SCHOLARS: BY ARTHUR C BLUEPRINT CLARKE FORABIONIC SOCIETY

BERLITZ: THE UFO CONTROVERSY IN FRANCE THE UNIQUE YOU: WHY NO TWO OF US ARE ALIKE

A NEW NOVEL FROMEUROPES BEST-KNOWN SF AUTHOR onnrui

EDITOR 8. DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE EXECUTIVE EDITOR: BEN BOVA ART DIRECTOR: FRANK DEVINO MANAGING ED:"OR: J. ANDERSON DORMAN !-';: ION EDITOR ROBERT SHECKLEY RIRQPEAN EDI "OR DR. BERNARD DIXON

DIRECTOR O- -OVER: I SING, EEVERI..L-Y WARDALE EXECUTIVE VinE-PRL-SIDE\~. IRWIN E. BILLMAN

CONTENTS PAGE

FIRST WORD Opinion Ben Bova 6 COMMUNICATIONS Correspondence 10 FORUM Dialogue 12 EARTH Environment Kenneth B rower 14

LIFE Biomedicine Bernard Dixon 18 SPACE Comment JohnGribbin 20

MIND Behavior Renee Fuller 22

MUSIC/FILM The Arts 26

UFO UPDATE Report Charles Berlitz 32

CONTINUUM Data Bank 35,

TELEPRESENCE Article Marvin Minsky 44

RETURN FROM THE STARS Fiction Stanislaw Lem 54

THE UNIQUE YOU Article Richard Hutton and Zsolt Harsanyi 62

EARTH SCANS Pictorial Charles Sheffield 68

ELECTRONIC TUTORS Article Arthur C. Clarke 76

HARRISON SGHMITT Interview Daniel S. Greenberg 80

ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE Pictorial Robert Sheckley 84

MARCHIANNA Fiction Kevin O'Donnell, Jr. 100

PEOPLE Names and Faces Dick Teresi 112

INNOVATIONS New Products 114

EXPLORATIONS Travel Kurt R. Stehling 116

STARS Astronomy MarkR. Chartrand III 123 DEW OPTICS Phenomena Hans Rletschinger 126 GAMES Diversions Scot Morris 128 LAST WORD Opinion Norman Spinrad 130 PHOTO CREDITS 120

;WN.1DS;l;IS3N0M9-B7l').IJ.S Art/Fit Mir.ha^i Paw.es provided V with this covet art. Omni month's York An untitled work, the oil pat .',,'.' r-.g exemplifies Parkes's rather

distinctive flair tor the abstract Born in the UnTfed- Slates, the ar!:s! pamis: mostly from his home in Fuengirola, in southern Spain.

4 OMNi ' ' .

'-- usually during -v\ elector yea' ;hai more than NASA's, DOE'svand -NSF.'s seme politician declaims, "Let's ialk entire budgets combined.

.sense to' the American people." Uncle. Sam wants to spend your money

This is- an election year. In addition to- this way:

iai king sense, lets -alk dollars. The Department of Health and .Human- In- particular,- let's look at the dollars Services -(formerly HEW.) will spend the proposed by President Car tor tor the equivalent of the whole NASA budget Fiscal Year 1381 federal budget. every ten days.. The budget message thai the President The Department of -Defense will spend sent to Congi the equal of NASA's budget avery two numbers: a record 361 5 3 billion if

spending: a $15:8 billion deficit: a 20 While (NASA accounts' for 1 5 percent of

' peti h mousse :r; miliia: y spending, to a the lotai R&D in me FY 1.981 budget and- Services for i i $208 7 billion 'or ihe Health and Human accounts Departmentof H.ealthand Human another 11 percent of -the R&D monies. Services. Staggering numbers, beyond Defense's R&D budgetis a whopping 46 true Human comprehension. percent of the whole. Any wonder that While ihe numbers of dollar amounts university and industrial scientists end up are so huge as to be virtually meaningless working for the Defense Department? to the average taxpayer, perhaps we can Of course, these are the preliminary. ."'. of ihe ratios, of budget figures. President Carter and make some -sense-out . expenditures' for various .Congress are busily trimming away trying. goods and :

services. to produce a balanced budget to fight . ,

: For example, many scientists have gone inflation. But the ratios within the iotai on record as saying that scientific budget' probably won't change- much-. 'If research fared rather well Jnthe new anything,' NASAand Energy-will be cut' B( budget. The National Science Foundation more deeply than Defense and 'Health. received a budget total ot Si. 148'billion. Critics of the space-program have of pointed cut ii'iai NASA soends bisiions of ±The Department . That is a 15.5 percent increase over last' enough, but Health Human Services year and marks ihe first time'NSF's budget dollars every year. True in and : has climbed above the 51 billion level. . relurn-forthose-tax expe.hdiiureswe.'get-. will the spend But ihe consumer price' index jumped the solar system. And compared lowhat on defense and'human-' equivalent of the whole 13.3 percenfin 1979. So NSF is barely we spend : service?. NASA's buogei is picayune, NASA' budget every keeping pace with the inflation 'ale. The Departmen! of Energy received He ore wanlsthe United States to be" ten days Defense will $8.1 billion, am increase of only 4.7' percent weak. militarily, and certainly" a; good deal money, spend the... NASA over the previous year. DOE is actually .of the Defense Department's fl&D m losing ground-to inflation. To make. matters- is going into space hardware. Probably weeks. j 1 budget every two worse, DQE's research and development DOD is already spending more o.n space

' budgel of $5.1 billion is onjy'3.8.percent than NASA can. above last year's. That's still a lot of money, But a strong and vital' civilian space but how are we going to develop the-new effort is crucial to our national economy technologies we need to end our energy and international stature-. Space solve our energy woes if we don't finance the necessary technology can help to research on new ideas? problems and' can. bring about new NASA is also losing ground to inflation. capabilities in communications, Its FY 1981 budget is pegged at £5,7 environmental monitoring, manufacturing, billion, an increase-of only 8.86 percent and other industries. over last year. By far the largest single The .next time, you hear someone

expenditure in NASA's budget is for the' complain of "all those billions wasted- on .

space shuttle, still perilously behind lis space," remind that person that hundreds original schedule, which is receiving- more of times more money is spent on other

' than $2.68 billion all together. Meanwhile areas of 'thefederal budget - for far less other parts of the NASA budgel are return-. shriveling. The space agency has been And the next time Senator William forced to drop plans for'the Galileo Proxmire, of Wisconsin, tries-id knock the -.

spacecraft program, intended for NASA, budget as a "waste of 'the . - , long-term studies of the planet J.upiter and taxpayers'' money." ask nim how he voted-

its moons, and tocanc.el development Of on the milk-subsidy bill; a federal the solar- electric propulsion system, which budgetary item dear to the heart of was the key to a fiyby of Halley's Comet Wisconsin's dairy industry. Thefederal and Comet Tem'peJ..2 in 1985. milk subsidy cost the American taxpayer The biggest "gainer" in the new budget" $246,673,000 in FY 1979. The figures for is the Department of Defense-. Not only FY 1980 are not yet available, butthey will does-its overall.budget increase by a hefty undoubtedly be:higher. 20 percent, but its research and Let 'stalk sense-about our tax dollars, development budget of $16,565 biliion is particularly inan election ye.-jr QQ DRJirUII

an abandoned darkroom on the executive editor Frank Kendig. Harsanyi is fiction. Cofounderof the Polish Astro- Incampus oi Harvard University young a member of the faculty at Cornell Medical nautical Society and member of the Polish Marvin Minsky took apart a crayfish. He College and is the project director on Cybernetic Association, Lem has written connected its nerves to an electrical genetics research for the U.S. Congres- many books, among them; Solaris, The source and, remarkably, manipulated its sional Office of Technical Assessment. He Cyberaid, and Star Diaries. claws to pick up a pencil and put it in a jar. has coauthored an article on applied Another contributor of fiction

Dr. Minsky was unaware at the time that genetics with Hutton for the New York ("Marchanna," page 100) \s Kevin this simple experiment foreshadowed the Times Magazine. O'Donnetl, Jr. Born in 1950, this Cleveland sophisticated robot arms he would later This issue's UFO Update features a native has lived in Seoul, Hong Kong, invent to perform the same sort of tasks. fascinating interview with French Taipei, and New Haven, Connecticut, Today, from his workbench at MIT, the astroscientist Maurice Chatelain. A where he now resides. O'Donnell made his cyberscientist continues to issue visionary staunch believer in UFOs, Chatelain was first short-story sale to Analog in 1973 studies in robolics and artificial intelli- chief scientist for Apollo Communica- and has since appeared in nearly all the gence. His current project involves the tions Data Processing during the Apollo major science-fiction magazines. development of a remote-controlled work program and has worked on the Mercury Our apologies to O'Donnell and John force, which through a series of sensors, and Gemini missions. He holds a master's Keefauver. In our April Omnibus we musclelike electric motors, and feedback degree in physics from the University of inadvertently placed Dale Leifeste's devices will feel and work much like our Paris and has studied space physics at picture of Mr O'Donnell above Mr. own hands. Minsky calls his system the University of Southern California under Keefauver's name. telepresence, and with it, man will Wernhervon Braun. The famed linguist We are proud to present a story by accomplish everything from sate nuclear- Charies Berlitz provides the interview for Arthur C. Clarke (Electronic Tutors, page power generation to the construction Omni. An archaeologist and underwater 76). Mr. Clarke's latest novel, Fountains of and operation of low-cost space stations. explorer, Berlitz is also author of many Paradise, was a Literary Guild alternate, "Telepresence" begins on page 44. popular nonaction works, including and won the Galaxy award as best Feeling lost in the crowd? A victim of the Without a Trace, Mysteries from Forgotten science-fiction novel of 1979. Age of Anonymity? The situation may Worlds, and Atlantis. Read page 32. Senator Harrison Schmitt is the guest for seem a bit grim, but, according to authors "Jupiter's Noneffect" is this month's our June Interview. One of the last men to Richard Mutton and Zsolt Harsanyi, Space column, written by British science walk on the moon, the junior senator from salvation is close at hand. In their article writer John Gribbin (page 20). This New Mexico is now taking on far greater "The Unique You" (page 62} we learn how distinguished author has been a frequent challenges, such as trying to convince the science has found a host of new ways to contributor to such publications as Nature, rest of the Senate that he is as serious a show just how special really are. Hutton we Astronomy , and New Scientist. Some of senator as he was an astronaut. Schmitt is a free-lance writer who likes to spec- Gribbin's more notable books are Our was interviewed by Daniel S. Greenberg, ulate about science and society. He is the Changing Universe and, most recently, a Washington-based journalist who has author of the book Bio Revolution and Time Warps. been covering the science and coauthor of the newly released Lifespans, Stanislaw Lem presents "Return from government scene for many years. See which he wrote with former Omni the Stars" (page 54) for this month's page 80. DO a omni JIBS ^__ cannruiuRJiCMTiDrus

He Makes the Law irrerspecies con-: muni cat ion Both men In your April Games column you quote and dolphins "speak," but at such greatly from Godel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas ciffsrenl 'reouency ranges, and in Hofstadter. Is this the same Douglas different ways of using sound, that only by Hofstadter who won your Competition #2 elaborate computer translation can any ['You Make the Laws," May 1979], with communication between these two

Hofstadter 's Law; "It always takes longer species occur. Even so, relatively little than you expect, even when you take communication now occurs. Telepathy

Hofstadter 's Law into account"? would certainly make things easier. Geoffrey Edelhart Telepathy would offer a considerable

Battle Creek, Mich. advantage over speech because it can Yes- Ed. function independently of both the condition and the species of body that one Pitt Falls happens to have. Martin J. Pitt's Last Word on telepathy David Palter [March 1980] is a conglomerate of Hollywood, Calif. contradictions. If he truly assumes telepathy is desirable, why has he no! Obvious

expounded on any of its assets? He I have a complaint about Belinda assumes telepathy to be limited to the Dumont's article entitled "Orthohealing" laws of our universe as we know them now. [February 1980], My complaint concerns But how can he assume that telepathy a statement on page 106, wherein the would be no faster than the speed of light? author refers to "the male hormone If telepathy is indeed concurrent thought, progesterone," which to my under- then it transcends the mere speed of light; standing is an obvious error. My primary it enters the dimension of time, which then concern is not the error itself but the would drastically revolutionize our "laws." editorial process that let it slip by. As a

And how mundane to put a price tag on layman, I depend on Omni's editors to

suchaquality! ensure the articles I read are factual. If my

your Martin, if Open mind, you're not too complaint is not valid, I apologize. afraid of it. Joe L. LaRock Jane Held Benbrook, Tex. Los Angeles. Calif. You're correct. We meant testosterone. Martin J. Pitt makes some good points Progesterone is a female hormone. — Ed. about telepathy in "Thinking Out Loud." However, he underestimates the potential Mister Misnomer value of telepathy, by suggesting that it The cartoon that appears on page 125 of could do nothing lor us that we cannot your March issue would have been very already do by means of the funny. I said spoken word "would" because I am a and the various electronic means of dentist and because I resent seeing or transmitting the spoken word. In order to hearing a dentist called Mr. Gladstone. speak and to hear the speech of others, This is an insult that demands an apology. there are a variety of anatomical We dentists are not physicians, but we requirements; one needs a mouth, tongue, most certainly are doctors. vocal cords, ears, auditory nerves, etc. G. Gerard Massimei. D.D.S. Most of us possess these requisites, but Farmingdale, N.Y some of us do not. Those who are deaf and/or mule would doubtlessly find The cartoonist, Tony Escott, is English. In telepathy to be of great value if it were to England dentists are called Dr. until they become possible for them to employ it. have completed thsir residency; then they

On an even more speculative level, are called Mr. Thus, Mr. is the proper title telepathy offers obvious advantages for for an English dentist. — Ed. DO FDRurm

In which the readers. editors, and on the neck but the impact of the brain in are what enacr.e n to withstand such correspondents discuss topics arising out the brain cavity. I was led to believe that force. Apparently, the great problems for of Omni and theories of and speculation one of the major problems with crash a human brain on impact are its high general interest are brought forth. The helmets is that, although they can keep weight /surface area ratio and shearing views published are no! necessarily those the skull intact, nothing can be done to pre- forces in the tissues caused by angular of the editors. Letters for publication vent the brain from pulverizing itself when, (lateral) motion. — Ed. should be mailed to Omni Forum, Omni because of its forward momentum, it is Magazine, 909 Third Avenue, New York, crushed against the front of the skull Cheap Shot or Healthy Skepticism? NY 10022. What prevents Woody the Woodpecker l respect James Randi's healthy from turning his brain into puree? skepticism in his Continuum report on the Woodpecker Power Howard Saginur Transcendental Meditation levitation A report in Continuum in your February Etobicoke, Ont., Canada courses [March 1980]. However, Randi issue caught my interest. According to the may have createO some misconceptions, item, a woodpecker's beak hits a tree at Dr. Philip R. A, May one of the authors of which I would like to clear up. 1,300 miles per hour. the study cited, replies: Whoever wrote the First, the TM movement is not a church. Let's assume that a typical woodpecker press release on the woodpecker study Ttvl is an easily learned, completely head weighs about 0.3 ounce. The force made a mistake in taking the figures from nonreligious technique whose required to accelerate the head to 1,300 my paper. Our data give on the order of physiological, psychological, and rnph in a one-inch stroke is about 13,000 600 centimeters per second. If you convert sociO'Cg;ca benefits have been verified pounds. (Strong neck!) The kinetic energy this to miles per hour it comes out more by literally hundreds of scientific

of the head at 1 ,300 rnph is over 1 ,050 like 13. Essentially, it was a mis- experiments at several universities. It is foot-pounds; if the bird can maintain a placed decimal point in the conversion. too bad that many people assume that

pecking rate 1 of .200 strokes per minute, religion is involved just because the the power developed is almost 39 We should add, however, that the 1,000 g's technique is taught by someone who horsepower, or over 100 horsepower per figure stands, as it was taken directly from happens to be a monk from India. pound of woodpecker. the paper's data. In fact, computer As for the flying technique itself, it is true The harnessiro o! woodpecker power to analysis showed g forces more than twice that foam rubber gives the flyer an assist, solve.our energy crisis should be begun at that high in some cases. The indi- study but the foam is not necessary. I have lifted once. Three or four woodpeckers could cates the bird's low brain weight /surface off in a sitting position from my living-room power a compact car, by pecking at a area ratio and its ability to keep its head floor; the. carpet certainly wasn't assisting simulated tree hiding very rugged pistons. in perfect alignment (without lateral motion) me! The foam in your photo is there for A worm dispenser would disgorge a worm protection in the event of a hard landing, every so often to keep the birds' interest. No one technique costs $1 ,500 to thousand A or so peckers would power £5.000, the price range quoted in the an airliner, and 50,000 would power a large article. That is the cost of a whole course, electrical generating station. including several techniques and We should proceed with caution, for the excellent room and board. amazing energy source hiding under Finally, the EEGs of people practicing those innocuous feathers may have any of the advanced techniques show undreamed-of potential for disaster. remarkable synchronicity between the Something akin to a critical mass might be right and left halves of the brain, indicating reached with enough woodpeckers in integration of the "creative" and close proximity. We certainly don't want "analytical" ways of thinking. Also,

100,000 woodpeckers suddenly going mind-body coordination is improved. berserk and in an insane frenzy pecking These are the brain "abnormalities" their way clear through to China. that Randi mentions, F C. Risteem Roane Dantzler Fredericton, N.B., Canada Greenbelt, tvld.

I read with interest the comments of Mr. Is it asking too much that your magazine Alton Blakeslee concerning the impact be accurate? I refer to an item in Omni's velocity of woodpeckers [February 1980], March 1980 issue entitled "Invisibility puzzles What me is not so much the strain Woody, a miscaiajidiio--: :yj; siiii ,'srrw kiois Lessons," The Transcendental Meditation 12 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 122 Albert Einstein on space:

Look to the heavens and learn from them." men and THE women of The program is not viewed as an end in Send your r Aerospace Corporation feel a itself, but as a way to learn and plar The Aerospace Corporation special commitment to the great for the future. Professional Placement, physicists words. Dept. 0680, P.O. Box 92957 The primary mission of The In the Los Angeles, California 9000! past 20 years, we have Aerospace Corporation is to provide devoted more than 30,000 general systems engineering and engineering/scientific staff years to integration for the U.S. Government, over 50 spacecraft, boosters, and primarily Air Force space programs. missile systems. Our 2000 engineers and scientists have earned us a reputation for ^The At Aerospace, we are already objectivity, innovation, and excellence. planning how man will use space This is your invitation to work through the end of this century and Aerospace alongside the most eminent the first half of the next one. professionals in your field, and to participate in projects of the highest Corporation Our involvement with a space national system goes from priority. initial concept to The Systems/Architect Engineer final launch, but doesn't end there. If you have professional training in Even after a launch, we continue to engineering or the sciences, find out study_and track a system's how you can be a part of the forward- Equal Op port mi ity Employer performance. In this way, each looking Aerospace team. U.S. Citiin'thip Required ;

WHERE EAGLES DARE EARTH By Kenneth B rower

.- - ": Benjamin Franklin p Several summers ago I traveled that littora z .s-t re edge of the turkey, but more romantic, less coast by kayak. Not all 30,000 miles of it, ocean.) Southeast Alaska is a land of utilitarian sentiments won out but a straightline 300 or so, as the raven Z'Z" I".:' =.= =" _D" "ss'ij everyone and the bald eagle became our national flies or the killer whale swims. I pointed isacazeeoe ~~e z zz ;ea~ ; iKe bird. We proceeded, in thenexi 150 years, and exclaimed on the first morning of my the vantage fan he seaward points of to eradicate our republic's symbol from trip each time a bald eagle sailed over me land.andasoSatyeagie.orapair, has the original 13 colonies, then from most of on its dark, broad, seven- to eight-foot s:a--ec ;_ r :; r :v- re- -sulas. The = the states of our western expansion. wings. I had seen golden eagles before, eag'es trerr —; ; :":. oe-edand Today, in the Lower 48, the bald eagle is but never this eagle, my national emblem. retre z- re ; £.-.:: -~ zz t-aruned an endangered species. Haliaeetus A nobler, more dramatic bird has never spruces atop each headland, surveying _ " " '. leucocephalus, "the white-headed sea been fledged. Franklin couldn't have been the sea ; t = z -zz : : . .-.'ne'e eagle," is numerous only in Alaska, and serious, voting for the turkey, with a bird miles s-s s -:•: ~~zz~ ~z zzi and in the even there it has not found an easy refuge. like that in his skies. But on that first day kayak we measured our progress in -=- The Territory of Alaska paid a bounty for we would see 12 eagles, and by afternoon p-c-:Z-z:z-'z-z- vre 1: -; of land fell bald eagles until 1952. and records show I was no longer pointing and exclaiming. I behind us. we would paddle for the next. that more than 128,000 birds were killed in remember the moment. An eagle soared A ten-promor&ry en-eatpe day was " this century alone for cash. We do make over me, and I made no gesture or a c c : : progress, however. Thirty years ago in comment. It felt very strange. That a bald It was had far me to imagine a bi rd of - Alaska the government paid you to kill a eagle could pass without exclamation pre, -: z : .z- r r :=-= In its very =------, bald eagle; today the same deed sends from me seemed as great a wonder as forr z :v r v- vv ;es tne

- ~ - you to jail. the bird itself. err"; . ;__ -z-y zz- z z fjords The last stronghold of the bald eagle is Our kayak was buil ton an Aleut model, dark-forested mountains rise vertically the Panhandle of southeast Alaska. The designed for the open ocean, but from the sea and end m snow-capped Panhandle is a sea-eagle paradise, a enormous seas come up suddenly in the peaks. The eage is made that way, dark maze of islands, fjords, and inside Gulf of Alaska. For safety we hugged shouldered. wh*e capped The skies here passages — 30, 000 miles of coastline the shore, staying within the kingdom of are = = ;?- '- — z.zz.zz thegreens where an estimated 15.000 eagles dwell. Haliaeetus. (The sea eagle is primarily a r "a -:.--: -.--- - z~zz .- somber. -.- : The t? z zz t t- ; ;-e r ghtest ::.'"' thing - s " ; -.- - - ; Zzz ~ ' e : : . =s j we

zzz.z zz i - z- z :: . z ' z: seethe

I i eao zz re- z- a -ear re c a s . a

craz : -: _~tt =--":=' ~he eagle's : 2==":=_"- , i^e-e-i :_: ; -eeping with

its as ;- tt t z: :.--. methat deranged laugh became as natural to us a= Tr r "^ " - - - -z- z~ sounds—

thee-— z = ; : :_ v re -early human v:,;--;: •;;: ~z Z-ZZ'- -~3n exhalations of humpback whales.

Ire;; z zz:^ z z ~zz on. a bull,

~ "-:""- r zzzzzzzz re e '.ve were ;=-;-; ~~z~z- :a "leagieswere

_" *ee; v v rv: t:t r :..s I put - asrr-e zzz : i zz toward the : : dead ; . tt ; : rt;- . hopped :"";;" e. = z -z aa: ~z:z ow

z-i'z-zz : tt t : -_:. t'ees '.hey

waited for me to lea*e I stood at the co'ose — ~z ;e-— ; r:e of great birds. The tidal boulders were big, and the = " ~-y STe e- r__ ;;;: t ea5.es ~ Lumbering In the Chilkat vaiiey threatens the habitat of endangered Alaskan bald eagles. zz- z z . z -e -e; = rrt-rot wing- :--- 14 OMNI : .zz : = a: :- Imagine. An oil that goes 25,000 miles without a change.

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} ET DREAMS

By'Dr. Bernard Dixon

o cats and dogs dream? If so, horizontally or vertically as if watching region of the spinal cord. Normally, of prey, grooming what do they dream about? something. It may stand up and walk playing, the stalking and Anyone who has watched a dog around, apparently stalking prey perhaps are restricted to the dreaming cat's brain.

sleeping in front of the fire suddenly twitch attacking an imaginary mouse. Now we can see them, although the its paws and pant in apparent pursuit of Yet a cat behaving in this way is animal remains as soundly asleep as something tasty will think there's an assuredly not awake. Its pupils are cov- before. Further confirmation comes from obvious answer to these questions. But ered by a third (nictitating) eyelid — the fact that drugs that suppress REM zoologists might not agree. Wary of the normally a clear indication of deep sleep (e.g., the antibiotic chloramphenicol) tendency to anthropomorphize, they have slumber. The cat does not follow moving also stop this strange behavior. long resisted the temptation to assume objects placed in front of it— not even There are two possible explanations for that our pets dream about their daily experi- a dead or "play" mouse. PGO waves can such feline "sleepwalking." A tempting ences in the same way we do. however, be measured in the animal's brain. idea is that PGO waves reach the cat's Now, as a result of some remarkable What we are seeing is REM sleep, but visual system and produce hallucinations, research at Claude-Bernard University, in without the bodily relaxation that normal- which the animal then acts out. Indeed, theory that Lyons, France, we are gaining the first real ly accompanies it. this ties in with the human glimpses info the dream life of animals. Another type of dream behavior com- dreaming involves looking at pictures. Professor Michel Jouvet has been monly observed in these animals is Several researchers have reported corre- studying REM (rapid eye movement) sleep grooming. The cat will lick its forelegs, for lations between rapid eye move- in cats. Human beings dream during this example. But even here the action is ab- ments and the scenery of dreams. Whether is state. It's also possible that we dream stracted. Stick a piece of paper to the cat's cat, dog, or human, the dreamer thought

during the other sort of sleep, called slow- fur and the cat will ignore it. Try the same to be scanning an internalized view of accordingly. wave sleep because of the type of brain thing while the cat is awake and it will the world and to be reacting activity observed. But psychologists attempt to remove the offending_ object. In his latest report {Trends in Neuro- discovered many years ago that the best Jouvet believes that damage to the sciences, 2, 280), Jouvet argues that this way to interrupt a dream is to awaken the brain region responsible for postural persuasive theory is probably incorrect. slumberer while flickering eye movements atonia has "disinhibited" a repertoire of His thinking is that rapid eye movements are occurring. Invariably the subject will activities usually inhibited at the upper may begin 20 minutes before the onset vividly recall a dream. of PGO waves. Thus, they cannot Like all mammals (and birds, too), cats be a response to visual hallucinations exhibit these different stages of sleep. generated by those waves. The alternative Professor Jouvet has centered his explanation is more likely Parts of the investigation on two aspects of cats' REM brain that generate PGO waves are stage of sleep. First, he found that REM probably themselves directly responsible sleep is related to electrical activity, known for programming "visible dreams." as PGO waves, in particular parts of the More questions than answers have brain. Second, a cat in this state is also in arisen from Jouvet's fascinating studies. a condition of intense relaxation, called What is the code through which PGO

postural atonia. Although it may twitch its waves carry their instructions? Are those ears or whiskers occasionally, a dreaming messages genetically programmed? Or are sentimentally believe . cat lies totally flat on the ground. they— as we Jouvet's discovery has come from from watching our sleeping pets- observing cats that have sustained dam- determined in large part by experience? age to just that part of the brain that is To add confusion to uncertainty, responsible for postural atonia. In every observations of dreaming mice can be other way they are normal. They eat, play, marshaled to support either view. and behave as usual, and they even have Nearly 2,000 years ago one of Nero's ordinary slow-wave sleep. When REM courtiers, Petronius Arbiter, wrote a poem sleep begins, however, peculiarities in which he observed: "er canis in somnis become readily apparent. Because ieporis vestigia lustrat" ("and the dog in postural atonials prevented, the animal sleep traverses the tracks of the hare").

will quite literally act out its dreams. We now know this is true. What we don't Instead of remaining in a resting state, know is whether the hare's tracks have

the cat raises its head and moves it Stalking and grooming ate pet dreams of to be real.OO UPITER'S NONEFFECT

By John Gribbin

in 1906. 5ix years ago a book written by My work with Dr. Plagemann drew on Francisco earthquake occurred of tectonics iwo scieniists forecast the date two pieces of evidence. Back in 1971 Dr. And the modern theory plate tells fhat the coastal region of California of the next major California R. A. Challinor, of the University of Toronto, us earthquake. The prediction was based published some results that suggested a is trying to slide north pas! the North American continent at more or less in large part on the unusual alignment of small but significant increase in seismic a steady drift of about five centimeters a the planets in 1982. As the fateful year activity ai the time of maximum solar year. Where earthquakes happen approaches, interest in the prediction has activity. This tied in with other evidence central California, this slip naturally grown. A great many people in that when the sun is more active, there frequently, as in fringe cults have interpreted the forecast are changes in Earth's atmosphere and can be accommodated without disaster. there are long intervals as a prediction of the world's end. divine even in the length of the day— by a few But when between retribution on mankind for their sinful ways. milliseconds— as Earth's rotation is quakes, the accumulated strain is likely io of be released in one big jump — now . Age discovery I have bad news for the doomsayers: affected The Space The book has now been proved wrong; the the gusty solar "wind" of parficles that perhaps as much as 4.5 meters around meters whole basis of the 1982 prediction is gone. streams out across space, blowing more San Francisco and 7.5 in the Los strongly when the sun is more active, Angeles area. Geological evidence I should know. I was coauthor, with Dr. Stephen Plagemann, of The Jupiter Effect. offers a neat physical explanation for the showed that the great quake in 1857 near is a Because of the way the book has been link between solar activity and terrestrial what now Los Angeles was caused by misused by cultists who must never have seismicity. Clearly, anything that shakes up sideways shift of about nine meters. planet to alter the length So when Steve Plagemann and I put read it, I want to make it clear that there is our whole enough together, no reason now to expect any unusual of day, even by a few milliseconds, could these Iwo pieces of evidence we southern seismic disturbance in 1982 from the jar into action any earthquake regions that came up with fhe idea that the Fault, causes given in the book. This does not, were waiting to slip. region of the San Andreas now strain, of course, rule out the possibility of big Then there was the straightforward geo- building up a massive could be into violent movement the next earthquakes then. But if you want an logical evidence that regions along the triggered

Fault overdue time the sun's activity peaked , blowing astrological prediction, I am afraid you San Andreas are decidedly are going to have to ask someone else. for a major disturbance. The last great San gusty winds across space to shake the earth. So far, the hypothesis was spec-

ulative but uncontroversial. It caused little comment when published in 1971 in

Science . We roused the hackles of many establishment scientists and caught the eye of the cultists when we tried to predict the year in which the next peak of solar activity "ought" to come. To do this, we drew on a theory that the sun's activity (the roughly 11-year-long "sunspot cycle") is modulated by the tides raised on the sun's surface as the planets move in their orbits. Since Jupiter is the biggest planet in the solar system, by far, it exerts the greatest influence on the solar tide. So we took its name for our sunspot- iidal theory. From 1800 on. the varying tidal pull of the planets has been very nearly in step with the varying levels of sunspot activity. Being young and perhaps a little rash, we were emboldened by this to extend the tidal curves forward and pick out 1982 as the likely date of the next solar maximum. The tidal theory alone is really only good enough to forecast a maximum sometime but got really Jupiter's gravitational put: iiiiglil trigger quakes o tan/i — or so scientific reasoning suggested. between 1980 and 1984, we ON RM3E 121 20 OMNI CONTINUED .

STORY TIME RJllfUD

By Renee Fuller

nee upon a time, when we were From the distant jungles of New Guinea young, stories became terribly to the nearer jungles of New York's ghet- important. At about age two, we tos, wherever there have been people, Many other mammals understand iso- for began to cajole'our parents and other they have told stories to one another. lated words. An intelligent dog, adults to read to us. Virtually overnight our Today the greatest storyteller ever— tele- example, can comprehend as many as language capability exploded. From a few vision— unfolds adventure and fantasy 50 to 1 00 words. Still, our communication primarily nonverbal, words we leaped to short sentences. We nightly as millions watch with rapt atten- with animals is became verbal communicators. tion. This universal fixation is usually assuming the form of a charade. eating, however, provide Many of our first short sentences were reserved for such essential acts as The apes, may an years actually miniature stories. Just as adver- drinking, and sex. Stories and storytelling interesting exception. In recent psychologists claim to have found to tisers can tell their tales in 24-second may be equally essential. ways epigrams, so could we as children. Since nearly the dawn of humanity we communicate verbally with some apes. Could storytelling have been the basis have sought to explain our existence Scientists at Emory University, in Atlanta, for this verbal explosion? through stories. All civilizations have ex- taught a chimpanzee to communicate by For 50 years psychologists have been pressed their central beliefs through sym- pressing computer keys. Three other after learning searching for the engram, the basic unit of bolic myths. From simple legends of teams claim that, American learning that would be for psychology gods and demons we have progressed to Sign Language, their apes produced what the atom was for physics. the more complex tales of science, whose sentences spontaneously Psychologists have examined ever-tinier cosmological theories contain the ultimate None of these investigators, however, every units of learning in their futile hunt for story of the universe. have done with their apes what tel! stories. this "informational quark." Did they fail Looking at our fellow creatures on Earth, parent does with his child: because they were searching for we may wonder at what evolutionary stage Would the apes listen to stones? Would like of something too small and esoteric when the story concept developed. Is it unique their vocabularies, those children, important, would they Ihey should have looked at the elemental to humans, or does it have antecedents explode? Most stories of two-year-olds? The and parallels, as so much of our behavior attempt to tell the stories to each other simple human story may hold the does, in other species? Aren't the games and to their human friends? key to that elusive engram. of catch-and-fetch.tag, and hide-and- It wouldn't be a difficult experiment. Once an animal has the vocabulary of

these apes, it could comprehend a signal

that it and a human companion were entering game time, thai what followed , would be make-believe. In a similar way we indicate to children that we are entering verbal make-believe by beginning with "Once upon a time ..." -*"> I don't know what the results of such

experiments would be. It would be

ft fascinating, though, if the chimpanzees actually did understand the stories, % initiating the beginning of genuine thinking mm* m as we know it. Dolphins would perhaps be likely candidates for such an experiment. Their brains are bigger than ours, and dolphins

make all sorts of curious, complicated noises. Are these noises the telling of tales7

*JJJJ| Are dolphins the poets of the deep?

