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On a wing and…
See newscientist.com for letters on: ● On a wing and... ● Mountain anxiety
The editor writes: ● In response to New Scientist’s question about the Clark study, the US Food and Drug Administration says: “We are aware of that study and the melamine used was at an extremely high level. We have never said that melamine was harmless to pets, but by due diligence we are also looking at melamine-related compounds.”
an ultrasonic cacophony that confuses bats and tells them, in effect: “This is confusing, best stay away.” Great Chishill, Cambridgeshire, UK
certain vowel sounds that produces the strongest “forced smile”. For example, “key” does so more than “be”, “dee” or “fee”, although “k” with some other vowels lacks the effect.
The editor writes: ● Maybe that’s a good idea – if we can be sure that this wouldn’t confuse them even more.
Gravity of the matter
Measuring cats Bat and blade From John Etherington New Scientist’s report on the large number of bats succumbing to wind turbines reinforces a common misperception – that the blades move slowly (12 May, p 4). It is true that the blades of older, small wind turbines rotated rapidly and so would appear to a bird or bat as a semi-solid disc to be avoided. Modern 2-megawatt wind turbines make an apparently lazy 10 to 20 revolutions per minute, but the blades are around 40 metres long. Simple geometry shows that the blade tips travel at between 150 and 300 kilometres per hour. For a bird or bat in misty weather, these aircraft-sized blades appear from nowhere at intervals of between 2 and
4 seconds, a scenario that even a fighter pilot would find alarming. Llanhowel, Pembrokeshire, UK From Jack Harrison Surely it should be a simple matter for each generator to emit www.newscientist.com
From Guy Cox Schrödinger’s cat must be the most misunderstood animal in the history of science (12 May, p 32). The “measurement” that destroys quantum uncertainty is the interaction of the quantum object with some other object, and has nothing to do with a human observer. When I take an electron micrograph, the electron ceases to be in a superposition of states when it interacts with a crystal of silver bromide in the film, not when I look at the developed picture the next day. Likewise, the uncertainty surrounding Schrödinger’s atom disappears when it interacts with the vial of poison gas, not when we open the box. The cat is always either alive or dead, never in a superposition of states. A video camera in the box, monitoring the health of the feline, would not perturb the experiment in the slightest. This is not a criticism of the fascinating and important experiment by John Martinis that you report. The anthropomorphic analogy obscures the significance rather than elucidating it, though. In the end, the observer has nothing to do with the health of the cat, but is an essential part of Martinis’s experiment. Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Quacked humour From Ivan Berger Richard Wiseman’s theory that “Quack” is funnier than “Moo” holds true for English speakers
(12 May, p 46). But is it true for those whose languages assign the “k” sound to other animals’ cries and not to ducks? Or are there no such languages? The only foreign duck sound I know is the French “quank”, in which the “k” would probably have less effect, overshadowed by the preceding nasal sound. Fawood, New Jersey, US From Kevin Whitesides You suggest that the spoken hard “k” sound is likely to be funnier because of “facial feedback”, for the reason that saying the “k” sound can supposedly make one mimic smiling. This is easily refuted. Try it yourself and you will very quickly recognise that your smiling face is the result of the vowel that precedes or follows the “k”. For example, contrast the facial expression of the word “quack” (as in the article) with the word “cook”, which clearly does not create a smile when said. It is the hard “a” sound in “quack” that makes the smiling face. If there is indeed some reason that “k” is funnier than other sounds, it’s not because it makes you look like you’re smiling. Also the people in the article were reading a joke, not being told the joke orally. So the facial aspect would not have come into play, unless the person was reading the joke aloud or at least mouthing it. Arcata, California, US The editor writes: ● Further personal experimentation suggests that it is the combination of “k” with
From Geoff Jones The makers of Mary Lunnen’s scales may be very pedantic, but not as silly as Feedback implies (12 May). The acceleration due to gravity varies slightly with latitude. I remember my students in Nigeria being confused by the fact that their measurements of the gravitational acceleration g consistently came out slightly smaller than the “right” answer in their British textbook. Llanwrtyd Wells, Powys, UK From Charles Sawyer You don’t have to go to other planets to change “the weight of a mass”: a mass that weighed 150 kilograms in Quito, Ecuador, would weigh about 151 kg in Scotland, because Quito is around 20 kilometres further from the centre of the Earth. Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia
For the record ● The satellite image of Australia showing the Adelaide area that was used to illustrate the article “Earth audit” (26 May, p 34) was mistakenly printed as a mirror image. ● As many readers have noticed, in the illustration of Americans’ lifetime consumption of resources (26 May, p 40) the amounts of phosphorus and aluminium should have been 8322 and 1576 kilograms respectively, not tonnes. 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.
