21 st CENTURY SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Vol. 9, No.2 Summer 1996

Features THE COMPELLING POWER OF ASTRONOMY

28 Foreword: Astronomy As a Matter of Method Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. As the history of astronomy shows, human knowledge is based not upon simple perception, but upon study of the anomalous fallacies of perception.

30 Greek Astronomy: Ascending from Sense Certainty Bob Robinson The ancient Greeks used their minds to measure a universe they could not "see."

37 The Herschels' Revolution in Astronomy Caroline Hartmann William and Caroline Herschel built telescopes of unprecedented quality and size and surveyed all celestial phenomena, in pursuit of the hidden lawfulness of "the architecture of the heavens."

51 A 'Grand Design': Kepler and Renaissance Science in China Michael Billington The mission of the Jesuit scientists in 17th century China, driven by the ideas of Kepler and Leibniz, demonstrates the universality of Renaissance science-and the need to revive its methods today.

News NUCLEAR REPORT 10 Chernobyl 10 Years Later 16 interview with Zbigniew Jaworowski: Chernobyl Helped Finish the Communist System 20 interview with Linden Blue: Turning Swords into Plowshares with the Modular Helium Reactor 25 interview with Sohei Kondo: Allaying the Fear of Chernobyl Fallout Don MacKay Widening the holes in the ozone hoax, RESEARCH FRONTIERS p. 68. Rogelio Maduro mans the 21 st 65 A Laser Refrigerator: Cooling with Light Century book table at the ASHRAf 66 Buckytubes: Tomorrow's TV Screen? meeting in Idaho, where he was a fea- tured speaker. ENVIRONMENT 68 is the CFC Ban on the Way Out? 70 Behind the Unabomber: Earth First! and Prince Philip

On the cover: Chinese scholars with an armillary sphere, painted by Chi'u Ying in the Ming dynasty, courtesy of the National Departments Palace Museum, Taipei. Cover design by Rosemary Moak. 2 EDITORIAL 4 LETTERS 8 NEWS BRIEFS EDITORIAL

Associate Edif��S Global Warming and David Cherry Marsha Freeman Laurence Hecht i Carol Hugunin , Nazi Propaganda Rogelio A. Maduro Jim Olson � " Charles B. Ste, ns '{� i ;'� i Mark Wilsey ·'7 ', ' r. Frederick Seitz, former president had signed what they believed was the Dof the National Academy of Sci­ fi nal draft. "In my more than 60 years as Books David Cherry ences, reveals in a June 12 opinion col­ a member of the American scientific umn in The Wall Street Journal how community, including service as presi­ global warming advocates have perpe­ dent of both the National Academy of trated a fraud on .science. The method of Sciences and the American Physical So­ the fraud, creation of "the big lie," ciety," writes Seitz, "I have never wit­ comes'from Nazi propaganda minister nessed a more disturbing corruption of Josef Goebbels. the peer-review process than the events SCIENTIFIC ��;;ISORY BOARD Seitz describes how the Second As­ that led to this IPCC report." Francesco Ceiani,Ph[h '. :..·.s�ssment Report of the Intergovernmen­ Of the significant changes made to the Hugh W. Elisaesser"PhD " Bertha Farfan, MD ' tal Panel o.n Climate Change (lPCC), is­ document after it left the hands of the James Frazer, PhD sued under United Nations auspices, contributing scientists, Seitz says: "nearly Emmanuel Grenier was deliberately altered in order to re- all [the changes] worked to remove hints Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. Wolfgang lillge"tyID move references to the uncertainties that of the skepticism with which many sci­ Ramtanu Maitra exist about the man-made contributions entists regard claims that human activi­ Giulianq Preparata, PhD to global climate change. The report thus , B.A. Soldano, RhO ties are having a major impact on cli­ B.P. Sonnenblick, PhD pretends to represent the fi ndings of a mate in general, and global warming in Jonathan Tennenbaum, PhD group of scientists but, in fact, creates an particular." Dimiel R. Wells; PhD aura of consensus by misrepresenting Seitz identifies the following passages . ;, : ",'-".- :-.' " ':f��);;: .�.,; what the scientists actually had to say, that were in the report approved at a No­ 21st Century Science /!t Technology (ISSN 0�95-6820) is published 4 times a year;in 1996, Seitz's expose, along with similar cri­ vember 1995 meeting of the IPCC work­ every third monthJby 21st Century Science Assc-, tiques by other scientists, may finally ing group, but were deleted from "the ciates. 60 Sycolin -Road. Suite 203. Leesburg. Va. 22075, Tel. (703) 777-7473, bring down the wall of propaganda sep­ supposedly peer-reviewed published Address, all correspondence to 21st Century.' P,O. Bo x 16285. Washington. D.C, 20041. arating the general public from the truth version": Second-class P9stage is paid at Leesburg. Va. on global warming and other environ­ • "None of the studies cited above and'addltional mailing offices. a�(, Dedicated to providing accurate 'and ' compre­ mental catastrophe theories. has shown clear evidence that we can hensive information on advanqed tect),nologies The IPCC document, "The Science of attribute the observed [climate] changes anil science policy. 21 st Century Is co mmitted to restoring American scientific and technological Climate Change," is the most compre­ to the specific cause of increases in leadership. 21st Century covers the frontiers of hensive report to date on the subject of greenhouse gases." science. focusing on the self-developing qualities of the physical universe in such areas as plasma global warming. The document is in­ • "No study to date has positively at­ physics-the basis for fusion power-as well as tended to be used by the United Nations tributed all or part [of the climate change biology and micrCi�hysics. and includingiliround­ breaking studies ;of the historical gevel6pment of and governments around the world to observed] to anthropogenic [man-made] 'science and tec;�pology. Opinions expressed in articles are not necessarily those'of 21st Century impose draconian cuts in fossil fuel use causes." Science Associates or the scien tific advisory in order to reduce emissions of the • "Any claims of positive detection of board. Subscriptions by mail are $25 for 6 issues or greenhouse gases that allegedly threaten significant climate change are likely to $4 8 for 12 issues'in the USA and Canada. Airmail the Earth. Vital industries, including the remain controversial until uncertainties subscriptions to Qlh,er qountries are $50 for 6 is­ " sues, Back' Issue$ are $5 each '($6 foreign). Pay- electric power industry, will be severely in the total natural variability of the cli­ ments must be in U,S. currency. }Y affected by the intended restrictions, Liv­ mate system are reduced." POSTMASTER: Send address changes to 21st, Century. P.O, Box 16285. Washingtoh. D.C, ing standards will be driven down, as a In other words, statements that ques­ 2004 1-0285, result. tioned the basis of the global warming The report, however, "is not what it scare were removed after the final draft Copyright © 1996 21 st Century ScienceAssociates appears to be," according to Seitz. It "is was signed by the scientists! not the version that was approved by the This is not an instance of an isolated Printed in the USA ISSN 0895-6820 contributing scientists I isted on the title abuse of power by a quasi-governmental page," because the document was authority. The fraud goes to the heart of rewritten after the scientists signing it, the scientific establishment itself.

2 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY EDITORIAL Nature: Science Not Important The June 13 issue of the oh-so-presti­ gious British science journal, Nature, ac­ knowledges in its editorial that "the com­ plaints [of fraud] are not entirely groundless." With tortured language, Na­ ture admits that changes were made to the document, and that "there is some evidence that the revision process did re­ sult in a subtle shift in the relative weight given to diffe rent types of arguments.... " But, astonishingly, Nature then argues that it's not the science that's important but that "climate change as a political is­ sue deserves ... increasing attention." To emphasize this view, the editorial opens with a statement in bold type: "Charges by parts of the u.s. energy in­ dustry that a recent report on global cli­ mate change has been 'scientifically cleansed' should not be allowed to un­ dermine efforts to win political support for abatement strategies." In other words, scientific truth is irrele­ vant; it's the political agenda that mat­ ters-and only evidence that supports the policies should be included. Thus Nature magazine locates itself at the center of the fraud. exposed in the 1972 Environmental Pro­ in the Hague; and Roger Bate, director of Nature's news report in the same June tection Agency hearings on DDT, mak­ the Environment Unit at the Institute of 13 issue, continues its polemic. The U.s. ing the data fit his anti-pesticide ideol­ Economic Affairs in London. Global Cli mate Coalition, which has ogy. (Wood well published an article in In a recent press release, Emsley criticized the IPCe's tactics, is dismissed Science magazine presenting high levels states: "The IPCC summaries have per­ snottily as "a U.s. lobby group partly fi­ of residual DDT in marsh land, but he suaded the public that there is a scien­ nanced by oil, power, and automobile didn't bother to inform readers that he tific consensus on the causes, degree, companies." And the news article is il­ measured the pesticide at the site where and possible effects of global warming. lustrated with a photo of parched land, the DDT spray truck was washed down.) There is no such consensus-except which is captioned, "Sign of the times? The press breakfast was hastily put to­ where it has been achieved by excluding Drought in the U.s." gether by Fenton Communications as the many dissenting scientific voices on As for the IPCC, Sir John Houghton, damage control. Interestingly, Fenton these issues ....The [forum] is deter­ co-chair of the IPCC working group, is Communications is the same outfit that mined to open up the debate so as to quoted by Nature defending the deliber­ concocted the infamous Alar Scare in promote the practice of good science ate misrepresentation of the view of the 1989. and free debate on one of the most criti­ scientists whose names appeared on the No Consensus cal issues facing scientists and policy­ report. The protests against this abuse of In addition to Seitz's expose, the makers today." science are, in fact, "a mixture of confu­ Global Climate Coalition has issued a The global warming and ozone hole sion and misinformation," according to detailed analysis of the changed docu­ scenarios are both "big lies," put to­ Houghton. Even so, Houghton is forced ment, noting that the original had been gether behind closed doors at the United to acknowledge that changes were made accepted and approved by participating Nations by Britain's Prince Philip and his to the documents-but, he says, these scientists and governments in Madrid friends, who run the environmentalist were made only to "background docu­ last November as well as in a Rome ple­ movement from the top down (and who ments." nary session in December. From Lon­ are no strangers to Nazi ideology). The The leading advocates of global don, the European Science and Environ­ purpose is to create a supranational po­ warming have rallied to defend the IPCC ment Forum has also leveled charges of lice to enforce deindustrialization and report and its conclusion that man is ad­ fraud against the IPCe. The forum, population reduction. This latest round versely affecting global climate. One which has 62 members in 12 countries, of exposes on the fraud of global warm­ such group gave a press breakfast in was established in 1994 by John Emsley, ing provides new ammunition for fight­ Washington, D.C., May 24. These global a chemist at Imperial College, London; ing to have governments declare the in­ warming scientists were led by Dr. Frits Bottcher, director of the Global In­ ternational treaties based on these George Woodwell, the man who was stitute for the Study of Natural Resources hoaxes null and void.

EDITORIAL 21 st CENTURY Summer 1996 3 A Question of Method: Letters

To the Editor: underlying physical differences that de­ wash. The method of exhaustions is sim­ In his article "EUREKA! Rediscover­ termine visible differences, whereas the ply a way of dealing with curved bound­ ing the Method of Archimedes" (Fall latter (not a method but a technique) ig­ aries. In his Quadrature of the Parabola, 1 1995, p. 20), Bob Robinson seems to nores all diffe rences except those of ex­ Archimedes utilizes it in both demon­ believe that the Syracusan colossus set tension. The ordered series [sic] formed strations, the informal quasi-mechanical about to determine the content of a by the technique of exhaustions are as­ one and the formal Euclidean one. In the non-polygonal or non-polyhedral figure ymptotic, converging on a limit if ex­ first instance, he constructs a polygon by first building a physical model, tended to infinity. The ordered series of QO,R,D, ...Rn- 7Dn- 7RnQ with 2n and then balancing it against another the center-of-gravity method are series of + 1 vertices inside the parabolic segment physical model of known content. perfect equalities involving no asymptote or on its boundary, and another polygon There is nothing in the letter to Eras­ or convergence but only coherence be­ QqFRl,RI2 ...Fn -7RnE nQ with 2n tothenes, or in any other known work tween the parts and the whole (the parts + 3 vertices outside the segment or on its of Archimedes, to support this belief. themselves constituting two aggregates boundary. (I am referring here to the dia­ Whenever balancing is described, it is of l i ke .Cantorian cardinality). Logical gram that accompanies Proposition 16 conceptual rather than actual, and its positivists such as Ernst Mach hyperven­ on page 244 of T.L. Heath, Quadrature purpose is never experimental. Equilib­ tilate when contemplating the center-of­ of the Parabola in note 1 below.) rium is not discovered but asserted-ei­ gravity method, in their pro-Euclid or He then argues that the area of the ther as a postulate or as a logical de­ anti-Cantor hysteria unable to distinguish outer polygon is greater than the mo­ duction from postulates. between a tautological proposition and ment P of triangle QqEQ about axis qE Robinson spends a great deal of effort one based on a self-reflexive coherence. (taking the altitude from qE to Q as trying to contrast the center-of-gravity And so on. unity), while the area of the inner poly­ method with the method of exhaustions. As demonology this is pretty heady gon is less than P. Thus, the two areas In his view, the former takes note of the stuff, but as exposition it is largely hog- furnish an upper and a lower bound not

Bob Robinson Replies: wards." What is important here is that demonstration" which Archimedes Archimedes is the type of teacher who is makes reference to in the above quote, The Answer lies Outside more interested in imparting a capability and which is called "The Quadrature of Of Mathematics for his students to make breakthroughs the Parabola." Now, as the above quote on their own, as Eratosthenes certainly also indicates, Archimedes admits for Weston Meyer, who is obviously a did, than on impressing or intimidating reasons of pedagogy (that is, for us, his man of considerable mathematical skills, them with his colossal achievements. posterity, as well as for his students, wishes to ignore that Archimedes, like Later on in the Method, after describ­ such as Eratosthenes) that the "Method" Eudoxus before him or Kepler after him, ing a series of equilibria of equalities on preceded the "Quadrature" in his own was not simply, or even primarily, a a balance of precisely the "Cantorian" creative development. No wonder that mathematician, but rather, as I argue in type I constructed for the Eureka article, the "Method" has been such a bone of the Eureka paper, a universal genius. The Archi medes continues: "Now the fact contention! Roman general Marcellus found out in here stated [i.e., that a parabolic section The fact that in the "Quadrature of the his siege of Syracuse that Archimedes' has 4/3 the area of the largest triangle in­ Parabola," Archimedes applies the balances could be both conceptual and scribable within it] is not actually method of exhaustion both to the me­ actual. The problem is, you have to go demonstrated by the argument used; but chanical demonstration and to the outside the domain of mathematics per that argument has given a sort of indica­ demonstration based on inscribed trian­ se to see that Archimedes was not only a tion that the conclusion is true. Seeing gles, in no way vitiates the distinction colossus of a geometer, but also a colos­ then that the theorem is not demon­ Archimedes makes in his own mind be­ sus of a man. strated, but at the same time suspecting tween such formal demonstration and In his introduction to the "Mechanical that the conclusion is true, we shall have the process by wh ich he created the Method," which was addressed to Er­ recourse to the geometrical demonstra­ breakthroughs thus demonstrated. atosthenes (whom he saw as an "earnest tion which I myself discovered and have Because what we are given in the student"), Archimedes states, " ...cer­ already published." written historical record is, as Friedrich tain things became clear to me by a me­ The double proof, based on exhaus­ Schiller remarked in his lectures on uni­ chanical method, although they had to tion, which Meyer describes in his let­ versal history, so incomplete, particu­ be demonstrated by geometry after- ter, is precisely the "geometrical larly in regard to ancient history, there

4 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY LETTERS LaRouche, Robinson Reply to Critic

only on the area 5 of segment QqQ but reaches parallel conclusions: Area 5 matician Felix Klein of "fraud"-appar­ on Pas well. equals moment P and equals 8A/9, ently a favorite LaRouche noun­ In the second instance, Archimedes which is the same thing as 4/3 times the for suggesting that F. Lindemann, not obtains a lower bound and an upper area of the largest triangle inscribable in Nicolus Cusanus, was the first to prove bound on the area of the parabolic seg­ segment QqQ. Nowhere in the develop­ pi a transcendental number. What Lin­ ment by inscribing and circumscribing ment has he rel ied on perfect equalities demann proved was that pi cannot be polygons with 2 + 2n-1 and 3 + 2n-1 or infinities or asymptotes or conver­ the zero of any algebraic polynomial vertices respectively, the sides of the gence or coherence or invisible physical with integer coefficients, and Cusa had outer polygon touching the parabolic arc differences made visible. Regarding ex­ about as much chance of proving that in the vertices of the inner. He does not haustions, Robinson would do wel l to as would have William Wordsworth show us the outer polygon nor does he reread Heath.2 or Ralph Waldo Emerson. He did have refer to it, but we do not err in saying that Another Objection an epiphany about double transcen­ he implicitly uses its area An > BA,I9 as I must lodge another objection, this to dence, beyond the fin ite an.d beyond an upper bound on 5, while using the the quaint notion that Nicholas of Cusa quantity, to reach a divine infin ity and area of the inner polygon explicitly as a stood Newton-like on the shoulders of this enabled him to come up with a lower bound < 8A /9 . Archimedes and saw that pi was a tran­ value of 3.1423 for pi, which. he be­ l The final link in either demonstration, scendental number. Such a claim echoes I ieved to be exact. under the exhaustion principle, is to the nonsense of Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. W. Weston Meyer show that the difference between lower in a bilious footnote 21 to his article Troy, Michigan bound and upper, though always posi­ "Kenneth Arrow Runs Out of Ideas, But tive, can be made arbitrarily small by Not Words" co-appearing with Robin­ Notes ------1. T.L. Heath. The Works of Archimedes (New suitable choice of n. Archimedes sup­ son's article in the Fall 1995 issue. York: Dover Publications). pp. 233-252. plies this link in both instances and so LaRouche accuses the German mathe- 2. Ibid. Chapter VII. pp. cxlii-cliv.

was, necessarily, in my reconstruction of Archimedes' quadrature theorems, to up against the standard which was set Archimedes' "Method" a certain playful­ show that the relationship between the during the latter half of the 19th century, ness, as in my example of the measure­ area and diameter of a circle could not by the work of Riemann and Cantor, ment of an irregular area by a unit be an ordinary irrational number, but Riemann's habilitation dissertation most square on a balance, in which, as I ad­ must be a species of number of a higher emphatically. mitted in the paper, I went beyond what cardinality than the irrationals as defined Both of Meyer's assertions are poorly we know as fact. However, just as in by Eudoxus, et al. informed. After the seminal work of comparing a so-called factual history to The content of Meyer's argument indi­ Cusa on this subject, the issue of tran­ a tragedy written by a Shakespeare or a cates he is relying on a defective sec­ scendental functions, as distinct from al­ Schiller, more harm is done to the truth ondary source, not Cusa's actual writ­ gebraic ones, was posed by G. Leibniz if we leave such "subjective" conjectures ings. I have supplied a recapitulation of and J. Bernouilli, during the 1690s. This out than if we include them. Cusanus's argument, in my "On The argument was advanced with support of Subject of Metaphor" (Fidelio, Fall 1992, the experimental physical evidence re­ pp. 17-50), and other locations. specting the retarded propagation of Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., Second, he insists that the issue is light. This approach, and Leibniz's argu­ Replies: The Failure of whether one has proven the Hermite­ ment for transcendentals, were savagely Lindemann argument, that "pi cannot be attacked, in 1761 , by the anti-Leibniz, Standard Classroom the zero of any algebraic polynomial Newton devotee, Leonhard Euler, at Ber­ Mathematics with integer coefficients"; on this lin, in his Letters to a German Princess. premise, he asserts that Cusa could not More than a century later, Euler's line of In one paragraph, correspondent W. have recognized the "transcendence" of argument against Leibniz served as the Weston Meyer makes two blundering as­ pi. Put aside the irrelevancy of the ad­ basis for the special argument of Hermite sertions: mittedly clever ruse employed by Linde­ and Lindemann. By that later point, the First, he insists on denying, without mann; the fact is, as I have repeatedly work of Riemann had bankrupted the ar­ demonstration, the historical fact, that demonstrated the case in sundry loca­ gument on which Euler relied for his at­ Nicolaus of Cusa was the first known tions, that Cusa's argument of De Docta tack on Leibniz. Euler's axiomatic line of among modern investigators of Ignorantia, and other locations, stands argument was revived, in a more reck-

LETIERS 21 st CENTURY Summer 1996 5 lessly radical form, by B. Russell and preference, for standard classroom math­ flawed. A statistical test, such as the T­ such among his epigonoi as John v. ematics, by the currently popularized, test or the Analysis of Variance Neumann and the Bourbaki cult. hereditary taint of such infl uentials as (ANOVA), requires the data to have a Meyer challenges my selection of the Russell, N. Wiener, v. Neumann, and normal distributioll, the groups to have term "fraud," respecting the argument Bourbaki. equal variances, and that the observa­ which Felix Klein supplied on this sub­ tions be independent. Teratologists are ject, in his Fa mous Problems of Elemen­ better than the rest of the bio-scientific tary Geometry [in Famous Problems Bogus Statistical Methods community (med ical doctors and bio­ and Other Monographs, W.W. Beman, Infect Carcinogen chemists are the worse) in meeting the and D.E. Smith, eds. (New York: fi rst two requirements. However they Chelsea Publishing Co., 1955), pp. 49- Research have massively violated the third re­ 85]. Klein was fully aware of the heredi­ quirement-the independence of the ob­ tary implications of the Euler attack To the Editor: servations. upon Leibn iz, and yet, as a factional I strongly agree with everything Dr. J. In the past, teratologists measured re­ ally of Euler's tradition, would concede Gordon Edwards had to say ["The Infa­ sponses from more than one animal in a no error in the simplistic argument from mous Delaney Clause," Winter 1995- litter. These measurements are not inde­ which the Hermite-Lindemann argu­ 1996, p. 5]. However, the problem is pendent-brothers are like brothers, sis­ ment is derived: the Euler defense of much deeper than the Delaney Clause. ters are like sisters, and brothers are like perfect continuity in his 1761 attack on An elimination of the Delaney Clause sisters. This error has finally been recog­ Leibniz. Such factitious behavior begs will not solve the problem. nized in the behaviorial literature, but all the term, '�fraud." The real problem is the anti-techno­ too often the nonsense still appears. I should emphasize, that, in my article logical, anti-industrial, and anti-scientific Oddly enough this problem, called the on Kenneth Arrow's Malthusianism, the philosophy of the academic researcher. I itter effect, was recogn ized more than topics of relative mathematical disconti­ Let me discuss just two areas. My discus­ 20 years ago by toxicologists studying nuities and cardinalities, were not con­ sion will be in the field of teratology, in discrete effects. The teratologists did not fined to a single footnote. That topic was particular behavioral teratology (sensory, do their homework. the pervasive issue of method in the arti­ motor, cognitive, etc. impairments) Let me restate this: Teratologists for cle as a whole. The implicit issue of the rather than cancer, but the basic con­ the past 20 years have employed bogus Arrow article is the infection of Arrow's cepts are the same. statistical methods, and have generated First, I wou ld like to discuss the ques­ volumes of scientifically incorrect pa­ tion of dosage in toxicological or terato­ pers. In particular, the papers on SAVE YOUR COPIES OF logical testing. Animals, in particular, monosodium glutamate (MSG) and as­ rats, do not metabolize drugs at the partame are bogus science. 21st CENTURY same rate as humans. As a rule of I shall say no more, but only add the

These custom-made titled cases thumb, rats metabol ize drugs about 5 fact that cyclamates were taken off the and binders are ideal to protect times faster than humans. So if one market because the "scientific" re­ your valuable copies from damage. They're designed to hold two years' wishes to study the safety of a drug us­ searchers failed to properly clean the issues (may vary with issue sizes), constructed with reinforced board ing 10 times the normal (human) dose, cages of the animals and the poor rats and covered with durable leather­ like material inblue, title is hot­ one would have to apply 50 times the developed tumors from parasites. stamped in gold, cases are V-notched human amount of the drug to a rat. In­ John T. Loftus for easy access, binders have deed when little is known about a drug Chicago, III. special spring it may be necessary to administer 10, The author is in the Mathematics De­ mechanism to hold individual 20, 30, or more equivalent dosages to partment of Northeastern Illinois Uni­ rods which easily snap in. an animal to find a possible side effect. versity. BINDER However, here is where we separate political science from true science. The ea-: 1-$7,85 3-$21.85 8-$38_85 8Indel'8: 1-$11.115 3-$27.85 8-$52.85 true scientist will justify the dosage ad­ Duesberg's Views on 21st Century Science & Technology ministered to the animal by stating the AI DS Need to Be Heard Jesse Jones Industries. Dept 21C 499 East Erie Ave .. Philadelphia. PA 19134 approximate human equivalent-gener­ Enclosed is $ for __ Cases; ally measured by circulating blood lev­ To the Editor: �I����fl:.���r ': e r postage ���:� ����� casel els of the drug. Furthermore, once side I commend 21 st Century Science As­ binder (US funds only). PAd residents add 6% sales tax. effects are well established at some high sociates for publishing a magazine that Print NMM'______level, the true scientist will reduce the examines and divulges neglected scien­ tific information. It is paradoxical, how­ Address,----7.N:";oP"".O"". aox=N"'um""o. :::,.:nPle;:::"::u.:----- dosage and see if the side effects occur at say half the dosage. ever, for 27st Century to denounce Peter Clty______Second, and more important, as the Duesberg's questioning of the unproven StatelZlp,______average reader is not a biostatistician HIV/AIDS hypothesis ("Statistical Tricks CHARGE ORDERS (Minimum $15): Am Ex, Visa, MC, DC accepted. Send card name, I, Exp. date. and hence could not spot the errors, the and 'The Big Lie About AIDS: " Sum­ CALL TOLL FREE 7 days, 24 hours vast majority of studies in behaviorial mer 1995, p.45) while portraying a 1-800-825-6690 ___ SATISFACTION GUARANTEED ___ teratology are massively statistically stance of abhorrence of the repression of

6 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY LETTERS dissent. Also, the tone and narrowness of tors in AIDS: A Multifactorial, Synergistic Theory most of the views stated in your articles of AIDS Etiology," Resea rch in Immunology, and get lost in the rest. the article seem inappropriate to a maga­ Vol. 141, pp. 815-38. zine about science. 3. J. Laurence, et al. 1992. "Acquired Immunodefi­ Christine Julia The article attempts to defend the ciency Without Evidence of Infection with Hu­ Wheaton, Md. man Immunodeficiency Virus Types 1 and 2," HIV/AIDS hypothesis by establishing a The Lancet, Vol. 340, pp. 273-4. correlation between HIV and AIDS, but 4. R. Root-Bernstein, 1993. Rethinking AIDS: The no mention is made of the "unambigu­ Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus (New Outraged York: The Free Press), pp. 28-30. ous" correlations between AIDS and tox­ 5. M. Eigen, 1989. "The AIDS Debate" Naturwis­ ins or other microbes.1,2 In any event, senschaften, Vol. 76, pp. 341-50. To the Editor: epidemiological correlations represent 6. P. Duesberg, 1990. "Responding to 'The AIDS I have a bone to pick with your maga­ Debate' " Na turwissenschaften, Vol. 77, pp. 97- only circumstantial evidence. Further, 102. zine, which I thought was passable until epidemiology suggests that, at best, HIV now. is only one cause of AIDS because of the In the Spring 1996 issue, the claim is existence of HIV-negative AIDS cases.3,4 The Editor Replies made that humans are better than dogs. Perhaps this is why, in spite of the unde­ Outrageous! Unprofessional! How niable correlation between HIV and We invite Peter Duesberg to respond could you print such a thing? Paws for AIDS, Professor Eigen states that the "eti­ to the Summer 1995 article by Wolfgang a bit of reflection. I could understand if ological argument" "remains unsettled" Lillge. you said we were inferior to cats. We and that, "It is only fair, as far as causa­ have some disagreements with cats, but tion is concerned, to conclude that we it's all, more or less, within the family. need to know more about the patho­ Progress and Vision But to make the fli msy claim that we genetic mechanism before we can de­ are inferior to those rathe'tic humans, cide whether HIV is not only necessary To the Editor: that is truly outrageous! Where are your but also suffi cient to cause AIDS."s Progress did not come without" some hard facts? Lillge calls the rejection by "some sci­ mistakes, and I am thankful to the envi­ entists" of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis "an ronmentalists for their warnings against astonishing phenomenon" and he con­ waste and pollution. I think it is impor­ siders their arguments to be "without tant, however, not to ignore all the posi­ foundation." However, after 12 years, no tive things we have accomplished due to proof exists for the HIV/A IDS hypothesis progress in the sciences. We dare not (which is why Lillge devotes his entire stop now when we have just started to article to validating circumstantial evi­ unlock the energy of the atom and have dence). the ability to not only harness part of the The article is unbalanced and biased : energy that the Sun radiates to our planet only selective portions of Eigen's critique but also some of the huge amount of are addressed. Consequently, readers of light energy in outer space. 21st Century were familiarized with only Nobody thinks it will be easy to build one aspect of the HIV/AIDS debate . colonies on the Moon and other planets. Such fragmented exposure is hardly con­ We need to imagine what men could do ducive to a fair evaluation of the contro­ with the help of computers if we have an versy. Additionally, the rest of the article inexhaustible, nonpolluting and afford­ is punctuated with unsubstantiated accu­ able supply of energy. And we need to sations and personal opinions bespeak­ continue working together on fulfilling ing a dogmatic view-not one of open this vision. Furthermore, you print an interview . scientific inquiry. Thank you for trying to educate peo­ with some uncredentialed wild man To amend the inadequacy and bias of ple to th is end through your magazine. harping about creativity and metaphor. Li IIge' s article, I request that 21st Cen­ Hans Petri Scent certainty is knowledge. We dogs tury include another article on the sub­ Wood Dale, III. are true professionals. That guy only ject; one that analyzes all aspects of the thinks he nose it. You can't touch it, debate. Perhaps this time you could pre­ smell it, taste it. Face it, creativity doesn't sent both sides of the controversy by re­ Unhappy exist. It's another flimsy ephemeral. This viewing Duesberg's response to Eigen's is hardly academically respectable for a article.6 To the Editor: scientific magazine to print. What will Gary Robertson Your journal is the biggest collection happen to your credibility? Parkwood, Queensland, Australia of unintelligible, esoteric, useless non­ 10 sense I have ever read under the guise of Leesburg, Va.

Notes ------science and technology. The tone set by 1. R. Root-Bernstein, 1990. "Do We Know the your "journal" is one of endless contem­ Th is letter, from a German shepherd, Cause(s) of AIDS?" Perspectives in Biology and Medicin e, Vol. 33, pp. 480-500. plation of remote facts and tidbits. I find was conveyed to us by his human com­ 2. _, 1990. "Non-HIV Immunosuppressive Fac- myself coming up with exceptions to panion.

LETIERS 215t CENTURY Summer 1996 7 NEWS BRIEFS

AIDS GROUPS, MEDICAL RESEARCHERS DEFEND USE OF RESEARCH ANIMALS "The greatest immediate threat to the lives of people with HIV and AIDS is the anti-research agenda of the animal rights groups," warned Susan Paris, president of the Americans for Medical Progress, at a June 18 press conference in Washington, D.C. The medical researchers' group and representatives of AIDS groups called the press conference to support the use of animals in medical research and counter the attacks of PETA and the terrorist Animal Liberation Front. Their "Statement on the Use of Laboratory Animals in HIV/A IDS Research," released at the press conference, has also been endorsed by the American Public Health Association, American Med­ ical Students Association, Americans for Democratic Action, and homosexual groups. "The most swift and certain route to a cure for HIV/A IDS is intensive re­ search-including the use of laboratory animals," the statement says. "Every day, millions of people with HIV/AIDS, here and around the world, hope that basic ad­ vances in scientific research will save their lives .. ..[W)e will fight with all of our resolve to ensure that this day comes as soon as possible."

Stuart Lewis PETA ATTACKS BION SPACE MEDICINE EXPERIMENTS ON MICROGRAVITY "Without animal research there will be One current target of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is an up­ no cure fo r AIDS." Here AIDS activist coming U. 5.-Russian-French space experiment series, Bion, which will use monkeys Jeff Getty, who received bone marrow to study the effects of microgravity. As a result of PETA protests, NASA Administrator from a baboon in an experimental AIDS Dan Goldin convened a panel of scientists to evaluate the experiments and the use of treatment, addresses the June 7 8 press animals. The Bion experiments will use techniques that cannot be used with crew conference. members. Space scientists and NASA have vigorously defended the experiments. Drew Gaffney, M.D., a crew member on the 1991 Spacelab Life Sciences Shuttle mission, told Space News, "If you could cure malaria, the common cold, or human immunodeficiency virus tomorrow, with an elegant set of animal experiments, [PETA) would prohibit you .. .."

FREON SMUGGLERS A PRIORITY TARGET OF FEDERAL AGENTS IN FLORIDA Freon smuggling has become a priority for federal agencies in Florida, according to the Ft. Lauderdale Sentinel May 28. Since the 1996 ban on CFCs, a 30-lb. con­ tainer of freon has jumped in price from $15 in 1993 to almost $600 dollars-and it may be triple that by fa ll. With huge demand and no production, a lucrative black market has emerged. The Justice Department has set up special task forces of agents of the EPA, Customs, Justice, IRS, Commerce, and local police to crack down on the trade. Keith Prager of the U.S. Customs office in Miami told the Sentinel, "we are talking about tens of millions of dollars at stake in excise tax and illicit profits. . " Most smuggled CFCs come from Russia, India, and eastern Europe.

ANTIMATTER EXPERTS MEET AFTER FIRST ANTIHYDROGEN PRODUCED More than 60 antimatter experts gathered in Italy's Apennine Mountains May 19- 25 for the International Workshop on Antimatter, Gravity, and Antihydrogen Spec­ troscopy, sponsored by the Institute for Fundamental Research. Scientists at the CERN particle physics laboratory had announced only weeks before that they had made the fi rst atoms of anti hydrogen, by combining an antimatter electron (positron) with an antiproton, using the Low-Energy Antiproton Ring (LEAR). The anti hydrogen Antimatter experts gathered here at a atoms lived for less than 40 billionths of a second, but their existence was well docu­ conference sponsored by the Institute mented. fo r Fundamental Research. The insti­ Antimatter research is focussed on basic questions: How will antimatter respond to tute, directed by Prof. Ruggero Maria gravity? Does it go up, instead of down? Is light emitted by antimatter atoms the Santilli, is headquartered in this 9th same as ordinary light? Do antimatter atoms produce the same spectra as their matter century castle in the village of Montero­ counterparts? It is already known that antiprotons, when combined with helium duni, Italy. atoms, produce new chemical states and bonds.

