Omni Magazine

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JAMESA.MICHENERON OUR FUTURE IN SPACE- BUILDING A TIME MACHINE- BRAIN WARS -TECH 2000- MULTISEX SOCIETIES- "ILUSIVE FIRST LOOK HUTTLE FLIGHT DECK onnrui EDITOR 8 DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE EXECUTIVE EDITOR: BEN BOVA ART DIRK; IOR FRANK DEVINO MANAGING EDITOR: J. ANDERSON DORMAN FICTION EDFOFi -'ORF-:T SHECKLEY EUROPEAN :i)ITOR OR BERNARD DIXON

DIRECTOR 0- AjVEFriShvrV REVIRLE i' WARDALE EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT IRWIN E. BILLMAN ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: KATHY KEETON ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER (INT'L): FRANCO ROSSELLINI

CONTENTS PAGE

FIRST WORD Opinion Stan Kent 6

OMNIBUS Contributors 8

COMMUNICATIONS Correspondence 10

FORUM Dialogue 12

EARTH Environment Norman Myers 14

LIFE Biomedicine Bernard Dixon 20

SPACE Astronomy Brian O'Leary 22

MUSIC The Arts Sam Bruskin 26

UFO UPDATE Report James Oberg 32

CONTINUUM J = ;3 55"- 35

BRAIN WARS ArBcle Richard Chapman 44

JOSIE AND THE ELEVATOR Rclion Thomas M. Disch 50

LOOKING TOWARD SPACE Article James A. Michener 56

MEN LIKE US Fiction David Drake 60

FUTURE GENDERS Article John Stdtenberg 66

GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY 2000 Pictorial Kenneth Jon Rose 76

HAZEL HENDERSON Interview Eric Rosen 86

TIME MACHINE Article Robert L. Forward 92

TIMETRAVELERS Pictorial Ellen Datlow 96

SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS Fiction Francois Camoin 102

- ^Hto,-. PEOPLE Ns~es and Faces Dick Teresi 132 WKr. EXPLORATIONS Travel David Saltman 135

STARS Comment Mark R. Chartrand III 140 wimmi SHUTTLE COCKPIT Phenomena Klaus Wilckens 142

GAMES Diversions Scot Morris 144

LAST WORD Opinion Ben Bova 146

PHOTO CREDITS 128

Cover aft for this month's Omni i~be8 Ccp-,Tic-ii(£19B0 By Omni Publics ix.-ccjEiy h Canada by OMNI Pwil.cai oi: is an untitled painting by the French artist Pierre Lacombe. The artist, who wanted to paint since age fifteen, began only ten years £;;-.' si age ihirty-eight. He now resides outside Paris. imSpace enthusiasts car demonstrate their support for NASA this: election year py donating, to the Viking Fund, -and continuingv the exploration of Mars*

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his month one of the nation's hardware in Baltimore this month. The says, and in "How to Build a Time most bizarre rituals is examined exhibition, designated Global Technology Machine" the good doctor provides all-the 2000,"will by screenwriter Richard Chap- present the latest in space details, It starts on page 92. As a visual men. "Brain Wars" (page 44) takes an equipment, wind turbines, blimps, and complement to Dr. Forward's article, we up-close look at the extracurricular hijinx other devices manufactured by some 250 present "Time Travelers." a stunning of r: Caltech students as they celebrate aerospace companies. Just in case collection of o giral an [page 96). The first Ditch Day. Chapman says he got the idea Baltimore is not on your itinerary, you'll be painting, Ring Driver, is the collaborative for the piece while researching a screen- able to sample this impressive technology effort of two artists, Richard Lon Cohen play that dealt with how young geniuses of the future in a glittering photo pictorial and Jon Towniey. The artists work from survive four years at the California institute entitled "GT 2000" (page 76). The gallery, their studio in Columbus, Ohio, and have of Technology. The film will be a comedy, produced by photojournalist Anthony done covers for Heavy Metal magazine exploring life in the intellectual fast lane, Wolff, is a. montage of photographs shot and Dell, Ace, and Scribner's. illustrating that !he "individuals our society mostly by Wolff and photographer Douglas Omni's May fiction features writers Tom derisively labels eggheads are not Kirkland. Kirkland was a staff photog- Disch ("Josie and the Elevator," page 50) hard-boiled automatons. but, rather, a rapher with Life and Look magazines for and Francois Camoin ("Some of My Best delightful omelet of crealivily, warmth, and many years and has put together an Friends Are Americans," page 102). The wii, with hearts as large as their brains." impressive portfolio containing candid first tells about elevators and what might

Chapman has procuc&d feature films photos of many favorite celebrities. happen if you're not nice to one. Camoin's and is affiliated with Columbia Pictures. This monlh's Earth column, "Ecocide" story is a grim one in which Americans "I fear that the grave potentials of space (page 14), is provided by conservation have become vassals without rights in warfare have yet to be impressed upon the specialist Dr. Norman Myers. Dr. Myers their own country. American public," says famed novelist recently published The Sinking Ark Finally, economist Hazel Henderson James A. Michener. In "Looking Toward (Pergamon Press). He has also completed oiscusses a lernalive futures in this Space" (page 56) Michener explores the a survey for the National Academy of month's Interview (page 86), and lack of a comprehensive U.S. space effort. Sciences on tropical forests, the report on aerospace engineer Stan Kent makes a Born in New York City in 1907, Michener which has just been released by the plea for the Viking Fund in "First Word" launched his career by editing textbooks National Research Council, Washington, (page 6). for a New York firm— a position that was DC. \nOmni. Myers ciscusses the We are pleased to announce that our interrupted by World War II. His wartime disappearance of lesser-known species, profile of astronomer Stephen Hawking exoeuences in the Solomon Islands such as rare tropical plants and insects. ("The Wizard of Space and Time," by provided Michener with the idea for his Eventually these losses will affect the Dennis Overbye. February 1979) has firsl book, 7afes of the South Pacific. Other biosphere of the entire planet. received the 1980 American Institute of Michener best-sellers are The Bridges at. Although we cannot yet control the Physics Award for Journalism. This

