- Email: [email protected]
Life on Mars
OPINION LETTERS How many universes? From Steven Greenhouse In his article on the multiverse, Robert Adler repeats the old trope that there is a universe in which I have just won the Olympic 100-metre race (26 November, p 42). That’s nice, but I find it hard to believe that a bowl of soup, an oboe, or even a short-legged human with mediocre fast-twitch muscles could reach the finishing line first. Presumably, all statistically possible arrangements of matter, or even superficially plausible alternative histories, must be severely constrained by what can actually be played out within systems of causality. These systems are also chemical, biological, Newtonian, psychological, cultural and so on, and – to adapt Terrence W. Deacon’s idea from the same issue (p 34) – compound to progressively
restrict what is possible. Except in trivial cases, might it not be possible that these higher levels of organisation and causality actually render quantum effects powerless to alter the course of things in the non-quantum world? Or is there really a whole blizzard of universes devoted entirely to all the possible positions of the cheeses in my fridge at this very moment? West Stoke, West Sussex, UK
Enigma Number 1676
Pick ‘n’ mix SUSAN DENHAM There is always the same number of sweets – fewer than 50 – in a box of Tweets. Some are red and the rest are green. The proportion of reds is always the same. Two lads, Dip and Flip, had a box each last week and a box each this week. Dip picks sweets at random from his box without looking in. Last week, when he had just eaten his last red one, he noticed he had just one green left. This week, when he had eaten his last red sweet, there were two greens left. Last week’s situation is
four times as likely as this week’s. Until he runs out of one colour, Flip picks his sweets by tossing a coin: heads he eats a red one and tails he eats a green one. Last week he had just eaten his last red one and he counted the number of green ones left. This week, when he had eaten his last red sweet there was one more green sweet left than in the previous week. In fact, having last week’s number left is four times as likely as having this week’s. Tell me how many red sweets and how many green ones make up a box of Tweets.
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 1 February. The Editor’s decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1676, New Scientist, Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to [email protected] (please include your postal address). Answer to 1670 How mean? Frack’s average was 25¾; Dessie’s, 24.75 The winner Jan Giezen of Maassluis, the Netherlands
32 | NewScientist | 10 December 2011
From William Wakefield I was pleased that your multiverse feature started on page 42. Was this influenced by Douglas Adams’s use of the number 42 in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as the answer to life, the universe and everything? It still makes me smile more than two decades later. Before I buy a book I read page 42 just to check it out before purchasing. It has proved a fair guide over the years. Evesham, Worcestershire, UK
Immeasurably good From Brian Horton In Feedback, John Hastings suggested we need an International Committee on Standard Dimensions for Comparative Units (12 November). This is certainly required after the absurdity Feedback mentioned the previous week of the conversion of calories to distance via French fries stacked end to end between the Earth and the moon (5 November). Can we agree that linear measurements use Earth-tomoons, area is in football fields, volume in swimming pools and mass in blue whales? Don’t try to fit blue whales into swimming pools or vice versa – the whales wouldn’t like either option. West Launceston, Tasmania, Australia From Tony Budd I read that the Texas Water Development Board says the state needs about 18 million acre-feet of water per year. Now, as everyone knows, 1 acre-foot is 325,849 US gallons. If a blue whale weighs 181 tonnes, then that’s a whale-volume of 47,815 US gallons. So the population of Texas uses a volume of water every year equivalent to 123 million blue whales. That’s much easier to envisage than 18 million acre-feet, isn’t it? Wickford, Essex, UK
Life on Mars From Colin Pillinger, FRS So NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the rover Curiosity, will not be looking for life on Mars (12 November, p 42). I’ve heard it said by many US space scientists interested in this fundamental question that some of their engineers like the idea of repeated missions to the Red Planet and don’t want to cook the goose that lays the golden egg by finding an answer or, worse, saying they are trying and failing. Some of the interviews conducted by Maggie McKee appear to confirm these fears. Tests for biological activity on Mars by the Viking spacecraft in the 1970s did not show there was no life – the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The results could show the existence of metabolising organisms or, as the majority opted to accept, that the oxidising nature of the soil was mimicking biology (Science, 1976, DOI: 10.1126/ science.194.4260.99). Either way, the instruments on Vikings I and II enabled a very important discovery – the existence of Martian meteorites on Earth. These were then found to contain carbonates deposited from lukewarm water, organic matter which could be the debris of organisms that lived in the water, magnetite crystals with a form characteristic of those deposited by living cells, and ultimately what can be interpreted as nanometre-scale fossils (Science, 1996, DOI: 10.1126/ science.273.5277.924). The doubters claim some of these are due to terrestrial contamination. When Beagle 2, the British lander that was lost in 2003, was sent to repeat the meteorite experiments in situ on Mars and carry out a search for methane in the atmosphere as an indicator of an active anaerobic biology, the idea was greeted from some in the US with howls of “you’re trying to