8 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY NEWS BRIEFS CHINA PROMOTES GRAND DESIGN FOR EURASIAN PROGRESS A grand strategy for developing the entire Eurasian landmass, with a transcontinen­ tal network of modern transport, energy, water, and communication infrastructure, was the topic of an international symposium in Beijing May 7-9, which brought to­ gether 460 technical experts and political leaders from 34 countries. China's hosting of the conference reflects a strategic policy thrust by the government to promote eco­ nomic development along the New Silk Road, formed by the newly established Eurasian Continental Bridge rail lines connecting.t he Pacific coast of China with the Atlantic coast of Europe. Among the guests speakers were Helga Zepp LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, and Jonathan Tennenbaum, Schiller Institute repre­ sentative and director of the Fusion Energy Foundation in Europe.

CONSTRUCTION OF LARGE BINOCULAR TELESCOPE FINALLY UNDER WAY Schiller Institute Site preparation for the Large Binocular Telescope, centerpiece of the Mt. Graham Schiller Institute representatives Helga International Observatory in Arizona, began June 18, after a decade of environmen­ Zepp LaRouche (right), jonathan Ten­ talist obstruction. In the latest phase, a gang of 19 green organizations, led by the nenbaum, and Mary Burdman (with Audubon Society, obtained an injunction in July 1994, after a site adjustment of 500 back to camera) tour the Nuclear Tech­ yards. When a judge required additional years of impact studies because of the shift, nology Institute of Qinghua University, the University of Arizona sought an Act of Congress to clarify an earlier law defining where China's first high-temperature and exempting the site. It passed April 25 as part of the federal budget bill. The nuclear reactor is under construction. greens then went back into court, claiming that Congress had overruled the judgment of a court in violation of the Constitution. But on June 17, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court ruled 3 to a that there was no constitutional issue. Work on the mold for the first of the two 8A-meter mirrors continues, for casting late this year. These will be the world's largest monolith mirrors, made with new technologies possibly scalable to even larger sizes.

GEORGIA ANTI-NUKES TRY TO SCARE OLYMPIC ATHLETES IN ATLANTA An antinuclear group, Georgians Against Nuclear Energy, is using the occasion of the Olympic Games in Atlanta to renew its campaign to shut down Georgia Tech's 5-MW research reactor, which is located on the campus where 10,000 Olympic ath­ letes will be living during the Centennial Games. The group has alleged that the reac­ tor's radioactive fuel "could lead to a catastrophe in the event of an accident or ter­ rorist attack." The group sent telegrams to Queen Elizabeth and other world leaders asking them to warn their Olympic teams of the "danger."

NUCLEAR SCIENCE IS I A VISION OF HOPE FOR THE WORLD' "The vision of nuclear science and technology is a vision of hope for the world." This is the thrust of an optimistic report on the "Second Fifty Years of Nuclear En­ ergy," prepared by the International Nuclear Societies Council, representing the nu­ clear societies of 11 nations. The report notes that "the prospect of abundant energy to serve humanity came a step closer to reality" with the achievement of sustained nuclear fission, and that in the next 50 years, nuclear energy will have to make an even more important contribution. "The most compelling moral and ethical issue of the 21 st century will be the struggle of the poorer countries for a good quality of life," the report states. "At the same time, they will have to cope with a huge population increase .. ..There will be an exponential growth in ideas, in all fields of science and technology. Central to all other change in society will be the world demand for .V;,ion.ndS,,..tegi ... energy .. .." The council is chaired by Japanese nuclear scientist Masao Hori. The 71-page re­ port is available for $20 from the American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, LaGrange Park, III. 60526. Nuclear optimism, fo r a change.

NEWS BRIEFS 21st CENTURY Summer 1996 9 NUCLEAR REPORT

by Marjorie Mazel Hecht

n the 10 years since the explosion and although the United States and Europe power, which is a significant renewable I fire at the Chernobyl-4 nuclear power have clamored for the shutdown of the energy option for Ukraine"; "substantial plant, we could have replaced the Cher­ two remaining on-line reactors at the efficiency improvements, which are pos­ nobyl-style reactors in Russia and the Chernobyl site, and of the 13 similar sible for industrial equipment in newly independent states with standard plants in the former Soviet Union, there Ukraine"; "completion of five new nu­ light water nuclear reactors-had there has been little consideration of how to clear power plants, which represent a been the political will. And with a little replace the vital power now provided by potential source of 5,000 MW"; and more effort, we could have turned out, these plants. "upgrading five fossil-fuel power plants, via factory production, some of the The official "agreement" made in De­ which could provide approximately new, next-generation modular reactor cember 1995 is that Ukraine will close 2,000 MW of electricity." designs, including a next-generation the two remaining Chernobyl units by The Ukranians, it should be noted, de­ Russian design. the year 2000, if the funds are forthcom­ spite the trauma of the accident, support Such a program might cost anywhere ing to complete three nuclear plants of a nuclear power, not windmills. from $500 million to $2 billion per new more standard design now under con­ The Real Health Effects plant. But measured in lives improved, struction in Ukraine, and to implement a The dangers of radiation have been productivity increased, and economic safe shutdown of the Chernobyl site. much studied since the atomic bombings stability achieved-as a result of an as­ (This would take about $4 billion.) of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August sured source of electricity for powering ' Ukraine, already beset by brownouts 1945. Those bombings killed 67,000 industry and heating homes-'-such nu­ caused by power shortages, cannot turn people within the first day, and injured clear plants would more than .pay for out the lights-and turn off the heat-by thousands. In the Chernobyl accident, 31 themselves in the long run. shutting down the Chernobyl units, for deaths occurred as a result of the imme­ In the current political context, how­ such a decision will mean the certain diate radiation release, all of them plant ever, the United States and the European death of thousands of its citizens. workers or others involved in the initial Union have struggled to eke out even The most radical environmentalists response to put out the fi re at the plant. the funds for retrofitting the Chernobyl­ advocate no replacement power One of the deaths was immediate, and style plants and making safety upgrades sources-just conservation. The U.S. the others were within four months. on the other types of Soviet-built plants. Department of Energy has not gone that There are about 200 other surviving vic­ (Since 1992, the Group of Seven nations far: The official DOE study of replace­ tims of acute radiation sickness, and has donated only $122 million in nu­ ment alternatives for Ukraine, issued in 400,000 uninjured exposed people. clear safety assistance to Ukraine.) And July 1994, proposes (in this order): "wind Although the popular perception is

10 Summer 1 996 21 st CENTU RY NUCLEAR REPORT that any dose of radiation is harmful and While no "excess deaths" are to be tributable to Chernobyl. Dr. Ricbard Wil­ that the radiation release from the bomb­ treated lightly, these very conservative son, a nuclear physicist at Harvard Uni­ ings and from Chernobyl were the same, estimates over a 70-year period contrast versity who has been actively involved th is is not the case. Low-level radiation sharply with the frightening anecdotal re­ with scientists, medical doctors, and po­ is not necessarily harmful, and may, in ports in the media. litical figures in Russia, Belarus, and fact, be beneficial. The tremendous radi­ The projected figures for expected Ukraine from the outset of the accident, ation releases from the atomic bomb are congenital anomalies caused by radia­ reported from the Minsk meeting that the a different matter. The deaths from the tion for children born to parents who medical work on the thyroid cancer is of atomic bomb explosions were directly live in the highly contaminated areas are high quality. There is a histopathology proportional to the amount of energy re­ 1.9 percent above the spontaneous level laboratory set up as part of a thyroid leased by the blast, the heat, and the ra­ of 6 percent for children born in the year clinic, financed by German funds, in diation. In the bombings, 50 percent of of the accident. For children born within which each cancer is analyzed and pre­ the energy released was from the blast, 30 years of the accident to parents in the served on slides for future study. 35 percent from the heat, and 15 per­ highly contaminated areas, the esti­ In a short report on the Minsk meet­ cent from the radiation; the causes of mated increase in congenital anomalies ing, Wilson raises a few questions: death are in corresponding proportion. is 0.4 percent. "Are the cancers curable? Ninety per­ At Chernobyl, in contrast, the explo­ These estimates were completed in cent of natural thyroid cancers in the sion's blast and heat released relatively 1990. The latest figures of reported can­ U.s.A. are curable," Wilson says, "and small amounts of energy. cers show that there has not been a sig­ almost all among children. These chil­ An interesting comparison of the radi­ nificant increase in the number of cases dren in Belarus are getting the best treat­ ation and health effects in both cases of cancer among adults, except thyroid ments that Europe can offer and only 3 appears in Health Effects of Low-Level cancer, in the general population in the deaths out of the 900 cases are reported Radiation, by Sohei Kondo, a Japanese affected areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and so far. But there may be recurrences." radiation expert at the Atomic Energy Russia. This is as expected, based on Wilson also asks: "Will the childhood Research Institute of Kinki University in previous knowledge; for many cancers, cancers cease after eight years, as [did] Osaka (published in English by Medical the latency period is more than 10 years. the childhood leukemias after in utero Physics Publishing of Madison, Wiscon­ The Latest Statistics radiation? [He refers here to the sharp sin in 1993). Professor Kondo, now 84, At an international meeting on the Ra­ drop in the incidence of leukemia discusses how he was motivated to diological Consequences of the Cher­ among children whose mothers were X­ write this book after Chernobyl, be­ nobyl Accident, held in Minsk, Belarus, rayed during pregnancy.] If so, the cause he was so shocked at the prolifer­ March 17-24, the most recent reports are 1,000 so far may be the total. Or will ation of misinformation, even among that there are about 1 ,000 cases of thy­ the relative risk stay high for the rest of professionals. roid tumors among adults in Belarus, half life, in which case many tens of thou­ The main cause of death at Hiroshima of which may be attributable to Cher­ sands will ultimately appear? Western and Nagasaki was bone marrow injury nobyl, and 900 cases of thyroid cancer medical help must assume the worst from gamma rays and fast neutrons,l in children, of which about 850 are at- while hoping for the better." Kondo reports. At Chernobyl, he says, "the major causes of radiation-induced death were skin burns and intestinal in­ juries due to irradiation with beta rays from externally or internally deposited radioactive nuclides." Using the knowledge accumulated over the past 50 years in studies of Hi­ roshima and Nagasaki survivors, radia­ tion experts have calculated what the ex­ pected increases in cancers and congenital abnormalities might be, based on the measured radioactive fa llout in the areas around Chernobyl that were contaminated with cesium-137 and other radionuclides after the accident. (See map on inside back cover.) The Na­ tional Commission for Radiological Pro­ tection of the Soviet Union, estimated in 1990 that, over the next 70 years, the to­ tal number of cancer deaths above the normal expected number in the heavily Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Soviet:Oesigned Reactor Safety Program contaminated areas, would be 21 from Among the technologies transferred in the safety program are fire doors (inset) and leukemia and 244 from other cancers. these dry cask storage containers fo r spent fuel.

NUCLEAR REPORT 21st CENTURY Summer 1996 11 Finally, Wilson asks why there are so chain) for a week or so after the acci­ roid absorbs this nonradioactive iodine, many cases of thyroid cancer. He notes dent, these thyroid cancers would have the radioactive iodine will be excreted that of the multiple reasons, the saddest been prevented.2 through the body's urine harmlessly. is the deliberate failure of the Politburo Wilson writes that he himself ap­ But the Soviets refused a U.S. offe r to to take the simple preventive measure of pealed to the Soviet authorities on this supply iodine tablets on May 2, 1986. It warning people not to drink milk in the matter at the time, as did other Western was about May 25 before an official re­ immediate period after the accident. Ra­ scientists, to no avail. He also acknowl­ striction on milk was issued and iodine dioactive iodine, 1-1 31, which collects edges the difficulty at that time of local tablets were distributed to 1.6 million and remains in the thyroid, has a half-life officials going against the orders of the children. By then, the damage had been of only 8 days. If the population had Politburo. done. been warned not to drink milk (the main The other antidote against 1-1 31 is to "This is a crime," stated radiation ex­ pathway of 1-1 31 through the food administer iodine tablets; once the thy- pert Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, of the

2. Steam-to -water pipes

3. Drum separato r 4. Main circulation pumps

5. Group dispensing headers

12 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY NUCLEAR REPORT Central Laboratory for Radiological Pro­ disease to Chernobyl." tection in Warsaw, Poland. He noted Wilson, who has helped set up com­ that- at the time, the KGB had cut off all puterized health record-keeping in Be­ the telephone lines to Chernobyl. Based larus, noted that the number of deaths on the radiation readings in Poland after being attributed to Chernobyl at that the accident, Jaworowski fought for im­ time-1 5,OOO-was equal to the normal mediate action. Prophylactic iodine ad­ number of deaths reported in that area ministration began in Poland the from natural causes. evening of April 29, and milk restrictions The most drastic health statistic, how­ began that morning. (Children were al­ ever, is rarely reported: Throughout lowed powdered milk.) In all, 18 million eastern and western Europe, in the few people, including 10.5 million children, months immediately following the were treated. Jaworowski estimates that Chernobyl accident, there were an esti­ this speedy action saved 5,000 children mated 100,000 to 200,000 abortions from thyroid cancer in Poland. that were motivated not by any real Other Cancers danger of radioactive fallout to the un­ Although there were predictions of born fetuses, but by fear of radiation­ massive increases in leukemia, espe­ caused birth defects. cially among children, according to the A Political Problem 10 reports at the Minsk meeting, these have The political nature of the government � s;;; 1: not occurred. Richard Wilson notes in response to the accident and the contin­ o Z his summary of the Minsk meeting, "No uing health effects has been widely dis­ .�� other increases of cancer have been cussed over the past 10 years. There is a. seen or were expected." no question that the Soviet bureaucracy The sarcophagus under construction in The politics of cancer reporting can be delayed publ ic notice of the accident May 1986. The structure, built hurriedly seen in this comment in Wilson's report: and then misinformed the public and the within a fe w months after the accident, "Dr. Eugene Ivanov, who made some of world concerning Chernobyl in the first is unstable and needs to be reinforced the more pessimistic predictions, has few days. As noted above, the popula­ in the next fe w years. studied the leukemias carefully. Until the tion was not even warned about a sim­ end of 1995 there is no visible increase ple preventive measure concerning ra­ formation on the part of the Soviet bu­ in childhood leukemia, although any in­ dioactive iodine. Also criminal is that the reaucracy have created a situation crease should have started in 1991. This Soviet bureaucracy ordered a May Day where a great many things, physiological will shortly be published (in English) in a celebration to proceed outdoors in Kiev, and psychological, are now blamed on European journal. The (present) govern­ without telling the public of the radiation radiation. Two parliamentarians from ment of Belarus did not like this conclu­ danger. (Officials later excused this deci­ Ukraine told me four years ago that there sion and it was reported to me orally that sion by saying that they did not want to were 100,000 dead because of Cher­ this is a reason that Dr. Ivanov is no cause a panic.) nobyl. As much as I could empathize longer director of the hematology clinic." The bureaucratic delays continued. In with their anguish at the disruption of The other factors that must be taken the first few years after the accident, sci­ lives and of the entire nation as a result into account in looking at the health ef­ entists, engineers, and health workers at of the accident, it was clear that they fects of Chernobyl are the poor state of Chernobyl pointed to "the bureaucracy" were using these inflated death figures to both health conditions and health re­ as the enemy, the main obstacle in get­ try and get Western funds to help the porting that existed before the accident, ting done what they, as experts, thought dire economic situation in Ukraine. For and the traumatic effect of the accident should be done immediately. A British the U.s. officials who pick up these fig­ on the population psychologically. In an documentary film made about the team ures without any evaluation-including interview with 21st Century Science & of scientists who were building the sar­ some State Department officials-there Technology, Summer 1993, Dr. Wilson cophagus to contain the damaged reac­ is no excuse. They rank with the greens comments: "One of the reasons it is very tor, makes this painfully clear. who cry about imaginary death counts hard to assess the overall health situation After the Berlin Wall came down, the and future death counts, while they fight in the Ukraine and [Belarus] at the pre­ bureaucratic problem was compounded for policies that would, without a doubt, sent time is that the Soviet Union never by the lack of funds, as the newly inde­ kill millions. had very good health records on any­ pendent nations found themselves with­ Improving Safety of Soviet Plants thing except death rates .. ..To ask out the hard currency to keep basic in­ After Chernobyl, the nuclear commu­ what are Chernobyl's effects on health, frastructure going, to pay wages, and to nity in the West mobilized to work with you have to know what the health facts develop. The so-called free-market re­ their counterparts in Ukraine and Rus­ were before, what they are now, and forms only made a bad situation worse. sia, in order to increase the safety level how they have changed. Since the only Living standards plummeted. at all 59 Soviet-designed nuclear power reliable measure we had before is death It is in this context that one has to plants in Russia, Ukraine, and central rates, we can only discuss death. There view the indigenous claims of vast and and eastern Europe. Both multilateral is a problem in assigning any specific awful health effects. The lies and misin- and bilateral programs are ongoing, and

NUCLEAR REPORT 21st CENTURY Summer 1996 13 a Nuclear Safety Account, funded by The United States established a Joint and the Nuclear Regulatory Commis­ the countries of the G-7 and the Euro­ Coordinating Committee on Civilian sion are both involved, along with the pean Union, has awarded grants to Bul­ Nuclear Reactor Safety with several national laboratories. In addition to gov­ garia, Lithuania, and Russia for upgrad­ working groups to study different safety ernmental programs, the World Associ­ ing plants. problems. The Department of Energy ation of Nuclear Operators (WA NO) was created in 1989 in response to the accident, and has arranged visits for nu­ clear plant operators from the former Soviet states to plants in other nations, and vice versa. The activities of the U.S. program were wide ranging: establishing basic fire safety systems in specific plants, working out a maintenance improve­ ment program, establishing emergency operating instructions, and supplying a full-scope operator simulator for training in realistic operating conditions. At Chernobyl, for example, new fire detec­ tion and protection equipment and ma­ terials, specified by the nuclear power plant staff, are being supplied by Bechtel Power Corp. New nuclear training cen­ ters were set up and supplied with mate­ rials to provide safety training for plant operators. One of the U.5. leaders of this pro­ gram, in a recent presentation to scien­ tists at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, stressed that safety proce­ dures and safety equipment that are taken for granted in American plants simply don't exist in the Soviet designs. Tragedy and Heroism Why this should be the case is not an simple question to answer. On the one hand, Soviet nuclear scientists are highly trained, dedicated, and proud of their achievements. On the other hand, the former Soviet regime had a crassly care­ less attitude concerning the lives of ordi­ nary people. Still another point was put forward by Dr. Vladimir Minkov in a recent inter­ view. Minkov, who heads the Interna­ tional Energy Technology Center at Ar­ gonne National Laboratory in Illinois, and who emigrated from Belarus in 1978, said, "Americans don't under­ stand how poor countries, where people are starving, may decide to skimp on Western-style safety standards in order trained to to stop starvation."

Chernoby . 11 the scene. The tragedy of Chernobyl, and the within three minutes and immediately tragedy of the Western nations' refusal to set to work." They had two urgeOnt consider it a necessity to develop the tasks: to isolate the fire from the re­ states of the former Soviet Union and to maining three nuclear reactors on the build new nuclear power plants as part

site, and.to re <.that the pool of of a development program, was vividly • .'1 }i brought to mind in a 1991 British docu-

14 Summer 1996 21 st CENTURY NUCLEAR REPORT mentary, "Inside the Chernobyl Sarcoph­ engineering missions in the world? Lessons agus." This film interviewed the team of Aleksander Borovoi, the leader of the Chernobyl is not the worst industrial nuclear scientists who were concerned expedition, raised the obvious question: disaster the world has seen, despite the after the accident to determine whether "We don't understand why so few for­ continuing scare stories that dominate another chain reaction and explosion eign scientists have come to help." the news media. There can be a recov­ could occur inside the damaged reactor Borovoi appealed for a joint scientific ery of the land, of the people, of the in­ building. To answer this question, they and engineering effort. "We are fighting dustry. After all, Japan recovered after had to find the remaining nuclear reactor for an international effort," he said. the atomic bombings. fuel that had melted down; it was There were also shots of earlier phases But look at what has happened in the nowhere to be seen in the easily accessi­ of the work, in preparation for building 10 years since Chernobyl, and how ble areas of the damaged reactor. (In all, the sarcophagus, the enormous protec­ matter-of-factly Western society has tol­ there were 190 metric tons of uranium tive structure built to shield the damaged erated the loss of human lives. Millions dioxide fuel and fission products in the reactor. At one point, when robots were of people have died in needless wars in reactor core, of which perhaps 30 per­ not available (and, in fact, were not able Africa and in the fo rmer Yugoslavia, or cent escaped into the atmosphere.) to function in the intense radioactivity), a died from diseases or famine that could The working conditions were ex­ human chain of 3,400 "biorobots," have easily been prevented, had the po­ tremely hazardous. There was radioac­ Army volunteers, spent one minute each litical will existed to stop them. Without tive dust that could be stirred up and es­ running onto the roof of the reactor to this quality of political will, economic cape the enclosure if they made a false pick up debris and throw it into the development in Africa-or in Cher­ move; debris from the explosion was smoldering core. In that minute, they re­ nobyl-will not take place. everywhere. The damaged rea.ctor, ceived the allowable limit of radiation. The particular configuration of whose core had melted and sunk, had .its The general in charge, who himself suf­ events that led to the Chernobyl acci­ l,OOO-metric-ton reactor lid precariously fered from acute rad i ation i II ness, dent could have been prevented, cer­ poised inside the shell of the core. handed each \(QIl!,nte�r a certificate, tainly,. with, a better reactor design. The fi lm showed some of the first shots shook his hand, and told him, "I wish From the personal accounts of what of the inside of the damaged reactor you good health, and may you live to be happened, it is also known that individ­ building. The film crew, well-protected in a genera!." ual engineers in the plant at the time, Western-style protective suits and equip­ At other points in the project, the sci­ who knew better, followed bureau­ ment, fo llowed the poorly protected sci­ entists improvised, putting a camera cratic orders instead of doing what entists through the labyrinth of debris­ onto a toy tank, remotely controlled, and their knowledge told them had to be laden reactor rooms, as they pursued sending it in to explore collapsed areas done. their dangerous search. Sometimes they of the building that they could not reach. And once the accident occurred, the had to crawl through holes in the wall or "The Complex Expedition," as this ef­ response of the Soviet government surely cut their way through obstacles, all the fort was named, succeeded, despite the could have been different. Lives could while carefully keeping track of the radia­ lack of equipment and protective gear. have been saved. tion dose they were accumulating. The After two years, the team located the Also, the response from the West scientists matter-of-factly discussed the mass of molten reactor fuel 4 meters un­ could have been diffe rent-and can still dangers they knew they faced: "We do der the reactor core. The hot fuel had be different. The science and technolo­ not have the technology to work safely in mixed with the sand surrounding and gies exist to build advanced, safe nuclear these conditions, with high levels of radi­ insulating the reactor core and fused plants relatively inexpensively. To en­ ation," said Viktor Popov, head of the into a glassy mass, still intensely ra­ sure the political decision to use these sarcophagus diagnostics laboratory. "But dioactive. The scientists named it the technologies will require a different kind the job has to be done. . . . Somehow, elephant's foot, because of its shape. of thinking on the part of U.s. citizens, the problem has to be solved." The scientists could now be satisfied including the nuclear industry and the Popov and others were keenly aware that there would not be a new chain re­ nuclear community. This will take the of the high levels of radiation they were action and a second explosion. Now kind of personal courage displayed by subjecting themselves to-without the their concern was that the sarcophagus the scientists who carried out "The Com­ usual protective gear. In one typical was not secure, and in some places was plex Expedition" at Chernoby!. As Popov scene, as the scientists were discussing fa lling down. They also worried that said of their work: "But the job has to be how long they could stay in an espe­ any major disturbance of the structure done .. ..Someho w, the problem has cially "hot" area, you could see that they could set off clouds of radioactive dust to be solved." were protected only by cotton masks on that would pose a danger for the work­ their faces and plastic bags over their ers in the other Chernobyl units that Notes ------1. There are five types of ionizing radiation: alpha shoes and clothing. Where was the were still operating. particles, which do the most damage but can be Western aid back then-1 988-wh ich When the documentary's interviewer stopped by paper; beta particles, which do less could have easily provided them with damage, but can penetrate living tissue; neu· asked the scientists what their biggest trons, which are both penetrating and damag­ standard, not overly costly radiation pro­ problem was, they did not hesitate. The ing; and gamma rays and X-rays, which can be tective equipment and special suits, at a shortage of money and equipment was blocked only by concrete or lead. 2. The thyroid gland holds a limited amount of io· time when they were carrying out one of severe, but the biggest problem, they dine, which it uses to make metabolic hor­ the most difficult-and most important- ?aid, was "the bureaucracy." mones. No other organ accumulates iodine.

NUCLEAR REPORT 21 st CENTURY Summer 1996 15 INTERVIEW WITH ZBIGNIEW JAWOROWSKI

Chernobyl Helped Finish The Communist System

Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., tion expert, Prof. L.A. "yin, the director world. But even this was not accepted D.5c., is 'a professor at the Centra l Labo­ of the Institute of Biophysics, where the by the Supreme Soviet. Instead, an even ratory fo r Radiological Protection in first Chernobyl victims were treated. lower ground contamination level, cor­ Wa rsaw and chairman of its scientific Ilyin tried in vain to force some ur­ responding to a lifetime dose of about council. A multidisciplinary scientist, Ja­ gency and rationality into protecting the 150 mSv, was introduced. worowski has served as a chairman of public. On the one hand, the Soviet-style Relocation caused suffering and enor­ the United Nations Scientific Committee shroud of secrecy (which included the mous stress for the population. Together on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UN­ cutting off of the telephone lines to Cher­ with propagated radiophobia (fear of ra­ SCEAR). He has published many articles nobyl by the KGB-a classic example of diation), this stress led to psychosomatic on the impact of nuclear war on popula­ what glasnost in reality was) combined diseases, not related to radioactivity. tion, the flux of natural and man-made with a Soviet doctrine claiming absolute Evacuation imposed enormous costs on pollutants in'the atmosphere, heavy met­ safety and a ban on permissible risk the impoveris hed fo rmer Soviet Re­ als in ancient and contemporary man, (based on the rationale that nothing dan­ publics of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. vertical distribution of radionuclides in gerous could happen in the perfect So­ In Belarus alone, the costs of resettle­ the troposphere and stratosphere, and viet industry, and thus there is no need ment and individual compensations will the validity of polar ice core records of for any emergency plans and prepara­ reach $91 billion in 2015. greenhouse gases. tions), paralyzed remedial actions. Evacuation was perhaps necessary for He was interviewed in April by Mar­ At the local level, nobody would dare about 50,000 people. The evacuation of jorie Mazel Hecht. to take important decisions. At the central an additional 350,000 people was a re­ level, politics dominated discussions and sult of the maneuvering of populists and Question: What do you see as the most decisions. As a result, the most important politicians blended with ignorance. important consequences of the remedial actions (giving people stable io­ Chernobyl accident? dine to block the uptake of radioactive Question: Why was Poland able to act The most important consequence was iodine by thyroid gland, banning con­ so quickly in distributing iodine solution the political one: the end of the commu­ sumption of contaminated milk, and ban­ and restricting milk, compared with the nistic system in the Soviet Union and ning grazing of cows in the pastures), Soviet government? Central Europe. It is paradoxical that the which should have been introduced on This was a surprise to me. Our stable same system was the ultimate cause of the fi rst or second day after the catastro­ iodine prophylactic action was in part the Chernobyl disaster, both in accept­ phe, that is, on April 27 or 28, were based on results of excellent studies car­ ing its dangerous RBMK nuclear reactor started a month later, about May 25! ried out in the former Soviet Union by design as a standard for power stations, This is a crime for which the Soviet Prof. L.A. Ilyin and his group. We and in its approach to mitigation of the leader Gorbachev should be blamed. As learned from their publications (among radiation emergency. a result of the failure to take remedial ac­ others, from Ilyin's monograph, "Ra­ The RBMK reactor design could not tion immediately, the incidence of thy­ dioactive Iodine and the Problem of Ra­ pass the scrutiny of the normal, Western­ roid cancers in children has increased diation Safety," 1972), how long a dose style procedures for licensing safety eval­ dramatically in Ukraine and Belarus. of stable iodine protects the thyroid uation. In the Soviet Union it was ac­ At the same time, the authorities also gland, what the dosage should be, and cepted on economic grounds and as a overreacted, because of political pres­ so on. source of cheap military plutonium. The sure and because of the dogmatic Soviet The "yin group made all the detailed letter K in RBMK is for kanalnyi, referring attitude banning permissible risk. As a scientific studies and practical recom­ to the channels in part of which pluto­ radiation dose level at which an evacua­ mendations, years before the Chernobyl nium can be produced during normal re­ tion would be ordered for 400,000 peo­ accident. But the fruits of their work actor operation. ple in the contaminated regions, these were not consumed in their country. The disastrous consequences of the authorities proposed a lifetime (70 years) There were some sodium iodine tablets Chernobyl catastrophe were to much ex­ radiation dose of 350 millisievert (mSv). in Chernobyl, which were used, not sys­ tent due to behavior of the central and This level was 2 to 3 times lower than tematica"y, at the power station. Also, local Soviet authorities. This is most the current internationally recom­ the tablets were taken by medical staff in clearly presented in an excellent and mended intervention level of 1,000 mSv. the town of Pripyat but no data on the honest book, Chernobyl:Myth and Real­ It is also much lower than the natural ra­ scale of this work exist. ity, by the most qualified Russian radia- d iation dose in many regions of the No iodine tablets were distributed and

16 Summer 1996 21 st CENTURY NUCLEAR REPORT no ban on consumption of milk and on capable [mainly due tol inertia and utter In summary, the completely rotten the grazing of cattle was introduced in irresponsibility reigning in the country communistic system in the Soviet Union the 30 km zone from which people were .. . . The System was completely unpre­ had much greater effect on the psychol­ evacuated. pared for this kind of emergency .. .. ogy, morality, and initiative of the peo­ The question of banning the consump­ Therefore in many cases the various ver­ ple than the communistic system did in tion of locally produced milk was first tical and horizontal mechanisms for Poland. In Poland, this system was soft­ raised on April 30, but no decision was controlling the situation simply failed ." ened by our longstanding democratic taken. On May 2, seven days after the As an example of differences between traditions-in fact, the longest democra­ accident, when 80 percent of the ra­ Poland and the former Soviet Union: tic tradition in Europe (aside from dioactive iodine was already dissipated, During the first few days after the Cher­ Greece). No such traditions were inher­ the same question was raised again be­ nobyl catastrophe, I phoned many ex­ ited from czarist Russia. fore the central Soviet leadership, then perts abroad to exchange information We were more free in Poland to de­ visiting Chernobyl. No decision was with them. But my Soviet counterpart, mand, to request, and to force the gov­ taken, probably with an excuse of lack Prof. lIyin, could not do so. I openly vis­ ernment to do what we deemed needed of direct measurements of milk contami­ ited the ambassador of the United States, to protect the people. I believe that the nation. But the estimates of milk contam­ John Davies, in his office, without con­ Soviet experts were just as prepared as ination could have been determi ned sulting anybody in political power, to we were, but their hands were bound, without iodine-1 31 milk measurements ask his help in buying 2,000 tons of while we could act. from environmental monitoring, as we powdered milk for Polish children. Prof. The question remains, however, why did in Poland. l Iyin could not dream of doing some­ the mass iodine prophylaxis was not in­ On May 2, the American offer to the thing like this. troduced in many European countries Soviets to supply the iodine tablets was John Davies, together with his wife, where the thyroid radiation dose was rejected with the statement, "Iodine pre­ Helen, spent a weekend in my cottage similar or higher than in Poland; for ex­ ventive measures have ceased to be a helping me to write an English version of ample, in Switzerland, Austria, Greece, matter of urgency"! On May 9, the need the official expose on Chernobyl, which Yugoslavia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, to use powdered milk was officially I was obliged to hand in on Monday to and other countries. raised, but on May 16, it was discovered Jerzy Urban, the spokesman of the Pol­ The probable answer is that every­ that there were no milk reserves. Seeing ish government. For such misbehavior, body was thinking about iodine tablets, all this, on May 10, Prof. lIyin sent, via Prof. Jlyin would be prosecuted, but and there was a lack in these countries official channels, a personal letter to there was no danger for me. of such tablets and an impossibility of Michail Gorbachev explaining the ur­ gency of implementing stable iodine prophylaxis and a ban on milk. This let­ ter was ignored by Gorbachev and was �----r=====�=------�������---,Iodine prophylaxis in Poland 100 sent to the Governmental Commission solul� .-- L...I --,,---,Lugol .__ � DeCISion taken April 28, 05:30 hours on May 21-that is, 11 days later! Program begun April 29 in Bialystok 90 On May 27, the health minister of 80 Russia announced: "In areas with in­ _ Chemobyl creased radiation levels, children con­ � Warsaw 70 � '" tinue to drink milk. Iodine preventive E measures (tablets) have only just been 60 c­ E9. initiated." I believe that they started the 50 � iodine prophylaxis about May 25; � 3,671 ,000 adults and 1,684,000 chil­ 40 � dren received iodine treatment. (In Poland, about 7.5 million adults and 30 10.5 million children had received this 20 prophylaxis.) A Governmental Chernobyl Commis­ sion was formed at Soviet Union level 26 27 28 29 30 1 soon after the accident, and similar com­ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 I missions were formed in the Soviet re­ April May publics of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, Figure 1 headed by deputy prime ministers, with RADIOACTIVE IODINE MEASUREMENTS AT CHERNOBYL AND WARSAW their activities coordinated by the re­ lodine- 131 measured over the burning Chernobyl-4rea ctor from a helicopter spective Politburo Operational Groups. (black line) and at ground level in Warsaw (gray line), after the accident. This structure was similar to the one in Dotted lines indicate levels not measured. The Poles began a national pro­ Poland. It worked in Poland very well. gram of prophylaxison April 29. The Soviet bureaucracy delayed action until However, in the Soviet Union, in Prof. about May 25-when it was too late. lIyin's words: "It proved completely in-

NUCLEAR REPORT 21st CENTURY Summer 1996 17 But this principle is fa lse. There is now ample evidence from laboratory experi­ ments and human epidemiological stud­ ies which shows that small radiation doses-similar to the natural radiation levels to which all living organisms were exposed since evolution began-are not harmful, but are beneficial. Informing the public about the benefi­ cial effects of small doses of radiation, such as those we encounter in our daily life from medical X-ray examinations, nuclear power, or natural radiation background, may help in fighting the ra­ diophobic mythology.

