All posts by Rob

Scientists as mere humans

Climate Change, Politics & Society, Science & Mathematics

Having read many biographies of scientists and mathematicians, after my school and university days uncritical admiration of scientists, I know they are a mixed lot of personality types like any other grouping of people. From Galileo to Newton to Einstein one finds behaviour that is not always admirable. Newton was especially ruthless in trying to eliminate rivals; the comment about standing on the shoulders of giants (in a letter to Robert Hooke) that is often used to show his humility was also a put-down for Robert Hooke who was a person of small stature. Newton is thought to have destroyed the painting of Hooke at the Royal Society. Etc.

The revelations about scientists studying climate change is therefore no surprise to me: Climate scientists shut out sceptics by turning down data requests. See Simon Jenkins in full swing too: Scientists, you are fallible.

But Newton and others did have deep insights that have proved true (rather partially true in the way that all science is) inspite of their personality failings. So just as some sports people have unorthodox personal lives but play amazing games, let us not throw out the science when focussing on the personality frailities of scientists.

I agree with Simon Jenkins that the humanities are being seen as mere entertainment value yet they are also vital to our survival.  The human natures that we can explore though literature and history are neglected to our detriment: the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq showed a profound lack of historical perspective. Here is sad news that another world-view has been lost; that which comes with each of the world’s different languages: Ancient tribal language becomes extinct as last speaker dies.

Fear not radiation

Books, Science & Mathematics

Radiation and Reason, Wade Allison, 2009

In summary this book presents evidence to show that there is no known harm to us for radiation levels that do not exceed 100 millisieverts per month, with a cautious life-time limit (for now, maybe it could be higher) of 5,000 millisieverts. The International Commission for Radiological Protection limit is 1 millisievert per year so the argument is that this is about 1000 times too restrictive.

The Sievert is an attempt to give a unit to effects of radiation in living tissue. Although other units have to be used in particular situations for precision, the book is not concerned with fine detail and everything is assessed via the millisievert.

Cornwall in the UK has background radiation at 8 millisieverts per year, and that is as high as anywhere in the country. Cancer radiation treatment is 1000 to 10,000 millisieverts in a session, though this is meant to be targeted on the tumour with geometry to minimize radiation in healthy tissue. Numbers such as these present the arena for the discussions in the book.

The aim of the presentation is to suggest that safety limits could be relaxed a thousand fold, thereby making fission nuclear power stations cheaper; they must be structurally robust with multiple fail-safe mechanisms, but they do not need to be so radiologically protective. Especially decommissioning should be much easier and cheaper and not the huge bogeyman that it is currently made to be.

Prof Allison is not doing this to win favour with the nuclear industry but because, like me and others, he is concerned for the human future because of global warming. We have to take a balanced view of risks.

There are good simple discussions of radioactive decay, atomic weapons and nuclear power reactors, and the biological effects of radiation. Even so the book is not for the innumerate or those lacking any scientific background. I would hope that it might be read by policy makers and their advisors. I notice that he is the publisher of the book so I hope he has persuaded the publisher to send a few copies to UK MPs and European MEPs.

The most pertinent discussion is on biological effects of radiation. He points out that the no-safe-dose idea is totally wrong – there is a threshold at which irreversible damage occurs and below that cell repair mechanisms deal with any damage. In fact in morbidity studies people with exposure to radiation lower than the limit he suggests seem to live longer: a little radiation may be a good thing. He makes a good analogy with sunbathing (page 34): too much sun bathing causes damage to skin and sometimes skin cancer, but too little exposure leads to lack of Vitamin D. The demolition of the Linear No-Threshold and Collective Dose models is excellent. There is analysis of Japanese survivors of the atomic bombs of 1945 with the amazing statistic that those who survived to 1950 had only a 4 in 1000 chance of dying of radiation induced cancer.

There is an excellent contrast made between current fossil fuels and nuclear fuel. Fossil fuels put CO2 into the air where it dilutes and distributes globally as well as toxic substances that are then buried but never lose their toxicity. The nuclear waste from a power station after reprocessing is much smaller in volume by a factor of about a million, and any radiation dangers decrease with time; these are volumes we can cope with.

Although he does not point it out explicitly, when people mention long half-life they often miss that this means low activity, the high activity nuclear products have short half-life (maybe years) so if we wait a reasonable time they make themselves safe. 