To join the debate, visit newscientist.com/letters
hit a home run off the first ball”, indicating its experimental goals were overambitious. NASA’s landing of Curiosity in Gale crater using their sky-crane technique will be an amazing technological achievement. The crater is a perfect location to search for evidence of life, and I’m willing to bet we won’t be hearing claims about having brought the wrong experiments so long as it all succeeds. Croydon, Cambridgeshire, UK
Nothing matters From Dave Howells I found your articles on nothing interesting but dismaying (13 November, p 40). Strictly speaking, none of them was about nothing. They surveyed the mathematical zero, empty sets, electronics, the quantum vacuum and the noble gases. Nothing, I believe, is when we are unconscious. Say I have an operation under general anaesthetic, I count down from 10, reach seven, and then wake up to discover that I am in a different place. What happened in between? For my conscious awareness, absolutely nothing – no time, no space, no matter, no emptiness, no experience whatsoever. Swansea, UK The editor writes: n Nothing comes to those who wait: see our recent feature on anaesthesia and consciousness (26 November, p 48).
The blame game From Sandy Henderson The discussion of a possible increase in legal action connected with the consequences of climate change (12 November, p 6) got me thinking. It is a very common human failing to think that if you can find someone to blame, or make a scapegoat, attacking them will solve the underlying problem. In the case of climate variability it almost certainly won’t. Our leaders, regardless of political system, make short-term decisions and postpone harder long-term ones in the hope of extending their tenure. If they knew that they only had a brief time in power, they might feel more obligated to consider the fate of those coming after. Dunblane, Stirling, UK
many more distinguished scientists of international repute who are also strongly theistic. To a man and woman they retain their intelligent curiosity and yet show no evidence of inner tension or conflict between their religious and scientific belief systems. Where is this “disconnect” that Whalley seems so sure exists? Leeds, UK
Science vs religion
Chagos islands
From Paul Vinall James Whalley (19 November, p 37) is content to accept Robert Trivers’s description of religion as a possible “exercise in selfdeception” (8 October, p 32). But describing substantially more than half the human race as selfdeceiving does rather lead one to wonder which side of the debate is the one deceiving itself. Whalley adds that “science stands or falls according to the evidence”, but that “religion refuses to acknowledge any evidence against its fundamental beliefs”. In almost 65 years of looking I have never come across any evidence against religion’s fundamental beliefs, at least in relation to conventional theism. The important thing is the weight given to the evidence for theism (not proof thereof – it is agreed there is no such thing) such as the unreasonable intelligibility of the universe, the origin of natural laws, the source of meaning and the anthropic principle. I know many, and know of
From Charles Sheppard, University of Warwick May I clarify some points in your article about sea levels, island erosion and flooding in the Chagos islands (26 November, p 4). It was reported that I dismiss new findings referring to the 2.2-millimetre rise per year in sea level indicated by satellite altimetry. I don’t. We have known about this for years and I am sure those measurements are right. But this central Indian Ocean sea-level value clearly isn’t as important as other things causing the observed erosion of Chagos island shores and seawater flooding. First, the area is mildly tectonic and land subsidence probably contributes. Secondly, the massive coral mortality from warming in 1998 severely damaged the breakwater effect of protective reefs in several Indian Ocean islands including, it seems clear, the Chagos islands. Along with other factors, this means flooding occurs increasingly at high tides. A healthy coral reef at stable
elevation would cope with the sealevel rise indicated by the satellite measurements. It would be nice if only oceanic sea-level rise counted. As noted, it is flooding that is important, and that is happening. Coventry, West Midlands, UK
Meaty challenge From Richard Twine When talking about meat consumption, Sujata Gupta makes the classic mistake of translating an issue inherently about values and relationships into one of efficiency (19 November, p 12). This approach is characteristic of many technocratic natural-science framings of climate-change mitigation which ignore historical, social and economic forces behind the emergence of unsustainable practices. Western norms of high meat consumption are historically recent. It makes sociological and psychological sense to learn from vegetarians and vegans, who go against this norm. But it requires institutional level changes as well. Saying the world’s poor need to eat more meat to overcome malnutrition and maintain food security is most kindly described as 20th-century thinking. Lancaster, UK
For the record n In our multiverse feature, we should have said that the radius, not the diameter, of the observable universe is 42 billion light years (26 November, p 42). 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.