; Toko-Ri .Caravans . Hawaii , and The Source. engines and masses required to make a prestigious acknow eogment s given The American Institute of Aeronautics time machine, we know the principles each year to the one article that best and Astronautics is sponsoring a behind time travel. That's what physicist explains the science of physics to the spectacular display of technology and and Science writer Dr. Robert L. Forward layman. OQ nnrui HTE cDruiRnuaiicAToais

Ground-in Dirl 1979] and feel compelled to make a few In his account of Leon Lederman's comments.

appearance on the Phil Donahue show First of all, the so-called $10,000 "prize" [People, February 1980], Dick Teresi ottered by Mr. Philip Klass for proof of wriies, "Oddly enough, the high-energy extraterrestrial UFO visits in the twentieth physicist proved to be a big hit with the century is a bet, not a prize, Those of us ladies." ufologists who have taken that bet must What's so odd about women being pay Mr. Klass $100 per year up to ten interested in physics? years, against his promise to pay us Undoubtedly, there was a lime when an S10.000 should we demonstrate such UFO interest in (he physical world was proof as long as we both are alive. considered unladylike. But nowadays an Considering that Mr. Klass is about 25

understanding of particle physics is a years older than I, I'm essentially betting must for getting out really ground-in dirt. that the proof will come in the next ten Janice M. Fillip years or so. I've already paid five times. Mr. Los Angeles, Calif. Klass is risking little: He has several people paying in, and he has put up no

Dick Teresi replies: If you'll reread my money. If the proof is forthcoming, our own

column, you'll see that I did not find it odd currency will have the same value as that women were interested in physics, but Polynesian shells and coconut husks had in a physicist Talk shows such as for visiting Europeans and Americans. His Donahues normally feature doctors, estate is nol liable; so he can't really lose. politicians, movie stars, movie stars' wives, Even taking all these factors into

politicians' wives, and sexual deviants of account, I took him up on the bet. I believe

all possible description. But physicists? I am right, and I'm willing to back up my How many times was Isaac Newton invited belief. Anyway, it's great fun and a fine on early morning television? And what conversational topic. about James Clerk Maxwell? Here the man One does wonder, however, why Mr. gives the world four equations explaining Klass excluded all but the twentieth the electromagnetic effect, thus making century from the bei. Is he not telling the very existence of television possible. something? and he doesn't even rate an appearance ArlanK. Andrews on The Gong Show. Indianapolis, Ind.

Seriously I did not intend to demean women by implying they would not be Heavenly Peace

interested in physics. I was simply making In regard to the item on astro burial

a comment on the rarity of a physicist [Continuum, February 1980], I had begun showing up on the tube, and Donahue is to drawing plans to develop the Interstellar be commended for inviting Lederman on Burial Corporation. Why, for goodness his show. Still, Donahue revealed some sake, spend $3,000 to get your cremated

insecurity toward his guest in the opening remains lofted into Earth orbit? If NASA statements of the show, to wit: "This is requires $1 .8 million for room in the main

going to be Interesting. I mean, maybe it'll cargo hold of the space shuttle, why not

be interesting. " As it turned out, there take a lease out on immortality?

were no "maybes" about it. I am drawing up a charier for members

As for your ground-in dirt, I'd recom- to be cryogenically suspended at death. • mend adding half a cup of antiquarks These frozen bodies will be put in during the rinse cycle. This will annihilate specially made capsules, placed in racks SO any stain within 10 years. to accommodate the cargo space interior with propulsion systems to launch the Paying Through the Nose capsules into interstellar trajectories.

I've just finished reading the article by Capsules could also be launched in highly Scol Morris entitled ''Prizes" [December elliptical and eccentric orbits so that they DIALOGUE FORURJl

In which the readers, editors, and made, eradicating sevsia Ki ler diseases preveni tragedies such as "hose caused correspondents ens-cuss r epics arising out of the past; it also singles out ihe by Thalidomide and DES. The aim of the of Omni and iheo^es and speculation of ungrateful "shock troops of ignorance" regulators is the same as that of the general interest are brought forth. The who tend lo place the blame for society's researchers — to secure benefits to views published are not necessarily those ills on the head of science. However, it is humanity. The same concerns that apply of the editors. Letters for publication difficult to see how this small, myopic to medical science should guide progress should be mailed to Omni Forum, Omni group could ever "destroy science" simply in other technological fields. The potential Magazine, 909 Third Avenue, New York, by demonstrating and shouting, "No more for damage is so great in areas like NY 10022. nukes," "No research on intelligence." or, nuclear power, toxic chemical production, "No DNA experiments." and genetic engineering that regulation The Good Life The ability of science to control the should be proportionally cautious.

