|
|
David Wilson's Literary Quiz
A new literary quiz each week or so, usually with a theme. This week: I hope you're all ready for some really hard work
after your Christmas hols .... No namby-pamby literature this week, boys and girls. Great names from the mysterious
world of science offer their thoughts to you. Whether you understand a word of what they say is sublimely irrelevant - all
you have to do is Name That Scientist!
The quotations in these quizzes reflect my own tastes - Dead White Males, for the most part (Jane Austen,
of course, counts as an honorary DWM). There will never be anything wilfully obscure. If you're the sort of person who sneers
at the naïveté of the reviewers in the TLS and New York Review of Books, you'll recognize them at once.
I welcome suggestions and insults. You'll find an e-mail tag lying around somewhere. Please put QUIZ in the subject line.
David J Wilson.
Quiz No. 58
1)
I believe that in about fifty years' time it will be possible to program computers, with a storage
capacity of about 1,000,000,000, to make them play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more
than 70 percent chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning. The original question, “Can
machines think?” I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion. Nevertheless I believe that at the end of the
century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines
thinking without expecting to be contradicted.
Answer
2(Translation)
This essay deals with the elementary particle, more particularly with a certain feature that this
concept has acquired - or rather lost - in quantum mechanics. I mean this: that the elementary particle is not an individual;
it cannot be identified, it lacks “sameness.” The fact is known to every physicist, but is rarely given prominence
in surveys readable by non-specialists. In technical language it is covered by saying that the particles “obey”
a newfangled statistics, either Einstein-Bose or Fermi-Dirac statistics. The implication, far from obvious, is that the unsuspected
epithet “this” is not quite properly applicable to, say, an electron, except with caution, in a restricted sense,
and sometimes not at all. My objective here is to explain this point and to give it the thought it deserves.
Answer
3(Translation)
The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events, the firmer becomes his conviction
that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule
of human nor the rule of Divine Will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal
God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always
take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.
But I am persuaded that such behaviour on the part of the representatives of religion would not
only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark will
of necessity lose its effects on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good,
teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear
and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests.
Answer
4(Translation)
One day I was at the home of a very famous doctor in Venice, where many persons came on account of
their studies, and others occasionally came out of curiosity to see some anatomical dissection performed by a man who was
truly no less learned than he was a careful and expert anatomist. It happened on this day that he was investigating the source
and origin of the nerves, about which there exists a notorious controversy between the Galenist and Peripatetic [i.e. Aristotelian]
doctors. The anatomist showed that the great trunk of nerves, leaving the brain and passing through the nape, extended on
down the spine and then branched out through the whole body, and that only a single strand as fine as a thread arrived at
the heart. Turning to a gentleman whom he knew to be a Peripatetic philosopher, and on whose account he had been exhibiting
and demonstrating everything with unusual care, he asked this man whether he was at last satisfied and convinced that the
nerves originated in the brain and not the heart. The philosopher, after considering for a while, answered: “You have
made me see this matter so plainly and palpably that if Aristotle's text were not contrary to it, stating clearly that the
nerves originate in the heart, I should be forced to admit it to be true.”
Answer
5)
The wide distribution of the same species, and of closely-allied species of freshwater shells must
have surprised everyone who has attended to this subject. A naturalist, when he collects for the first time freshwater animals
in a distant region, is astonished at their general similarity to those of his native European home, in comparison with the
surrounding terrestrial animals and plants. Hence I was led to publish in Nature (vol. xviii. p. 120) a letter to me
from Mr A.H. Gray, of Danversport, Massachusetts, in which he gives a drawing of a living shell of Unio complanatiis,
attached to the middle toe of a duck (Querquedula discors) shot on the wing. The toe had been pinched so hard by the
shell that it was indented and abraded. If the bird had not been killed, it would have alighted on some pool, and the Unio
would no doubt sooner or later have relaxed its hold and dropped off. It is not likely that such cases should often be observed,
for a bird when shot would generally fall on the ground so heavily that an attached shell would be shaken off and overlooked.
I am now able to add, through the kindness of Mr W.D. Crick, of Northampton, another and different
case.
