- Email: [email protected]
Between meals
See newscientist.com for letters on: ● Going green ● Reason or religion ● Einstein’s Freudian slip
future individuals for our own welfare today. Alternatively, we could aim for social equity between and within generations and choose either a low carbon quota for each of a large number of individuals, or a larger quota – and greater welfare – for everyone within a smaller population. Given the difficulties of nations decreeing limits to family size, this is by necessity an extension of one’s personal responsibilities. Rugby, Warwickshire, UK From John Forder Is the UK’s per capita emission of CO2 9.4 tonnes, as stated in one of your diagrams (17 November, p 36), or 12 tonnes, as stated in another (same issue, p 37)? Kendal, Cumbria, UK The editor writes: ● The UN statistics division publishes a national per capita emission of 9.4 tonnes; 12 tonnes is your personal quota if you include things that the UN leaves out, like flights.
Demise exaggerated From Michael Hanlon Even to a physics imbecile like me it seems pretty obvious that Lawrence Krauss’s idea that we have speeded up the universe’s demise just by looking at it (24 November, p 8) represents a pretty obvious misunderstanding of quantum strangeness. As I understand it, the idea that a quantum state is “resolved” by the act of “observation” is, firstly, just one interpretation of what is going on when you put cats in boxes and so on; and secondly, without any meaningful definition of “observation”, it can only ever be considered the loosest of models to describe how the world works. The idea that by observing dark energy our consciousnesses have reset the cosmos’s “to be or not to be” clock should surely have been laughed out of court. Either that, or we live in Narnia. London, UK www.newscientist.com
From Andrew Brooker The light observed from these supernovae has been falling on Earth for billions of years, so presumably merely pointing our telescopes in their direction will have made no difference. It must therefore be the off-line analysis of the data that caused the upset. Now that would be spooky action at a distance! Bristol, UK From Lawrence Krauss The quotes I gave which appeared at the end of the article were too glib. I do not want to imply that our observations cause the universe to meet an early end. Rather, by making observations we may effectively have determined that our universe lies in an exponentially decaying regime. This issue is far from settled, and how our observations can be used to tell us about the nature of the wave function of the universe is still an issue requiring further study, as we imply in our paper. As someone who is keenly aware of the possibilities of confusion when trying to explain scientific results in a popular context I should have been more careful, which is why I would now like to remove the confusion, if possible. Cleveland, Ohio, US
Between meals From Gail Kerr You report that fasting is good for the heart (10 November, p 21). I wonder whether any research has been done into the effect on the pancreas of our modern habit of “grazing” throughout the day, instead of confining our intake of
How to Fossilise Your Hamster
calories to set times as was common before the advent of snack foods and fizzy drinks. Is it possible that eating two or three meals per day – separated by some hours during which insulin-producing beta cells have a chance to “reset” – is actually better for our health? Could the constant stimulation of the
From Paul Broady In the discussion of the “number of people living on less than $1 per day” (20 October, p 14, and Letters, 10 November, p 26), is this $1 adjusted for changes in its purchasing power? This never seems to be stated. Christchurch, New Zealand The editor writes: ● It is adjusted: in the article we noted that the figure was $1.08 in 2004 dollars.
An empty claim
pancreas caused by our way of eating, not just what we are eating, be fuelling the increase in diabetes? Millfield, New South Wales, Australia
Taser danger From Ion Buicliu It is unfortunate that your Last Word column about how to evade the effects of Tasers (10 November) appeared just weeks after the incident at Vancouver International airport on 14 October in which a man was tasered several times and died. Jon Ackroyd may be right that Tasers are sometimes used on people that “are not sane”, but this tragedy demands more than a thorough investigation into the possible misuse of the Taser: it also speaks volumes about the attitude of most bystanders. Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
The latest collection from New Scientist featuring experiments for armchair scientists
Available from booksellers and at www.newscientist.com/hamster
Poor maths?
From Stephen Dunkelberg I can offer an alternative to the phrase “This page left deliberately blank” that Feedback derides as “patently false” (6 October): “The information content of this page has been intentionally minimised”. I hold the copyright for this phrase, but hereby grant New Scientist full permission for any normal use. Fort Worth, Texas, US
For the record ● We said: “making one beer or soda can emits 170 grams of CO2 … The average person gets through 120 cans in a year, which adds up to 0.2 tonnes of CO2” (17 November, p 34). That should have been 0.02 tonnes. ● The sparkling opal-like gems of sapphire and quartz that Tom Mossberg wants to make would, contrary to what we suggested, be more expensive than silicon gems (24 November, p 27). Also, it is the gems that are between 3 and 20 millimetres wide: the pattern elements are 60 nanometres. Letters should be sent to: Letters to the Editor, New Scientist, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Fax: +44 (0) 20 7611 1280 Email: [email protected] Include your full postal address and telephone number, and a reference (issue, page number, title) to articles. We reserve the right to edit letters. Reed Business Information reserves the right to use any submissions sent to the letters column of New Scientist magazine, in any other format.