it legitimate Scientists the I really enjoyed ihe article "The Good Life monsters creates is the have been working on Underground" [January 19801, by Mike concern of citizens and deserves an problems of containerization, shipment,

Edelhart; however, ii did not tell where to answer, not pious ridicule. The voice of and disposal of radioactive waste for 40 get more information on building reason does not cry, "Stop scientific years without a solution. It seems underground homes. Fuel costs are going research," or. "Proceed at all cost." reasonable that the problems should be

sky-high. So when I build my home, I Reason says, "Let science proceed — with solved before 200 nuclear-power plants would like to build an energy-efficient caution and wisdom to match," are built, not to build in anticipation of a habitat underground. I would be interested Rulon Hacking solution. in corresponding with some people who Taos, N,M. I hope that Mr. Bova would agree that already have an underground house to reasonable and thoughtful people can see what they like and don't like. Shame on Ben Bova, using a national work together by these methods to reach Scoti R. Garcia forum like Omni lo call people names. new horizons. Hollisier, Calif. His editorial in February seems to be Vicki Black making the argument that since medical Denver, Colo.

I would like to obtain more information on science has wrought miracles that have how to build an underground home, "revolutionized everyone's life, anyone Ben Bova replies: It is fascinating to see together with blueprints and diagrams. questioning technological activities or how people howl when they are on the Could you please send further details advocating controlled testing and receiving end of an emotional argument. If about the companies and individuals that development is a member of "the armies my line about "shock troops of the armies design underground homes? of ignorance." of ignorance" has caused readers to open DanielJohn Macke Regulation of medical science is not their eyes, good. Cincinnati, Ohio meant to hamper research but to try to Civilizations have been destroyed by barbarians in the past. We must be aware Mike Edelhart replies: I'm gratified, and our civilization could be destroyed by overwhelmed, by the response to the those armies of ignorance that use underground housing article. You can slogans in place of rational thought. write these people for assistance. The I have no quarrel with those who have single best source is: Earth Sheltered examined the evidence on nuclear power Housing Design, The Underground Space and have drawn conclusions that disagree Center, 11 Mines and Metallurgy Bldg., 221 with my own. It's the slogan-shouting Church Street, S.E., Minneapolis, MN mobs that bother me. They are too easily 55455. Send $10 (prepaid). They have a manipulated, and when they run out of one complete list of underground houses, cause to protest against, they find designs, architects, andsuppliers. Other another — even if someone has to create it good sources: Malcolm Wells, P.O. Box for them. 1149, Brewster, MA 02631; John Barnard, As far as nuclear power is concerned, it 1054 Main Street, Osterville, MA 02655. is far safer and less carcinogenic than coal. We ail look forward to the day when The Voice of Reason solar energy will solve our problems. But

Ben Bova'seditoriai mOmni's February until then it is nuclear power that provides issue rightly calls attention to some oi the the electricity for my home, without it we truly remarkable strides science has Going underground: clean and efficient. would be freezing in the dark.

12 OMNI CCNIINUtDONPAGEUM EMRTH By Norman Myers

I ^% | e are destroying— killing off thousands of species are actually being Asia, a biological treasure house to the irrevocably— at least one pushed toward extinction. The scientist I !| i, I cause: and a commercial gold mine to U vv plant or animal species every destruction of habitats by man's insatiable business interests. (Similarly ecosystem day. each day of the year. If present need for raw materials, such as lumber destruction imperils other species-rich trends continue, we may lose one species and minerals. habitats, such as coral reefs and wet- per hour by the end of the decade. In all. Moreover, the problem is even more crit- lands.) risk the we possibility of wiping out 1 ical in areas we know little about. Moist Man's domination over creation is a million of the earth's estimated million 5 to tropical forests cover less than 10 percent wholly new situation. It implies a total 10 million species by the year 2000. of the earth's surface yet contain 40 to responsibility a consideration of how What is the basis for this dismal prog- 50 percent of the earth's species. These evolution works to create the diversity so 7 nosis is the outlook really this bleak? forests are being destroyed on an beneficial to us. In the past the animals that we have alarming scale by unrestricted logging. One of the apparent rules of evolution recognized as endangered species have Many of these forests are unlikely to suggests thai an outburst of extinctions been the more obvious or endearing survive in their present form past the end may lead to explosion an of speciation , the creatures: whales, tigers, whooping of the century if we don't change our ways. process whereby new species come into or cranes, bald eagles. But other types of Unlike temperate-forest species, which existence. Large numbers of niches, or species are far numerous; more Insects, are far less abundant, tropical-forest "ecological living spaces," will open, for example, in number the millions (no species tend to have specialized enabling new species to occupy them. one knows exactly ' how many), compared ecological requirements or are limited to And with these new niches will come the to the 42,000 known vertebrates habitats totaling just a few hundred square stimulation for speciation. (mammals, birds, fishes, reptiles, and kilometers. This leaves them extremely Unfortunately, the organisms that amphibians). If we could document these susceptible to extinction once their occupy these new niches are by definition myriad creatures — along with the environment has been destroyed. The first opportunistic, pioneering types. We thousands of unknown plant species that wave of mass extinctions is already already have some examples of these exist— we might find that hundreds of occurring in the rainforests of Southeast "clever" species in our immediate environment: rats, sparrows, starlings, cockroaches, and "weedy" plants, to name a few. Thus, we may plague the world with the worst kinds of creatures—