Question: What do you see as a solution to the RBMK dilemma? The antiquated Soviet-designed reactors cannot be replaced, because the funding is not there, and they cannot be shut down, because the electricity is desperately needed. I do not see a solution. Not all Soviet-made nuclear reactors are as bad as the Chernobyl-type RBMK. The VVER type, which corresponds to an American pressurized light-water reac­ tor, are good and safe reactors. In fact, the VVER in a nuclear power station in Helsinki has one of the best safety producing them in a short time. Nobody many believed in this. The Chernobyl records in the world. realized that an iodine solution could be catastrophe exposed the weakness and The safety of the 15 RBMK reactors used instead. Someone in the Polish immorality of the system. This was then operating in the former Soviet Union has Ministry of Health (I do not know who often used as a weapon by dissidents in been improved with the help of Western this was) discovered that we could use Poland, and later in the Soviet Union. countries, but 58 RBMK safety issues the Lugol iodine solution. But, most im­ have been recently identified, and this portant, was that at that time we had Question: There is still a virulent scare type of reactor remains inherently un­ more than enough iodine for about 100 campaign on the radiation issue. How safe. The many billions of dollars doses for each Polish citizen. do you think it can be combatted? needed for replacement of RBMKs with There were strategic stores of stable The primary political source of radio­ VVER reactors or with fossil power sta­ iodine dispersed all over the country. phobia is the wish on the part of some to tions are not at hand in Lithuania, Rus­ During the cold war, our institute had induce as great as possible a fear of nu­ sia, and Ukraine. advised the government to prepare them clear weapons. A mystic and exotic in­ I doubt that there is now a real politi­ for the protection of the population visible radiation is excellent for this aim. cal will in the West to supply this against the effects of nuclear attack. The Often-published statements to the effect money. One of the reasons may be the recommendation was implemented dur­ that radiation from nuclear weapons will realization that the worst possible cata­ ing the early 1970s, and each Polish cause lithe total extinction of mankind" strophe of a nuclear reactor in the former pharmacy and hospital and many scien­ or "the extermi nation of life on this Soviet Union caused no practical health tific institutions had large supplies of io­ planet Earth"-both of which are com­ effects in other countries. dine. When the Chernobyl disaster oc­ pletely impossible-nevertheless per­ curred, these were at hand. Probably this fectly fulfill this aim. Question: There have been many news­ was not the case in other countries. Those who wish to deny the benefits paper columns written about the never­ of nuclear energy to poor nations are ending effects of the accident's radia­ Question: How did the accident affect playing the radiation fear card to the full. tion release, the hundreds of thousands the fall of the Soviet regime? What they say most often is that even the who were hurt, the many deaths from The people of Russia, Ukraine, Be­ smallest, near-zero, radiation dose is radiation sickness. What is the actual larus, and other Soviet republics were for damaging to one's health. In fact, this is situation regarding health effects? tens of years brainwashed into thinking the principle on which the current radia­ Two persons died because of thermal that their system was best. Astonishingly, tion protection regulations are based. burns and one because of a heart attack

18 Summer 1996 21 st CENTURY NUCLEAR REPORT and sometimes by officials, of hundreds of thousands of Chernobyl deaths, of ra­

.g!'" diation depilation, and of genetic malfor­ 0.8 '" s to mations in humans, are fantasies. Such

.�;; false reports are often politically moti­ 0.7 � vated or profit motivated. � i!? In Belarus, about 2,000 genetic and Cl 0.6 bi rth malformations occur each year, which have nothing to do with Cher­ �'" 0.5 C '" nobyl radiation. The same proportion of IT: .� & birth defects occurs in all of Europe, and 0.4 � there is a similar situation with child­

J!- hood cancers. It is deeply immoral for' 0.3 jg television and newspapers to represent the images of such malformed 0.2 Byelorussian children, or children with leukemia who are bald after having

0.1 chemotherapy, as the radiation victims of Chernobyl.

0

Figure 2 AVERAGE WHOLE-BODY RADIATION RECEIVED IN THE FIRST YEAR AFTER THE CHERNOBYL ACCIDENT (in millisieverts) Did Yo u Miss ... , I The estimates of 5,000 to 30,000 fu ture cancer deaths on the global scale because of the Chernobyl radiation release, are based on an extrapolation from the high-dose cancer data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the low, UHormesis: The near-natural-radiation-Ievel doses from the Chernobyl fa llout, using the no­ threshold, linear dose/e ffect relationship. Such extrapolation is scientifically BeneficialEffe cts of wrong, Jaworowski says. Radiation"

Source: UNSCEAR by Zbigniew Jaworowski at the Chernobyl power station during near-natural-radiation-Ievel doses from Fall the catastrophe. Acute radiation sick­ the Chernobyl fallout, using the no­ 1994 ness was confirmed in 134 cases of the threshold, linear dose/effect relationship. Back issues available at $5 237 people hospitalized during the first Such extrapolation is, in my opinion, sci­ hours of the accident. Of this group of entifically wrong. 134 cases, 28 patients died in the first There are no cancers, other than thy­ 21st CENTURY three months after exposure. Another 14 roid, found in the contaminated areas. persons died over the next 10 years, There are also no leukemias, which p.o. Box 16285 due to causes probably not related to would be expected to peak in incidence Washington, D. C. 20041 the irradiation. five years after exposure. (All other can­ Thyroid cancer has been diagnosed in cers have an incidence peak about 35 about 800 children between a and 15 years after exposure; the early thyroid years old, half of them in Belarus. Of cancers came by surprise.) The lack of these children, 3 have died of this dis­ cancers other than thyroid is due to the ease. Thus, the total number of Cher­ low radiation exposure of the popula­ nobyl fatalities is 48 persons. tion. The exception is the thyroid gland The estimates of 5,000 to 30,000 fu­ in children, who received high doses. ture cancer deaths on a global scale (an The radiation risk factor for hereditary imperceptible increase in the back­ diseases is four times smaller than that ground cancer incidence of 0.005 per­ for cancers. cent in the population of the Northern No hereditary diseases related to Cher­ Hemisphere, and 0.01 percent for the nobyl radiation were reported by serious European part of the former Soviet experts. No radiation-induced cancers, Union), because of the Chernobyl radia­ except thyroid, and no genetic diseases tion release, are based on ·an extrapola­ were diagnosed in the former Soviet tion from the high-dose cancer data from Union by international medical teams. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the low, The reports, disseminated by mass media

NUCLEAR REPORT 21 st CENTURY Summer 1996 19 INTERVIEW WITH LINDEN BLUE

Turning Swords into Plowshares With the Modular Helium Reactor

Linden Blue is vice chairman of Gen­ put and the work that they've done. So few decades, or a hundred years or so, it 'eral Atomics, a San Diego-based com­ the work is going on. The immediate is very easy to get at. This is the sort of pany that is developing a modular high­ challenge is to accelerate it and get to thing that should be avoided, because temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactor. the point where we are actually build­ you don't want anybody to have a pluto­ Th e reactor uses an advanced gas tur­ ing a reactor over there. This is particu­ nium "mine" that they can go into and bine to directly convert the reactor heat larly urgent, we believe, because of the reconstitute weapons. to electricity. Known as the GT-MHR, importance of taking care of the pluto­ The Russians feel you only have real the reactor can be serially produced, nium that is coming out of dismantled disarmament when you destroy the plu­ and is relatively inexpensive and ex­ weapons. tonium, and the United States should be tremely versatile, providing electricity as The weapons plutonium represents a encouraging Russians along this line of well as process heat fo r cogeneration lot of potential energy. The Russians are thinking. and industrial processing. The reactor adamant that they want to use the pluto­ also has unique safety fe atures; it can nium for energy, rather than simply Question: The American Nuclear shut offand cool down by itself, without burying it. The key problem in burying Society blue ribbon committee that operator intervention, even if all its cool­ plutonium is that if you bury it, you can looked at the protection and manage­ ing systems fa il. always dig it up. The only way to make ment of plutonium last year, recom­ Blue was fo rmerly CEO of Beech Air­ it unusable in the future is to destroy it, mended "the reactor option" for man­ craft and general manager of Lear Jet and the GT-MHR is uniquely able to do agement of plutonium; in other words, both in Wichita, Kansas. He was inter­ this in a single pass, without reprocess­ burning it as fuel-mixed oxide (or viewed by Marjorie Mazel Hecht in ing. This should be the most attractive MOX) fuel in civilian reactors. How early May. alternative there is. does that compare with the GT-MHR method? Question: Three years ago, in April Question: Can you explain what you Mixed oxide fuel only brings the 1993, General Atomics signed an mean by burning plutonium in a single weapons plutonium down to about 50 agreement with Russia to jointly devel­ pass? percent plutonium-239. That simply isn't op a gas-turbine modular helium reac­ When we talk about burning, we're good enough; you can still make tor (GT-MHR). What is the current sta­ really talking about fissioning. The fis­ weapons from that mixture of plutonium. tus, and what are the prospects for this sion process adds neutrons that change project? the state of the matter and convert the Question: But in the best of all worlds, There are now about 200 Russian dangerous isotopes to benign ones. you could certainly burn MOX fuel. The physicists and engineers working with us Plutonium-239 is the principal prob­ problem is that there's such a pes­ on the project-producing good results. lem, because it can be used in weapons. simistic outlook on the part of the U.S. The Russian scientists and engineers are Depending on wh ich process we use, we government, and certainly coming from very good: They have excellent ideas, can either destroy 90 percent of it, which the greens, that they are pushing only they have good background in this par­ makes it effectively unusable for the burial option, which is completely ticular technology, and they work well weapons, or we can destroy it down to unsatisfactory. with our people. 99.9 if we add an additional step. They really haven't thought ahead as We have been working with Russian This single-pass method of the GT­ to what the real implication of that bur­ scientists for a number of years through MHR is at least five times better than ial policy is. The greens just don't want the fusion program, and so, over the other approaches for fissioning pluto­ plutonium around-nor does anybody years, we have gained high respect for nium. The other approaches leave you else. But they don't understand that them and their technical capabilities. with half of the plutonium-239, which when you put it in the ground you're This is an area where they are very well is still very viable stuff for making just putting it in a place that may be out suited and we're getting good work done weapons. of sight, but it is certainly not Ollt of po­ at a reasonable cost. Some people have suggested that if tential use. We just recently had a design review, we make nuclear waste or weapons plu­ where there were about eight Russians tonium radioactive, it would be harder Question: I think that the greens don't here in California, and all our technical to get to. That is true. But the radioactive want a world that develops advanced people were very pleased with their in- barrier declines with time, so that after a nuclear plants and the population

20 Summer 1996 21 st CENTURY NUCLEAR REPORT growth that would go with them and, economy. These things should be very No it isn't, especially compared to the therefore, they attack anything that interesting to the greens; in addition, billion and a half dollars this country looks as if it might expand nuclear tech­ there are no emissions of noxious gases spends every single week to import oil. nology and use. into the atmosphere. And that money spent on oil isn't an in­ That's true, but they ought to recog­ vestment; it's a pure consumable. nize that not all advanced nuclear Question: What would it take to get a plants are alike. Some are good, and working reactor? Three years ago you Question: If you look at the 1 0 years others can create problems of their estimated that you could build one in since the Chernobyl accident, there are own. A gas reactor is an advanced nu­ eight years, if the money were there. Is still 15 Chernobyl-style RBMK reactors clear plant that can't melt down. The that still the case? operating, which are not as safe as the greens always ta lk about the safety con­ That's true. Yes. Western-style reactors. In the past cerns, and gas reactors are the ultimate decade, we could have built new from a safety standpoint. Question: How much money would it nuclear plants to replace the power Gas reactors can essentially com­ take? that would be lost by shutting these pletely destroy weapons plutonium; I think about $500 million. RBMK reactors down. These reactors and greens should be extremely inter­ cannot be shut down now, because the ested in that. Also, it has a 50 percent Question: Is that $500 million to build a lack of replacement power would kill greater efficiency than the current reac­ , complete reactor? That's not very people. tors, lower thermal emissions, and much! That's right.

The ;fuel particles are':;uniCjue this type of heliutIl-cooled ' high;­

�itemperature reactor. Uranium eN ., plutonium fuel , is fabris�ted int? ' tiny 'partiCles that itre Gbatel wid) " layers of,cer<;lmii c. mater ial � that " constitute tiny JncHviduai :" 2�ntain- :/ ;··mentvess els." ,. " " :;/,/'cc," circulator The helium enters the r�actor ' core at 9J5°F and· is. heated oy the ' . nuclear reaction to. l,562°F. fi" then " .converts the heat to electricity and ;the h�lium is GyclecL" back to the re- ; i : actor'vessel. ,,',,"

NUCLEAR REPORT 21 st CENTURY Summer 1996 21 General Atomics u.s. and Russian engineers at a working session on the GT-MHR design.

Question: What are your proposals for Question: Energy stability generally be 3 cents per kilowatt hour. Is that still moving this situation forward? means political stability and economic the case? Well, we can move out with the tech­ stability too. Yes. You have to be carefu l of your as­ nology that the whole world should em­ Exactly. sumptions on capital costs there, but brace in terms of improving nuclear en­ that's within the realm of possibility if ergy. Question: What size plants could be you consider you can build the plants You're right, the RBMKs have prob­ built for the $500 million estimate? fairly inexpensively in Russia. lems. I think, though, that the Cher­ They would come in modules of nobyl accident was more a function of about 285 megawatts-electric. Question: Would that be true in the rest the experiments they were doing than of eastern Europe? the reactors themselves. Even so, the Question: Could modules then be added Yes. truth is that those reactors are very un­ on at the same site? forgiving, especially when humans It would depend on the demand for Question: There certainly is the need for make errors. You want a technology power. There are some places where electricity throughout eastern and cen­ where, no matter what the humans do, they might want to have only one mod­ tral Europe. . . . And there's a lot of they can't cause a meltdown. ule. But they could have one, or two, or pressure, for example, on Bulgaria to That is what a gas reactor does. It as­ four. shut down its Soviet-designed reactor. sures that, no matter what the humans But they simply don't have replacement do, they can't get a meltdown. For good Question: Would it take the full eight power. reason, everybody in Europe is very years to get one module on line and Well, once you get a factory set up touchy about what the Russians do in functioning? that will turn out gas reactor modules, nuclear. But if the Russians choose this Yes. they can be shipped, essentially, any­ technology, people would say, "Well, where in the world and they can pro­ this is the sort of thing that is okay to Question: And how long would it take duce the same fundamental economics, build. We don't want any more RBMKs, to add modules? because the costs of materials world­ and we don't want some of the other You could have the others following wide are more or less based on com­ technologies that aren't as safe. We want on as rapidly as you wanted to. It's al­ modity prices, and the cost of nuclear the ultimate in safety, and we want the ways desirable to have some pauses so fuel is also a world commodity. greater efficiency." you can work out the bugs. This is the sort of thing that will give Question: Is .the plan to have a factory real energy stability to Russia for the next Question: Three years ago you had esti­ that would turn out the first module in 60 years. mated that the cost of electricity would Russia, and also be able to export mod-

22 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY NUCLEAR REPORT ules to other countries? good commitment from the Russians. It's It doesn't take very much. Literally That's right. also a real commitment because Min­ with $10 million a year we could do atom, the Russian nuclear agency, has tremendous good in Russia, and that's Question: Do you have a location for resources-principally, they have en­ the sort of thing we would like to start this yet in Russia? riched uranium, which is a fungible with. Yes, there are a couple of locations. I commodity worldwide. think the best location would be at The Russians have a lot of this, and Question: What about the Defense Tomsk, in Siberia, west of Novosibirsk they have arrangements, including with Department? Are they looking favorably about 200 miles, because the existing re­ the United States, where they can mar­ at this? actors there are currently producing plu­ ket this uranium. So they do have in­ I think so, because they see that if the tonium. This would be a perfect replace­ come from the sale of uranium to. hold Russians can generate a real nuclear ment reactor for T omsk. up their side of the bargain. business for peaceful purposes, this is a We are contributing a modest amount much better use of Russian scientists and Question: What countries are interested from this side right now, and would like engineers than for making weapons. This in importing the GT-MHR reactors? very much to increase that by contribu­ is the sort of thing that makes stability. The places that have the greatest tions from the government in the interest Having these scientists around idle, able need for electricity are the places that of destroying weapons plutonium. There to be hired out by the highest bidder, are growing most rapidly economically. are also other private sector funds for the leads to instability. As a group, you can say that the South­ development of the Russian economy. east Asian nations are where the high­ Question: Certainly the situation now is est rate of growth is, and also the great­ Question: What is the current response highly unstable, in general. est need for electricity. We have talked of the U.S. Energy Department and the I think increasingly the State Depart­ about the way that growth and eco­ State Department to this project? ment is saying yes, we would like those nomic activity exactly parallel the Initially, it was very negative, but I Russian scientists to stay home, and growth in electricity. You could say the think they are gradually seeing the virtue you can't expect them to take menial thing most constraining a lot of places of this kind of a program compared, for jobs when they have Ph.D.s in physics. in Southeast Asia is electricity-that's example, to a breeder reactor program, Doing this work challenges them tech­ true in China, particularly. They have a which raises many safety concerns, and nically and is fitting of their back­ tremendous need for electricity, and if which, essentially, establishes a pluto­ ground; they can make products that we don't provide them with better tech­ nium fuel cycle. This is particularly what have enormous value and that can start nologies, they will simply burn more the anti-nukes want to avoid at all costs. to pull Russia out of the economic dol­ and more coal, and that can be very A lot of people in the world don't want a drums. undesirable from an environmental plutonium fuel cycle- standpoint. So China is one place, and Question: How do you see the future of there are a number of other places in Question: I'm not one of them- nuclear power in general? Asia. I know, but still, I think you would There are people in the world who I think any place where economies also agree, above all else, that first you think we can solve our problems by are growing, there's a great desirability want a most efficient burner as a genera­ having no growth, and just deal with of having this kind of nuclear power, tor of electricity. We'll worry later about the energy problem by conservation. particularly because it can be supplied whether we breed fuel or not. The only Well, that may be true in the United in economical units as small as 285 reason for a liquid metal reactor is for States; it could conceivably be true, but megawatts. breeding. I happen to think it's a good I don't think it is. But it is not true in a thing long-term. I don't think it's neces­ world where we are going from our pre­ Question: So, for developing nations, sary now. What you need now are the sent 5 billion population almost cer­ where the power need might be acute most efficient burners. tainly to about 10 billion sometime in but not at the moment large, the GT­ the next century. Either we will have an MHR is a good way to begin. It can put Question: Certainly in the Russian situa­ environmental disaster because of that power on line rapidly, and more can be tion and in eastern and central Europe I increase in population, or, if we plan added as needed when industry and think that's the case. The Japanese, ahead and make the right provisions for population develop. however, are pursuing a plutonium energy, we will be able to feed, clothe, Exactly. economy because they have no other and house these people and they will indigenous source of fuel, and this is the add to the world's productivity and an Question: What are the prospects for one way they can become energy effi­ era of prosperity that will redound to getting the first $500 million needed to cient. That has been their strategy. everyone's benefit. build the first plant, in terms of U.S. I have noticed a change in the Depart­ participation? ment of Energy outlook, recently, even Question: I agree, I think that is the First of all, the Russians have agreed to being more favorable to the reprocessing formerly basic outlook of most match anything that the West brings into of nuclear fuel, but I don't know Americans-the American System. the equation, and that is what our pro­ whether that means that funds will be al­ Unfortunately there are people who gram is currently based on. That's a very located to this. just want to throw the brakes on all

NUCLEAR REPORT 21 st CENTURY Summer 1996 23 compounded by the effects of the Third Wave-what Alvin Toffler has called'the Third Wave, which is the Information Revolution. This is going to aggravate the situa­ tion. First of all, the Third Wave has great potential for good in that it makes everything and everybody so much more productive. But also, because of the way it makes production of almost everything more efficient, it's destroying jobs at a voracious rate. If all our telephone con­ nections were made the way they were say 50 years ago, for example, the entire U.S. population would be employed in doing nothing but that. ... The Third Wave is an enormous en­ gine for change, but it is also an enor­ mous engine for destruction. Only when you have vigorous economies based on technological advances do you get the job growth to replace the jobs that are being eliminated.

Question: I think the measure of growth-as you have probably heard Lyndon LaRouche say, is the potential population density ....You have to constantly introduce into the economy advanced technology to increase the I productivity. That's the only way you're "Science is how we are currently providing fo r the 5 billion population we have .... going to have growth. and we have a bigger task than ever before to provide fo r the doubling of popula­ Yes. I agree with many of the things tion that we are going to see over the next century. " Here Linden Blue (right) dis­ LaRouche has said .... cusses CT-MHR technology with Chinese Premier Chou (center). Question: If you think of all the things kinds of economic activity. If they suc­ Question: No, they're not. They are we're not doing in the United States­ ceed, they will do what they're dedi­ across the board. We stand on the verge our bridges are falling down, our high­ cated not to do, which is create an envi­ of a new dark age, and I think it could ways are in disrepair, our sewage and ronmental disaster and a lot of political really happen. It's not a partisan issue; water systems have collapsed, the trains instability, which means more killing of the Conservative Revolution as well as don't run anymore-there are plenty of all descriptions. It is when people are the extremes on the left converge here jobs that need to get done. Yes, the new desperate for the basics of I ife that they in their policies against science. You've technologies are taking away certain tend to fight about it. heard of the "Green Scissors" report- kinds of jobs. After all, the purpose is to Of course- make people use more brain power Question: What do you think we should rather than muscle power. That is be doing? Question: There you see an alliance progress. But we still have tremendous The answer is education. First of all, between the most extreme of the greens numbers of things that aren't getting the negativism toward science must and, I would say, the mainstream of the done. Throughout history when old jobs yield to enlightenment. Science is how Conservative Revolution. folded because of automation, new we are currently providing for the 5 bil­ The "Green Scissors," group was very industries took their place ....And one lion population we have. We can pro­ involved in destroying our U.S. DOE thing you have said in one past inter­ vide better, we are making constant im­ program [for the GT-MHRJ. It was very, view is that when the price of energy is provements, and we have a bigger task very unfortunate. low, businesses can afford to pay better than ever before to provide for the dou­ Let me mention one other thing. Over wages, that these two things-cheap bling of population that we are going to history, generally speaking, we've had energy and higher wages-always go see over the next century. time to solve our problems. With the together. The attitudes against science are just population bulge we are going to see in Yes. That's what we can and must do not new, as you well know. the next few years, we really don't have with technology. The problem now is, very much time. This is going to become there's less time than ever before.

24 Summer 1996 21 st CENTURY NUCLEAR REPORT INTERVIEW WITH SaHEl KONDO

AI'laying the Fear of Chernobyl Fallout

Or. Sohei Kondo, professor emeritus at explosion in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. statistically not significant (Wei et aI., Osaka University, has studied the effects I think that we should fight by all 1990; see also Kondo 1993). of radiation fo r more than 40 years. He means against the use of atomic bombs, This is the case even though the chro­ is retired from the Atomic Energy Re­ which are weapons for killing human mosomal aberration freq uency in pe­ search Institute of Kinki University in beings. But nuclear reactors are operated ripheral blood cells of older people in Osaka, and is the author of Health Ef­ for the benefit of human beings. Further­ Yangjiang is significantly higher than in fects of Low-level Radiation. Or. Kondo more, people should remember that the the control area. That is, chromosomal was interviewed in April by Marjorie casualties after Chernobyl, the world's aberrations in peripheral blood cells are Mazel Hecht. worst nuclear accident, are smaller in not correlated with cancer. numbers than those from many acci­ These results are compatible with the Question: There have been outrageous dents in coal mines or from dam fa ilure. idea that the human body has good de­ claims in the press about the disastrous fense mechanisms against low-level ra­ effects of the radiation released in the Question: How do you assess the radia­ diation, as well as against other natural April 1986 Chernobyl accident. As an tion risk in the region around Cher­ toxic agents. Therefore, I repeat what I expert who has studied radiation health nobyl? wrote in my 1993 book: effects for many years, what is your The potential risk of low-level radia­ "I support the intuitive decision of evaluation of the real situation? tion to the large population exposed to [Chernobyl area] residents who decided I was shocked by the recent news re­ the Chernobyl fallout has been much ex­ to stay in their homes in spite of the con­ ports that hundreds and thousands of aggerated. We know this from the stud­ siderable contamination of their homes people had died as a result of the Cher­ ies of atomic bomb survivors in Japan, and land with radioactive fallout. I nobyl accident. Radioactivity levels even and from studies of people who live in would not be surprised if those who in the highly contaminated areas have areas of high natural radiation. There stayed in houses contaminated by ra­ been far below the lethal level. are, however, significant health effects dioactive fallout I ived longer than those As for the actual effects of radiation: from radiation phobia, which were not who moved away, because there are The good news is that no measurable in­ predicted; these effects were largely many lines of evidence that low-level ra­ crease in childhood leukemia has been caused by the exaggerated claims of risk diation is not harmful but often benefi­ detected . A significant increase had from low-level radiation. cial. ..." [See Kondo 1993 for data.] been predicted, based on experience in For example, many thousands of resi­ The most crucial problem is that there Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On the other dents around Chernobyl were evacuated is not a good way to convey these useful hand, the reported high number of thy­ after they were predicted to receive a data and scientific knowledge about ra­ roid cancers in children in areas having lifetime radiation dose of more than 35 diation to those who need it. In regard to received a high level of iodi ne-1 31 millisievert (mSv). This is a lower radia­ this problem, I am glad to know that re­ came as a surprise to me, because simi­ tion dose, however, than the 39 mSv re­ cently a nonprofit corporation, Radia­ lar levels of 1-1 31 used routi nely for ceived naturally over the lifetime of the tion, Science, and Health, will soon be studies of the thyroid had not caused 74,000 residents of Yangj iang county in organized in the United States and in thyroid cancer in adults. China. The Yangjiang data are from the other countries with the aim of providing However, tumors are caused by multi­ best radiation-epidemiologic study that factual data and scientific knowledge on ple factors. Therefore, there could have we have to date of people exposed to the health effects of low-level radiation. been other tumor-causing factors such as high levels of natural radiation. These data contradict the linear, no­ iodine deficiency, genetic disposition, Since 1970, the 74,000 residents of threshold model for radiation risk that psychological stress due to radiation fear, the Yangjiang region, with a high back­ currently prevails. I sincerely hope that evacuation, social changes, and so on. ground radiation of 5.5 mSv/year (39 true science will eventually serve as a Thyroid cancer, fortunately, is mostly mSv for a 70-year lifetime), have been light in the darkness to the residents liv­ curable. compared with 77,000 residents of a ing in contaminated areas and to the The overall picture is that even includ­ nearby control area, which receives 2.1 Chernobyl clean-up workers by allaying ing the 30 deaths among heroic firefight­ mSv/year from natural radiation, or less their fear of radiation. ers who battled desperately against the than half the Yangjiang dose rate. The In regard to the criterion of true bio­ burning reactor, the casualties after the epidemiological study shows that cancer logical science, the famous geneticist Chernobyl accident are less than 0.1 mortality (including from leukemia) is Theodosius Dobzhansky, an emigrant percent of those from the atomic bomb lower than in the control area, although from the Soviet Union to the United

NUCLEAR REPORT 21 st CENTURY Summer 1996 25 States, said that "nothing in biology statistically significant increase in the six makes sense except in the light of evolu­ 100,------. genetic indicators studied, compared tion." Human beings and all other ani­ with the 10,000 to 45,000 control chil­ mals have evolved in the midst of nat­ dren (see table). If the doubling dose ural rad iation for more than millions of 80 value for mice is applicable to human years. Hence, modern human beings are beings, we expect about a two-fold in­ thought to possess defense mechanisms crease in the genetic effects in survivors' against the risk of radiation at the natural �60 children, but this has not happened. Q) level. This common sense approach to u The leader of the world's largest rad ia­ c: Q) radiation, which is supported by many 'C tion medical study, Professor james V. 40 studies of human populations exposed to � Neel, stated: "The children of the most high natural radiation, is often ignored. highly irradiated population in the world's history provide no statistically 20 Question: You have just returned from a significant evidence that mutations were meeting in Vienna on radiation health produced in their parents. Absence of effects, which reviewed the validity of statistically significant fi ndings does not the currently accepted "no-threshold" deny the possibi I ity that exposed sur­ model for calculating radiation risk. vivors sustained an increased mutation What was determined there? ATOMIC BOMB RADIATION rate undetected by the method em­ At the meeting there were three scien­ AND MENTAL RETARDATION ployed. tists from the United States, three from IN CHILDREN "These studies have produced an ex­ France, fo ur from japan, one from Swe­ The incidence of severe mental tensive body of data against which to den, and the current secretary of the retardation in children exposed empirically evaluate both past and future United Nations Scientific Committee on to atomic bomb radiation in surmises concerning the genetic conse­ the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UN­ Hiroshima and Nagasaki is quences of exposure to ionizing radia­ SCEAR), B.G. Bennett. I had the feeling shown here in relation to prenatal tion. In particular, the studies should that the Radiation, Science, and Health dose. The data are only fo r inci­ prove reassuring to that considerable paradigm was getting started. dence at gestational ages of 8 to group of exposed japanese and their We discussed the agenda for the up­ 15 weeks, the period of greatest children, without whose magnificent co­ coming (November 1997) meeting of the vulnerability to mental injury operation these studies would have been International Atomic Energy Agency on afterex posure to bomb radiation. impossible and who have, over the "Health Effects of Low-level Radiation." years, been subjected to a barrage of ex­ The major topics in this meeting will Source: Adapted from Otake; et al.. 1987 aggerations concerning the genetic risks deal with scientific data and risk assess­ involved" (Neel, et aI., 1990). ments against the linear, no-threshold­ Along these lines, I found it shocking based risk assessment. As Professor Gun­ This no-threshold model was adopted to see the sensational headline "Genetic nar Walinder from Sweden put it, "1 at the first meeting of UNSCEAR in Fallout from Chernobyl" on the front don't hesitate to say that the linear, no­ 1958. I was told that this model was ad­ cover of Nature magazine, April 25, threshold hypothesis is one of the great­ vocated strongly by Hermann j. Muller, 1996. This is a scandalous title based on est scientific scandals in modern times." based on his Nobel prize-winning dis­ no solid evidence. We also agreed that it would be better covery of the linear increase in the fre­ The paper by Dubrova, et al. claimed to delay the enforcement of the Interna­ quency of germline mutations in fruitfl ies that the frequency of germline mutation tional Committee on Radiation Protec­ with increase in the X-ray dose, and his at minisatellite locations was twice as tion's recommendation on the dose lim­ proposal was supported by geneticists high in families inhabiting the heavily its of 20 mSv/year for workers and 1 worldwide. This resulted in suppression cesium-1 37 polluted areas in Belarus as mSv/year for the public, until the 1997 of the threshold model for radiation risk in United Kingdom families. The paper meeting.. .. advocated by committee members from also claimed that the mutation frequency medical fields. in the Belarus families was correlated Question: How did the no-threshold with the level of cesium-137 surface model of radiation risk develop? Question: What is the scientific basis contamination, consistent with radiation As mentioned by jerry Cohen at the for overturning the no-threshold model induction of germline mutation. Vienna meeting, and at a 1995 meeting of radiation risk? This conclusion is not valid, however, of the American Nuclear Society, the Let us first consider the genetic risk of because the United Kingdom families presumption of "no threshold" is a de­ radiation, as th is has been the most are not proper control families for assess­ parture from the previously established feared hazard of rad iation since the first ing the fallout-induced mutations in the principle in toxicology that "the dose meeting of UNSCEAR. Belarus families. Also, doses given to in­ makes the poison," which has been gen­ The 40-year fo llow-up studies of dividual members of the Belarus families erally accepted in public health for as­ 10,000 to 30,000 children born to bomb are not known. sessment of risk from other toxic sub­ survivors in japan, who were exposed to On the other hand, Kodaira, et al. stances. an average of about 0.4 Sv, revealed no (1995) already reported that mean muta-

