- Email: [email protected]
Boldly to go
OPINION LETTERS Things fall apart From Ray Lovett Michael Brooks, in the first of your articles exploring the Deep Future, says it is unlikely that some catastrophe could kill all humans in the next 100,000 years (3 March, p 34). This could be true, but the articles that follow assume we will have ever more sophisticated technology. There is evidence that in the past sophisticated civilisations collapsed at their height, leaving survivors living at subsistence level. Generally they did not manage to rebuild; new civilisations arose elsewhere. This was possible because different parts of the world were then largely independent. Now we have a single, integrated, interdependent world. Some argue we can engineer our way out of any problem. But societal breakdown always seems to be accompanied by chaos, with groups fighting for power. Such breakdown need not be caused by something as unlikely as a Permian-sized meteorite or a super-volcano.
Belly of language From David Hulme Seeing the 5th-century word “hrif” in David Robson’s article on how language might change (3 March, p 39) reminded me that it endures in the form of “midriff”. There must many other examples. The Deep Future special is what makes New Scientist great: mixing science with informed speculation. Stockport, Greater Manchester, UK From Valerie Moyses Had two important cultural developments not happened, English might have been very different from today’s language. The printing press, introduced to England in the mid 15th century by William Caxton, boosted literacy and offered many
Enigma Number 1690
Dolly the sheep ADRIAN SOMERFIELD Dolly was the name given to the first cloned sheep at the UK’s Roslin Institute in 1996. The letters in the diagram represent, in some order, the numbers 1 to 16 forming a magic square where each row, column and main diagonal have the same sum. The letters of the word “clone”, and letters not within the square, have their values according
a e i m
b f j n
c d g h k l o p
to a=1, b=2 etc. but other letters within the square may or may not. What is the sum d+o+l+l+y?
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 25 April. The Editor’s decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1690, New Scientist, Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to [email protected] (please include your postal address). Answer to 1684 In the fold: The length of the fold is 10cm The winner Ray Hughes of Woolaston, Gloucestershire, UK
32 | NewScientist | 24 March 2012
Trolley uncertain
How about a global epidemic putting a sizeable fraction of the workforce out of action, coinciding with a giant solar flare knocking out all satellites and a large proportion of the power infrastructure? Budleigh Salterton, Devon, UK
examples of elite vocabulary. In the 20th century, broadcasting provided a model of spoken English which must have had a powerful effect on our language’s development, or lack of it. The production of dictionaries and schoolbooks of English grammar must have restrained language change by providing a standard for children to emulate. With all these brakes, English must have changed far more between Beowulf, written around AD 1000, and Caxton than it has done since. Soon, no doubt, we shall have computers linked to our brains, and a form of English will be chosen by whoever produces the hardware and software. The slog of learning grammar, syntax, vocabulary and spellings will be redundant, since the language will be implanted. And that, presumably, will be the end of the development of English forever. Bloxham, Oxfordshire, UK From Dewi Jones It would be wrong to suppose that English has been changing steadily since the 9th-century days of King Alfred. An unusual and traumatic event, the Norman conquest, forced it to alter. As for the centuries ahead, people may soon be able to record not just their words but their thoughts. That will enable those in the very distant future to commune with their ancestors as if they were alive, and will allow them to master the ancient languages easily. Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, UK
From Kevin Buckley The “trolley experiment” seems flawed as a way of investigating choices (18 February, p 10). Subjects are told to make a realworld-based moral choice – but one based on black-and-white rules and outcomes stated by the experimenter: so if they throw a switch to change the path of the trolley, one person will be run over and die, and five will live. But these are not experiments about the probability of trolleys killing people; they ask for judgements based on experience in the real world. Here, if you switch tracks there are many possible outcomes, including a person jumping out of the way. In the alternative scenario of pushing someone off a bridge onto the track, it is most likely they will die or be badly injured. But the train will not necessarily stop, and most people won’t be pushed off without a fight, which causes a delay. They may hang on, or fall away from the tracks. What is actually tested is the experimenter’s ability to persuade subjects to suspend true moral judgement and play along. Woodcote, Berkshire, UK From Roger Haines This kind of experiment assumes omniscience on the part of the dilemma-setter. In the world there is no such omniscience and no certainty of outcomes. So it is not surprising that we feel an obligation to follow rules which give optimal outcomes in typical cases – reserving the right to abandon them in sufficiently exceptional circumstances. London, UK
