tables in Nevada’s casinos (12 May, p 12). I believe the first wearable computer was conceived in 1955 and deployed in 1961 by Edward
Thorp and Claude Shannon of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They revealed their work in 1962 in Thorp’s book Beat the Dealer. Edinburgh, UK The editor writes: n Thorp’s project involved an analogue computer, very different to the first wearable digital computer deployed by Farmer.
Curious prizes From Marc Abrahams, founder of the Ig Nobel prize ceremony Your review of Philip Ball’s book Curiosity (19 May, p 50) ends: “Yet for all its erudition, his book does not quite succeed in capturing the difference between Nobel and Ig Nobel prizewinning curiosity.” Nobel prizes recognise (in theory and usually in fact) curiosity that led to extremely good things. Ig Nobel prizes recognise curiosity that made people laugh, then think – regardless of whether the outcome was good or bad, valuable or worthless. Curiosity sometimes leads to Nobel prizes. Sometimes it kills cats. Sometimes it does both. And thanks to (Nobel laureate) Werner Heisenberg’s curiosity, we suspect it may do both and neither. The review seems to imply that curiosity that leads to good outcomes is good. The best tool for identifying that kind of curiosity, I am told, is hindsight. Cambridge, Massachusetts, US
Electric extras From Roy Harrison In your look at alternatives to oil (19 May, p 34), the statement that “as electricity generation becomes cleaner, the emissions of electric vehicles will fall further still” is open to challenge. It is normal policy to allow all non-fossil fuel power stations to produce all the power they can all