26 Summer 1996 21 st CENTURY NUCLEAR REPORT in prenatal deaths and abortions, but al­ GENETIC EFFECTS OF RADIATION IN CHILDREN OF most no rise in the number of birth de­ ATOMIC BOMB SURVIVORS fects. Fetuses during organogenesis (in around 9 to 10 days of gestation) are Percentage frequency (number abnormaVnumber studied) more resistant than embryos to killing by Indicator Birth defects, Deaths of Stable Aneuploidy Mutations Leukemia radiation, but they become more suscep­ still births, live-born chromosomal in blood newborns' children aberrations proteins tible to malformation by radiation for deaths doses above a threshold value of about 0.5 Sv. This well-known fact suggests Control 4.99 7.35 0.31 0.30 0.00064 0.05 that some mechanism is screening out (2,257/45,234) (2,451/33,361) (2517,976) (2417,976) (3/4.7x10s) (21/41,069) the damaged fetuses. Exposed1 5.00 7.08 0.22 0.23 0.00045 0.05 We (Norimura et aI., 1996) looked at (503/10,069) (989/13,969) (18/8,322) (19/8,322) (3/6.7x10s) (16/31,159) the effects of X-rays in mice defective in 1. Sum of average doses to mothers and fathers were 0.36 to 0.60 Sv. p53 gene (a well-known tumor suppres­ Source: Adapted from Neel, et aI., 1990 sor gene). In the p53-null mice, there was a dramatic rise in the number of tion frequency per locus per gamete av­ have low incidence and take decades to birth defects, but only a small rise in the eraged over six minisatellite locations appear. In mice, the situation is reversed; number of prenatal deaths and miscar­ was 1.5 percent in families exposed to induced cancers appear in just a year or riages. This supports the notion that em­ an average dose of 1.9 Sv from atomic two with high incidence. This happens bryonic or fetal tissues have a p53-de­ bomb radiation and 2 percent in the un­ even though mutagenesis rates are simi­ pendent "guardian" that aborts cells exposed families who have lived in the lar in mice and humans. bearing radiation-induced teratogenic same areas as the exposed families, ex­ To explain this, I propose that errors in DNA damage. In fact, after X-irradiation, cept for slight differences in the distance wound healing are a major cause of ra­ the number of cells with apoptotic DNA from the hypocenter of the atomic diation carcinogenesis. Wound repair fragments was greatly increased in tis­ bombing. This shows the lack of genetic (tissue repair) in humans occurs at a sues of mice with normal p53 genes, but effects caused by 1.9 Sv of radiation. slower rate, and hence probably with not in those of the p53-null mice. I cannot understand why the UN­ fewer errors than in mice. This could ac­ SCEAR and other authoritative commit­ count for the longer latency period for Question: Can you explain more about tees use mostly experimental data on carcinogenesis and the lower cancer in­ apoptosis? mice instead of this human data for as­ cidence in humans. Apoptosis is also called programmed sessing human genetic risks from radia­ I have also been involved in studies of cell death. All mammalian cells are ge­ tion. mice, which indicate that some mecha­ netically programmed to kill themselves, nism is sqeening the damaged fetuses of and they require continuous signaling by Question: How do you explain the mice exposed to X-radiation in preg­ other cells to avoid programmed death. adaptability of human beings to low­ nancy. It seems that embryonic or fetal Another type of death, necrosis, occurs dose radiation? tissues have a "guardian" of the tissue in a portion of animal tissue differentially From bacteria to human cells, there that aborts cells bearing radiation-in­ affected by loss of blood supply, burn­ are similar mechanisms to deal with duced teratogenic DNA damage. ing, or injury by various agents, includ­ DNA damage induced by ionizing radia­ ing high-level exposure to radiation. tion, ultraviolet light, and other toxic Question: You have said that the fear of Apoptosis mediated by p53 assures agents. These include DNA repair mech­ radiation damage to fetuses is greatly complete elimination of damaged cells, anisms to remove the damage and mech­ exaggerated. VVhy? whereas necrosis often gives rise to anisms to enable the organisms to toler­ The International Atomic Energy residual injury. The fact that there is no ate the damage. The latter are related to Agency estimated that 100,000 to increase in anomalies after low-level ir­ my threshold model for radiation risk. 200,000 induced abortions were per­ radiation suggests that damaged cells I have proposed cell-replacement re­ formed in Europe shortly after the Cher­ recognize their abnormality and protect pair in which damage-bearing cells nobyl accident. If this is true, it is a his­ the whole body by committing apoptosis commit altruistic suicide and are re­ toric tragedy caused by a lack of and by being replaced by healthy cells; placed by healthy ones. For this reason, scientific knowledge about radiation-in­ that is, regeneration. we see that birth-defect-causing injuries duced birth defects. This type of complete tissue repair is induced by X-radiation in the male fru it The incidence of severe mental retar­ considered by Brash (1 996) to be the re­ fl ies at the third larval state are com­ dations after exposure in utero to sult of cellular proofreading by which pletely repaired when the injured areas atomic bomb rad iation was not higher cells, like DNA polymerases, can erase are transplanted into larvae that are two than the control level for doses less than their mistakes. Cellular proofreading that days younger. We have also found sup­ about 0.5 Sv (see figure). This finding is induces ps3-dependent apoptosis of porting evidence for cell-replacement re­ consistent with the fo llowing experi­ damaged cells after low-level exposure, pair in mice. mental findings: if it works, assures a threshold for radia­ To look at this another way: Cancers When we expose mice to X-rays at tion-induced birth defects. in humans caused by ionizing radiation early stages of pregnancy, there is a rise Continued on page 77

NUCLEAR REPORT 21 st CENTURY Summer 1996 27 The G:ompelling Bower ()�Astronomy,

; c. Foreword::l\st�dnomy As a Matter o( M�th38 28 • , 2-. ' '��",. &: ' Greek Astro�emy: A�cen�ing fr9m Se9,�e ��(1:a,i qty 30 ' ' ' The Herschel�t' Rev01ution in Astronomy ";, ' �' " 3 7 Kepler ab<:i Renaissance Science in China

by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. '

, ' As the history of astronomy shows, human know(ecJge i� based not upon simp�e'i

percf}ption, but stud.;"'-,y 'of. the anomalous fa ll ies o( perc;eption. t; .:;:, ,,;. .;�< ,,"" ;:C\t; 'o\ ..<' /17-

he basis for mopern Europ�an science 'ls located in the to, for exa�ple, s�e adolescent pup(I, perhap5' Jhe simplest il­ Twork of Plato and related other ancient Greek:speaking lustration of this point is'Eratosthenes' m�asurement of the po­ opponents of Aristotle: Plato's interrelated notions of lar circumference of the Earth, Without resorting to the rela­ species, ideas, and the method of hypothesis, locate s,cientific tionship between ,Plato's method and the most successful of ' thinking outside and above the defective domain of mere the Greek contributions, to modern astronomy, it is imp.ossible sense-perceptual notions, For the purpose of introducing the to attain a coherent �onception of the distinctions and rel;ation­ nature of this distinction between ideas and sense-perception ship among astrophysics al")d microphysics,' on the ot)e side, '

28 in,habitated by sense-percep-

,The Four, Domains ' Frofl'\ }h�}tandpoin,: of mariJn t�e role of

Curvature of the Earth's surface might also have been indi­ final step by Eratosthenes (276-196 B.C.). cated to Pythagoras by a certain astronomical anomaly, appar­ Aristarchus, the first to put forward a heliocentric theory, ent to any thinking skygazer who travelled between Greece measured the relative distances of the Sun and the Moon and Egypt, as both Thales and Pythagoras did. As one travels from the Earth with the use of the Pythagorean Theorem. even a few hundred miles north or south, the orientation of When there is a half-moon, the line of sight from the Earth to observed daily celestial motion clearly changes. In more the Moon, and the line connecting the Sun and Moon, form a northerly and southerly latitudes, the stars, planets, Sun, and right angle c (Figure 2). The visual approximation of the angu­ Moon move daily in more nearly horizontal planes, while in lar difference b between the earthbound observer's line of more equatorial regions, their paths move in more nearly verti­ sight to the Moon, and his line of sight to the Sun, could then cal planes relative to the surface on which the observer stands be used to determine the remaining angle, a, and, therefore, (Figure 1). If one assumed that the Earth were flat, then how, the shape of the triangle formed between the earthbound ob­ indeed, could this change be understood? server, the Sun, and the Moon. Pythagoras also proved the incommensurabil ity of the Aristarchus estimated angle b to be about 87 degrees, and square root of 2 with rational numbers, laying the ground for therefore the ratio of the distance from the observer to the Sun, Eudoxus' development of the technique of exhaustion after and the observer to the Moon to be about 19 to 1. This ratio is Plato. Eudoxus' own astronomical theory, based on concen­ far too small (it is actually about 391 to 1), but Aristarchus' tric spheres, 27 in all, each sphere rotating on the one under­ method was basically correct. He was fooled by the refraction neath, could, by this sort of multiply connected circular rota­ of the Sun's image in Earth's atmosphere into underestimating tion, explain many heavenly motions. But no one had yet angle b, which is actually more than 89 degrees. determined the sizes or distances from the Earth of any of the Aristarchus also put the ratio of the diameter of the Sun to heavenly bodies. the diameter of the Moon in about the same range, 19 to 1. There were essentially four steps in the determination, to a The apparent, visible diameters of the Sun and Moon are, to an first degree of approximation, of the sizes of the Earth, Sun, Earthbound observer, nearly equal, so much so that in a total and Moon, and their distances from one another. The first solar eclipse the Moon appears just slightly bigger than the three steps were taken by Aristarchus (31 0-230 B.C.), and the Sun, while in an annular solar eclipse, it appears slightly

21st CENTURY Summer 1996 31 the distance of the lunar orbit 600 550 500 450 400 350 300 250 200 B.C. (Figure 4). For example, if the Moon

Thales of Miletus spends 1 hour in partial eclipse (624-547) before moving into fu ll ec lipse, then spends 1 hour in fu ll eclipse, Pythagoras of Samos (572-492) before emerging into partial

Plato of Athens (427-348) eclipse for a fi nal hour, we know that the cone of the Earth's

Eudoxus of Cnidos (408-355) shadow, at the distance of the lu­ nar orbit, must be about two Moon dia meters. But we also Aristarchus of Samos (310-230) know something else. If the total eclipse takes 1 hour, and the total GREEK GEOMETERS IN Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212) RElATION TO PLATO number of hours in the entire cir­ cuit of the Moon around the Earth Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276-196) is about 30 times 24 hours (a month), or 720 hours, then that means the Moon has moved smaller, leaving a ring of the Sun showing around it. Thus, through one Moon diameter while moving through 1/2 degree when it is between the Moon and the Sun, the Earth is at ap­ of its circuit around the Earth.' proximately what is cal ted an internal point of similitude be­ Returning to the ball and stick model, we must adjust the tween those two bodies. When the Moon is between the Earth sticks hinged at B, so that the angle between them in the direc­ and the Sun, the Earth is at a point of external similitude ap­ tion of the Sun and Moon balls is 1/2 degree. proximately. And, indeed, except for (not insignificant) varia­ We also know that the Ealth's umbra, at the distance of the tions in the apparent size of both Sun and Moon-for exam­ Moon ball in the model, is equal to two "Moon diameters." A ple, when rising and setting-the Moon and Sun always frustum of a cone connects the umbra's diameter there (two appear of about equal size, no matter where the Moon is in its Moon diameters approximately) with the Sun ball's diameter orbit around the Earth. on the opposite side of the model (Figure 5). Therefore, reasoned Aristarchus, the difference in the actual Now, complete the cone by extending ABC, the axis of the diameter of the Sun and Moon must be directly proportional to cone, and the two sides of the cone, A'B'C' and A"B"C', to their relative distances from the earthbound observer. meet at 0, the vertex of the cone (Figure 6). This can be done A simple model, using two long sticks that are hinged at with the ball and stick model, by adding two more sticks. Like point B, and tangent to two balls representing the Sun and the first two sticks, which are hinged at B, the new sticks must Moon, helps to make this clear (Figure 3). The Earth's position, be placed tangent to the Sun ball. Instead of intersecting be­ relative to the Sun and Moon, is, in this demonstration, the tween the Sun and Moon balls at B, the second pair of sticks hinge point B, which is the center of similitude of the Sun and must intersect beyond both the Sun and Moon balls at O. Moon balls. No matter what the relative sizes of the Sun and The second pair will not be tangent to the Moon ball, as Moon balls, as long as they are tangent to the two sticks, they were the fi rst two sticks hinged at B; rather, at the distance of will appear to be of equal size to an observer at the hinge the Moon, they will just touch a ring with about twice the di­ point B. ameter of the Moon ball. The diameter of this ring is C'C' in The model does not determine the actual distances of the Figure 6. It is perpendicular to the axis ABCO of the cone (but Sun and Moon balls from B, because the angle of the two doesn't quite pass through C, as can be seen in a greatly exag­ sticks hinged at point B may vary; but it does determine their gerated way in Figure 4). This ring represents the cross section relative distances from B to be proportional to their respective of the Earth's umbra through which the Moon passes when in radii in every possible position. eclipse. We do not as yet know the Earth's diameter, however. We do know that the center of the Earth is at B in Figure 6, Determining the Unseen Size of the Earth and we know that the Earth ball must be tangent to A' B' C 0 Aristarchus also approximated the relative diameters of the and A" B" C' O. The distance from B to 8' must be the rad ius Sun and Earth to be about 19 to 3. There is nothing in the of the Earth ball relative to the Sun and Moon balls in the model developed thus far to show the size of the Earth relative model. For convenience, this is represented on the diagram by to the Moon and Sun. Only the Earth's relative position has a perpendicular to ABCO from B to line A' 8' C' 0, but been shown. Aristarchus used a lunar eclipse to determine the Aristarchus makes a point of demonstrating that such a line is size of the Earth relative to the Sun and Moon, and to deter­ only imperceptibly different in length from a radius drawn mine the distances between Sun, Moon, and Earth in terms of from B to B', the point of tangency. That radius is not, strictly Earth diameters. speaking, perpendicular to A8CO, and would be so only if Sun Two quantities, the duration of a total lunar eclipse, and the and Earth had the same radii, making A' 8' C' parallel to A8C. time the Moon is in partial eclipse moving toward total Similar triangles such as AA'O, BB'O, and CCO thus pro­ eclipse, permit the construction of a ratio between the Moon's vide a basis for using the Pythagorean Theorem to show why diameter and the diameter of the Earth's fu ll shadow (umbra) at Aristarchus gave the Earth 3 times the diameter of the Moon

32 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY *

*

N S S S S

Figure 1 A CLUE THAT THE EARTH IS NOT FLAT Curvature of the Earth's surfa ce might have been indicated to Pythagoras by the changing courses of fa miliar constella­ tions as he tra veled between Egypt and Greece. At the equator, the North Star (marking the celestial pole) lies on the horizon and the rest of the stars pass over in vertical planes. As the tra veler moves north, the North Star is fo und higher and higher in the sky, until it is directly overhead upon reaching the North Pole, where the other stars move in circles parallel to the horizon. If the Earth were flat, how could these changes be understood?

and 3/1 9 the diameter of the Sun. The measurement of the about 252,000 stades, or about 24,662 miles. This puts the di­ Earth's radius, relative to the Sun and Moon, actually depends ameter of the Earth at about 7,850 miles-only about 50 miles on something unseen, namely the distance of the vertex of off the actual polar diameter of the Earth; and, of course, it Earth's umbra's cone at OJ puts its radius at half that, or about 3,925 miles. The small size of the Earth relative to the Sun obviously Refer back to Aristarchus' proportions for the relative diame­ bears on why Aristarchus would hypothesize that the Earth re­ ters and distances of Earth, Sun, and Moon as shown in the volved around the Sun, and not vice versa. It also meant some­ ball and stick model in Figure 6. If the Earth radius of 3,925 thing else. The much greater distance of the Sun than the miles is equivalent to .03 in the model, then the Moon radius, Moon from the Earth, despite the apparent equality of size of which is .01 of the Earth radius, will be about 1308.3 miles. the Sun and Moon as viewed from Earth, meant that the Sun's The Sun radius, which is .19 the Earth radius, will then be rays could be regarded as nearly parallel when viewed from about 24,857.7 miles. The distance from the Earth to the any two locations on the Earth. (Why might not the stars sim­ ply be far distant Suns, the rays from which would be even more nearly parallel than our Sun?) Moon This idea of parallel rays was, as we shall see, the hypothesis underlying Eratosthenes' discovery of the size of the Earth. a

Eratosthenes' Method of Measuring the Earth Eratosthenes' simple, but profound, determination of the Sun Earth's circumference in terms of a metric of human scale, the stadium (about 157.5 meters, or 516.73 feet, or 1/1 0.29 miles), can only now be situated. By measuring the angular difference of the Sun's rays, relative to a plumb line, at two points almost on the same meridian (Syene and Alexandria), one almost due north of the other, and assuming the Sun's rays to be nearly Earth parallel, Eratosthenes was able to determine what proportion of the Earth's circumference lay between the two locations. Figure 2 Between Syene (modern-day Aswan) and Alexandria, there THE RELATIVE DISTANCES OF SUN AND MOON is an angular difference of just over 7 degrees between the When there is a half Moon, a right angle, c, is fo rmed shadows cast by the Sun at noon on the day of the summer by the line of sight from the Earth to the Moon, and the solstice, or just about 1/50th of a circle of 360 degrees. Assum­ line connecting the Sun and Moon. Once the angle b is ing the Sun's rays to be nearly parallel, Eratosthenes showed measured by the observer, the shape of the triangle is that this measured 7-degree difference in the Sun's shadow known, and the ra tios of the sides can be determined. mirrored a 7-degree difference, measured from the center of The accuracy of this calculation by Aristarchus was the Earth, between Syene and Alexandria (Figure 7).2 Eratos­ limited, because he was unaware of the diffraction of thenes simply multiplied the distance between Syene and the Sun's rays in Earth's atmosphere, which distorts the Alexandria, which was about 5,000 stadia (or stades) by 50 to position of the Sun. find the Earth's circumference, which Eratosthenes estimated at

21st CENTURY Summer 1996 33 A ______-H____ �����------�

Figure 4 THE DIAMETER OF THE MOON OCCUPIES HALF A DEGREE OF THE MOON'S ORBIT AROUND THE EARTH Two quantities, the duration of a total lunar eclipse, and Figure 3 the time the Moon is in partial eclipse moving toward THE RELATIVE DIAMETERS OF SUN AND MOON total eclipse, permit the construction of a ratio between Aristarchus noted that the Sun and Moon have very the Moon's diameter and the diameter of Ea rth's full nearly the same apparent diameters when seen from shadow at the distance of the lunar orbit. How? Ea rth. He reasoned that the ratio of their actual diame­ The observer on Earth at B watches the Moon, C, ters must therefore be the same as the ratio of their dis­ during a total eclipse in which the Moon lies in Ea rth 's tances. This diagram depicts the geometry of the situa­ shadow. If the Moon spends 7 hour in partial eclipse, tion. The observer on Earth is at B. Bodies C and A have before reaching totality (that is, ta kes 7 hour to entirely the same angular diameter (diameter in degrees, appar­ cross the boundary of Ea rth 's shadow), and then spends ent diameter) from this vantage point. Although the dis­ 7 hour in total eclipse (that is, takes 7 hour to cross to tances of the two bodies are riot fixed by this relation­ the other side of the shadow), then the cone of Earth 's ship, it does determine the ra tio of their distances. . shadow at the distance of the Moon must be about 2 Moon diameters .. The fi rst measure establishes a rela­ tion between time of tra vel and angular distance; the Modn, at 1, will be about 39,250 miles, while the distance second applies this relation. from the Earth to the Sun, which is 19 times the Earth radius, If the Moon makes 7 orbit around the Earth in about will be about 248,577 miles. 30 days (about 720ho urs), and it takes 7 hour fo r the That these figures are not accurate, because of observational Moon's disc to entirely cross the boundary of Earth's error, is of minor importance in comparison with the fact that a shadow, then the proportion of the Moon's diameter to method had been established for measuring the heavens! Such its orbit is about 7/720, or about half of 7 degree. measurements were enough in the right direction, in fact, to make a heliocentric theory the most reasonable way of looking at things-unless fear of the Aristotelians with their Earth-cen­ at B (in Figure 5), which point, in the model, is actually the tered cosmology were to make one rationalize that the Sun, center of the Earth, Archimedes takes this apparently negligible despite its size and obvious energy, were somehow hollow or difference and makes it the basis for all future measurement of lacking in density. celestial distances! Erastosthenes' measurement of the size of the Earth also led The reason for Archimedes' invention of the concept of par­ directly to Archimedes' (if not his own) discovery of parallax as allax in The Sand Reckoner was not as a method of observa­ discussed in The Sand Reckoner. tion; indeed one of his "observation posts" would be at the center of the Earth. Rather, Archimedes saw it as a way of ad­ The Discovery of Parallax justing for observational error, because, for him, the true dis­ Parallax is based on the same principle that allows depth tance between the Earth and the Sun would have to be be­ perception. Each eye, or point of perspective, sees objects from tween their respective centers of gravity, which are, of course, a different angle, relative to some baseline. The basel ine of vi­ not directly observable. sion is a line connecting the two eyes. The closer an object, the Yet, parallax later formed a powerfu l observational tool for greater the angle subtended at the object being viewed by the measuring celestial distances generally. Two observation sites two lines of sight. (Too close, and you have to "cross" your on the same meridian could be used-following the method of eyes to see it!) The longer the baseline, the farther away an ob­ Eratosthenes' measurement of the Earth itself-to determine ject can be and sti ll subtend a measurable angle. Very distant . the precise radial angle between the two sites, Band C, from objects can serve as a fixed backdrop against which angular the center of the Earth A; namely, angle BAC, Figure 8(a). diffe rences among closer objects can be measured. AC and AB are nearly equal (both are Earth radii), triangle Archimedes' improvement on Aristarchus' heliocentric the­ ABC is isosceles, and angles ABC and ACB are equal to 1/2 of ory in The Sand Reckoner, his insistence on taking account of the difference between 180 degrees and angle BAC. These re­ the Earth's own diameter in Moon and Sun measurements, is lationships-once the radius of the Earth was known--deter­ based on this concept of parallax. Rather than assuming, as in mined a measurable length for the straight line or chord dis­ the ball and stick model, that an observer on Earth is situated tance BC, passing through the Earth underneath arc distance

34 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY BC on the surface of the Earth. AB and AC, when extended, equals 180 degrees minus the sum of angles ACB and y. Angle also represent plumb lines at Band C on the Earth's surface, BoC is then 180 degrees minus angles CBo and BCD. Figure 8(b). Because the length of chord BC is already known, the Measure the angle between the line of sight Bo to celestial lengths of DC and DB can be determined using the trigono­ object 0, preferably observed at a time when 0 is in the same metric relations of cosines and sines, simply by knowing an­ plane as triangle ABC, and the plumb line BA, to find angle x. gles BCD and CBo. Thus the quadrilateral ABoC forms a stan­ Measure the angle between the line of sight CO, and the dard method for measuring celestial distances. plumb line ACto find angle y. Then angle CBo equals 180 de­ Angle BoC can also be determined by comparing the angu­ grees minus the sum of angles ABC and x, and angle BCD lar differences between line of sight observations at B and C of

. A'

Umbra

A B

A" Figure 5 THE DIAMETER OF THE SUN AS A FRACTION OF THE EARTH-SUN DISTANCE Now that the angular size of the Moon and the Sun is known to be half of 1 degree, the ball and stick model described in the text and in Figure 2 can be specified more exactly. In an isosceles triangle, such as t::.BA'A" or t::.BEF, with the angle enclosed by the equal sides being about half of 1 degree as shown (diagram not to scale), AB - 100 A'A", and BC - 100 EF, very approximately. A' A", for example, is about 1/720 of the circumference of a circle with B as center and AB as radius. AB, the radius, is slightly more than 1/6 of the circle's circumference, so AB is a little less than 120 A'A". See (e) and (f) in the caption to Figure 6.

Sun Vertex of Earth's umbra A' Earth Moon

C' A c \D 19

C" 8"

A"

Not to scale Figure 6 THE RELATIVE DIAMETERS OF THE SUN, EARTH, AND MOON Aristarchus estimated the diameter of the Earth, relative to the Sun and Moon, using the relationships developed so fa r. His measurement depends on the geometric construction of the unseen vertex of Earth 's umbra at Of (a) Let BC = 1. The Sun is 19 times as fa r fro m Earth as Earth is from the Moon, or AB = 19BC. (b) The solar diameter is 19 times that of the Moon. (c) The Sun and Moon as seen from Earth, both have apparent diameters of about 1/2 degree of a great circle around the Earth. (d) The diameter of Ea rth's umbra at the Moon, C CI t is about 2 times the Moon's diameter. (e) The diameter of the Moon will be about .01, so that of Earth's umbra at the lunar orbit will be about .02. (f) The diameter of the Sun will be about . 19. See caption to Figure 5. Therefore, C C' - .02 and CO/C C' = Bo/B ' B" = Ao/A' A" and the Moon's diameter = .01. 1. CO/C C' = (CO + CA)/A ' A" or Co/ 02 = (CO + 20)/ 19 and CO = 2.35.

2. COIC C' = (CO + CB)/B ' B" or 2.35/02 = (2.35 + 1 )/B ' B" and B' B" = .03. 3. B' B"/M oon's diameter = .03/01 and Earth 's diameter = 3 Moon diameters = 3/1 9 of the Sun's diameter.

21 st CENTURY Summer 1996 35 (a)

B� __.- ______.-��C Shadow at Alexandria 7.20 Sun's rays

No shadow at Syene nearly paraliel

A

Figure 7 ERATOSTHENES MEASURES THE EARTH By measuring the angular difference of the Sun's rays, relative to a plumb line, at two points nearly on the same meridian, one due north of the other (Syene and Alexandria), and assuming the Sun's rays to be nearly (b) 0 parallel, Eratosthenes was able to determine what pro­ portion of the Earth's circumference lay between the two locations.

celestial object 0, and of one far more distant, whose rays of light can be considered nearly parallel, relative to the rays from O. Eratosthenes' measurement of the Earth itself prefig­ ured this approach, and Hipparchus' measurement of the 'dis­ x tance to the Moon was also based on it.

. Heliocenti'ism Reinforced B�------� With Eratosthenes' measurement of the Earth, and his and Archimedes' development of the concept of parallax directly from that Earth measurement, a much more universal method for measuring the heavens than Aristarchus' "half-Moon" tech­ nique was found. But, more important, Aristarchus' concept of A a heliocentric system was actually reinforced. By virtue of hav­ ing fo und one single form of measurement for both Earth and the heavens, the Aristotelian, hermetic separation of the two realms, the very basis for objections to the heliocentric theory, had been exploded. In fact, a more universal concept was implied. The ground was laid for Archimedes to argue, in The Sand Reckoner, that Figure 8 there is implicitly no body or distance in creation that is unin­ PARALLAX AS A MEANS OF MEASURING 3 telligible to man. CELESTIAL DISTANCES Eratosthenes may not have actually accepted Aristarchus' ra­ The distance to a celestial object 0 in (b), namely, tio of 19 to 1 for the relative distances of Sun and Moon from length DB or DC, can be determined by establishing the Earth. In fact, although Eratosthenes' own work on the sub­ the length BC and the angles BCD and CBo. ject of the distances between the Earth, Sun, and Moon is lost, so that we must rely on secondhand sources, it is possible that he put the ratio as high as 1,000 to 1. This latter ratio is closer 2. The demonstration of this point in Figure 7 can be buttressed with a to the truth tha'n 19 to 1, and would be coherent with Eratos­ counter-example showing the "common sense" interpretation of angular thenes' assumption that the Sun's rays can be considered par­ differences between the shadows from the Sun's rays at Alexandria and Syene. Draw a straight line, representing a flat Earth, and mark Alexan­ allel when they reach the Earth. dria and Syene on the line. Place the Sun directly over Syene, and draw Eratosthenes' measurement of the Earth would have permit­ lines, representing the Sun's rays, from the center of the Sun to the two cities. At Syene, there is no shadow, and at Alexandria, there is some an­ ted him to determine, through parallax, as Hipparchus did gie (in fact, 7 degrees) between the Sun's rays and a vertical post erected later, the distance to the Moon, but there is no surviving record there. There is actually nothing wrong with this picture, so far. that he did so. Thus it was not the observation of shadows per se that allowed Era­ tosthenes to determine the size of the Earth, but the prior determination Bob Robinson works with the Schiller Institute in Norfolk, by Aristarchus that the Sun was relatively much bigger than the Earth, Virginia, and writes on science and geometry. and that the Sun must be far enough away (given its apparent size), that its rays could be considered parallel. Notes; ------3. For an elaboration of Archimedes' work, see the author's article "Eureka! 1. Aristarchus evidently arrived at the figure of 1/2 degree later in his life. His Rediscovering the Method of Archimedes," 21st Century, Fall 1995, earlier estimates were too high. p. 19.

36 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY / / /

PEGASUS

, ..

c.i E

Lost is the landscape at once in the dark wood's secret recesses his passage comes from the elegy "Der Spaziergang" Where a mysterious path leads up the winding ascent. T(The walk), written by Friedrich Schiller in 1795. Possi­ There through crossing boughs the noonday dimly admitting, bly, it was inspired by the investigations of the bold ama­ Smiling with furtive glance scarce the blue heaven looks in. teur astronomer Wilhelm Herschel-or William Herschel, as Suddenly rent is the veil-All startled I view with amazement he came to be known in England-who was the first to recog­ Through the wood's opening glade, blazing in splendor, the day. nize, along with the immense spatial distance, the equally vast Heavens! What a prospect extends, till the sight bewildered and fa iling temporal distance between the heavenly bodies. In the Her­ Rests on the world's last hill, shimmering in distance and mist- schel home, poetry was treasured, and it was above all Friedrich Schiller's poems that were often read aloud on long Deep at myfe et, when sheer to its base the precipice plunges, winter nights. When William's son, John, carried out astro­ La! Where the glassy stream glides through its margin of green­ nomical research years later at the Cape of Good Hope, he Boundless, above and around and below me, the Aether is rolling, continued this tradition; he wrote poetry himself, and made his Giddy aloftI gaze, shuddering recoil from beneath. own English translations of some of Schiller's poems, including Yet 'twixt the yawning gulph, and the cliffin honor impending, "Der Spaziergang," because the existing ones did not seem Led by a rock-built path, safely the wanderer descends.1 good enough to him.

21st CENTURY Summer 1996 37 From The Scientific Papers of Sir William Herschel Most of the Herschels' observing was done with this 20-foot telescope (mirror diameter about 79 inches) constructed by William Herschel in the 77805.

Early Investigations of the Stars map is dated 940 AD., and was used in particular for naviga­ Astronomy is a wonderful case study for pursuing the ques­ tional purposes. tion of how man views his place in the world, or how seriously It can be said that modern astronomical observatories have he takes himself. The development of astronomy can, in fact, their origin in Chinese tradition-although today it is widely be considered as a mirror image of the development of the hu­ claimed that the Chinese conducted observations of the heav­ man mind. Man may see the stars merely as reference points ens merely for astrological purposes. for his own daily existence, serving him as nothing but harbin­ Thanks to their star maps, Chinese ships reached India and gers of fortune, honor, and wealth, or of frightening, in­ the Red Sea by 70 A.D. Agriculture, iron manufacture, and salt escapable blows of fate. Or he may direct questions to the ob­ extraction also flourished, and water flows began to be regu­ servable heavenly bodies, from the standpoint of how they lated in order to improve usage. Directed against these devel­ might help him master the forces of nature, and attempt, opments, which sprang above all from the scientifically ori­ through systematic cataloging of their positions, to find new ented Confucian outlook, was the mystical Taoist irrationalism types of lawfulness. with its yin-yang principle, which at the end of the Han dy­ These two utterly opposed directions of thought run through nasty (25-220 A.D.) attained its greatest influence. If we exam­ the entire documentable history of astronomy. The fi rst docu­ ine the demographic trend in this period, we recognize the mented investigations of the stars, made by the scholar Fu Hi, devastating effects-apart from eventual plagues or wars-of are found 3,000 years before Christ in China. The first tabula­ the dissemination of mysticism and superstition: in the year 2 tion of large star tables by the Chinese astronomers Gan De, B.C, there were 57.6 million people in China, but in 157 Shi Shen, and Wu Xian date from 400 B.C The simple armil­ A.D., only 56.5 million. lary sphere they used was already developed in China by 2400 Only if man self-consciously transcends fate, and acknowl­ B.C and was based on the equatorial system. The Mercator or edges the unique greatness and sublimity of his mind, can he cylindrical projection also originated in China. The oldest such make fruitful hypotheses about processes in the universe and

38 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY use them for his purposes. Any lower self-conception will in­ above all, who elaborated the idea of imago viva dei, of man evitably bring destructive consequences. in the living image of God, and introd uced in his writings the In Babylon, too, and in ancient Egypt, the speculative and idea of the nation-state, which would ensure the greatest free­ mystical tendency in astronomy seems to have become pre­ dom for intellectual development and creativity, on behalf of dominant. It was among the Greeks that it first regained a sci­ this divine likeness. These ideas laid the basis for the accom­ entific character. plishments of the Golden Renaissance, above all the develop­ ment of perspective in painting, the mathematics of a Luca Pa­ Aristarchus versus ptolemy cioli, and the astronomy of Copernicus, who had spent a long Eratosthenes, Aristarchus, and Hipparchus, all active in the time in Italy. second century B.C., developed ideas about the shape of the Next, Johannes Kepler, in his works Mysterium Cosmo­ Earth and its place in the universe for the first time. Eratos­ graphicum and Harmonices Mundi, fo rmulated the concept, thenes established the ecliptic with high accuracy for that era, that man in the likeness of God improves the laws of the uni­ and determined the Earth's circumference. Hipparchus deter­ verse themselves and makes them more beautiful, that the cre­ mined the irregularities in the orbit of the Moon; he also in­ ation is a living process which undergoes constant self-devel­ vented an astrolabe, and with its help, he estimated the posi­ opment. He specifically identified the correspondence tions of more than 1,000 fixed stars on the celestial sphere. between the Platonic solids and the orbits of the planets, and Aristarchus determined the distances of the Sun and Moon, thus recognized that the living principle in the universe under­ and was the fi rst to hypothesize that the motions of the planets lying physical structures, acts in the same way in the universe and the fixed stars could be far better explained if the Sun as on Earth (for example, in the formation of a snowflake, a were treated as the center of the system. blossom, or an apple). This living principle is described with These calculations and hypotheses ceased when the power­ genial humor, for example, in Kepler's little piece, A New ful oligarchic circles behind the cult of the Delphic oracle de­ Year's Gift, or On the Six-Sided Snowflake. In a poem at the creed, that the Ptolemaic dogma of the Earth as center of the end of Mysterium Cosmographicum, he very beautifully ex­ universe was the "immovable" truth. Through the victory of pressed his image of man: this doctrine, the development of astronomy was obstructed fo r more than 1,000 years. Great Builder of the Universe, what plea In the period of the general decay of the sciences in Europe, Of the poor, humble, small inhabitant astronomy found an outlet among the Arabs. But here, too, the · Of this so tiny plot compelled Thy care Ptolemaic corpus was translated three times, and no deliberate For his harsh troubles? Yet thou dost look down effort was made to question this dogma. On his unworthiness, carry him up Nevertheless, the important role of the Arabs must be em­ On high, a little lower than the gods, ... phasized, above all in the compilation and transmission of all Thou makest all that is above his head, previous knowledge. In the 9th and 10th centuries, Arab as­ The great spheres with their motions, bow before tronomy flowered. The great al-Batani determined the preces­ His genius.... 2 sion of the Earth's orbit and its eccentricity, and calculated the length of the year, to an accuracy of two minutes. Nasir ai-Din al-Tusi's astronomical tables were known throughout The 'False Coiner' Newton Asia and even in China; these observations were carried out In the same way that 1,400 years earlier, the political and with the astrolabes that had been adopted from the Greeks. In religious elite had imposed the Ptolemaic world picture against addition to the Greek influence, the Indian work Siddhanta that of Aristarchus, the effect of Kepler's ideas was now diluted (in Arabic, Sindhind) was brought to Baghdad in 771 . In the by the dogmas of Galileo and Newton. The point of departure Koran, too, are admonitions to mankind to take up the impor­ was a small, perfidious distortion of a crucial progression of tant work of investigating the heavens. In Sure 6, no. 97, for thought: F.rom Kepler's laws of planetary motion, it is of course example, we read : possible to derive the law of gravitation, with which the attrac­ tive force between two bodies is calculated. Newton and his He it is Who has made the stars for you, that you might fo llowers, however, simply turned things around and main­ follow the right way with their help through the dark tained, that this attractive force caused the motion of the plan­ expanses on land and sea; We have made plain our signs, ets and the structure of the universe! That means-to be con­ to men who understand. sistent-that the planets are quite accidentally ordered by Newton's postulated force of attraction in just the elliptical Cusa's Revolution manner around the sun discovered by Kepler, that the Thus, on the one hand, man sees himself as pure observer of snowflakes quite accidentally always form themselves with six creation, whose forces of Nature astonish him, but whose laws sides, crystals quite accidentally take on the most varied regu­ he does not understand, and for whose effects on his daily ex­ lar geometric shapes, and snail shells are quite accidentally istence, he can only seek mystical explanations. A different shaped like logarithmic spirals. mentality appears quite early: Man is a fellow architect of the Reality, however, is exactly the other way around. Only universe. He can recognize the beauty of its lawfulness and when a constantly active geometrical lawfulness underlying put that lawfulness to human use. the universe is presupposed, can we recognize the beautiful The decisive breakthrough for this latter mode of thought lawfu lness in Nature, which always strives in the direction of was the Council of Florence, and it was Nicholas of Cusa, the greatest harmony. Today, this outlook is dismissed as "mys-