Boldly to go From Paul Bowden In her contribution to the Deep Future special, Anne-Marie Corley explores potential space exploration, writing: “Our
To join the debate, visit newscientist.com/letters
descendants may well have to come to terms with never having the means or lifespan to reach other stars” (3 March, p 45). The means is one thing, but the lifespan is another. Accelerating (and decelerating) at just 1g – emulating Earth’s gravity – would allow a human to get a fair way across our galaxy during their lifetime, because relativistic time dilation means that time on-ship is not the same as on Earth. If I had the right spaceship, I could travel to our neighbouring star Proxima Centauri and back. Of course, a much longer time will have elapsed on Earth, but that’s beside the point. Nottingham, UK From Denis Watkins With “God, gold or glory” as motivation for the exploration of the world by Europeans from the
what is the spread of individual performances? In other words, does everyone have this weak ability, or do most of us not have it, while a few special beings are incredibly gifted? This letter will be of little interest to them: they will have already “felt” it. Highton, Victoria, Australia Michael Franklin responds: n I am currently working under the assumption that precognition is akin to unconscious perception. Psychologists have come up with clever ways to demonstrate the existence of unconscious information and this is the approach used in my experiment. Despite the weak signal, my results suggest that under the right conditions anyone could demonstrate precognition. However, that precognitive information need not be explicit, or available to them.
On disorder
17th century onwards, and in view of our culpability for the wholesale extinction of species that is allied to the plundering of the Earth, perhaps the quarantine of humans to the solar system is for the best. Velindre, Pembrokeshire, UK
Knew you’d say that? From Mark Colson If statistically significant precognition existed, that would be stunning – even at the level of 2.27 per cent that Michael Franklin reports (14 January, p 38). Presumably this figure is the mean for the test population. But
From Brian Horton The article on rewriting the autism rule book by Fred Volkmar and Francesca Happe (10 March, p 30) kept referring to Asperger’s as a disorder. We prefer to use Asperger’s syndrome, since the term disorder implies that there is something wrong. It is not necessarily any more a disorder than being left-handed, which is mainly a disadvantage because the world is built for right-handers, but being a leftie can be an advantage in certain sports and may be of benefit in other areas. Aspies have an advantage where logical thinking is required, and so they perform well in areas such as science, engineering and computing. West Launceston, Tasmania, Australia The editor writes: n Disorder is the word used in the current edition of the DSM, the US diagnostic guide for psychiatry
that is the subject of the article. We would normally try to avoid such terminology in New Scientist.
Library of the future From David Holdsworth, Leeds University Bob Holmes explored what clues the archaeologists of AD 100,000 would unearth in the absence of a written record (3 March, p 48). But that record will not be absent in 100,000 years, so long as
programme on time zones for BBC School Radio, I interviewed a senior medical officer at British Airways. She told me of a working rule that for every 1-hour shift of time zone during a flight, crew and passengers should have 24 hours’ rest before making any important decisions. She realised this was impossible in reality: but it stressed that our body clocks can be disturbed by rapid time changes and that the effects could be disastrous, especially for world leaders rushing from conference to conference worldwide. This could explain many of our problems. Amersham, Buckinghamshire, UK
For the record
technological civilisation endures. I am among those looking at the survival of today’s written record, the vast majority electronic. We have worked out how to preserve it indefinitely, with perfect digital copies. As we copy onto newer forms of storage, the volume shrinks spectacularly, so physical storage is not a significant problem. There remains the question of understanding the formats in which material is recorded. This is being addressed by registries of how different formats store data. Settle, North Yorkshire, UK The editor writes: n We covered these issues in the feature “Now we know it…” (30 January 2010, p 36)
Time after time From Geoffrey Sherlock Thomas Smith asks about jet lag and judgement (18 February, p 33). Some years ago, while making a
n Ötzi the iceman had trouble with lactose digestion (3 March, p 10): lactose is milk sugar, not a protein. n In our story on treating late-stage Alzheimer’s (10 March, p 5), we should have said Clive Ballard is director of research at the Alzheimer’s Society. n The Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre has asked us to point out that work on developing materials for a new generation of nuclear power stations by Mike Burke and Tim Abram (10 March, p 44) is the responsibility of the Dalton Nuclear Institute at the University of Manchester, UK. Also, Tim Abram is not a member of the Nuclear AMRC. n Our story on a drug that targets a bacterial communication enzyme should have said it was as effective against the 26th generation of bacteria as against the first (10 March, p 14).