9 June 2007 | NewScientist | 27
The editor writes: ● In response to New Scientist’s question about the Clark study, the US Food and Drug Administration says: “We are aware of that study and the melamine used was at an extremely high level. We have never said that melamine was harmless to pets, but by due diligence we are also looking at melamine-related compounds.”
an ultrasonic cacophony that confuses bats and tells them, in effect: “This is confusing, best stay away.” Great Chishill, Cambridgeshire, UK
certain vowel sounds that produces the strongest “forced smile”. For example, “key” does so more than “be”, “dee” or “fee”, although “k” with some other vowels lacks the effect.
The editor writes: ● Maybe that’s a good idea – if we can be sure that this wouldn’t confuse them even more.
Gravity of the matter
Measuring cats Bat and blade From John Etherington New Scientist’s report on the large number of bats succumbing to wind turbines reinforces a common misperception – that the blades move slowly (12 May, p 4). It is true that the blades of older, small wind turbines rotated rapidly and so would appear to a bird or bat as a semi-solid disc to be avoided. Modern 2-megawatt wind turbines make an apparently lazy 10 to 20 revolutions per minute, but the blades are around 40 metres long. Simple geometry shows that the blade tips travel at between 150 and 300 kilometres per hour. For a bird or bat in misty weather, these aircraft-sized blades appear from nowhere at intervals of between 2 and
4 seconds, a scenario that even a fighter pilot would find alarming. Llanhowel, Pembrokeshire, UK From Jack Harrison Surely it should be a simple matter for each generator to emit www.newscientist.com
From Guy Cox Schrödinger’s cat must be the most misunderstood animal in the history of science (12 May, p 32). The “measurement” that destroys quantum uncertainty is the interaction of the quantum object with some other object, and has nothing to do with a human observer. When I take an electron micrograph, the electron ceases to be in a superposition of states when it interacts with a crystal of silver bromide in the film, not when I look at the developed picture the next day. Likewise, the uncertainty surrounding Schrödinger’s atom disappears when it interacts with the vial of poison gas, not when we open the box. The cat is always either alive or dead, never in a superposition of states. A video camera in the box, monitoring the health of the feline, would not perturb the experiment in the slightest. This is not a criticism of the fascinating and important experiment by John Martinis that you report. The anthropomorphic analogy obscures the significance rather than elucidating it, though. In the end, the observer has nothing to do with the health of the cat, but is an essential part of Martinis’s experiment. Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Quacked humour From Ivan Berger Richard Wiseman’s theory that “Quack” is funnier than “Moo” holds true for English speakers
(12 May, p 46). But is it true for those whose languages assign the “k” sound to other animals’ cries and not to ducks? Or are there no such languages? The only foreign duck sound I know is the French “quank”, in which the “k” would probably have less effect, overshadowed by the preceding nasal sound. Fawood, New Jersey, US From Kevin Whitesides You suggest that the spoken hard “k” sound is likely to be funnier because of “facial feedback”, for the reason that saying the “k” sound can supposedly make one mimic smiling. This is easily refuted. Try it yourself and you will very quickly recognise that your smiling face is the result of the vowel that precedes or follows the “k”. For example, contrast the facial expression of the word “quack” (as in the article) with the word “cook”, which clearly does not create a smile when said. It is the hard “a” sound in “quack” that makes the smiling face. If there is indeed some reason that “k” is funnier than other sounds, it’s not because it makes you look like you’re smiling. Also the people in the article were reading a joke, not being told the joke orally. So the facial aspect would not have come into play, unless the person was reading the joke aloud or at least mouthing it. Arcata, California, US The editor writes: ● Further personal experimentation suggests that it is the combination of “k” with
From Geoff Jones The makers of Mary Lunnen’s scales may be very pedantic, but not as silly as Feedback implies (12 May). The acceleration due to gravity varies slightly with latitude. I remember my students in Nigeria being confused by the fact that their measurements of the gravitational acceleration g consistently came out slightly smaller than the “right” answer in their British textbook. Llanwrtyd Wells, Powys, UK From Charles Sawyer You don’t have to go to other planets to change “the weight of a mass”: a mass that weighed 150 kilograms in Quito, Ecuador, would weigh about 151 kg in Scotland, because Quito is around 20 kilometres further from the centre of the Earth. Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia
For the record ● The satellite image of Australia showing the Adelaide area that was used to illustrate the article “Earth audit” (26 May, p 34) was mistakenly printed as a mirror image. ● As many readers have noticed, in the illustration of Americans’ lifetime consumption of resources (26 May, p 40) the amounts of phosphorus and aluminium should have been 8322 and 1576 kilograms respectively, not tonnes. 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.
9 June 2007 | NewScientist | 27