a prospect all the more troublesome if we've also eliminated the predators and parasites thai keep these opportunistic species in check. One compelling reason for saving wild species is their intrinsic economic value. Of the 1 percent of all species that have been investigated lor their economic value, many thousands already make sizable contributions to food, medicine, and industry. Extinction of the huge, uncategorized, and unknown quantities of creatures precludes their making a confribution that may benefit humankind. For example, we can't know which of the earth's 250,000 plant species — one third of which are edible— may make a substantial contribution to future diets. Humans have used only 3,000 of these for food throughout history, and fewer than 20 kinds of plants — notably rice, corn, wheat, and soybeans— presently account for 90 percent of the food we consume daily. A '.gers are arn:>::g ;ho endangered species w e pe: dsy each year. survey conducted by the National 14 OMNI COVTINUFP ON PAGE 125 GALACTIC GERMS

By Dr. Bernard Dixon

notion that Earth originally that The was outbreaks occur just as if the microbes ultraviolet lighi ai .vaveiergrhs :hey do not "seeded" with living organisms responsible were arriving sporadically experience on Earth. But to argue, as the from space has now taken on a and vertically instead of being skeptics do, that these evolved to sustain modern guise. Sir Fred Hoyle. the eminent transmitted horizontally across the earth's microbes before this planet acquired an cosmologist, has revised the theory to skin from person to person. At Eton atmosphere evades an important point. explain why unwelcome viruses arrive to College and schools in Cardiff, Wales, for Why should such machinery have plague us even today. example, some students' living quarters endured for billions of years after it was no Diseases from Space, which Hoylehas have been heavily affected by influenza longer required? Hoyle's reply: The written with Professor Chandra while others have not been affected. The machinery exists so microbes can journey Wickramasinghe, is being published in the infection is not distributed randomly, as safely to Earth.

United States in June. The book is one would expect if people were passing The alarming feature of the second destined to cause a sensation because of the virus one to another. skeptical argument is that, although renewed concern over the origin of novel Critics of this hypothesis focus on three textbooks assuredly present a satisfying strains of influenza. Does Hoyle provide a points. First, microbes could not tolerate picture of how flu viruses originate and convincing answer? radiation in outer space. Second, we develop, the past few months have seen In his earlier work Hoyle theorized lhai understand perfectly well how new renewed controversy over the whole some 4 billion years ago comets ferried influenza viruses arise, by genetic subject. 7ne Lancet {1980, 7, 186), for prebiotic substances to our planet. Then recombination among old ones. Third, it is example, pointed out that we still need micrometeors brought life itself. But do inconceivable that microorganisms proper evidence to show how flu viruses clouds of viruses continue raining down generated in space should be so survive so efficiently; work by Dr. R. E. upon us, accounting for intermittent exquisitely engineered as to invade the Hope-Smith, which suggests that flu virus ravages of such infections as influenza, human respiratory tract. does not persist in the community by cholera-, or even the common cold? At this The first objection can be answered, not being transmitted between people, was point the story takes off into what most just plausibly, but devastating ly Bacteria cited in the Lancet article. Dr. microbiologists regard as science fiction. and viruses have highly efficient Hope-Smith's answer is that the virus lies The main thrust of Hoyle's argument is mechanisms to repair damage caused by latent, but this is no more than speculation. Scientists at the Mount Sinai School of

Medicine, in New York City, are still puzzling over why the so-called H1N1 virus

reemerged in 1977 after "disappearing" in the late 1950s (Proc. Wat. Acad. Sci. ,76.. 6547). Amid such uncertainty can anyone afford to dismiss Hoyle's hypotheses? We must take the thi'd criticism more seriously. Why is influenza virus so beautifully designed to invade the

respiratory tract of Homo sapiens if it is a product of interstellar space? The staggering complexity of flu virus— with components perfectly adapted to penetrate particular tissues and then mobilize the cells' machinery to fabricate new particles — surely supports the idea

that it originated on Earth, not in space far from the dictates of organic evolution. Nonetheless, the practical implications

of this possibility are disturbing. If influenza and other plagues really do emerge in outer space, our skill in dealing with them is undoubtedly built on shakier foundations than we had supposed. Could fear make us less inclined to accept such ';' -day c an idea?OQ OMNI ASTEROID AGRICULTURE

By Brian O'Leary

The world hunger problem is This could cause widsspre^c shortages successfully grown wheat and made getting worse rather than better," and famine. bread. They've done experiments in said the recent report of the Terrestrial solutions of the world food space, too, preparing for long-term, Presidential Commission on World Hunger problem are elusive. The development of agriculturally self-supporting, orbiting "A major crisis of global food supply— of modern agriculture— the so-called Green settlements.

even more serious dimensions than the Revolution (efforts over the last 20 years to A number of scientists in the United present energy crisis— appears likely grow more food per acre in poor States have investigated the feasibility of within the next 20 years, unless steps are countries)— bought some time but carrying on intersive agr culture in space