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.
24 March 2012 | NewScientist | 33
Belly of language From David Hulme Seeing the 5th-century word “hrif” in David Robson’s article on how language might change (3 March, p 39) reminded me that it endures in the form of “midriff”. There must many other examples. The Deep Future special is what makes New Scientist great: mixing science with informed speculation. Stockport, Greater Manchester, UK From Valerie Moyses Had two important cultural developments not happened, English might have been very different from today’s language. The printing press, introduced to England in the mid 15th century by William Caxton, boosted literacy and offered many
Enigma Number 1690
Dolly the sheep ADRIAN SOMERFIELD Dolly was the name given to the first cloned sheep at the UK’s Roslin Institute in 1996. The letters in the diagram represent, in some order, the numbers 1 to 16 forming a magic square where each row, column and main diagonal have the same sum. The letters of the word “clone”, and letters not within the square, have their values according
a e i m
b f j n
c d g h k l o p
to a=1, b=2 etc. but other letters within the square may or may not. What is the sum d+o+l+l+y?
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 25 April. The Editor’s decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1690, New Scientist, Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to [email protected] (please include your postal address). Answer to 1684 In the fold: The length of the fold is 10cm The winner Ray Hughes of Woolaston, Gloucestershire, UK
32 | NewScientist | 24 March 2012
Trolley uncertain
How about a global epidemic putting a sizeable fraction of the workforce out of action, coinciding with a giant solar flare knocking out all satellites and a large proportion of the power infrastructure? Budleigh Salterton, Devon, UK
examples of elite vocabulary. In the 20th century, broadcasting provided a model of spoken English which must have had a powerful effect on our language’s development, or lack of it. The production of dictionaries and schoolbooks of English grammar must have restrained language change by providing a standard for children to emulate. With all these brakes, English must have changed far more between Beowulf, written around AD 1000, and Caxton than it has done since. Soon, no doubt, we shall have computers linked to our brains, and a form of English will be chosen by whoever produces the hardware and software. The slog of learning grammar, syntax, vocabulary and spellings will be redundant, since the language will be implanted. And that, presumably, will be the end of the development of English forever. Bloxham, Oxfordshire, UK From Dewi Jones It would be wrong to suppose that English has been changing steadily since the 9th-century days of King Alfred. An unusual and traumatic event, the Norman conquest, forced it to alter. As for the centuries ahead, people may soon be able to record not just their words but their thoughts. That will enable those in the very distant future to commune with their ancestors as if they were alive, and will allow them to master the ancient languages easily. Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, UK
From Kevin Buckley The “trolley experiment” seems flawed as a way of investigating choices (18 February, p 10). Subjects are told to make a realworld-based moral choice – but one based on black-and-white rules and outcomes stated by the experimenter: so if they throw a switch to change the path of the trolley, one person will be run over and die, and five will live. But these are not experiments about the probability of trolleys killing people; they ask for judgements based on experience in the real world. Here, if you switch tracks there are many possible outcomes, including a person jumping out of the way. In the alternative scenario of pushing someone off a bridge onto the track, it is most likely they will die or be badly injured. But the train will not necessarily stop, and most people won’t be pushed off without a fight, which causes a delay. They may hang on, or fall away from the tracks. What is actually tested is the experimenter’s ability to persuade subjects to suspend true moral judgement and play along. Woodcote, Berkshire, UK From Roger Haines This kind of experiment assumes omniscience on the part of the dilemma-setter. In the world there is no such omniscience and no certainty of outcomes. So it is not surprising that we feel an obligation to follow rules which give optimal outcomes in typical cases – reserving the right to abandon them in sufficiently exceptional circumstances. London, UK
Boldly to go From Paul Bowden In her contribution to the Deep Future special, Anne-Marie Corley explores potential space exploration, writing: “Our
To join the debate, visit newscientist.com/letters
descendants may well have to come to terms with never having the means or lifespan to reach other stars” (3 March, p 45). The means is one thing, but the lifespan is another. Accelerating (and decelerating) at just 1g – emulating Earth’s gravity – would allow a human to get a fair way across our galaxy during their lifetime, because relativistic time dilation means that time on-ship is not the same as on Earth. If I had the right spaceship, I could travel to our neighbouring star Proxima Centauri and back. Of course, a much longer time will have elapsed on Earth, but that’s beside the point. Nottingham, UK From Denis Watkins With “God, gold or glory” as motivation for the exploration of the world by Europeans from the
what is the spread of individual performances? In other words, does everyone have this weak ability, or do most of us not have it, while a few special beings are incredibly gifted? This letter will be of little interest to them: they will have already “felt” it. Highton, Victoria, Australia Michael Franklin responds: n I am currently working under the assumption that precognition is akin to unconscious perception. Psychologists have come up with clever ways to demonstrate the existence of unconscious information and this is the approach used in my experiment. Despite the weak signal, my results suggest that under the right conditions anyone could demonstrate precognition. However, that precognitive information need not be explicit, or available to them.
