READER Don Bradford was struck by a report in Australia’s Canberra Times on the proposed Square Kilometre Array radio telescope. This informs us that “The giant radio telescope, with its 3000 antennas, will be so sensitive it would be able to detect an aircraft radar 50 light years away.”
“Of course,” observes Don, “we may have to wait a while before we can check that.”
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A solar light that Judy and Steve Hanchell saw is “ideal for areas where conversational electrical supply is not available”. We guess at what the label means, but it’s not answering questions
Finding a point in pointlessness
READING beyond his expertise in an attempt to catch up on developments in quantum gravity, a colleague was delighted to discover that there is a whole field of mathematical work called ““.
That would be, of course, an approach to the study of properties of objects that are preserved under continuous deformation, which avoids mentioning points. This being pure mathematics, it may be several centuries too early to say whether it has what you might call a point, outside mathematics. But Feedback is very taken with the idea that it may, just, prove central to our understanding of space and time.
Papers must be incomprehensible
TYPOGRAPHY is not just about the creative distribution of dark bits on a page. Correct spacing is essential. Daniel Indyk produces in evidence guidelines for authors issued by the Australian Corrosion Association. “All papers and presentations,” they specify, “must be incomprehensible English, as would be expected at a technical conference.”
“Silly to expect otherwise,” says Daniel, “but after picking herself up off the floor, the person I spoke to at the association assured me she’d get it changed.”
DO we detect over-reliance on the spellchucker in the headline in Australia’s online on 12 July: “PC sales figures continue to decline as tables take over”?
Feedback can just about remember that one used to be able to perform one’s work and social duties sitting at a table with a pencil, paper, an abacus and, for the modern touch, a Bakelite telephone.
No one had turned the “tables” into “tablets” two weeks after publication. So much for Feedback’s hypothesis that retro-proofreading is the main usefulness of “Web 2.0”, allowing readers to comment on online articles (17 July 2010).
Archaic units in atomic research
TALK about units in Feedback reminds Tony Emerson of a story from “the 1950s or 60s” about “a scientist working in one of the atomic establishments”. This person got fed up with directives to use different systems of units – those based on the centimetre, gram and second; those semi-officially based on the metre, kilogram and second; and the very official units of the International Standards Organization. So they reported pressures in stones per acre.
The stone is a traditional English measure of the weight of people or grain – 14 pounds or 6.35 kg – and an acre, a unit of area, is 4047 square metres. As Tony says, stones per acre would be “the original agricultural unit” of crop yield. Its application to atomic research doesn’t bear thinking about.
INSTRUCTIONS with Jenny Russell’s new waterproof jacket with inner fleece and hat say it “is sold as a three-part set. Both parts must be returned for you to be fully credited”. Just in case, Jenny would like help choosing both of three.
FEEDBACK thanks ‘s Column 8 for this expansion on the nature of the latest entrant to the particle zoo: “A friend was door-knocked the other day by two religious people,” Jill Martin of Keiraville, New South Wales, told the column. “Did you know,” they assured their unwilling host, “even the scientists now acknowledge that there is a God – they found him in their Hadron Kaleidoscope!”
SEARCHING, searching for references to the “Hadron Kaleidoscope” online, we were rewarded with a spectrum of musical offerings, ranging from a bedroom-guitar effort to the album – released on 9 July 2012, a few days after the Higgs boson announcement – which we must resort to defining as “classical techno”. We’re left wondering how it would sound in a large tunnel with the lights out – probably not the kind of place the religious had in mind.
FINALLY, the tells us: “Ecover Bio Concentrated Laundry Liquid is ideal for all the family. It tackles a variety of stains, even at 300 C”.
Nick Elliott feels pleased that the stains will be gone, but wonders how much of his clothing will be left after being washed at that temperature.