. taken now. . , Moral obligation alone would appears to have reached its limits. to supply food for the inhabitants of space justify giving highest priority to the task of Nobody seems interested in meeting the settlements. Grains, bread, poultry, and overcoming hunger." high capital costs of intensified, pigs could be raised in closed agricultural This assessment is neither new nor controlled-environment agriculture in areas adjacent to orbiting colonies, where uncorroborated. For years, agricultural greenhouses. And agronomists believe light, temperature, and moisture can be scientists have been warning us of some that U.S. food production, once regarded varied according to the requirements of a ominous trends: The food supply is as mankind's ultimate ace in the hole, has particular crop. dwindling as the world's population grows. now plateaued. "The rate of growth of Space inhabitants could develop the full Water resources are becoming even agriculture production has slowed down," complement of crops and livestock scarcer in potential crop areas. The use says Anson Bertrand, of the U.S. instead of resorting to the dullness of of fertilizers is creating environmental Department of Agriculture. "We this see dehydrated foods and Tang, about which , damage, including possible- ozone leveling off not only in the United States the astronauts have complained. depletion in the atmosphere. Drought but globally as well." Droughts, pests, and pervasive disease- and severe climatic conditions continue to What are our chances of growing food even the passage of seasons — could be fluctuations cause in food production. in space? The Soviet Union is well on eliminated. Fertilizer could be produced in The increasing genetic uniformity of its way to proving that space agriculture space by using solar heat to combine crops also creates problems. By is feasible. The Russians have isolated nitrogen and oxygen from the developing fewer strains of food plants, we people for up to six months in closed asteroids. The supply of materials make Ihem more vulnerable io disease. environments, where they have available for agricultural facilities would grow exponentially as colonies were

completed; so it would be possible to construct huge areas for growing food in space. Although the workability of closed agricultural ecologies has not yet been

conclusively verified, it appears likely that, sooner or later, food will be grown successfully in space. Recent engineering studies suggest that our most cost-effective means of supplying electricity could be to build satellite solar-power stations and send their output to Earth via microwave links. The stations would be built in space of materials retrieved from the shallow gravity wells of the moon and asteroids. One study showed that a lunar mining and launching facility and a space chemical- processing plant could be built for between $5 million and S10 million. The first satellite power station would be completed only two years later.

Even if satellite power does not turn out to be the primary inceniive for developing the resources of space, the study con- Set. ould begin to ease Ear'irs 'ooa shoriaae in 30 years. cluded that lunar materials could be 22 OMNI ON PAGF '27 THE ART5 By Sam Bruskin

ax Mathews invented ^^k ^^ com- advantage of tie cemouier as musical ple started askn'c to- copies of Music V i| I , I I puier music in a display instrument: "It can make the sound of any and started working in their various places." I *^ Iw ndowat IBM's headquarters instrument that exists today or of JohnChowning, at Stanford University, in New York City That was in 1957. Nearly a any instrument that anyone can possibly developed Music 10 for another kind of quarter century later Dr. Mathews, now conceive of making in the future." computer; Barry Vercoe wrote Music 3.60 director of acoustic and behavioral For Mathews, this relationship between for the IBM 360. Computer music was here research at Bell Laboratories: continues to music and the computer started one night to stay. maintain his involvement with computers in 1957 when he attended a piano recital In creating computer-music software, and music— an unbroken duet. Mathews, with his friend John Pierce. "The the first problem Mathews encountered in fact, is one of the foremost advocates of Schonberg was quite good," Mathews was programming- how to calculate the the collaboration of scientists and artists recalls, "bu: the Schnabsi was awful. 30,000 digits per second of sound. "You that leapfrogging through goes modern During the intermission Pierce and I can't ask the composer to write down each history. looked at each other, and we agreed, 'The individual number; that's too much work. Mathews has consistently recognized computer ought to be able to do better You have to gel an ingenious program that the point at which artistic advances than this!' So I tried writing a program to lets the composer decide what he wants to produce scientific response. He calls for synthesize music." Mathews rented time control— such as pitch, loudness, scientists to recognize their responsibility on the IBM 707, a machine so new at the duration, and starting time of the notes. to art— to make innovations in technology time that the only available model he could That should be all he has to write on the available to the artist. rent display. the was on Hence, computer score, That's what Music I really does. If At his home in Murray Hill, New Jersey, scientist in the show window. takes the relatively b''e" descriptions by over a beer and supper, this pioneer of "That was Music I," he says. "It was a the composers and generates the very sound and speech processing gave Omni simple program: It had only one voice, one detailed sound wave," a short course in computer music. timbre, one loudness, one attack and There was another major obstacle to By researching speech analysis- decay — and produced terrible sounds." generating computer music, the question central to automatic speech recognition Mathews continued to produce the Music Mathews found the most challenging. He and low-charnel-capi?.City speech program, writing Music II, III, IV, and V calls it the psychorJCous::c problem, In a transmission— Mathews and his which is in general use today. "Other-peo- physical sense, he says, we do not colleagues developed the First methods for understand why sound waves produce a simulating telephones on computers. given impression or timbre. With traditional "That meant when we wanted to try a new instruments one need not understand the phone,- we didn't actually have to build it," physical sound wave, The musician has he said. "We could simply write a only to understand the istrument that is computer program at one end. The producing it. Not so with the computer: speech passed through the program, and Everything is new, and one has to specify you heard it at the other end as if it had everything about the sound wave. gone through the real telephone." This "You have to understand sound and its work was fundamental to the development effect on the ear in a much more of computer music. fundamental sense than ever before," The basic principle for making Mathews comments. Musicians of the computer-generated speech or music, future might study not only music theory Mathews says, is the digitization of sound. but also computer programming, "Sound is a pressure wave in the air that acoustics, and the physiology of hearing. changes rapidly from instant to instant," he Mathews began work on the explains. "We measure these changes psychoacoustic problem with French very frequently; I'd say thirty thousand composer and physicist Jean-Claude times each second . On a computer each Risset. "Risset studied the trumpet to of these measurements becomes a num- understand what made a brass sound ber, so that a second's worth of sound brasslike. Basically, people in the past is thirty thousand numbers." By this were guessing what produced brass technique, called digital-to-analog con- sounds, but Risset had the computer to version, ah~y sound heard by the human test out his hunches. He could get some ear can be reproduced from numbers. trumpet tones that were indistinguishable This is theoretically the most attractive from actual ones. We called this technique a 3