21 st CENTURY Summer 1996 39 ticism." In fact, the door is opened to mysticism when such schel, in her biography of Caroline, "but William and Caroline higher lawfu lness is denied. All phenomena in Nature are then were the only ones to possess 'the strong backbone of stub­ either accidental, or produced by the arbitrary will of higher born perseverance,' and those higher principles, which en­ powers. Thus it was that Newton himself, as was first publicly abled the genius in them to complete its tasks." revealed in this century, pursued alchemy and occultism. Isaak Herschel, father of William and Caroline, who had To this day, Newton's dogmas dominate the thinking of wanted to follow in the footsteps of their grandfather, a land­ "established" science. It is exactly like the heyday of Taoism scape gardener on the royal estates in Dresden, also had a pas­ in ancient China: Cults and mystical thinking are used to sion for music. He took every opportunity to practice the vio­ keep the individual stupid, because then it is easier to influ­ lin, and also educated himself under the guidance of an oboist ence and control him. This school of thought hates the forma­ in the royal music corps. At the age of 21, he put his violin un­ tion of scientific hypotheses about the causes of phenomena der his arm and resolved to seek his fortune in Berlin. After fur­ in visible space, because hypothesis formation endows men ther study, made possible by support from his mother and sis­ with the inner freedom against which no oligarchy can last­ ter, he fi nally found a position as oboist in the music corps of ingly prevail. the Hanover guard Few know that the regiment. He was famous Orapier's Let­ married in August ters, in which 1732, and had 10 Jonathan Swift rallied children, of whom 6 the Irish against "false survived childhood. coinage," was directly Friedrich William aimed at Isaac New­ was born in 1738; ton. As Master of the Caroline Lukrezia Royal Mint, Newton in 1750. shared responsibility The father used for the issuance of de­ every opportunity to preciated coins in Ire­ develop the musical land. This "devalua­ talents of his sons tion" had the same (the daughters, when effect as the policy of not at thei r school­ the International From The Scientific Papers of Sir William Herschel work, were relegated Monetary Fund today: William Herschel's sketch of Saturn accompanying his 1794 paper, "Observa­ to helping their Ireland provided all tions on a Quintuple Belt on the Planet Saturn. " Working in the era before mother with house­ of England with food­ photography, Herschel recorded his observations with sketches. Later, his son, hold tasks), and stuffs, while the in­ John, played a role in the development of photography, and coined the terms William's brilliant habitants of the "photography" and "negative. " gift soon displayed "green island" suf- itself. H is brothers, fered hunger. The King of England, grateful for this financial res­ too, gained distinction as musicians: Jakob became a famous vi­ cue operation, made Newton the president of the Royal Society. olin virtuoso, Alexander gained a career in England as a cellist, Newton's "scientific authority" was established when the and Dietrich also made a name for himself as a violinist. Royal Society (presided over by Newton himself) declared William, however, surpassed them. Not only did he master Newton the "inventor" of the infi n itesimal calculus. Yet, just the French language in half the time his brothers had required, as Newton's theory of gravitation was a distortion of the Kep­ but in Latin and arithmetic the teacher soon had to confess that lerian planetary laws, Newton's calculus was a plagiarism-it William had overtaken him. At 14, he was already an excel­ was a watered-down form of Leibniz's calculus. Leibniz de­ lent violinist and oboist. And very early, he seems to have fended himself against Newton's distortions, but thanks to ex­ been inspired by great ideas. In her recollections of frequent tensive support on the part of the powerful British elite, those nocturnal discussions, Caroline records that conversation be­ distortions became generally accepted over the course of time. tween Isaak and William usually extended to philosophical Another opponent of Newton was Christian Huygens of subjects, and that Holland, who worked closely with Leibniz in many fields. While Newton espoused the view that light propagates in the William and his father were often arguing with such form of particles, Huygens proceeded from the standpoint that warmth that my mother's interference became necessary, light propagates in the form of waves. Huygens's discoveries when the names of Leibniz, Newton and Euler sounded were the foundation for important progress in optics, which rather too loud for the repose of her little ones, who ought then became the basis for further discoveries in astronomy. to be in school by seven in the morning.3 The legitimate heirs of Kepler, Leibniz, and Huygens were William and Caroline Herschel, brother and sister. Isaak Herschel was also devoted to astronomy. He had some knowledge in this field, and Caroline writes: A Family of Musicians and Astronomers "The whole family seems to have been endowed with a I remember him taking me out into the streets on a cold touch of genius," wrote Caroline's niece, the wife of John Her- night, in order to introduce me to some of our most

40 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY ganist at the Octagon Church in the town of Bath, an exclusive resort of the kingdom's upper classes. Only once, for a short time in 1764, did he return to Hanover; Caroline recalls that because of her household duties at the time, she barely had a chance to see her "dearest brother." In the same year, their fa­ ther suffered a stroke, and could only drag himself arduously through his last three years, until he died on May 22, 1767, at the age of 61 . A decisive turn in Caroline's life next occurred when her beloved brother William proposed a plan to bring her to Bath for two years, "to test whether, under his guidance, I might be able to develop into a useful singer for his winter concerts." In August 1772, Caroline took leave of her family and birthplace in Hanover, not to return for 50 years, upon her brother's death. In England, along with work as a soprano and housekeeper, greater tasks awaited Caroline: She became the most important collaborator of the astronomer William Herschel.

William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus in the course of his second survey of the heavens, fo r which he used a tele­ scope with a mirror of 6.2 inches diameter. The discovery created a sensation-only 6 planets had been known since antiquity. Th is German sky map shows the path of Uranus among the stars at the time of its discovery: March 73, 7787, was the date of discovery itself, and a date in August is marked at the fa r left.

beautiful constellations, after we had observed a comet that was just visible.4

But these talents could not be expressed until later, be­ cause the Seven Years War forced the male members of the family into the English army for a long time. After the unfor­ tunate campaign of 1757 and the defeat at Halstenbeck, where the Duke of Cumberland's army suffered heavy losses, a great effo rt by William's mother succeeded in keeping him from conscription after his first home leave, because of his lack of strength. When father Isaak returned from the war in broken health, he made all the more strenuous efforts toward the further edu­ cation of his children. His character must have been an excep­ tional one, for despite constant painful affl ictions, he worked until the final day of his life, and gave his children a shining example of patience, generosity, and self-sacrifice.

A Musician in England At this time, William, who had remained in England, eking out a livel ihood as a musician, was leading a highly irregular existence. First he directed a small military orchestra for the Duke of Darli ngton in Durham; next, a well-known organist provided him with a chance to perform as a violinist; and in 1765 he won a competition for the position of organist in Hali­ From The Scientific Papers of SirWilliam Herschel fax. In addition to performing, he wrote many compositions, The page from William Herschel's journal on which he noted including 18 short symphonies, seven violin concerti, and at his first sighting of Uranus, identifying it as a possible comet. least six sonatas for solo violin.s Around this time, he also Under Tuesday, March 73, he writes, "/n the quartile near t composed military marches, songs for vocal ensembles, organ Ta uri the lowest of two is a curious either nebulous star or works, oratorios, and overtures, most of them, unfortunately, perhaps a comet. A small star fo llows the comet at 2/3 of the since lost. fi eld's distance. " Th e vertical lines indicate that he has tran­ Finally, in December 1766, he obtained the position of or- scribed these notes.

21st CENTURY Summer 1996 41 Music and Astronomy This rapid rotation causes the marked flattening of the planet at In addition to leading the chorus, taking part in vocal in­ its poles, and Herschel assumed that it was not completely struction, and composing motets and songs, William had be­ spheroidal, but roughly comparable to a rectangle with ex­ gun in 1766 to observe the skies. That year, he recorded, he tremely rounded-off corners. In today's telescopes, Saturn ap­ observed Venus and some eclipses of the moon. Robert pears as an exact ellipsoid of rotation. Herschel devoted his at­ Smith's book Harmonics then led him through musical the­ tention to every phenomenon on Saturn, including the density ory, and from there increasingly to mathematics and the ce­ and other characteristics of the rings, their irregularities, and lestial harmonies; when Caroline arrived in Bath, he was al­ thei r spots. ready firmly resolved to build his own instruments and make Later, as well, Herschel again and again returned to observa­ more precise studies of the heavens himself. Of this first inter­ tions of Saturn. His most significant work on this subject was lude in Bath, Caroline recalls: the discovery of a sixth and seventh moons of Saturn, Ence­ ladus and Mimas. They are fa int objects of magnitude 11.6 to He considered his employment merely as a means to 12, mostly outshone by Saturn's great brightness, and can be an end. His position as a musician provided him with an found only during their greatest angular distance, by large in­ income and a certain leisure, and with each day, leisure struments. became more necessary to him. Every free moment of Herschel succeeded in making this discovery after the mir­ the day and many hours stolen from the night were ror for the 40-foot telescope was finally cast on February 16, dedicated to his studies, which aroused the wish to 1788, after two failed effo rts. It was 9 cm thick (3.5 inches) observe the stars for himself. Lack of proper mechanical with a diameter of 122 cm (48 inches), and weighed 100 kilo­ equipment aroused his powers of invention, and the 40- grams (220 pounds). In order to grind and polish it, 24 workers foot monster of a telescope was, as is well known, the had to be put on day and night shifts. Yet even this effort left glorious result. .. . too many irregularities, and Herschel had to construct a pol­ [As a first step] ...my brother was no longer satisfied ishing machine before he could successfully aim the giant tele­ to be cognizant of what others observed. He began to scope at the sky. He then immediately discovered Enceladus plan (using Huygens's description, I believe) an 18- to 20- on August 28, 1789, and Mimas on September 17. foot telescope. One of his numerous visitors wrote, after viewing Sirius through the 40-foot telescope: At once, the most diverse efforts were under way, and after Easter, when many students departed as usual for the summer, When the star Sirius came into the field of vision, the every room in the house was transformed into a workshop. A eye was so blinded, that all the weaker stars could no cabinetmaker was constructing tubes in the handsomely fur­ longer be perceived. It took 20 minutes, until they were nished parlor, and in one of the bedrooms, brother Alexander, visible once more. who often spent the summer with them, installed a large lathe, in order to turn parts, grind glass, and prepare lenses. The Discovery of Uranus In the summer of 1774, they moved into a new house with In 1775, Herschel undertook for the first time a detailed "ce­ more room for workshops and a place on the roof which could lestial survey," in which he catalogued all the stars down to be used as an observatory. Here a 20-foot telescope was in­ the fourth magnitude. After moving to a still larger house in stalled, employing rnirrors of 7- and la-foot focal length, and 1779, he undertook a second survey, in which every star was for which a 12-foot [ll irror was also constructed. A telescope of registered to the eighth magnitude. Here he reports on a singu­ 7-foot focal length requires a mirror of diameter 5 or 6 inches.6 lar discovery: Because of William Herschel's ground-breaking work in the de.velopment of ever larger mirrors, which required unimagin­ On Tuesday, the 13th of March, between ten and able effort in grinding them by hand, a constellation was later eleven in the evening, while I was investigating the small named for him: The constellation Telescopium Herschelli de­ stars in the neighborhood of H Geminorum [star H of the picts his 7-foot telescope.7 constellation, The Twins], I perceived a star which seemed visibly larger than the others. Surprised by its Observing Saturn unusual brightness, I compared it with H Geminorum and For a long time, Saturn and its rings, which the earliest tele­ the small star in the rectangle between the Charioteer and scopes could not clearly see, had been depicted as a sort of Gemini, and found it far larger than either, so that I pot with handles. Christian Huygens was the first to pose the surmised that it was a comet. hypothesis that a ring must exist; after the development of petter telescopes, observations confirmed his idea. Herschel, The object, however, soon proved not to exhibit the prop­ too, was fascinated by this exceptional planet. Already in erties of a comet, for it had neither a tail nor even the diffuse 1774, he began to observe Saturn with his new telescope. He appearance which would be caused by the gaseous cloud wrote, "In the entire sky, there exists no object, which pre­ around the nucleus. The extraordinary precision of Herschel's sents us with such a variety of extraordinary phenomena as observations and the efficiency of his home-made tele­ the planet Saturn." scope-even with the 7-foot instrument, he had already Basing his calculation on a total of 154 rotations, Herschel achieved a 227-fold magnification-made possible this dis­ determined Saturn's rotational period to be 10 hours and 16 covery of what later proved to be a planet. The director of the minutes (later investigations yielded 10 hours, 14 minutes). Paris Observatory, Charles Messier, who was known as the

42 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY From The Scientific Papers of Sir William Herschel Herschel's audacity enabled him to ask bold questions that would occupy astronomers long afterhis death. One such question was, Wh at is the morphology of our stellar system, the Milky Wa y? Shown here is the plane of the Milky Wa y, as determined by Herschel using his method of star gauges. He took as a working assumption that the number of stars is about the same per unit volume of space. The observer sees through the telescope a conical volume which increases as the cube of the distance. The number of stars seen will also be a function of the cube of the distance. Herschel could then deduce the distance to the boundary of the galaxy in any given direction by counting the stars. This method led to the incorrect conclusion that the Sun was near the center of the Milky Wa y system (see the dot near the center), but it did confirm that the Milky Wa y is dominated by a planar system of stars. In an 1811 paper, Herschel threw out his fo rmer assumption, saying, "this supposed equality of scattering must be given up. II The discovery of spiral arms in any nebula was not possible until the 20th century, and their identification in our galaxy had to wait until 1951.

"comet hunter," having himself discovered 21 comets, wrote according to which Uranus is the father of Saturn, who in turn to him in appreciation: is the father of jupiter, and so forth. Herschel also discovered, in 1787, two moons of Uranus­ I find myself more and more amazed by this comet. No Titania and Oberon-and determined their orbital periods very properties characteristic of a comet can be discerned in it, precisely at 8 days, 17 hours, 1 minute, and 13 days, 11 hours, and it does not remind me of any one of those I have 5 minutes, respectively. The discovery of the new planet al­ observed .... From a letter from London I learn, sir, that most doubled the diameter of our solar system! we have you to thank for this discovery. This redounds all During this year, however, music was still the chief activity the more to your honor, inasmuch as locating the object of William and Caroline. Observing the skies and grinding the is extraordinarily difficult. I can scarcely grasp how you mirror took place during free hours, especially at night; Caro­ were able to find this star-or comet-again several times line reported that she often felt compelled to cut up William's in succession-and that is absolutely necessary, in order food and put it into his mouth while he was working, "in order to identify its proper motion, since it possesses no comet­ to keep him alive." In addition to housework, however, she like appearance whatever .... had meanwhile assumed the position of an assistant in his as­ tronomical observations. From her first day in Bath, William The back-and-forth movement of the puzzling object then had begun to teach her mathematics and the knowledge nec­ led the astronomers to suspect that they had before them a essary for calculating the positions of the stars. planet belonging to our solar system; and the first orbital cal­ In addition, William was very pleased with his sister's voice, culations by Anders Lexell in june 1781 , which presupposed and in time she became the leading soprano in Bath. During a circular orbit, yielded a radius 18.928 times the radius of the preparations for the Lenten oratorios, she frequently had to Earth's orbit and an orbital period of 82 years and 4 months. write out the orchestral parts for nearly 100 musicians from the Thus the new discovery soon proved to be a planet beyond scores of Handel's Messiah and judas Maccabeus, or the vocal Saturn, where Johannes Kepler had predicted further planets. It parts from Samson, while training the soprano section. Then is almost inconceivable that until Herschel's discovery, no there were rehearsals for regular Sunday church services and new planet had been discovered, for the planets from Mercury concerts-also customary in Bristol. to Saturn were already known to mankind 2,000 years earlier. The discoverer was traditionally allowed to name the object he The Burden of Fame had discovered, and Herschel chose the name "Georgium Herschel's celestial observations caused a stir throughout Sidus," the Georgian Planet, after the English king George. At England, not least within the Royal Society headquartered in the behest of johann Bode, the director of the Berlin Observa­ London. Sir William Watson, a member of the Royal Society, tory, the name was soon changed to Uranus, in order to keep suddenly made an appearance to offer Herschel membership the names of the planets in the tradition of the Greek myths, in the Philosophical Society of Bath. The topics of the lectures

21 st CENTURY Summer 1996 43 Hale Observatories William Herschel thought that the nebulae were composed of stars. Indeed, those that are galaxies or clusters are made up of stars. Charles Messier, Herschel's contemporary, identified just over 700 nebulae, and Herschel hoped to discover a fe w more. Yet Herschel's publications identified more than 2,500. Shown here is the galaxy Messier 104, as photographed through the Hale 200-inch telescope.

Herschel gave there-optics, gravitation, electricity, matter, For the past two nights, I have looked at the stars with the existence of space, and "freedom and necessity"-show Dr. Maskelyne [director of the Royal Observatory at that in his scientific activity, he sought to demonstrate the Greenwich] and Mr. Aubert. We compared our highest philosophical ideas. instruments, and mine turned out to be far better than any In 1781, William was elected a fel low of the Royal Society, of the Royal Observatory's. I had the satisfaction, of show­ and in November of that year, was awarded the Royal Soci­ ing them very clearly a double star which they had not ety's Gold Medal. Early in 1782, he was invited to the court in seen with their telescopes, and my mechanism received London, where he was presented to the king and queen and so much applause, that Dr. Maskelyne is already ordering was obliged to demonstrate his telescope. The King, moreover, a model of mine, as well as a stand, which he will use for wanted to discuss astronomy with him, so that Herschel had to his reflector. Indeed, he is now so little edified by his spend valuable weeks in London which he would rather have instrument, that he has begun to doubt whether it devoted to his observations. He wrote to his sister in May and deserves a new stand ....Among the optical scientists June of 1782: and astronomers, nothing now is talked about but my so­ called great discoveries. Unfortunately, it shows how far ...It would be better to say nothing more about my behind they remain, if they term great, such trifles as those remaining here, than that I must remain here until His I have seen and performed. Just let me make a serious Majesty has observed the planets with my telescope ....I start! I intend to make you telescopes and discover pass my time pleasantly enough between Greenwich and things-that is, I intend to exert myself for that purpose. London, but I long to work as I like. Society is not always agreeable, and often I would rather polish a speculum Herschel began to complain more and more frequently [mirror]. about his enforced idleness and the sterile life at court. One evening, for example, he was supposed to demonstrate his Of the superlative quality of his instruments, he writes: telescope to the princesses, but the princesses inquired if that

44 Summer 1996 21 st CENTURY were·possible without dirtying their feet on the damp lawn. It needed, perhaps a measurement with the micrometer, a was possible: Herschel fashioned a Saturn out of pasteboard fire to be lit, or a cup of coffee requested for the long and .fastened it to a lighted wall in the garden. Then, from the night watch, I did with pleasure what to others would salol1l he aimed the telescope' at the wall, and the illusion was seem a burden. . . . so perfect, that even an expert would have been deceived. Soon the King wanted to have Herschel at his full disposal, An interesting description by a visitor to Datchet also comes and Herpchei, who was already pondering the idea of devoting from the year 1785: himself kr:Jtirely to astronomy, agreed to become the court as­ tronomer;' with a yearly stipend of 200 pounds. Caroline re­ I passed the night of this January 6th and 7th with Mr. calls that Sir William Watson, the only one to whom her Herschel, near Windsor in the village of Datchet, and had brother had mentioned this sum, exclaimed, "Never has a king the good fortune to spend a clear, bright night. He had bought himself such glory so cheaply!" put his great 20-foot Newtonian telescope in his garden In this way, Herschel imagined that he would have more under the open sky, very simply and conveniently time for his own researches. Yet, as Caroline later wrote in her equipped. A servant turned a handle alternately forwards memoirs, a great deal of effort had to be expended on demon­ and backwards, then a hammer sounded as soon as the strating the telescope at court and building telescopes for other telescope had been raised or lowered by the breadth of royal houses, the money often went unpaid, and the intriguing the visual field. ministers had the weak-minded king fully in their power. This motion is transmitted by means of a wire into a In June 1782, a house was rented in Datchet, near London, neighbouring room, and turns the pointer on a disc, with a garden and an adjoining grassy space well suited to as­ whose divisions are calculated in a table according to the tronomical observations, and the move from Bath began. different angles of elevation of the telescope. Next to this instrument stands a pendulum clock, which operates Caroline Takes on Astronomy according to sidereal time, and gives the Right Ascension Caroline somewhat regretted having to leave the musical [of the telescopel . In this room sits Mr. Herschel's sister world of Bath, but she was resolved to stay at her brother's with Flamsteed's celestial charts in front of her. When he side, because, over time, she too had developed a great en­ gives a signal, she notes in a journal the Declination and thusiasm for astronomy. She proved her abilities in this field Right Ascension, and records the other circumstances of by making her own observations in her free moments, and the event. sighted eight comets altogether, five of them new discoveries. In this way, Mr. Herschel investigated the entire sky, She writes: without neglecting any single part of it. As a rule he made his observations with a 150-fold magnification, and An effort was made to educate me as an astronomer's ensured that, after four or five years, he would have assistant, and in order to encourage me, I was given an in­ surveyed everything which takes place above our strument suited to looking for comets, a tube with two horizon. He showed me the book, in which his lenses, as commonly used for this purpose. I began to observations to date are entered, and I was perforce watch for comets, and I see from my journal, that on astonished at the extent of what he had already August 20, 1782, I began to record and describe all investigated in the heavens ....He has already found noteworthy phenomena which I had run across in my nearly 900 double stars and about as many nebulae. I observations in the horizontal direction. But it was during took a rest for an hour after midnight, at which point, he the last two months of the same year that, for the first had already discovered four or five nebulae that night. time, I gained more courage, to pass the star-bright nights The thermometer in the garden showed 13 degrees on a lawn soaked with dew or covered with frost, without Fahrenheit, heedless of which, Mr. Herschel made his a soul close enough to hear me if I called. observations the whole night long, except that every three or four hours he withdrew for a few minutes, and went in Caroline now had more frequent occasions for this activity, and out of the room mentioned above. His sister is because among the duties of the court astronomer were fre­ uncommonly taken with astronomy, like him, and has quent trips to the Queen's lodge, in order to show objects fa irly considerable knowledge of the calculations, et through the telescope to the King and others. The telescope cetera. had to be packed up at great cost and risk of damage, and be For years, Mr. Herschel has let slip no hour for observ­ transported back in the dark, because it was needed again at ing the skies, weather permitting, and all this in the open night for observations. air.... He endeavors, however, to protect himself from In the meantime, Caroline calculated the positions of the the raw weather with articles of clothing, fortunately pos­ stars, on the basis of the latest observations, and updated in sesses very enduring good health, and thinks of nothing in this manner John Flamsteed's star catalogue, a "trail map," so this world but celestial subjects. to speak, for those taking a walk in the skies. Caroline spent many a night copying star catalogues, astronomical tables, or Many orders now arrived for the construction of telescopes, other writings: especially from princely courts throughout Europe, and Caro­ line angrily commented, that this work infl icted "a great ...[this] kept me awake, when my brother was standing wrong" on William and his mission. With the help of Alexan­ at the telescope at night. If I saw that assistance was der and of sundry workers from the entire vicinity, William

21st CENTURY Summer 1996 45 and Caroline constructed 200 7-foot mirrors, 150 10-foot mir­ rors, and about 80 mirrors with 20-foot focal length, for, among others, the Czar of Russia, the Austrian Kaiser, the Duke of Tuscany, the King of Spain, and also for Johann Bode in Berlin and for G6ttingen University. In those days, the construction of telescope mirrors was an exceedingly difficult undertaking, starting with the material for the mir·ror, which at that time consisted entirely of metal, be­ cause there was no procedure for silvering a glass surface. The Herschels' protocol volumes contain 2,160 tests of the compli­ cated copper-zinc alloy; the last one occurred on December 5, 1818, when William was 80 years old.

The 'Father of Stellar Astronomy' Herschel is rightly called "the father of stellar astronomy," and he once said of his work, "To attain knowledge of the ar­ chitecture. of the heavens was always the highest aim of my observations." All his researches, whether observations of binary stars, in­ vestigations of variable stars, registers of stellar magnitudes, his catalogues of nebulae, or his star gauges, were designed to methodically grasp and record the profusion of phenomena, in order, on the basis of the most comprehensive possible obser­ vational material, to arrive at valid evidence about the nature of the stars and the way the universe is constructed. In his ex­ ploration of the double stars, Herschel assumed, that all star,s possess approximately the same luminosity, so that the appar-

From The Scientific Papers of Sir William Herschel Herschel sought a morphological approach to understanding the construction of the heavens, even though it had already become the fa shion to attempt to understand everything by means of quantification. These are some of his sketches of "Types of Nebulae" used to illustrate his paper on "Astronom­ ical Observations Relating to the Construction of the Heav­ ens, " which appeared in Philosophical Transactions, 7877.

ently brighter ones were closer to us, and the apparently fainter ones farther away. Thus, even if two stars look close to one another, they may in reality be very far apart, if their ap­ parent brightness differs. The farther apart the stars actually are, the easier it must be to measure the annual parallax of the brighter star with respect to the fainter. In 1 782, Herschel's first "catalogue of binary stars" appeared, with 269 such pairs of stars. Altogether, he published three catalogues with a total of 850 binary stars, which he observed, catalogued, and fo r the most part, also discovered himself. In scrutinizing his measurements, Herschel ascerta ined that most of these star pairs were in fact physical systems in which the stars orbited each other. His son, John, later discovered 1,202 binary systems, when he undertook a systematic search for these objects in the southern sky. Herschel resolved the stars in a globular cluster and wrote: "A In 1800, Herschel also began to devote his attention to the cluster of very dense stars; one of the most beautiful objects I minor planets between Mars and Jupiter. On the night of Jan­ recall ever having seen in the sky. " Here is one such globular uary 1, 1801, Giuseppe Piazzi had found the first, Ceres. The cluster, Messier 92, in a U.S. Naval Observatory photo. physician and astronomer Heinrich albers discovered the

46 Summer 1996 21 st CENTURY Library of Congress Portrait by William Artaud, 1819 William Herschel believed that stellar systems came from the "willful generation of harmony and beauty, " lawfully anchored in the universe. This was in opposition to the Newtonian world outlook expressed by Herschel's older contemporary, Im­ manuel Kant. At left, Kant; at right, Herschel.

second, Pallas, in 1802, Karl Harding discovered Juno in sti ll bel ieved) stood at the center of the universe. As he cata­ 1804, and Olbers found the fourth, Vesta, in 1807. (Today, logued the heavenly bodies, Herschel identified changes in the more than 1,500 of these miniature planets have been identi­ position of various stars, and on this he based his surmise "that fied.) Herschel called them asteroids, because of their starlike most probably every star propels itself with more or less rapid­ appearance. He determined their diameters with a so-called ity in the skies." Since the Sun, too, was to be regarded as a disc micrometer, a translucent, illuminated little pasteboard star, it would have to have its own motion, as well. disc of a certain diameter, which is placed far enough from In his treatise On the Motion of the Sun and the Solar Sys­ the telescope so that the apparent diameters of the disc and tem, written in 1783, Herschel described the extremely com­ the planetoid precisely correspond, when the disc just covers plicated twofold process of motion viewed by the observer: the planetoid. fi rst, the apparent movement based on the motion of the solar The diameters of the planetoids' discs lay below the mea­ system (motus parallacticus), also called the secular or system­ surement limits of Herschel's micrometer, however, so he atic parallax of the stars, and the true motion of the stars them­ could only estimate them: 260 kilometers for Ceres, and 235 selves (matus peculiaris). fo r Pallas. Today, the measurement is 245 kilometers for Pallas The great difficulty this question raised was fully clear to and 390 kilometers for Ceres. Regarding the nature of the plan­ him, because all that direct observation could ever attain was etoids, Herschel once wrote to the poet Thomas Campbell, that merely the resultant of these two kinds of motion. Herschel it is to be assumed, that they are the remnants of a large planet, solved the problem by presenting the hypothesis, that the mo­ which was destroyed by a cosmic catastrophe: "Consider, that tions of stars in space would cancel each other out from the if four of these fragments have now been discovered, 1,000 standpoint of any given observer. When so treated, only the more, perhaps 30,000 more, can still be discovered." apparent motion, that is, the systematic motion produced by This evidence confirmed Kepler's hypothesis, that in the the Sun's travel among the stars, would become manifest. place between Mars and Jupiter, where according to the laws This is like the visual experience of travelling through the of harmony, a planet ought to be located, planetary rubble woods: the trees in front of the traveller seem to move apart as would be found. Yet Herschel went beyond Kepler. He dis­ he goes toward them, while those on the sides seem to move covered evidence that the Sun was in motion with respect to of their own accord in a direction opposite to the traveller's, other stars, and so could not be located at the center of the and the closer ones seem to move faster than the ones farther universe. away. Today, these questions can be examined with the help of spectroscopy and the Doppler effect, but in Herschel's time, The Motion of the Sun they were extremely difficult, given that the true distance from It was hard to reconcile the existence of binary star systems the Earth of any single star was still unknown. with the conception that the Sun (or even the Earth, as some Herschel's hypothesis thus formed the first initiative toward

21st CENTURY Summer 1996 47 producing a solid basis of observational findings, beyond the ing placed man in the center of the universe. Like a man taklhg various speculative and fantastical notions of his day, in order a walk, who seeks out and examines the most diverse plants, to achieve a scientific investigation of the heavens. Herschel wandered through stell,ar systems into distant, preyi­ In the year 1784-1 785, Herschel began to examine the struc­ ously untouched expanses. He says at the beginning,;l>r his ture of the Milky Way with his method of star gauges. In the 1784 "Account of Some Observations Tending to Investigate 18th century, after extensive astronomical observations, the ' the Construction of the Heavens," t idea was revived that the Milky Way had the shape of a flat­ ' tened ellipsoid, and there appeared several more theoretical­ In future, therefore, we shall look upon those regions speculative works, like those of Thomas Wright (1 750) and Jo­ into which we may now penetrate by means of s�ch ' hann Heinrich Lambert (1 761 ), which took up this idea. Yet large telescopes, as a naturalist regards a rich extent of William Herschel was the first to seek to put this theory on an ground or chain of mountains, containing strata variously observational footing, by means of his systematic survey of inclined and directed, as well as co'nsisting of very the stars. different materials.9

Star Clusters: The 'Laboratories of the Universe' And he pondered the views of ou'r own stellar system which Examining a collection of 103 nebulae and star clusters could be taken from a far-distant standpoint in the universe: which appeared in the Connoissance des Temps of 1783- 1784, Herschel soon made a whole series of discoveries, For the inhabitant of the nebulae described in the which in his view, demanded "an entirely new view of the fol lowing catalogue, our stellar system must appear either structure of the heavens." as a small cloudy spot, or as an extended milky streak of The two leading French astronomers, Charles Messier and light, as a strongly compressed cluster of weak, hardly Pierre-Franc;:ois Mechain, had observed these objects, yet Her­ differentiable stars, or as a giant collection of large, schel fo und many of the descriptions superficial and in part in­ disparate stars of differing brightness. And all these accurate. The two had assumed, that nebulae consisted of ten­ appearances will be accurate, according to whether they uous luminous matter, and thus could not be resolved into are located at a lesser or greater di,s,t�Dce from us. stars. With his telescope, however, not only could Herschel re­ solve many nebulae into individual stars, in the course of He said that star clusters "may be the laboratories of the which, he discovered the most marvellous systems, but, in universe,"lO in which stars are destroyed by collisions, but 1784, he had already found 466 new nebulae and star clus­ new ones are formed as well. He came upon this concept as ters, and was more and more inspired by their beautiful forma­ he was seeking a solution for the question of how the uni­ tions and by the great multiplicity of their shapes. He describes verse could exist at all, given the universally effective force of one discovery, for example, as follows: gravitation posited by Newton, according to which every­ thing, Herschel thought, would have to collapse into one My observation of the 170th survey reads: A cluster of dense point, and he could see no signs of this whatever. Her­ very dense stars; one of the most beautiful objects I recall schel's hypotheses about the development of nebulae ever having seen in the sky. The cluster appeared in the showed, moreover, that in view of the extreme diversity of form of a sphere of small stars, totally compressed into a the forms of nebulae, he could scarcely conceive of the ex­ source of singular brightness, with a great number of clusive, absolute action of the forces of gravity-and indeed, detached stars around it which were clearly differentiable these so-called laws of motion cannot even explain the inter­ within the central mass. actions of three bodies. Herschel instead pursued· a morphological approach to the He soon conceived that the nebulae and star clusters were explanation of these phenomena. He descrioed some nebulae, all ordered in layers, which seemed to continue off into the for example, as follows: great beyond, and Their position and shape as well as their nature, seem that they may surround the whole apparent sphere of the to display every conceivable diversity. In another layer, or heavens, not unlike the milky way, which undoubtedly is perhaps in a different arm of the first, I saw double and nothing but a stratum of fixed stars. And as this latter triple nebulae, ordered in various ways; large with small, immense starry bed is not of equal breadth or luster in which seemed to be their satellites; narrow, but very long, every part, nor runs on in one straight direction, but is bright nebulae or shining specks; some in the shape of a curved and even divided into two streams along a very fan, which came forth from a bright point, resembling an considerable portion of it; we may likewise expect the electrical discharge. . .. greatest variety in the strata of the cIusters of stars and nebulae.8 Theory of the Structure of the Universe It was only natural that, on the basis of these observations, Up to th is time, astronomers had merely catalogued nebulae Herschel should also engage in theoretical reflections. Three of exactly as they did stars and comets, not knowing in the least his writings, from the years 1784, 1785, and 1789, are con­ what to make of them. Man was only a wide-eyed spectator of cerned with the structure of the universe. The first is titled, Re­ the universe, gathering data, and remaining more or less at the port on Some Observations toward Investigating the Construc­ mercy of natural phenomena. Herschel's revolutionary think- tion of the Universe, the second, On the Construction of the

48 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY niz and their total opposition to Newtonian axiomatics. In his reflections on the development of stellar systems, Herschel posed the question to himself, how this multiplicity and beauty could have emerged in the first place. He concluded that it was generated through the "willful generation of harmony and beauty," lawfu lly anchored in the universe.

