Infinitely confusing
We’re told that in an infinite multiverse, “everything that can happen will happen, infinitely many times”. This is traditionally exemplified by the idea that there will not only be another exact “you” somewhere, but also a “you” who is king or queen, president, Superman, riding a unicorn, and so on.
However, take the much simpler case of numbers. There will be infinite sets of random numbers which don’t include any conceivable number you might choose to specify, never mind infinitely repeated within. Is there any probability theory to say a multiverse must mean all these things can manifest themselves somewhere, or should the infinite stats be taken to mean that although we can’t rule out such a possibility, it is not necessarily the case either?
Sheffield, UK
For the record
鈥� Moose can cause an elk of a confusion. In our story on reviving ecosystems (1 March, p 40) our usage of the US name elk for the species also known as the wapiti could have muddled people, considering the article also featured moose (known as elk in Europe).
鈥� In having our two cents on anaerobic oceans (22 February, p 12), we claimed researchers lowered the oxygen level in their aquarium to “200 times below the amount currently found in the air”. We should have said one two-hundredth.
鈥� We shorted the market in our article on lunar delivery (22 February, p 6): the true value lies between $3.1 and $9.7 billion.
鈥� A house divided: in our feature on New Zealand’s drug decriminalisation (8 March, p 40), we describe the legislature as having two chambers. It has been unicameral since 1951.
Faith in tolerance
In his defence of Richard Dawkins, Iain Gibson claims Dawkins’s atheism is an antidote to violence perpetrated by religious practitioners (22 February, p 32). Certainly Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, et al., have proved that atheists are at least as capable as religious leaders in this department. Cruelty can emerge from any belief system.
Tolerance is the real antidote. Dawkins, however, is quite intolerant. Fortunately, he does not have the political power to act on his views.
Shrewsbury, Vermont, US
Love is deaf
In regards to the proposed medicinal “cure for love” (15 February, p 26), one possible target for treatment would be the thousands of fans who believe they are in love with a celebrity whom they are unlikely ever to meet, let alone speak to.
This might seriously hurt the music industry once fans start paying attention to the music and realise how shockingly bad it is.
Woking, Surrey, UK
Pole power
As I read your article on electric vehicles that charge while parked (25 January, p 20), I recalled that when I was in Switzerland in 1996, I saw buses that spun up a flywheel using an electric motor powered by contact with a pole at the bus stop. The bus then used the flywheel to drive the wheels as it trundled to the next stop.
I do wonder if those buses are still trotting along.
Bellbowrie, Queensland, Australia
Power point
When we need a battery to store electrical energy from an intermittent supply, the physical size of the battery is not the most important consideration (8 March, p 20). It is more important that it should not lose charge and should be cheap to build relative to the amount of energy it can store.
The nickel-iron (NiFe) battery fell out of favour in motor vehicles because its size and capacity compared unfavourably to the lead-acid battery, but it could well come into its own for storing renewable energy. Its two main components are cheap and plentiful, and could easily be incorporated into the fabric of buildings.
Kambah, ACT, Australia
Tuber tangle
I was saddened to read that a significant advance in countering late potato blight will be contrary to Europe’s strict rules on genetically modified crops (22 February, p 6). Although the disease-resistant potato you reported is considered GM, the beneficial gene it carries is in the natural potato gene pool 鈥� in this case from a South American variety. Surely, this can be interpreted as being akin to traditional plant hybridisation, without which we would still be hunter-gatherers. The phrase “genetically modified” should be restricted to the addition (or deletion) of genetic material not amenable to natural hybridisation.
It is ironic that the resistant potato will be commercialised in the US. I would urge that it be reclassified as a new hybrid so it can be grown in the UK, reducing farmers’ huge pesticide bills.
Harrisburg, North Carolina, US
Aping Darwin
Your cover story on the role of stone tools in our evolution was very interesting, and brings to mind a quote from Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “We’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere. And to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together.”
Sydney, Australia
Aping Darwin
Further to David Robson’s article (1 March, p 34) about making stone tools and the journey from ape to thinking human, I’m reminded of an article by Friedrich Engels, “The part played by labour in the transition from ape to man”. Written in 1876, it suggests that by working with their hands and interacting with one another, apes evolved greater intelligence and ultimately language. Engels wrote it after reading the works of Darwin. It’s interesting to see how these ideas have older predecessors.