analysis by synthesis, and because of it conductor are accomplished with this right, let's give the mien control to the

we understand far more about normal device. It sets tempos and balances the computer' The obvious way to do it is with instruments now than we did back in the voices. It goes through a rehearsal phase; a sequential-control mechanism and a Fifties." it puts the right information in the score. So far I've only built this drum, a The state of the art in computer music is memory— information a conductor monophonic instrument. But think about real-time synthesis. "In sound the last ten couldn't put in during the performance. sequential control of pitches applied to a years people have built special-purpose The 'musicians' must be trained in advance. polyphonic voice— a whole orchestra of digital circuits that are fast enough to and the computer is especially nice in that voices!" calculate one second's worth of sound in respect; Once trained, it never forgets." At the heart of this science-art interface one second," the composer says. "They Mathews also invented a musician- is the relationship between the people couldn't before. Now you can make a machine interaction that he calls the involved. Mathews, the scientist, has computer instrument-that can be played sequential-percussion device. "You hit the worked extensively with musicians and [ike a normal instrument; that is, a surface of this two-foot rectangle like a composers. He himself is an avid violinist, performer can perform on it." normal drum, bul the impact doesn't and he enjoys demonstrating the bodiless Analog synthesizers, such as the produce a sound. Instead, it produces electric violin that he developed. well-known Moog, are quite different from three electrical signals. The computer "1 think the relationship between a instruments. computer Mathews generates the sound from the three scientist and an artist can be a very describes the synthesizer as a "machine signals." personal one. For some time I worked at that generates and modifies an electrical One signal is proportional to how hard IRCAM [.Institute for Research in the

' signal and eventually applies it to hits the a one drum. "Usually I use this Coordination of Acoustics and Music], in loudspeaker and gels acoustic signal." signal an to initiate a note. It detects the fact France, with Pierre Boulez. The institute is It contains oscillators to generate signals that the drum is hit and determines how a mixture of musicians and scientists, at various pitches, filters to modify the loud the note should be. This is the rather and through that I've come to understand spectrum and timbre, and generators to traditional use. The two other signals are more the difference between these two start and stop the oscillators at the kinds of people. beginning and end of notes. "It concerns what one's looking for in "The computer, however, is actually a life. Scientists, in general, get kicks out of memory unit holding a lot of numbers— solving problems, discovering something calculating machine that can add. about the nature of the world. The subtract, multiply and divide those 67776 Schonberg was good, musician — the artist in general — gets his numbers. Of course you must have a but the Schnabel was kicks out of experiencing emotions; so the program to make this unit calculate musician has awful. During intermission reai'v to experience the numbers that sound like music when you music almost on a daily basis. If he

convert them it to sound. Although they do Pierce and I looked doesn't, he feels dissatisfied. The in different ways, the synthesizer and the at each other and agreed scientist, however, is dissatisfied if he's computer can do the same job, but the unable to solve the problem that he's is that the computer computer able to do more." working on, unable to discover something Yet there are "dumb ways to play ought to be able to do new. I think the creative process is similar intelligent machines." Mathews calls one in both cases." this of them the organ better than mode. When someone Where will this relationship of musician plays a computer like a traditional piano or and computer take us? Will the computer, note organ one at a time, he wastes the the tool, shape human forms into more instrument's potential. Another he refers to machinelike images? as the tape-recorded mode, where one "I don't think the function of the puts the entire score of the composition the X and the Y coordinates, where you hit computer will be to depreciate music," into the the computer, presses button, and the drum. I usually use these to control the Mathews says. "I trust that as a result of lets the the entire machine perform piece. timbre of the sound being played. I use X the computer's facility people will be able "This is unsatisfactory both to the to control the decay time of the note: Hit on to appreciate music more. performer and the to audience. The the right, it decays slowly on the left, "Computers will add a new dimension to doesn't think performer he's expressing rapidly. I use Y to control the richness of music, especially the home computer. It himself, the and audience don't think the timbre. If I hit the drum at the top, I gel will be sufficiently easier to play so that they're hearing a performance." a large harmonic content— a rich, many people who otherwise could only Other modes characteristic of somewhat harsh sound; if I hit the drum listen to music will become active music-making computers are more near the bottom, it produces a smooth musicians. This may be the biggest interesting. Mathews refers, for instance, sound." accomplishment of the home computer to John Appleton and his Synclavier. "One What is sequential about it? "The pitch. market."