I would be very much surprised if intelligent animals couldn't learn stories '.' ^* f (Spwjs^ jwBMfln, T$F' and tell them back. I think the problem in fcir-... achieving this lies with the scientists, who are uncomfortable as storytellers, instead

: of with the animals. n a!! ages. sir e way la share information. 19' CONTINUED ON PAGE 1 !2 OMNI hepatitis, and certain kinds of cancer. The future is coming. And with it will come Eventually, bacteria may become assem- great benefits for mankind. And a whole new set of problems. Because we are a forest products com- bly lines for the creation of whole new life pany, and plant seeds that take up to 50 years to forms, including "better" human beings. become mature trees, Champion International has to think a lot about the future. We'd like to share In the long reach after his own better- some of the things we've learned with you—to help ment, man has covered incalculable ground: you make intelligent choices in the years to come. Here is something you might want to think about. from primitive man domesticating wild wheat to his use, to modern man on the In the future, a new science threshold of making a better organic self out of his existing self. called splicing gene could The promise for our future is almost be- produce miracles—like the yond comprehension. regeneration of limbs, a cure Which means questions have to be asked (and answered) right now. for cancer, even the flower- Most critical: who is qualified to decide ing of a better"human being. what makes a "better" human being? Who among us has the capacity, much less the But who is going to right, to choose? decide what makes a "better" Also: what safeguards will there be against human being? bacteria containing poisoned genes escaping from the laboratory and contaminating the very life we're trying to improve? Can patents Some years ago, a child was checked into a be awarded to private industry for what is hospital; the tip of one finger had been sliced essentially life itself? If so, can science away. The wound was dressed, but the patient retain its necessary purity and freedom in a neglected. Days later, the dressing was re- commercial situation? moved. The finger tip was growing back. These are questions that desperately con- At the time, regeneration was a baffling cern us all because we are the subject matter. and spooky phenomenon. If you're concerned with the immediate Today, we are beginning to learn more future, and would like a bibliography for fur- about it through the science of genetic engi- ther reading, send for our free brochure. Write: neering. Genetic engineering has the poten- Champion International Corporation tial to alter the make-up of mankind as no Dept.200N, P.O. Box 10142 other science ever has or possibly ever will. Stamford, Connecticut 06921 Gene splicing, one aspect of this new science, Write us today. The future is the transferral of genetic material from one is tomorrow. living thing to another. With this technique, a gene can be isolated and, when planted Champion— a forest products company with in a bacterium, start a whole process of new its roots planted firmly organic reproduction. in the future.

The realizable benefits of genetic engineer- We are in the forest products business. We plant trees, grow trees, harvest ing are both stunning and myriad. trees. And from trees we make wood Splice a gene that produces human insu- building products. Plus fine paper for printing and business. And paper packaging for lin into a replicating microorganism, and shipping and selling. diabetics have ready access to a purer, yet Because we make our living from the forest, our success depends, in one less expensive insulin. Researchers have al- way or another, on the future. And ready synthesized the hormone responsible we're planning—and planting—for it. for human growth, an immediate boon to children with stunted growth. It's increas- ingly likely that gene splicing will be able to C^ricuffloion mass-produce interferon, the anti-viral Champion International Corporation ' wonder drug that may put the brakes on flu, Planting seeds for the future .

THE ARTS By Michael Shore

now there's and inhuman or something is like burying Progress in the physical and Yes, yes, yes, and yes. But mechanical sciences determines something new happening. While your head in the sand." erudite instruments of a progress in art, "—Composer synthesizers have been with us a good But how did the Carlos Chavez, 1957 quarter century— ever since Robert Moog scientists filter down into mainstream Though a number of other factors and Donald Buchla simultaneously popular music, to be accepted as the intervene, Chavez's words ring truer every created their own sharply differing sound of pop music? In the Sixties day. Everywhere you look, young pop varieties— rock-and-rollers until recently psychedelic and art rock bands musicians are making music with regarded the instrument with a high introduced a certain amount of open- electronic equipment, in most cases degree of suspicion. mindedness about electronic devices exclusively electronic. M's recent hit single Why the change of mood today? in the service of pop, as bands made "Pop Muzik" listed geographical points of Because, for one thing, in these more extensive use of instrument modifi- reference and concluded, "Everyone's post-Harrisburg, pre-Apocalypse times, cation and newer and more exotic devices. innovators Robert talkin' 'bout pop, pop, pop muzik!" And ruled by high tech, a workable synthesizer In the hands of such as late Jimi Hendrix the creating it. Future shock has arrived, can now cost less than a comparable Fripp and the new synthesizer's proved, and even finally. Say hello to electronic hits like the electric guitar. Youngsters can now cut worth was Flying Lizards' "Money" and Gary their teeth on devices that 20 years ago the Grateful Dead used some musique Numan's "Cars." were a gleam in some MIT engineer's eye. concrete, "found" tape effects, on their But wait! Hasn't rock and roll always "Look around you," advises Larry Fast, 1968 album Anthem of the Sun. But been based on electricity? Isn't the who programs and plays complicated electronics, synthesizers, and such were novelties, gimmicks electric guitar its primal icon? Isn't virtually synthesizers for such top-selling acts as generally considered all music made these days produced in Hall & Oates, Boz Scaggs, and Peter added on the basic rock setup. The Beach sophisticated recording studios that Gabriel (whose brand of music no doubt is Boys made inspired use of the theremin depend on ever-expanding high despised by the current crop of effect on "Good Vibrations," but they technology? Don'i most pop, rock, disco, electro-punks). "Television, telephones, remained the exception. Walter (now Switched-On and what-have-you albums now feature radios, stereos, recording studios . . Wendy) Carlos's Bach synthesizers and myriad oiher forms everything is run on high technology. It's startled the world with its wittily realizations of familiar of electronic circuitry? our world. To ignore it because it's cold all-electronic classics, bul it sure wasn't rock and roll. In the Sixties synthesizers were definitely relegated to spacy effects. Then came the Seventies with all those English classic-rock groups like Yes and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, who used synthesizers as extensions of orchestral keyboard setups, one more tool for calisthenic noodling. No wonder electronics were shunned by those interested in gut-level rock and roll. In the meantime, though, on the fringes of a complacent corporate rock superstructure, electronics began to blossom. In 1972 a duo called Suicide began infuriating and transfixing New York audiences. Their music, based on the drone rock of the Velvet Underground, was hyperamped and aggressively electronic. Martin Rev, wearing a leather jacket and wraparound shades, stood impassively behind his portable organ and rhythm box while singer Alan Vega contorted himself spasmodically at center stage. Here was

the first harbinger of things to come: music

Gary Numarr Somorhincj'r, gwg but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Moog? that was loud, repetitive, pneumatic,

36 OMNI ,

rhythmic, wilh percussion provided by an and disco were equally subversive albums seem to arrive weekly from inexorably precise machine, instead o! by mechanistic movements, despite their France, Germany, Great Britain, and other a human drummer. stylistic differences. countries, to be gleaned by voracious Suicide's "tunes" were short and to the Much of what seemed mindless in disco futurists at punk and import shops. Why point, the point being the effect of was in fact quile well thought out. The the proliferation? "Rock's gone about as dropping a leather-jacketed marionette paradigmatic example is the work of the far as it can go," a member of England's directly into the horrifically clanking "Munich Machine" production team of all-electronic rock co_mbo the Human machinery ol Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Their Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, who League was quoted recently as saying to hard-to-find, self-titled first album on Red elevated sequencer programming into an the British press. "It's had a fair crack of Star Records remains.a masterpiece of art form unto itself. Sequencer rhythms are the whip. Electronics are obviously where uncompromising mechanismo rock. intricately arranged synthetic patterns of things are headed."

It took a few years before this kind of repetitive beats that seem, and probably The Human League's album machine-oriented sound took off. It finally are, timed to the booty-shaking synapses Reproduction is a good example of the did so with the music of four German of the brain. The 154-beats-per-minute widening scope of electro-pop. On it is a computer operators who called criterion for danceability was the result of detached, straight-faced reworking of the themselves Kraftwerk. Their long, such sequencer programming, and Phil Specter/Righteous Brothers classic trance-inducing all-electronic hymn to the Moroder's arrangement of Donna "You've Lost That Loving Feeling." Spector

Machine Age called "Autobahn" began to Summer's "I Feel Love" remains a great used the limitless layering possibilities of appear on college radio stations in the sequencer epiphany of our time. the studio to make some of the most United States in the spring of 1975. The Punk approaches electronics overtly, sentimental music of all time; the Human robotic refrain went "Fahn, fahn, fahn, auf embracing a npnhuman future. D'EVO League's version — stripped down, der Autobahn," with gentle, thumping (Deevolution Band), from Akron, Ohio, is remodeled — can be seen as a key to the electronic snares, burbling rhythm boxes, not entirely electronic, although the new attitude. Whereas Spector made the and sweeping, simple synthesizer mel- players say they'd like to be, but they technology work for his own vision, the odies. Hordes of listeners around the come on stage like chemistry class nerds, new electro-pop's vision works according world began to jerk around like androids, rubbing their hands with glee as they to the technology and is dictated by it. wanting more. 'Autobahn" was a hit, formulate pop perversities in the lab. Their Again, the message is; Accept the and Kraftwerk had effectively bridged cover of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" inevitable. the time warp between early twentieth- is set to an unrelenting robot beat. Even Numan. who has topped the British century Constructivist/Futurists and the more at home with electronics, and also charts twice with albums and singles electro-pop of today. They called forth a from Ohio, Pere Ubu has been operating showcasing whizzing pneumatic whole cadre of Teutonic electronic bands for years on savagely danceable rock and synthesizers, has already accomplished with names like Can, Neu, La roll thai features synthesizer work by Allen in two years the amazing feat of finding Dusseldorf, and Tangerine Dream. Ravenslein. Ravenstein has single- electro-pop's middle of the road. He What is important about Kraftwerk and handedly bridged the gap between combines just the right amount of cold their cohorts is that, like Suicide, they were those who used synthesizers in rock clean-machine feeling, familiar rock celebrating the idea of man-machine bands and those who esoterically rhythm, and spaceman-voice musing on fusion. As the international success of explored the pure sonic possibilities of the edge of complacent lunacy. Numan's 'Autobahn" indicated, people liked this "synth." On his machine he conjures up first hit single, Are Friends Electric?" was stuff, even if they didn't realize its distant, half-remembered factory whistles, inspired, he says, "by an incident in which future-shock implications. groaning girders, sirens, making palatable people I'd thought were my friends proved

The German school was highly the urban paranoia at the heart of punk themselves not to be. It upset me ever so influential. It instigated the direction of rock's vision. much. Sol wrote this song, wishing for an David Bowie's most recent albums, And there are many more: Batches of electronic friend, aperfect, dependable recorded in Berlin, of course, in new all-electronic rock singles and machine that wouldn't turn fickle." collaboration with self-described Yes. but is it rock and roll? That archdilettante and nonmusician Brian Eno. quotation from the Human League

However Eno may describe himself, he is notwithstanding, I think it well might be. To an inspired way-paver for the New be sure, many of the new songs sound Electronic Rock. His Another Green World cold, unfeeling, noisy, nasty, and further elevated the importance of rhythm perverse— but they're supposed to. Like box and synthetic percussion in pastoral, any and all new (subversive) art forms, computer-daydream interludes that electronic rock represents a disturbing cry sounded like Kraftwerk recollected in from "the other side," dealing with things tranquillity. With his intuitive approach to most people would rather not hear about. the synthesizer, Eno showed us how to live It implies a leap of faith into the gleaming with and love electronics and how to use maw of a man-machine affair that has them expressively, with felicity and taste. been politely ignored, covered up, or And then punk rock happened in repressed. Yet much of this music is full of England. While Americans had no its own curious humor and humanity. comparable audience of disenfranchised "I got the idea [for writing 'Metal'] from working-class youth, there was disco in reading a magazine," Numan says on the the United States, a comparable minority subject of his latest hit. "It said some protest music. Disco began as the American scientists postulated that within mindlessly mechanized dance and ten years or so they could formulate a escape music of blacks, was adopted by partially organic computer that could homosexuals, and soon spread regenerate itself. ... So the song is about throughout the..country. While punk a machine wishing it could be human, wanted to rip the system to shreds, disco have friends, babies, and such. Imagine a advocated that you just paaarfy and forget whole bunch of baby computers running the system altogether with rhythms made around your house." by, or imitative of, machines. Both punk David Cunningham: electronic Flying IJza'ci The clickety-clack of tiny metal feet.OO 28 OMNI THE ART By 'Jeff Rovin

screen in The Nude Bomb. And of course there are gadgets, more fy | ouldyou believe ... a lunatic 86, to the big invented while Agent 99 is gone— replaced by than ever before. The most spectacular of ! And I | I lashion designer has with which the ^J ^J the Nude Bomb? Would you Smart's beautiful new aides, Agents 36, these is the Clonatorium, also believe that he plans to destroy every 22, and 34 — the picture is stocked with Nude Bomber plans to produce enough to reclothe the world. stitch of fabric in the world, then dress everything audiences have come to seamstresses real crowd pleaser promises humanity in his own paisley designs? And expect from a Maxwell Smart adventure. However, the would you believe the sole obstacle And then some. to be the snappy D-1 Turbocharger a between this gold-thimbled villain and his The timbre of the original Get Smart has Deskmobile: Besides possessing blotter and 50-caliber machine- dream is that legendary operative of the not been changed in its translation to the windshield Deskmobile runs on ink PITS (Provisional Intelligence Tactical big screen. It remains broad comedy gun drawers, the per gallon on the Service), the indefatigable foe of KAOS flavored with slapstick and satire. What Is and gets 35 miles the living room. Devices like and other bastions of evil and rottenness, different is that the iilmmakers had the highway, 12 in air of high the bumbling Agent 86, Maxwell Smart? time and money to do an epic, all-out these give the movie its enrich, rather than No wonder the PITS has evolved a parody of the Bond adventures, and it's a technology and of returning contingency plan to dress people in Hank challenge they accepted with zeal. There overshadow, the impact astounding steak, linguine, and romaine iettuce. is a skydiving sequence reminiscent of the favorites. But it would take an contrivance indeed to steal the Get Smart is one ot the most popular opening of Moonraker, spectacular ski new from the quaint but classic Cones television programs ot all time. Created by stunts, an abundance of seductive limelight Mel Brooks and Buck Henry as a comedic women, and hordes of malevolent of Silence, and Smart's shoe-phone, which with touch-tone and answer to the James Bond films, the series thugs.There is also a wealth of exotic has been improved jockstrap-phone aired from 1965 through 1970 on network locales spanning the globe from Inns- abetted by a backup B6, "just ring once'"). television and has remained in syndication bruck, Austria, to Boulder, Colorado; from ("But please," begs Bucking- Great films have a way of snaring the ever since. It starred comedian Don the United Nations Building to Adams as Smart. Barbara Feldon as his ham Palace; and even to the Universal public fancy and creating trends in all loving and patient coagent, 99. and the Studios Tour, where Smart participates walks of life. With society hungry for of technology, can late Ed Piatt as the chief. Now Universal in a wild tram chase with a one-eyed, improved forms we spinoffs from the Pictures has brought Don Adams, as Agent one-armed, one-legged enemy agent. hope to see any practical sophisticated Smart appurtenances?

According to Bill Dana, who coauthored the screenplay and appears briefly as garment manufacturer Jonathan Levinson Seigle, the answer is an unqualified no. "Little attention was given to scientific accuracy" Dana apologizes. "The Deskmobile is not all that good aerodynamically unless you get a very,

very smooth secretary. As for the rest of it, we didn't do any really deep research." The reason for this, says science-buff Dana— whose Jose Jimenez character. was mascot to the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs — was not a lack of interest but the unique demands of the genre. "In comedy, particularly in SF comedy, the fewer barriers there are between the audience and the material, in

terms of comprehension, the easier it is to

get them to laugh. Though I really love to get the laugh-think thing going, that was really not our intent in The Nude Bomb." Adams agrees: "The whole secret of comedy is that you lead someone away Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86. of Get Smart, c n The Nude Bomb. from where you're going and you catch 30 OMNI 3 ON PAGE 110 "HE FRENCH CONNECTION UFD UPDATE By Charles Berlitz

^^ ^^ aurice Chatelain is a French these Doha's, first by lisle ning to the There were 76 UFO landings in 25 days, iastfoscieniist now an messages that they might try to transmit to from September 24 through October 58 of I I U I American citizen, who was us, then by sending them simple that year. As usual, the gendarmes chief scientist lor Apollo Communications messages with the primitive means at our recorded the time, longitude, and latitude Data Processing during NASA's Apolio disposal, such as radio and laser. of each landing site and its dimensions. program. Previously Chatelain worked as a Berlitz: What do you think would be the It was also noticed that some of these research scientist for Convair Aeronautics, best way lo establish contact? sites were separated by an average which played a pivotal role in the Mercury Chatelain: We musl first try to determine distance of 63 kilometers. These were the and Gemini space programs. Berlitz's the kind ot message that would have the first numerical data ever obtained from most recent book is The Philadelphia best chance to be received and UFO observations, and the only logical Experiment. His other works include The understood by us. Most information conclusion that could be derived from Bermuda Triangle (Fawcett). scientists now agree that the best them was that the distances were always message would be one made of simple exact multiples of 21 centimeters, the Berlitz: Mr. Chatelain, when you were at numbers representing mathematical wavelength of hydrogen, which could

NASA, did you believe in UFOs? ratios. It seems that we have already represent an ideal measuring unit for

Chatelain: No. Fifteen years ago I did not received such messages, which have astronauts from another world.

believe in flying saucers, and if I did, I gone completely unnoticed by those who Berlitz: Why not face-to-face contact? certainly would not have advertised the could have deciphered them. Chatelain: Perhaps they want to avoid tacl. Now things have changed. First, I am Berlitz: How were the messages sent? panic on our part or simply to avoid not working for NASA anymore. Second, Chatelain: They may have been contained potential danger to themselves. The most NASA itself has been forced to recognize within the landing patterns of the UFOs fascinating part of the UFO mystery is not the existence of the UFO phenomenon themselves. As you are probably aware, so much what UFOs are or where they and to admit that it does not know what it is many of the UFO landings reported in come from, but how they can manage to or where il is coming from. Civilizations recent years have occurred in France. The travel at fantastic velocities of 32,000 might exist in outer space that could be far gendarmes are instructed to investigate all kilometers an hour in our atmosphere and more advanced than ours. It would be landing sites. In 1954 France was suddenly turn at 90 degrees br fly in ihe logical to try to establish contact with seemingly inundated with flying saucers. opposite direction. There is no terrestrial spacecraft that could even try to reach that velocity or perform such incredible maneuvers without disintegrating on the spot. There are only two possible ex- planations. Either flying saucers do not really exist and are just an optical illusion, or they are extraterrestrial and come from another world somewhere in outer space. Berlitz; What propulsion system do you think they could use? Chatelain: Along with several French

scientists, Claude Poher, for example, I think that UFO propulsion might be based on a combination of electric, magnetic, and gravitational forces or, in other words, on Einstein's unified field theory, which could provide fantastic power from a small mass of matter, such as hydrogen. Berlitz: As an astroscientist, do you realjy believe in the physical existence of UFOs? Chatelain: What is important is not whether flying saucers exist physically or are just

an illusion of our minds. I believe that they

exist, and I therefore keep trying to find out what they are, where they come from, and

r Analysis of UFO ni Ncif: Head j_.-g'\ '.'.3 ;:';. .'ig< on, shows it is a lab-processed imperfection. why they come and visit us now. DO 32 OMNI CDruTiruuunn

LOST IN SPACE

; launching of satellite, r a once an event ol cosmic launch system were by rhe sLvidarciK c !hi-=. industry, .veil .e';:ed. Thesignificance, is usually thought 'of by the average Amer- The launch was the one hundred fiftieth performed, by NASA's

ican if it these days, he thinks of at all, as nothing more Delta System. The hardware, used in previous satellites, was complicated than a big blowtorch blastoff. Familiarity designed to carry 1,000 voice circuits or one color television breeds yawns. To the known 4,555 man-made objects now in transmission on each of 24 channels. Nothing new. orbit are added each month half a dozen from the Soviet Union Almost two months after the Cape Canaveral blastoff, R.CA and another six from United the States. announced, "Just about all possibilities of recovering it in usable But the of mystery Satcom 3, a communications satellite condition have been exhausted." That set alarm bells ringing all owned into orbit last by RCA and sent December by NASA from the way to Lloyd's, of London. Insurance, carriers had issued 'a Cape Canaveral, has baffled the most erudite diagnosticians in $50 million policy to cover the costs of construction and NASA's the space business. NASA had launched, and RCA had suc- bill for services. RCA also had £20- million worth of insurance to cessfully placed in orbit, two similar satellites in 1975 and 1977. cover business losses caused by the failure of the newest Sat- But some demonic hand seemed to have grabbed the latest com to perform its mission. sister ship. "The launch was perfect," says Ken Sensiad, who. as Loss of a S50 million supertanker and its cargo is treated by the an officer of the external affairs section of NASA, was present. media as a first-rank catastrophe. But the lost Satcom received

"But it it when we handed over to RCA, simply disappeared." little attention, in large measure because all the parties con- As on previous occasions, the NASA controllers transferred to cerned—RCA, NASA, NORAD, and the insurance carriers- RCA technicians in Vernon Valley, New Jersey authority to place kept their collective lips officially buttoned except tor some ellip- the satellite in geostationary position once it reached an apogee tical and rather starchy statements. ot 35,680 kilometers. An awful lot was riding on Satcom 3. Not' RCA put forward three theories to account for the loss of only was RCA staking its technical reputation, but cable televi- Satcom, which disappeared while sailing along its correct path. sion operators — notably Ted Turner, of Atlanta, with his 24-hour about 135 degrees west longitude, above the equator. The alter- news service were depending on a successful fulfill — launch to natives, according to Williamson, were: "It's way out in space. It their contracts. One RCA executive said tersely, "Blip! There it shot back into the atmosphere and burned up. lis still oui :ne>e. was. Blip! It was gone." but the transmitter isn't working." A lot of questions raised by this singular event (the first loss of a Satcom 3's disappearance is far more serious than the media privately owned satellite) trouble some powerful constituencies. havemadeitouttobe, although the reasons-are economic rather As an example, the North American Air Defense Command than political. Satellite communications is reaching maturity 18 (NORAD), charged with identifying both friendly and strange years after Telstar, AT&T's first receiving and relaying system, was traffic in the skies, could find no trace of the vanished satellite. placed in orbit. RCA has orders for more business- data, radio, NORAD is on matter, mum the but John Williamson, an RCA television, and the like— than it can' handle. And NASA will be official, suggests the limits of the defense agency's prowess by hard pressed in the Eighties to. provide launch services for the describing the search as like "looking for a grain of sand on a string of customers now lined up, which includes a well-heeled ballroom floor." group led by IBM. The grain of sand is a box about the size of a household How reliable are civilian communications satellites? Although refrigerator, weighs 907 kilograms, and is powered by two ex- RCA managed to assuage the panic of some of its customers by tended rectangular wings with seven square meters of silicon leasing spare capacity from AT&T, the unaccountable exit of solar cells. Had Satcom 3 been enhanced by some esoteric Satcom has raised fears about future launchings inthe minds of piece of technology, untested in space, its disappearance might those financial and insurance executives who foot the big. have been attributed to its novelty. But the hardware and the bills.— THOMAS O'HANLON caaiTiaiuuan

HUH? pumps" would provoke the BLACKEST BLACK resolution of distant stars by M400. Kutas says. So would telescopes, far more accu- rate of light When the apple hi! Isaac "He spread the warm bread Like many other important measurements Newton on the head, the with socks." The N400 wave scientific discoveries, an al- energy by radiometers,. and "aha!" syndrome became uniquely reflects a "reproc- most perfectly black surface a slightly greater efficiency

;"'' , , , accidentally, for solar collectors. : :":: 'l::. i- - :j look," was found, by a p.-, i l .v essing" or "second neuroscientists have discov- according to the UCSD sci- researcher working on some- Johnson said more than ered a brain wave that gives entists, which occurs when thing else in a laboratory. 200 astronomical groups, "huh?" similar stature. people try to extract mean- Christian Johnson, a phys- space physics labs, and Marta Kutas and Steven ing from sentences thai ical science technician for similar organizations have the National Bureau of Stan- asked about the discovery. dards, created a surface — Stuart Diamond that absorbs 99.5 percent of the incident light, but he "It is the customary fate of didn't discover its signifi- new truths to begin as cance for three years. In heresies and to end as

1 975, as he was using nitric superstitions." acid to remove a silver-col- — Thomas Huxley ored, nickel-phosphorus speaking on Darwin's coating, he. noticed that the Origin of Species material turned black during the stripping process. In "Those who speak.of the 1978, on a whim, he asked incompatibility _,' science

for a full lab analysis, "One of i religion either make the fellows who did the tnce say that which it measurements thought his never said oi mak a re //yon spectrometer was broken." say thai which it never Johnson recalled. taught." What had happened was -Pope Pius XI that the 50 percent nitric acid solution made tiny val- sounds: And n leys in the coating during the stripping process. These val- Hillyard, of the University of don't make any sense. ley? acted as "light traps' — California a! San Diego This discovery could help letting light in but not out- (UCSD) School of Medicine, in the evaluation of reading like deep holes in the have found that the brain disabilities in children and in ground. Stopping the proc- puis out a special signal 400 discovering just how much ess after 1 5 to 20 seconds milliseconds (about four the rest of us understand yields the best results, tenths of a second) after en- and where we go wrong Johnson said. countering nonsense lan- when we don'L The discovery has im- guage "It's akindof elec- Ellen Bilgore portant implications for as- Irocerebral double-take." tronomy, radiometry, and "You either have science or other sciences that depend tl. Kutas says, "'that results in negative voltage from the you don't, and if you have it, on the absorption of light. brain," Kutas and Hillyard you are obliged to accept Previously the best black call this new brain wave the the surprising and disturbing coatings absorbed 96 per- IM^OO, which they say ap- pieces of information, even cent of the light and re- pears "when a sentence with the overwhelming and flected 4 percent: a 24 to 1 a high degree o' expectancy upheavingones, along with ratio. A surface that absorbs has been violated," the neat and promptly useful 99.5 percent and reflects 0.5 For example. "I'd like a bits." percent has a 199 to 1 ratio, hamburger with irench — Lewis Thomas resulting in a much greater 36 OMNI "

SIPHON BURNS and periodontist at Offutt Air SKY-HIGH PLASTIC grew in the 1970s, with air- Force Base, in Nebraska. lines placing a few plastic Yet another problem is "The middle of his palate -carrying, components in commercial now rising out oi the energy was soft and spongy, with airplanes made almost aircraft. crisis: gas siphoning burns. tiny blisters." completely of plastic may The prognosis for metal The American Dental As- Similar burns can result cruise the sky in the near fu- substitutes in the next dec- sociation (ADA) warns that from placing aspirin on gum ture, perhaps at supersonic ade "will lead to developing gasoline can burn the deli- tissues to- relieve toothache, speeds. composite wings and fuse- cate tissue inside the mouth, from an allergy to mouth- This prediction is based lages for aommercia! trans- producing swollen, ulcerous, wash or toothpaste, or from a on cooperative studies port, "says Salkind. by the Defense Department, When can a passenger NASA, and some major air- expect to fly in the confines craft companies. of predominantly plastic air Requested by Congress transportation? to study technologies that The technology should be reduce fuel consumption, available by the 1990s, but NASA suggested, among the market readiness is not other ideas, utilizing plastic so obvious. composites in airplane con- 'A worsening of the fuel struction. situation, however, could According to Michael Sal- force more rapid introduc- kind, manager of aeronauti- tion of plastic technology," cal structures for NASA, the Salkind predicts. "The

industry is already accelerat- operating costs of old air- ing its use of fiber-reinforced craft may become too high." plastic in airplane construc- A candidate for conver- tion. Such materials, says sion is a future supersonic

Salkind, reduce the cost, cruise transport. It a deci- weight, and fuel consump- sion were made to build the tion of aircraft while improv- plane, perhaps in the year ing durability. 2000 of soon thereafter, as Starting in the 1960s, much a; 60 or 70 percent of small percentages of plastic the vehicle could be made of lobster-red lesions, slew of other irritants; so di- parts were being flown in mil- high-iemperature Recently a forty-three- agnosis is difficult. itary aircraft. This practice plastics. — Leonard David year-oldU.S. Air Force "He happened to mention sergeant siphoned gas from that he had siphoned one of his cars to his other gasoline the day before," Dr. car, using the old-fashioned Hoffman says. "He was tube-to-mouth technique. As lucky. Gasoline is very toxic if often happens, he got a you inhale it, and it could get mouthful of gas. He spat it down into your lungs if you out right away, but he waited cough. That could be fatal." several hours before rinsing This serviceman was his mouth. healed within a week, but The next day, with a burn- the ADA still brands gasoline ing pain in his mouth, he siphoning as a health

went to the dentist. "The roof hazard . — Robert Brody of his mouth had a lot of lit- tle ulcers and red spots, "If sunbeams were weapons almost like a burn— kind of of war, we would have had red and puffv," says Dr. solar energy centuries ago. David L Hoffman, colonel — Sir George Porter coruTiruuufui

then evaluate 150-kitowattpond. BODY MOVIES scan of the same brain stroke and would show nothing be- therapies for these condi- Part of what the Israelis largest so- It could yield insights say is the world's First there was the X ray; cause metabolism has come tions. schizo- lar-eiectric-power station, then there was The CAT to a halt. into everything from Huntington's the 0.8-hectare pond is a scanner, which shows x-ray According to Dr. Michel phrenia to man-made dimple'in the cross Sections of [he body; Ter-Pogossian, director of disease. Similarly a PETT scan of earth expressly designed to the sun's Ihe heart could help a doctor capture and use the pinpoint exactly how much- rays that beat down on area. damage there is, right down Dead Sea Israeli sci- to the cellular level, in fact, Developed by Dr. Bloch Dr. Ter-Pogossian notes, entists Rudolph Zvi doctors at the medical and Professor Harry school have already begun Tabor, the shallow pond first has its bottom lined with to use it this way on some of sunlight-ab- their heart patients. The sheets of black, Then the PETT scanner will probably sorbing material. kinds be part of the medical toolkit pond is filled with two first, bottom in some of the nation's larger of water. The a The hospitals in about two to layer is extremely salty. water. three years, he adds. second layer is fresh — Douglas Colligan which will stay on top be-

cause it is lighter SOLAR PONDS The solar pond works when sunlight streams down layer of As one of the first steps in through the upper turning off their dependence clear water and is absorbed Michel Te(-Pogossian and his PETT. Unlike its predecessor. Ihe CAT the black pond is on high-priced imported oil as heat by scanner, ii shows, among other things, that a- corpse dead. and turning on the free and lining and denser layer of salt water. Gradually the and now there's PETT, This the division of radiation sci- limitless power of the sun, Is- built a heat continues to build up, latesi diagnostic tool shows ences at the university and raeli scientists have warming the water to near x-ray movies of the body's the principal inventor ot ihe boiling point. biochemistry. PETT, the device works by This hot water can then be By introducing radioactive measuring the concentration pumped out to heat ex- tag substances, such as of the radioactive tagged changer units, which in turn glucose or oxygen, into a substance and then relaying spin electricity-producing person's body, doctors can the measurements to a small turbines. actually watch biochemical computer The computer in Scientists have already changes in human body tis- turn reconstructs these into produced an experimental sue- -in ihe heart or brain, abstract measurements 6-kilowatt pond in addition to for example— on a TV images, which are played 1 50-kilowatt model. By screen out in color on a TV screen, this 1983 they hope to have a Developed at Washington where Ihe PETT scan can be bigger, 5-megawatt pond University Medical School, in photographed or even vid- working, and by 1985, the St. Louis, the PETT device is eotaped . first of a series of 20- to 25- even more sophisticated Though still only a re- megawatt plants. — QC. than Ihe CAT scanner be- search tool, the PETT scan- let doctors watch a cause it shows subtle ner could truth, the command- metabolic changes going on person's brain in action while "In ments derived tram science inside iivtng organs. For in- he or she is talking, reading, diffuse, . boil down to a stance, a CAT scan of a or even thinking. It could or pervasive tear." corpse's brain would still study the brain for tumors, — Jacques Barzun yield an image, while a PETT Ihe damage inflicted by a .