Answer
6)
A joint report was written by Fermi and myself. Enrico exercised very great caution in its conclusions.
In fact, one conclusion stating the unpromising nature of the reaction as it was planned contained this sentence: “If
the cross sections for the nuclear reactions could somehow be two or three times larger than what was measured and assumed,
the reaction could behave more successfully.”
I believe this work with Fermi to have been even more important than the calculations made with
Everett. It turned out to be basic to the technology of thermonuclear explosions. Fermi was satisfied with both its execution
and with the fact that it put a limit to the size of such explosions. As he said: “One cannot make trees grow skyward
indefinitely.”
In the meantime Teller continued to be very active both politically and organizationally at the
moment when things looked at their worst for his original wartime “super” design, even with the modifications
and improvements he and his collaborators had outlined in the intervening period.
Perhaps the change came with a proposal I contributed. I thought of a way to modify the whole
approach by injecting a repetition of certain arrangements. Unfortunately, the idea or set of ideas involved is still classified
and cannot be described here.
Answer
7)
In order of time, I should have mentioned before, that having, in 1742, invented an open stove for
the better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed in entering, I made a
present of the model to Mr. Robert Grace, one of my early friends, who, having an iron-furnace, found the casting of the plates
for these stoves a profitable thing, as they were growing in demand. To promote that demand, I wrote and published a pamphlet,
entitled “An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation
is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that
have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated,” etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov'r. Thomas
was so pleas'd with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending
of them for a term of years; but I declin'd it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That,
as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention
of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.
An ironmonger in London however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into his own,
and making some small changes in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was
told, a little fortune by it. And this is not the only instance of patents taken out for my inventions by others, tho' not
always with the same success, which I never contested, as having no desire of profiting by patents myself, and hating disputes.
The use of these fireplaces in very many houses, both of this and the neighbouring colonies, has been, and is, a great saving
of wood to the inhabitants.
Answer
8)
When I came back to the United States, I wanted to know what the situation was with beta decay. I
went to Professor Wu's laboratory at Columbia, and she wasn't there, but another lady was there who showed me all kinds of
data, all kinds of chaotic numbers that didn't fit with anything. The electrons, which in my model would have all come out
spinning to the left in the beta decay, came out to the right in some cases. Nothing fit anything.
When I got back to Caltech, I asked some of the experimenters what the situation was with beta
decay. I remember three guys, Hans Jensen, Aaldert Wapstra, and Felix Boehm, sitting me down on a little stool, and starting
to tell me all these facts: experimental results from other parts of the country, and their own experimental results. Since
I knew these guys, and how careful they were, I paid more attention to their results than to the others. Their results, alone,
were not so inconsistent; it was all the others plus theirs.
Finally they get all this stuff into me, and they say, “The situation is so mixed-up that
even some of the things they've established for years are being questioned - such as the beta decay of the neutron
is S and T. It's so messed up, Murray says it might even be V and A.”
I jump up from the stool and say, “Then I understand EVVVVERYTHING!”
Answer
9(Translation)
If the ellipsis, by having its centre removed to an infinite, distance, degenerates into a parabola,
the body will move in this parabola; and the force, not tending to a centre infinitely remote, will become equable. Which
is Galileo’s theorem. And if the parabolic section of the cone (by changing the inclination of the cutting plane
to the cone) degenerates into an hyperbola, the body will move in the perimeter of this hyperbola, having its centripetal
force changed into a centrifugal force. And in like manner as in the circle, or in the ellipsis, if the forces are directed
to the centre of the figure placed in the abscissa, those forces by increasing or diminishing the ordinates in any given ratio,
or even by changing the angle of the inclination of the ordinates to the abscissa, are always augmented or diminished in the
ratio of the distances from the centre; provided the periodic times remain equal; so also in all figures whatsoever; if the
ordinates are augmented or diminished in any given ratio, or their inclination is any way changed, the periodic time remaining
the same, the forces directed to any centre placed in the abscissa are in the several ordinates augmented or diminished in
the ratio of the distances from the centre.