On disorder
17th century onwards, and in view of our culpability for the wholesale extinction of species that is allied to the plundering of the Earth, perhaps the quarantine of humans to the solar system is for the best. Velindre, Pembrokeshire, UK
Knew you’d say that? From Mark Colson If statistically significant precognition existed, that would be stunning – even at the level of 2.27 per cent that Michael Franklin reports (14 January, p 38). Presumably this figure is the mean for the test population. But
From Brian Horton The article on rewriting the autism rule book by Fred Volkmar and Francesca Happe (10 March, p 30) kept referring to Asperger’s as a disorder. We prefer to use Asperger’s syndrome, since the term disorder implies that there is something wrong. It is not necessarily any more a disorder than being left-handed, which is mainly a disadvantage because the world is built for right-handers, but being a leftie can be an advantage in certain sports and may be of benefit in other areas. Aspies have an advantage where logical thinking is required, and so they perform well in areas such as science, engineering and computing. West Launceston, Tasmania, Australia The editor writes: n Disorder is the word used in the current edition of the DSM, the US diagnostic guide for psychiatry
that is the subject of the article. We would normally try to avoid such terminology in New Scientist.
Library of the future From David Holdsworth, Leeds University Bob Holmes explored what clues the archaeologists of AD 100,000 would unearth in the absence of a written record (3 March, p 48). But that record will not be absent in 100,000 years, so long as
programme on time zones for BBC School Radio, I interviewed a senior medical officer at British Airways. She told me of a working rule that for every 1-hour shift of time zone during a flight, crew and passengers should have 24 hours’ rest before making any important decisions. She realised this was impossible in reality: but it stressed that our body clocks can be disturbed by rapid time changes and that the effects could be disastrous, especially for world leaders rushing from conference to conference worldwide. This could explain many of our problems. Amersham, Buckinghamshire, UK
For the record
technological civilisation endures. I am among those looking at the survival of today’s written record, the vast majority electronic. We have worked out how to preserve it indefinitely, with perfect digital copies. As we copy onto newer forms of storage, the volume shrinks spectacularly, so physical storage is not a significant problem. There remains the question of understanding the formats in which material is recorded. This is being addressed by registries of how different formats store data. Settle, North Yorkshire, UK The editor writes: n We covered these issues in the feature “Now we know it…” (30 January 2010, p 36)
Time after time From Geoffrey Sherlock Thomas Smith asks about jet lag and judgement (18 February, p 33). Some years ago, while making a
n Ötzi the iceman had trouble with lactose digestion (3 March, p 10): lactose is milk sugar, not a protein. n In our story on treating late-stage Alzheimer’s (10 March, p 5), we should have said Clive Ballard is director of research at the Alzheimer’s Society. n The Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre has asked us to point out that work on developing materials for a new generation of nuclear power stations by Mike Burke and Tim Abram (10 March, p 44) is the responsibility of the Dalton Nuclear Institute at the University of Manchester, UK. Also, Tim Abram is not a member of the Nuclear AMRC. n Our story on a drug that targets a bacterial communication enzyme should have said it was as effective against the 26th generation of bacteria as against the first (10 March, p 14).
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.
24 March 2012 | NewScientist | 33