FLASHLIGHT FISH odd things about this fish- tional cortisone, which re- could explain the color alter- bacteria partnership is that duces pain and swelling in ations." Levin surmises. As long as it's goiits certain bacteria cling only to inflamed joints. Cortisone is Glitches in the Viking bacteria, the flashlight fish certain species of fish. sometimes given to arthritis camera and processing sys- never has to worry about get- Another strange thing sci- sufferers by injection. tem, wind-blown Mars dust, ting batteries, says one Uni- entists still haven't puzzled Dr, Potter says that any or simply sunlight playing versity of California micro- out is how the glowing bac- kind of sexual arousal — upon the rocks are potential biologist-bacteriologist, As teria stay intact and unpol- self-stimulation, petting, oral counterarguments. part of his research into what luted by other stray bacteria. sex— evidently leads to cor- To support the life hypoth- makes some ocean dwellers There has to be some kind of tisone release. "Those with- esis, the scientists observe out partners don't have to that earthly samples of al- feel left out." gae, lichen, mosses, and While the National Arthritis other organisms that live in Foundation insists sex hostile environments, such shouldn't be considered a as that of Antarctica, treatment, up to 70 percent undergo color changes as of the arthritis patients inter- they continue to grow or die. viewed at one Pennsylvania In 1976 endolithic blue- medical center reported that green algae were found in

it had helped. Antarctic rocks once though! How long do the soothing void of indigenous life. effects last? The prescription Because of the limited re- is similar to that for pain tab- solving power of Viking robot lets; Take one every four to eyes and a tendency to see six hours. — S.D fewer color differences than the human eye detects, an Flashlight fish, photographed under infrared light, has a ium LIFE ON MARS answer to the phenomenon organ under each eye. The secret is a friendly gaggle ol bade awaits further analyses.

The controversy over life As one of the principal in- so luminous, researcher metabolic restraint in the on Mars rages on. vest igators on the Viking Kenneth Meal son, of the uni- fish's body that lets the bac- While scrutinizing pictures biology team, Levin argues,

versity's Scripps Institution teria glow without interfer- relayed from Viking space- "I think it prudent for the sci- of Oceanography, in LaJolla, ence. If scientists could fig- craft, which plopped down entific community to keep says there's a whole breed of ure out what this is, says on the Red Planet in 1976, the life-on-Mars question glow-in-the-dark sea crea- Neaison, they might then scientists have detected on open."— L.D tures that get their light from have a clue to how our Martian rocks spots that ap- hitchhiking bacteria, bodies keep under control pear to change color. Nealson has found there's foreign bacteria and why this Is there any visual evi- an exchange of benefits, a system of ours sometimes dence for biological activity? symbiosis, between the two breaks down, resulting in The question comes from creatures. The fish offers a disease —DC. Gilbert Levin, president of reasonably safe and secure Maryland-based Biospher- home for the bacteria and a SEX EASES ARTHRITIS ics. Inc., along with col- source of nutrients. In return, leagues Patricia Ann Straal the bacteria give off a satis- An increasing body of evi- and William Benton. fied glow, which the fish can dence suggests that sex In examining color images use for many purposes: Lur- eases the pain of arthritis. transmitted by the Viking 1 ing other fish to within strik- Dr. Jessie Potter, director Mars probe, "changes in the ing.range, communicating of the National Institute for location of greenish rock with feflow fish, or avoiding Human Relationships, in patches and ground pat- bigger ones that want to eat Chicago, says that sexual terns have been observed," it are typical examples. activity stimulates the adre- the team reports. Nealson says one of the nal glands to release addi- 'A biological process CORJTirUUURJl

THE HELIUM WASTE tn order tooperate. MURDERED About 13 billion cubic feet COMPUTERS Helium, which buoys bal- of helium is being vented loons and blimps and is vital each year as a by-product of There are two kind) for future technology, is natural-gas drilling. U.S. peopleinthe world- being wastefuily vented to hchum reserves, byfarthe who understand cor the atmosphere by com- world's largest, are esti- and those who don't. panies with no current use mated at 718 billion cubic the "don'ts" are beginning to for this nonrenewable re- feet. The Mational Research fight back— with a ven- source. Council says continued vent- geance. Nonflammable and capa- ing cou Id deplete 85 percent Gary W Dickson, a com- ble of making magnets and of U.S. reserves in approxi- puter expert at the University motors superefficierii, Ihe mately 30 years. of Minnesota, has docu- second- lightest element (af- Helium gas has been pro- mented numerous cases of ter hydrogen) is being lost posed as an energy-saving computer murder through- forever because of the lack answer lo long-distance out the United States. For of a concerted conservation transporfation. Blimps filled example, a sheriff in Califor-

policy, says the General Ac- with it could carry goods nia shot a computer dead, counting Office, Congress's without risk of fire. But Ihe for uncontrollably spewing watchdog agency. Yet mil- major use of helium would out arrest records. Someone 3! goes berserk: The lions of dollars are being be as a supercoid liquid re- at the Minneapolis Post Of- e fighting back. spent on new technolo- frigerant. It ^iqueiies lower fice poured honey into newly gies— including magnetic than all other substances— installed terminals. Car keys es and strains placed on a fusion and high-speed aboul 20 degrees above ab- were deliberately tossed into corporation's employees trains — thai require helium solute zero. At that tempera- a disc file in Denver. A com- when a computer system is ture, electric transmission is puter at the Metropolitan Life being implemented. virtually "frictionless." Thus, Insurance headquarters, in "An information system helium-cooled electric lines New York City, was brutally tampers with the nervous would almost wipe out pow- attacked with a screwdriver. system of the organization, er-plant-distribution loss- These are only the violent its power structure," Dickson es— now 20 percent. Liquid assaults. More commonly, explains. "The company's helium makes possible ex- says Dickson, employees got to involve the ultimate tremely powerful magnets sabotage the machines by users, the employees, in the that accelerate particles fasi intentionally inputting mis- design process. And hand- enough for nuclear-fusion takes into the system, holding is necessary. You reactions. Such magnets Managers engage in their can't just plug a system in also vastly increase electric own form of abuse by and walk away." motor efficiency and pro- blatantly ignoring computer- Or, at least, not if you don't duce magnetic fields that ized information in their want honey in your terminals. could pull trains along ai decision making or over- —Jane Bosveld high speeds, supported by looking computer advances.

a layer ol air. Dickson, director of the "If rational men cooperated The problem is that helium University of Minnesota's and used their scientific is expensive to store and Management Information knowledge to the full, they largely unneeded today. The Systems Research Center could now secure the

technology that requires it (MIS), says, "Use of the economic welfare of all." lies in the future. — S.Q technology is not nearly as — Bertrand Russell sophisticated as the "Women are much fiercer technology itself." "The only certainty in [the] than men. Nobody has ever MIS, along with a similar remote future is that radi- given us weapons for very program at MIT, specializes cally new things will be long, have they?" in training managers to deal happening." — Margaret Mead effectively with the stress- —Freeman Dyson BLOOD STOPPER mimicking the body's natural NUKE SIMULATION breaks, where massive blood-clotting mechanisms. amounts of cooling water

In television operating- It contains a form of colla- The atomic accident at spewed from the reactor. room scenes, the script in- gen, a vein- and artery-wall Pennsylvania's Three Mile Is- Three Mile Island, how- evitably calls for the surgeon component, that triggers land reactor last year has al- ever, involved a small leak to bark out, "Clamp, please. blood-clot formation. Avitene ready changed the nation's from a malfunctioning relief nurse!" in response to a is manufactured in a micro- gushing blood vessel. But crystallization process from during real-life surgery in to- animal collagen harvested day's modern hospitals, 'Av- from cow and bull skins. itene! Avitene!" is a more Made up of millions of mi- common cry, croscopic collagen fibers, Avitene is a white, fluffy, giving the substance an im- flourlike powder that stops mense surface area, Avitene bleeding where other meth- on contact with a bleeding ods— such as clamping and surface meshes together tying a vessel with thread, and attracts a gelatinous stitching, or electrocauteriz- mass of blood cells, the ing— don't work. Although base of which forms a blood the product has been clot to plug up the injured around for seven years, only vessel. recently have surgeons ac- Avitene has been espe- cepted it as essential to cially helpful to surgeons good surgical practice. One who operate on soft, pulpy aspect of Avitene that held organs such as the liver, the surgeons back was its sticky heart, or the brain, and in properties; unless one is cardiovascular surgery, very careful, it adheres. to which involves grafting ves- everything like cotton candy. sels end to end. Sometimes largest ongoing nuclear- valve. Technicians didn't The powder works by applying a stitch to these or- safety experiment. Scientists spot the leak for 90 minutes. gans is virtually impossible, at the Idaho National En- The LOFT schedule was to but a dash of Avitene doss gineering Laboratory, in study these small leaks, be-

the trick. Idaho Falls, have altered ginning in 1981 . Instead, the Dr. Chin BorYeoh, chief of their schedule to investigate first small-leak Jest was done cardiac surgery at St. the kind of accident that oc- last November 20 and the Luke's- Roosevelt Hospital curred in Pennsylvania. second on February4 this Center, in New York City, and The Idaho tests involve ac- year. In contrast to the previ- once a member of a team tual planned accidents in a ous, large-leak experiments, researching the product, one-sixtieth scale reactor which lasted a minute or so, says that, although Avitene loaded with nuclear fuel. one small-leak test lasted 90 has been a boon to surgery, They enable scientists to minutes and the other about

it is by no means a replace- learn what happens under six hours. ment for meticulous applica- real-life conditions. The pro- The small-leak accidents tion of other techniques. "It's gram— called the Loss of didn't show any flaws in nu- a last-ditch effort when all Fluid Test, or LOFT— refers clear technology, but they else fails," he says. to the accidental loss of vital confirmed that longer, sim- Also the cost factor has to cooling water. mering accidents make be considered in Avitene Before Three Mile Island, greater demands on instru- use. A five-gram container the LOFT reactor had two ments and operators. More sells for $130, a cost most nuclear "accidents"— in De- sophisticated instrumenta- hospitals absorb in their cember 1978 and February tion is being recommended standard rate lor operating- 1979. They involved a tradi- so operators can better pin- room time. — Caroline Rob tional scenario: large pipe point the problems. — S.D "

coruTiruuurui

STAR TAR there's a io! of atmosphere "Every great scientific truth hazards, saysH. Marc

there. It might someday be goes through three stages. Cathey, a research horticul- Carl Sagan now believes feasible and economical First, people say it conflicts turist for the Agriculture De- outer space may hold more to harvest hydrocarbons with the Bible. Next, they say partment. Several years of than just extraterrestrial intel- from the Jovian gases. it has been discovered such cycles may kill a tree. ligence. It may also have oil. What's more. Sagan and before. Lastly, they say they Cathey, former president

Sagan and associates Khare suggest the presence always believed it of the American Horticultural B.N.Khare, of Cornell Uni- of similar compounds in in- — Louis Agassiz Society, notes that young versity, and Eric Bandurski terstellar space. Like the Jo- trees are the most suscepti- and Bartholomew Nagy, of vian polymers, they would "Having only a few visible ble to damage. But things

scientists, if that's the way it are changing. High energy works out. is not good, but prices have led many cities it's better than having no to shut off some of their visible scientists." high-powered lights. Some — Carl Sagan municipalities have instead installed low-pressure LIGHT-SENSITIVE sodium lights, which do not TREES cause perceptible tree changes. As planners be- Oil companies and Arab come more aware of the nations are not the sole ben- needs of trees, Cathey says, eficiaries of the energy they may put shields on crisis. It's been a boon to lights, directing the illumina- light-sensitive trees, whose tion only where needed. Or days and nights had been they can plant less sensitive skewed by overlit streets. trees, such as oaks and The trees most sensitive to evergreens. — S.D. night lights are elms and sycamores, which happen to "Man is but a reed, the be the most common trees in weakest in nature, but he is a Space freighter in the movie Alien was hauling ore from outer space. cities. Dogwoods, birches, thinking reed." Sagan foresees a future when ships will bring back cosmic crude. and some maples are also — Blaise Pascal affected. A single footcandle the University of Arizona, of light— enough to read a have performed a series of newspaper by— interferes earthbound experiments Greek word meaning with the dark-light cycle of that point to the existence of "muddy dome." these trees, according to re- cosmic crude. "We were tempted by the search atthe U.S. Agricul- In theirexperimentsthe phrase siar tar." the two ture Department's Beltsville, Si four took a mixture of gases admit in an article in Nature. Maryland, laboratory. similar to Jupiter's atmo- Sagan and Khare suggest Much of the overlighting is sphere and irradiated it with interstellar spectra point to attributed to high-pressure ultraviolet light. The result: a mixture of tholins, silicates, sodium lights, in vogue

Some 50 polymers and hy- and ices between stars. If since the mid-1960s. They drocarbon compounds, they're correct, it's entirely can bathe a tree with 20 including ethane, butane, possible future roughnecks iootcandles, making it grow propane, benzene, and could ply the spaceways, rapidly and not lose its toluene — common products towing their refineries. behind leaves before the first killing of terrestrial oil refineries- them.— Joel Davis frost. Thiscauses late-au- were formed. tumn dieback and accom- The compounds would "Science is the topography panying root damage. The " make up only a small fraction of ignorance. trees become more sensitive of Jupiter's atmosphere, but — Oliver 'Wendell Haines to air pollution and other 42 OMNI The foremost authority on intelligent machines calls for a remote-controlled economy TELEPRESENCE BY MARVIN MINSKY

Teaching machines how to think for them- selves is what Marvin Minsky does best. As founder of MIT's artificial intelligence laboratory. Minsky directs one of the world's leading re- search groups in computers and robotics. In this exclusive essay the cyberscientist from Cam- bridge proposes a 20-year plan that will alleviate the painful side effects of modern civilization.

You don a comfortable jacket lined with sensors J and musclelike motors. Each motion of your arm, hand, and fingers is reproduced at another place by mobile, mechanical hands. Light, dextrous, and strong, these hands have their own sensors

through which you see and feel what is happen- ing. Using this instrument, you can "work" in another room, in another city, in another country, or on another planet. Your remole presence pos- sesses the strength of a giant or (he delicacy of a surgeon. Heat or pain is translated into informa- tive but tolerable sensation. Your dangerous job becomes safe and pleasant. The crude robotic machines of today can do little of this. By building new kinds of versatile,

PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAN McCOY £ The big challenge In telepresence is to achieve that sense of being there. 9

Perhaps you have seen the current style of remote-control arms used at nuclear facilities. They are little better than pliers, unable to do many Ihings you can do with your own hands. Anyone can buy a simple

remote manipulator off the shelf. It usually consists of an input unit for the operator to control and of an output device that does the work, Typically, the input is a handle attached to a jointed armlike linkage. When you squeeze the handle, a gripper closes C at the output, But no such device demon- strates true telepresence. The remote gripper may well imitate the motion of your hand, but the remote arm does not follow your arm's curve, and so you cannot always reach around obstacles. The dynamics are unnatural, and the designs skimp on many shoulder, elbow, and wrist motions. The hands have unnatural wrists. The conven- tional grippers can pinch or clamp but can't

twist, shear, roll, or bend. They can't use ordinary scissors. Instead, someone has to

remove the hand and replace it with a spe- cial tool for that particular task.

If people had a bit more engineering courage and tried to make these hands more like human hands, modeled on the remole-conlrolled mechanical hands, person's hands. This means new motors. physiology of the palm and fingers, we however, we might solve critical problems sensors, and lightweight actuators. Pro- could make nuclear-reactor plants and of energy, health, productivity, and en- totypes will be complex, but as designs other hazardous facilities much safer. vironmental quality, and we would create mature, much of that complexity will move My first vision of a remote-controlled new industries. It might take 10 to 20 years from hardware to easily copied computer economy came from Robert A. Heinlein's

and might cost $1 billion- less than the software. The first ten years of telepres- prophetic 1948 novel, Waldo. I suppose cost of a single urban tunnel or nuclear- ence research will see the development of Heinlein had heard about myasthenia' power reactor or the development of a new basic instruments: geometry, mechanics. gravis, a disease causing profound muscle model of automobile sensors, effectors, and control theory and weakness. His hero, Waldo, a wealthy

To convey the idea of these remote- its human interface. During the second young man, was afflicted with it. So Waldo control tools, scientists often use the words decade we will work to make the instru- constructed a satellite and invented tele-

teleoperators or telefaclors. I prefer to call ments rugged, reliable, and natural. presence devices; he could lie the re in zero them telepresences, a name suggested by Three Mile Island really needed tele- gravity and operate his inventions ef-

my futurist friend Pat Gunkel. Telepresence presence. I am appalled by the nuclear fortlessly Waldo created dozens of me- w emphasizes the importance of high-quality industry's inability to deal with the unex- chanical hands, some merely monkey fists sensory feedback and suggests future in- pected. We all saw the absurd inflexibility in size, some micrometers in span; he struments that will feel and work so much of present-day technology in handling the rigged others so huge that each "hand" like our own hands that we won't notice any damage and making repairs to that reactor. Spread six meters from little fingertip to significant difference- Technicians are still wailing to conduct a thumbtip. The hands imitated everything

Telepresence is not science fiction. We thorough inspection of the damaged he did; he spent all his time out in space could have a remote-controlled economy plant— and to absorb a year's allowable operating factories on Earth. Thirty years # by the twenty-first century if we slart plan- dose of radiation in just a few minutes. The after he wrote Waldo, Heinlein had many #3 ning right now. The technical scope of such cost ot repair and the energy losses will be suggestions for this article. a project would be no greater than that of $1 billion; telepresence might have cut this Developing telepresences will involve- designing a new military aircraft, expense to a few million dollars. hard scientific and engineering problems, A genuine telepresence system requires that The big problem today is nuclear but I believe we should go ahead. Present new ways to sense the various motions of a plants are not designed for telepresence. devices are so clumsy, they are used only Why? The technology is still too primitive. when nothing else works, Once improved, Left: Aluminum prosthetic hand, created by Furthermore, the plants aren't even de- however telepresence will bring us: Yugoslav designer Tomovic, prefigures telepres- signed to accommodate the installation of • Safe and efficient nuclear-power gener-

ence. Above: Finger touches surface ofarti/icial advanced telepresence when it becomes ation, waste processing, and land and sea skin that senses pressure at 250 points. available, A vicious circle! mining. Last year's Gulf of Mexico under- 47 '

sea oil blowout is Ihe kind of accident that mote "miner" could dig a narrow seam operated seafloor "construction crews" I'm convinced telepresence technology without himself having to stoop or crawl. could bypass the prohibitive hazards of could have helped to mitigate. Machines will incorporate new theories of manned exploration, avoiding the risk of • Advances in fabrication, assembly, in- human sensory pattern perception and weather-troubled ships and treacherous spection, and maintenance systems. With feedback control to "reflect" accurately to towers in mining on the continental shelf. telepresences one can as easily work from the user the modified remote sensations. The U.S. Office of Naval Research has a thousand miles away as from a few feet. We have talked of mining, but no matter some remote-controlled deep-sea explora-

Manual labor could easily be done without how much coal we mine, we are, like it or tion projects, and eventually such systems leaving your home. People could form not. becoming dependent on nuclear pow- will explore for and extract deep-sea petro-

"work clubs." One region of the world could er. Even if it were to be banned in the"United leum and minerals. Eventually entire export the specialized skills it has. Any- States, we cannot prevent its proliferation undersea industrial plants could be so con- where. A laborer in Botswana or India could abroad. The nuclear designers try to an- trolled from the surface. market his or her abilities in Japan or ticipate and avoid all modes of failure. But There are already some undersea ma- Antarctica all reactors have the potential to break nipulators. The Alvin submersible, at • The elimination of many chemical and down: High temperatures weaken struc- Woods Hole, Massachusetts, is wonderful, physical health hazards and creation of tural materials; generators apply high but its manipulator is used mainly for pick- new medical and surgical techniques. If we pressures to those weakened structures; ing up samples. You couldn't tie a knot with miniaturize telepresence for use in micro- and radiation damage makes inspection it. I'd like to see one that can do anything surgery, for example, surgeons could repair difficult, while aggravating structural dam- fingers can do. or replace many little blood vessels in ihe age and corrosion. In space the amazing success of Vikings, brain. Other organs beyond the reach of These problems compel designers io 1 and 2 shows how much can be done with scalpel and forceps could similarly be re- choose between two extremes. One is to remote control— even with day-long trans- paired or substituted. build each part with monumental tough- mission delays. Yet the Viking spacecraft • A reduction of transportation costs and ness—to minimize human exposure — and had pathetic limitations. There was no way of energy and commuting time, enabling to reconfigure the equipment to make use one person to do different jobs in different of what was learned; a week of breathless places. Mass transportation could be re- planning was required just to get Viking 2 to placed by ubiquitous taxis, remotely con- turn a stone over.

I think the best io explore the planets trolled by te I eope ration. Telepresence de- way lunar telepresence vices could fix sewers, electrical conduits, QA is to have people in orbiting spacecraft to and water mains from within. Teleoperation vehicle operate telepresences that maneuver on will all hazardous and un- the surface. A Mars Rover with good tele- do away with could have surveyed pleasant tasks. presence manipulators can make exten- • The construction and operation of low- a substantial sive excavations, then reconfigure scien- tific exploit what has been cost space stations. Telepresence might portion of the moon's equipment to prove invaluable for solar-power satellite discovered. surface in ' construction — tor amassing materials in the Think how much more we could have space and supplies for the human work ten years since we learned with a permanent vehicle on the moon. The Earth-Moon speed-of-light force. Telepresence would be able to as- landed there^ semble various orbital structures. There are delay is short enough for slow but produc- many places here on Earth more danger- tive remote control. With a lunar telepres- ous to humans than outer space is. Mines, ence vehicle making short traverses of one for example. In a remote-controlled mining kilometer per day, we could have surveyed operation, there are no people to be hurt. A a substantial area of the lunar surface in the fire in a mineshaft or a collapse would elicit hope this system never tails; Ihis is today's ten years that have slipped by since we no more response than: "Well, it is very sad. designers' favorite approach. But in the landed there. We've lost six robots." end breakdown and failure occur anyway, Among ihe most exciting prospects for Remote-controlled mining can exploit requiring man's intervention. Even a mini- solving our energy woes is to build a ring of buried resources efficiently and humanely mal failure shuts down a reactor for months. solar-power satellites in orbit around Earth.

No one is exposed to the dangers of explo- I think the better extreme is to build mod- Safe, free solar energy could then be col- sions or of breathing in coal dust. No'more ular systems that permit periodic inspec- lected and beamed back to receivers lo- blacklung disease. We will mine the meter- tion, maintenance, and repair. Telepres- cated near our cities. The main problem is thin deposits of anthracite coal now lodged ence would prevent crises before they the cost: We must put sufficiently large in formations we cannot reach. Under- could arise. structures in space to gather enough sun- ground combustion and gasification If no one were in the buildings, no one light, since each station requires schemes, which are presently unieasible would be exposed to radiation. Then we thousands of acres of reflectors and collec- because they cannot be controlled, may could all stop quarreling about "tolerable" tors. And then there's the cost of sending

(hen be feasible. and "threshold" doses. If nothing enters or people into space to build them. The biggest challenge to developing leaves the reactor except by way of tele- Telepresence could save billions of dol- telepresence is achieving that sense of presence machines, no one can steal any- lars by employing remote-controlled hands "being there." Can telepresence be a true thing. Computers— or skeptical people- stationed in orbit and controlled by techni- substitute for the real thing? Will we be able- can monitor for unusual activities over view- cians on Earth and on the moon. Most satel- to couple our artificial devices naturally and ing channels. This allows few opportunities lite construction could be done by people comfortably to work together with the sen- for sabotage, and it makes it easier to com- working in their own homes and offices. sory mechanisms of human organisms? bine power generation, fuel processing To circumvent the cost of lifting satellite When any job becomes too large, small, and waste management. payloads against Earth's powerful gravity, heavy, or light for human hands, it becomes We can employ telepresence in any en- scientists have been devising ways to difficult to distinguish the inertia and elas- vironment alien to humans. Most of the manufacture and launch materials directly ticity ot the instrument from what it's work- earth, for example, is ocean; "moonwalks" from the moon or from the asteroids. Build- ing on. Telepresence will be able to adjust on the ocean floor at two miles' depth are ing such lunar facilities, however, would be and compensate for such problems, thus technically more' difficult to execute than impossibly expensive if carried out entirely making the job easier. For instance, a re- moonwalks on the moon or Mars. Remotely by men in space suits on the moon. In- ds OMNI stead, why not use cheap. Earth-based labor via telepresence to build moon fac- tories? Imagine having to go no farther than your study to operate a crane on Mare lm- brium. We need only send telepresence machines on inexpensive one-way trips. The scenario includes sending 20 real men and women to the moon. It's not very difficult. Saturn 5's have the potential to send up a crew of scientists and engineers with many months' supplies. (If only they didn't have to bring them back!) So we terry up a return vehicle for use in emergencies. Then we send up more permanent housing and, finally, the superflexible telepresence equipment needed to construct the first lunar installations. The people are there to supervise the work and to fix the equipment when necessary. One major obstacle to all this has been NASA's legislated inability to deal with such far-reaching concepts as telepresence.

The U.S-. space program is entirely mis- sion-oriented. NASA never gets appropria- tions to make better manipulators or navi- gational devices, as things in themselves. Even so. scientists at Ames Research Cen- ter, in California, managed to develop a startlingly nice telepresence, a remote- controlled space suit. It looks like a real space suit; you put your arm into the master suit and the slave suit moves just like your arm. It's an extremely good arm, a perfect imitation. Your arm feels natural in it. But it doesn't have any hand.

The space shuttle, too, has an arm. It is very long, and. it takes -about half a minute to complete any motion. But- there isn't any reason to hurry. In zero gravity nothing weighs anything; so one can use a 100- pound, long, slender pipe to move a 10-ton load very slowly (There's a simulator for this at Marshall Space Flight Center, in

Alabama. It is a model of the fuel tank ot the space shuttle— a helium balloon about as big as a house, Sitting in its hangar, it weighs nothing. When you press on it, no movement occurs for about 30 seconds, but then it begins to move. If you grab on to it, it pulls you right up, too, and because it has no weight, you can lift it with your hand, but it has a mass of half a ton I) While the shuttle arms are merely glorified construction cranes, they are the begin- nings of giant teieoperators. At the other end of the size spectrum, biologists have long used micromanipulators, tiny tele- operators. But none of them have any sen- sors. If we were to miniaturize telepres- ences for surgery, we could develop louch-reflecting microhands on slender probes that reach through the vessels' nar- rowest passages. Further in the future a surgeon could direct a semi-intelligent procedure, including several simultaneous microtelepresences, to make smaller re- pairs swiftly. The first crude remote-controlled me- chanical hands were built around 1947 at Argonne National Laboratories, in Illinois, for handling dangerous chemicals. In 1954 the late Ray Goertz, a scientist at Argonne, developed hands in which electric motors want a light, well-articulated sleeve that in- gets solved, to be sure, but the overall "reflected" some of the forces back so lhat cludes effectors to reflect the sensations. technology becomes antiquated and goes the operator could feel something of what This will require advanced materials and unnoticed until an accident such as the one was happening, at least resistance and new muscle-imitating devices; for visual at Three Mile Island or the Mexican oil spill pressure, if not textures. Paradoxically, the feedback, we'd need slender fiber-optic occurs and we find out there is no way at all very first telepresences could relay sense probes articulated to emulate the opera- to turn a valve from afar, or to replace it. of feel better than later electric models tor's head-and-eye motions. We probably Several major companies have been in- could, because they used rigidly linked would want to have an eye of some sort on volved in telepresence research from time cables and pulleys. Later electric motors the fingers. to time— AMR Hughes, General Mills, IBM. were stronger and could work at greater A Philco engineer named Steve Moulton and others — though none of them have distances, but they lost that sense of feel made a nice telepresence eye. He mount- reached "critical mass." Many smaller one got through the cables. More ad- ed a TV camera atop a building and wore a firms possess more precious skills— Uni- vanced models measured forces at the helmet so thai when he moved his head, mation, Central Research Laboratories, output and used additional motors to re- the camera eye on top of the building Programmed and Remote, and others. The fleet those forces back to the user's hands. moved, and so did a viewing screen. at- Defense Advanced Research Projects When the remote claw hit something, the tached to the helmet. Agency, working with the army, once sup- input became harder to push. This helped, Wearing this helmet, you have the feeling ported work on powered armored suits, like but the force reflection was still inadequaie of being on top of the building and looking those in Heinlein's Starship Troopers, but for performing delicate work. around Philadelphia. If you "lean over," it's the work was abandoned. University work- Early pioneers like Goertz had the fan- kind of creepy. But the most sensational ers have had many g.ood ideas, designs, tasy of building better robots of various thing Moulton did was to put a two-to-one and prototypes, but they could never afford kinds, and then people got interested in my ratio on the neck so that when you turn your to engineer complete systems. There are field, artificial intelligence— getiing robots head 30 degrees, the mounted eye lurns 60 important projects at Carnegie, MIT, Jet to do-smart things. And we did get them to degrees; you feel as if you had a rubber Propulsion Laboratory, Stanford, and other do simple mechanical things, some factory university labs. work, like assembling a motor. But they Part of the problem has been that tele- were always handicapped by those terrible presence has never been anybody's baby. claw hands. Such a projeel demands centralization. It To create true telepresences, we must requires imaginative spocia ;s:s in sensors, * With telepresence you supply more natural sensory channels- effectors, control theory, artificial intelli- touch, pressure, textures, vibration. We can as easily gence, software, engineering, psychology, must learn which sensory defects are most work from a thousand and first-class facilities for mechanical and tolerable, In 1958 Ralph Mosher, an electrical engineering and materials sci- miles away from engineer working for General Electric, de- as ence. It will neeci strong resources for in- veloped a telepresence — called Handi- a few feet. Manual teractive computation and for real-time thai had good dexterily and com- physical simulation. man — labor could pensation. It had only two fingers, but those It would be difficull to assemble such an fingers each had three joints so that they be done without ever organization in today's peacetime atmo- could wrap around any object. Handiman leaving horned sphere. What we need is a modern league could lift hundreds of pounds; it trans- of working centers connected by a com- formed you into a superperson. But it was puter network. Such a network would con- never put to any practical use. Mosher tain a central data bank somewhere in the subsequently made a simpler version that United States, combining administrative permitted him to sit in his chair.and pick up and engineering resources thai need cen- refrigerators. neck, as if you could turn your "head" com- tralization. Perhaps there could be com- Another big manipulator was designed p etely aroundl puter centers close to universities or indus- and built in the late Fifties as parr of a Why did telepresence stop evolving 20 trial locations, working together through project to- build nuclear airplanes. But years ago? One reason is that research communications networks such as Congress finally decided the plane, de- funds declined while costs escalated; by ARPANET (the computer conferencing signed to stay aloft for a year without land- 1960, no laboratory could -afford to take network of the artificial intelligence com- ing, wouldn't be safe. another step. But a more fundamental rea- munity).

Although basically little work has been son for this stagnation is that engineers are I can't imagine anyone doubting that tel- done since'the Fifties, there now exis! a few far too clever at solving immediate prob- epresence is possible. It's a matler of solv- more versatile experimental manipulators. lems. This has led to endless repetition of ing many problems that are hard, but not Electrotechnical Laboratory, in Tokyo, has the same scenario: An application needs a impossible. In the mechanical area the made a three-fingered, 12-jointed hand better manipulator, for example, to join "two same things have been done over and that can roll a baton. But that's about all it pipes together; an existing mechanical over; engineers spend their' time arguing can do. A group at Stanford University in- hand would help, but only if it had another about what kind of wrist is better. Some vented a long, snakelike tentacle that can joint in one of its fingers. One must add think the wrist should go round and round, torever, especially on robot wrap around objects. I once built a 14-joint, another control channel, design a new sen- spinning a multi-elbowed arm that can easily reach sor and input feedback device, modify a that's using a screwdriver. Thai's all right for around things in its way. But no project has microcomputer program, retrain the the industrial robots, but there isn't much the resources to perfect any such ideas. operators, and reengineer the older tools. point in that for a telepresence, because can't spin wrist around to I think we should make telepresences All this puts enormous strains on a compa- you your own that compare well with the human hand; a ny's budget. Ultimately pipe fittings are re- control it. five-fingered device capable of imiiating designed so that the old, clumsy hand can Some research has been done in the natural- motions. It should be mobile. We manage, psychology of spaiial perception, in terms might then adapt designs and concepts A good production engineer can solve of feedback controls and the interrelation- from the arm fo make legs, yielding a sys- almost any specific problem by using a ship between electronics and the human tem able to work wherever people can, not special jig, fabricating a new part, develop- nervous system. There is a device, for only on carefully prepared floors. ing a special tool-for the. hand, or replacing example, that can translate print into "feel," To control such an instrument, we will the hand with a special tool. Each problem developed by J, C. Bliss and J. G. Linvill, at Stanford, which enables the blind to read mands. A complicated precision bearing Telepresence offers a freer mar- conventional printed matter It's a gadget was so assembled at MIT; an entire pump ket of men's and women's skills, rendering that fits conveniently on your fingertip and was put together at. Stanford; a toy au- each worker less vulnerable to the moods has a lot of miniature photocells to sense tomobile was constructed in Edinburgh, and lortunes of one employer light and a lot of little vibrators that allow Scotland. Similar work has been done at Finally, in a strange sense, the question the finger lo sense remotely the line shape SRI International. These laboratory pro- of "technological unemployment" may be- of the' letters. In my own laboratory, grams are too undependable for practical come moot: Many-young people today graduate student Danny Hillis recently fab- use because, although we can do many consider it demeaning to be bound to any ricated a thin, skinlike material that can things with computers, we cannot get them single employer, occupation, or even cul- "feel" and transmit small tactile surface to do many things an> child can do'Some- ture. Perhaps many of us sense— at least features. day our machines could all do our work for on some level — that little of what we do Someone could develop similar devices us, but that is long a way off, and it would really has to be done. Our attitudes about for telepresence- vibrating patterns, for need another whole article to to begin ex- work, about changing the quality of it, de- example, that would convey the sensations plain the problems. pend as much on our own dispositions and of '"hot" or "cold." However, very little If is teleoperator technology promises our alternatives as on the jobs themselves. known aboul tactile sensations. It seems wealth and freedom beyond dreams, is In effect, most of us already feel technolog- quite ironic to that me we already have a there a dark side? People who issue man- ically unemployed. device that can translate print into feel, but ifestos should think about such matters. that we have nothing that can translate The solution may be to grant those who Postscript: from the London Telegraph For- fee/ into teel. want to live in the "old ways" their chance, eign Service Eventually telepresence will'improve and while those who want new gifts should also Paris— The French government has au- save old jobs and create new ones. Later, have I theirs. think the gifts promise better, thorized Electricite de France, the French as we learn more about robotics, many richer, and longer lives. Might telepres- central electrical generating board, to go human telepresence operators will be able ence, though, have a special tendency to ahead with loading two new nuclear-power to turn their tasks over to. the robots and make workers feel alienated? Perhaps, stations with enriched uranium fuel. The become "supervisors." In fhe long run, yes. even with superb technology. Many approval came despite the detection [in since each step toward telepresence is a jobs will intensely become more interesting 19781 of cracks several millimeters wide in step toward robots, telepresence sensors and more creative; many worlds will be ex- the tube end-plates of the steam genera- and output devices could be controlled by panded. tors and in the tubes connecting Ihem to computers rather than by people. This be- If each step toward telepresence were the reactors. comes inevitable as we learn more about also a step toward the economic pain and The existence of the cracks first was dis- artificial intelligence. psychic grief of unemployment, one might closed ... by nuclear engineers who Computers equipped with artificial consider working against it. Yet a genera- pointed out that once the reactors go into hands and eyes have actually grasped and tion of reforms is eliminating already many operation, repairs would be impossible for moved obiects in accord with verbal com- of trie unsafe jobs that telepresence could lack of appropriate robotic equipment. Frangois Kosciusko-Morizet, government director of industrial quality and security, countered that the defects were very care- fully examined and were found to be super- ficial. In the very worst of hypotheses, the cracks would not give trouble for five to six years, by which time repairs would be easy, he said, since from 1981 on, France would have robots, able (o repair such delects automatically. [Italics mine — M.M.] Since France is walking the tightrope of possible power shortages and Electricite de France has warned that possible power

. cutbacks may be necessary . ., the gov- ernment has decided that the economic risk of holding up the electricity generation timetable by repairing the reactor cracks now is greater than the danger of serious accidents later.