10 December 2011 | NewScientist | 33
restrict what is possible. Except in trivial cases, might it not be possible that these higher levels of organisation and causality actually render quantum effects powerless to alter the course of things in the non-quantum world? Or is there really a whole blizzard of universes devoted entirely to all the possible positions of the cheeses in my fridge at this very moment? West Stoke, West Sussex, UK
Enigma Number 1676
Pick ‘n’ mix SUSAN DENHAM There is always the same number of sweets – fewer than 50 – in a box of Tweets. Some are red and the rest are green. The proportion of reds is always the same. Two lads, Dip and Flip, had a box each last week and a box each this week. Dip picks sweets at random from his box without looking in. Last week, when he had just eaten his last red one, he noticed he had just one green left. This week, when he had eaten his last red sweet, there were two greens left. Last week’s situation is
four times as likely as this week’s. Until he runs out of one colour, Flip picks his sweets by tossing a coin: heads he eats a red one and tails he eats a green one. Last week he had just eaten his last red one and he counted the number of green ones left. This week, when he had eaten his last red sweet there was one more green sweet left than in the previous week. In fact, having last week’s number left is four times as likely as having this week’s. Tell me how many red sweets and how many green ones make up a box of Tweets.
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 1 February. The Editor’s decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1676, New Scientist, Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to [email protected] (please include your postal address). Answer to 1670 How mean? Frack’s average was 25¾; Dessie’s, 24.75 The winner Jan Giezen of Maassluis, the Netherlands
32 | NewScientist | 10 December 2011
From William Wakefield I was pleased that your multiverse feature started on page 42. Was this influenced by Douglas Adams’s use of the number 42 in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as the answer to life, the universe and everything? It still makes me smile more than two decades later. Before I buy a book I read page 42 just to check it out before purchasing. It has proved a fair guide over the years. Evesham, Worcestershire, UK
Immeasurably good From Brian Horton In Feedback, John Hastings suggested we need an International Committee on Standard Dimensions for Comparative Units (12 November). This is certainly required after the absurdity Feedback mentioned the previous week of the conversion of calories to distance via French fries stacked end to end between the Earth and the moon (5 November). Can we agree that linear measurements use Earth-tomoons, area is in football fields, volume in swimming pools and mass in blue whales? Don’t try to fit blue whales into swimming pools or vice versa – the whales wouldn’t like either option. West Launceston, Tasmania, Australia From Tony Budd I read that the Texas Water Development Board says the state needs about 18 million acre-feet of water per year. Now, as everyone knows, 1 acre-foot is 325,849 US gallons. If a blue whale weighs 181 tonnes, then that’s a whale-volume of 47,815 US gallons. So the population of Texas uses a volume of water every year equivalent to 123 million blue whales. That’s much easier to envisage than 18 million acre-feet, isn’t it? Wickford, Essex, UK
Life on Mars From Colin Pillinger, FRS So NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the rover Curiosity, will not be looking for life on Mars (12 November, p 42). I’ve heard it said by many US space scientists interested in this fundamental question that some of their engineers like the idea of repeated missions to the Red Planet and don’t want to cook the goose that lays the golden egg by finding an answer or, worse, saying they are trying and failing. Some of the interviews conducted by Maggie McKee appear to confirm these fears. Tests for biological activity on Mars by the Viking spacecraft in the 1970s did not show there was no life – the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The results could show the existence of metabolising organisms or, as the majority opted to accept, that the oxidising nature of the soil was mimicking biology (Science, 1976, DOI: 10.1126/ science.194.4260.99). Either way, the instruments on Vikings I and II enabled a very important discovery – the existence of Martian meteorites on Earth. These were then found to contain carbonates deposited from lukewarm water, organic matter which could be the debris of organisms that lived in the water, magnetite crystals with a form characteristic of those deposited by living cells, and ultimately what can be interpreted as nanometre-scale fossils (Science, 1996, DOI: 10.1126/ science.273.5277.924). The doubters claim some of these are due to terrestrial contamination. When Beagle 2, the British lander that was lost in 2003, was sent to repeat the meteorite experiments in situ on Mars and carry out a search for methane in the atmosphere as an indicator of an active anaerobic biology, the idea was greeted from some in the US with howls of “you’re trying to
To join the debate, visit newscientist.com/letters
hit a home run off the first ball”, indicating its experimental goals were overambitious. NASA’s landing of Curiosity in Gale crater using their sky-crane technique will be an amazing technological achievement. The crater is a perfect location to search for evidence of life, and I’m willing to bet we won’t be hearing claims about having brought the wrong experiments so long as it all succeeds. Croydon, Cambridgeshire, UK
Nothing matters From Dave Howells I found your articles on nothing interesting but dismaying (13 November, p 40). Strictly speaking, none of them was about nothing. They surveyed the mathematical zero, empty sets, electronics, the quantum vacuum and the noble gases. Nothing, I believe, is when we are unconscious. Say I have an operation under general anaesthetic, I count down from 10, reach seven, and then wake up to discover that I am in a different place. What happened in between? For my conscious awareness, absolutely nothing – no time, no space, no matter, no emptiness, no experience whatsoever. Swansea, UK The editor writes: n Nothing comes to those who wait: see our recent feature on anaesthesia and consciousness (26 November, p 48).
