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Is Pammy art?
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Congress…enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power”. Governor Schwarzenegger’s act will not stand up to a legal challenge. Fairfax, Virginia, US
Whistling windmills From David Bent, Green’s Mill & Science Centre Yet another phenomenon known to our forebears has been “discovered” in modern times (5 August, p 34). In the 19th century, windmillers were sufficiently familiar with windgenerated tones from their mills to give the effect a name: they called it “blowing the horn”. This usually happened in a strong wind at the end of the day’s work, when the shutters along each sail were opened, allowing the wind to blow through the gaps. When the eight-sailed mill at Heckington in Lincolnshire was restored to full working order in the early 1990s, a tone of about 240 hertz was generated when the mill was at rest in a wind of force 4 or above. This was cured by wrapping a wide-spaced helix of twine around each shutter to disrupt the airflow and allow the village a good night’s sleep. Sneinton, Nottinghamshire, UK From Anne Silk Visiting Malta recently, I walked out of the Hilton hotel towards Portomaso crossing over the small inlet off St Julians Bay. Low metal railings lined the road over the bay. A glorious day,
www.newscientist.com
060826_Letters.indd 23
but who or what was singing the strange melody I could hear so loudly? With a professional interest in acoustics and as a choral singer myself, I realised that the wind, funnelling into the inlet, itself surrounded by tall buildings, was producing the strange musical sounds, in the human voice range around 500 hertz. Haunting melodies indeed! Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, UK
Is Pammy art? From David Flint John Hyman criticises Vilayanur Ramachandran’s theory of art because it fails to distinguish between images of big-breasted women such as Hindu statues of goddesses and actual big-breasted women such as Pamela Anderson (5 August, p 44). Works of art differ from other things, Hyman says, in being made using “specific tools, materials and techniques”. In fact, this does not create the distinction he wants. The appearance of an actress such as Anderson is deliberately created using the specific techniques of plastic surgery, diet, exercise, make-up, clothing and photography. Like a work of art as described by Ramachandran’s analysis, it is created for a purpose: to evoke particular feelings in the viewer. I do agree with Hyman that art has no single purpose, but most art, I contend, is consistent with Ramachandran’s analysis because it is intended to evoke emotion; indeed, it is successful to the degree that it does evoke the intended emotions. This is true of representations of both real and imagined things. Pictures of the Christian heaven, for instance, are not mere portrayals but attempts to intensify believers’ faith and commitment, and they show exaggerations of experiences such as pleasure and awe. There are, however, representations to which the analysis does not apply. Drawings used to illustrate scientific papers
before photography were presumably meant to communicate an actual appearance, though even here some idealisation seems likely. If they were not intended to evoke emotion then Ramachandran’s theory does not require them to be distorted, though it does not forbid it. All in all, Ramachandran’s theory holds up pretty well, though it does need a definitive list of human emotions that is based on neuroscience. Enfield, Middlesex, UK
to the square root of the number of passengers (29 July, p 42). It seems to me that this can only hold true for relatively small aircraft. For large aircraft there will inevitably be a linear term which will eventually dominate. From a rough calculation based on the 747 loading time quoted in the article and an estimate of a “saturation flow” through the door of one person every 2 seconds, the linear factor could start to dominate for planes with more than 900 seats. Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, UK
Didn’t women count?
Seen it all before From Peter Stockwell Maybe it does not compare with the memories of a Galapagos tortoise, but Jay Pasachoff’s letter about Harriet reminded me of a conversation I had with my grandmother in 1986 (12 August, p 19). I asked her if she would like to go into the garden and look for Halley’s comet. “No thank you, dear,” she said. “I saw it last time.” That, of course, was in 1910. Ely, Cambridgeshire, UK
From John Oliver Congratulations to your predecessors from July 1970 who so accurately predicted the revolution in cashless payments (29 July, p 15). They were also pretty spot-on in anticipating many of the challenges in terms of high volumes and security. Unfortunately, anticipating the challenges would need to be tackled by “the ablest, most experienced computing men in the country” suggests rather less prescience in terms of females’ ability to trouble their pretty little heads with such matters. Chippenham, Wiltshire, UK
En root From Tom di Giovanni I was interested to read in the article on Einstein and airport departures that the time taken to board an aircraft is proportional
For the record ● Our Upfront article on reassessing recreational drugs referred to the 20 drugs looked at by the UK Science and Technology Select Committee as “stimulants” (5 August, p 5). While cocaine and speed are stimulants, alcohol, heroin and tranquilisers are generally regarded as depressants, and LSD and magic mushrooms are classed as hallucinogens. Cannabis is both a depressant and a hallucinogen, and ecstasy is both a stimulant and hallucinogen.
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 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.