My work in artificial intelligence is carried on in a world as much fiction as science. This essay used specific suggestions from Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein as well as from Carl Sagan, Brian O'Leary, Edward Purcell, and many others. For more technical details I recommend Remotely Manned Systems, edited by Ewald Heer (Caltech, 1973), and Human Factors Applications in Teleoperator De- sign and Operations , by E. G. Johnsenand W R. Corliss (Wiley, 1971). For a discussion of intelligent machines, see M. Minsky. "Computer Science and the Representa- tion of Knowledge." in The Computer Age; A Twentieth Century View, edited by M. Dertouzos and J. Moses (MIT, 1979). DO ~ STARS

quicker than-.I, did this tor Standing in front of mi "" " ps lytfehty years oia, _ *" a liquid id

isparent as it de- 'im, lovely belly

painted, the nostrils also red in- .

drink? Nothing, thank you." side— I had noticed that this was how most reached me, apart from the sharp hiss that "To of the women here on Earth were made up. announced the passage in the street of "All right." She held the back of the chair opposite me those black machines. She went to the wall, which opened like a of with both hands and said. "How goes it. "Come on, where are you?" I heard her small bar. She stood in front the opening. carrying a tray col?" Then she sat down. whisper. I saw only the pale smudge of her When she returned, she was

it bottles. She was a little drunk, I thought. face. She put her hand to the door, and with cups and two Squeezing one "It's boring here, don't you think?" she opened, but not into an apartment, and the bottle lightly, she filled me a cup to the brim. continued after a moment. "Shall we take floor moved softly together with us. The liquid looked exactly like milk.

off somewhere, col?" We were in something like a huge en- "Thank you," I said, "not for me." giving anything," she "I'm not a col," I said. She leaned on the trance hall or corridor, wide, almost dark. "But I'm not you table with her elbows and moved her hand Only the corners of the walls shone, bright- said, seemingly surprised.

across her half-filled glass until the end of ened by streaks of luminous paint. In the Seeing I had made a mistake, although I

the golden chain around her fingers darkest place the girl again put the palm of did not know what kind of mistake, I mut- dipped into the liquid. She leaned still her hand flat against a metal plate on a tered under my breath and took the cup. the If first. I She poured herself a drink from second closer. I could smeli her breath. she was door and entered blinked. The hall, oily, colorless, drunk, it was not from alcohol. brightly lit, was almost empty. She walked bottle. This liquid was and "How's that?" she said. "You are. You to the next door. slightly effervescent under the surface; at

it on have to be. Everybody is. What do you say? I followed her in. the same time darkened, apparently

Shall we?" The furniture looked as if it had been cast contact with air. She sat down and, touch- lips, casually asked, If only I knew what this meant. in glass: armchairs, a low sofa, small ta- ing the glass with her material are 'All right," I said. bles. Inside the semitransparent "Who you?"

I if She took me by the arm and led me to- swarms of fireflies circulated freely; some- "A col," I answered. lifted my cup, as to

ward a dark-gold wall, to a mark on it, a little times they dispersed, then they would join examine it. This milk had no smell. 1 did not

like a treble clef, lit up. At our approach the again into streams, and it seemed that a touch it.

"No, seriously," she said. "You thought I wall opened. I felt a gust of hot air. A narrow, silver escalator flowed down. was sending in the dark, eh? Since when?

We stood side by side. She did not even That was only a cals. I was with a six, you come up to my shoulder. She had a catlike see, but It got awfully bottom. The orka was

. I no good, and altogether. . was just going head, black hair with a blue sheen, a profile iShe did not even that was perhaps too sharp, but she was when you sat down."

pretty. If it were not for those scarlet nostrils come up to my shoulder. Some of this I could figure out; I must her table she . with her thin have sat at by accident when . . She held on to me tightly She had a catlike hand, the green nails digging into my was not there; could she have been danc- head, black hair ... a heavy sweater. We went out, passing a ing? I maintained a tactful silence. ."

half-empty bars and shop win- "From a distance, you seemed so . . number of . . profile . perhaps dows in which groups of mannequins were She was unable to find the proper word. too sharp, but she was performing the same scene over and over "Decent?" I suggested Her eyelids flut- if it tered. metallic film again, and I would have liked to stop and pretty, weren't Did she have a on them what they were doing, but the girl hur- as well? No, it must have been eyeshadow. see for those scarlet nostrils* ried along, her slippers clicking. "What does that mean?"

. . . . "Where shall we go?" the girl asked. She "Well . , urn someone you could trust ..." still held me by the arm. She slackened her I said. pace. A red stripe, reflected from a nearby "You talk in a strange way. Where are you shop, passed across her face. from?" "Wherever you like." luminous blood coursed in the furniture, "From faraway."

"My place, then. It isn't worth taking a pale green, commingled with pink sparks. "Mars?"

gleeder. It's nearby." "Why don't you sit down." "Farther." We came upon a moving walkway; we She was standing far back. An armchair "You fly?"

stood on it, a strange pair; lights swam by; unfolded itself to receive me. I hated that. "I did fly."

now and then a vehicle shot along as if cast The "glass" was not glass at all — the im- "And now?"

from a single block of black metal; they had pression I had was of sitting on inflated "Nothing. I returned."

no windows, no wheels, not even lights, and cushions, and, looking down, I could see "But you'll fly again?"

they careered as if blindly and at tremen- the floor indistinctly through the curved, "I don't know Probably not." dous speed. The girl suddenly stepped off thick surface of the seat. The conversation had trailed off some-

It the flowing ribbon, but only to mount I made myself comfortable in the chair. how. seemed to me that the girl was be-

rash invitation, I another that darted steeply upward, and I The girl, her hand on her hip— her abdo- ginning to regret her and

found myself suddenly high up; this aerial men really did look like a sculpture in azure wanted to make it easy for her.

I I ride lasted perhaps half a minute and metal— studied me carefully. She no longer "Maybe I ought to go now''" ventured. ended on a ledge full of weakly fragrant appeared drunk. Perhaps it had only still held my untouched drink.

flowers. It was as if we had reached the seemed that way to me before. "Why?" She was genuinely surprised.

"I . . terrace or balcony of a dark building by a "What's your name?" she asked. thought that that would . suit you." conveyor belt set against the wall. "Bregg. Hal Bregg. And yours?" "No," she said. "You're thinking — no,

The girl entered this loggia, and from it, "Nais," she answered, then asked, "How what for . . . Why don't you drink?"

"I I replied. my eyes now accustomed to the dark, I was old are you?" am drinking,"

able to discern the huge outlines of the Curious manners, I thought. But if that's It was milk after all. At this time of day in

surrounding buildings, windowless, black, what's done . . such circumstances! My surprise was

seemingly lifeless, for fhey were without "Forty .What about it?" such that she must have noticed it.

more than light— not the slightest sound "Nothing. I thought you were a hundred." "What, is it bad?"

..." I I had to smile. "It's milk I said. must have looked

"I can be that, if you insist." The funny like a complete idiot brit." thing is, it's the truth, I thought. "What? What milk? That's

I started iyright©1980bySt3nisli "What can I give you?" she asked. sighed and to get up. . " .

I "Listen, Nais. I think I'll go now. Really, it Again I smiled; it was not a pleasant "Listen, wha: said bO' ore. that was just a ." will be better ihat way." smile. joke, really . .

"Then why did you drink''" she asked. "What does that mea,n— really? Biologi- 'About the hundred years?" I asked. ,"

"I It . I looked at her, in silence. The language cally I'm forty but by Earth clocks, one was just talking. had no . ." had not changed so very much, and yet I hundred and fifty-seven . . "Stop," I grumbled. 'Any more apologiz- didn't understand a thing. Not a thing. It A long silence, then suddenly: "Were ing and I'll really feel that time."

was they who had changed. there any women there?" She was silent. I forced myself to look

'All right," she said finally. "I'm not keep- "Wait," I said. "Do you have anything to away from her. ."." ing you. But now this . She was con- drink?" "What will you do?" she asked quietly. fused. She drank her- lemonade— that's "What do you mean?" "I don't know. I don't know yet." what I called the sparling liquid, m my "Something toxic, you understand. "You have no plans?" thoughts— and again I did not know what to Strong. Alcohol ... or don't they drink it "No. I have a little— it's a . . . bonus, you say. How difficult all this was! anymore?" understand. For all that time. When we left,

it "Tell me about yourself," I suggested. "Very rarely." she replied softly as if think- was put info the bank in my name— I don't

"Do you want to?" ing of something else. Her hands fell slowly, even know how much there is. I don't know "Okay. And then you'll tell me?" touching the metallic blue of her dress. a thing. Listen, what is this Cavut?"

. "Yes." ."I'll give you some . . . angehen. Is that all "The Cavuta?" she corrected me. "It's .

' ''I'm at the Cavuta, in my second year. I've right? But you don't even know what it is, do a sort of school, plasting; nothing great in been neglecting things a oil lately. I wasn't you?" itself, but sometimes one can get into the

plasting regularly, and . . . that's how it's "No, I don't," I retorted with unexpected reals."

been My six isn : too interesting. So really stubbornness. She went to the bar and "Wait . . . Then what exactly do you do?" ." it's ... I don't have anyone. It's strange . . brought back a small, bulging bottle. She "Plast. You don't know what thai is?"

"Whal is?" poured me a drink. It had some alcohol in it, "No." ." it "That I don't have . . but there was something else that gave a "How can I explain? One makes dresses, ."

Again these obscurities. Whom was she clothing in general— everything . . talking about? Whom didn't she have? Par- "Tailoring?" ents? Lovers? Acquaintances? "What does that mean?"

I 'And what else?" I asked, and, since "Do you sow things?"

was still holding the cup, I took another "I don't understand." that's what swallow ot that milk. Her eyes grew wide in 4 So "Ye gods and little fishes! Do you design surprise. like smile Something a mocking , dresses?" a cigarette looks like. . touched her lips. She drained her cup, "Well . . . yes, in a sense, yes. I don't No, wait — the other ." reached out a hand to the fluffy covering on design; I only make . . her arms, and tore it. She did not unbutton thing is more important. I gave up.

it, did not slip it off, just tore it, and let the 'And what is a real?" I asked. Brit is not milk. I shreds fall from her fingers, like trash. That truly floored her For the first time she don't know what's in it, "But then we hardly know each other," looked at me as if I were a creaiure from she said. She was freer, it seemed. She but — to a stranger — another world. smiled. There were moments when she be- "A real is ... a real ..." she repeated one always gives brit3 came quite lovely, particularly when she helplessly. "They are ... stories. It's for ." narrowed her eyes and when her lower lip, watching . . curling, revealed glistening teeth. In her "Movies? Theater?" face there was 'something Egyptian. An "No. Theater, I know what that was— that

Egyptian cat. Hair blacker than black. was long ago. I know. They had actual When she- pulled the furry fluff from her peculiar, bitter taste. people ihere. A real is artificial, but one arms and breasts, I saw that she was not "Don't be angry," I said, emptying the can't tell the difference. Unless, I suppose, ." I . nearly so thin as I had thought. But why had cup, and poured mysell another one. one got in there, inside .

I'll she ripped it off? Was that supposed to "I'm not angry. You didn't answer, but "Gotin?Listen, Nais." I said, "either go ."

. mean something? perhaps you don't want to?" now, because it's very late, or .

"Your turn to talk," she said, looking at me "Why not? I can tell you. There were "I'd prefer the 'or.' over her cup. twenty-three of us altogether, on two ships. "But you don't know what I want to say."

if it "Yes," I said and relt jittery, as my words The other ship was the Ulysses. Five pilots "Say then." would have God knows what conse- to a ship, and the rest— scientists. There "All right. I wanted to ask you more about the big things, the quence. "I am .. . I was a pilot. The last time were no women." various things. About

I I was here . . . Don't be frightened." "Why?" most important ones. already know some-

"No. Goon." "Because of children," I explained. "You thing. I spent four days at Adapt, on Luna, Her eyes were shining and attentive, can't raise children on such ships, and but that was a drop in the bucket. What do "It was a hundred and twenty-seven even ifyoucould.no one would want to. You you do when you aren't working?"

years ago. I was thirty then. The expedition can't fly before you're thirty. You have to "One can do a pile of things," she an- actually or ... I was a pilot on the expedition to have two diplomas under your belt, and swered. "One-can travel, by

Fomalhaut. That's twenty-three light-years four years of training . twelve years in all. In moot. One can have fun, go to the real, away. We flew, there and back, in a hun- other words, women of thirty usually have dance, play tereo, participate in sports, dred and twenty-seven years, Earth time, children." swim, fly — whatever one wants." and ten years, ship time. Four days ago we "And you?" she asked. "What is a moot?" returned. The Prometheus, my ship, re- "I was single. They selected unmarried "It's a little like the real, except you can mained on Luna. I came from there today. ones. That is— volunteers." touch everything. You can walk on moun- ."

That's all." "You wanted to . . tains there, on anything — you'll see for

She stared al me. She did not speak. Her "Yes. Of course." yourself; it's not the sort of thing you can

. . lips moved, opened, closed. What was that "It must be weird . coming back, like describe. But I had the impression you ." in her eyes? Surprise? Admiration? Fear? this . . she said almost in a whisper. She wanted to ask about something else."

"Why do you say nolhing?" I asked. shuddered. Suddenly she looked at me. "Your Impression is right, How is it—

it "So . . . how old are you, really?" Her cheeks darkened; was a blush. between men and women?" 58 OMN) .

"I suppose the way it has always been. shrugged. "Naturally." What can have changed?" "It wasn'l a matter of time only First of all "What if he doesn't want to drink?" not to?" . could want . . in him, get to "Everything. When I left— don't take this she had to see something "How he the wrong way— a girl like you would not know him, like him. First of all they went out Here all understanding ended. ."

drink," I . "But can't force to con- have brought me to her place at this hour." together . you him

"Really? Why not?" "Wait," she said. "It seems that you . .. tinued patiently. ." drink . . she said "Because it would have meant only one don't understand a thing. After all, I gave "A madman might not thing." you brit." slowly "But I never heard of such a thing." She was silent for a second. "What brit? Ah, the milk? What of it?" "Is this some kind of custom?"

"I tell Is it "And how do you know it didn't?" "What do you mean, what of it? Was there don't know what to you. a cus- that you don't around naked?" My expression amused her. I looked at ... no brit?" tom go her, and she stopped smiling, She began to laugh; she was convulsed "Aha. Well, in a sense, yes. But you can ." off, the . undress on beach." it I laughter. "Nais . . . how is . stammered. "You with Then suddenly she broke ." "Completely?" she asked with sudden . terribly. take a complete stranger and . looked at me, and reddened

I . . interest. She said nothing. "So you thought . . . you thought that swimsuit. there of "Why don't you answer?" no." My fingers were unsteady; I wanted to "No. A But were groups ."

. . I cigarette in called nudists "Because you don't understand a thing. I hold something in them. pulled a people my day, don't know how to tell you. It's nothing, you from my pocket and lit it. "I know. No, that's something else. I ." know ..." "What is that?" thought that you all . .

don't this drinking is . . . like wearing "Aha. It's nothing." 1 repeated. "Are there "A cigarette. What— you smoke?" "No. So still marriages?" "It's the first time I ever saw one ... So clothes? Just as necessary?"

. "Naturally." that's what a cigarette looks like. How can "Yes. When there are . . two of you,"

"I don't understand. Explain this to me. you inhale the smoke like that? No, wait- "Well, and afterwards?" You see a man who appeals to you, and, the other thing is more important. Brit is not "What afterwards?" ." it, a next time?" without knowing him, right away . . milk. I don't know what's in but— to "The

"But what is there to tell?" she said reluc- stranger— one always gives brit." This conversation was idiotic, and I felt tantly. "Was it really true, in^your day, back "To a man?" terrible, but I had to find out.

. then, that a girl couldn't let a man into her "Yes." "Later? It varies. To some . . you always ." room?" "What does it do?" give brit . .

"She could, of course, and even with that "What it does is that he behaves, that he "The rejected suitor," I blurted out. to. know. some biologist that mean?" purpose, but . . . not five minutes after see- has You Maybe "What does ." explain it to you." "No, nothing. And if a girl visits a man, ing him . . can "How many minutes then?" "To hell with the biologist. Does this mean what then?"

quite serious. that to whom you've given brit can't "Then he drinks it at his place." I looked at her. She was a man

almost with pity. But I Well, yes, how was she to know? I do anything?" She looked at me was stubborn. "And when he hasn't any?" "Any brit? How could he not have it?" "Well, he ran out. Or ... he could always

lie."

She began to laugh, "But that's . . . You

think that I keep bottles here in my apart- ment?" "You don't? Where then?"

"Where they come from, I don't know. In your day was there tap water?"

"There was," I said glumly There could

not have been, of course. I could have climbed into the rocket straight from the

forest. 1 was furious for a moment, but I

calmed down; it was not, after all, her fault. "There, you see! Did you know in which ." direction the water flowed before it . .

"I understand. No need to goon. All right.

So is it a kind of safety measure? Very

I strange How long does brit work?" I asked. She blushed slightly.

"You're in such a hurry. You still don't un- derstand anything."

"I didn't say anything wrong," I defended

myself. "I only wanted to know . . . Why are you looking at me like that? What's the mat- ter with you? Nais!" She got up slowly. She stood behind the armchair. "How long ago— did you say? A hundred and twenty years?" 'A hundred and twenty-seven. What about it?"

'And were you . . . betrizated?"

"What is that?" "You weren't?" . .

"I it . don't ever. Know what means. Nais . words she had -eieased us irom an invisi- '"Nothing. But then it's only a thought, ." girl, what's the with I matter you?" ble chain, as if she had put a knife into my and have not Me s ightest intention . .

. . . "No you weren't," she whispered. "If hand — a knife I could stab her with. "But you can? Right? You really can? No," ,"

you had been, you would know . , "Nais," 1 said very quietly. "Nais, don't be she whispered, as if to herself, "you ace not ." I to to her. raised began 90 She her afraid. Really . . . there's nothing to fear," dsp' zated . . hands. to She tried smile. Only now did the meaning of it all hit me; I ."

I "Keep . away. No! No! beg you." "Listen . understood how it could be a shock to her. retreated She to the wall. "Yes?" "This is a great thing," I muttered. After a "But yourself ." said that brit ... I it you I'm "When said that., moment I added, "But would have been

sitting now. You see, I'm sitting. Calm your- "Yes?" better, perhaps, had people ceased to do it

. . self. Tell it is, this . . me what bet or what- "You felt nothing?" . . without artificial means . ever." "And what was I supposed to feel?" "I don't know Perhaps." she answered. "I don't exactly. But is know everyone bet- "Imaginethatyou are doing what I said to She drew a deep breath. "You know now rizated. At birth." you . why I was frightened?" is it?" "What "That I ai :i supposed to pic- "Yes, but not completely. Maybe a little. ."

"They into the blood. I put something ture that?" Bui surely you didn't think that I . . think." She shuddered. "How strange you are! It's altogether as if

"Do they do it to everyone?" ..." "Yes you weren't . She broke off.

. . "Yes. Because . . brit . . doesn't work 'And' now?" "Weren't human?" that. without Don't move." "And you feel nothing?" "I didn't mean to offend you. It's just that, "Child, don't be ridiculous,"

I crushed out my cigarette.

"I . . am not a wild animal . Don't be angry, v but it seems to me that you've all gone a T

little mad. This brit . . . Well, it's like, hand- cuffing everyone because someone might

turn out to be a thief. I mean . . .there ought to be a little trust." "You're terrific." She seemed calmer, but still she did not sit. "Then why were you so indignant before, about my bringing strangers home?" "That's something else."

"I don't see the difference. You're sure you weren't belrizated?"

"I wasn't" "But maybe now? When you returned?"

"I don't know, They gave me all kinds' of shots. What importance does it have?" "It has. They did that? Good." She sat down.

"I have a favor to ask you," I said as calm- ."

I ly as could. "You must explain to me . . "What?"

"You fear. Did you think I would attack you, or what? But that's ridiculous."

"You'd understand if I told you. Betriza- tion, you see, isn't done by brit. With the brit, it's only— a side effect . .. Betrization has to ." do with something else . . She was pale. Her lips trembled.

What a world, I thought, what a world this

n terribly afraid." "Of me?" "Yes." ,"

. "I swear that .

"No, no ... I believe you, only ... no. You can't understand this."

"You won't tell me?" There must have been something in my voice that made her control herself Her face grew grim. I saw from her eyes the effort it was for her

"It is . . so that ... in order that it be

impossible to . . . kill." "No. People''" ." "Anyone . . 'Anirnafs. too?" ."

'Animals . . . anyone . . She twisted and untwisted her fingers, not taking her eyes off me, as if with these Feeling lost in the crowd? Cheer up! Science has found new ways to show just how special you are

THE UNIQUE YOU BY RICHARD HUTTON AND ZSOLT HARSANYI

We are entering Ihe Age o( Anonymity. As we struggle to remain individuals, our complex society increasingly identities us by face- less numbers. We may soon live as units within an immense equa- tion, only a digit, decimal, or binary zero removed from the next guy. This slow slide toward sameness has compelled many people to search for new ways to reaffirm their individuality. Some go off to seek their roots— the number of genealogical organizations in the United States has grown from 200 in 1966 to more than 800 at present, and mail-order business in family coats of arms is booming. Other people, according to Queens College sociologist Paul Blum- berg, try to manufacture individuality by wearing rhinestone tuxedosand running shoes or by rummaging around for distinctive status symbols and esoteric hobbies. For them, possession offers a wSrf'

PAINTING BY DON IVAN PUNCHATZ

jp*. -in claim to uniqueness: Their identities derive parasitic or exploitative and cause dis- quitoes are now being identified so that from their ability to own something hand- ease, but most consider us their homes effective repellents can be manufactured. made, homemade, self-made— some- and -breed happily and harmlessly in-col- An individual's smell can be distin- thing, in short, that no one'etee has. onies throughout our bodies. guished from the smell of his clothes, resi- The situation may seem pretty grim, but Different populations of microorganisms dence, or diet, though all these factors can

our salvation lies close at hand. It has, in get established in various parts of a human superimpose their own characteristics, at fact, been here all along. Nature has wisely body. Because our body surfaces and least in part. The oJfactory sense is one of endowed each of us with unique charac- orifices vary in their acidity, texture, and the least developed among mammals, teristics that not even the postindustrial age secretions, our glandular "signatures" ac- however. Most of us have noses that can can steal. And science is getting ever bet- tually determine which microorganisms will tell us little more than whether another indi- ter at measuring and highlighting them. take up residence where. The remarkable vidual smells fresh or foul. Still, individuals The late Theodosius Dobzhansky, of constancy in the way certain micro- with highly refined senses of smell do exist. Rockefeller University, noted the stagger- organisms are distributed on the body of Freud reported the case of the "rat man," ing number of possibilities that exist in the each individual has led Dr. Melvin Gersh- who was able to identify all the people he

human gene pool. If all the imaginable man, of the University of Maine, to suggest knew from their smell. One young boy was characteristics are added up, he said, "the the development of a science of forensic not only able to detect individual body number of potentially possible gene con- microbiology, based upon germ types. odors, but his olfactory sense was so keen stellations turns out to be greater than the Since microorganisms are living crea- that he could even tell which part of the number of subatomic particles estimated tures, each species has individual variants body a particular odor came from.

by physicists to exist in the universe." within it, Though most people might think Such observations have led scientists to So while society pushes us toward con- that a Corynebacterium xerosis by any theorize that humans might even com- formity nature keeps pulling for variation other name is still axe/os/s, each germ has municate subconsciously by means of

and change. And while manmade institu- its own recognizable characteristics. So we subtle volatile substances. After all, most tions persist in trying to transform us into can be identified not only by the dislribu- animals use chemical messengers, which social clones, our internal blueprints en- are known as pheromones. These com- sure that we remain unique and uncopi- pounds tell an animal when to fight, move able, as original, exceptional, and singular to a new territory, become friendly, or copu-

as flakes of snow late. If we can respond to the chemical Dozens of characteristics contribute to emissions of others, we might actually be the uniqueness that distinguishes us from ^Society's pressure doing ourselves and our ability to com- one another Possible identifiers range from pushes us toward conformity, municate a great disservice by bathing facial profiles and hand shapes to elec- frequently and by coating ourselves with but our internal trocardiographs, even the patterns of perfumes, lotions, and deodorants. blood vessels in our eyes. Other traits may blueprints ensure that we Machines under development today use not become significant for decades, but remain unique and gas chromatography to analyze and record these are in use today or are right on the the patterns of airborne organic vapors horizon. They can identify one John as uncopiable, as original, from humans. Analysis can now identify'' Travolta and another as Olivia Newton as exceptional, and chemicals in concentrations below one easily as we can tell grease from water. part per billion — far beyond our own ability singular as flakes of snow. Our bodies are composed of many ma- 9 to detect odors. Though the technique is

terials, and primary among them are pro- still in the experimental stage, it seems teins, the structural and functional building likely that we will soon be able to identify blocks of cells. Proteins come in all shapes individuals by their olfactory signatures, and forms, and most proteins display a BLOOD BONDS range of clearly discernible variations. tion of our germ populations but also by the

Because many tribes, races, and reli- individual microorganisms themselves. An old saying holds that a person's gious communities around the world tend character is written in his blood. Scientists YOUR ODOROUS IDENTITY to isolate their gene pools by inbreeding, are finding that, in a sense, this is true. protein variations can now be used to iden- One common microorganism activity of- Blood varies from person to person. tify members of these groups. For exam- fers another way to identify us— smell When most people refer to "blood type," ple, red blood cells contain a protein, acid prints. An individual not only carries an they are thinking of the most common des-

phosphatase, that is a blend of three struc- identifiable odor but leaves a trail of it be- ignations; Rh positive or negative, or A. B, a b G tural variants known as , . Na- hind a fact that every dog's nose AB, 0. Hematologists, however, p , p and p him— and type tive Greeks, as a group, have a distribution knows. We differ from one another across people's blood into much finer categories. of 22 percent a 71 b an spectrum p , percent p , and /per- entire of odors that emanate The A-B-0 and Rh systems, for example, c cent p . The Yanomana Indians of Ven- from our bodies; more than 100 con- are but two of more than two dozen blood b ezuela have only p , and Alaskan Eskimos stituents make up our unique olfactory sig- groups that differ among us. a b have 56 percent p and 44 percent p . nature. Engineers have reasoned for years Knowledge of blood types is important

This might seem important only if a desti- that if a dog can differentiate individual for safe blood transfusions, for preventing tute, mute, Asiatic-looking man were found smell patterns, a machine could do the hemolytic disease in the newborn, and for

wandering through the streets of Juneau, same, without having to be fed. transplantation surgery It has also been Alaska, but anthropologists have used People emit both general and specific used to clear up conflicting claims incases these and other biological markers to trace odors. Women, for example, emit volatile of doubtful paternity, kidnapping, inherit- migration, breeding, and evolutionary pat- substances that vary with their monthly ance, and the inadvertent switching of in- terns in human populations. In addition, menstrual cycles. One investigator discov- fants in hospitals.

protein typing has been used to determine ered that if he gave German shepherds the One of the most useful applications of parentage in many paternity suits. general. scent of progesterone (a female blood typing is analyzing reproduction and Because every person is a unique island hormone), the shepherds could identify childbirth. Couples with incompatible floating in a sea "of microorganisms, germ rods that had been held by pregnant blood types, studies indicate, have a types can also be used to tell us apart. women or by women in the latter stages of higher incidence of childlessness, since From birth we are surrounded by bacteria, their menstrual cycle. Other specific odors women of one blood type can produce an- fungi, and viruses of all kinds. A few are that make us attractive or repulsive to mos- tibodies against incompatible sperm cells. 64 OMNI This new marriage between satellite and computer promises a garden of earthly delights EARTH SCANS BY CHARLES SHEFFIELD

Far in overhead the inky blackness of space, a camera clicks . . . once. twice, then again, recording and storing images ol the blue-green planet below. These images automatically convert to binary bits and are relayed to Earthside computers, there to be reconstructed as high-resolution displays by the Earth Satellite Corporation, ot Washing- ton. D.C. The photographer is LANDSAT, a satellite so spectacularly useful it stills the objections of those who wonder why we venture into space when there's so much turmoil here on Earth. In the hands of skilled computer technicians, emerging composites of the earth's sur- face pinpoint valuable mineral deposits, forest resources, and poten- tial croplands, Through color-enhanced infrared imagery, for example, the San Rafael Swell in Utah reveals hidden geological features (/eft), striking results when seen from space. Center-pivot irrigation systems form bizarre patterns at the Al Kufrah oasis, in Libya (right). Off the coast of In- donesia (above), blue swirls outline suboceanic topogra- phy and dissolved sediments. The central Amazon basin (far right) is shown using a tech- nique known as digital ratio, which combines three of the four spectral bands (wave- lengths) visible to LANDSAT's cameras. When enlarged and coordinated with ground sur- veys, digital ratios can pinpoint likely places to explore for mineral deposits in the vast Amazon jungle. Atmospheric conditions readily show them- selves on the next page, where x the Ghadames basin of the ' S' $i ?&>' Sahara is host to wind vor tices that create star-shaped sand dunes. LANDSAT's ability lo freeze-frame a seasonal captures the autum- nal splendor of the Shenan- doah Valley, near Welch, Wesi Virginia {far left). Two photo- graphs {left and above) are separately processed images of the Namib Desert, in South West Africa. The left one shows a false-color infrared process, while at top is an "ei- genimage," or combination of the four different spectral bands that make a realistic three-color photograph. As we progress through the Eighties. the vital information needed to preserve our biosphere will of- ten arrive from the ultimate vantage point: space. OO ELECTRONIC TUTORS

Education is about to undergo a revolution unequaied since Gutenberg's movable type BY ARTHUR C.CLARKE

W. witnessing one ofithe swiftest and most momentous revolutions in the entire history of technol- ogy. For more than a century the slide rule was the essential tool of engineers, scientists, and anyone else whose work involved extensive calculations. Then, just a decade ago, the invention of the pocket cal- culator made the slide rule obsolete almost overnight, and with it whole libraries of logarilhmic and trigonometric tables. There has never been so stupendous an advance in so short a time. Simply no comparison can be made between the two devices. The pocket calculator is millions of times more accurate and scores of limes swifter than the slide rule, and it now actually costs less. It's as if we'd jumped overnight from bullock carts to the Concorde— and Concorde were cheaper! No wonder the slide rule manufacturers have gone out of business. If you have a good slide rule, leave it in your will. It will someday be a valuable antique. Pocket calculators are already having a profound effect on the teach- ing of mathematics, even at the level of elementary arithmetic. But they are about to be succeeded by devices of much greater power and sophistication — machines that may change the very nature of the educa- tions I system. The great development in our near future is the portable electronic library— a library not only of books, but of films and music. I twill be about the size of an average book and will probably open in the same way. One half will be the screen, with high-definition, full-color display The other will be a keyboard, much like one of today's computer consoles, with the full alphabet, digits, basic mathematical functions, and a large number