Answer
10)
I am well aware that this doctrine of natural selection, exemplified in the above imaginary instances,
is open to the same objections which were at first urged against Sir Charles Lyell's noble views on ‘the modern changes
of the earth, as illustrative of geology;’ but we now very seldom hear the action, for instance, of the coast-waves,
called a trifling and insignificant cause, when applied to the excavation of gigantic valleys or to the formation of the longest
lines of inland cliffs. Natural selection can act only by the preservation and accumulation of infinitesimally small inherited
modifications, each profitable to the preserved being; and as modern geology has almost banished such views as the excavation
of a great valley by a single diluvial wave, so will natural selection, if it be a true principle, banish the belief of the
continued creation of new organic beings, or of any great and sudden modification in their structure.
Answer
1)
Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Alan M. Turing. Thus AMT in 1950 .... An easy one to start you off. I wonder
how many sensible people today would renew the bill for fifty years' hence? Or a hundred? Not me, although quantum computers
could change everything. Long-term prediction is a mugs' game, anyway.
Back to Question 1
2)
What Is An Elementary Particle?, Erwin Schrödinger. Have a point for nothing - I couldn't reasonably expect anyone
to recognize this, but I couldn't resist including it. In Clinton-speak, “is” requires close analysis: in quantum-speak,
“this” becomes fuzzy. What could be more fundamental to our notion of the world than “objects,” or
“things”? But on the scale of (what we think are) the basic building-blocks of the universe, such concepts mean
little or nothing. “The elementary particle is not an individual.” Wow!
Back to Question 2
3)
Science and Religion, Albert Einstein. It's amusing that Einstein's jokes about God are so well-known: he was rather
more of a materialist than were either Bohr or Heisenberg. He was convinced that there is a hidden regularity beneath
quantum theory, that there is something on which randomness rests. I wouldn't bet that he was wrong. Such bets have
an impressive record of being losers - not to mention the fact that the winning-post seems to be receding at near-light speed!
Back to Question 3
4)
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo Galilei. To have written a book which changed the world is
something of an achievement (GG managed it two or three times). Still better to have written books which changed the world,
and which are still entertaining to read four or five hundred years later .... That's a trick worth knowing.
Back to Question 4
5)
On the Dispersal of Freshwater Bivalves (Nature, 1882), Charles Darwin. The style reveals its immortal author,
I believe (this article was published in the month CD died). We think of Darwin as a great (indeed, the greatest) synthesizer
- but his insights came, of necessity, from a lifetime of close and detailed observation of the natural world.
Back to Question 5
6)
Adventures of a Mathematician, Stanislaw M. Ulam. As the saying goes, success has a hundred fathers, but failure is
an orphan. But in the case of the thermonuclear bomb, one man (Edward Teller) managed to hog all the “credit”.
History is rarely kind to the selfish, treacherous, and intolerant.
Back to Question 6
7)
Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin. A splendid specimen of natural ability, Franklin was not, of course, just a Yankee
tinkerer: he had what must have been an inborn sense of the value of systematic observation. The story of the kite in the
thunderstorm may be taken with as much salt as desired, but he has the distinction of having been one of the very first to
put the study of electricity on what might be called a scientific basis.
Back to Question 7
8)
“Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!”, Richard Feynman. Is this how they taught you at school that great
scientific discoveries were made? I thought not.
Back to Question 8
9)
Principia, Isaac Newton. What's that you say? A little dry? Ye-e-e-e-ssss .... but on the other hand, Pope's enthusiastic
review of this book,
Nature, and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.
is nothing but the truth.
Back to Question 9
10)
The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin. I make no apologies for ending with another chunk of Darwin. Of all the great
pioneers of science, Darwin is the only one (with the possible exception of Einstein) whose work is still at the sharp end
of human knowledge, the only one whose books and papers are not “merely” of historical interest. The great mark
of a genius is that all the dunces are in league against him. Darwin would be, I think, proud to know that 123 years after
his death, that distinction is still his.
Back to Question 10
Don't bottle up your contempt and fury. Mail to davidjw@mindspring.com
Return to Start
Last Updated: 7 January 2005
|
|
|