Kant versus Herschel Herschel's great, revolutionary thought necessarily alarmed the Newtonians. In particular the image of the "walk in space," where discrete observations are catalogued and elucidated ac­ cording to a higher ordering principle, is fully opposed to the Newtonian world outlook, in which all events are to be under­ stood only in terms of the direct influence of the forces of at­ traction and repulsion. In 1808, a new edition appeared of Kant's 1755 work, Gen­ eral Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, Treated Ac­ cording to Newtonian Principles. Kant indulged in ideas about the "origin of the universe" (some of them plucked out of thin air, and which, perhaps not accidentally, resemble the current Big Bang theory), in order to support Newton's idea that God originally wound up the world like a clock, and gave it the laws which govern it to this day. Herschel remarked on this way of thinking:

If we indulge a fanciful imagination and build worlds of From a portrait painted by HenryPickersgill for St. John's College, Cambridge our own, we must not wonder at our going wide from the William Herschel's son, John Frederick William Herschel path of truth and nature; but these will vanish like the (1792- 7877), In addition to his pioneering astronomical sur­ Cartesian vortices, that soon gave way when better vey of the southern sky from the Cape of Good Hope, he theories were offered.ll helped Ka rl Gauss and Wilhelm Weber organize their geo­ magnetic survey. But Herschel was no mere empiricist. The above passage continues: Heavens, and the third, Ca talogue of a Second Thousand of New Nebulae and Star Clusters; with some introductory re­ On the other hand, if we add observation to marks on the construction of the heavens, observation, without attempting to draw not only certain These writings were based on his systematic surveys of the conclusions, but also conjectural views from them, we sky by the methods described above, and they demonstrate offend against the very end for which only observation forcefu lly how, in the development of his ideas, Herschel pro­ ought to be made. I will endeavor to keep a proper ceeded in the tradition of Kepler, He did not indulge in specu­ medium; but if I should deviate from that, I could wish lations about possible occurrences in order to shore up pre­ not to fa ll into the latter errorY conceived structures of thought, but rather he sought to fathom the lawfulness in the development of the multiplicity of the His view of the conduct of natural science expresses a great most diverse stellar formations. love of truth and candor, which he gave as well to his son, Herschel was also the first to become aware that the dis­ John. In the introduction to John's great work of 1833, Treatise tances he measured with the telescope, also had temporal sig­ on Astronomy, this view comes to the fore : nificance, that his "theoretical conceptions of the heavens, as we have already remarked," are "formed from a standpoint In entering upon any scientific pursuit, one of the which is detached no less from time than from space." student's first endeavors ought to be, to prepare his mind With these reflections, Herschel revolutionized all thinking. for the reception of truth, by dismissing, or at least The development of nebulae, which he divided into 12 stages, loosening his hold on, all such crude and hastily adopted of which each included the most diverse nebulae, located the notions respecting the objects and relations he is about universe and our stellar system in a universal process of devel­ to examine as may tend to embarrass or mislead him; opment. This signifies, that creation is grasped as a constant and to strengthen himself, by something of an effort and process of change, which, however, does not simply produce, a resolve, for the unprejudiced admission of any or destroy, one chaotic form after another, but generates the conclusion which shall appear to be supported by most manifold structures of transcendent beauty. careful observation and logical argument, even should it Here, it was important that all his life, Herschel gave prove of a nature adverse to notions he may have thought to the question of "freedom and necessity," and from previously formed for himself, or taken up, without his earliest youth, was familiar with the ideas of Gottfried Leib- examination, on the credit of others. Such an effort is, in

21st CENTURY Summer 1996 49 fact, a commencement of that intellectual discipline It is not surprising to learn that Sigmund Freud comes from which forms one of the most important ends of all the same school of thought-his professor, Ernst Wilhelm von science. It is the first movement of approach towards that BrOcke, was a student of the same Johannes MOller, who also state of mental purity which alone can fit us for a fu ll and trained Helmholtz and du Bois Reymond. It seems pure fan­ steady perception of moral beauty as well as physical tasy, to explain all human actions on the basis of attraction or adaptation. It is the "euphrasy and rue" with which we repulsion between individuals; this perverse cast of thought, must "purge our sight" before we can receive and however, is the result of the destruction of the idea, that man contemplate as they are the lineaments of truth and not only continually carries out the purposes and designs of nature.13 the Creator, but can develop Creation toward ever-greater harmony. The poet Friedrich Schiller, so treasured by the Herschel Caroline Hartmann works with the Schiller Institute in family, had likewise expressed himself in highly critical terms Wiesbaden, Germany. This article was first published in the about Kant's thinking. In "Ober das Pathetische" (On the pa­ German-language magazine Fusion, July/August/September thetic) and "Ober das Erhabene" (On the sublime), Schiller 7995, pp. 47-57. It was translated into English by Susan P. stated, for example, that the only idea worthy of man, is that Johnson. despite the fierce, apparently often incalcu lable and ar bitrary forces of Nature, a sublime beauty and divine greatness is to Notes ------be found in Creation. Man is the only living being who does 1. Translated by John Herschel, the son of William, and published in his Es­ not simply follow Nature's laws, but "can will them." That is says from the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews (New York: Arno Press, 1981), p. 685. the sublimity of man, who searches throughout the universe 2. Mys terium Cosmographicum, translated from the Latin by A.M. Duncan and takes inspiration from its surpassing beauties-i n contrast (New York: Abaris Books, 1981), p. 225. to the small-minded Kant, driven by mere duty, who indeed 3. Charles A. Whitney, The Discovery of Our Galaxy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971 ), p. 89. Whitney is apparently drawing from Memoir and Cor­ looked with amazement upon Nature's mighty powers, but respondence 0; Caroline Herschel, edited by Mrs. John Herschel (Lon­ shuddered at its vastness, and wailed: don, 1876). 4. Some quotations in this article are the original English, while others have been translated into German, and retranslflted into English, the article If it is true ...that God has placed a secret power in having appeared originally in German. Where the original English has the forces of Nature, to form themselves of their own been found, the reference is given in these notes. A number of the others come from Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel, edited by accord, out of chaos, into a complete world framework, Mrs. John Herschel (London, 1876). will the human understanding, which in the most 5. A compact disc of two Herschel oboe concertos and his Symphony No. common circumstances is so weak, be capable of such a 4, has been issued by Newport Classic (Providence, R.I.), with the title, Sir William Herschel, Music by the Fa ther of Modem Astronomy (NPD great undertaking as searching into those hidden 85612). The scores for three of Herschel'S symphonies appear in The properties? Symphony 1720- 1840, Series E, Vol. 3, ed. Barry S. Brook (New York, 1983). 6. The Herschels' reference to telescopes of so rnany feet often does not re­ The Creation thus becomes a banal construct, which evokes fer to any critical dimension of the instrument, but only to the gross length humility only because of its immense magnitude: of the entire instrument. Sometimes, however, it seems to refer to the fo­ cal length. In his 1784 paper, "Account of Some Observations Tending to Investigate the Construction of the Heavens" (see note 8, below), William The heavenly bodies are round masses, which is the Herschel refers to "my former 20-foot reflector of 12 inch aperture." But he only form which a body, whose origin we seek, can ever also refers there to a telescope of 20 feet focal length and aperture of 18.7 inches that he had just "recently completed," which seems to be the have. Their motions are likewise simple, as opposed to one commonly referred to by himself and others as his 20-foot telescope. compound. They are nothing but a free continuation of a 7. The constellation Telescopium Herschelii-between Lynx, Auriga and former centrifugal motion, which, given the attract ion of Gemini in the northern hemisphere-was one of a few constellations that went out of use during the 19th century. the body at the center, becomes circular. Additionally, the 8. William Herschel, "Account of Some Observations Tending to Investigate space in which they move is empty, the time intervals, the Construction of the Heavens" (1784), in The Scientific Papers of Sir William Herschel (London: 1912), Vol. 1, p. 160. which separate them from one another, are quite 9. Ibid. , pp. 157-158. uncommonly large, and everything is established in order 10. William Herschel, "On the Construction of the Heavens" (1785). in The for uncomplicated motion to occur, and for distinct obser­ Scientific Papers of Sir Willia m Herschel (London: 1912), Vol. 1, p. 225. 11. Ibid., p. 223. vation of that motion in the clearest way. 12. Ibid. 13. John Herschel, Treatise on Astronomy (1834), p. 7. For Kant, man is a paltry creature. He borders on today's ex­ For Further Reading ------istentialism when he announces, that "in the face of the Infi­ Biographies of William Herschel are: Michael Hoskin, William Herschel and nite, both the large and the small are small." Kant's so-called the Construction of the Heavens (London, 1963); Jurgen Hamel, Friedrich Wi/­ idealist philosophy, which the entire 19th-century mechanistic helm Herschel (Leipzig: Teubner, 1988), in German; Gunther Buttmann, Wil­ helm Herschel, Leben und Werk (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsge­ school-from Hermann Helmholtz to Johannes MOller and sellschaft, 1961). The life of John Herschel is the subject of Gunther Emil du Bois Reymond-also sought to emulate, wou ld ex­ Buttmann's Shadow of the Telescope (New York, 1970). plain all events in Nature by means of the Newtonian ideas of Two compilations of Herschel letters and journals are: The Herschel Chron­ icle, edited by Lady Constance Ann Lubbock (New York, 1933), and Memoir attraction and repulsion, right down to the movement of a grub and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel, edited by Mrs. John Herschel or the formation of a flower. Kant wishes "all worlds and (London, 1876). For more exacting study of William Herschel's scientific work and his philo­ world-orderings to acknowledge the same kind of origin: if at­ sophical writings, see The Scientific Papers of Sir William Herschel, 2 vols. traction is absolute and universal, the repulsion of elements (London: The Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society, 1912). It in­ [is], likewise, everywhere efficacious." cludes a biographical introduction by the astronomer J.L.E. Dreyer.

50 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY A 'GRAND DESIGN' Kepler and Renaissance Science in China by Michael Billington

The mission of the jesuit scientists in 77th century China, driven by the ideas of Kepler and Leibniz, demonstrates the universality of Renaissance science-­ and the need to revive its methods today.

n the late 16th and 17th centuries, the two great cultures at of the population through war, starvation, and the Black Death. I the opposite ends of the Eurasian landmass were brought The Ming Dynasty, which fol lowed the Mongol occupation, into contact by the Jesuit missionaries who came to China did not witness anything similar to the Renaissance which was armed with the science and culture of Renaissance Europe. taking place in Europe. However, there still remained a histori­ The Jesuits discovered in China a culture with a recorded his­ cal record and memory of the Confucian Renaissance that took tory at least 5,000 years old, and with philosophical and scien­ place during the Sung Dynasty of the 11th and 12th century, tific traditions befitting an advanced civilization. The Jesuits ar­ and a layer of Confucian scholars and officials dedicated to rived about 200 years after the fa ll of the Mongol Empire, that tradition of scientific investigation, economic develop­ whose occupation of China during the 13th and 14th centuries ment, and broad-based education. . decimated the national infrastructure and wiped out 30 percent The Jesuit missionaries had been educated at the Jesuits' Ro-

21st CENTURY Summer 1996 51 man Col lege, which emphasized the Renaissance idea that sci­ methodology is the true scientific method. At the same time, ence was inextricably intertwined with the Christian view of Venice deployed all means at its disposal to destroy the W0rk man as holding an ennobled position and purpose in the uni­ and influence of the great scientific minds of the modern era, verse, in the image of the Creator. This view met with an enthu­ such as Nicholas of Cusa, johannes Kepler, and Gottfried Wil­ siastic reception from many of the Chinese literati. The scientific helm Leibniz. discoveries of the European Renaissance, interfaced with This bitter conflict between the Platonists and the Aris­ China's own scientific history, served as a medium for the con­ totelians in Europe was reflected in the making of policy to­ veyance of higher ideas of man and nature. For more than a ward China, and within the jesuits' China mission itself. The century, the greatest scientists and philosophers of Europe and primary scientific source used by the jesuits for reference in China engaged in a process of exchange and self-perfection. their texts in Chinese was Kepler's works. This was the case, That collaborative process was destroyed in the 18th cen­ despite the Vatican's unfortunate ban, in 1616, on the·teaching tury by Venice and its creation, the Enlightenment.' At the be­ of the Copernican heliocentric model of the solar system, a ginning of this century, Dr. Sun Vat Sen attempted to reestab­ model that Kepler adhered to. The ban, as discussed below, lish what Gottfried Leibniz had called "the Grand Design": . was the result of Venetian intrigue carried out with the help of East-West collaboration in the economic and technological de­ Venetian asset Galileo. Galileo, except for the specific facts he velopment of the entire Eurasian landmass. That effort ulti­ recorded after viewing the heavens through a telescope fo r the mately fa iled, as British balance-of-power policies succeeded first time, was virtually ignored by the missionaries in China, in isolating China from its potential allies in the West. not because of the Papal ban, but because he had nothing of Today, there is a new potential for achieving that Grand De­ worth to offer. sign. The realization of that potential, which is essential if the And yet, the preeminent British (and other) China scholars of world is to recover from the current global economic crisis, this century have repeatedly reported, falsely, that none of Ke­ rests on the question of scientific method, both in the East and pler's books was even available in China until a later date, and in the West. that Keplerian science was not' taught until well into the 18th Despite the extensive historical literature written about the century! The precious few recent historians, referenced below, process of cultural interchange begun by the jesuits, the con­ who have begun to expose this centuries-long lie, have shown tent of the scientific dialogue has been distorted and obfus­ that the evidence was, in fact, always available. cated by the primary 20th century Western historians of China, led by British intelligence operatives Bertrand Russell Kepler, Galileo, and Venetian Intrigue and joseph Needham. This is of crucial importance today in Galileo published his famous Sidereal Messenger in 1610, China, as the Chinese are fighting to red iscover their own his­ under the direction and sponsorship of Father Paolo Sarpi, the tory, after the nightmare of Maoist obscurantism, but are still head of Venetian Intelligence and the primary spokesman for largely reliant on the distortions introduced by their so-called Venice against the Papacy during the Vatican's efforts to sub­ British friends. The recently deceased Needham, for instance, due Venice in the early years of the 17th century. Galileo's was accepted as a foreign fe llow of the Chinese Academy of book described the first results of viewing the heavens through Sciences and is treated as an authority both on the mainland a telescope (which Galileo did not himself invent or build), in­ and in Taiwan. cluding the discovery of the moons of jupiter, the phases of The root of these British operations against Chinese science Mercury, and the existence of numerous stars that had not and history can be traced to 16th and 17th century Venice, the been visible to the naked eye. center of opposition to the Renaissance. The ideas of the di­ The moons of jupiter, being the first direct visible proof of vine worth of the individual, of the unity of morality and sci­ heavenly bodies circling a planet other than the Earth, refuted ence, and of the notion of the nation state serving the interests the Ptolemaic belief that all heavenly bodies circled the Earth, of the population, threatened Venice's role as the preeminent and the phases of Venus pointed to the fact that Venus circled world power, a role maintained through the control of trade the Sun, not the Earth . Kepler immediately penned a re­ and finance among feudal kingdoms. The Venetian alliance sponse, Conversation with Calileo's Sidereal Messenger, with the Mongol hordes, who destroyed the Christian and Is­ which duly praised Galileo's observations, but ridiculed any lamic world as thoroughly as they had the Chinese, was exem­ notion that such mere recording of data, no matter how im­ plary of the oligarchical view that greater profits can be ex­ portant, could be compared to the creative mental process of tracted from weak, divided nations, from war, and from true discovery: enslaved populations. Venice railed against the Platonic-Christian view of man What Galileo recently saw with his own eyes ...had which lay at the core of the Renaissance, and which consid­ many years before not only [been] proposed as a surmise, ered the scientific advances of the Renaissance as the patri­ but thoroughly established by reasoning ....Sur ely mony of all mankind. The Venetian slave traders preferred the those thinkers who intellectually grasp the causes of Aristotelian conception of man-a beast driven not by ideas, phenomena, before these are revealed to the senses, but by passions, and who could be controlled or even be resemble the Creator more closely than the others, who bought and sold like a beast of burden. To contain the threat of speculate about the causes after the phenomena have Renaissance science, Venice created and promoted various been seen. would-be scientists to its own purpose, including, in particular, Galileo Galilei and Sir Isaac Newton. The Venetians aimed to Kepler had already published several of his major discover­ establish as "fact" the myth that Aristotelian, empiricist ies in astronomy, overthrowing all previously existing theories

52 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY .�t:: o a. o ... '" « Gali/eo Galilei (7564-1 642) Johannes Kepler (7571-1630)

It was Kepler's celestial physics-and Kepler's approach-that the Jesuits took to China, not those of Gali/eo. Kepler made clear the difference between his approach and that of the empiricists, noting, "Surely those thinkers who intellectually grasp the causes of phenomena, before these are revealed to the senses, resemble the Creator more closely.... "

of the structure of the universe, including those aspects which oped by Ptolemy and adapted by Copernicus. Thus Galileo re­ Copernicus had retained from Ptolemy. Kepler's publications tained the static belief that circular motion is the only accept­ included the fo llowing, all of which were to play a crucial role able motion in the universe. As historian Max Caspar points . in China: out about Galileo:

• The Mysterium Cosmographicum, 1596. This overturned the notion of space as an undifferentiated, linear three-dimen­ In none of his works did he take notice of Kepler's plan­ sional continuum in favor of a "quantized" space (as it would etary laws, although he certainly knew them. Not once in now be called), consistent with the harmonies contained in his famous Dialogue about the systems of the world, the Golden Section, the musical scale, and the five Platonic which appeared a quarter of a century later, did he speak solids. (Kepler would later publish a modification and expan­ of them ..; he sticks throughout to the old Aristotelian sion of this notion, together with his third planetary law, in distinction between "natural" and "violent" motion. So it his 1618 Harmonices Mundi.) Galileo never responded to Ke­ was Kepler first of all, not Galileo, who freed astronomy pler's request for comments on these discoveries, while the from the bonds of Aristotelian physics. "Enlightenment" circles that followed the lead of Galileo's

Venetian controllers denigrated Kepler's notion of an har­ • Astronomiae Pars Optica, 1613. In this Kepler launched monic ordering to the structure of physical space-time as the science of optics. He explained and calculated the refrac­ mystical, unscientific, and a reflection of Kepler's failure to tion of light from the celestial bodies as it passes through the "overcome" his belief in God. atmosphere (although the exact formula describing refraction

• Astronomia Nova, 1605. In what Kepler's biographer Max was only discovered later). He also explained the effect of re­ Caspar calls "the first modern astronomy book," Kepler de­ fraction in the fu nctioning of the eye. scribes his first two planetary laws, including the discovery of All of this was published before Galileo even looked the elliptical orbits of the planets, with the Sun at one focal through the telescope in 1610. When Father Sarpi arranged for point of these orbits. Kepler thus solved the mystery of the ir­ the publication of Galileo's Sidereal Messenger and orches­ regu lar motions of the planets, utilizing the meticulous tables trated the campaign to portray the mediocre Galileo as the of the movements of the heavenly bodies compiled by Tycho new Aristotle, Kepler responded by getting down to work. He Brahe (with whom Kepler had worked until Tycho's death in set about immediately to investigate the optical laws of the 1601 ) to test his hypothesis. marvelous new instrument, coining the term Oioptrice To the end of his long life, Galileo refused to accept Kepler's (dioptrics), and publishing a book by that name only a few new celestial physics, preferring to rest safely in the convo­ months after the release of Galileo's Sidereal Messenger. Ke­ luted theories of multiple epicycles for the planets, as devel- pler applied his discoveries in optics to systems of convex and

21st CENTURY Summer 1996 53 concave lenses, determining the theoretical laws which made the telescope work. This work would play a major role in China only a few years later. Among the measures taken by Father Paolo Sarpi to create Galileo's image was an introduction to the Jesuits' Roman Col­ lege, headed by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine. Bellarmine was a primary spokesman for the Catholic side of the Venetian-cre­ ated and -controlled Reformation/Counter-Reformation con­ fl ict, which wrought havoc across Europe through the disas­ trous Thirty Years War and beyond. Bellarmine, who had been assigned in 1605 by the Pope to defend the Church against the Sarpi-Ied Venetian attack on papal authority, nonetheless wel­ comed the Sarpi asset, Galileo, sponsoring dinners and meet­ ings for him in Rome. The Roman College, like the Jesuit order itself, was an institu­ tion of paradoxes. It was through this College, and in particular through the work of the famous resident mathematician Christo­ pher Clavius, that the Jesuit missionaries were educated in the most advanced concepts of Renaissance science, in preparation for their missions. Although Clavius was a leading defender of the Ptolemaic system, his defense was not based on dogmatic and scriptural grounds. In his writing and in his teaching, he presented the Copernican system as a hypothesis and acknowl­ edged that both the Copernican and the Ptolemaic systems "preserved the phenomena," meaning that the observational data could be predicted with equal accuracy by either model. At his death in 1612, having been among the first few as­ tronomers to use the telescope after Galileo in 1610, Clavius is reported (by Kepler, in his Ep itome of Copernican Astronomy) to have said, "[Ilt behooves Astronomers to consider of some other Hypothesis, beside that of Ptolemy, whereby they might save all those new appearances." Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. Matteo Ricci, who launched the first mission to China in Father Johann Adam Schall von Bell, who arrived in China in 1583, had been trained by Clavi us, and maintained a corre­ 1621, was part of the team of Chinese and Jesuit scientists spondence with him throughout his life. Both the first and the who completely reformed Chinese astronomy between 1629 second generation of Jesuits in China had been his students. and 1635. Schall eventually was made a Mandarin of the fi rst Clavius was also the mathematician chosen by Pope Gre­ class, and was the tutor of the child emperor, Shun-chih. The gory XIII to revise the calendar, a process which had been un­ insignia on the front of his robe indicates his status. der discussion for several hundred years, ever since it had been discovered that the imprecise measure of the length of founder of the mission to China, for a team of missionaries the year had resulted in the shifting of the calendar by more specially trained in the astronomical sciences, with the spe­ than a week since the establishment of the Julian calendar in cific included task of aiding the Chinese in revising their cal­ 46 B.C. Clavius adopted a variation of a proposal made by endar. Despite a history of advanced astronomical achieve­ Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa in the previous century, eliminating ments in China, dating back thousands of years, the scientific three leap years every 400 years, while skipping 10 calendar knowledge of the previous ages had been largely lost in the days in 1582 to bring the calendar back in line with the true holocaust of the Mongol destruction of Sung China in the solar year. This calendar became a point of collaboration be­ 13th century, and the ensuing century of depopulation and tween Clavius and Kepler, as a result of the fact that the Protes­ collapse. The Ming Dynasty that replaced the collapsed Mon­ tant establishment in northern Europe refused to adopt the new gol rule in 1368 was not without certain positive attributes. It calendar from Rome, only because it came from Rome. The did preserve the astronomical data of the pre-Mongol era (as Protestant Kepler defended the new Gregorian calendar well as that of the Moslem astronomers who contributed their against the rejection of his fellow Protestants, basing himself knowledge of Greek and Arab science during the Mongol on universal scientific grounds. This was not the only time that era). But it failed to preserve the theoretical works that ex­ Kepler defended the truth, instead of following the dictates of plained the derivation of the data. either his own religion's institutions or that of his friends Nonetheless, Ricci found that many of the Confucian schol­ among the Catholic community. ars and court officials of the Ming were both intellectually and politically eager to learn from the missionaries, while also at­ The China Mission tempting to rediscover and revive their own scientific tradi­ It is in this context, in 1615, that the Vatican decided to re­ tions. Although Ricci had been adequately trained to teach the spond to the repeated requests from Father Matteo Ricci, the Chinese the basic concepts of the new (pre-Keplerian) methods

54 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY the Occident and the Orient with the tools of universal sci­ ence. The cause of Galileo's intransigence in this matter is usu­ ally explained as the result of a personal feud between another Jesuit astronomer and Galileo over which one of them had first observed sunspots through the telescope. A more truthful an­ swer was given by Galileo himself. In 1624, Terrentius heard from an associate who had conveyed his request to Galileo, "I have talked with him concerning the observation of solar ,, eclipses for Terrentius, but he tells me that he has nothing. 2 In addition to Galileo's lack of anything useful to contribute, it was also the case, as will be seen below, that the Venetian sponsors of Galileo were already involved in efforts (eventually successful) to sabotage the Jesuit mission in China, a mission that threatened to link the enemies of Venice on two sides of the Eurasian landmass: the Renaissance forces in Europe and the Confucian forces in China. Since the collapse of its Mongol ally's control over China 200 years earlier, Venice preferred that China remain isolated and weak. Whether consciously or not, Galileo was simply serving his masters by refusing to assist the spread of the new science. Terrentius then turned to Kepler, whose works he knew well. Before leaving for China in 1618, he had spent three years travelling about Europe, gathering up a total of 7,000 books to take with him to China, including every available book on astronomy. He received help from the procurator of the China mission in Europe, the Jesuit Father Johann Ziegler, a professor of mathematics, who had been in close corre­ spondence with Kepler since 1605. In fact, Ziegler had orga­ Ja&:a::::z;:8E!JJe:; L4M nized an entire worldwide network of Jesuit missionary-scien­ An illustration from Schall's 1626 book in" Chinese, Treatise tists to assist Kepler in observing the solar eclipse of 1605, on the Telescope. The first telescope was broughtto China in requesting that careful observations from all different loca­ 1621 by Johann Schreck, known as Terrentius, already a tions be recorded and forwarded for Kepler's review. Ziegler prominent astronomer before he became a Jesuit. He peti­ had also introduced all of Kepler's work to Professor Clavius tioned Calileo fo r help in the China mission, to no avail. at the Roman College. It is thus certain that Father Ziegler would have assured that Kepler's works were included in the in astronomy, he knew he was not qualified to correct the books that Terrentius gathered for the China mission between enormous problems of the Chinese calendar, which is why he 1615 and 1618. asked Rome to send a team that could do the job. This last point becomes important when we consider the Among the three Jesuits chosen for the task was the Swiss Jo­ fact that the major 20th century Western historians of science hann Schreck, generally known by his Latinized name, Terren­ in China have consistently denied that Terrentius brought any tius. Terrentius was already a prominent astronomer before he of Kepler's works to China. British intelligence operative joined the Society of Jesus in 1611. He was a fellow member Joseph Needham is a prime example of this; he ignores the ex­ with Galileo in the Academy dei Lincei, and was one of the tensive use of Kepler's works by Terrentius and (especially) his first people with whom Galileo had discussed the results of the associate Father Adam Schall von Bell. Needham's encyclope­ telescope, inviting him to view the moons of Saturn. When dic multi-volume Science and Civilization in China, published Terrentius was chosen to go to China with the responsibility to by Cambridge University Press, has served as a virulent attack correct the Chinese calendar, he immediately sent a request to on the Confucian intellectual tradition in China in favor of his associate, the by-then renowned Galileo, to prepare some Taoist irrationalism, at the same time that it has misrepresented documents to assist in the effort, especially regarding the Western science to the Chinese. method for calculating solar and lunar eclipses. Terrentius as­ Even one of the leading Jesuit China scholars of the 20th sumed from Galileo's reputation that he would most likely century, Pasquale M. D'Elia, wrote in his 1947 book, Calileo have used the telescope to improve upon the calculations of in Ch ina, that until 1628, when Kepler responded to Terren­ Tycho Brahe, and he asked Galileo to lend his support "for the tius's letter requesting advice, "there had most certainly not public good of the China mission." been received in China any of Kepler's works."2 We shall soon When he received no response, Terrentius began sending see the proof that, in fact, Kepler's works had already been appeals through other acquaintances, princes and archdukes, translated into Chinese. who, he thought, might have some influence with Galileo. Still In his letter of response to Terrentius, Kepler included sec­ there was no response. After leaving for China in 1618, Terren­ tions of the meticulous and extensive celestial tables, called tius continued his efforts by mail for four more years, but never the Rudolphine Tables, compiled by Tycho Brahe and supple­ did Galileo offer his assistance to the great project of bridging mented by Kepler after Tycho's death. These tables proved to

21st CENTURY Summer 1996 55 be invaluable to the joint efforts of the jesuits and their Chi­ fied little or nothing more than a barbarian name"! Hashimoto nese associates. In his letter, Kepler marvelled at the evidence points out that O'Elia's claim that Schall's book was based on provided by Terrentius from the Chinese classics that the Chi­ the works of one of Galileo's followers was speculation "with­ nese had recorded the solstice 4,000 years earlier. He also out any evidence." "If we compare the Chinese account with speculated on the possibility that Emperor Yao, in the 3rd mil­ the Latin book, O'Elia's claim turns out not to be true," lennium B.C., may have been a descendent of Noah (such Hashimoto says. The second half of Schall's book, in fact, is on speculation was extensively investigated later in the 17th cen­ the geometric and optical aspects of lenses, including discus­ tury by the French jesuits), and he asked about other aspects of sion of both bi-convex and bi-concave lenses, which could Chinese geometry and astronomy. The letter, which Kepler have come only from Kepler. published in Europe, ended: "May jesus Christ, God and man, and our Lord, to Whom the Eternal Father gave the heavens as an inheritance, will that the conversion of the Chinese be ful­ fi lled . Amen."

Kepler's Works in Chinese Recent research by a japanese scholar, Keizo Hashimoto, has proven that Kepler's works were well known in China even before Kepler's response to the request from Terrentius. Hashimoto had worked for years in England under China ex­ pert joseph Needham at Cambridge, before returning to japan. In the introduction to his 1988 book, Hsu Kuang-ch'i and As­ tronomical Reform: The Process of the Chinese Acceptance of Western Astronomy, 7629-7 63S? Hashimoto politely credits Needham as one of his teachers, but then forcefully asserts,

"Nevertheless, this dissertation is the result of my own work Tycho Brahe. Opera Omnia, Vol. 4 (Copenhagen, 1922) and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in Tycho Brahe's dra wing of his system of planets. Tycho, collaboration." Hashimoto then provides detailed proof that under whom Kepler worked fo r a period, rejected the the astronomical works of Terrentius and his associate Adam heliocentric hypothesis and kept Ea rth at the center, Schall von Bell, both before and after Kepler's letter to China, with Moon and Sun orbiting it. But he understood that were in large part translations of Kepler's books, especially his all of the other planets must orbit the Sun. The stars are Astronomiae Pars Optica and his Dioptrice, including the re­ shown confined to a sphere of which Earth is the center. production of Kepler's many astronomical diagrams. Hashimoto concludes: Schall's work on the solar system, however, did not come The penetration of optical astronomy so far discussed, directly from Kepler, although it initiated a departure from the which Kepler had established in his work in 1604, has Ptolemaic system presented by the earlier books prepared in never been noticed by any author until now, although this Chinese by Matteo Ricci. Perhaps because of the Papal ban on fact can be easily discovered if we compare the Chinese teaching the Copernican system (although there is much evi­ text with the original one in the West. dence that the scientist-missionaries were not generally af­ fected by the ban), Schall presented the system developed by Needham, a meticulous pedant, could not have overlooked Tycho Brahe, which retains the Earth at the center of the uni­ this obvious fact-except by intent. verse, but has all the other planets circling the Sun, as the Sun The three primary astronomers among the "second genera­ circles the Earth (see figure). Even as late as 1618 in the Har­ tion" of jesuits who arrived in China in 1621 were Terrentius, monices Mundi, Kepler includes Tycho's diagram, explaining Adam Schall von Bell, and Wenceslaus P. Kirwitzer. Kirwitzer that "if the Sun moves on this route," then most of Kepler's dis­ was a confirmed and outspoken Copernican, despite the Papal coveries about the harmonies of the motion of the spheres still ban of 1616, but he died a few years after his arrival. Terren­ hold true. Kepler makes it very clear throughout his writings tius spent his early years writing books on physiology and that he does not make this concession because be believes anatomy, based on Renaissance medicine, and on machines there is even a slight possibility that Tycho's system was true. It and hydraulics-material which was of immediate practical is in keeping, however, with his general approach to the ques­ importance for China. Adam Schall, however, began immedi­ tion of dealing with the religious institutions, including both ately on astronomical works, publishing Treatise on the Tele­ the Vatican and the Lutheran establishment, who held dog­ scope in 1626 and Brief Description of the Measurement of the matic positions against the heliocentric system, based on a lit­ Heavens in 1628. The book on the telescope was taken di­ eral reading of certain Biblical passages. rectly from Kepler's Dioptrice. Kepler held Galileo responsible for having provoked the jesuit historian O'Elia (who was much admired by Need­ Vatican's ruling against the teaching of the heliocentric ham), tries to preserve Galileo's reputation by commenting in model, which was the result, Kepler wrote, of "the rough pro­ his book, Cali/eo in China, that Galileo's name is not even cedure of a few who reported on astronomical theories not in mentioned by Schall, "without doubt for the simple reason that the right place and not according to appropriate methods." for the Chinese, something like Chia-li-Ie-io would have sign i- Kepler was referring here to the pompous, insulting, and sci-

56 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY New York Public Library · The observatory designed and fu rnished with astronomical instruments by the jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest on the eastern wall of Beijing. A photograph of Verbiest's armillary sphere appears on the back cover. entifically incompetent letter that Galileo had written to the cant speck, as feared by some of the censors (and as, in fact, Vatican, and specifically to Cardinal Bellarmine, supposedly Galileo and his Venetian sponsors believed), rather, Kepler defending the heliocentric model. In that letter, Galileo con­ could prove that the Universe is ordered according to far more tended that the arguments put forward against the system beautiful and glorious harmonies than the simple circular mo­ were primarily the result of envy and personal animosities tion and the crystalline spheres of Ptolemy. Further, he could against himself, because of his telescopic discoveries! Then, show that this ordering of God's infi n ite Creation was accessi­ knowing that Cardinal Bellarmine was both extremely erudite ble to man through the divine spark of reason, which defined in matters of theology and dogmatically dedicated to the au­ man as being in the image of God. thority of scripture over science, the relatively unlettered Kepler wrote in the Harmonices Mundi: "1 was taught from Galileo proceeded to eclectically quote St. Augustine and the Holy Scriptures that everything has been appointed by other theologians against the Cardinal's position, concluding God for specific and beneficial purposes, even dissonance for that the prelates would be compelled to concur, "especially if revealing and commending the joyfulness of consonance." they would add some knowledge of astronomical science to Also, in a prayer toward the end of the work: "Thou best made their knowledge of divinity." all Thy works one; and from the bringing of Thy people into Even Galileo's formal arguments in favor of the heliocentric concord, the body of Thy Church may be built up in the Earth, system were wrong, inconclusive, or outright irrelevant. as thou didst erect the heavens themselves out of harmonies." In the Harmonices Mundi, Kepler called upon the censors to It was such ideas that moved the missionary-scientists in open a new proceeding to examine his own new evidence. China to follow Kepler. However, these Renaissance men This evidence was not limited to his planetary laws and similar were not without opposition within the mission itself. One discoveries, which proved geometrically the true structure of member of the "second generation," Father Francis Furtado, the solar system. More important, Kepler demonstrated that, far was a committed Aristotelian, translating and publishing in from replacing the perfection of God's Creation with an infi­ Chinese Aristotle's Oe Coelo et Mundi (Of Heaven and Earth) nite, unknowable Universe that reduced man to an insignifi- and other books from the commentaries on Aristotle compiled