PAINTING BY MURRAY TINKELMANN of special keys— perhaps 100 keys in'all. It But there has always been a shortage of different culture who see it here in Sri won't be as small as some of today's teachers, and technology has always been Lanka. Still, every TV program has some midget calculators, which have (o be oper- used Eo ameliorate this— a fact that many educational content; the cathode-ray tube ated with toothpicks. people tend to forget. is a window on the world — indeed, on

In theory, such a device could have The first great technological aid to edu- many worlds. Often it's a very murky win- enough memory to hold all the books in the cation was the book. You don't have to dow, with a limited view, but I've slowly world. But we may settle for something clone teachers to multiply them. The print- come to the conclusion that on balance more modest, like the Encyclopaedia ing press did just that, and the mightiest of even bad TV is preferable to no TV Britannica, the Oxford English Dictionary, all educational machines is the librgry. Yet The power of television lies in its ability to and Roger's Thesaurus. (Incidentally, Peter this potent resource is now about to be show current events, often as they are hap- Mark Roget was the inventor of the log-log surpassed by an even more remarkable pening. But for basic educational pur- slide rule.) Whole additional libraries, one. a depository of knowledge as as- poses, the video recorder is much more stored in small, plug-in memory modules, tonishing to most of us today as books were valuable. Its pretaped programs can be could be inserted into the portable library to our remote ancestors. repeated at any convenient time. Unfortu- when necessary. All this technology has I can still recall my own amazement nately, the chaos of competing systems already been developed, though for other when, at a NASA conference less than ten has prevented standardization and cheap

uses. Oddly enough, the most skilled prac- years ago, I saw my first "electronic slide mass production. titioners of this new art are the designers of rule." It was a prototype of the HP 35, dem- Videotape machines, however, are far video games. onstrated to us by Dr. Bernard Oliver, vice- too complicated; they can never be really Reading material of may be displayed as a president Hewlett-Packard. Though I cheap or long-lived. Video discs, which are fixed or else "scrolled" it page so that rolls was impressed, even awed, I did"hot fully just coming on the market, will be much at upward a comfortable reading rate. Pic- realize that something revolutionary had cheaper. Yet I am sure that they, too, repre- tures could appear as in an ordinary book, come into the world. sent only a transitional stage. Eventually we but they may eventually be displayed as It is quite impossible for even the most will have completely solid-state memory three-dimensional holographic images. and storage devices, with no moving parts Text and imagery, of course, will be ac- except laser beams or electric fields. After companied by sound. Today's tape re- all, the human brain doesn't have any mov- corders can reproduce an entire symphony ing parts, and it can hold an enormous on a cassette. The electronic library may amount of information. The electronic QThe telephone and car be able to play back the complete works of memories I'm talking about will be even Beethoven while displaying the scores on altered our lives, more compact than the brain— and very its screen. cheap. They should be ready soon. even the shapes of cities And how nice to be able to summon up Consider the very brief history of the Lord Clark's Civilisation or Jacob Bronow- and uses ot land. computer The first models were clumsy ski's Ascent of Man whenever or wherever Electronic information giants filling whole rooms, consuming you felt like it! (Yes, I know that these tapes kilowatts of power, and costing millions of processing will currently cost about $2,000 apiece, unless dollars. Today, only 35 years later, far you are lucky or wicked enough to have a soon work the same sort greater storage and processing capacity pirated copy. But one day the BBC will get can be packed into microchip measuring of changes.^ a its money back, and thereafter the price will 1.625 square centimeters. That's miracle be peanuts.) number one. Miracle number two is the

I still haven'ttouched on the real potential cost of that chip: not a couple of million of this technology, the opportunity to cure dollars, but about £10. one of the great failings in conventional The change has already begun. Com- education, especially in large classes. farsighted prophet to visualize all the ef- puter-aided instruction is now available in Genuine education requires feedback- fects of a really major technological devel- many American colleges and high schools. interaction between pupil and teacher. At opment. The telephone and the automobile Consoles with typewriter keyboards allow the very least, this allows the student to produced quantum jumps in communica- the student to "talk" to a central computer clear up points he does not understand. tion and transportation. They gave ordinary at any time of day, going through any sub-

Ideally, it provides inspiration as well. Yet I men a mastery over space that not even ject when he feels like dong so, at the rate recently met a Turkish engineer who said kings and emperors had possessed in the that suits him. The computer, of course, can that all he had ever seen of his professor past. They changed not only the patterns of talk to hundreds of students simulta- was the tiny figure up on the platform, everyday life, but the physical structure of neously, giving each the illusion that he is above a sea of heads. It is a predicament the world— the shapes of our cities, the the center of attention. It's infinitely patient, shared by all too many students. uses of the land. This all happened in what unlike most teachers, and it's never rude or The electronic tutor will go a long way is historically a moment of time, and the sarcastic. What a boon to slow or hand- toward solving this problem. Some com- process is still accelerating. Look how the icapped studentsl puter programs already allow the student transistor radio swept across the planet Today's CAI consoles are big, expen- to carry on a dialogue with the computer, within a single generation. sive, fixed units, usually wired into the col- asking it questions and answering the Though they are not yet as important as lege computer. They could be portable. Al- questions it asks. "Compuler-aided in- books, audiovisual aids such as film strips, ready businessmen are traveling the worfd struction"— CAI, not to be confused with 16-millimeter projectors, and videotape with attache" case-sized consoles they can CIA— can be extremely effective. At best, machines are rapidly penetrating the edu- plug into the telephone to talk with their the pupil may refuse to believe that he is cational field. Most of these aids are still far office computer thousands of kilometers dealing with a computer program and not too expensive for developing countries, away. But it is the completely portable and with another human being. however, and I'm not sure they are really self-contained electronic tutor that will be Technology's influence on education is worth the cost of producing them. the next full step beyond today's pocket nothing new. There's an old saying that the Perhaps the most influential device of all calculators. best educational setup consists of a log is the ordinary television set, whether in- Its prototype is already here, in the nur- with -teacher at one end and pupii at the tended for education or not, I'd be inter- series of the affluent West. The first com- other Our modern world is not only woefully ested to know what impact Sesame Street puter toys, many of them looking as if they'd short of teachers, it's running out of logs. has oh the relatively few children of a totally flown off the screen during a showing of 78 OMNI This scientist-senator would like to see Washington make more room for industry in space — and get its own technological policies in order ^M IRJTERV/IEUU

f^ |ashington, DC, still doesn'l know quite whal io make NASA, jumped into his pickup truck, and began a year-long cam- ot the 'or[y-f°ur-year-old junior senator from New paign for the Senate in his native New Mexico. After sweeping the J 1 I l «V ^»Mexico, Harrison H. (Jack) Schmitt. That's not surpris- Republican primary, he defeated incumbent Joseph Montoya by ing: After all, the Senate has never before had to take the measure 70,000 votes in November 1976. of a futurist, conservative, ex-astronaut, and geologist. When he took his seat two months later, Schmitt began to pro- Schmitt received his Ph.D. in geology from Harvard in 1964. after voke the puzzlement that remains to this day His voting record undergraduate work at Caltech and a Fulbright scholarship in could be a carbon copy of Barry Goldwater's, and his brash Norway. If NASA had prevailed, Schmitt never would have been personal style (he still drives a pickup truck) is accompanied by able fieldwork Tauhs-Littrow Valley: the skills Jj0 \ to do at space agency had few of the smooth of compromise that are at a premium in

! decided that flight experience was the primary qualification for an Washington. Yet instead of being a political sport on the ideologi-

; astronaut and that a fast course in geology could prepare its cal fringe, Schmitt is drawing more and more attention as an test-pilot types for lunar exploration. But protests from the scien- articulate spokesman for the future. He is the ranking Republican

[ lific community won a few slots for scientist-astronauts, and NASA on the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, where

! taught Schmitt to fly In 1972 he and the other crewmen of Apollo 17 his background makes him more surefooted than most of his the last visit far. | were men to the moon — so colleagues, with their legal and political orientation. in ; Schmitt was appointed chief of the scientist-astronauts 1974. Schmitt was interviewed for Omni by Daniel S, Greenberg. who £% : but he could see wider opportunities on Earth. He resigned from has covered science and government for many years. that it ministration seems willing to give us. In Omni: The Mars lander proved the power expedition to Mars and bring it home, but repetitive travel to the sense we'll be working together. Of course, of a flexible microprocessor "brain" on will be valuable for whether it's a ten-year plan or a thirty-year board an unmanned space probe. Would rnoon-or the planets. We ought to be work- whether emphasize commercial that because it requires a long plan, we you still rather be on the scene yourself? ing on now development or government activity — Schmitt; I'd like to be there with the tools lead time. extended expe- those are issues that he and I will have to the new lechnology provides, to make the Other than that, we need systems, resolve. exploration more efficient. The combina- rience with high-reliability space have been objects in low orbit, and Omni: Most congressmen tion of automation with the human brain, assembling large understanding of the lawyers. Do you think that your education eye, and hand is synergistic, because so on. Our basic and experience in science and technology human beings can "reprogram" them- problems is good: After all, we foOnd we political problems with a it nine lead you to look at selves instantly on the basis of their experi- could reactivate Skylab after was different perspective? ence and knowledge. Perhaps someday a months in orbit. treaty on extrater- Schmitt: Most of law deals with the effects robot will match that, but in the foreseeable Omni: The proposed whereas in resources affect some of the of an event after it has occurred, future we'll still depend on the ability of men restrial may you've mentioned. What do most other professions you're trained to and women to filter what's significant from possibilities recognize impending events and, if neces- what isn't and to test a hypothesis on the you think of it? unfortunate that sary, to forestall or mitigate them. It's a prob- I think it's spot. An automatic system is bound to miss Schmitt: First, lem-solving approach, as opposed to one ' in space and whatever you haven't programmed it to many people interested already of merely treating symptoms. see. commercial activity in space have aren't enough scientists, en- I There Omni: How do you rate the space program decided they're against the treaty. may gineers, business people, doctors running I decided. today? end up opposing it, but haven't for officB— people who are willing, after shuttle, along We all have to take a good look at it and Schmitt: I think the space national inter- one successful career, to aim for success in with other technologies we have already, decide whether it's in our politics. In the last two Senate elections if decide it isn't, is there any- will let us move in a variety of directions. By est—and we there have been more candidates from pro- the end ot the 1 980s, tor example, we could fessions otherthan the law, but we need still be well on our way toward creating an inte- more of them. grated world information system. It would Omni: President Carter had some en- capitalize on the proven usefulness of gineering training; he's the first President satellites for telecommunications and * There's no with that background since Herbert Hoo- combine that with broad-area public ser- ver, Do you see signs of it in his perform- vice broadcasts, safety and navigational comparison between ance? information, remote sensing, and so forth. Jimmy Carter's in his Schmitt: I haven't seen it yet, except The groundwork tor all that has been done, detail very quickly and talk engineering . ability to master and we could move into it very quickly. articulately about a problem. Frankly, I We should also be developing the background and don't think there's any comparison be- technological base for the next steps into that of Herbert Hoover; tween his technical background and that of space. In the 1990s we could begin to de- Hoover; it is a great disservice to Hoover. velop orbital civilization for manufacturing, it is a great Obviously, Hoover was anything but an as- power production, health services, even Hoover. 9 disservice to tute politician, which Carter is, but Hoover recreation. High vacuum and weightless- was a great humanitarian, an engineer, ness will make possible commercial proc- even a scientist and a man of letters. Most esses that are costly or impossible here on people don't realize what an extraordinary Earth, leading'to new goods and services. intellect he had. And the new opportunities for research and Omni: When did you make your own deci- education almost go without saying, thing we could do to modify it via reserva- sion to go into politics? Omni: What about colonies? tions, understandings, or amendments? Schmitt: In the early 1960s, before I'd even that shouldn't It's going to take a lot of discussion, and Schmitt: I see no reason why of a administra- thought about NASA. I had come out be an option for young Americans — and I'm not sure when the Carter ask fairly hard-core conservative upbringing, young earthlings in general — in the 1990s tion— 6r the next administration— will at but political science and history courses at There is an economic poten- the Senate to consider it. But I'm looking and beyond. been opportunity, not just as a Caltech began to broaden what had tial for settlements that could support them, it as a potential treaties— the simplistic views. Then in Norway I was ex- as well as provide Earth with resources, problem. It's part of a chain of posed to an international pool of ideas that such as titanium from the moon, that may Antarctic treaty, the existing outer-space Har- of the negotia- helped clarify what I believed. And at be in short supply by then. treaties; the Law Sea Far Eastern vard I studied government and Maybe more important, space repre- tions—all of which get into the broad area history in addition to my geological work. At kind of resource for the human that has been characterized as the "com- sents the about that that time I really became concerned spirit that North America was three hun- mon heritage of mankind." What does the some of the trends I observed, such as dred years ago: a new stimulus for the spirit mean? We have an opportunity with this increasing amount of law being made by of freedom. Young people now are tremen- treaty to try to define it. colleagues regulation rather than by legislation and a dously interested in space and the frontier Omni: How interested are your importance of opportunities for the future? decreasing emphasis on the there — in terms of technology, young in these science and technology in building a base people today could be the parents of the Schmitt: There's a great deal of interest, initiate pro- for our society. first Martians. We know just about every- but it's very difficult to space myself then: Someday, after I I said to thing we need to know for that; we only have grams from within the Congress: We need in career, I'll be administration initiative. Both Senator have some experience my to integrate it through engineering. put Stevenson [chairman of the Sub- in a position to run for office. To my Omni: If you were writing our national [Adlai E.] money where my mouth was, I began to space policy, would you be planning a committee on Science, Technology, and have to save some surplus cash, which I kept add- manned Mare mission? Space] and I think we are going to ing little by little toa savings account. When I in terms of Schmitt: I'd be developing some things we do it. He is less ambitious than got a travel voucher agree that I traveled for NASA and know we'll need. A new propulsion system the aims of space policy, but we of put- than as reimbursement, I had the habit such as an ion or nuclear engine may not there's a need for a clearer direction After more or the Carter ad- ting it into the savings account. be necessary if you just want to get an we" presently have, than CONTINUED OM PAGE 94 1 hite spots danced in front of our eyes, Wthere was a momentary sensation of vertigo, and then we had emerged from subspace. Our trusty ship, Endeavor. powered by its twin GM distrac- tors, had taken us safely from our own universe to GG233. a universe tangential to us in subspace directionality Our party had gone there to look at some of the greatest structures ever built. A universe, by definition, is infinite, but some infinities are larger than others. GG233 is a relatively small universe. This does not, however, prevent it from having some of the largest fabricated structures in the entire megaverse. Our first stop was the planet Gropetz V, where we stayed at the Hotel Schroeding, right next door to the Combined Galactic Churches building. No fewer than 18,567 deities are worshiped in this immense edifice. The combined prayer power of the 483.000 beings who worship here ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE BY ROBERT SHECKLEY

A survey of megastructures in the universe GG233 PAINTINGS BY JOHN HARRIS .

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Preceding page. oc:ovv. oi generates enough psychoelectric power to lighl three cities the size Galactic Churches Cleveland. Between 50 and 100 miracles take place daily in the CGC. A building shows miracle few parsecs away, dominating the barren moon Lii XIV is the Central inprogress A.oove: Interstellar Penitentiary for Dysfunctioning Life Forms. Malefactors from detail of CGC. with our more than 200 different worlds are incarcerated here, some for crimes tioiei in the foreground. Clockwise from above. that we of Earth would consider minor, such as spitling on toadstools, Endeavor breaking our an aggravated felony in Ihe Chang-dong civilization. The penitentiary of subspace: Central was built to house 1 million beings in three different atmosphere-tem- Penitentiary cell block; configurations. Unfortunately, it now has nearly 4 million, many peraiure artificial meat factory oi of them forced to endure incompatible life-support systems. We Camivoron (detail paused briefly at Loum'a ill toseeCarnivoron, which, when completed, showing the immense will be the largest factory in the world lor the fabrication of artificial meat sail and pepper mills); products. Only the Italian sausage section is operating today, Next on below The Alberius Magnus off our list was a visit to the Albertus Magnus, the biggest spaceship ever seis fireworks. built, now resting in zero gravity above the ocean world of Sargasso IV.

+Some infinities are larger than others. We found GG233 to be a relatively small universe. Aaave.leltviewot Its construction beggared the Sargassians, who have lived in a state of central memory banks primitive savagery ever since. The Albertus Magnus is now used to .the Big Computer. store grain and potatoes, though there has been some talk of transform- arAlcindorll. Middle: ing it into a shopping mall. We then flew to the Big Computer, near tt-g and XX3 Computer Alcindor II. Housed within a hollowed-out moon, this computer is capa- formation-hunting ble of solving income-tax problems and performing mortgage calcula- odule. Below. Big tions for an entire galaxy. An even larger computer is being assembled Computer, showing to verify the results obtained by this one. For our last sojourn we visited data stacks in 'open' the largest artificial world in the galaxy capable of moving on its own ••.ode. with XX3 module power. This is the Mega-Ark the galactic gulf entirely nnlow. Above, right: : which crossed on ;jiega-Ark, showing autopilot, its crew having perished from acute ennui. The Mega-Ark is

'. wes/rial and metallic now in stable orbitaround a red dwarf star. It is a popular vacation spot inrms. The herd o! for beings who can brealhe its methane atmosphere. OQ grazing sheep is o.byPi' R. England. -. ipplied lor scale.

'•The Big Computer has enough capacity to project the megagalactic Gross National Product.** mechanism is unable to detect and kill an abnormal cell. Burnet's theory is one av- UNIQUE YOU enue scientists are exploring as they try to CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5d unravel the foundations of cancer. Prostitutes, who encounter dozens ot dif- GLEANED FROM YOUR GENES ferent blood types in their careers, have The ultimate type oj identification may be been found to secrete similar sperm- This isn't a biological group, inhibiting antibodies into their cervical the karyotype. but a picture of the chromosomes, the tiny, fluid. This biological contraception has led rod-shaped cellular structures that carry some investigators to think antibody- Ordinarily karyotype is dis- antigen reactions may be the ideal method our genes. a as photograph in which the 46 of birth control. In their thinking, the sperm played a for micro- become an invading organism, the preg- human chromosomes, stained scopic examination, are lined up in 23 nancy a preventable disease. If the sperm according size and shape. The are considered a "germ," vaccination is the pairs, to longest chromosome is designated obvious "cure" for fertilization. In , the shortest is number 22. Virtually every human cell carries mark- number 1 and females, all the chromosomes normally ers of biological individuality on its surface. These markers, known as transplantation form matching pairs, but in males, the twenty-third pair, which contains the X and antigens for their role in sabotaging surgi- Y sex is noticeably mis- cal transplants, are divided into four major chromosomes, Karyotypic analysis therefore groups, with as many as 22 different matched. readily distinguishes between the two most molecules possible in each group, Since human subgroups, males and each individual inherits eight of these anti- important fact of which the Interna- gens (four from each parent, one from each females. It is a tional Olympic Committee is fully aware. of the four groups), the total number of normal individuals, there is little varia- combinations is approximately 20 million. In Transplantation antigens function as tion in size between chromosomes in a pair, of the Y chromosome. passwords. This is why surgical transplants except in the case varies sig- are so often unsuccessful; unless the The length of this chromosome males; transplantation antigens of the donor and nificantly among different groups of and Cauca- of the recipient are identical, the body will the Japanese have the longest the length of recognize the transplanted tissue as for- sians the shortest. Whether this male-determining sex chromosome is eign and will reject it, Some tissues, such unknown, but it does as spleen cells, elicit extremely powerful significant remains correlate with variation in re- rejection reactions from the body. It is ironic not seem to features. that the tissues that trigger the weakest lated anatomical can detect reactions and that therefore would be the Thus far karyotype studies abnormali- easiest to accept as transplants are the only grass characteristics and still accurate enough to very ones that would be least desirable and ties, but they are alterations in about 2 least possible to transplant; the fat cells reveal chromosomal population. staining and brain cells, respectively. percent of the New Recently transplantation antigens have techniques and improved methods to iden- patterns, called chromo- be"en put to another use in society, not in the tify the staining improve our biology lab, but in the courtroom. Because somal bands, will undoubtedly gene two random individuals are very unlikely to ability to detect minor differences in able to THICK N THIRSTY possess identical antigens, transplantation structure. Someday we may be time, types are ideal for testing claims of pater- analyze chromosomes one gore at a HAT the ultimate in genetic identification. TOWELING nity. All an attorney has to do is prove that a child does not have a combination of four While full utilization of these techniques antigens that his purported father would still lies a short distance down the road, have supplied. scientists are already using identification fingerprints. tried in Austria, the use methods that go far beyond arittokeepyoucc In a recent case, September 24, 1974, for instance, a s, golf, boating, of these antigens went a step further. A On woman claimed that her child was an heir Torrance, California, man was convicted of that the to the estate of a dead man. But the estate's manslaughter after it was shown lawyers rounded up the dead man's chil- pattern of his teeth fitted the bite marks on a dren and checked their antigens. From slain woman's nose. The prosecution esti- Order Today! Money Back Guarantee! them, they were able to deduce his trans- mated that the five most distinctive marks in plantation type and prove that the plaintiff's the nose could have displayed 59,049 pos- alignment tooth child could not have been sired by him, sible combinations of and No one knows why we are born with rotation; when 710 randomly selected io transplantation antigens in the first place. models of adult dentition were compared Surely nature could not have anticipated the damning marks, only the suspect's fit- the increasing sophistication of the sur- ted every characteristic. favorably geon's scalpel. One theory comes from The dental pattern compares uniqueness. Be- Nobel laureate Sir Macfarlane Burnet, who with fingerprints in its suggests that the antigen code was devel- cause each human tooth has five distinct different dental areas can be oped to enable the body to recognize and surfaces, 160 formation, devel- reject any cell that had mutated and be- classified' by hereditary traumatic come cancerous. According to his theory, opmental alteration, natural or combina- cancer arises when the body's surveillance changes, and the extraordinary could copy any style so closely that iions of procedures used to repair or ol them by iheir denial prints alone. ers genuine document among ten replace teeth. According to computer Working on the premise that no two finding the wills by Howard Hughes could models, more than 2.5 billion possible mouths are alike, at least one nation, Nor- purported exercise in creative logic. permutations of these characteristics can way, now requires that identification teams become an Now, however, Jacob Sternberg, aformer be found in a dental print. X-ray analysis of in disasters include law-enforcement offi- college professor and founder of Conver- the jaw can add yet another dimension to cials, physicians, and dentists as well. sational Systems Corporation, has devel- the process of identification. Thirty to 40 different methods are used to signature-analysis method that can Analyzing dental patterns is by no chart the mouth, but all have the same oped a of chance and outwit the means a new science: Paul Revere, known basic features. Each record notes missing avoid the pitfalls the most skillful forgers. His electronic system more for his ability to ride a horse, relied on or extra teeth, prosthetic devices, and not the appearance of the signa- dental patterns to identify Joseph Warren, type, size, and location of fillings. Other measures the ture but its "pressure pattern"— the varia- an American killed at Bunker Hill. The iden- measurable characteristics include position, shape, tions in pressure on the writing surface that tity of John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lin- shape of the jaw and the the signature is being written. coln's assassin, was confirmed by denti- and relationship of (he teeth. occur as Sternberg found out that, although tion when his body was exhumed. Even this method of analysis has its limi- and signature are both com- Today's more sophisticated analysis has tations, though. Teeth change over the handwriting often plex patterns of learned behavior, the sig- given rise to an entirely new specially, years, and dental records are years is repeated so often that it becomes forensic dentistry, which works admirably out of date. Furthermore, investigators of a nature pure reflex action; its patterns are when trauma to the rest of the body makes recent air crash in Europe found it impossi- almost a ingrained in the "memory" of the muscles. other kinds of identification impossible. ble to identify five of the victims, because of a result, even when we sign something Because tooth enamel is one of the hardest they had all been wearing complete sets As the bank, the minerals known, the teeth are the body's dentures. in the dark or in a rush at pattern remains distinctive. most durable parts. They alone can survive pressure SIGN IN, PLEASE the U.S. Air Force tested Stern- fiery disasters where oiher identifiable re- When neither berg's system as a way to control access to mains are destroyed. If no two mouths are the same, low error ratio Forensic dentistry has been used rather are any two signatures. One newly de- highly restricted areas, its pinpointed the Sternberg system's incred- recently to identify the remains of passen- signed system has made the signature a identification lhan ible potential for military and commercial gers in the crash of a DC-10 at Chicago's more accurate means of foolproof use. The reason for this success lies in what O'Hare Airport, in the investigation of the a page of handwriting, and more system identifies: II judges neither a murders of young men linked to John Gacy even than a fingerprint. the a reproducible characteristic (a fingerprint near Chicago, and in the aftermath of the Handwriting analysis has always been rubber glove) nor Jonestown community massacre in painstaking and questionably accurate can be copied onto a some static photograph or reproduction, Guyana. In the San Diego plane crash 21 process. Chance factors like mood ' but the subconscious actions of an indi- months ago, in which 144 people died, 140 changes or different writing instruments hand, and forg- vidual performing a complex task, In this of the victims were positively identified, 50 could disguise almost any way it identifies a combination of our unmis-, takable characteristics, personality, physi- cal nature, and pattern of action. Ever since humans first began to gather in groups, they have recognized the prob- lem of identity. Early on, they learned to endow objects and individuals with names. For a long time these unique verbal signa- tures were enough to give each person a mark of his own within the community. In these depersonalizing days, however, names have come a cropper. Anyone un- fortunate enough to be dubbed Smith, Jones, or Johnson is lost amid a faceless army of identically named people. Names have lost their meanings. Our government, like most computers, much prefers to label us by number. This system works, but there

is something depressing and a little scary about basing our uniqueness on arbitrary strings of digits. Biological tools are on their way to changing all this. Nature's IDs can be as specific as numbers and more personal than names. Already they are employed in catastrophic conditions when nothing can visibly distinguish one body from anolher Already they are establishing individual identities at some of our most sophisticated centers of research and learning. Instead of forcing us toward anonymity, biological identifiers effectively celebrate

our absolute specialness. It won't be long before checking a chromosome or tissue type will be as common as checking a sig- nature is today. The results will be both more certain and more salisfying.DO t The Pulsetach wili shortly the I become number one selling system of its type in Heart I the nation. Computer

Your heart can tell you three things that can help you live longer and stay healthier. The rest is up to you.

JS&A has never ottered a pulse meter. And computer CMOS semi-conductor integrated for good reason. circuit that will take up to 4 pulse beats, an average pulse rate, and then flash If you've ever used one, you'll quickly compute discover that your heart does not beat like a that rate on the liquid crystal display. clock. It's irregular. It might beat at 40 beats FINGERTIP SCANNER per minute for one instant and at 1 20 the next. The sensor consists of a Gallium Arsenide measure each beat Since most pulse meters infrared light-emitting diode which scans your rate. it to stay in your it confident that can read your pulse Use as occurs, you never feel fingertip hundreds of times a second to getting very reading. Target Zone and to determine and then you're a good determine your pulse rate. This new system is pulse meter improve your Cardiac Recovery Time. We also considered size. 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And you can switch back and forth information you get from the unit. your pulse) helps you monitor your health. between the pulse and chronograph mode By knowing the important factors that help while you are exercising. pulse rate can tell you if you Pulse Rate Your you monitor your health, you'll feel better, your We realize that the Pulsetach sounds like a are getting enough oxygen throughout exercise more effectively, and many doctors pulse rate indicates that your very sophisticated unit. And it is. But as body. A high feel you'll live longer. heart must pump faster to supply that oxygen sophisticated as it is internally, it's an extreme- AVAILABLE and may indicate poor physical condition. ly easy unit to operate. There are just two TWO UNITS buttons to press which operate the pulse read- To order your Pulsetach pulse meter, send Target Zone Your pulse can tell you if your ing and the chronograph timing circuit. A third your check for $119-95 plus $2.50 postage heart is beating fast enough during exercise. (Illinois residents add sales There's an area called the "Target Zone." button engages the audio circuit. and handling 6% tax) to the address below. (Allow 20 days for Below this level, you're not exercising hard personal checks to clear.) Credit card buyers enough to do your heart or respiratory system may call our toll-free number below. any good. Above this level, you can be dangerously over-exerting yourself. You can also order the more expensive hospital unit that averages 16 beats and has Cardiac Recovery Time The time it takes for all the features including the small size of the your pulse rate to return to normal after you've previous unit. It costs $169.95. exercised is the real measure of whether or not Pulsetach pulse meter your exercise program is doing you any good. We'll send your This time can be as healthy as one minute or complete with 90-day limited warranty and as poor as several minutes. 9 instructions which include information on determining your Target Zone, Cardiac Re- The three things we learned convinced us covery Time and other helpful information. that the ideal pulse meter must have the '*tt** * following features: Then after your test, if you're not fully con- ' vinced that the Pulsetach is the best unit of its 1. It must measure a series of heart kind, the convenient, the greatest and simultaneously compute the ave-age to most and The Pulsetach system tits comfortably on your , value, return it within 30 days for a prompt and avoid the Strange readings 'rom it egular i(sdt while it monitors your heart and deter- finger courteous refund including the S2.50 charge beats. mines your Cardiac Recovery Time. for postage and handling. You can't lose. 2. It must b© small enough :o jse wiile CXKrcismq. HEAR YOUR PULSE Your Pulsetach is totally solid-state so The audio circuit simply beeps every time service should never be required, but if it is, the 3. It should have a timing capaoiiity to your pulse beeps. This feature lets you mon- manufacturer has a national service-by-mail determine ! he Cardiac Recovery Time. America's itor your pulse by hearing it as you run or facility backing each unit. JS&A is It wasn i uniil a smai' Utah medical oioc- exercise and it can be shut off by pressing the largest single source of space-age products- tronir instrument company created what wo button a second time. The timing circuit is further assurance that your Pulsetach is feci rot oriy orovides the capabilities listed quartz- controlled and extremely accurate. backed by a substantial company. above, tut excels m oner areas loo. awful long time to into The Pulsetach not only has combined all of We've waited an jump FITS ON FINGER field. But what a great the most advanced technology in an extremely the pulse monitoring The unit is called the Pulsetach, and it fits entry. Order your Pulsetach at no obligation small size, but it costs less than many other right over your finger. It weighs less than an systems lacking its advanced features. ounce and can be worn easily during most The Pulsetach can be used for joggers, exercise programs. PRODUCTS athletes, all forms of exercise and even Trie large liquid crystal display can easily be cardiac recovery patients, as it operates quite .THAT seen in normal room lighting or in bright sun- effectively with pacemakers. THINK- light, and because liquid crystal displays JSl^ Dept.OM OneJS&APIaza consume very little power, the readily-avail- REAL WORKOUT Northbrook, III. (312)564-7000 able watch batteries will last for years. The We suggest you order a Pulsetach for our 60062 323-6400 Pulsetach automatically turns itself off in five 30-day no-obligation trial. When you receive Call TOLL-FREE 800 564-7000 minutes if you forget. your unit, give it a real workout. Notice how In Illinois Call (31 2)

The heart of the system is a powerful micro- simple it is to operate and how easily you ©JS&A Group, lnc.,1980

93 of a funding means less freedom i for the last decade, partly because irUTERV/IEUU only because the government's interests legitimate concern that technology was envi- CONTINUEDFROMPAGE82 are focused and directed. It's very impor- overrunning itself and damaging the tant to reach a better balance than we have ronment. We must look at the side ef- and private fects of what we do, but we can learn that than ten years, when I finally chose a time today between government complete stop. and an opponent for my run in New Mexico. funding. The latter generally provides free- lesson without coming to a

the government would or I think fundamental biomedical research I had seventy-five thousand dollars in that dom beyond what account, should allow, from a political point of view should be funded at a higher level, be- Omni: Soyour political plans werethereall We need both, or else major areas of re- cause it can lead to cures— which are al- along. Much has been said and written search are going to be slighted. ways less of an economic burden for indi- about what the astronauts' participation in Omni: Do you think that science and viduals and for the nation than treatment of the Apollo program did to transform them. technology should be exempt from the symptoms is. And there's a lot we should How much truth is there in that? general pressure to hold down government be doing in theoretical physics, not only expenditures? because of its inherent value but also be- Schmitt: I think that people were so used

in it involves clear, defense to seeing the astronauts as astronauts that Schmitt: I do, because investments cause a long-term they viewed any change of job as a trans- scientific understanding and new tech- interest. We cannot afford to find suddenly formation. Jim Irwin, for example, had al- nologies, almost without exception, are that a potential adversary has begun to ways been very religious and active in his deflationary: They create new productivity, crack some of the mysteries of physics and initial before do. church; once it was clear that Apollo was goods and services far beyond the astrophysics we winding down and opportunities for flight investment. They increase the gross na- Omni: Is the administration pursuing solar were going to be very limited, he decided tional product without increasing the technology strongly enough?