London, UK
Male rape hidden
I applaud the work of Jo Lusi in treating women who have been raped in conflict situations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1 March, p 29). The appallingly high rate of sexual violence affects not only women: 24 per cent of men in eastern DR Congo also reported being attacked.
Male rape is endemic in many of the world’s conflict zones, and is entirely consistent with the motivation for war rape stated in your article, namely to inflict humiliation upon the vanquished.
Males face a particular plight: in countries where homosexual activity is illegal, a male victim daring to seek help is likely to be imprisoned. This is exactly what has happened to men fleeing the DR Congo conflict into neighbouring Uganda, which has particularly harsh laws penalising homosexuality. This is a very effective way of keeping the issue of male rape hidden, and it is incumbent upon all of us to expose it.
Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, UK
Infinitely confusing
Your article on cosmic conundrums surely reasons from a very slender base (8 March, p 26). It may indeed be that our visible universe is “part of a larger space-time of infinite volume” in which there may be “an infinity” of similar occupied patches. But how does anyone get from this use of the word “infinity” 鈥� which means mere absence of known bounds 鈥� to positive factual claims such as “universes indistinguishable from ours would be repeated infinitely” and “everything that can happen will happen, infinitely many times”, where infinite means a very large number? Our ignorance of limits is just a negative. It cannot spawn new facts in this way.
Unfortunately this sort of thing is not philosophy. It’s just muddled language.
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Class act
You left out one route to success: lowering testosterone. A multitude of studies have associated lower testosterone with success at work, as well as reduced levels of criminal and risk-taking behaviour. One way to put this into practice might be to restrict sexual activity in adolescence, a technique that has been shown to lower testosterone in rats permanently.
Montrose, Victoria, Australia
Class act
Of course it helps to be clever if you want to be successful (8 March, p 30), but knowing stuff only gets you a little way up the greasy pole. Basic cunning and knowing how to use the system to your best advantage are more helpful. It follows that the children of wealthy and successful parents have a significant advantage in knowing how to behave in social situations. I’m afraid the maxim that it is who you know, not what you know, does count.
Winchester, Hampshire, UK
Carbon trap
A better option than CCS would be to invest in refined renewable fuels, like methane, biodiesel and bioethanol on a large scale.
With regard to the argument over food versus fuel production, it must be said that without energy to make fertiliser and heat greenhouses, there would be much less food.
Furthermore, if sugar is “an entirely dispensable food” (1 February, p 36), would it not be better to turn it into easy-to-store fuels using a combination of existing technologies?
Letham, Angus, UK
Carbon trap
You report that carbon capture and storage (CCS) will soon be carried out on a commercial scale at a Canadian power plant (8 March, p 8), but the technique’s own footprint should not be overlooked.
CCS increases the fuel needed to produce a unit of electricity by 15 to 40 per cent, and therefore the amount of carbon dioxide churned out per unit of power. By increasing fuel use, it reduces a country’s energy security and increases impacts of extraction. Applying CCS in a gas-fired plant means we will have less gas available to replace coal, and therefore may well increase our total CO2 output, since gas is greener than coal.
Then there’s the issue of potential leakage of the stored carbon. With what confidence can we predict what will happen over the coming centuries? Is this the same level of confidence that we apply to secure underground nuclear waste dumps?
CCS will augment our fossil-fuel power generation and reduce more worthwhile efforts to improve the energy efficiency of buildings, industry and transport, for example. Global investment in these proven, safe options is how societies can be supported sustainably and indefinitely.
Colchester, Essex, UK
Water damage
In light of the constant onslaught of weather systems battering the UK in the past few months, the government may have to think outside the box.
Clay has impressive water-retention, but accessing this underground geological sponge may require us to drill down to a seam. This practice has the advantage of not only absorbing floodwater, but also storing it for droughts.
I came to this idea when forking my lawn two months ago to reduce surface water. To this day, it absorbs endless rainwater.
London, UK
Water damage
Your article exploring the long-term impact of flooding on people’s health (22 February, p 7) was welcome. It seems that reporters flock in while houses are in the process of being flooded, but as soon as the water starts to recede, so do the journalists. There is no newsworthiness in the aftermath, and viewers and readers assume that everything simply returns to normal.
My parents-in-law were flooded in 1993. At its worst, there was over a metre of dirty water in the house. The place reeked so much of mould that it remained unsafe and uninhabitable for many months after the floods had vanished from reporters’ minds. Luckily, my parents-in-law had temporary accommodation; many of their neighbours were not so fortunate.
La Tour-d’Aigues, France