Page 108 has a table of deaths from various disasters in which the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island reactor accidents are at the low end counting for about 50 and zero deaths. My own favourite comparison (not in this table) is with traffic accident deaths that are in the range 40,000 to 50,000 per year in the EU: a Hiroshima and Nagasaki every two years.

There is a good discussion of the differences between nuclear refinement for power stations versus weapons, though this may not be as easy a political issue as the discussion suggests. Compare Nuclear arms will soon proliferate. So here’s a plan to scrap them all.

I found the suggestion on page 159 that people should be given devices to enable them to ‘see’ radiation levels a bit naive as I suspect that interpretation of what we have not evolved to see takes expertise. Just consider how people are assessing their sense of global warming from experience. I think that better general science education is the key.

I have never myself had a problem with the technology of nuclear power, but I thought that the costs probably made it non-viable. This book attempts to address the cost issue but we need some new careful estimates of costs given the proposed relaxation of safety limits that the book does not provide. David Mackay, Sustainable Energy – without the hot air, provides some rough guides for this.

I await a review of the book by someone with expertise in radiobiology to see what weakness there is in the argument.

Finally I agree totally with the comments on page 194 about specialization. Although each of us may have some specialty we need to have the big picture of how the specialties connect up and be able to see where we are being led.

My minor quibbles:
That the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a military and political success (page 5) I think is still debateable. I think the statement was meant to contrast with the lasting suspicion of nuclear power he mentions ever after those events but feels a bit gung-ho.

For anyone who cannot work it out for themselves the graph on page 121 comparing chronic and repeated doses of radiation would not help. I found it confusing at first.

Another odd slip for an otherwise good simple description of the physics of fusion and fission is on page 134 where it says that the neutron being uncharged can enter straight through the coulomb barrier: rather, for the uncharged neutron, there is no coulomb barrier.

On page 133 there is a dismissive footnote on cold fusion that says “predictably, its hopes have not been realised.” I admit that when I first heard about it 1989 I felt it impossible that it could work; now I am not so sure and I certainly don’t think it is predictable that it does not. The footnote just above this one mentions quantum tunnelling so there is clearly a non-zero probability that cold fusion will happen, a minute probability in free space but maybe much greater in some material lattice. I still think it unlikely, but I would not want to be totally dismissive.

Trust evolution

Science & Mathematics

It seems that not wearing running shoes is best for the foot when running: The Barefoot Professor. Bare-foot runners do not land on the heel but on the more flexible (and therefore shock-absorbing) forefoot: the pad under the distal metatarsal joints. I found this presentation fascinating for two reasons. First I had an interest in foot biomechanics some years ago that started with a marathon runner. The ‘heel strike’ mentioned in the video has a resonance for runners because the impact pulse really does travel up the spine. The problem not mentioned is sharp debris that might be in one’s path. The bigger message for me was that this ‘back to basics’ must be a useful starting point in checking any solutions we develop to improve on what evolution has already provided for us. Having developed a shoe, it seemed that the obvious route was to improve it for running rather than to improve on no-shoe for running.

On the matter of foot cuts and infections from running barefoot a distant memory surfaced. My English teacher at school, Mr Oswald Alan Thorpe, had been with the British Army in Europe in WWII. Among his many stories (this was less than 10 years after the end of the war) he mentioned how he used to walk barefoot as much as possible so that the soles of his feet became ‘as tough as old leather’. So after a few weeks of running barefoot you won’t have a problem if you watch out for larger debris as you go.

Tony Blair’s War

Politics & Society

I remember Bryan Gould from the early 1960s and liked his approach when he became an MP. Here he has come up with something that I gave my view on in this blog some weeks ago. He has had some insider experience so it is comforting to know that his view is the same as mine – Tony Blair saw himself as a World Statesman and wanted to consolidate that position: The real reason for the Iraq war. We never escape our inner nature. Here is a small comment on the outer natures of some politicians that relates to Brian’s point: Don’t give up the day job – how artists make a living, ‘ A recent waitressing shift at the Houses of Parliament didn’t go quite so well: “It was one of the most ­horrendous days of my life – everyone treated you as if you were scum. I wanted to cry, and on my way out I said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t make tomorrow’s shift.'” ‘. This points to the same inner natures that lead to some making unjustified expense claims.