to become an evangelist and has been money supply, which makes them some of Schmitt: I don't think so. There's a good of into it, there's no very successful at it, although he almost the very few inherently deflationary things deal money going but killed himself with a couple of heart attacks. the federal government can do. perspective on the relative status and time Ed Mitchell had been interested in ESP frames for development of the many differ- ent of solar energy. ever since his graduate work at MIT, I think, forms should working on solar cells and and we talked about it many times before We be he ever flew. Later he decided to see the power-tower concepts, but they're fur- whether there was a scientific basis for ESP ther off than some of the possibilities of 6 Fundamental research He may have become discouraged in that, combining solar with gas- and oil-fired or because he ran into so many charlatans in is being held up even coal-fired power plants, which could move very fast with proper support. Pas- that field that it was difficult to separate the now because some of my wheat from the chaff. Buzz Aldrin had a sive solar-thermal units, which are econom- psychological problem, which he's spoken fellow congressmen ical today, are actually discouraged by books, about very frankly, before Apollo; with the hold up to ridicule projects some of the regulations now on the goal behind him, that problem appeared in and HUD [Department of Housing and that they don't ( a more profound form. Urban Development] doesn't seem to be able integrate them into its designs. I think the space program had a pro- understand, and the press to found effect by motivating several hundred The government has supported some jumps on it. 9 thousand Americans to put men on the good experiments in that area, but by and moon and bring them back. And being ex- large the applications are taking off in spite posed to that motivation did have a pro- of federal policy rather than with its aid. found effect on me, although my interest in Omni: In what ways do you think the gov- politics goes back many years. ernment should encourage private R and D Omni: Some politicians have always Omni: The combined federal and pri- in high technology? sniped at the space program as wasteful or vate-sector expenditures on science and Schmitt: The main thing is the policy deci- finds its pointless, and they still get good play in the technology are about fifty billion dollars sion that when a new technology press by making fun of scientific research. annually, which seems like a great deal of market the commercial sector can and What's your opinion of that? money How and where would you increase should use it to provide services. In space, for example, satellites have revolutionized Schmitt: I think it's irresponsible. There is spending? some fundamental research lhat's being Schmitt: The administration's support for weather forecasting and communications. inhibited right now because scientists fear research and development this year was Traditionally forecasting has been a gov- that almost anything involving mice or rats, stronger than last year, but we're still pretty ernment service, and you may decide you for example, may be held up to ridicule much in idle with regard to research on the want to continue that. But if satellites and because of the title of an article. Scientists next generation of weapons systems. And new transmission techniques make elec- should try to communicate better, of you have to slice off part of that total figure tronic mail commercially viable, you might course — and there's a lot to learn about for expenditures that don't really go into well break with the old pattern there. that— butthere are some projects you can't R and D: federal money lost in administra- The government bought into Comsat to capital. market call anything but what they are, and if there tive costs and private-sector spending in give it some working The is a senator or congressman who doesn't reaction to the growing regulatory require- was there, the technology was there, and it like Recently understand that and wants to ridicule it, ments rather than increased productivity. took off a scalded duck.

unfortunately the press jumps on it. More Look at American history: Our major NASA has committed itself to use the new

pragmatically, funding is being held up be- periods of industrial and economic ad- direct-relay satellite system developed by

' cause of a lack of understanding of what vancement have followed the direct or indi- Western Union because NASA needs it to

basic science can do and whal it should be rect injection of new technologies, from the lower the cost of operating the space shut-

it off allowed to do. transcontinental railroad and the Panama tle. I think they'll find that will also pay Omni:, Has the scientific community Canal and the agricultural revolution to the as a commercial system from the begin- fought back on this? world wars — unfortunately! — and the ning; so there the federal commitment is Schmitt: In part we've let ourselves be- space program. Americans are oriented helpful but not really necessary. come captive because the majority of re- toward new things, and we really start to You have to be willing to maximize the search funding is now coming from the move after a period of technological ex- amount of private-sector activity in order to service the lowest cost. government. Like it or not. government pansion. But we haven't been doing that get maximum at Omni: Let's talk about the economics of

remote sensing and the data it provides. The United States has stressed the widest possible dissemination of Earth- re sources

data from satellites, but what if a satellite spots signs of a valuable geological forma- tion outside the country? Is all information FOR FUTURE obtained from space part of the "common heritage of mankind"? Schmitt: The raw data shou Id be generally available, based on the cost to the gov-

ernment of obtaining them. If a.fact comes via a data base developed by the private REFERENCE sector, you'd add an appropriate return on Moving? We need 4-6 weeks notice of a Listing/Unlisting Service? Omni makes

/that investment. As tor the next step, the change of address. Fill in the attached form the names and addresses of its subscribers processed information, that has to be con- below. available to other publications and outside sidered in the context of what it's to be used companies. The publications and com- New Subscription or Renewal? One year for. panies selected are carefully screened for I see no reason why processed informa- of Omni is $18 in the U.S., $24 in Canada their acceptability and quality of their offers. tion that's used in mineral exploration or and overseas. Please enclose a check or mining should not be proprietary. money order for the appropriate amount and Maybe the best example of -a completely allow 6-8 weeks for delivery. Please check the appropriate bos below. public purpose is the estimation of the worldwide yields of various crops. Predict- New Renewal Attach ing label below and send to: ability is of enormous value, both for us and Subscription Omni for the world at large, because if we know ROi B 9tJ808 many months in advance what foodstuffs D Please remove my This is a change of °* Farmingdale, N.Y. 11737 are going to be available, we can start to damp out the traditional cycles of famine and glut as well as the economic cycles

that characterize farm prices. The world is increasingly dependent on a few large ag- Address_ ricultural exporters such as the United City State Zip States, Canada, and Australia, and crop

estimates trom remote sensing are going to it accompany order. oceeo be beneficial to the whole world as well as to those exporters. Omni: It's encouraging to talk about

shared benefits, but technology also tection a" missile system should; it's the Schmitt: There's no question that parti- brings some shared problems: Recently most costly alternative; and it's going to cle-beam technologies can be developed. we've seen some reversals of classic have a tremendous environmental impact although it's not clear that they can be pork-barrel attitudes: Localities are refus- on the water and other resources of the made operational for offensive purposes.

ing to take on what they see as national Southwest. I don't know if much can be said We have to assume thai the Soviet Union is problems, such as nuclear-waste disposal. in favor of Carter's decision to use that bas- pursuing R and D on a broad front; we're

In the past you've said that the Nuclear ing mode, and I think eventually the Con- certainly active in laser technology. But I

Regulatory Commission's dealings with gress is going to say no to it. think we can also assume that if we your New Mexico constituents on that issue Omni: What alternatives do you advocate? mobilize ourselves in the same areas, we'll

were unsatisfactory Schmitt: I think it is important to get an have an advantage in putting theory into Schmitt: They still are. The people keep assembly line going for the MX. That mis- praclice. getting caught off guard by announce- sile is compatible initially with replacement Omm: The Chinese are seeking our coop- ments about the waste-disposal experi- of the Minuteman, in the same silos and eration in developing their scientific and

i'n ment the Carlsbad salt beds. I don't know maybe with other silos or even dummy technical resources. Should we respond how we can improve the situation, except silos. That would be a much more econom- unstintingly. or are there specific areas

by leaning on the agencies involved to ical way to get through what I hope is a where we should be careful?

• to It's ::k i learn how communicate. an old prob- period, until Schmitt: I think we ought to cooperate lem: Nuclear power was kept in the closet strategic defense is no longer based solely pretty freely except in the most sensitive by the Atomic Energy Commission for so on the threat of massive retaliation. new technologies. China eventually will long that even now when the questions are Omni; What would be the next basis? become an extraordinarily powerful nation.

out in the open there isn't a widespread Schmitt: I would like to see us replace and we may end up as competitors, but at

understanding of radioactivity or of the "mutually assured destruction" with "mutu- present it's clear that they are concerned

risks and benefits of nuclear power The ally assured protection." I think a combina- primarily about their internal affairs. They government consistently mishandled the tion of lasers, space technology, and other have a billion people to be concerned

issue, and it's still mishandling it today technologies that are not much — if at about, and there is a limit to what even the Omni: What about the MX missile system? all— beyond the current state of fhe art can most totalitarian society can ask a billion It appears that more and more people in give us some new policy options for people to bear. your neighbor states of Utah and Nevada strategic defense— a defense that would As far as the Chinese-Soviet relationship aren't happy about being hosts to that sys- not depend on "holding innocents hos- is concerned, the Chinese are defensive- tem, despite the money it would bring into tage," as Andrei Sakharov put it. There minded. It is in their present concern about the local economy. must be a better way to deter nuclear war. Soviet intentions that we have our greatest

Schmitt: I think the reason no one is happy Omni: Your reference to lasers brings up leverage, and it may be that a U.S. -Chinese is that it's a stupid idea. This "racetrack" or the controversy over the USSR's alleged or Western-Chinese relationship contains

"horizontal dash" mode is just ridiculous. It development- of laser or particle-beam elements for a much more stable world doesn't provide the kind of strategic pro- weapons. What is your evaluation of that? situation than we can now imagine. DO We need mass education to drag this NEWSLETTER world out of the Stone Age, and any THE TUTORS technology, any machine, that can help do that is to be welcomed, not feared. The FOR GROWN-UP KIDS Star Wars, invaded ihe shops last Christ- electronic tutor will spread across the mas. They play ticktacktoe, challenge you planet as swiftly as the transistor radio, with to repeat simple melodies, ask questions, even more momentous consequences. No present elementary calculations, and await social or political system, no philosophy, no religion withstand a the answer— making rude noises it you gel culture, no can whose time has come- it wrong. Children love them, when'they're technology un- able to wrestle them away from their par- however much one may deplore such blaring ents. In 1978 they cost S50- now they're halt fortunate side effects as the tape pilgrims the that Soon they'll be given away as prizes recorders being'carried by up must take in cereal boxes. sacred mountain Sri Pada. We These are toys, but they represent the the good with the bad. wave of the future. Much more sophisti- When electronic tutors reach technolog- translators ical maturity aroundthe end of the century, ::»:. cated are the pocket electronic 1 j ||! in millions but that first came on the markel in 1979, at they will be produced not the about the cost of calculators five years ear- in the hundreds of millions and cost no calculators. I lier. When you type words and phrases into more than today's pocket Equally important, they will last for years, New products almost always a little alphabetical keyboard, the transla- tion appears on a small screen. You (No properly designed solid-state device look nice, but they often dis- change languages simply by plugging in a need ever wear out. I'm still using the HP 35 appoint either because they — different module, The latest models of Dr. Oliver gave me in 1970.) So their amor- live are overpriced, don't up these machines have even learned to tized cost will be negligible; they may even to promised levels of perfor- speak. Soon they may become superb be given away, with users paying only for mance, are shoddily con- language teachers. They could listen to the programs plugged intpthem. Even the theirs, poorest countries could afford them— structed, or are fraudulently your pronunciation, match il with especially when the reforms and improved promoted. and correct you until they are satisfied. devices would be specialized ver- productivity thai widespread education will Now you can avoid dis- Such sions of the general-purpose pocket tutor, stimulate help those countries to pull them- appointment with GADGET, which will be the student'suniversal tool by selves out of poverty. a monthly newsletter that Just where this leave the schools? the end of the century. It is hard to think of a does separates the bargains from single subject that could not be pro- Already telecommunication is making of the bombs. grammed into these devices at all levels of these ancient institutions independent of Hundreds of new products complexity. You'll be able to change sub- space. Sunrise Semester and University their "cam- -' are marketed every week. jects or update courses merely by plug- the Air can be heard far from in memory modules or cas- puses." The pocket tutor will complete this GADGET looks them over, ging different settes, exactly as you can in today's process, giving the student complete free- then lets you know which are programmable pocket computers. dom of choice in study time as well as in

interesting, unique . . . and, Where does this leave the human work location. which are most important, teacher? Well, let me quote this dictum: We will probably still need schools to worth your money. No other Any teacher who can be replaced by a teach younger children the social skills and source continuously reviews machine should be! discipline they will need as adults. But re- such fun so many new products. During the Middle Ages many scholars member that educational toys are apprehen- that their young operators sometimes have Find out what works and regarded printed books with They felt that books wouid destroy to be dragged kicking and screaming away what doesn't, before you sion. theirmonopoly on knowledge. Worse still, from their self-imposed classes. spend your money. Subscribe books would permit the unwashed masses At the other end of the spectrum, we'll to GADGET. to improve their position in society, perhaps still need universities for many functions. even to learn the most cherished secret of You can't teach chemistry, physics, or en- Send order to: GADGET, 116 W. all— that no man is better than any other. gineering without labs, for obvious rea- 14th, NYC, NY 10011. And they were correct. Those of you who sons. And though we'll see. more and more J15D1 Year $25 U 2 Years have seen the splendid television series global classes, even at the graduate level, P Enclosed is a check or money order. Express Diner's Club to Sri Lanka electronics can never completely convey Bill: — American _ Roots, which I hope comes Master Charge with _ someday, will recall that the slaves were all the nuances of personal interaction strictly forbidden to learn reading and had a capable teacher. will of "invisible col- to pretend thai they were illiterate if they There be myriads had secretly acquired this skill. Societies leges" operating through the global com-

Expiration Date InterBank No. (MC Only) based on ignorance or repression cannot munications networks. I remarked earlier tolerate general education. that any teacher who could be replaced by Yet the teaching profession has survived a machine should be. Perhaps the .same university, the invention of books. It should welcome verdict should apply to any how- the development of the electronic tutor ever ivy-covered its walls, if it can be re- network of which will take over the sheer drudgery, the placed by a global electronic tedious repetition, that are unavoidable in computers and satellite links. so much basic education. By removing the But there will also be nexuses where tedium from the teacher's work and making campuses still exist. In the year 2000 many learning more like play, electronic lutors will thousands of students and instructors will ever paradoxically humanize education. If a still meet in person, as they have done teacher feels threatened by them, he's since the days of Plato's Academy 23 cen- surely in the wrong profession. turies ago.OQ . " ,

"Where?" else. I looked at her and felt anger growing in To white, arms and "I don't know . . . I'll look for a hotel. There me. grab those naked

. RETURN are hotels?" shake her .

I "There are. Bregg." I turned and left. I remember that later

sat by a fountain, or perhaps it was not a you see, if j( is known that no one can, you "Yes?"

fountain; I slood up and walked on in the know, even think about it, ever— and sud- "Stay." denly someone appears, like you — then "What?" spreading light of the new day until 1 woke from my stupor in front of large, glowing , , the fact that there is She did not speak. the very possibility . "You want me to stay?" windows and the fiery letters alcaron of her, bending HOTFL. "I can't believe that everyone would I went upto her, took hold be — how was it?— betrizated!" over the chair, by her cold arms, and lifted In the doorkeeper's box, which resem- submissively. Her head bled a- giant's" overturned bathtub, sat a "Why? Everyone, I tell you!" her up. She stood semitransparent, teeth glistened. I not want robot, beautifully' styled, "No, it's impossible," I insisted. "What fell back; her did you're afraid," with long, delicate arms. Without asking a about people with dangerous jobs? After her; I wanted only to say, "Bui ." orny for to that she was thing, it passed me the guest book. I . her say all, (hey must . and wanted "There are no dangerous jobs." not. Nothing more. Her eyes were closed. signed it and rode up with a small, triangu- "What are you saying, Nais? What about but suddenly the whites shone from under- lar ticket. Someone-I have -no idea bent over her face and who — helped me open the door or, rather, pilots? What about rescue workers? What neath her lashes; I in them cir- I if of and about those who fight tire, water?" looked info her glassy eyes, as if wished to did for me. Walls ice, —

it. struggled to culating fires; under the window, at my ap- "There are no such people," she said. I know her fear to share She

it; it only a chair emerged from nothing and right. loose, but I did not feel was proach, thought that I must not have heard her break slid aflatfabletop had begun to '•What?" when she began to groan, "No! No!" that I under me; kind of desk, bulitwas "No such people," -she repeated. "It is s'acened my grip. She nearly fell. descend, making a find I wanted. I could not one and ..." I that done by robots." "Nais I said quietly. Then dropped abed

even attempt to look. I lay down on There was silence. It would not be easy my hands. did not near me!" the foamy carpet and immediately fell for me, I thought, to stomach this new "Don't come ." artificial light of the . window- . asleep in the world. And suddenly came a reflection, "But it was you who said

wild-. less room, for what I had at first taken to be surprising in that I myself would never have Her eyes were said turned out to a television set, I a window be expected it if someone had presented me "I'm going now," announced. She that — and I drifted off with the knowledge with this situation purely as a theoretical nothing. I wanted loadc something a few not to from there, from behind the glass plate, possibility: It seemed to me that this meas- words of apology, of thanks— so as grimacing at me, . giant face was I couldn't, she been some ure destroying the killer in man was . . leave this way, but Had laughing, chattering, a kind of disfigurement. afraid only as a woman is of a man, a meditating over me,

1 delivered by a sleep like I unknown man, dabbling, was "Nais," I said, "it's already very late, strange, even threatening, slit it. this something. death; in it. ever-' iime stood DO think I'll go." then" the hell with But was

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' ,'Vfe.'! has, invented 'he alphabet, I see. %%f

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he wished— for a human owed nothing to From any angle, an infinity of squat, lumpy rolled to the table. His optical sensors- facet of his possessions, nothing. Marchiannas stood in line to view her, to teardrop shaped, with two on each on the bud Yet she did love, deeply and truly, and please her. The lights dimpled on her armor his triangular turret— focused each end- she could not help that. She did not want to and tensed her circuits for the day's run vase.'His wire-thin manipulators, help that. She relished the way her alter- through the mining belt. ing in a dozen hairlike tentacles, whipped realized what he nator added an extra cycle per second But first, breakfast. Not for herself, out. Almost before she leaves whenever Nakamura-san neared. She sa- no— Marchianna always dined al fresco, was doing, he stripped two browned four vored the drop in -the resistance of her clinging easily to the steel-gray hull of the off the chrysanthemum, plucked when he cleared his prospecting ship and sopping up sun- fronds from the fern, and realigned them so obedience circuitry measure that they stood in harmonious disequilib- throat. And it thrilled her beyond rays — but for him , Nakamura-san , her mas- rium. "Like that," he said. thai, whenever she finished what she was ter, her owner . . . her god. doing, her function selector assigned her Images fractured as cupboard doors Mortification flooded from her micro- she shouldn't a task the achievement of which would swung in response to her radioed com- processors. She'd known her swing his microwave dish approvingly. She mands. Dried fish and seaweed and bean have attempted a human art form, but favorably upon her had loved him, and she was glad. curd and rice. She called a table out of the ache for him to look programmed common She was also curious, for she knew love floor and piled them on its top. Her clock overwhelmed her In the should have been alien to her. The factory read 7:51:38; Nakamura-san would expect sense. "I apologize, Nakamura-san, not built the capacity into her. Three in exactly future I will know my place." had . to sit down to a steaming meal masters she served, hundreds of hu- eight minutes and twenty-two seconds. His fog lamps flickered in surprise. "Did had he asked, mans had she encountered, with never a And he was punctual. Very punctual. There you think I was castigating you?" Then one morning, were moments when she wondered which gesturing for her to pour the tea. flicker even of "like." violated the own- awakening after her sleep (she called it of them was the machine and which was To say yes would have sir, you that, though it was more a period of energy the human. Tea, oh yes, green tea. Leaves er-respect circuits. "I thought, that machinehood." conservation, information updating; and shaken into a delicate, blue pot that always were reminding me of my seemed jeopardized by her scarred circuit testing), she had heard his voice, his face, and the flame had leaped titanium claws. Another panel popped up seen high within her. and a million Marchiannas vanished. In the "Marchianna," he called impatiently, recess waited the sink, barren and func- triggering a feedback effect that rippled tional. She didn't like to acknowledge it. £She didn't like to through her like the aftertremors of an or- Like herself, it was a device for man's com- gasm, "it is time." fort, but so simple that it made her whole acknowledge the sink. Like "HatV Gears purring, she left the kitchen race look bad in all human eyes. She herself, it a was and followed him — at a distance of three placed the pot in its lobsterlike claws. "Fill it respectful meters— through the plastic- with boiling water." device for man's comfort, paneled corridors opening on the as- "Yes, Marchianna," it hissed. but so simple and teroid's surface to the heat-scarred hec- "Scurrying to the breakfast nook beyond shallow that it made her tare where the ungainly ship was tethered. the kitchen, she wiped the table free of the " Rumbling along, she bounced across the dust that overnight had sifted down from 'race look bad irregularities; the gravity field weakened the rock ceiling. In the wall-hole- gnarled a all in human eyes.V there, and that meant the deposits were pine tree, stout of trunk, sparse of needles. building up again. It was unfortunate that Below it pooled a small creek, which a the reaction mass cooled and crystallized long-legged crane probed for minnows. She'd soon have to scrape it off. This cousin .gave her greater pride. on the pad.- That would, unhappily for her, separate her Nakamura-san would regard it for minutes from Nakamura-san, although it would at a time and sigh whenever he had to take '"No. not at all." Through a copper siphon please him. The scouring, not the separa- his gaze away. he sipped the steaming tea; his microwave tion. If the surface were too rough, the ship 7:58:12, Whisking back into the kitchen, dish moved right, then left, indicating his could break up on landing. she dusted off the lacquer tray— black with approval. "As my venerable grandfather It was a monstrous thing. An almost- an ideogram inlaid in mother-of-pearl; often said, anyone can become an artist, mind, a steady cube five hundred meters on an edge, with she'd asked her owner what it meant, and as long as he has an eye, a here and struts there and empty he hadn't known-then arranged the hand, and a lifetime to devote to it. You did pipes spaces in between, the Karakai Maru had dishes and bowls in what she hoped was a well, for a beginner." With his manipulators of a trillion yen. Another pleasing pattern. Nakamura-san fussed he chopsticked balls of rice into his food- cost a quarter twenty years would pass before it paid for over such things. Once, in the beginning, intake valve. After a moment he looked up. completely. he'd thrown out an entire meal, bowls and "You may go." itself the 1 lighter than air. Praise Nakamura-san rode one elevator to all, rather than eat food so unaesthetically Leaving, she felt bridge, where he would shed his protective presented. As a last touch, she slid a pink from Nakamura-san! Unprecedented enjoy the shirt-sleeve environ- . . gear chrysanthemum and a lacy fern into a and oh, so pleasing . especially consid- and ment: she mounted another elevator, which tinted bud vase, Ihen stepped back to ad- ering the surliness he'd shown on their last carried her to the centrifuge. mire the effect. return. She'd thought then he was crack- She'd She had barely finished checking it be- In the dining room hinges whispered that ing, going insane, but he wasn't. fore the "voice sounded in her radio: "Ca- her master had come. She checked the been wrong, and her happiness pulsed so dropped; fusion engines on; brace time— 7:59:55— and snatched up the tray loudly that the glow panels overhead bles and bustled to greet him. "Ohayo began to hum. yourself." "Yes, sir," she replied, then vibrated in gozaimasu." She couldn't bow— she But in the kitchen she berated herself. with the ship's spewing of wasn't designed for it— and so she altered She was a machine, a device, a thing— resonance for his gaseous, superheated reaction mass from the pressures in her cab's independent metal and plastic assembled by man sound, but she often suspensions, which raised the back edge pleasure. She had no right to love. Her role its tail. Vacuum scorns that in an atmosphere that en- a couple of Centimeters and tilted the for- was to serve, with efficient obedience, with imagined not with affection. gine would have roared, would have bel- ward face slightly "When you are ready, I mechanical accuracy — would have deafened every ear will pour the tea, Nakamura-san." Nakamura-san could sell her at any mo- lowed, refrigerator if within a kilometers. Clinging firmly "/7a/," he grunted. Wheels whirring, he ment—or convert her into a hundred

102 OMNI .

to her perch, she watched a strut occlude a star with its

. centrifuge quivering; like a signal light — on-off, on-off . ."The has cooled, sir," she radioed when the asteroid had fallen far behind. "Then get the plug out. You know what to do."

The gruffness of his tone wounded her; it was unlike him.

However, life was difficult for him, a self-exile to the Asteroid Belt. He endured on the brink of nowhere, millions of kilo- meters from his friends, his home. She knew how lonely it was. She had to make allowances. Sunlight as fine as a morning mist drifted across her plating.

Her photovoltaics collected it, transforming il into life just as surely as a Namib lizard's skin drinks Ihe dew that gathers on

it. She planned her route to stay out of shadows. Full batteries elated her. Moving with an agility remarkable for her size and shape, she opened the casing of the forty-meter-long centrifuge tube and radioed the cranes to hoist out the solidified metal. Smelted on their last trip home, poured into the tube, and spun until the conslituent ores had separated out into neat strata, this one piece represented days of hard work. Summoning mobile dollies, she rolled to the far end and retracted the panel covering her built-in laser. Then she plugged herself into the ship's main power supply; Her bat- teries were capacious, but the greedy light knife would drain

them In a hurry. The currenl surged through her. Aaahhh . . She wanted to throw back her cab and sing triumph to the steady stars, but there was so much lo be done. She rode the sensual waves like a master surfer ever in control, millimeter-thin Precious little uranium this time . . . maybe a cap on a plug five meters in diameter She beeped a small dolly into the proper position, then snapped her filters into place, and a dot burned brightly on the cylinder's smooth surface. Slowly the plug revolved, spun by the cranes' careful hands. She loved this job, this commanding and coordinating, this slicing through metal like a bulcher cutting his salami. The

dolly caught the uranium as it floated free of the rest, caught it,

and trucked it unbidden to the place where, sandwiched

between slices of lead, it would wait. When a full shipment's

worth had accumulated, they would roll it down the gravity hill to Earth, to the spread nets of an L5 retrieval team. It would be weighed and paid for, and Nakamura-san would owe that much less on his ship, to work on the Poor Nakamura-san , she thought as she went next stratum. He was so far from home that he couldn't see his world without a telescope, couldn't even find it without re- course to an astronomical calculator. The word pity was crowded onto one of Marchianna's vo-chips; she knew its Some like it cool meaning but couldn't experience its emotion. She wished she could, for her master was surely to be pitied. A lonely expatriate, he had only a robot for company. And no! a bright or interesting one. either, she thought in a moment of self-loathing. Her master needed more; silken hair, liquid laughter, warm and fragrant skin ... a wife, in other words. What he had was total dependence on machines for every facet of his survival, from the air he breathed through the suit he wore to the direction in which he steered the Karakai Maru. Which was not to suggest that he lived in danger but rather to iove the cool Some men imply that the sterile predictability of his environment poured fresh' air m3M§ggP ' deep acid on his crystal soul. He was a human, and to be that to its IKet streams. fullest potential, he had to be stretched by the efiljlusive gHpnd of man realities of other humans, not corroded and compressed by ' ""'fline... the gears and motors and integrated circuits. m A|»Kjrr.ave and Cologne 'Are you -* with the scent of the After some thirty-six hours the radio crackled. ^TSGrs. finished yet?" "Hall" Perturbed, she routed his question through her in- built voice-stress analyzer. The summary flashed cranky while the emotional-component charter totted up a list of; ANGER, DEPRESSION. LONELINESS. FEAR. FEELINGS OF INADE-

it completed the QUACY. . . Within one twentieth of a second,

list and the psych-chip began out-taping a variety of sug- ~ . '

gested therapeutic responses: urge him to talk, provide

MORAL SUPPORT, REMAIN INTERESTED BUT NONJUDGMENTAI . One tenth of a second had passed. "Get up here fast!"

"HaL" Emergency? she wondered, but no as she lapped i into the monitor net woven through the ship's ribbing. All

indicators glowed green; all readings read normal. Jus! his .

mood . . . poor man; I must make him happy. She reached the bridge and passed Ihrough the extra-wide airlock. The door squeaked in the ultrasonic as it retracted; she paused to inject a smidgen ot lubricant. "I have come. Nakamura-san. He Spun on his treads, growling, "You have a positive gift tor announcing the obvious." "I am sorry, sir." She rolled forward to express her concern. "Is something wrong with the life-support system?" "No," he snapped. "But you haven't unsuited." "There you go again, ballyhooing the blatant." He lashed a manipulator at the control panel. "Why did you reprogram the course computer?"

"Nakamura-san!" Aghast, she jerked back. "It is not my

place. I would never alter—"

"These are not the vectors and coordinates I recall!"

The psych-chip chattered, unreliability of memory is a pri- mary symptom of unstable personality, and while the rest of the diagnosis fed into her banks, she murmured diffidently, "I am very sorry, sir. Perhaps something is amiss in the program itself. If you would like, I could check it for you." "Get off the bridge! Get out of my sight!" Treads whirring, he turned his back on her. His taillights blinked in agitation, What could she do? With a soft "Ha/!" she put herself in reverse and -eireated. wishing again that she could help him, but she couldn't. She hadn't caused Ihe problem: space had.

Empty, silent, unforgiving space. It shattered humans, sucked them in', and ground them up. It lured them with its wealth, drew them across the solar system as if its minerals were musk and they were mad for sex. Then, once it had them isolated and vulnerable, it crushed Ihem with the weight of solitude. Knowing how heavily that pressed even on a ma- chine, she could extrapolate its effect on him. They shouldn't let humans out here, she thought. Not atone, Colonies, yes, but no! individuals. Forget the economics of intrasystem travei; Ihe ultimate cost is too high. We could do

Ihe job unguided; it is good to be owned and directed, bui it

hurts to see my master dying inside . . Ahead swofcd a small asteroid: their quarry for the day. The low albedo of its pitted surface reflected little light; Mar- Some like it hot. chianna sensed rather than saw it. Roughly cubical, it would fit I into the intake bay without preliminary splitting. That relieved her. Too much could go wrong in rock blowing, and shrapnel

always seemed to spatter the Karakai Maru . Once a shard no larger than a baby's fist had punched right through the bridge. Nakamura-san's quick reflexes had saved him, but he'd never been the same since. Skillfully, invis biy. Na.-om.ra-san maxhed velocities, then crept up a centimeter at a time until the vessel's giant mo had completely inhaled the 'roid. Struts shuddered as titanium molars bit down on the rock and began to grind. The ship banked into an imperceptible course change,

' "All right," Nakamura-san ordered, "get the smelters going Hurriedly she activated the extensor motors. Telescoping booms thrust the solid face of the ship a thousand meters | away from the rest of it; once locked in place, the side itself stirred, unfolded, opened. Within an hour it had umbrellaed into a silver-lined canopy measuring two-and-a-quarte square kilometers: a parabolic mirror focused on the oni uninsulated wall of the smelter. Already that wall had begun to glow a dull red. "You're slow today," he rasped unpleasantly.

"I am sorry Nakamura-san," she replied, even as she scanned the mylar panels for tears or lube stains. "But centrifuge is now filling, and the process

Mill be done before we get home." So light an extra weight, but he bore too ruEXT Dnnrui I much already. He cracked. Completely. "Home?" he shrieked. "Home? That dismal, fool! I dusty rabbit warren is home? You

Home is a sky so high, so blue, it pulls you

up into it, and a wind that chuckles on your

back as it dries your hapi, and the moist nuzzling nose ot a fawn, and Fujiyama-san like a mirage on the horizon. You thing] You

torture me. I ought to sell you, give you away. I'm going to throw you off the ship, "

you piece of junk, I — He ranted insanely the rest of the way back. The crushers cut off when the last cin- der had been ground to powder. The smelter finished its job and closed its gossamer umbrella. The centrifuge spun madly. And for a day and a half Marchianna dwelled on the verb to weep, dwelled on the word, its meanings, and its implications, because the action itself was beyond her. When their base rolled into view and Nakamura-san began to decelerate, he told her. "Leap into the reaction-mass exhaust tube." "But that will destroy me," she protested, though she began to pick her way down the ribbing to the rockets. "The temperature, the velocity of the particles—" "Exactly," he bit off. "Do it!" She reached the base. Dully she pro- pelled herself toward death. Even at a hundred meters, the heat triggered au- tomatic warnings. Excited particles dis- charged photons on a billion wavelengths? a million colors. She'd last-a second? " "Please," she begged, "you can't — "No." "This is wrong. You need me." THE ULTIMATE ATHLETE—Computer sophistication and psychological subtlety "Die, thing." are melding with qld-fash.ioned grit and determination to create a new athlete, Deep within her maze of circuitry a relay perfectly crafted in every detail for supreme performance'. Coaches, a re- becoming clicked over. She stopped. Fifty meiers scientists, preparing and repairing theirathletes more precisely than ever before. In ahead of her a glowing, gaseous bar rose the July Omni writer Susan Mazur takes you inside locker rooms and labs for a look to the surface that loomed overhead. She at the future of athletics where coaches work with computers, not blackboards. swiveled and said, "No." "Oh." The radio stayed silent tor fifteen PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS— Next, month we present a ten point plai-fcx-i thai will seconds before he added, "All right." both stabilize and stimulate the crazy-quilt pattern U.S. science finds itself in today- They touched down without further inci- Culled from information provided by top scientists and p tictans, the Omni sci- dent. He proceeded directly, wordlessly, to ence-platform outlines a consistent, financially stable research and development his bedroom. Marchianna followed a re- program designed for adoption by both Democratic- and Republican presidential spectful three meters behind. When his candidates. The immense wordage in the presidential campaign so farmak door closed, she switched into analycom- mention of science and technology Find out why as the pivotal figure in shaping out putational mode and sighed. Nakamura- scientific future, the Chief Executive holds the purse strings of American progress san had too closely skirled irrevocable in- loneliness was destroying him. Poor THE ILLUSTRATED DUNE— In his classic novel, for which he received both the sanity; where even Hugo and Nebula awards, Frank Herbert, created Arrakis, the desert world inhabit- man. To survive out here, make it on their own, he'd ed by giant worms, warring armies, and an ecological system sc robots couldn't wife. Immediately metaphors have served as inspiration to an' entire generation of wrirt need help. A chronograph. present an exclusive, two-part package; First, in an essay wrttteP She triggered her internal time. Omni, Herbert reveals how Dune was created and conceived; sec There was plenty of Headlights flickering with excitement, by John Schoen'herr, the man who created' the paintings of- Arrakis ihe ft

trundled to the cavernous storeroom . Dune calendar, lliusf rates the powerful imagery of Herbert's sciehce-fictk she behind the repair shop, where a fifty-year spare parts, all neatly boxed, SCIENCE FICTION -July's Omni ficfion features Stephen King, the t» supply of another's shoulders. author of The Shining and The Dead Zone. In our exclusive excerp stood on one '"' Nakamura-san would have a woman, and forthcoming-novel, Firestarier. a little girl is on the run V sang a song of joy. desperately to elude U.S. government agents. The girl possesses a dang* quickly. Marchianna for appropriate changes, she uncontrollable taleni. Barry N. Malzberg presents "Sigmund in Space," in Allowing the same schematics for the wife Freud is reactivated to sofve a problem aboard a s.tar.bound spaceship. could use that she used for him.OQ Nahln, in "A Father's Gift," shows the application of science, to religious had 106 OMNI . .