of Appieton's techniques I call the The drum is tuned like timpani. It can play Automatic speech synthesis and music-minus-one mode. He programs different pitches. The score is put into the speech recognition, too, are changing several voices into the Synclavier's computer ahead of time, as a sequence of the relationship between machines and memory that play themselves pitches. I Each time hit the drum I get the people. "We now have complicated, automatically. Then he performs one or next note in the sequence automatically." large-scale integrated circuits that make it more voices on the instrument's keyboard There is a philosophy of instrument-as- possible to build powerful and practical in synchrony with the voices that come slave behind this sequential madness, speech recognizers," Mathews points out. from the memory. If he's feeling and especially Mathews defends it: "Pitch, in the "It's clear that we can use these devices to vigorous some night, he can play all the majority of musical styles, is one of the communicate between people and voices, and if he's feeling especially lazy, parameters the performer has no freedom computers. Machines will be able to he can downplay them, play either or about. one He must play the pitch the speak to people, and speaking is a very two of the voices or play none of composer specified, them." has or he's effective way to communicate. Humans, in There is another manifestation considered to Mathews have played a sour note. a limited way at least, will be able to speak calls the conductor mode. "I arranged Well, it an seemed to me that anything the to machines, and the machines will electric baton, if you will, to control the performer had no control over, he understand the voice commands given computer. Many of the functions of shouldn't a have to control. So I said, All tothem."DO 30 OMNI HONEST ILLUSIONS UFD UPDATE By James Oberg

ne major difficulty in explaining The plane, which admittedly looked Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the UFOs seen by honest, sober, quite strange from certain angles, became She'loc; Homes. Doylewrole The clearheaded, and clear-eyed a UFO because, according to the report, Coming ol the Fairies in 1921, claiming that wilnesses is: There are hundreds ol "Ihe pervasive emotional climate that by all laws of scientific evidence, the prosaic and explainable ways in which appears to be surrounding the entire UFO existence of little creatures in gauzy people can be fooled by their own senses. subject succeeds in distorting even the clothes, playing panpipes, could not be The stories that come oul of those most commonplace sightings into legitimately denied. Shearer, needless to misperceplions are frequently as fantastic exaggerated miracles." This Irap is one say, is incredulous about fairies, but he as the UFO stories that remain "true." that UFO investigators all too frequently has been unable to persuade many UFO Where can the line be drawn? fail lo avoid when presented with earnest, buffs nol to believe in them. The files of J. Allen Hynek's Center lor honest UFO reports. Philip J. Klass has also been routinely UFO Studies provide good examples of True believers insist that Iheir setting off miJiimegator detonations the problems facing UFO investigators phenomenon is real because hundreds of among the ranks of UFO believers. Miffed J who try to di ~o r Gr-iials? between UFOs and high-quality eyew tress reports and when UFO experts in 1968 ridiculed a

IFOs (identified flying objects) based on dozens of pho'ograohs exist that have not serious (and still tenable) suggestion that Ihe "strangeness" of the eyewitness been exposed as hoaxes. But photog- many UFOs were actually ball lightning,

accounts. On April 29, 1978. ten different raphy expert Robert Sheaffer claims that if the by-nature ccrnbalive aviavon reporter people called Ihe Aurora, Illinois, police this proves UFOs are real, then people threw himself into serious investigations of department to report a UFO. The object have got to believe in fairies, too. what were regarded as the best classic * appeared to be a saucer flying at freetop "The evidence for (airies is at least as UFO cases. He often dug up startling (and level, although size estimates ranged from good as the evidence for UFOs." Sheaffer embarrassing) new evidence, but he has about eight meters across to "as big as a has writlen, tongue only partly in cheek. become a pariah among UFO circles. football field." After hovering motionless, "There are books full of eyewitness With the dealh of astronomer Donald the object then shot off eastward "in the reports, and photographs, too." Menzel in 1976, Klass has emerged as the blink of an eye." Several witnesses were One of the most ardent pro-fairy nation's leading UFO skeptic. He spurns badly shaken by the experience. spokesmen was noted Bms.n author Sir the word dehunker, which connotes knee-jerk dismissals of novel or unorthodox points of view. Instead, he attempts lo investigate UFO cases more deeply than might other researchers who have subconscious desires to find actual proof of extraterrestrial visitors. W Concenlrating only on the generally acclaimed "best cases," Klass has often exposed the superficiality of work done by pro-UFO experts. In 1977 Klass joined with scientists and educa'.o's re '"om~ t~e Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, a group lhal has denounced the easy acceptance by the public of allegedly baseicss be'iets in astrology, the Bermuda Triangle, ESR "ancient

astronauts, " and other "modern myihs." Klass heads a small but potent band of skeptical investigators called the UFO Subcommittee (Sheaffer is alsoa member). At the very least, this group demands the lightening of standards in so-called scientific ufology. The level of carelessness of many pro-UFO experts

has markedly declined, and so progress is Lenticular clouds, such ol UFO rni:;purc.cpiior'. being made. DO 32 OMNI CDQJTinJUUfUl

