Voll,l.v.~eYI No.Z I

OcTuber, 1. 'J 7 &

The Scot Science Journal

Contents

1. News in Science

2. Impact Seri<s

3. Chess Problem

4. Puzzle

Editor

Dr . J . C. Ke i s t er

Associate Editors

Dr. J.C. Keist~r Mr. Ray Damerot, Dan Brown

Physics and Mathematics Artwork and Layout Psychology

Vol. VI , ·112, October 1976 Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Tennessee 37350

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1. NEWS IN SCIENCE

Now, What Was This About?

Dr. James Reason likes to tell about the time the author G.K. Chesterton sent his wife a telegram saying: 11 Am in Market Harborough. Where should I be?"

Chesterton also used to monotonous ly his word - mistake the home of a

friend for his own and have to apologize for coming through the wrong door.

Although he admires Chesterton's writ­ings, Dr. Reason , who is in the Psychology Department of Leicester University, quotes them less as examples of literature than as additional instances of the curious behavior we kuow as absentmindedness.

It may be comical in real lif e for someone to go upstairs to dress for din­ner and come down in paj amas , he s ays , but the same kind of mistake - a fault in the decis ion-making apparatus of the mind - can obviously be highly danger­ous on the flight deck of a jet airliner.

So Dr. Reason is collecting incidents of absent-mindedne.ss in what appears to be a pioneer survey on the subject.

"Few people regard absentmindedness as anything more than a momentary and usually insignificant deviation, a temporary break in the link between intention and action," he said.

"It is frequently amusing, in some people even charming~ acd at worst only to be thought of as an irritating foible. Indeed, as in the case of the tradition­al absen t-minded professor, i t is often taken as a sign of g!eat intelligence.

''Bu t these lapses deserve closer study than they have so far received. This is partly because of the light they can throw up on the way we monitor habitual or semi­automatic actions like dressing or even driving a car, and partly because these usually banal mistakes may give us a clue to t he origins of cer tain kinds of acci­dental behavior which, when they befall drivers, pilots, aircraft maintenance engineers and the like, can and do have serious consequences."

Dr. Reason says the skil ls that go into driving a car safely at first are "executive programs 11 involving close

i,Qh 1 Ye8---forgetfu.lncss !

attention. With continued experience they become "subroutines, 11 t ha t is the process becomes semi automated. As t be driver's proficiency increases, the whole process becomes largely automatic and occupies only part of the capacity of the 11mental computer. 11

11And it is under these condi t i ons t har: we become prone to absent-minded behav­ior," Reason says.

These lapses he lists under f our head ­ings - selection f a ilures, discr imina­tion failures, test failures and s t orage failures . As an example of a s elec t ion failure, he recalls that th e phon~ in his office once rang and he answer ed it wi t h : "Come in. 11

He cites as a di s crimination f z iluTe the case of a va gue Ge r man academ ic whose sist er us ed t o tu g h i s coat as a signal to raise his ha t and bo·,1 t o an acquain t ance. On his way home o~e n igh t his dog tugged at h i s coat, v;hc rE: cpon h e automatically raised his hat and bowed . When his dog continued tugging he sa i d: 11 Thank you dear , I did bow. 11

Test and storage failures are us ual ly cases of forgetfulness. Reas on has com­piled a list of nine air crashes i n which the cause was an error by pi l ot or crew in what had always been a pe rfectly routine procedure. In one naj or crash , for exaI:tple, the crew, when !'lo. 2 er, gi ne failed, closed the throttle of Ko. 1 engine by mistake.

Reason mentions an alleged enc ounte r by the writer Charles L.smb with :he poet Coleridge, who in his de clining years t.,:as a notable bore. Coleridge, lik~ t he An­cient Mariner of his poem, once c lu t ched Lamb by a coat button when they me t on Hampstead Heath and went on and on abo ut some abstruse subject. After a l ong while Lamb, who had another appointm.er!.t, t oo k out a pocket knife and cut off the b11 tton. He returned some hours later, s o the s tory goes, and heard Coleridge still r ambling . So he took up his former positio~, and the poet apparent ly never even ~o ticed he had gone.

*This article was taken from the Oc tober 7, 1976 issue of the News Free PTcs s wi th per­mission from U.P.I., p. DlO.