Winners of #10: Someone should offer a prize for these caruiPETiTioru By Scot Morris

carryable by prizes have been offered for a the answer is less than two Ihirds. but what For the first precision gun, Cash thai shoots unboiled, ordinary human-powered flight across the is it exactly? This ought to be solvable in one man, 25 centimeters in English Channel, for a bicycle that our lifetime since the corresponding eggs and can hit a target distance of 200 meters. can go faster than 55 miles pet hour, for a problem in one dimension (which I posed) diameter at a would considerable miniature electric motor one sixty-fourth of has been solved (see Daniel P. Shine, Such a gun be a the art. of nonmilitary an inch on a side, for a solo flight across "Birds on a Wire," Journal of Recreational advancement of for civilian use. the Atlantic, for a while marigold, and for a Mathematics, 11, 3, problem 650). I am weaponry — Hagemeyer, Munich, West Germany solution to Fermat's Last Theorem. All but willing to offer $100 for the solution. Fritz the last have been awarded (see "Prizes," — Daniel P. Shine December 1979). 1038 Nimitz Lane HONORABLE MENTION In Competition #1:0, readers were invited Cincinnati, OH 45230 For proof that electromagnetic radiation to suggest a dre3m they would like to see faster than 186,300 realized, an area of human achievement For the first to launch into orbit an object can be transmitted miles per second. that could use a "push" in the form of a of any stated mass by using propellant — Wilkinson. Sacramento, Calif. prize. Some readers suggested break- equal to that mass. Kenneth enclosed a dollar bill throughs so spectacular that a prize would — Frank Reeves. Ansley, Ala. (Ed. note: Wilkinson inscribed, "For breaking the speed of add little incentive (an antigravily device, matching funds available .-. perpetual motion, a cure for aging, or "for For the first propeller-driven airplane to fly light." Omni has for anyone who wins this prize.) the first person to transport one pound of faster than sound in level flight. any material 24 hours into the past or -Craig Zimmerman, USS Nimitz, FPO, N.Y For a solar-powered ball that will not roll future and return it to the present"). hill degrees or more incline The commonest suggestion was for an For the first airplane smaller than the bee down a of 20 sun is shining. The ball must astronaut, not connected with any govern- hummingbird, which has a wingspan of as long as the completely self-contained. ment, to be launched into Earth orbit, three centimeters and weighs two grams. be — Providence, R.I. Many entries included detailed criteria -William A. Klein IV Rye, N.Y. Charley Lineweaver. delineating the conditions that would or arlificial eardrum. would not win. We can only present For the first person to develop a self- For the first — Vancouver, B.C., Canada summaries below. contained and self-sustaining envi- C. Gursche, of living things, including at . ronment Someone should offer a prize . least one kind of plant and one kind of For the first person lo stop completely the animal (nonmicroscopic). The environ- lite processes of a rhesus monkey for a GRAND PRIZE WINNER: 5100 ment must be air- and watertight and period of one month and then restore the perfect health. For a mass driver capable of driving an must last long enough to prove that a life monkey to - Scott Paul, Rice Lake, Wis. eight-penny nail flush into two-inch pine. cycle has developed. The kind of mass driver Gerard O'Neill is —Glenn Jenkins. Kent, Wash. For a water vehicle powered by the hydro- talking about for work in outer space it extracts from sur- sounds too esoteric for most people, and For the first incontrovertible proof that a gen and oxygen water. the concept should be brought down to community or region of the United States rounding N.Y economically if large-scale -Scott Celley, USSdmerfca.FPO, Earth. It would be a great step forward to would gain bypass the hammer and apply the power military operations there were to be the directly into accelerating the nail. converted to nonmilitary industrial output. For a computer program that can play — James Countney, Appleton, Wis. — John Bender, Elkhart, Ind. Oriental game of go at the First Dan level. Go is an ancient game whose rules are For human-powered vertical flight: a very simple, but whose strategy and RUNNERS-UP: $25 ____ device that enables a human being to tactics are thought to be more lo For the answer to this problem: hover three meters off the ground for one complicaied than those needed A large number of points are randomly minute, under his or her own power. play chess. — Glasgow, Scotland placed in a square. What is the probability — Frederick Niermann, St. Louis. Mo. Allan Tennent, that any randomly chosen point is the practical two-passenger nearest neighbor to its nearest neighbor, For the largest amount of protein For the first acre in growing vehicle that can achieve a mileage i.e., (hat it forms with its nearesl neighbor a harvested from one one magic number of 100 miles pair such that each is the nearest neighbor season. To be an annual award. surpassing the — Portland. Ore. per gallon. Driving must be on public to the other? It is easy to determine that Tim Flanagan,

108 OMNI "

roads, within posted speed limits, with no For a system whereby musical tones are "burst driving" allowed. The fuel may be assigned to mathematical symbols so that FIL/ gasoline, kerosene, alcohol, or a combina- harmonic equations could be recognized tion. No stored energy will be allowed at the from tunes such as "Maxwell's Minuet" or beginning of the run. though flywheels may "Boyle's Boogie." them off guard. You can't do that if you're things work. In fact, be used lo siore the energy of motion. — Scott Helgessen, Princeton, N.J. busy explaining how — David R. Moffatt, Pine City, Minn, who can be funny if you have to rack your For the invention of a "sock detector" that brains to figure all this out for yourself?" For a demonstration'of superconductivity will locate the whereabouts of missing Taking their artistic license one step fur- at or above 194. 5°K, the sublimation tem- socks after one does his or her laundry. ther, the filmmakers acknowledge having perature of dry ice. — Michael Giacolone, Auburn, N.Y paid even less .attention to the technical - David H. Hammond. Dedham, Mass. dialogue used in the picture. Dana reveals For a solution of the Riemann hypothesis, that while he did phone a few friends in the of For the first human-powered submarine to which demands a proof that every computer field "to get a bunch lan- cross Lake Michigan underwater. complex-valued root z = x + iy (i = V -1) guage," his purpose in so doing was 2-* — Bev Fogarty, Ludington, Mich. of the Riemann zeta-function£(z) = 1 + neither to impart information to the viewer

-i- z 4-2 nor the integrity of science. 3~ + + . . .) must satisfy x = Vi.that to preserve

For the first single-stage rocket to be is, £(x + iy) must imply x = Va. When a character remarks, "Compu- possible resolution via launched into stable Earth orbit. This problem is tightly intermeshed with instruction flagged — Fred Dumont, Washington. DC. the distribution of prime numbers and is telco directional guide application and one of the outstanding conjectures in substantiation." he does so simply to let feasibility criterion, like, For any proof of Irue telekinetic ability. En- mathematics. It fits your Smart utter an obvious prevarication is now case a sensitive chemical balance scale in since A. Weil proved the (substantially "We think as one." Technology a a glass box. Have test subjects exert tele- simplified) "Riemann hypothesis for finite straight man! kinetic pressure on the pan. Any weight fields" as recently as 1974. This is a very Actually, in this matter of science, Smart inefficacy fluctuations will be easily determinable. good indication that this problem may be gets as much of his from Adams "Mechanically, —Theodore S. Watson, Jr., Rexford, N.Y solved in the next 25 years or so. The prob- as he does from the script. (Ed. note: Similar prizes have been offered. lem is extremely important in mathematics, I'm a moron," the actor confides. "For Kreskin, the mentalist and TV personality, and a prize for its solution should be com- example, while we were making the film, has constructed a Plexiglas box in which a parable to the prize of 10.000 DM for the we drove our twenty-five-thousand-dollar pencil hangs from a string and rests on a solution of Fermat's Last Theorem. Deskmobile across a lawn and hit a hole. pad of paper. Kreskin offers $50,000 to — Dave Joyner. Decatur, Ga. The entire thing came apart. Well, I didn't anyone who can. by the power of mind over walk up to that shambles and say, 'Hold on, matter, cause the pencil to write the letter K For a diesel engine that will run efficiently everybody. Get all the technicians away, on the paper. In the 1930s Dunninger had a on powdered coal, and let me put this together' I just looked at , for similar enclosed box and offered $20,000 — Kenneth W Formet, North Canton. Ohio it and said, 'Call me when you're ready to anyone who could mentally make the the next shot.' pencil write anything. The box is in the For a device working on some principle If The Nude Bomb is successful and if Houdfni Museum, in Niagara Falls, other than the parachute that enables a there, are sequels. Adams grudgingly af- "1 Canada, and the offer stilt stands.) man lo walk away from a free fall. It must be firms that he'll be in them. might as well,"

no heavier than a parachute pack. he quips. "The only kinds of scripts I get are For the first woman NFL football player. — Scott Krahl, Fairfax, Va. filled with pratfalls. The minute anybody — Carrie Leech, Columbia, Mo. has a story and there's a guy that runs into a For a process to freeze water at a tempera- door or falls down, they say, 'Get Don

r For a heat-sensitive roofing maierial that ture of 10 'C. Adams.' It doesn't do any good, but I keep

changes color from light on warm days to — Jeremy Fischer. New York, N.Y turning them down. I tell people, 'You don't

dark on cool days. understand. I want to be a serious actor. I — Charles M. DeLancey, For the first artist to do a landscape oil want to star in pictures like Kramer vs.

Greensboro, N.C. painting of the bottom of the Marianas Kramer. I want to play a dope pusher, a Trench. The painting and equipment must kilfer.'a maniac, a rapist, a Nazi war crimi-

For the first person to type at a speed of 300 be exposed to the water at that depth. nal. Or a scientist, so I can have it all. I'd

or more words per minute. The contestant — Marc Lamothe. Turnersville, N.J. even do a space picture, and I hate movies may use any kind of typewriter, including about spaceships. Like Star Wars. Why

one of his or her own design. For the development of an electrically op- should I sit there watching two machines — Gerald Wayne McGuire, Tempe, Ariz. erated mechanical muscle. going 'buck-buck' and mouthing gibberish — Peter Blinn, Hollywood, Calif. with nothing going on? One of the greatest For a compound that when spread on a things in history was the astronauts landing street will prevent snow and ice from ac- For the first person to construct an object on the moon; once you've seen that, the rest I'd cumulating, lis properties must last for at that is absolutely useless and judged so by of it is like Sleepy Time down South. But

least three months before another coat is .a panel of experts. be only too happy to do a space picture if it of needed. — Phil Logay, Chicago, III. would get me away from the stereotype — Mary M. Gregor, Wilmington, Del. Maxwell Smart." For a way to provide a swimmer with unlim- Get away from Maxwell Smart? Adams For the winner of an Omni Competition in ited time underwater by obtaining a may not smoke a rearview pipe or pocket a which entrants submit ideas for future breathable atmosphere from the surround- mini-missile pen as he does in the film. But Omni Competitions. ing water. regardless of how The Nude Bomb fares at —Steve Zutaut, Huntsville, Ala. —Theodore S. Watson, Jr.. Rexford, N.Y the box office, the actor's alter ego has dug in a cleated shoe-phone for what promises

For magnetic bumpers on cars, with only For the firsl person who can get every one lo be a long, long slay. And if Adams feels positive poles outward to prevent au- of the questions right in the Omni Games uneasy with that, he's well aware of what tomobile collisions. section. kind of knee-ierk thing they say in the spy — Pat Cool, Scottsdale, Ariz. -Scott Krahl, Fairfax, Va. DO biz: Sorry about that, Chief. CO DREAMERS, HERETICS, GADFLIES, MAVERICKS, AND GENIUSES.

The story goes that Henry Ford once hired an efficiency expert to evaluate his company. After a few weeks, the expert made his report. It was highly favor- able except for one thing. "It's that man down the hall," said the expert. "Every time I go by his office he'sjust sitting there with his feet on his desk. He's wasting your money." "That man," replied Mr. Ford, "once had an idea that saved us millions of dollars. At the time, I believe his feet were planted right where they are now." At IBM, we have 46 people like that, and we don't worry about where they put their feet either. They are the IBM Fellows.

They earned the title by having ideas that made a difference. Their job is to have more ideas like that, but under a very special condition.

It's called freedom. Freedom from deadlines. Freedom from committees. Freedom from the usual limits of corporate approval.

For a term of at least 5 years, an IBM Fellow is free to pursue any advanced project of value to IBM, even if chances for success may seem remote. As a result, some of the great innovations of our time have come from IBM Fellows. We may not always understand what they're doing, much less how they do it. But we do know this: 1 The best way to inspire an IBM Fellow is to get out of the way. fMf SURFING IN SPACE

By Dick Teresi

seventeen, the ut of the fields of Ohio he life. Armstrong talked a good deal about noting that when he was came— to speak to his fellow his Apollo tlight ("I thought a proiect of that sound "barrier" had yet to be broken by farmers, and to talk about complexity had about as much chance as manned aircraft and many knowledgeable even people questioned that it could . . in and agriculture, horses, tractors . and about a blind hen a foxes' den") riding Interplanetary surfboards through about unidentified flying objects (he ever be done. outer space. The Big Kahuna of space describes himself as a "UFO agnostic" "My father believed that the tractor said the travel had broken his silence. who neither believes nor disbelieves). would never replace the horse," things change." Of all America's astronauts, Neil And, yes, he talked about gravity waves farm boy from Ohio, "but Armstrong, the first man on the moon, is and interplanetary space drive. easily the most revered — and perhaps the Armstrong cited the experiments of And now ... the shuttle gap. There's an most publicity shy. Aside from a news Joseph Weber, of the University of outside possibility that the Russians may our conference held last summer to mark the Maryland, who discovered that the weight launch a space shuttle before own tenth anniversary of the moon landing, of a constant mass varies from time to Columbia goes up. According to a report Armstrong's public appearances have time, indicating that the force of gravity from the National Space Institute, been virtually nonexistent. can fluctuate. This may also indicate, cosmonaut Anatoli Filipchenko called the. Then, seemingly out of the blue, Armstrong said, that gravity exists as Soviet shuttle a "logical next step." Armstrong showed up recently on the waves sweeping. through the universe Speaking at the International Astronautical * meeting in Munich, he said, "If campus of Northern Illinois University, in as if pushed outward eons ago by an Federation the DeKalb, to deliver one of his rare exploding star. Armstrong said that if this we are first, we would expect just as addresses. His appearance was totally hypothesis is true, it means we could Americans to congratulate us, we

if they first." unheralded. "He wouldn't let us herald it," design spacecraft to ride those gravity would congratulate them were said Bob Woggon, a university official. waves the same way a surfboard rides Other reports indicate that the Soviet The occasion was the annual meeting of ocean waves. He urged scientists not to shuttle, called Kosmolyot, is smaller and large the DeKalb County Farm Bureau. Kenneth reject the hypothesis too quickly, sleeker than the Columbia , with no Shearon. one of the bureau's members, is cargo capacity. It is more of a "space taxi," the uncle of Armstrong's wife, Janet, and designed perhaps to transfer large the astronaut's appearance was numbers of cosmonauts between Earth apparently a personal favor to him. But and orbiting space stations. It is there's another connection. Armstrong, delta-winged, with winglets, and the of who operates a 200-acre beef ranch near speculation is that it will be capable Lebanon, Ohio, referred to himself as a powered flight within the earth's "farm boy from Ohio." The astronaut said atmosphere (unlike our own shuttle). in his opening remarks, "I'm convinced What's more, American spy satellites in that both the breadth and the details of our 1978 reportedly monitored a drop test of a collective problems and progress are prototype of Kosmolyot. It was apparently better understood in these heartland jettisoned from a Russian Tupolev Tu-95 communities than they are in the big cities bomber just as the U.S. shuttle was of the nation— particularly Washington. dropped from a 747 a year earlier.

"I was born on a farm, as were my father What does our government say about and his father before him," he added. "And the Kosmolyot 7 Basically the word is to they'd been wiped out more than once. It's shut up. Brian Sullivan, a designer for the not possible to farm without having an Grace H. Fl and rau Planetarium, in Tucson, understanding and appreciation of risk." Arizona, while working up some Or, evidently, an appreciation ot privacy. speculative paintings of the Soviet shuttle, Before his address, as the farm bureau was asked by the Central Intelligence the conducted its business meeting, Agency not to publish the fact that Armstrong repeatedly glared at a local Kosmolyot had been drop-tested. Why television crew Finally, a farm bureau would the CIA give a damn? Sullivan says representative asked that they "spare the CIA spokesman wouldn't explain. But Armstrong, yourselves, and everyone else perhaps someone in the government fears any embarrassment. He insists on no live the information would give NASA budgets television coverage." a shot in the arm, just the way Sputnik led Besides emphasizing the virtues of farm mstrong: Like a blind hen in a taxes' den. to the Apollo program of the 1960s. DO 112 OMNI EBB iES iruruDVjFvTOfus

Computer technology pervades just busy signal or get no answer, the phone display will read hello when the power about every aspect of consumer will redial that number automatically once comes back on to notify you that the clock electronics. Calculators, stereos. a minute for the next ten minutes. Leaving should be reset. televisions, watches, and even stoves the handset on the hook, you can hear Up to ten phone numbers can be stored have been impregnated with a what's happening on the line; so you don't in the phone's memory and recalled for sophisticated memory system. Now the need to pick up until you hear someone automatic dialing by pressing a function telephone is about to link up with the answer on the ofher end. key and then the number of the memory in microprocessor. That beloved little talk box On-hook dialing is a handy feature by which you have stored it. You can enter an may become the ultimate home computer. itself, in fact, and can be used additional number in another memory Basically a touch-tone telephone, independently of the "busy dial" feature. and have it dialed automatically just by Universal Security Instrument's Intelli- Whenever you make a call with Intelli- pressing the key marked help. Phone contains an array of special Phone, whether you dial manually or utilize Intelli-Phone is a feature-laden package features. One of our favorites is something any of the automatic systems, you can do and seems reasonably priced at $199.95. called scratch-pad storage. This allows so with the receiver left in the cradle. Our only objection to purchasing one you to store a number temporarily, even Without lifting the handset, you can hear would be that this simply represents an while talking to someone on the line. For the phone being dialed, ringing, and on rushing tide of major new telephone example, you call Directory Assistance being answered. technology, and it is probably only a matter and the operator gives you a number. As it The display panel above the phone's of time before more is available for less. is given, you enter and store it on the keyboard serves several purposes. While scratch-pad memory by pressing the dialing, you can see the number displayed We used to be satisfied when a wrist- same numbered buttons used for dialing, so that you know whether you've made an watch could give us a reasonable without disturbing the conversation. When error. When you're not using the phone, the approximation of the current time. If it you hang up, all you have to do is press a display operates in a clock function. It also didn't run more than five minutes fast or function key and the number is dialed for becomes a timer, automatically timing all slow per month, it was a good watch. But you automatically. your calls from the moment you lift the now some of the Dick Tracy-like

Another convenience of the Intelli-Phone receiver off the hook. And if there should instruments we put on our wrists are so is the "busy dial" feature. If you reach a be a power failure while you're out, the feature laden they can hardly be called watches. A leader in this trend is Citizen Watch Company of America, and an

example of what, these days, is being called a watch is Citizen's Quartz Multi-Alarm Memo-Chime/Repeater On command, this timepiece will tell you the time with a series of chirps, bips, and beeps. For instance, a sequence of 11

chirps, 1 bip, and 5 beeps tells you It's 11:15. The unit also contains two 24-hour alarms that can be set to different limes, and you can distinguish the alarms from each other because each has a different chirp, bip, and beep pattern. In addition to the chirps, bips, and beeps,

this unit will, if requested, chime every

hour on the hour. It also features a countdown timer with a range of 11 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds. Us constantly changing face contains an alarm monitor, month, day/date, hour, minute, second, am/pm mode indication, built-in illumination, and a power-cell-life indicator.

Finally, there is automatic end-of-month

correction, and it is accurate to within ten Universale computerized Intelli-Phone: Completely seconds per month. DO

114 OMNI ,

EXPLORATIONS By Kurt R. Stehling

f* | hy not take an aerial voyage participants and draw thousands of on using brandy rags, instead of stinking spectators. Across the country people are burning hides, hair, etc., or so the contem- ! I I lacrossParisin1784?Orwaft «J U over the English countryside rediscovering the bygone pleasures of porary account has it. That her royal could so easily offended is to a champagne picnic in 1820? See the cruising with the wind— down valleys and schnozz be shiny blue Danube and the glittering over hills, farms, forests, deserts, fields of hard to imagine, considering a change of spires and rococo splendors of Vienna by snow, even glaciers— to see the sky and underwear and a bath in those days were rituals. air on a spring morn in 1825? Were these the earth in hues never visible from an once-a-season really only romantic fantasies of the contem- airplane. By the late 1780s, ballooning was its poraries of Mozart and Schubert? Although ballooning is still an expensive catching on in Europe, especially in birthplace, France. Hydrogen-buoyed Not at all. No sooner had the Age of Air avocation, technological advances have displaced the hot-airs for Travel begun at the end of the eighteenth made it more appealing, notably the balloons soon first English century than enterprising "aeronauts" renewed use of hot airfor lift. Ironically, hot longer journeys, such as the solicited passengers to subsidize balloon air is what got the first balloon off the Channel crossing, in 1785. Hydrogen that historic day, November 21 offered double the lift of comparably sized journeys. Almost overnight it became de ground on thus greater range, rigueur for fashionable ladies and 1783, in Paris. But this coincidence should hot-air balloons and capacity. Not that gentlemen to be seen hovering among the come as no surprise, for the history of the endurance, and payload or simple. clouds like ethereal soap bubbles. For sport has been as colorful and enchanting hydrogen ballooning was easy more than a century ballooning remained as the striking designs — often in bright The gas was painfully generated at the chemicals, including nasty a favorite pastime of the European gentry. yellows, greens, and purples — today's launch site by kind of balloon Today, after almost 50 years of aeronauts emblazon on their balloons. sulfuric acid. Control of this the dormancy, this aristocratic sport is again The first eight-kilometer aerial journey was more complicated than was case coming back into vogue, Where there ever, with D'Arlandes and Pilatre de Rozier with hot-airs, Sails, oars, and other futile the were only a few U.S. balloon clubs in the as "pilots," was made in a Montgolfier steering devices were because whatever early Sixties, there are now dozens. hot-air balloon. Its heated air was fueled balloon would inevitably head in Sporting events such as last year's .by burning brandy-soaked rags and some direction the wind happened to be Albuquerque (New Mexico) International straw, pitch, and wax. Marie Antoinette, blowing. Venting gas out of a topside valve Balloon Fiesta attract many hundreds of patroness of the historic ascent, insisted and dumping sand or other "ballast" were all the aeronaut could do to achieve down-up control. A clever pilot would soon learn to take advantage of various wind vectors for some measure of lateral, or cross-country, control, Hydrogen fire in the absence of power lines and cigarettes, and by avoidance of lightning, was no big danger. In fact, during the first couple of decades of ballooning more Montgolfiers than Charliers {hydrogen-gas balloons) ignited from careless burning of flammable materials. No snooping bureaucrats were around to hamper aeronauts with regulations in the halcyon years of the nineteenth century. No barbed-wire fences existed to tear the trousers, skirts, and ears off landing aeronauts and passengers. The ultimate bete noire of balloonists — electric power lines— came along around

1900, and they're still around to add an

extra thrill to ballooning, especially the 110,000-volt-and-up killers. Most balloonists have learned to avoid these obstacles; those who haven't are fond Ballooning owes its popular resurgence to lightweight synthet e flame-resistant. memories.

116 OMNI . ,

Some Americans In the first part of the twentieth century loonists simply adapted these tanks for professional aeronauts kept the sport alive their own purposes. go through life by competing in international James Gor- Hot-air enthusiasts in the Sixties devel- don Bennett balloon races. By then, hy- oped burners for propane, which is fed to without discovering drogen was available in steel flasks that them partly by the evaporation pressure of replaced on-site manufacture. But after the the liquid gas. Here we have the blessing Bombay. First World War civilians had a new toy to and the curse of modern Montgolfiers. The admire — the airplane. The expense and gas-fed burner is far more efficient than the complication of gas flights soon deflated fire grates and hot ember baskets of the ballooning to an anachronistic "curiosity, eighteenth century. But the noise modern with only a few gas-balloon clubs surviving burners make resembles a Bunsen

in the United States, around Akron/Cleve- burner's noise amplified 1,000 times. land and Philadelphia. The only time you experience blissful As a passenger or pilot on several dozen quietude is when the burner is shut off for a silence is over- of these flights. I can say that there is abso- minute or two. The then

lutely no sensation like gas ballooning. powering, if your ears aren't still ringing. After much preparation, hauling, tugging, Since the lift of a hot-air depends upon the filling sand bags, and inflation, you're fi- difference between the air temperature in

nally "up 'n' away." And it's glorious— in the bag and that of the air outside, it follows calm weather. You rise as gently and as thai the burner must be turned on much of quietly as a feather. We— maybe four of the time. Heat transfer into the atmosphere us — sit or stand on ballast sand bags try- is fairly rapid, and the hot air cools down as ing not to crowd one another in the basket. the balloon descends faster. Obviously, (Balloon baskets are made of wicker. Noth- hot-airs work best in winter, when the atmo- ing manmade has yet equaled its durability sphere is colder. That's why several major or resiliency, especially for landing.) balloon races are held in midwinter in All sorts of funny and provocalive sights places like Minneapolis/St. Paul. can be seen from the air. With the The popular resurgence of hot-air bal- megaphone many balloonists carry, we looning has fledged numerous clubs, but used to sermonize from "on high" to they naturally fly their own members first. couples sitting in convertibles, parked in Can a nonmember take an aerial voyage?

what they undoubtedly thought were se- Easily, if you have a balloon-owning friend!

cluded lovers' lanes. Not infrequently cars If not, you can phone or write a nearby chasing after us ran off the road when the balloon club. The clubs are usually listed in driver looked upward. the Yellow Pages under Balloon Club or What you hear, however, is just as amus- Balloon Association or Balloon Port. A cen- ing as what you see, for one of the great tral organization to contact is the National

virtues of gas ballooning is that it is com- Aeronautic Association's Balloon Federa- pletely noiseless. Dogs barking, car horns tion of America, 821 Fifteenth Street, N.W., IBOMBHl honking, people yelling, and pigs and cat- Washington, DC 20005, or call 202-347- tle snuffling in their metal feeders at night 2808. It should be able to provide many of are recognizable even at 1.5 kilometers. the clubs listed. You can also write Balloon- The ear Ih serves as a huge ground plane to ing magazine. 2226 Beebee Street, San reflect sounds upward. Luis Obispo, CA 93401. Alas, the heyday of gas ballooning is There are several U.S. balloon excursion long past. Lifting gas, whether hydrogen or entrepreneurs who offer rides for explora- "natural," became steadily more expensive tion and fun in such picturesque locales as and less available after the Second World the Grand Canyon. You might also con bal- War, Moreover, with the advent of the great loon dealers into a test ride for a moderate energy crisis in 1973, natural gas for bal- tee, say, $50. although the usual fee might looning was forbidden in most areas by be closer to $75 or even $100. Write Bal- edict or gas company policy. Although looning magazine for addresses. commercially sponsored gas flights are still If you ever get the urge to be a pilot and to made occasionally, today's balloonist is own a hot-air, you must pass a flying test almost certainly flying a hot-air bag. Rest with a certified FAA instructor and then be assured, however, that the latest model is a prepared to shell out about $5,000 for a considerable improvement over the first used, medium-sized bag, and maybe Montgolfier. $8,000 to $10,000 for a biggie. The astonishing growth of hot-air bal- Don't think that you are then ready to looning in the past 20 years is largely due to head for the skies. For the sake of your own the availability of cheap synthetic fabrics, skin and those near and dear to you, you which are both lightweight and flame- should fly another 20 or so hours with an resistant. Although not suitable for the experienced aeronaut. If you take these venture with much heavier hydrogen gas envelopes. precautions, it's a fairly safe . y. Taste ihu differvnc which had to be rubber-coated to reduce many a thrill— and sometimes spill — in orable, think of the sparking, they were ideal for hot-air bags. high winds. A car or truck will usually follow And what is this hot-air fuel? Nothing your balloon to bring you and the equip- more than liquid propane or liquid natural ment back to launch point. And you'll be in Bombay gas (LNG) stored at a low temperature in a lot more danger during the ride back than metal containers. While not exactly a post- you ever were in the balloon. DO The gentle gin. war invention, LNG became much more prevalent in use in homes and trailers. Bal- Kurt B. Stehling is the pilot in the movie To Fly. '

do. That these low-I.Q. patients could un- (story) even if it couldn't tell the units (let- derstand stories implies that story cohe- ters) apart. Could the story content make nnino sion -is so basic that it survives severe the brain draw conclusions letters about

neurological damage. that it couldn't differentiate? Hal's brain Apart from animal communication, the The importance ot stories to learning be- could indeed accomplish this astonishing identification of the story engram raises came even more evident through our only feat, a startling demonsra^on of the en- questions about creating genuinely intelli- two failures — two patients who were un- grammic power of stories. gent computers. If we can program com- able to follow stories because ot petit mal Advertisers have long known that stories puters to recognize and respond to the seizures. Ned and Gordy could remember are the most natural means to influence engram, might they not then become true isolated iacts and possessed fairly good people. We assimilate information better thinking entities? vocabularies, but they could not make through stories than through any other form Right now such a development is impos- sense out of the world because they of communication, sible. There isn't any computer today that couldn't make stories out of what was And yet this technique has been ignored could be programmed in this way. But as going on there. by many teachers, even though it is technology advances, who knows what The pair reminded me of some schizo- obvious that current educational meth- possible? may become phrenic patients I had seen with average ods—force-feeding students raw facts and On a more immediately practical level, I.Q.'s but with an utter inability to impose a judging their retention with I.Q. -style test- the importance of telling stories has structure on reality, to tell a coherent story. ing—complete y miss -he essence of what opened up new avenues in education. My Such a patient can function only like a makes a truly creative, educated person. own realization of the story's role in human computer. His knowledge banks are intact, Look at geniuses like Churchill and Ein- development, for instance, came about but he cannot fully learn about the world. stein, who did poorly in an educational sys- through studying the educational impact of A third patient, Hal, demonstrated the tem that judged only the retention of tacts, storytelling on developmentally or percep- story's importance in a different way. Hal not their vital interrelationship, tually handicapped children. could always tollow a story, and he would The brilliance of these men stemmed

Like most psychologists, I had left stories tell his own outrageous tales, but he suf- from an ability to create stories that made to the storytellers. I only realized the impor- fered from a type of partial cortical blind- sense out of the world, Einstein's theory of tance of the story form when some severely ness that rendered him incapable of rec- relativity spanned the universe, Churchill retarded patients (I.Q. in the 20s or 30s) in ognizing the alphabet. turned World War II into a compelling na- my lab were suddenly able to gain reading Even when letters were presented side tional drama that held the British people comprehension because they were fed sto- by side, he had difficulty distinguishing be- together under incredible strains. ries instead of a disjointed series of facts. tween them. (A computer that couldn't un- If we recognize the engrammic nature of What made these accomplishments so derstand its information units could never stories and mold our learning systems astonishing was that patients with an I.Q. of comprehend a message built from them.) upon this natural model, we'll tind we learn 20 have only the barest inkling of language, We wanted to know whelher the human far faster and. more enjoyably Who knows knowing fewer words than the signing apes brain could comprehend a message whal stories we'll be able lo tell? DO .