26 August 2006 | NewScientist | 23
18/8/06 4:53:59 pm
Congress…enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power”. Governor Schwarzenegger’s act will not stand up to a legal challenge. Fairfax, Virginia, US
Whistling windmills From David Bent, Green’s Mill & Science Centre Yet another phenomenon known to our forebears has been “discovered” in modern times (5 August, p 34). In the 19th century, windmillers were sufficiently familiar with windgenerated tones from their mills to give the effect a name: they called it “blowing the horn”. This usually happened in a strong wind at the end of the day’s work, when the shutters along each sail were opened, allowing the wind to blow through the gaps. When the eight-sailed mill at Heckington in Lincolnshire was restored to full working order in the early 1990s, a tone of about 240 hertz was generated when the mill was at rest in a wind of force 4 or above. This was cured by wrapping a wide-spaced helix of twine around each shutter to disrupt the airflow and allow the village a good night’s sleep. Sneinton, Nottinghamshire, UK From Anne Silk Visiting Malta recently, I walked out of the Hilton hotel towards Portomaso crossing over the small inlet off St Julians Bay. Low metal railings lined the road over the bay. A glorious day,
www.newscientist.com
060826_Letters.indd 23
but who or what was singing the strange melody I could hear so loudly? With a professional interest in acoustics and as a choral singer myself, I realised that the wind, funnelling into the inlet, itself surrounded by tall buildings, was producing the strange musical sounds, in the human voice range around 500 hertz. Haunting melodies indeed! Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, UK
Is Pammy art? From David Flint John Hyman criticises Vilayanur Ramachandran’s theory of art because it fails to distinguish between images of big-breasted women such as Hindu statues of goddesses and actual big-breasted women such as Pamela Anderson (5 August, p 44). Works of art differ from other things, Hyman says, in being made using “specific tools, materials and techniques”. In fact, this does not create the distinction he wants. The appearance of an actress such as Anderson is deliberately created using the specific techniques of plastic surgery, diet, exercise, make-up, clothing and photography. Like a work of art as described by Ramachandran’s analysis, it is created for a purpose: to evoke particular feelings in the viewer. I do agree with Hyman that art has no single purpose, but most art, I contend, is consistent with Ramachandran’s analysis because it is intended to evoke emotion; indeed, it is successful to the degree that it does evoke the intended emotions. This is true of representations of both real and imagined things. Pictures of the Christian heaven, for instance, are not mere portrayals but attempts to intensify believers’ faith and commitment, and they show exaggerations of experiences such as pleasure and awe. There are, however, representations to which the analysis does not apply. Drawings used to illustrate scientific papers
before photography were presumably meant to communicate an actual appearance, though even here some idealisation seems likely. If they were not intended to evoke emotion then Ramachandran’s theory does not require them to be distorted, though it does not forbid it. All in all, Ramachandran’s theory holds up pretty well, though it does need a definitive list of human emotions that is based on neuroscience. Enfield, Middlesex, UK
to the square root of the number of passengers (29 July, p 42). It seems to me that this can only hold true for relatively small aircraft. For large aircraft there will inevitably be a linear term which will eventually dominate. From a rough calculation based on the 747 loading time quoted in the article and an estimate of a “saturation flow” through the door of one person every 2 seconds, the linear factor could start to dominate for planes with more than 900 seats. Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, UK
Didn’t women count?
Seen it all before From Peter Stockwell Maybe it does not compare with the memories of a Galapagos tortoise, but Jay Pasachoff’s letter about Harriet reminded me of a conversation I had with my grandmother in 1986 (12 August, p 19). I asked her if she would like to go into the garden and look for Halley’s comet. “No thank you, dear,” she said. “I saw it last time.” That, of course, was in 1910. Ely, Cambridgeshire, UK
From John Oliver Congratulations to your predecessors from July 1970 who so accurately predicted the revolution in cashless payments (29 July, p 15). They were also pretty spot-on in anticipating many of the challenges in terms of high volumes and security. Unfortunately, anticipating the challenges would need to be tackled by “the ablest, most experienced computing men in the country” suggests rather less prescience in terms of females’ ability to trouble their pretty little heads with such matters. Chippenham, Wiltshire, UK
En root From Tom di Giovanni I was interested to read in the article on Einstein and airport departures that the time taken to board an aircraft is proportional
For the record ● Our Upfront article on reassessing recreational drugs referred to the 20 drugs looked at by the UK Science and Technology Select Committee as “stimulants” (5 August, p 5). While cocaine and speed are stimulants, alcohol, heroin and tranquilisers are generally regarded as depressants, and LSD and magic mushrooms are classed as hallucinogens. Cannabis is both a depressant and a hallucinogen, and ecstasy is both a stimulant and hallucinogen.
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 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.
26 August 2006 | NewScientist | 23
18/8/06 4:53:59 pm