Advice to Researchers

Some sound advice from a secular jour­nal (Phvsics Todav, Sept. 1976), from a researcher who has been in the business for 41 years - one Alfred H. Sommers. Basically, how does one succeed in doing research? 1. Pick the right project (pre­ferably one with a 10% chance of success versus one with a 1% chance of success. 2. Check other scientists for advice on "Whether the undertaking might not be good. 3. Has there been new research or new invent i ons which would make the suc­cess of the research project more likely? 4. Drop the project if it comes to a dead end.

Once in the project, the following rules apply; 1. Don't change more than one variable in any experiment . 2. Don't dray any conclus ions from an experiment unless you have repeated the experiIJent at least once, and preferably more than once. 3. ~wke your preliminary experi­ments with verv simple equipment, so as not. to "'·as'c~ti.r:e if the experiment Cot!S not ~ork out. 4. Don't spend time and effort to measure any variable more ac­curately than the least accurately mea­

-sured variable. 5. Keep up to date with literature.

Good advice - to all of us.

Mars Knowledge Increased

Chattanooga News-Free Press of Oct. 7, 1976 reproduced an A.P. story about Vik­ing 1&2, which indicated the great dis­appointment of scientists over not find­ing any evidence of life on Mars. Spe­cifically, the probes failed to find any evidence of organic material on Mars. Such material is, of course, absolutely

. essential for the existence of life.

Henry Morris has noted that the Genesis mandate to man to have dominion over all living things would seem to preclude -­our finding any evidence of life on other planets (i.e., how could man on Earth hav2 dominion over life. on Mars?_) ___ _ Cnder the circumstances, searching for life on Hars would be futile indeed, A point well worth considering before we send up another.probe at the taxpayers' expense! 2

Solar Generation of Electricity

Solar cells - they've been used on many of the space probes, and discussion has been made and questions asked: can solar cells be used to generate electri­city on a mass scale?

The Oct. 1976 issue of Scientific American has a discussion of the solar cell by Bruce Chalmers on p. 34. Chal­mers notes the principle of operation of the cell is based on a p-n type semicon­ductor junction. Then material has af­finity for elec trons, · and thE: p type for electron holes. Then material is made very thin (about 1/2 micron thick) so tha7 the sun's rays will generate elec­tron-hole pairs in the vicinity of the junction. The opposite affinity of the material on eitl1er side of the junction tends to se pa r a te the el ec trons 4 holes, creatin.3 a voltage acr"oss t he junc tion . About .65 volts can be generated across any one junction. Such cells could be ganged together to form high voltage, as well as high current sources of elec­trici ty, depending upon the sunshine for pqw~r._. The h~tch? ·-As usual there is o..t \ec.st

·- - one:-· This time, th ere are two hitches: the first is low efficiency. Today cells can transform only a small percentage of the sun's incident energy ;~to electri­cal energy. The second hitch is solar cell cost. Current estimates of solar cell cost are about $20,000/kw output, while conventional fuel capital costs are only about $500/v.w ou tput. Perhaps a break-through in ma nuf acture, comb ined with rising fossil fuel costs could ul­timately make solar cells competiti~:e. The author feels that, what tJith environ­mental restrictions and rising fossil fuel costs, the photovoltaic generation of electricity might come much "sooner thP'l some now expect. 11

A 11 Science " Court - A. Fourth Branch of Governme:nt '? r--

On page 29 of the Oc cob er 1, 19 76 issue of Science is an article by Mr. Barry Casper, recommending a Science court which will judge whether or not the technical aspects of various proposals sent to Con-gress are sound or not. The idea is being proposed by one Arthur Kantrowitz, of AVCO Research Laboratory. His propos.:il is to ( cc.~-t have a panel of judges "provide the whole tJ11

polit i ca l c01mnunity with a sta tement oi s c ientific facts as currently s een by unbiased judges after a proces s in which opposing points of view have been heard and subjected to cross examination. It is to be hoped that these opinions would ac~,1ire sufficient presumptive validity to provide an improved base on which poli­tical decisions could be reached through the democratic process. 11

The editor has just one ba s ic remark: What judges are ever unbiased?