21st CENTURY Summer 1996 57 at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. Furtado objected to can system was not presented directly, but was intentionally the publications of Terrentius and Schall, arguing for the the­ obfuscated by reporting that "in the two methods of Coperni­ ory of the "incorruptibility of the heavens," and insisting upon cus and Tycho Brahe, the body of the Sun is located at the the circular orbits and the solid spheres of Aristotle and center of the deferent of the five planets." The Jesuits also de­ Ptolemy. "For 2,000 years up to now," Furtado wrote, "this has pended significantly on the work of one of Tycho Brahe's stu­ been a law of natural philosophy and astronomy and has been dents, C.S. Longomontanus (whose work had no particular a fixed principle of things; it is superior to knowledge gained merit), because he fo llowed Tycho's cosmology. through the eye." Fortunately, Furtado did not prevail. Terrentius died in 1630, leaving the bulk of the work to Fa­ ther Schall and Father Paul Hsu. The final product, a series of The Calendar Project treatises on ellipses, lunar motion, the motion of the five plan­ In 1629, Terrentius, Schall, and others were assigned by the ets, and so forth, certainly suffers from their failure to present Emperor to serve in the Bureau of Astronomy, one of the most the heliocentric system clearly, and even more so from the prestigious positions in China. They were to work under the di­ lack of a fu ll presentation of the harmonies discovered by Ke­ rection of Hsu Kuang-ch'i, whose life was the subject of the pler. But it is an error to measure the total effect of the 17th book by Hashimoto discussed above. Hsu, also known as Fa­ century scientific collaboration between East and West on that ther Paul Hsu, was one of the most extraordinary men of Chi­ basis alone. Needham, as we have seen, simply ignores all evi­ nese history. He was already one of China's leading scholars dence of the Keplerian influence, leaving the fa lse impression and officials when he met Matteo Ricci in 1600. Within a few that the Jesuits taught Ptolemaic theory. years, he was ordained as a Christian priest, while at the same Needham even goes so far as to say that "the coming of the time achieving the highest degree in the Chinese Confucian Jesuits was by no means an unmixed blessing for Chinese sci­ examinations. Hsu became the leading advocate and teacher ence." This slight was not aimed so much at the Order of the of Christianity in China, and also provided invaluable assis­ Society of Jesus as it was at the Renaissance itself. Perhaps the tance to the Jesuits in explaining Confucianism and in translat­ most extreme example of this problem is seen in the works of ing religious and scientific texts. In addition to his position as the Jesuit Henri Bernard, an Aristotelian who wrote a biogra­ Director of the Reform of Calendrical Science, Hsu also be­ phy of Matteo Ricci. In an essay written in 1941 , "Notes on the came the Grand Secretary, the highest position in the Chinese Introduction of Natural Science in China," Bernard accused government under the Emperor. the Christian missionaries in China of severe problems because Between 1629 and 1635, a team of Jesuit and Chinese sci­ of their adherence to the "bastard and pointless movement of entists completely reformed Chinese astronomy. The reform the fi rst Renaissance, where the positive results were buried in fo llowed the new methods from Europe, but without totally re­ adventurous speculations, restatements of Neo-Platonism or placing the existing Chinese structure. In his memorial to the the pre-Aristotelian systems." Supposedly, accord ing to Emperor, Hsu listed the items to be reformed, including: the Bernard, the "second" Renaissance was the Venetian school of precise value of the precession of the equinox, the length of Galileo and Newton. the solar year, the true positions of the heavenly bodies, the A hatred of the Renaissance is also central to Needham's an­ obliquity of the ecliptic, and the theory and history of eclipses. swer to his own question-now known as "The Needham He also defined five categories that were to be investigated : Question"-as to why modern science developed in Europe laws and theories, astronomical constants and tables, calcula­ rather than in China. Needham says that modern science is en­ tion methods, astronomical instruments, and mathematical ta­ tirely the result of "the fruitful union of mathematics with sci­ bles (referring primarily to logarithmic tables). ence." By "mathematics," he means explicitly algebra and The accuracy of the observations was of critical importance. formal logic-Needham even praises the "application of alge­ Terrentius had brought a telescope with him, and Schall had braic method to the geometric field" as the "greatest single already written a book (based on Kepler) on its use, but the Je­ step ever made in the progress of the exact sciences." Need­ suits recognized that accuracy, at least in regard to the stars ham praised the empiricists' efforts to reduce the nonlinear visible to the eye, was less dependent on the telescope than on phenomena of the physical universe to linear, algebraic sys­ the quality of the measuring instruments and the precision in tems. He also glorified Gali leo as superior to Leonardo da measuring the effect of refraction. For this, the project utilized Vinci. Leonardo, it must be noted, using Platonic methods of the instruments of Tycho Brahe and the optics of Kepler. The hypothesis, was the inspiration for most of modern science, letter from Kepler arrived just before the project began, to­ and made discoveries in areas like nonlinear hydrodynamics gether with sections of the Rudolphine Tables, which Kepler which were confirmed empirically only in the 20th century. was in the process of preparing, and which were invaluable in Need ham, however, praises Galileo as the "central figure in every aspect of the joint effort. the mathematization of natural science .... [in whom] the To avoid potential problems in Rome, the project adopted birth of the experimental-mathematical method appeared in al­ the policy that "at the moment we should regard as truth only most perfect form," while with Leonardo, "in spite of [his] the actual measurements and calculations. Therefore, we deep insight into nature and brilliance in experimentation, no should not be committed too deeply to the discussion of further development fo llowed because of his lack of mathe­ which theory is right or which is not." This was not a declara­ matics" [emphasis added]. tion that truth was contained within the observations per se, Leonardo, says Needham, had the same problem as the Chi­ but rather, an intentional lack of specificity regarding theory, nese: "The inhibition lay in the realm of hypothesis-making, as which thus allowed all theories to be presented-including one may see in the relative theoretical backward ness of those that Rome had ruled against. Nonetheless, the Coperni- Leonardo ....It therefore throws light on the Chinese situa-

58 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY pier insisted upon the revolution of the Sun (even though there would be no visible evidence of it until the telescopic observa­ tion of sunspots), based on the necessity of coherence in the solar system as a whole. He demanded a reason for the plane­ tary motions, rather than the working out of an algebraic for­ mula to describe their orbits. The Treatise on the Motion of the Five Planets presents arguments for the rotation of the Earth, and also reports on Kepler's fi nding that the orbit of Mars is not circular (although it does not present Kepler's planetary laws or the discovery of the elliptical orbits). The Ming Dynasty collapsed only nine years after the publi­ cation of the calendrical studies, but the impact of the project continued to be felt throughout China. Both the publications and the scientists quickly regained their previous degree of in­ fluence in the new Ch'ing Dynasty Court. Before looking at the greatest era of Chinese/European collaboration, that of the Ch'ing Dynasty Emperor K'ang Hsi (reigned 1661-1 722), it is necessary to briefly examine Confucian scientific methodology in comparison to that of Renaissance Europe.

China's Scientific legacy As the Jesuits delved into the voluminous historical records of ancient China, preserved through the ages by a culture that placed the highest value on scholarship and historical literacy, they were astonished by the meticulous records of astronomi­ cal events, which predated by far the recorded discovery in the West of many such astronomical phenomena. Several 19th century European scientists skilled in both astronomy and in the Chinese language, and using modern methods, confirmed much of the astronomical data, such as the dates of eclipses, contained in the ancient records. Some of these records were to be found in the "Chinese Classics," the books written or compiled by Confucius (551 -479 B.C) and his immediate fo l­ As early as the 3rd millennium B.C., the emperor is reported lowers, including oral and written histories spanning at least to have requested that court officials "calculate and delineate the preceding two millennia. the movements and appearances of the Sun, of the Moon, The famous French physicist and astronomer, Jean-Baptiste and the zodiacal spaces, and so to deliver respectfully the Biot, in 1849, studied a passage from one of the Classics, the seasons to be observed by the people. " Here, an early Chi­ Book of History, in which a revered Emperor from antiquity nese star map. (not specifically named, but generally considered to be Em­ peror Yao from the "Golden Age" referenced by Confucius, tion, and defines the point reached by indigenous Chinese sci­ during the 3rd millennium B.C) deploys court officials to ence and technology as Vincean, not Galilean." "calculate and delineate the movements and appearances of In a similar vein, historian Derk Bodde, in his 1991 Chinese the Sun, of the Moon, and the zodiacal spaces, and so to de­ Th ought, Society, and Science, "accused" the Chinese of being liver respectfully the seasons to be observed by the people." like Kepler, who "tried to fit laws of nature into theological Biot, using the precession of the equinox to "read back" into structures." Only in 1600, says Bodde, when Galileo adopted history, determined precisely when the specific stars named a strict linear notion of empirically verifiable causality over Ke­ in the passage could have satisfied the given astronomical pler's idea of harmonic ordering (which he calls "correla­ conditions. He concluded (although he acknowledged some tivist"), did modern science begin. inconsistencies) that it was most probably the year 2357 B.C, Despite such pretensions, the fact is that the 1635 calendar which also approximated the age believed to be that of Em­ project presented in various ways the true methodological peror Yao. discoveries of the Renaissance, primarily through Kepler's This dating, which cohered both with Chinese astronomi­ work, while also presenting, in imperfect form, at least many cal studies and with the research of the Jesuits in the 17th of the concrete results of that method. For example, in the century, became a subject of nearly hysterical denial by the Trea tise on the Cause of Motion, the calendar team wrote: man whose responsibility in 20th century Britain was, among "The Sun is to the planets what the magnet is to iron. The other th ings, to force Chinese science into the mold of the planets are compelled to revolve according to the revolution Venetian/British map-Joseph Needham. The very first page of the Sun." of Volume III of Needham's Science and Civilization in This is a notion introduced by Kepler in his 1609 Astrono­ China, the volume devoted to mathematics and astronomy, mia Nova, a book that was read by the Jesuits in Peking. Ke- declares that he will refute the "extremes" of historians, such

21st CENTURY Summer 1996 59 as "the impossibly early dat­ nection might then really be ings of Chinese mathemati­ Babylonian." This string of cal and astrological works by hypotheticals later becomes j.B. Biot." Needham ac­ fixed in stone, when Need­ knowledges B iot' s authority ham concludes the volume and rigorous methodology, of his work with a "Chart to but then makes no effort to show the comparative de­ justify his dismissal of Biot's velopment of astronomy in calculation. East and West," which pre­ Later in the 19th century, sumes that all knowledge­ in 1875, the Dutch scholar European, Arabian, Indian, of China Gustave Schlegel, and Chinese-flowed from in collaboration with an as­ Babylon. tronomer, Franz Kuhnert, proposed a solution to the China's Scientific Method irregularities in the Biot Neither Confucius nor study, contending that the Mencius (372-289 B.C), the solstice stars named in the primary successor to Confu­ passage of the Book of His­ cius, whose works are tory had been observed in equally revered with those of approximately 17,000 B.C!4 the master himself, wrote on Chinese archeological stud­ scientific subjects directly. ies have recently confirmed They were, however, well that that era marked the be­ known for their dedication ginning of the Mesolithic to the necessity of discover­ culture, the transition from UNESCO ing the laws of nature, and the Paleolithic to the Ne­ China expert joseph Needham, in the tradition of Venice, de­ to the appl ication of these olithic in China, during liberately fa lsified history in his zeal to eradicate the Renais­ laws in increasing the pro­ which the tools necessary sance outlook. A British intelligence operative, Needham ductive power of labor. for primitive farming were served as the director of the UNESCO Department of Natural There is a classic example of fi rst constructed.5 It is pre­ Sciences. this in the works of Chuang cisely this beginning of sys­ Tze, a contemporary of tematic farming, which required the precise knowledge of Mencius. Chuang Tze and the earlier Lao Tze are the gurus the seasons-knowledge that could be read in the Book of of Taoism, who became cult idols in the West's counter-cul­ the Heavens. tural swamp of the 1960s. (Needham himself was a pro­ Although Needham is forced to admit that Schlegel's pri­ fessed Taoist, who accredited the beginnings of science in mary publication on Chinese astronomy, Uranographie Chi­ China to the Taoist alchemists, while claiming that the Con­ noise, "remains the most important reference work on the po­ fucian trad ition discouraged scientific development because sitional astronomy of the stars and constellations," he of its moral commitment to the betterment of society. He in­ nonetheless refers to Schlegel's dating of Chinese astronomy as sisted that morality and science do not mix.) "a quite absurd chronology ...which only served to discredit Chuang Tze described an imaginary meeting between Con­ what real historical research might reveal." fucius and a peasant, who is meant to represent the true Needham concludes that the jesuits are to blame Taoist, in harmony with the mystical Tao. The peasant is irri­ for this "fabulous" dating of ancient astronomy, having been gating his field by hand with a cup. Confucius says: "If you duped by the Chinese: "The jesuits, fo llowed by the scholars had a machine here, in a day you could irrigate 100 times of the 19th century, began by accepting all the astronomical your present area. The labor required is trifling as compared content of the Chinese legendary material. Their successors, with the work done. Would you not like one?" sinologically better informed, scrapped it wholesale" [empha­ Confucius then describes a foot-driven well-sweep for lifti ng sis added]. Needham then favorably quotes one of his pre­ water continuously in wooden scoops from an irrigation ditch. ferred 20th century French cohorts, H. Maspero, who But the Taoist peasant denounces Confucius as a cunning claimed that nothing could be known of Chinese astronomy schemer, obviously impure, corrupt, and not a fit vehicle for before the 6th century B.C, at best. the Tao-and then he goes back to his tedious, inefficient Behind this undefended denial of Chinese history is Need­ work, which is still today glorified as "appropriate technology." ham's adherence to a standard Venetian myth, accred iting Mencius has one famous passage on astronomical knowl­ the beginning of all astronomical science to the cult-ridden edge: "Consider the heavens so high and so distant. If we have moon-worshipping Babylonians of 1400-1 000 B.C Need­ investigated their causes, we may, while yet sitting in the same ham concedes that perhaps Biot's dating of 2357 B.C place, go back to the solstice of a thousand years ago." The "might indeed be correct, but ...mi ght possibly be a part last phrase can alsothe translated: " ...bring forth [calculate] of the traditional patrimony of knowledge about the heavens the solstice days of a thousand years." Whether measuring for­ derived from Babylonian sources, and this particular con- ward or backward, it is clear that Mencius was aware of the

60 Summer 1996 21 st CENTURY precession and was capable of calculating its pace. The notion of a linear, four-dimensional Euclidean space­ The fu ll elaboration of Confucian science came in the 12th time, Leibniz said, had to be replaced by a concept of physical century, with the work of Chu Hsi; which culminated the space-time, which took into consideration the least action Confucian Renaissance of the Sung Dynasty, the greatest era principle, such as in the propagation of light. Elaborating this of scientific and cultural development in China's history.6 point, Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., points out in regard to the Chu Hsi succeeded in countering the predominant influence process of measurement in the real universe:9 of both Taoist mysticism and Buddhist denial of reality, which, together, had held China in a state of stagnation for In addition to quadruply-extended space and time, the more than a millennium. Chu Hsi revived and advanced the rate of retarded propagation of light must be added as Confucian tradition, combining morality with a scientific another extension. To reflect that, it was necessary to worldview based on the creative capacity of the individual adopt Cusa's notion that the idea of triply-extended space mind. He denounced the empiricists for viewing only the ex­ must be subordinated to what Cusa was first to define, ternal appearances of things and events, insisting instead that what was later named the transcendental domain, in everything in the universe is created with a certain inherent which the isoperimetric [least-action] principle, rather principle (Ii), reflecting the universal creation by the "Great than axiomatic points and lines, defines the hypothesis Ultimate," which, he said, is "simply the principle of the underlying measure. highest good," or, the perfect Universal Principle (LI). The material substance of things, he held, is defined by a certain Similarly, there are other "dimensionalities" of physical material force (ch't) which is created by principle (//) and is space-time, such as charge, spin, and so on, which must be inseparable from it. Mankind is uniquely �ndowed with the considered by the imagination in constructing algebraic ap­ most perfect form of this force (ch'/), wh)ch enables him to proximations of physical reality, including potential dimen­ participate in the creative power of the Universal Principle sions as yet unrecognized (undiscovered) by man in the physi­ (LI), through the qualities of reason and benevolence which cal universe. This n-dimensionality of physical space-time are mankind's birthright from Heaven. determines a curvature of the physical universe, which, in Leibniz, in his life-long study of Chinese science and philos­ turn, determines the basis for measurement. ophy,? recognized in this worldview a parallel to his own Pla­ Kepler also understood this principle, as he probed the rea­ tonic ideas. The "Principle" (LI) of Chu Hsi was the "idea" of son for the structure of the solar system-not just the linear Plato, or the "monad" of his own philosophy. Leibniz asked: measurement and description of the paths of the planetary or­ "Can we not say that the Li of the Chinese is the sovereign sub­ bits, .such as Newton was later to extract from Kepler's results, stance which we revere under the name of God?" He saw in but the harmonic ordering that explained why the orbits are the "material force" (Ch'l), as conceived by Chu Hsi, a concept where they are as part of a quantum field, a transcendental similar to his own concept of an "active force" inherent in all lawfu lness of the structure of the universe as a whole. substance, which acts in accordance with the universal har­ Leibniz regarded this Principle of Least Action as related to mony of the monads. the apparently fixed mechanical rules of physics, in the same These concepts, which distinguish the Platonic-Christian manner that the power of reason is related to mathematics. In scientific worldview from that of all empiricist science, also his essay "Critical Remarks Concerning Descartes' Principles," lie at the essential juncture of the meeting of the minds of East he writes: and West. Leibniz, building on the work of Kepler in optics, and the What must be constantly kept in mind is that the further work by Huygens and Bernoulli, extended the laws of mechanical principles themselves, that is, the general the refraction of light to what he called the Law of Optics­ laws of nature, derive from higher principles and cannot namely, that light follows the path of least action, varying its be explained by quantity alone and by geometrical course through media of varying density (and, thus, various considerations. These principles, on the contrary, imply rates of retardation) in such a way as to reach its destination in something metaphysical which is independent of notions the least possible time. In his essay "What is Nature?" Leibniz furnished by our imagination, and has to be referred to a states that the Law of Optics proves that "final causes are use­ substance which lacks extension. For besides extension ful not only in ethics and natural theology for the advancement and its modifications, there is inherent in matter the very of virtue and piety, but even in physics itself for discovering force or power of action which allows the passage from and understanding recondite truths." metaphysics to nature and from material to immaterial Leibniz extended this notion to the more general case, call­ things. This force has its own laws which derive not solely ing it the Least Action Principle, such that: "For all things there from those absolute and, so to speak, blind principles of is a principle of determination which must be drawn from the necessity which prevail in mathematics, but from the prin­ consideration of maxima or minima, namely, that the maxi­ ciples of perfect reason. mum effect must be attained with a minimum of ,, expenditure. 8 He maintained that through this discovery, the Just as Leibniz viewed the Least Action phenomenon as empiricist methodology of merely recording sense perceptions demonstrative of the wonderful harmony pre-existing in God's according to the external attributes of things and their mechan­ creation, so he argued that the actions of bodies are not ical interactions, was, once and for all, shown to be incapable caused by simple linear interactions, but by the active force of describing anything in the real world, but only appearances, "impressed upon matter at its creation." He viewed linear, me­ as perceived by the naive imagination. chanical interactions, which were of such import to empiri-

21st CENTURY Summer 1996 61 cists, as merely constraints only imperfectly under­ upon the actions generated stood at first, partially be­ by the higher order cause, cause the ideas of Chu Hsi just as the course of propa­ had been suppressed or gation of light is dependent subverted by the Mongols on the curvature of physical and by the influence of space-time. Leibniz writes:'o Taoist and Zen Buddhist ideologies among the From my investigation literati during the Ming Dy­ it will also become nasty. The initial Jesuit evident that one cre­ evaluation had also been ated substance does somewhat distorted by not receive from the Aristotelian influence another created sub­ among the Jesuits them­ stance the force of selves. As we shall see, the acti ng, as force itself, Jesuits' understanding of but only the limitation the Confucian worldview and determination of developed as the 17th cen­ this tendency or force tury progressed, and as the already pre-existing Chinese themselves as­ in it. similated the European dis­ coveries. Leibniz concluded by em­ The published docu­ phasizing the "usefulness of ments of the Project to Re­ this concept for the solution form Calendrical Science of the difficult problem con­ were distributed through­ cern i ng the interaction of out the Empire in the substances." 1630s, 1640s, and 1650s, Although the Chinese had together with many of the made none of these discov­ religious writings of the Je­ eries in optics, nor in physics suits. The Imperial generally, Lei bn iz recog­ Gazette, which was read nized in Chu Hsi's Confu­ throughout the realm, car­ cianism an insight into the ried both news reports nature of substance and about the project and arti­ spirit similar to his own. The cles praising the Jesuits, principle (/1) of Chu Hsi, like The influence of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and his "Grand De- some from the Emperor his own notion of the sign" fo r East-West development is what Needham and his co­ himself. The ed ucation of monad, meant that each be­ thinkers fear. For as Leibniz wrote of the Grand Design in the an entire generation of ing reflects God and the Novissima Sinica in 1697, "Perhaps Supreme Providence has Chinese students thus in­ whole of creation. The activ­ ordained such an arrangement, so that, as the most cultivated cl uded at least some ap­ ity of the ch'i of Chu Hsi, and distant peoples stretch out their arms to each other, those proximation of the science like his own concept of ac­ in between may gradually be brought to a better way of life. " and philosophy of the tive force, is obscured by ex­ Christian Renaissance. The ternal imped iments which disrupt its natural tendency to be in violent change of dynasties in 1644 only temporarily dis­ harmony with Principle (LI). The new science of the Renais­ rupted this process, and the Jesuit scientist-missionaries sance, which rested on the unique capacity of the individual were soon fi lling the top posts in the new Ch'ing Dynasty human mind to make intelligible for human understanding the science bureaus, as they had in the Ming. Adam Schall von harmonious ordering of God's creation, would, Leibniz be­ Bell, in particular, became the Director of the Bureau of As­ lieved, be immediately accessible to the Confucian mind. He tronomy, and eventually was made a Mandarin of the first wrote in the Novissima Sinica in 1697, "Perhaps Supreme class, as well as the personal tutor to the child Emperor Providence has ordained such an arrangement, so that, as the Shun-chih, who called him grandfather. most cultivated and distant peoples stretch out their arms to The Jesuits went through a period of severe repression in the each other, those in between may gradually be brought to a 1660s, after the death of Emperor Shun-chih, when power was better way of life." in the hands of a regent. Schall barely escaped the martyrdom which befell several other missionaries. But when the new K'ang Hsi, Colbert, and the French Jesuits Emperor, the great K'ang Hsi, came of age, the Jesuits were From the beginning, the Jesuits had recognized the Chi­ immediately reinstated. Schall had died, but K'ang Hsi placed nese worldview as coherent with that of the Christian Platon­ another Jesuit, Father Ferdinand Verbiest, in charge of the Bu­ ist view of the European Renaissance. This was, however, reau of Astronomy. K'ang Hsi announced full freedom for

62 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY Christian proselytizing in all of China, and requested large physics based on causality and the inherent harmonic ordering numbers of new missionaries to become teachers throughout of the universe. the realm. When Father Verbiest returned to Europe to recruit When certain other jesuits continued to offer objections to a new generation of jesuits, he met an enthusiastic response in Foucquet's presentation of an unqualified Keplerian astron­ the France of Colbert. omy, Foucquet refused to work with them. The Emperor K'ang France had become the center of the Platonic school of sci­ Hsi was particularly delighted with his Keplerian dialogue, and ence during the 17th century, culminating in Colbert's creation encouraged him to continue on his own. Between 1711 and of the Royal Academy of Science in 1666. The tradition of 1719, Foucquet wrote a total of 12 books on the mathematical Leonardo da Vinci and Kepler was sustained by the Academy sciences, 8 of them on astronomy. under the leadership of such giants as Desargues, Huygens, The Emperor K'ang Hsi also set up an academy for mathe­ and Pascal. Leibniz was in Paris from 1673 to 1676, and was matics and astronomy, headed by his son Yin-chih, who had very much a part of the circles around the Academy through­ received extensive education from Foucquet and other jesuits. out his lifetime. Working with Foucquet, Yin-chih directed a reform of all the When Father Verbiest came to Paris, he visited the jesuit astronomical and calendrical systems developed by the previ­ mathematician jean de Fontaney, as well as the astronomer ous generations of missionaries, basing everything on Kepler Philippe de La Hire and the director of the astronomical ob­ and the other new advances arriving from France, as well as servatory in Paris, jean-Dominique Cassini. Cassini went to those developed by the astronomers in China. Colbert with a request for a team of jesuit mathematicians for It is precisely during this period that K'ang Hsi was doing his the China mission, and Colbert immediately began prepara­ most intense study of the works and ideas of Chu Hsi. In 1714, tions. Colbert was to die before the plans came to fruition, he published the Complete Works of Chu Hsi, and raised the but by 1684, Father Fontaney and three other jesuit mission­ Sung master to the highest status of philosophers in the Confu­ ary-scientists left for China, after extensive discussions with cian Temple. Colbert's Academy. As in the previous century, the British historians of this later Louis XIV insisted that the missionaries were to be consid­ era committed intentional fabrications, as well as distortions by ered first as subjects of the King of France, responsible to the omission. In the only passage in Needham's massive work on King, rather than to the Office for the Propagation of the astronomy in China that even mentions Foucquet, he writes: Faith in Rome. He provided them with official papers, not as missionaries, but as "royal mathematicians." The first group Down to the very end of the mission the jesuits were arrived in China in 1687, and was subsequently joined by prisoners of their limited motive ....Any acceptance of others. The most important of these in regard to fundamental Copernican ism would equally have raised doubts about questions of science was Father jean-Franc;:ois Foucquet. all Ricci's teachings. In fact the penalty of enlisting live Like all the French jesuits, Foucquet was not significantly science in the service of fixed doctrine was to inhibit its influenced by the Venetian intrigue around Galileo and the development-Urania's feet were bound. Papal ban on the teaching of Copernicanism. The jesuit uni­ versities in France were in the forefront of education in Ke­ This is, of course, not even true with respect to the earlier pler's new astronomy, and were collaborating with Leibniz work of Terrentius and Schall, who totally overturned the an­ and others involved in the continuing new developments cient Ptolemaic system taught by Ricci and the first generation generated out of Paris. Foucq uet, who had been teaching of missionaries, who had not learned the new astronomy. As to mathematics at the jesuit College at La Fleche, joined the the period of Foucquet, the jesuit historian john W. Witek, mission in China in 1698. whose Controversial Ideas in China and Europe: A Biography In 1707, Foucquet met with the Emperor K'ang Hsi, and by of Jean-Franc;ois Foucquet was published in Rome in 1982," 1711 had become the personal tutor of astronomical science politely identified Needham's lie, after having conclusively to the Emperor and several of his sons. He was also working documented the evidence of Foucquet's Keplerian scientific with Father joachim Bouvet, under the direction of the Em­ work. "It might be possible," Witek writes, "that Urania's feet peror, on a thorough study of the Chinese classics, especially were not as bound as Needham has suggested." the obscure I Ching, with the purpose of determining possible Witek also takes on Needham's foremost student, Nathan connections between the history of ancient China and the his­ Sivin. Witek writes: tory of the Biblical era in the West. Bouvet was also Leibniz's primary correspondent in China, so that Foucquet thus be­ The above presentation may at least give pause to a came familiar with Leibniz's ideas. complete acceptance of Sivin's comment that for the Foucquet's close relationship with the Emperor K'ang Hsi, century after the appearance of the "Astronomical and especially his son Yin�chih, resulted in complete accep­ Treatises According to the New Methods," presented to tance of Kepler's scientific works in China. In 1712, Foucquet the throne in 1646, "no significant modern developments composed a dialogue taken directly from Kepler's Ep itome As­ in worldview were brought to the attention of Chinese tronomiae Copemicae (which was itself written in the form of astronomers (although, of course, what was taught a dialogue). This work of Kepler, completed in 1621, pre­ privately to those working in court we do not know)." sented a comprehensive view of astronomy based entirely on his own discoveries of the new planetary laws. The epicycles A Venetian Victory and the circular orbits of Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Tycho The historical record is clear: By the beginning of the 18th were completely dispensed with, replaced by a celestial century, during the reign of K'ang Hsi, a century of collabora-

21st CENTURY Summer 1996 63 tion between the greatest minds of Europe and China, aimed at also the notion of the monad in Leibniz, as well as the Princi­ embracing China in the unfolding process born in Europe of a ple (Lt) in Chu Hsi's Confucianism. Contrary to the empiricist universal scientific revolution, had reached a point of immi­ Father Bernard, this is precisely the basis for the compatibility nent success. Venetian efforts to destroy this threat to its power of the mind of ancient China with the spirit of science, as it escalated, culminating in the disastrous Papal bulls condemn­ must become so again today. ing Confucianism in the early part of the 18th century, and ef­ Michael Billington has written extensively on historical and fectively eliminating any collaboration between European sci­ philosophical development in China and its relationship to the entists and the Chinese literati, while also totally collapsing the West. An associate of Lyndon LaRouche, he is a political pris­ spread of Christianity in China.12 oner in the state of Virginia. Readers may also be interested in By the middle of the century, the missionaries had been his "Taoist Perversion of 20th-Century Science, " in Fidelio (Fall thrown out of China, with the exception of a few jesuits still 7994), pp. 76-96. running the Astronomical Bureau and related functions. With

the banning of the jesuit Order worldwide in 1773, even that Notes ------small presence folded. China was again isolated, while Taoist 1. See Michael O. Billington, ''The Enlightenment and the Middle Kingdom," Fidelio, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Summer 1995), pp. 34-62. influences and anti-Western xenophobia reestablished hege­ 2. Pasquale M. D'Elia, 1947. Galileo in China: Relations Th rough the Roman mony in Peking. Stagnation prepared the way for the conquest . College Between Galileo and the Jesuit Scientist Missionaries, 1610- of British gunboats and British opium in the next century. With 1640. An English translation by Suter and Sciascia is published by Har­ vard University Press (1 960). the British presence came also British (that is, Venetian) ideo­ D'Elia, a great admirer of Fascism and Mussolini, was responsible for logical warfare. other operations against China as well. He was the primary coordinator of British historians and China scholars, especially since the a Jesuit project in the 1930s to counter the influence of the greatest mind of modern China, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. A tearn of Jesuits under D'Elia's direc­ time of Bertrand Russell's trip to China in 1920, have gone to tion authored a text called The Trip le Demism of Sun Yat-Sen, as a hand­ great lengths to convince the Chinese that: (1 ) Western sci­ book for teachers and others in China, which distorted Dr. Sun's ''Three Principles of the People," and otherwise provided the "politically correcr' ence emanated from the rejection of the Christian Platonism explanation for the writings of Dr. Sun, whose works were required read­ of the Renaissance in favor of pure Aristotelian empiricism, as ing in the Republic of China under Chiang Kai-Shek. As an example, the put forward, especially, by Galileo and Newton, and (2) Chi­ book mentions Dr. Sun's praise for Alexander Hamilton and Abraham lin­ coln, adding that, were Sun still alive, he would certainly have added Mus­ nese science has failed over the past millennium because of solini to the list! the influence of humanistic Confucianism, rather than the 3. Keizo Hashimoto, 1988. Hsu Kuang-Ch'i and Astronomical Reform-The more "scientific," amoral Taoism. Current efforts to reverse Process of the Chinese Acceptance of Western Astronomy, 1629- 1635, Kansai University Press. the epistemological dominance of empiricism in the West, 4. Rick Sanders, "Constructing an Astrolabe to Test Schlegel's Dating of the and to revive the 19th century Platonist methodology of Bern­ Shu-King," October 1995, unpublished. hard Riemann and his mentors, Kepler and Leibniz, must be 5. See "Cave DepOSits Tell 23,000-year Story," by Chen Liang, China Daily, Dec. 15, 1994, p. 9. accompanied by an effort to revive the parallel scientific tra­ 6. See "Toward the Ecumenical Unity of East and West" by Michael O. dition in China. Billington, Fidelio, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer 1993), pp. 4-35. 7. See "A Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese," in Writings on A most beautiful example of such a Chinese scientific tradi­ China by G.W. Leibniz, translated by Cook and Rosemont (Chicago: tion, neither empiricist in the Western sense of Galileo and Open Court Press, 1994). Newton, nor mystical in the Taoist version of empiricism, is 8. From "On the Ultimate Origination of the Universe," in The Monadology and Other Philosophical Essays by G.W. Leibniz, translated by Paul contained in a poem from the 18th century by Feng-shen Yin­ Schrecker and Anne Martin Schrecker (New York: Macmillan, 1965). teo This poem is quoted by Henri Bernard, the jesuit historian 9. Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., 1995. "Non-New1onian Mathematics for Econo­ of Matteo Ricci (quoted above in his diatribe against the Re­ mists," Fidelio, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Winter 1995), pp. 4-26. Nicholas of Cusa made two significant discoveries in the process of naissance). Bernard, typical of those Aristotelians who insist thinking through Archimedes' attempt to derive pi by squaring the circle. that science must not exceed the bounds of sense percep­ "Squaring the circle" meant, in the first instance, finding the length s which, when squared, would give the exact area of a circle of known ra­ tions, presents the poem to convey the exact opposite of its dius r. Then S2 = 7tr2, and pi is easily derived. The search for a solution actual content: "Perhaps the incompatibility of the mind of went beyond using squares, to other rectilinear figures, with the same ancient China with the spirit of these sciences is nowhere bet­ kind of computation in mind. The circle could be inscribed and circum­ scribed with polygons of n sides, and the areas of the polygons deter­ ter expressed than in [this] poem on the microscope," mined. As the number of sides is increased, the area of the circle is estab­ Bernard writes. lished to better and better approximation by averaging the areas of the The poem reads: inscribing and circumscribing polygons. But Cusa pOinted to the paradox that, while the area of the circle is ap­ proximated by this means, the circle, as a geometric species, is not ap­ With a microscope you see the surface of things. proximated. Indeed, the larger the number of polygonal sides, the more It magnifies them but does not reveal actuality. unlike a circle the polygons become. As an independent species, the cir­ cle "comes from somewhere else." No wonder, then-as Cusa was the It makes things seem higher and wider, first to discover-that pi was an exemplar of a higher species of magni­ But do not suppose that you are looking at the things tude than what Archimedes had recognized as the incommensurables. It belongs to the species today deSignated non-algebraic or transcenden­ themselves. tal. Cusa's successors in the 17th century, Leibniz and the Bernoullis, discovered that all physical functions are of the non-algebraic species. The poet is in no way denigrating the use of the microscope. 10. "On the Improvement of Metaphysics and on the Concept of Substance" in The Monadology and Other Philosophical Essays by G.w. Leibniz, Rather, he is making the same point Kepler made in regard to translated by Paul Schrecker and Anne Martin Schrecker (New York: the telescope, in Kepler's response to Galileo's Starry Messen­ Macmillan, 1965). ger quoted above-namely, that reality lies not in appear­ 11. John W. Witek, S.J., 1982 Controversial Ideas in China and Europe: A Bi­ ography of Jean-Fran90is Foucquet, SJ, 1665- 1741, (Rome: Institutum ances, but in higher causes, which determine the "becoming" Historicum). of th ings in relation to the unfo lding of the universe. This is 12. See note 1.

