See newscientist.
com for letters on:
“standardised” placebo (26 April).
As a person who is extremely
allergic to cherries, I am anxious
to learn her secret for creating a
“natural cherry flavour” that is
“guaranteed to be inert”. Better
yet is her genius in creating an
inert form of dextrose.
All the sweetness and none of
the calories? Forget the placebo
business, she should sell this to
the diet food industry.
Karlstad, Sweden
Licensed premise
From Paul Rowe-Jones
As the World Health Organization
develops its strategy to combat
alcohol abuse (19 April, p 6), those
involved should consider whether
instead of heavy taxation it might
be preferable to implement a
licensing system, similar to
driving licences.
“Drinking licences” could be
issued at age 16 on completion of
a short course describing the
dangers of heavy alcohol
consumption. They could include
a provisional period of an
appropriate length, limiting the
licence holder to beverages below
a certain alcohol content. This
would encourage young drinkers
off the streets and into the
comparatively secure
environment of a pub.
Anyone who committed a
crime when drunk would have
their licence revoked or restricted,
limiting or removing their ability
to buy alcohol. This would target
aggressive drunks while not
penalising those who can retain
www.newscientist.com
control of their impulses. Unlike
taxation, drinking licences could
change drinking culture, not just
limit alcohol abuse to those who
can afford it.
The only drawback I can see is
the initial cost of implementing
licences – though this would be
offset by the reduced strain on
emergency wards and the police.
Cottingham, East Yorkshire, UK
Coal and cancer
From Ben Beccari
If Ian Fairlie is right to be
concerned about cancer near
nuclear power stations (26 April,
p 18), what about the radioactive
materials and other carcinogens
released from coal-fired power
stations? These are far greater
than emissions from comparable
nuclear power plants. Has the
issue of cancer clusters around
coal power plants been examined,
in the same detail Fairlie demands
for nuclear power stations?
Wollongong, New South Wales,
Australia
Nine lives!
From Paul Dormer
Paul Mander takes Feedback to
task for saying cubic litres involve
nine dimensions as this implies
cubing a cube and the cube of 3 is
not 9 (19 April, p 17). He should
check his maths. The cube of a
number n is n × n × n. Cubing this
gives (n × n × n) × (n × n × n) ×
(n × n × n) which is quite clearly
n to the power 9.
Guildford, Surrey, UK
Time after time
From Garret Moddel,
Department of electrical
and computer engineering,
University of Colorado
In a fascinating article, Michio
Kaku errs in stating that
“precognition… would represent
a collapse of the foundations of
physics.” In a paper I presented at
an American Association for the
● Voting vagaries ● Northward Ho!
● Animal carers research
● Satellite spin ● Mirror, mirror
Advancement of Science meeting
in California in 2006, I showed
how such reaching back in time is
not in conflict with physics and
logic as we know it.
The issue is one of degree and
uncertainty: the degree to which
you can influence events in the
past or have knowledge of future
events depends upon how much
uncertainty, or more precisely
how much information entropy,
there is in your initial knowledge.
Paradoxically, the more
uncertainty, the greater the
possibility for information and
causation to leak backwards in
time. This is fully consistent with
the laws of thermodynamics in
particular, and physics in general.
There’s enough uncertainty in
my brain that I should have
known in advance of Kaku’s
error… but it drowned out my
reception of this fact.
Boulder, Colorado, US
Misters of the universe
From Eric Kvaalen
The fact that stock market traders
who started their days with high
testosterone tended to make
more money does not prove
that the high level was the cause
and the money-making the
effect (19 April, p 12).
It depends on whether there is
“autocorrelation” in the profits.
If financial success on
Mondays, say, means that
financial success the next day is
likely, and also causes high
testosterone on Tuesday
morning, then you will see a
correlation between testosterone
on Tuesday mornings and profits
on Tuesdays. But under these
hypotheses, the testosterone
does not cause the success.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, US
Typical humans
From James McNeill
Lawrence Krauss writes that “the
validity of the anthropic principle
rests on the assumption that
humans are typical life forms”
(29 March, p 46). Why must
humans be “typical” to validate it?
My understanding of the
anthropic principle is that it says
humans observe a universe in
which fundamental constants
have certain values simply
because that is a universe in which
human observers can exist – so we
are still potentially an anomaly,
among universes in general or
even among that subset in which
human life can exist. Is Krauss
talking about a specific form of
the anthropic principle that is
thus addressed by typicality?
Glasgow, UK
Lawrence Krauss writes:
● I was referring to anthropic
arguments that involve
explaining the actual values of
parameters of the universe on the
basis that if they were different no
intelligent life forms would arise.
However, if we are not typical,
then the parameters could be
wildly different and yet there
could still be astronomers.
For the record
● Our apologies to Yianna Lambrou
of the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization for referring to her
as “he” (3 May, p 6).
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: letters@newscientist.com
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.
17 May 2008 | NewScientist | 23