Solar De rived Fue l s

The Ame rican Scientist, Sept. - Oct. 1976, has aa article by Wm. G. Polla rd discuss ing the potential us efulness of a nima l and plant was t es a s a so urce of f uel . Since t he ener gy o f s uch ma terial i..;ltimat ely comes from the sun, s uch fuels would be solar-derived, a s suggested by the above title . The author di vides dis­cussion of these fuels into t he physical categories of solid 1liquid and gaseous fuel.

The solid fuels amount to charcoal, and other derivations of solid plant waste, such as sawdust, peanut hulls, rice hulls, and other such material. The author points out that many trees that are worthless as lumber (because of insect infestation) are still useful as fuel.

Liquid fuels include methanol (wood alchohol), and ethanol. A number of trees

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and pl ants in the tropica l regions a re list ed as prime candida tes f or prodcc­tion of both of theie alchohols . Pr 2sen t price s and low energy yield cur ren tly preclude competition with gasoline fo r automobile fuel; bu t 1 as oil prices con­tinue to rise, the alchoho l will even­tua lly become compet i t ive.

Ga seous fuels include methane f:om animal was te, generated largely by the diges tive action of anaerobic bacte r ia . Af t e r CO2 is 11 s crubbed 11 out, t he mc:thane thus generated is pipe-line qual i t y metha ne. The only t hing ho l ding ba ck the produc tion of suc h f ue ls and fue l manu f acture is cost. Again, as t he pri.ce of na tural gas goe s , up , even tuc. lly the product i on of me t hane by anaerc~ic breakdown of animal was t e wi l l beco~c feasible.

The a uthor seems conf i den t that t ~iese sola r-induc ed f ue ls will become econooi ­ca l in t l1e f utur e . He fee l s t ha t on l y the electrical genera t i ng sta t us r:i a ;-· con­tinue to need fossi l fuels . Perhaps nuclear fuel can compe ns a t e here, ~ he a fossi l fuels run l ow. Fra nkl y (and this is th e editor's opinion) 1 t he sol~­tion to the ~rob lem ,~•o uid corr;e in a hurry if 1. Congress took t he price~ings off oil and ; 2. El im ~~­ated the oil dep le tion allowance . :- :"'l e.S e two effects combined woul d al l ow o i l prices to rise to wher e they s hould ~Jle

(instead of being sub s idized by t he U.S. taxpayer), and would thus allow other fuels to compet~. As i t s t ands now, the oil industry is bas i ca l ly a government protected, energy monopoly.

3, CHESS PROBLEM

Answer to Last· Mohth's Problem

(Note-should be win in 5 moves-not mate in 5 moves-editorial error-sorry 'bout that!)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

q-q3! 1. k-Nl

qxNP! ! 2. BPxQ.

p-b6 3. k-Bl

p-b7 4. K-Kl

p-b8(q)ck ·5, resig~s (white has· his has breeched

This Mo nth's Problem

(Taken from CHESS LIFE & REVIEW - JuJ.y 1976)

White to move and mate in three

CAPITAL LET TERS - BLAC K lowe r cas'= l ette rs - white

- --...... ..,...,.m

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V, : t ; • I I I' ~

, I I ,

' I // /, I

queen back the wall of

and pawns)

Ii, PUZZLE

Solution to Last Month's Problem

x= 1 1 + 2 --------

1 + 3 1 + 1

1 + 2 1 + 3

etc.

By inspection, we can write x as follows:

x= 1 1 + 2

1 + 3 1 -t X

x= 1 1 1 + 2 1 + 2 (l+x)

1 + X + 3 4 + X ]_ + X

1 . 1

4 + X + 2 + 2x 3x + 6

so 3x2 + 6x=l 3x2 + 6x-l=G x= -6-t ,J 36-4(3)(-1) -6±{48"" -3± 2V3

2•3 6 3

reject - .;ilT:f - gives a negative result .

x= -3 + 2·'3" so> v.)

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This Month's Puzzle

This is a logic puzzle taken from the complete works of Lewis Carrol l :

1. No shark ever doubts that it is well fitted out 2. A fish, that cannot dance the minuet, is contemptible 3. No fish is quite certain that it is well fitted out, unless it has

three rows of teeth 4. All fishes, except sharks, are kind to children 5. No heavy fish ca~ dance a minuet 6. A fis h with three rows of teeth is not to be despised.

Conclusion?

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