64 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY RESEARCH FRONTIERS

A Laser Refrigerator: Cooling with Light by Mark Wi Isey

he laser is often thought of as the ulti­ Tmate cutting torch. Now, however, scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have demon­ strated for the first time that laser light can be used to cool. Combining advanced laser technology and optical materials with some peculiar atomic physics has yielded results that could lead to a new generation of low­ temperature refrigerators, cryocoolers. Such devices would be very compact and durable, ideal for applications in spacecraft, where they could cool sen­ LOS ALAMOS SOLID STATE OPTICAL REFRIGERATOR sors and instruments. Perhaps one day, LASSOR is a design fo r a solid-state cryocooler driven by laser light, fo r laser coolers may be incorporated into which there is now a proof of principle. Compact and durable, it will be desk-top computers to cool supercon­ ideal fo r cooling instruments aboard spacecraft and small high-temperature ducting circuits that would operate hun­ superconductors. dreds of times faster than the conven­ tional electronics of today. More than 65 years ago, scientists beam. The light's wavelength, about 1 experiments will use mirrors at both theorized that it might be possible to micron, is selected such that the light in­ ends to reflect the light back into the ma­ cool an object through its interaction teracts only with the ytterbium and not terial. Allowing the light to make several with light, but only recently has the with the other components of the glass. passes will enhance the cooling effect, technology existed to successfully at­ The simplest way to think about the making more efficient use of the light. tempt it. Richard Epstein, physicist at atomic physics involved, is to picture the The experimenters used these materi­ Los Alamos, who led this research, ex­ ytterbium ions as having, for the sake of als because they are familiar and readily plains that such cooling is made possi­ this example, three different energy lev­ available. But Epstein doubts they are ble by today's high-efficiency lasers and els: A, B, and C. Levels A and B are the optimal materials. liThe best materi­ high-purity optical materials. Inefficien­ close to each other, and C is at a higher als are sti ll to be found," he says. cies make the cooling effect impractical. energy level. The laser light excites the These initial experimental results have Impurities, which lead to heating, make ions from level B to C. At level (, it re­ been sufficient to enable researchers to it impossible. leases this energy by emitting light, predict the performance of a first-genera­ Although the idea of laser cooling is which, roughly half of the time, takes it tion laser cryocooler. They have dubbed counter-intuitive, the physics is fairly down to level A. It emits a slightly such a future device the Los Alamos straightforward. The trick is to match the greater amount of energy going from C Solid-State Optical Refrigerator, or LAS­ laser light and the properties of the ma­ to A, than it received going from B to C. SOR (see figure). It should be able to te rial, such that the material, when ex­ The energy needed to restore equilib­ achieve temperatures of 60 K, well within cited by the light at one frequency, will rium, that is, to go from A back to B, the range of today's high-temperature su­ emit light, or fluoresce, at higher fre­ comes out of the vibrational energy of perconductors, opening possibilities for quencies, which carry more energy, and the material, thus cooling it. myriad applications. Because LASSOR is cool the material. For the small sliver of material used in a wholly solid-state device, it would have In the experiments at Los Alamos, Ep­ the experiments, the researchers no moving parts, nor working fluids, stein and his co-workers used a small recorded a temperature drop of just 0.3 making it well-suited for use in space. sample of ultrapure metal-fluoride glass K, but more than enough to demonstrate Notes ------impregnated with ytterbium ions. * The the principle. At present, the laser simply • R.I. Epstein, et aI., 1995. Nature, Vol. 377, pp. glass is exposed to an infrared laser passes through the material once. Future 500-503.

RESEARCH FRONTIERS 21 st CENTURY Summer 1996 65 Buckytubes: Tomorrow's TV Screen? by Mark Wilsey

ast year, researchers at the Ecole and graphite. Diamond is hard, owing to time and were eager to try this new L Polyte chnique Federale in Lausanne, its interlocking tetrahedral arrangement method for making buckyballs. While Switzerland, came up with a new use for of atoms. Graphite is soft because it is making their carbon soot the researchers a novel material that could start a revo­ made up of sheets whose atoms are noticed a residue had built up on the lution in flat screen display technology. arranged in a hexagonal pattern. negative electrode. When they exam­ The material is composed of nanometer­ The new form of carbon that Smalley ined the residue, they made a suprising scale cylinders of carbon atoms (a and Kroto discovered was a hollow, discovery. nanometer is 1 bi II ionth of a meter). closed-cage structure. They suggested lijima reported the preparation of "a These carbon nanotubes are also known that their 60-atom carbon clusters were new type of finite carbon structure con­ as buckytubes because of their relation approximations of spheres, with the sisting of needle-like tubes," or what be­ to the buckyball, a soccer ball-shaped atoms arranged in pentagons and hexa­ came known as buckytubes.' In a 1991 cluster of 60 carbon atoms (Figure 1). gons like the pattern on a soccer ball. report on their findings, lijima presented On a more distant horizon, buckytube They dubbed it buckminsterfullerene af­ images taken with an 'electron' micro­ materials even stronger than the carbon ter Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic scope which revealed that each bucky­ fiber composites used in aerospace vehi­ domes it resembled. It was soon given tube was comprised of concentric cylin­ cles may be developed. the nickname buckyball. ders of graphitic sheets, ranging in The Swiss research team found that, In those early days, a number of things number from 2 to 50, with diameters because of its electrical properties, a film lim ited the research into the nature of ranging from a few to a few tens of of carbon nanotubes could be made to these carbon clusters, C . First, the laser nanometers and up to a micron in 60 emit electrons. The buckytubes acted like vaporization technique required a fairly length. The cylinders resembled rolled­ nanoscale electron guns. In principle, special ized setup. The quantity of C up chicken wire. 60 these could then replace the cathode ray produced was too small for more sophis­ lijima also noted that on each tube the tubes (CRTs) commonly used in today's ticated means of analysis. But, most im­ hexagons of carbon atoms were video displays, shrinking such displays to portant, no one had found a way of sep­ arranged in helical fashion around the a flat-panel screen. Potentially, a carbon­ arating the C from the rest of the axis of the tube. He speculated that the 60 nanotube-based display would be carbon soot which is also produced in helical structure may aid in the growth brighter, sharper, and cheaper than the the process. process of the buckytube. current liquid crystal technology used in This all changed in 1990, when Don­ Within the n'ext couple of years, NEC laptop computer screens, for example. ald Huffman, of the University of Ari­ researchers developed methods for pro­ This is not to say that one should be zona in Tucson, and Wolfgang ducing large quantities of buckytubes for looking for bucky "boobtubes" in the Kratschmer, of the Max Planck Institute study and for producing single-wall nan­ near future, but it does point to how far in Germany, discovered an easy tech­ otubes in the gas phase. NEC also devel­ buckytube research has come in the nique for making buckyballs in bulk. oped techniques to purify samples, re­ five years since their discovery. To They also hit upon a simple means of moving unwanted carbon debris from extracting C from the soot to produce the buckytubes. Meanwhile, other labo­ trace the development of carbon nano­ 60 tubes, it is necessary to go back to the pure C crystals. Soon, dozens of labo­ ratories began to study buckytubes. 60 mid-1 980s when buckyballs bounced ratories around the world were studying One of the first things scientists real­ onto the scene. buckyballs. ized when they began looking at bucky­ First Came Bucky The method Huffman and Kratschmer tubes is that they would be very tough In 1985, Richard Smalley of Rice Uni­ developed uses a carbon arc source in a stuff. Initial calculations suggest that car­ versity in Houston, Harold Kroto of the chamber under near-vacuum conditions. bon nanotubes are far stiffer and stronger University of Sussex in England, and High voltage direct current is arced than currently available carbon fibers­ their colleagues, reported a remarkably across graphite rod electrodes. The elec­ or any other known material for that stable cluster of 60 carbon atoms which trical discharge erodes the graphite, pro­ matter. The strongly bound carbon was produced by laser vaporization of ducing a soot rich in buckyballs. Little atoms within the nanotube structure graphite. The experiment was aimed at did Huffman and Kratschmer know at seem to inhibit impurities and defects, trying to understand how carbon mole­ the time that they were also producing thereby greatly increasing strength. If cules are formed in interstellar space. buckytubes. they could be developed, carbon nan­ Serendipitously, however, they found a Enter Buckytubes otube materials could be a vast improve­ previously unknown form of carbon. Sumio lijima and his research team at ment over the carbon fiber graphite Until then, there were only two NEC Corporation in Japan had been composite materials used in aerospace known forms of pure carbon: diamond studying particles of carbon for some and other applications.

66 Summer 1996 21st CENTURY RESEARCH FRONTIERS Figure 1 SINGLE-WALLED IJUCKYTUBE Buekytubes are composed of nanometer-scale cylin­ ders of carbon atoms and often have several coaxial layers.

Source: Reprinted with permission from Nature, Vol. 358, p. 195 (July 16,1992).

Nanowires carbon nanotubes with various materi­ boron oxide, and silicon oxide), or metal In 1992, physicist Jeremy Broughton als, and last summer a couple of new and non-metal halides (such as iron and his colleague Mark Pederson, at the approaches for making interesting chloride, niobium plus iodine, and sili­ Naval Researc h Laboratory (NRL) in nanoscale materials using buckytubes con plus iodine). Washi ngton, D.C., did a number of were reported. The results are rods 2 to 30 nanome­ computer simulations to figure out what In France, Pulickel Ajayan and his col­ ters in diameter and up to 30 microns in happens inside the buckytube. Their leagues, in the solid state physics labora­ length, of titanium carbide, a metal; simulations showed that the mobile tory at CNRS, a French national lab in boron carbide, an insulator; silcon car­ electrons inside the buckytube would Orsay, have used buckytubes as tem­ bide, a semiconductor; iron carbide, pull other atoms into the nanotube. This plates for forming nanostructures of which is ferromagnetic; and niobium process could be thought of as analo­ metal oxides, metal-oxygen compounds.2 carbide, a superconductor-a very in­ gous to capillary action, but on the Focusing on vanadium oxides, which teresting array of materials in nanowire nanoscale. are used in catalysts and ceramics, they sizes. Shortly after NRL's announcement, have found that if they melt vanadium Bucky TV Tubes scientists at NEC succeeded in fi lling oxide powder mixed with buckytubes, From the outset, one of the main fields buckytubes with lead. This was done by metal oxide fi lls not only the tube but of investigation was the electrical and mixing small lead particles with bucky­ also produces a thin coating of metal ox­ electronic properties of buckytubes. tube and heating the mixture to 4000 C, ide on the outside of the carbon nan­ These were the properties that Walt de above lead's melting point. The lead was otube. When the carbon is removed, it Heer and his colleagues at the Ecole drawn into the nanotube, much in the leaves behind a layered metal oxide Polyte chnique Federale in Lausanne way that the NRL researchers had pre­ nanofiber. Because of the variety of ap­ were studying. More specifically, they dicted. By this means, the buckytubes plications for vanadium oxides, Ajayan were looking at thin films of aligned car­ served as molds to cast wires, some less thinks that industry will be greatly inter­ bon nanotubes. than 2 nanometers in diameter! ested in these thin-film vanadium oxide The researchers prepared the bucky­ Although it still remains a big step to nanostructures. tube films by placing the nanotubes into go from metal-filled buckytubes to usable The other development was report­ a liquid suspension and then running it nanowires, the prospect is tantalizing. ed by researchers in the chemistry de­ through a ceramic filter. A black deposit Such nanowires wou ld be so small that partment at Harvard University. Here is left on the filter, which is then trans­ electrons would, in effect, pass through Hongjie Dal, Eric Wong, Yuan Lu, ferred to a plastic surface by pressing the only in single fi le, paving the way for a Shoushan Fan, and Charles Lieber have coated side of the filter onto the plastic new type of nanoelectronics, orders of produced carbide nanorods from carbon and I ifti ng it off. magnitude smaller and faster than to­ nanotubes.3 In this case, the buckytubes The exposed surface of the deposit is day's microelectronics technology. are converted to carbide compounds by that which had faced the filter. When In the past few years several tech­ reactions with vapors of metal and non­ the researchers examined this surface niques have been developed for fi lling metal oxides (such as titanium oxide, under an electron microscope, they could see little evidence of nanotubes, only dome-shaped Figure 2 structures. However, when the BUCKYTUBE ElECTRON GUN surface was lightly brushed it A fi lm of buckytubes (a), aligned appeared silvery, and the elec­ perpendicular to a plastic substrate; tron microscope revealed a Electrons perfo rated mica sheet, (b); 200- surface covered with nan­ + -= mesh copper grid, (c). When a volt­ otubes, all oriented in the di­ b c V age is applied, the buekytube film rection in which the fi lm had produces an electron beam that been brushed. passes through the grid and is The researchers concluded detected at the anode. that on the undisturbed sur­

Source: Reprinted with permission from Science, face, the nanotubes are ori­ Vol. 270, p.1 180 (Nov. 17, 1995) ©1995 AAAS. ented perpendicular to the sur- -1 mm - Continued on page 77

RESEARCH FRONTIERS 21sf CENTURY Summer 1996 67 ENVIRONMENT Is the CFC Ban on the Way Out?

s more industries and consumers Afeel the effects of the ban on chloro­ fluorocarbons (CFCs), the door is open­ ing in the United States for a re-evalua­ tion of the scientific claims behind the ozone depletion scare and a reversal of the ban itself. This opening was evident at two recent events: a regional meeting in May of the American Society for Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Condi­ tioning Engineers (ASHRAE) in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and a late Apri I stock­ holders meeting of the Du Pont Corpora­ tion in Wilmington, Delaware.

The very fact that Rogel io Maduro, Eric Milton/EIRNS co-author of 21st Century's book, The Bringing ozone science to Ou Pont: Rogelio Madura (right) and Lewis Ou Pont Holes in the Ozone Scare: The Scientific Smith (center) at a press conference outside the annual meeting of the Ou Pont Evidence That the Sky Isn't Falling, was company stockholders in May. Jl a featured speaker at the Western re­ gional meeting of ASH RAE, is a measure sion made by the international board of his time to fl ing personal insults at of the changing situation. With 50,000 ASH RAE, and both the president-elect Maduro. When Maduro talked about the members in 120 countries, ASH RAE is and vice president of ASH RAE flew in to millions who would be killed as a result the largest organization for the industry, attend the meeting. of the CFC ban, Crawford could only and for more than six years, its national Maduro's presentation, and his debate stammer, "It isn't happening." leadership and its monthly publication, with Jim Crawford, who represents the During his morning presentation, The ASHRAE Journal, have fully sup­ interests in the industry that have been Maduro showed the full range of data ported the ban on CFCs. However, there promoting the ban on CFCs, occupied on global ozone. (Many of these graph­ has been a growing rumble from the the fi rst day of the three-day ASH RAE ics can be found· in Maduro's book and rank and fi le against what they know to Technical Seminar. Maduro presented in in the Spring 1996 issue of 21st Cen­ be an ozone hoax. detail the scientific evidence showing tury.) One of the crucial points Maduro Internationally, in the weeks since the that the ozone hole is a natural phenom­ made was that the ozone fraud depends December 1995 Vienna meeting of the enon, dependent on atmospheric effects, on the selective use of data, taken out of parties to the Montreal Protocol, the in­ not chemistry. context. ternational treaty that bans CFCs, the Maduro also raised the crucial issue For example, the long-term ozone United Nations/Intergovernmental Panel that the ozone depletion theorists avoid: trends data from 1958 to 1992 (see fig­ on Climate Change apparatus has been The ban on CFCs will kill millions of ure) is usually presented only in part­ working very hard to hold together its people through the collapse of the from 1979 to 1992, starting from the control and policing of climate propa­ worldwide refrigeration cold chain that high point of the ozone cycle in order to ganda worldwide. There is already sig­ preserves the world's food supply, medi­ indicate an apparent drop in ozone lev­ nificant dissent within the Montreal Pro­ cines, and vaccines. In Third World els. But the graph of the entire period for tocol signer nations, especially in the countries, he said, people will die from which data is available, 1958 to 1992, developing sector and the former Soviet starvation and food-borne diseases, as shows no such drop overall. states. Were the u.s. side of this opera­ well as from other diseases previously Although the audience got the point, tion to develop cracks, the Montreal Pro­ treatable or prevented by vaccination. apparently Crawford did not. One of the tocol and its CFC ban could come tum­ During the debate, Crawford limited graphics he presented was the same bling down. In this context, an opening himself to presenting the so-called evi­ chart of ozone trends data, but only from for a policy change in both the air condi­ dence contained in the World Meteoro­ 1979 to 1992. tioning industry and the Du Pont Corpo­ logical Organization's 1995 Ozone Re­ ASHRAE and the Ozone Hole ration is significant. port, asserting that the report's In 1990, an ASH RAE technical group The decision to have Maduro as a fea­ conclusions are correct because so many that included Crawford made the deci­ tured speaker at the western regional scientists support it. Instead of making sion to back the ban on CFCs. Prior to meeting of ASHRAE was a political deci- any scientific arguments, Crawford used that, Maduro had been invited to ad-

68 Summer 1996 21 st CENTURY ENVIRONMENT Northern Hemisphere Ozone ---- Northern�------Hemis�--pher------e Ozone------31 5 ,-��------�------' 350 ,- -'

300 ---- � 310 � °c °c ::l � 250 c: o g 305

Source: Adapted from the World Meteorological Organization and the testimony of Oro Sallie Baliunas, Sept. 20, 1996, before the House Committee on Science's subcommittee on energy and environment

dress several ASH RAE meetings on the would challenge the ozone fraud. stockholders. I n contrast to previous issue. But from that point on, the orders Now that ASHRAE's rank and fi le has such interventions, this year, the recep­ from ASH RAE headquarters in Atlanta put a reversal of the CFC ban on the tion from the audience was cordial, and were that no chapter of ASHRAE could agenda, the way is clear for dissenters the meeting organizers ensured that both invite Maduro-or anyone else who from the ozone depletion theory to ad­ Du Pont Smith and Maduro (who is not challenged the ozone depletion theory­ dress ASHRAE meetings and other a stockholder) had reserved seats, near to speak at its rneetings. meetings of the air conditioning, heat­ the microphone. Increasing protests from the member­ ing, and refrigeration industry. And Du Pont Smith called for the company ship led to the approval for the western once this process gets under way, a re­ to change its policy of supporting a ban region's invitation for Maduro to address versal of the Montreal Protocol be­ on chlorofluorocarbons, warning that the Idaho meeting. ASH RAE worked comes very thinkable. the ban would kill tens of millions of hard to find someone who would defend Du Pont Stockholders Break Form people. His comment, "The best thing the ozone depletion theory against Another sign of a break in the ozone that had happened to the company Maduro. More than 20 prominent pro­ hoax came at an unexpected location: lately was the departure of the British­ moters of the ozone depletion theory re­ the May 24 annual stockholders meeting Canadian bootleggers and fast-buck fused, including Nobel Prize winner of the Du Pont Corporation at the Hotel swindlers, the Bronfmans," was greeted Sherwood Rowland, whose secretary re­ Du Pont in Wilmington, Delaware. with chuckles throughout the room. ported that Sherwood declared he would Here, Maduro joined Lewis Du Pont Du Pont Smith's open letter to the never debate Maduro or anyone else on Smith, an heir to the Du Pont family for­ stockholders urged the company to sup­ ozone depletion. tune and a descendant of the founders of port the "Corporation A" proposals ad­ Although Crawford works for the the giant E.I. Du Pont de Nemours, in vanced by Democratic Senators Thomas Trane Corporation as director of Regula­ distributing literature and addressing the Daschle (S.D.) and Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), tory Affairs, he has spent most of the past 800 or so stockholders on the question which would reward companies that did decade with the Alliance for Responsible of CFCs. not downsize, but instead worked to up­ CFC Policy (renamed the Alliance for The stockholders were greeted with a grade the living standards of their work­ Responsible Atmospheric Policy). The demonstration at the hotel entrance, ers. He also called on the stockholders Alliance, which is run by Crawford's where Maduro, Du Pont Smith, and a to support the economic development boss at Trane, Jim Wolf, has been the few supporters handed out several hun­ policies of Lyndon LaRouche, as a solu­ principal vehicle for promoting the dred copies of 21st Century magazi ne tion to the impending global economic ozone hoax in the business commu­ and an open letter to the stockholders by crash. nity-and for squelching industry oppo­ Du Pont Smith. Members of the Du Pont Du Pont Smith's remarks dovetailed sition to the ban. Since the 1987 signing workers' union were also demonstrating with the efforts of the union (the Interna­ of the Montreal Protocol banning CFCs, at the entrance. tional Brotherhood of Du Pont Workers) the Alliance has not included any Inside the meeting, both Maduro and to get the company to pay closer atten- speaker at its annual conferences who Du Pont Smith were able to address the Continued on page 72

ENVIRONMENT 21 st CENTURY Summer 1996 69 Behind the Unabomber: Earth First! and Prince Philip by Rogelio A. Madura

ed ia coverage of Theodore MKaczynski, the indicted suspect in the 17-year-old Unabomber case, has ig­ nored Kaczynski's eco-terrorist support network and concentrated on showing how well he fits the FBI Behavioral Unit's profi le of the Unabomber as a "loner," a "madman," a "serial killer," and so on. Some news outlets, including The Washington Post, have turned Kaczynski into a green "Robin Hood." Whatever role Kaczynski may have played in the Unabomber murders, with­ out the help and support of the environ­ mental movement, it would have been impossible for the Unabomber to func­ tion. Central to this broader apparatus is the Native Forest Network, a creation of Britain's Prince Philip, and the apparatus of the self-professed terrorist organiza­ tion Earth First! Kaczynski was one of the participants in the Nov. 9-1 3, 1994, Native Forest Network (NFN) conference in Missoula, Montana, according to Barry Clausen, a private investigator who infiltrated Earth First! and later wrote Wa lking on the Edge, a book about his experiences. In November 1995, Clausen provided a list of participants in the conference to Earth First! Journal, called Live Wild or ruary-March 1994 issue of the Earth the FBI, and told them he was convinced Die. According to Clausen, that issue of First! Journal; Thomas Mosser, a fo rmer that the Unabomber had attended. This the underground newspaper was distrib­ top executive at the company, was killed Native Forest Network conference uted to all participants of the Missoula by a bomb in December 1994. In an brought together the eco-terrorist and conference. Earth First! Journal article by Carmelo animal rights networks controlled by The publisher of Live Wild or Die, Ruiz-Marrero, Burson-Marsteller is por­ Prince Philip's apparatus. Speakers and Clausen learned during his infiltration of trayed as "an extremely powerfu l institu­ participants covered the green spec­ Earth First!, was Mitch Friedman, former tion," promoting an "elite form of 'envi­ trum-from national and international head of Earth First! in Washington state. ronmentalism' that serves the needs of leaders of the World Wildlife Fund Friedman is now the head of the Greater the corporate world." The article details (WWF), National Audubon Society, and Ecosystem All iance, the group desig­ the activities of Burson-Marsteller on be­ Greenpeace, to the leadership of Earth nated to draft the maps of the bioregions half of corporations that are allegedly First! The keynote speaker was Cecilia proposed by Prince Philip and the destroying the environment, including Rodriguez, the official representative in United Nations;World Wildlife Fund ap- "Exxon, which hired Burson-Marsteller the United States of the Mexican terrorist paratus. to counter the negative publicity from Zapatista organization. Target Selection the Valdez oil spill." After the NFN conference in Montana, There is little question that the last two The top target on the "Eco-F-ker Hit according to Clausen, the Unabomber victims of the Unabomber were selected List" was Exxon, because of the Valdez changed his strategy: He began target­ from a combination of the "Eco;F-ker oil spill. In a letter, the Unabomber said ting the individuals listed on the "Eco­ Hit List" (the fi rst and third targets on the that he had killed Mosser because the F-ker Hit List," published in a 1990 is­ list), and Earth First! Journal. The Burson­ firm "helped Exxon clean up its public sue of the underground counterpart of Marsteller firm was targetted in the Feb- image after the Exxon Valdez incident."

70 Summer 1996 21 st CENTURY ENVIRONMENT In fact, Burson-Marsteller never engaged ski case are properly fo llowed up, not Buckytubes in a public relations campaign to help only will the underground eco-terrorist Exxon clean up its image. apparatus be exposed, but the control­ Continued fro m page 67 The Link to the Windsors ling hand of the above-grou nd, more Kaczynski's involvement with the Na­ "respectable" world of Prince Philip, the face; but when the surface is brushed, tive Forest Network provides the link to WWF, and the one-world aristocrats will the nanotubes are pushed over. In the Prince Philip. The NFN was founded in also come to light. brushed films, the researchers found that Tasmania, Australia in 1992, during a the electrical resistivity was less in the Notes ------­ conference jointly sponsored by the Aus­ • A condensed version of this report, "The Really direction in which the nanotubes lay. It tralian Conservation Foundation and the Shocking Royal Secret: British Crown Rules is easier to conduct electrons along the the Greens," appeared in 21st Century, Winter Rainforest Action Network. Prince Philip 1994-1995, p. 9. buckytubes than it is to hop electrons fo unded the Australian Conservation across them. For the fi lms in which the Foundation in 1963, and was its chair­ nanotubes were still perpendicular, the man in 1971 -1 976, during the time it Effects of Radiation resistivity was very high. was radicalized. Continued fro m page 27 In their next round of experiments, de As documented in the fIR Special Re­ Heer and his co-workers came up with port, "The Coming Fall of the House of Question: What can be done to give the an ingenious way of turning a fi lm of Windsor" (Oct. 28, 1994), Prince Philip general public a better understanding of perpendicularly-oriented bucktubes into and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands radiation and its effects? an electron source: A buckytube con­ founded the World Wildlife Fund in I have written my book so that I could ducts electrons quite well along its

1961 . * Its stated goal was the destruction give scientific and useful data to persons length. In a sufficiently strong electric of the nation-state, the elimination of sci­ who need them to allay their radiation field, the electrons will be emitted from entific and technological progress, and fear. But I failed to convey my wishes to the tip of the nanotube.4 In this case, the return of mankind to a primitive level residents suffering from the radiation fear the researchers embedded one end of of existence. Since then, the WWF has of the Chernobyl fa llout. I sent my book the nanotubes into a conductive poly­ spawned a host of organizations dedi­ to several scientists of the former Soviet mer, over which a sheet of mica-20 cated to furthering this policy. Union. One of them, who visited Japan, microns thick with a 1-millimeter-diam­ The creation of Greenpeace by British said that he would translate into Russian eter hole in it-was bonded. The hole intelligence in Vancouver, Canada, in the sections of my book on the Cher­ was covered with a 200-mesh copper 1969, is a case in point. So also is the nobyl accident. ...At present, without grid (Figure 2). creation of Earth First!, Sea Shepherd, social stability, it seems very hard to When hooked up to a battery, elec­ and other eco-terrorist organizations in propagate true scientific facts not only in trons are forced out of the nanotubes 1978-1 980. The existence of such ap­ the former Soviet states, but also in other and into the conducting polymer base. parently diverse groups helps keep the countries. The electrons stream through the grid hard-core terrorist organizations once or and to a detector, which records their twice removed from the more "re­ References ------­ emission from the film. At 700 volts, de D.F. Brash, 1996. "Cellular Proofreading," Nature spectable," political arms. Med., Vol. 2, pp. 525-526 (May). Heer's team produced electron streams The Rainforest Action Network was Y.E. Dubrova, et aI., 1996. "Human Minisatellite with current densities greater than 100 created in turn by the leaders of Earth Mutation Rate after the Chemobyl Accident," milliamps per square centimeter, which Nature, Vol. 380, pp. 683-686. First!, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and M. Kodaira, et aI., 1995. "Lack of Effects of Atomic would be strong enough to produce an the National Wilderness Society, in San Bomb Radiation on Genetic Instabilty of Tan­ image on a phosphor-coated screen. dem-repetitive Elements in Human Germ Francisco in 1985. It then served as the This approach has a number of advan­ Cells," Am. J. Hum. Genet., Vol. 57, pp. 1275- consponsor of the 1992 conference in 1283. tages. The carbon nanotube electron gun Tasmania, at which the Native Forest Sohei Kondo, 1993. Health Effects of Low-level is stable in air, inexpensive and easy to Network was founded. Radiation. Osaka: Kinki University Press and Madison, Wisc.: Medical Physics Publishing. fabricate, and functions reliably. Also, The Native Forest Network itself be­ J.V. Neel, et aI., 1990. "The Children of Parents the entire gun is only about 0.2 millime­ came the "mother" of the entire Exposed to Atomic Bombs: Estimates of the ter thick, and could be produced with Genetic Doubling Dose of Radiation for Hu­ green/terrorist apparatus in Australia, as mans," Am. J. Hum. Genet., Vol. .46, pp. 1053- areas ranging from 1 square millimeter well as the base for such operations in 1072. to hundreds of square centimeters. all of Asia. T. Norimura, S. Nomoto, M. Katsuya, Y. Gondo, When fully developed, such nan­ and S. Kondo, 1996. "p53-Dependent Apopto­ Phil Knight, one of the founders of the sis Suppresses Radiation-induced Teratogen­ otube technologies may play a big role NFN and its current U.S. national leader, esis," Nature Med., Vol. 2, pp. 577-580 (May). in the materials and electronics of the is also a leader of Earth First!, the head M. Otake, H. Yoshimaru, and W.J. Schull, 1987. "Severe Mental Retardation among the Prena­ next century. of the western cell of the Animal libera­ tally Exposed Survivors of the Atomic Bomb­ tion Front, the head of the Predator Pro­ ing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: A Comparison Notes ------ject, and one of the most outspoken sup­ of the T65DR and DS86 Dosimetry Systems" 1. S. lijima, 1991. Nature, Vol. 354, pp. 56-58. (Hiroshima: Radiation Effects Research Foun­ 2. P.M. Ajayan, O. Stephan, P. Redich, and C. porters in the United States of the dation, RERF TR 16-87). Colliex, 1995. Nature, Vol. 375, pp. 564-567. Zapatista guerrillas (he has written letters L. Wei, et aI., 1990. "Epidemiological Investigation 3. H. Dal, E.W. Wong, Y.Z. Lu, S. Fan, and C.M. of Radiological Effects in High Background to President Clinton on their behalf). Lieber, 1995. Nature, Vol. 375, pp. 769-772. Radiation Areas of Yangjiang, China," J. Ra­ 4. W.A. de Heer, A. Chatelain, and D. Ugarte, If these and other leads in the Kaczyn- diat. Res., Vol. 31 , pp. 119-136. 1995. Science, Vol. 270, pp. 1179-1 1 80.

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CFC Ban on Way Out? Du Pont Smith countered that the among Third World and Eastern Euro­ most recent satellite evidence provides pean countries against the Montreal Continued fro m page 69 no support for the ozone depletion the­ Protocol banning CFCs, tion to the poor conditions and low ory, and that shareholders were sold on Jack Kroll interrupted Maduro, saying wages of its workers, One union pen­ the ban based on the prospect for profits. that the decision to support the ban was sioner told board chairman Edgar S. Citing the large number of deaths that done with the best knowledge available Woolard, Jr., that when he visited the the ban would cause, Du Pont Smith re­ at the time. Second, he said, "our prod­ factories, he was "shielded from seeing minded the audience of the criteria of ucts are not affected," and CFCs will not the whole picture, the effect of [layoffs] the Nuremberg Tribunal that tried the be banned in the Third World fo r on the communities, the inequity in pay Nazi war criminals at the end of World decades to come. scale between management and work­ War II. Officials who "knew or should Maduro pointed out that because of ers." He appealed to the board to keep have known" that the Nazi policies were smuggling of CFCs from the Third World pensions abreast of inflation, going to kill people, were responsible for to the United States, where they com­ Du Pont Smith then made an impas­ their deaths, Du Pont Smith said. mand high prices, CFCs are simply not sioned plea for Du Pont to support the Maduro spoke next, pointing out that available in the Third World now. He overturning of the ban on CFCs, saying he had interviewed Du Pont Company also reviewed the situation in Russia, that it was under Bronfman that Du Pont scientists who told him privately that where the Duma (parliament) has held had pushed it. At this point board chair­ they thought the ozone depletion theory two sessions to discuss rejecting the ban man Woolard, who has made a reputa­ was wrong but could not say so pub­ on CFCs. The Russian military, Maduro tion for himself as "Mr, Corporate Green," licly for political reasons. He then said, considers the CFC ban to be a mili­ said that this was not true. The Bronfmans called upon the Du Pont corporation to tary threat, because halons, a class of the did not make this decision, Woolard said; reverse its policy of financing the pro­ chemicals being banned, are essential as it was his personal decision. moters of the fraud and instead fight to fi re-extinguishers in protecting their fleet, Du Pont CEO Jack Kroll then added give a public forum to the scientists aircraft, and nuclear missile silos from that Du Pont is a "science and technol­ who have debunked the ozone deple­ fire and potential nuclear accidents. ogy company" and that the decision was tion theory. Maduro reiterated that the Woolard responded, "This is a science made on the advice of Du Pont's scien­ stakes in human lives were very high, company; if you have evidence, leave it tists. and as a result, there is an open revolt with us,"

72 Summer 1996 21 st CENTURY ENVIRONMENT