I wonder what inner nature drives the target policy: This social work by computer system is protecting no one. I think we need more human-human interaction than human-machine interaction [message to myself!] The two humans can also both be oneself in introspection.

Yet some tick boxes can be good: The doctor taking safety to new heights. The problem is that we cannot avoid having to make judgements; there are no eternal rules. Some religions think there are, some don’t. My favourite Buddhist story is where Gautama is told by people that some come and tell them one thing and others come and tell something different so what does he think they should believe. He tells them to think it out for themselves.

Scientists correct results

Climate Change, Global Warming

See what difference a headline makes World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown. This comment ends with “The revelation is the latest crack to appear in the scientific consensus over climate change”. I think that the consensus is that still glaciers are melting and the long-term temperature of the earth is increasing. The timescale of the Himalayan melting has been corrected. It did seem to me that it was faster than seemed likely when I read the report and it does disappoint that the IPCC passed this estimate, but the big message is: if something is wrong it will be corrected because that is what scientists do. This is to be compared to the continual evasion of people who try to trash the evidence for CO2 caused global warming: Please, show us your code is remarkable exchange on the idea that the recent warming is due to changes in the sun, rather than greenhouse gases.

An example to be followed

Science & Mathematics

I have been reading David Colquhoun’s blog for some time, and this entry is brilliant: Queueing for beds, Andrei Andreevich Markov, and why I still love the NHS. This shows the real scientist – a personal experience is turned into a small investigation. I am thanking David for the example to follow; there is a lot to learn to write a good blog.

I have to evolve; even prions do it: Prion evolution takes lessons on diversification from viruses.

Resource Politics

Energy Sustainability, Politics & Society

I have always thought that each region in the world should be mostly self-sufficient. Again a few benefit from unregulated globalization, but most of us don’t. I remember the rare-earths being a part of the periodic table that we did not bother with when I learned chemistry, but now they have become crucial substances. Forget oil. While people were distracted with peak oil and CO2, rare-earths sneaked in. They are not as rare as the group name suggests but we need better ways of extracting the metals both to reduce energy use in the process and to reduce the environmental mess the process has traditionally caused. Maybe there is scope for genetic engineering of bacteria to do the extraction for us.

The “good” news: Precious metals that could save the planet.

The “bad” news: Concern as China clamps down on rare earth exports.

The good news: New solar-cell efficiency record set. The opening fact sets the scene: we need only a little more than 0.01% of the energy the earth receives from the sun to cover all current energy needs. I will keep arguing for solar power.

Reconnecting flood-plains to rivers

Climate Change

This summary of research in the USA is another example of the need to re-evaluate all activities in the light of the changing climate: ‘Back to nature’ cuts flood risks. The authors of the research make the comment, “Control infrastructure [flood management systems, such as levees] prevents high flows from entering flood-plains, thus diminishing both natural flood storage capacity and the processes that sustain healthy riverside forests and wetlands … As a result, flood-plains are among the planet’s most threatened ecosystems” – the flood-plain is not merely a space for water to overflow into, it is a vibrant ecosystem in its own right. This is the view we need as against the view that sees the environment as just something for our convenience that we manage for short term interest.

A good message is that land in the flood-plain that may get flooded may still be used in the non-flooding seasons for agriculture. We, that is most of us, get multiple benefits from working with natural systems. Only a few get benefits from working in competition to natural systems.

Beyond one dimensional economics

Politics & Society

I have thought for a long time that because money has an integer counter for it, money counting to the last digit becomes an obsession. Here is an attempt to move it to one and a half dimensions: Calculating the real value to society of different professions. The full publication can be taken free from a link on that page. We are still in the realm of estimating some monetary value so we have not got to a proper second dimension yet but this is a good first step. One estimate is that a hospital cleaner provides £10 of value for each £1 pay, whereas the investment banker loses £7 of value for each £1 the activity seems to create. The terminology is vague because we have not got the scale yet for what we want to measure; it may not be possible in any case to have a clear numeric counter. Money is also not as real as it seems as the real goods and services it can buy per unit of cash changes. I remember Max Born, the physicist, commenting that he sold his house in Germany just before the hyperinflation started in 1923 and that he was paid the sum some time later by which time it was nearly worthless.