7. Iron Doughnut. As the doughnut ex- sounds the piano and fork together and listens for beats. As the piano string is EMfUlES pands, it keeps its same proportions; so the hole also gets bigger. This same princi- brought closer and closer into tune with the apart. Eventually ple is at work when an optician removes a fork, the beats get further PHYSICS PUZZLES lens from a pair of glasses by heating the the beats might be more than a minute apart. But the sound of the piano string 1. Ant'sWalk. 179inches per second. frame, The next time you can't open the metal lid on a stubborn jar, heat the lid dies out after a minute or so, at most. So circumfer- we'll have to accept the fact that even the 2. Overhang. Yes. In fact, the top domino under hot water. The lid, inner finest Steinway can never be quite per- can be made to extend as far as you want ence and all, will expand, and then you can fectly tuned. beyond the bottom domino, without top- easily loosen it. pling the structure. As shown, the top drive 14. Twiddling Bolts. The bolt heads will re- domino extends hall a domino's length. 8. Step on It. Speedy will have to at 100 main at the same distance from each other, The second projects 'A, the third Ve, the an infinite speed in order to average is drive the and it doesn't matter which bolt held fourth Ve, and so on. Atterfive dominoes are kph for the course. He must required stationary. placed, the top domino, A, is already offset course in ten hours to attain the speed, but he has already used up his ten hours to drive the first half of the course. He 15. Something for Nothing. Yes, there is a will have to finish the race in zero time, at a device that can give you more joules of heat speed faster than light. output than the amount of joules in electric

energy input required to run it. The device

9. Drops and Bubbles. The bubbles would is the common air conditioner. In summer, the air conditioner attract each other. If water is removed from facing out the window, one spot in all space (bubble A), the gravi- draws heat out of the house and dumps it

If in joules of tational balance surrounding it is upset, outside. the machine draws 9 and the net effect on a nearby molecule of heat from the room and takes 10 joules of very poor air con- water is that it is drawn toward greater electricity to work (a heat mass, i.e., outward, away from the bubble. ditioner), it must expel 19 joules of outside. winter, turn the air conditioner If there are two bubbles, the water between In In the window. With the same 10 by more than its own length over the fifth them acts as if it is repelled from both, and around domino. With an unlimited supply of the bubbles would move toward each other. joules of energy to work the machine, it now in of from the cool out- dominoes, the offset is the limit of Vz +'A + draws 9 joules heat of the side and expels 19 joules of heat on the Ve + Vs + Via +. ... It is a series that can 10. The Pissing Bucket. The speed is inside. The back- grow as large as any finite number. The water depends on the depth below the wa- warm side, which now air conditioner is a heat pump. Does growth is slow, however. After the fiftieth ter's surface, which is the same for both wards

it really get for nothing? In a way, term the overhang is about 2Vn lengths, it is outlets: Water will come out of both holes at something toaster an interesting experience to try the over- the same speed. There's a simple intuitive yes. It doesn't make heat, as a does, but it moves heat. By itself, heat hang trick on 52 playing cards. If you have proof, however. Imagine that the two outlets But with a nimble fingers, you can build an overhang moves from hot to cold places. the pump), it can that exceeds two card lengths. pump (and energy to run be moved the other way, from cold places to hot places. 3. Inner Space. There is less gravity in the mine because some of the earth's mass is thick drinking glass above you. That mass pulls you up and so 16. Cracked Up. The conductor of cancels the effect of some of the mass will break first. Glass is a poor glass, heat below your feet that pulls you down. heat. In the thin champagne passes quickly from the inner to the outer surface the glass, the glass ex- 4. Weigh-in. The fluctuations result from the of and up-and-down movement of your blood's pands with relative uniformity. When you inner center of gravity as your heart goes were on the same side of the bucket and pour hot water into the thick glass, its surface quickly while its outer sur- through its pumping cycle. For a person joined, as shown above. If water flowed expands same size; ihis results in weighing 165 pounds (74. 8 kg] there is a faster through either opening, it would face remains the the glass, so it fluctuation qf about one ounce (28.3 g) with overwhelm the water in the other opening, enormous stress on and why you can pour hot Irish every heartbeat. pushing it back into the bucket and creat- cracks. That's ing a perpetual-motion machine. coffee into a delicate wineglass. But don't with a tumbler, 5. Balloon. Pushed under the surface, the try the same thing OO balloon encounters greater water pressure, 11. Magnet Test. Touch the end of one bar which shrinks its volume and lessens its to the middle of the other If there is mag- PHOTO CREDITS buoyancy, and the balloon sinks. As it sinks netic attraction, the touching end must be Page Hill, Franz Rollenslelner; page 12, Dan farther, the density of the balloon plus on the magnetized bar. If not, it is on the VPhot Sij=?art--srs: page 14, Charley Ov/Phor:- weight continues to increase, and it sinks unmagnetized bar. Fese

on 1 ahcra:oiy: page 22, The Bet even faster. At great depths in the ocean, page 26, Lisa Tanner: page 28, Virgin the balloon 12. Battleship in the Bathtub. As long as water pressure is so high that page 30, ® page 32, would sink even without the weight at- there is enough water to surround the bat- Ludeman; page 36 loft, EvoKe- R. Co iso. Nf- p.ciurss. page 36 right tleship completely, it will float. The boat's tached. Bure u of Standards: page 37 left, Marc U. Griggs; page

hull "doesn't know" whether it is sur- 87 r gut, r. ASA: page 39 lad, Scrlpps In Ocas hy, UCSD. paga 39 right, NASA: paga 40 6. Motorbike Trip. Your average speed is rounded by an expanse of ocean or by a Soever: page 40 top, Marc M. Griggs: page The water lift. 40 kilometers per hour, not 45 kph. You mere fraction of an inch of water -.V B- ,-u-: ;v:-,rrfiory: page 41 right, Rob Blac age« left, 20ttl Gentry Fox: pag 42 right, can't average the two speeds because you pressure on the battleship's hull is the K ;>. Grjrv. eig/Pho'o Hesearchers pages 68- If in either case. spent twice as long going 30 kph. Hein- same 0.: page 106, fJe,l Leifer Alar Mi ee, John Laona lein Hill were 60 kilometers high, you took page 112, NASA: page 114,

o;,as iie, s ebasian B-iis:?! paga 123, U.K : E W two hours up and one hour down. A 120 km 13. Perfect Tune. To get a piano in perfect nmt^° trip in three hours averages 40 kph. tune-would take, literally, forever. The tuner CONTINUED FROM Pt Sophisticated excited when we found that in 1982 a rare alignment of the planets takes place in a narrow arc on the same side of the sun. personal They will form not a straight line but an unusual concentration in a small part of the computers sky. This, we figured, must redouble the for strength of the tidal effect, with all the planets, including Jupiter, tugging to- serious people. gether. So, on the basis of what has been interpreted as "astrology," we predicted a

, peak of solar activity in 1982 that would set Ohio Scientific microcomputers are off a ripple of earthquakes in many regions not just game machines that of the earth, probably triggering the San have Andreas in particular. spread wings. We've been making What has changed my mind? The sun microcomputers since the industry refuses to fit in with our neat extrapolation began in 1975. No matter what your of the tidal curve into the 1980s or with our application, we have a computer that assumption that the 1982 planetary align- merits your serious consideration. ment would narrow the choice to just one year. In 1979 the sun's activity increased

rapidly It now looks as if the peak of the present cycle will have passed before this reaches print. By the end of 1980 we could be seeing a decline in solar activity.

Plagemann and I definitely got the year

wrong. On this evidence, there is every prospect that 1982 will be quieter in seis- mic terms than 1979 and 1980. However, as anyone who keeps up to 1333 SOUTH CHILLICOTHE ROAD date on earthquake news knows, we do AURORA, OH 44202 • [21 6] 831 -5600 seem to be in the middle of a spate of

tremors. There were moderate shakes in San Francisco and other parts of California late last year, tremors in the Middle East, as usual, and at Christmas one of the strongest quakes ever to jolt Great Britain; still others struck elsewhere. Although it is too early FREE yet to certain, it KIT be does look as if TELLS increased seismicity has once again "coincided" with the peak of solar activity. Because the sun remains near its peak, we HOW TO TAKE BETTER can expect the pattern to continue through

1980. But if Los Angeles is still standing by the end of the year, the rest of our forecast PHOTOGRAPHS. will have.. been invalidated, for In retrospect, some of the accusations Send ourfree kit the opportunity to win that our that provides all the photographic book was alarmist seem justified. I compe- older facts on McGraw- titions and have your am I now and, hope, wiser. I would Hill's innovative, new workpublicly exhibited. certainly' not present the same material in Photography Work- Don't delay. The the same if way the idea had just occurred shop. This exciting kit isfree and there is to me. method of mastering aosolutely no obliga- There's an important lesson here, which photography creates tion. Just ca operator may be what our academic critics were a personal dialogue #203 at 800-648-5600, trying to tell us; Don't open the door for between yourself and {in Nevada, call 800- half-baked cults to latch on to your ideas. our professional panel 992-5710), or mail this The key words earthquake, planetary of photographers coupon to McGraw- while you develop Hill Photography alignment, and 7982 were all that the your skills at your own Workshop. 3939 weirdos needed and all they ever knew paceintheconve- Wisconsin Avenue, about the Jupiter effect. nience of your home. N.W., Washington, Don't believe anything you hear about You'll also have D.C. 20016. "scientific" forecasts of doom without read-

ing the original. If anyone tries to warn you about the Apocalypse coming in 1982, just tell him that the old theory has long since been disproved.

Mind you, as long as the sun continues to be active this year, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the sake of L.A. CO thousands of blinded, palsied, and other- wise disabled children in this country. For FDRurm the sake of all of us, the record must be set HEWLETT o:;n"'N..Hj=^om -*gl '. tvi PACKARD straight; Pregnancy and birth are normal, program is described as a church. People not handicaps! practicing TM are no more members of a Pat Goltz Tucson, Ariz. church than are people at a health spa, that TRADE IN YOUR HP CALCULATOR is, both situations involve buildings, pri- WHEN YOU BUY ANOTHER HP vacy, techniques, and personal benefits. Free Exams for Test Subjects article Your fine magazine wasted an opportu- I wish to respond to Dava Sobers sub- "So that Others May Live" [December IHP-41C, CARD READER, PRINTER nity to bring to its readers correct and AND ACCESSORI ES— CALL stantiated information about a scientifically 1979]. | J American Citizens for Honesty in HP-31E-S 39.95 HP-33C-S 99.95 verified program, a historic breakthrough in The HP-32E-S 58.95 HP-34C-S124 95 human potential. Government (2125 S Street, IM.W, Washing- HP-33E-S 74.95 HP-38C-S1 24.95 The cheap shot from your "hidden cam- ton, DC 20008) has initiated a nationwide HP-37E-S 61.50 HP-67 -S2«9 35 of army era" makes me wonder if Omni isn't campaign to find victims secret HP-38E-S 93.50 HP-97 -5589.95 headed down the same road as the Edsel. drug experiments conducted at Edgewood HP-85 -S3250.00 HP-92 -S399.95 Gregory J. Trulen Arsenal, Maryland, from the early 1960s HP's FOR SALE USED Shorewood, Wis. until 1975. The experiments, designed to CALL FOR PRICES AND AVAILABILITY test a variety of mind-control drugs, in- We do not dispute the "personal psycho- volved some 7,000 soldiers and civilians logical benefits" of TM, and indeed some- who allegedly volunteered to be a part of Tcxos Instruments one hooked up to a polygraph while the program, One of the drugs, labeled BZ, TI-S9/4 HOME COMPUTEH — $995.00 meditating probably would show many was a powerful hallucinogen, reportedly changes from ordinary (normal) body ten times more powerful than LSD. The functions— heart rate, respiration, galvanic drug was intended as a "mental incapacit- skin response. Abnormal does not mean ant." The army tested BZ on 2,490 volun- " "bad, " but "different from the usual. teers between 1960 and 1966. As for flying and invisibility, we will print a ACHG has offered a free medical exam- retraction the minute someone floats up to ination to any of the volunteers who come our offices and demonstrates his ability to forward in order to determine any long- us. We're on the twentieth floor-Ed range effects they may have suffered as a result of the drug. Moritz Farb stein 2400 EUCLID AVE . CLEVELAND. OHIO 43115 Normal, Not Handicapped certainly agree with Robert A. Hein- Norristown, Pa. While I 1-216-661-6464 OH 1-216-667-2128 leln's basic premise in "Spinoff" [March 1980] that the space program has been of Oil from Coal incalculable benefit to the average citizen, With reference to Douglas Colligan's article one comment in his article made me in- "The Nazi Papers" [Continuum, October Dr. I like to elaborate on what tensely angry: ". . . mothers at term must be 1979], would classed as 'temporarily but severely hand- Kurt Irgolic had to say and to ciarify a point icapped.'" During my own six pregnancies, or two for the readers of Forum. South Africa has been interested in the I have engaged in numerous physical ac- tivities, including: earning the judo rank oi oil-from-coal process since 1927. South Af- devel- rokyu in my eighth month, hiking in the rican scientists followed German mountains within days before and after giv- opments prior to and during World War II ing birth, swimming nearly three miles a and continuec researcn afterward. The first few days before giving birth, and milking South African synthetic fuel plant, Sasol I, in 1955. According to Mr. my goats while I was in labor and also a few began production hours after giving birth. My friends likewise Colligan. the German method is "far sim- work full-time until in advanced labor and pler and more productive." It certainly is far walk home to give birth, bike in the moun- simpler than the South African method; tains up to term, give birth alone, etc. more than 20 years of further development By no stretch of the imagination can we has gone into our system, which was be called handicapped! Obstetrical inter- based on the German model.

OMNI ventions frequently disable mothers and As for "more productive," Sasol I was not babies; the very ultrasound that Heinlein built for the sole purpose of producing syn- TIME CAPSULES. other lauds results in scalp infections and fetal thetic fuel; it produces a variety of distress in babies, hot to mention that we petrochemicals, such as pipeline gas, be kept safe for the future. Store your simply don't know its long-term effects and butadiene, styrene, ethylene, and am- issues of Omni In a new Custom Bound Library Case made of black simulated may not jump to conclusions about its monia. All of these by-products are used safety, as we did about X rays and DES. by the chemical and plastics industries. issues in mint condition Indefinitely. The is many of us give Sasol I was designed for this purpose. spine is embossed with a gold Omni logo This precisely why so this and in each case includes a gold transfer birth at home. Heinlein should stick to writ- Sasol II. which will begin operation ing science fiction, at which he is expert, year, and Sasol III, which will open in 1982, Send your check or money order and leave the expertise on pregnancy and will concentrate on manufacturing motor (J4.95each;3tor$14.00;6for$24.00; birth of large families. Ideas fuels, such as gasoline, diesel, LP gas, postpaid. USA orders only) to: OMNI to the mothers II and Sasol III Library Case,- PO. Box 5120, Philadelphia, like his are responsible for the antimother- kerosene, and jet fuel. Sasol Pa. 19141. hood attitudes that make second-class will use the Syntol process because of its Complete satisfaction guaranteed or citizens out of so many women and that higher yield of gasoline and diesel fuel. money refunded. Allow 4 weeks for of obstetrical interven- Jan Schoeman delivery. encourage the kind tion that has resulted in hundreds of Johannesburg, South Africa DO Ell UBLE

By Mark R.Chartrand III

|e havecome tothinkof ^^ our the sun now, making it the nearest star and only 30 would be single. I I sun as fairly run-of-the-mill. It known. Hence its name. Proxima. When stars orbit each other closely ^J vv is of middling brightness as Often the two stellar companions cannot enough, the gravitational pull of one stars go, middling mass, and medium be seen separately even with a telescope. distorts the other One or both stars may temperature, and it is located in a typical In such systems the stars are sometimes be ellipsoidal, instead of spherical, as part of an average spiral galaxy. revealed with the aid of the spectrograph. single stars are. As one star of the system But in the is some ways sun highly This device breaks up the light of each ages, it may swell and fill a large, tear- unusual. After all, it is orbited by the only star into its component colors and dis- drop-shaped region, spewing material proven {intelligent?} lite in the universe. It plays dark lines in the spectrum caused from the tip of the drop into giant is also unusual because it is single. by various elements in the outer layers of pinwheels of star gas surrounding the Most stars have companions, other the stars. If the stars were stationary, the system. The two stars can even exchange stars orbiting them. More precisely, they all spectra of, say iron from both stars would material. These contact binaries have very orbit a common center of mass. Such be right on top of each other. But the stars different life histories from single stars. groups are called star systems, and more are moving, with one coming toward us Every once in a while we discover a than 70,000 are known. and one going away as they orbit. This double-star system oriented so that the Of the star nearest systems, including motion shifts the spectral lines slightly plane of the stars' orbit is seen edge on. our own. live systems are at least double, apart, allowing us to distinguish them. During most of the orbit, the light we one may be single, at least one (ours) has These systems are thus called spectro- receive is the combined output of both a planetary system, and others may have scopic binaries. stars. When one passes in front of the as-yet-undiscovered companions. Many star systems will have more than other, we observe a slight dimming, the Indeed our nearest star system, Alpha just two stars. There are systems of amount depending on the relative surface Centauri. is a triple star: A yellow Star three, four, five, or more stars, all in a brightnesses of the two stars. These are almost exactly like the sun and a cooler, celestial ballet about their center of mass, thus called eclipsing variable stars. orange star orbit each other fairly closely choreographed by the law of gravity. Out Such systems are marvelous astro- once every 80 years, and both are orbited of 100 typical star systems, about 23 physical laboratories for determining by a small, faint, red star. This red dwart is would have three or more members with a stellar properties. By simply timing how thought to be on the side ol its orbit toward total of 81 stars, while 47 would be double, long an eclipse lasts, we can deduce the size of the stars relative to the size of their orbit. Then the size of the orbit can be calculated by using the laws of gravity and motion. As a result, we can find out the sizes and masses of these stars. These are fundamental data that are hard to obtain otherwise. Do stars have either stellar companions or planets, but not both? Or can multiple stars have planets, too? The answers are not yet known. Our calculations show that in multiple-star systems there could be some stable

planetary orbits. If planets formed in some other regions around the stars, however, they would eventually be thrown out of the system to wander through space sunless.

Our knowledge of stellar evolution is still too limited to tell why planets or compan- ion stars form when a cloud of interstellar gas contracts to form a star. The space telescope, an orbiting observatory to be launched by the space shuttle in the middle 1980s, is going to

look for stellar companions. Perhaps it will Giant pinwneels of gas make spectacular sights in the sky. help answer these questions. DO EARTH IT'S NOT CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14

spreads. I felt miniaturized, or transported TOO LATE back to the Pleistocene, an age when ev- erything was oversize. Twelve eagles in one spot seemed a TO BUY horde. In facl, southeast Alaska sees eagles in far greater congregations. There is a seven-mile stretch of the Chilkat River BACK SOME that each winter attracts 3,000 to 4,000 bald eagles. In November one sees 50 and OF THE 60 lo a tree. The eagles come because freak upwellings of warm water keep cer- tain channels free of ice long after other FUTURE! rivers are frozen, allowing the birds to feed on spawned-out salmon well into winter. This gathering of eagles, the biggest [ iiismonnrun convention of raptors in the world, is now threatened. The state of Alaska has en- tered into a limber sale contract with the Schnabel Lumber Company, of Haines. Alaska. The contract permits heavy log- ging in the Chilkat Valley for the next 15 to Can we know 25 years. The sfaie government of Alaska, never our past lives? famous for heroic efforts to protect its wil- derness, has entered into this agreement Does personality survive death? before the answers to important questions Do experiences of past lives cling are known. Where did the eagles come Valley to our consciousness — as the from when they arrive at the Chilkat in October and November? Where do they scent of a flower lingers on? go when they leave? How important is the There are mistakes you could refuge of the Chilkat to the bald eagle popu- avoid- things you could do dif- — lation of the world? How vital to the survival be cer- ferently-— if you could of immature, unskilled birds is the Chilkat's tain. Have you felt strangely reprieve from the harsh realities of the Alas- unlike yourself—more like some- kan winter? one else —with different inclina- The effects of the logging on water qual- lonrirll thus I tions and personality? Do new ity, and thus upon the salmon, and places and faces seem familiar? upon the eagles, is certain to be profound. Yet no study has addressed this problem. FREE BOOK The loss of the trees alone is likely to be Do not let hypocrisy and preju- important. The eagles leave the small "crit- decreed by the state for dice deny you the truth about ical habitat area" days at a time in bad weather. Do they seek yourself. Reincarnation is just shelter in woods that are now slated for one of the many subjects dealt logging? The state of Alaska doesn't know. with in the Rosicrucian teach- This month the Southeast Alaska Con- OMNI, the magazine of to- ings. You can live more fully, servation Council goes to court to chal- morrow, means back issues mast erfull y, if you use your Cos- lenge the legality of the timber sale. En- could well be ahead of, in- mic powers and faculties. Write vironmental organizations across the na- stead of behind the times. the Rosicrucians (not a religion) tion are watching the outcome with interest. Limited supplies of the for a free copy of the book, "The So am I. Some of the eagle conven- above issues are still avail- Mastery of Life." scribe: YSW tioneers in the Chilkat are acquaintances, I able at $3.00 each including suspect. As an American, I want to believe currency. postage handling. List 9Be ROSICRUCIANS in my Economists worry about and the decreasing amount of gold backing the issues you've missed and (AMORC) each dollar. I worry about the decreasing need, enclose your check or San Jose, California 95191 U.S.A. number of bald eagles backing up the money order along with your

1 emblem on the dollar's back side. That's rScribe Y.s.w. name and address and mail It's a variety harder to Tlie ROSICRUCIANS (AMORC) devaluation, too. to OMNI Back Issues, RO. Box California 95191 it ; San Jose, U.S.A. remedy, once it gets started, and leaves 903, Farmingdale, N.Y.11737. Please send mo a complimentary cony us even poorer. Offer void after January, 1981. book "THE MASTERY OF LIFE." "The tragedy is that many of the stan- dards by which the majesty of the earth could be judged have been cut down." "~ - 1 1 We'll rush you the magazines John Hay has written. If that tragedy ex- of tomorrow that were on ! r , [ tends to bald eagles, we will have proved

?• Ben Franklin right. The turkey will be our 1 a. . L I symbol after all. DO Science Fiction:

Junel2-Aug.29J980

At The Bronx Museum of the Arts 161st Street and Grand Concourse 212-681-6000

Anexn DiTion of original works by Chris Foss, Chesley Bonestel John Be rkey, H.R. Giger, Paul Alexander. Hannes Bok, Frank 1" Paul, Earle K. Bergey and many others. Call for Special Events Schedule. Hours: Monday thru Friday - 9:00am-5:00pm Sunday 12:30pm-4:30pm

3irectic ns: Bus no. 1 or no. 34 to 161st street and Grand Concourse Train IRT no. 4 or IND "D'to161st street and Yankee Stadium Station

hisexh bition is made possible in part with Public Funds from the ^ew Yc rk State Council on the Arts, the N.YC. Department c Guttural Affairs and the Bronx Council on the Arts. PHEruonriEruM

... , „„j a unique vie .., this Hans Plletschh aph. Hanging from a branch „, drops acl as ging Ihe

'e, in fact.

I Pflelschinger

)f mance. By varying

i the flowers and Ihe changes perceptively. For this photograph. Pfletschinger adapted a special bellows attachment to a Minolta XE-1 camera and ., "

Physics 101: Barometers, balloons, bubbles, and a battleship in a bathtub

By Scot Morris

possible over the comino below without In learning the sciences, examples are of roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with = at 2 falling. The greatest offset is obtained more use than precepts. a stopwatch. Using the formulas Vz , — Sir Isaac Newton calculatethe height of the building." when the center of gravity of the top of the The answer was perfectly correct, if domino (A) is directly above the end below (B) the combined This months puzzles require an unexpected, and Calandra gave it full domino and elementary understanding of physics. No credit. But why the unusual approach? complicated mathematics are needed, The student said he knew the expected only an intuitive grasp of how things work answer all along but was tired of having in the world. instructors teach him to think in one the First enjoy the unorthodox thinking of "correct" way. He had many answers to the student in the barometer story (below, question but waited until the last minute from my book The Book of Strange Facts to choose the best one. Another solution, and Useless Information, Doubleday/ the student suggested, would be to go out gravity of these two dominoes is Dolphin, 1979), Then try your hand at on a sunny day, measure the height of the center of some science-oriented puzzles. Some of barometer, the length of its shadow, and directly above the edge of the third continuing this procedure, them are adapted from Thinking Physics the length of the building's shadow, then domino (C), By it possible to stack dominoes so that the by Lewis C. Epstein and Paul G. Hewitt compute the height of the building with is projects more than its own (Insight Press, 1979), and Science a simple proportion. top domino the bottom domino?How Brain-Twisters, Paradoxes, and Fallacies "Fine," Calandra said. "Any others?" length beyond take barometer in hand many dominoes will be required to do this? by Christopher P. Jargocki (Charles "You could the Scribner's Sons, 1976). and climb the stairs, marking oft barometer lengths on the way as you go, 3. INNER SPACE. Down in a coal mine THE BAROMETER STORY That would give you the height of the below the surface of the earth, is there less gravity than there is Alexander Calandra, professor of building in barometer units. Or you could more gravity or entrance to the mine up at the physical sciences at Washington tie the barometer to the end of a string, at the earth's surface? University, St. Louis, claims that a swing it as a pendulum, and determine the 'g' colleague once asked him to referee value of at the street level and at the top Even if you stand perfectly a dispute with a strong-minded physics of the building. In principle, you could 4. WEIGH-IN. scale, the reading student. Answering an examination calculate the height of the building from still on an accurate 'g.' average question asking how one could determine the difference between the two values of keeps oscillating around your weight. Why? the height of a tall building with the aid of a "There are more direct solutions," the barometer, the student had written, "Take student added. "Probably the best is to An air-filled balloon is held the barometer to the top of the building, take the barometer to the basement and 5. BALLOON. the superintendent's door. When underwater by a weight so that it is just on attach a long rope to it, lower the knock on the verge of s nkmg; the top surface of the barometer to the street, and then bring it he answers, say, 'Mr. Superintendent, I balloon just touches the waterline. If you up, measuring the length of the rope. The have a very fine barometer here, and I will of length of the rope is equal to the height of give it to you if you will tell me the height the building." this building.' The teacher wanted to score this answer PHYSICS PUZZLES of ___^ zero because it showed no knowledge physics, but the student thought he 1. ANT'S WALK. A subway train is deserved full credit for answering the approaching Times Square at 144 inches question correctly per second (ips). A man in one subway Calandra decided to give the student car is walking forward in the car at 36 ips, another try; six minutes in which to write an relative to the seats. He is eating a alternative answer that would display foot-long hot dog. which is entering his some understanding ot physics. mouth at two inches per second. An ant on The student sat over a blank piece of the hot dog is running away from the man's paper for five minutes. Calandra assumed mouth at one inch per second. How fast is the balloon beneath the surface of he would fail the exam, but in the final the ant approaching Times Square? push what will it bob minute the student dashed off the the water (as shown), do— remain at the level to following: "Take the barometer to the top of 2. OVERHANG. Dominoes are stacked so back to the surface,

it sink to the bottom? . the building and lean over the edge of the that each domino projects as far as which is pushed, or 12B OMNI 6. MOTORBIKE TRIP Suppose that you holes of equal area through which water is PERFECT TUNE. If two musical notes motorbike from Bova's Beach to the top of discharged. It can flow out through hole B, are very similar (e.g., 256 cycles per Heinlein Hill and then return, You average at the bottom, or through the downspout, second and 257 cps) and are sounded 30 kilometers per hour for the trip up and which begins at the lop. T and has its simultaneously, an interference pattern of 60 kph on the is way down. What your "beats" will be heard (In this example average for speed the round trip? "beats" will sound onee per second). Suppose you have just bought an 7, IRON DOUGHNUT. A piece of solid iron excellent concert grand piano and you in the IC3 shape of a doughnut is heated over want it to be put in perfect tune. You get a first-rate piano tuner, who tunes the piano

by matching it to selected tuning forks.

How long will it take an expert piano tuner to do a perfect tuning job? (a) About an hour, (b) About a day. (c) About a week, opening the same distance below the (d) About a month, (e) About forever: water surface as hole B. Ignoring any friction effects, out of which opening will 14. TWIDDLING BOLTS. Below are two the water flow faster; and why? identical bolts held together with their a fire. As the iron expands, the hole does threads in mesh. While holding bolt A become larger or smaller, or does it remain 11. MAGNETTEST.Youareinalocked the size? same room with two identical iron bars. One is a bar magnet, the other isn't magnetized. 8. STEP ON IT. The Baja road race is The doorknob and the lock are made of 1 ,000 kilometers long. At the halfway point brass (not magnetically active), and there Speedy Gonzales calculates that he has is no other metal in the room, not even on driving been at an average of 50 kph. How your person. How can you tell which bar is fast should he drive the second half of the the magnet? You could suspend each bar race to have an overall average of 1 00 kph? by a string tied around its middle and stationary, you swing bolt B around it. observe which bar tends to point north. Is (Don't let the bolts turn in your fingers.) Will 9. DROPS AND BUBBLES. If all space there a simpler way? the bolt heads get nearer, move farther were except for two empty masses close apart, or remain at the same distance together, say, two drops of water, the drops 12. BATTLESHIP IN THE BATHTUB. Can from each other? would be attracted together, according to you float a battleship in a bathtub? Specifically, the battleship below, at left. 15. SOMETHING FOR NOTHING. If you KJ

T6. CRACKED UP. Pour hot water into a Newton's Law of Gravity all Now suppose thick drinking glass and into a thin space were full of water except for two bubbles. How would the bubbles move? Apart? Toward each other? Or not at all?

10. THE PISSING BUCKET That's the little larger and containing a small volume given name to this puzzle by Epstein and of water. As the ship is lowered, the water Hewitt. .They say it is "a favorite question is forced up the sides of the tub until there of noted hydrologist George S. Pissing is only a thin envelope of water between and is still often asked of graduate stu- the tub and the ship's hull. Is it possible to champagne glass. Which glass is more dents during oral examinations." float a 30,000-ton battleship in several likely to crack? OO Considers bucket ot water with two hundred gallons of water? Answers on page 120. :

AVE THE TOADI WJDRD By Norman Spinrad

to to exterminate past decade has seen a When it was discovered lhat the Valhalla inevitably lead demands Thequantum leap in the ecological golf course was the sole ecological niche other scientifically unique species of awareness of the American of the giant flying vampire toad, vermin, such as the cockroach, the rat, public, a new understanding thai the Development Unlimited signed a consent and the anopheles mosquito. planet belongs not only to humankind but order with the EPA to redesign the Faced with a dead loss on the Valhalla development, to all creatures great and small, that the eighteenth hole to incorporate and now-unsalable federal extinction of a species for ihe sake of preserve its habitat as a swamp hazard. Development Unlimited sued the Just as this human convenience is an ecocrime akin A Pro-Am tournament was organized to government for damages. destined to genocide. The snail darter holds up a test the course prior to occupancy of the precedent-setting case seemed multimillion-dollar dam, humans risk their condominiums. There was a strong east for the Supreme Court, HUD— perhaps lives to save whales, and the FCC comes wind that day, and many golfers were acting under indirect White House down hard on a comedian who tortured hooking their tee shots into the swamp pressure — agreed to purchase the and executed cockroaches on Ihe tube. hazard on the eighteenth hole. Dozens of development as a pilot project for the for All well and good. But even in these players invaded the habitat of the giant nation's first retirement community

it pointed out, days of ecoenlightenment a species of flying vampire toad. welfare recipients, who, was animal now faces extinction, a species The toad, we now know, hangs upside could be induced to occupy a luxury course. that almost seems to have been designed down in the tops of trees, cunningly condo community without a golf ultimate test of camouflaged in the rotting foliage. It The golf course was closed, the by evolution as the case * our ecological morality. hangs there motionless like a huge glob of development was occupied by nongolfing flying Valhalla is a retirement community on goo until some as-yet-unelucidated heat welfare recipients, and the giant the east coast of Florida, not far from the sense detects the presence of a large, vampire toad was saved from extinction. Everglades, carved out of a fetid coastal warm-blooded mammal. Or so it seemed at the time. The swamp by an outfit called Development The crafty creature waits until the population of giant flying vampire toads Unlimited. mammal has passed well by its perch. has now gone into a precipitous decline. its grip, its unseemly, human hurly-burly of the A major selling point for the Valhalla Then it releases extends The development was a private. 18-hole golt "wings," and silently zooms in on its prey welfare condos has driven away the the course to be built on the premises, without from directly behind in a long, low glide species' previous natural prey, and the completion of which Development out of the wooded gloom. Fangs .lack of golfers to replace these nonhuman of driven Ihe Unlimited would remain in breach of extended, it pierces the back the neck prey species has once more contract with its customers. After 17 holes like a double-headed arrow with the full toad to the brink of extinction.

later it public can now prevent were completed, it was discovered ihat momentum of its dive. An instant Only an aroused what was to become the eighteenth and plasters its slimy, sticky body in the prey's a hideous act of genocide-by-neglect. It's clubhouse green — a swampy pool hair, grabs on to the ears with its clawed one thing to save lordly whales and cute overgrown with rotting palm trees— was forelirnbs. fastens its powerful, rubberlike little seals, but will the summer soldiers of Ihe sole habitat of a hitherto-unknown suction mouth around the point of entry, ecological awareness summon the species, the giant flying vampire toad. and hangs there upside down, throbbing, courage to rally behind a giant, flying, humans The misnamed toad is actually a slobbering, and sucking blood through its blood-sucking frog? Where do we species of frog — a huge, wet, bile : green long, hollow teeth. presume to draw the line? The giant flying creature that can weigh up to ten Unfortunately, ihis was not discovered vampire toad is the ultimate acid test of kilograms. Translucent membranes of until hordes of golfers emerged from the ecological conscience. If this unique mucoid tissue are stretched between its swamp hazard of the eighteenth hole species is to survive, steps must be taken fore and rear limbs like sails of bubbly shrieking, screaming, and trying in vain to to secure a food supply for it. of let welfare recipients use the slime, enabling it to glide for considerable pry blood-sucking frogs off the back Why not distances from treetop perches, in the their neck with two-irons. condominiums and the golf course? of golf pro a manner of a flying squirrel. Development Unlimited applied for a Under the supervision a and The giant flying vampire toad is the only variance from the Environmental doctor, of course. The trifling amount ov would lose would be nothing frog with teeth. Two of them. Upper front Protection Agency in order to demolish the blood they gain. incisors about five centimeters long, as eighteenth hole swamp hazard and compared to the benefits they would vampire symbiotic relationship. sharp as hypodermic needles, and hollow. exterminate the giant flying toad, It would be a The vampire-toad feeds through them. claiming that the law was never meant to Therefore, we say: Reopen ihe Valhalla extinct. housing and recreation Truly a unique species. apply to a species that ought to be golf course! Give of them! save But alas, at this writing, the poor The EPA righteously rejected this vile to those most in need And

amphibian seems marked for extinction, suggestion, pointing out ihat it would the giant flying vampire toad I DO

130 OMNI