The blame game From Sandy Henderson The discussion of a possible increase in legal action connected with the consequences of climate change (12 November, p 6) got me thinking. It is a very common human failing to think that if you can find someone to blame, or make a scapegoat, attacking them will solve the underlying problem. In the case of climate variability it almost certainly won’t. Our leaders, regardless of political system, make short-term decisions and postpone harder long-term ones in the hope of extending their tenure. If they knew that they only had a brief time in power, they might feel more obligated to consider the fate of those coming after. Dunblane, Stirling, UK
many more distinguished scientists of international repute who are also strongly theistic. To a man and woman they retain their intelligent curiosity and yet show no evidence of inner tension or conflict between their religious and scientific belief systems. Where is this “disconnect” that Whalley seems so sure exists? Leeds, UK
Science vs religion
Chagos islands
From Paul Vinall James Whalley (19 November, p 37) is content to accept Robert Trivers’s description of religion as a possible “exercise in selfdeception” (8 October, p 32). But describing substantially more than half the human race as selfdeceiving does rather lead one to wonder which side of the debate is the one deceiving itself. Whalley adds that “science stands or falls according to the evidence”, but that “religion refuses to acknowledge any evidence against its fundamental beliefs”. In almost 65 years of looking I have never come across any evidence against religion’s fundamental beliefs, at least in relation to conventional theism. The important thing is the weight given to the evidence for theism (not proof thereof – it is agreed there is no such thing) such as the unreasonable intelligibility of the universe, the origin of natural laws, the source of meaning and the anthropic principle. I know many, and know of
From Charles Sheppard, University of Warwick May I clarify some points in your article about sea levels, island erosion and flooding in the Chagos islands (26 November, p 4). It was reported that I dismiss new findings referring to the 2.2-millimetre rise per year in sea level indicated by satellite altimetry. I don’t. We have known about this for years and I am sure those measurements are right. But this central Indian Ocean sea-level value clearly isn’t as important as other things causing the observed erosion of Chagos island shores and seawater flooding. First, the area is mildly tectonic and land subsidence probably contributes. Secondly, the massive coral mortality from warming in 1998 severely damaged the breakwater effect of protective reefs in several Indian Ocean islands including, it seems clear, the Chagos islands. Along with other factors, this means flooding occurs increasingly at high tides. A healthy coral reef at stable
elevation would cope with the sealevel rise indicated by the satellite measurements. It would be nice if only oceanic sea-level rise counted. As noted, it is flooding that is important, and that is happening. Coventry, West Midlands, UK
Meaty challenge From Richard Twine When talking about meat consumption, Sujata Gupta makes the classic mistake of translating an issue inherently about values and relationships into one of efficiency (19 November, p 12). This approach is characteristic of many technocratic natural-science framings of climate-change mitigation which ignore historical, social and economic forces behind the emergence of unsustainable practices. Western norms of high meat consumption are historically recent. It makes sociological and psychological sense to learn from vegetarians and vegans, who go against this norm. But it requires institutional level changes as well. Saying the world’s poor need to eat more meat to overcome malnutrition and maintain food security is most kindly described as 20th-century thinking. Lancaster, UK
For the record n In our multiverse feature, we should have said that the radius, not the diameter, of the observable universe is 42 billion light years (26 November, p 42). 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.
10 December 2011 | NewScientist | 33