15 December 2007 | NewScientist | 19
future individuals for our own welfare today. Alternatively, we could aim for social equity between and within generations and choose either a low carbon quota for each of a large number of individuals, or a larger quota – and greater welfare – for everyone within a smaller population. Given the difficulties of nations decreeing limits to family size, this is by necessity an extension of one’s personal responsibilities. Rugby, Warwickshire, UK From John Forder Is the UK’s per capita emission of CO2 9.4 tonnes, as stated in one of your diagrams (17 November, p 36), or 12 tonnes, as stated in another (same issue, p 37)? Kendal, Cumbria, UK The editor writes: ● The UN statistics division publishes a national per capita emission of 9.4 tonnes; 12 tonnes is your personal quota if you include things that the UN leaves out, like flights.
Demise exaggerated From Michael Hanlon Even to a physics imbecile like me it seems pretty obvious that Lawrence Krauss’s idea that we have speeded up the universe’s demise just by looking at it (24 November, p 8) represents a pretty obvious misunderstanding of quantum strangeness. As I understand it, the idea that a quantum state is “resolved” by the act of “observation” is, firstly, just one interpretation of what is going on when you put cats in boxes and so on; and secondly, without any meaningful definition of “observation”, it can only ever be considered the loosest of models to describe how the world works. The idea that by observing dark energy our consciousnesses have reset the cosmos’s “to be or not to be” clock should surely have been laughed out of court. Either that, or we live in Narnia. London, UK www.newscientist.com
From Andrew Brooker The light observed from these supernovae has been falling on Earth for billions of years, so presumably merely pointing our telescopes in their direction will have made no difference. It must therefore be the off-line analysis of the data that caused the upset. Now that would be spooky action at a distance! Bristol, UK From Lawrence Krauss The quotes I gave which appeared at the end of the article were too glib. I do not want to imply that our observations cause the universe to meet an early end. Rather, by making observations we may effectively have determined that our universe lies in an exponentially decaying regime. This issue is far from settled, and how our observations can be used to tell us about the nature of the wave function of the universe is still an issue requiring further study, as we imply in our paper. As someone who is keenly aware of the possibilities of confusion when trying to explain scientific results in a popular context I should have been more careful, which is why I would now like to remove the confusion, if possible. Cleveland, Ohio, US
Between meals From Gail Kerr You report that fasting is good for the heart (10 November, p 21). I wonder whether any research has been done into the effect on the pancreas of our modern habit of “grazing” throughout the day, instead of confining our intake of
How to Fossilise Your Hamster
calories to set times as was common before the advent of snack foods and fizzy drinks. Is it possible that eating two or three meals per day – separated by some hours during which insulin-producing beta cells have a chance to “reset” – is actually better for our health? Could the constant stimulation of the
From Paul Broady In the discussion of the “number of people living on less than $1 per day” (20 October, p 14, and Letters, 10 November, p 26), is this $1 adjusted for changes in its purchasing power? This never seems to be stated. Christchurch, New Zealand The editor writes: ● It is adjusted: in the article we noted that the figure was $1.08 in 2004 dollars.
An empty claim
pancreas caused by our way of eating, not just what we are eating, be fuelling the increase in diabetes? Millfield, New South Wales, Australia
Taser danger From Ion Buicliu It is unfortunate that your Last Word column about how to evade the effects of Tasers (10 November) appeared just weeks after the incident at Vancouver International airport on 14 October in which a man was tasered several times and died. Jon Ackroyd may be right that Tasers are sometimes used on people that “are not sane”, but this tragedy demands more than a thorough investigation into the possible misuse of the Taser: it also speaks volumes about the attitude of most bystanders. Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
The latest collection from New Scientist featuring experiments for armchair scientists
Available from booksellers and at www.newscientist.com/hamster
Poor maths?
From Stephen Dunkelberg I can offer an alternative to the phrase “This page left deliberately blank” that Feedback derides as “patently false” (6 October): “The information content of this page has been intentionally minimised”. I hold the copyright for this phrase, but hereby grant New Scientist full permission for any normal use. Fort Worth, Texas, US
For the record ● We said: “making one beer or soda can emits 170 grams of CO2 … The average person gets through 120 cans in a year, which adds up to 0.2 tonnes of CO2” (17 November, p 34). That should have been 0.02 tonnes. ● The sparkling opal-like gems of sapphire and quartz that Tom Mossberg wants to make would, contrary to what we suggested, be more expensive than silicon gems (24 November, p 27). Also, it is the gems that are between 3 and 20 millimetres wide: the pattern elements are 60 nanometres. Letters should be sent to: Letters to the Editor, New Scientist, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Fax: +44 (0) 20 7611 1280 Email: [email protected] Include your full postal address and telephone number, and a reference (issue, page number, title) to articles. We reserve the right to edit letters. Reed Business Information reserves the right to use any submissions sent to the letters column of New Scientist magazine, in any other format.
15 December 2007 | NewScientist | 19