A MANHATTAN PROJECT" FOR ENERO

0^ Bhen the Arabs imposed their oil embargo in scientists work best in a climate in which they feel urgently Il973, President Nixon called for a "Manhattan needed and where their technical needs are quickly met. $ I :»!, 3 ; £ k Bproject" for energy. This was an announcement When Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Deng Xiaoping came to W ^^Pof some interest to the veterans of World War ll's Washington in 1979 specifically to forge three scientific agree- Manhattan Project who remembered — vividly and fondly— their ments, it was symptomatic that the presidential guest list, replete excitement and personal dedication in constructing a reactor for with stars- of stage and screen, wasastonishingly shy on Ameri- the first application of nuclear lission and then, tearful that the can men of science. What might well have been a celebration of Nazis might obtain a nuclear weapon first.'racing to make an America's high-energy physics, space technology, and as- atomic bomb. tronomy was instead a showcase for Shirley MacLaine and Those of us who were involved in that effort recalled thai the others from Hollywood. Given such direction from the top, it's no* project had enlisted the very best physicists in the country: not wonder that Jane Fonda = op ricrs on energy receive more atten- just Fermi and Oppenheimer, but- Bethe, Feynman, Segre. Al- tion from the media than Hans Bethe's. varez, Seaborg, Chamberlain, McMillan— all Nobel laureates- The very best encouragement to fruitful scientific work, of to-be. Even among scientists of lesser stature there was tremen- course, isn't encomium but financial support. To the uninformed, dous psychological pressure to do their best and a sense of money so spent seems wasteful. Twentieth-century science is urgency, of importance, of being indispensable. The project was certainly expensive, but it is the only hope for the kind of miracu- directed by General Leslie Fi. Groves, an army engineer, but he lous "breakthrough," such as.fusion, that would enable us to turn had the advice of respected elder statesmen ol science, J. B. a million turbines with water from the sea. The scientific basis for Conant, Vannevar Bush, and Arthur Compton; so the conditions fusion is as firm as it was for fission when the Manhattan Project of work were sympathetic. Under the exigencies of wartime, began. Representative Mike McCormack. a scientist himself, formalities were set aside. It was an extremely expensive under- has introduced a bill in Congress to accelerate the fusion pro- taking and a gamble at that. At Los Alamos we were "living in gram, to make it a real national comrviment similar to the Apollo anticipation of a congressional investigation" with petty Project or the Manhattan Project. For this gamble the ante is economies such as no street lighting and wretched coal cooking billions of dollars. Will we pay the price? stoves. Still, the work itself was never hampered by lack of money. Funding alone is not enough without intelligent direction. "How Could the United States, faced with its energy crisis, duplicate can we accomplish much?" the director of one of our national the Manhattan Project in terms of the devotion and quality of its laboratories laments. "It's ninety percent paperwork and ten personnel and in terms of financial and moral support? percent planning!" Scientists spend so much of their day in one Has the United States even tried? Since Nixon's call for self- meeting after another thai their hours of research are drastically sufficiency, we have seen an alarming increase in our depend- cut. It is widely believed that the Department of Energy binds ence on imported oil, affecting our foreign policy and devastat- would-be. giants in red tape. There are plenty of experienced ing our economy. What was cause for concern in 1973 is a clear administrators of the caliber of Conant and Bush in the United and present danger today. During those years the AEC became States, but few are in Washington, D.C. ERDA, which in turn was transmogrified into the Department of Nixon was distracted from his goal of applying "the lessons of Project" our Energy. With each name change, il became bigger, more cum- the Apollo Project and the earlier Manhattan to bersome, less flexible. Itisnowaswollenmonsterthatisafar cry energy needs. Those lessons still remain the same: generous from the tidy Manhattan Project. financing undo' qualified scientific direction without excessive

It is certainly late in the game to urge the President and his bureaucratic restraints. If we heed them, then, just as Nixon said, advisers to pursue a more productive course, but it will never get "We can do extraordinary things." We, who were with the Manhat- earlier. What can be learned from the Manhattan Project is that tan Project, think that we can.—JANE S. WILSON coruTiruuunn

THERMO-SKYSHIPS Although not designed to VEGETARIAN PETS the [pet] diet to clients of replace long-haul airplanes, mine who are vegetarians." Commulers of the future will the Thermo-Skyships, with a And now radical chic for Beyond the matter of con- ride io work in blimps maximum speed of 90 knots, the health-food set: vegeta- science, however, Pitcairn shaped like flying if saucers may actually reduce travel- rian dogs and cats. says his vegetarian pet diet a British company called ing time because they can In a recent issue of Pre- could tree conventional pro- Thermo-Skyships, Ltd., land has within selected cities vention magazine, among tein sources for people. its way. The is company try- rather than on the outskirts, the ads for dolomite and While meaty pet foods oc- ing to finance vertical -take- The revolutionary vehicles vitamin E, a column by cupy an entire aisle of many off-and-landing vehicles, will also run almost as quietly veterinarian Richard H. supermarkets, there is a Pitcairn explains how growing shortage of high- vegetarians can wean their quality protein for humans. pets from animal tissue with- Pets may not respond as out subjecting them to phys- well to their new diet as do ical side effects. the animals at chow time on Dr. Pitcairn notes that TV commercials. "Cats are dogs need 10 limes as much particularly reluctant to protein as humans do per change their eating habits, pound of body weight; cats but they can be eased along need 20 times as much. So by adding butter to some of he prescribes a carefully the new fare," the magazine balanced diet of rolled oats, says. However, cats need a brewer's yeast, brown rice, particular amino acid found beans, cornmeal, cauliflow- mostly in animal tissue; so er, bran, and kelp powder, their alternative diet allows among other things. them two servings of meat or "I live in Santa Cruz fish each week. [California], where there are — Stuart Diamond a lot of vegetarians, compared with the rest of the Woaro little > when country." Pitcairn said rn an '' :,rw3pe ij' fiymg saucer; may one interview. "I yed by turboprop engines.

as the Goodyear blimp. blimps and helicopters, that Passengers will be seated will be used to transport around the periphery, where passengers and cargo over they can enjoy the scenery. short distances. By avoiding the traffic con- This Thermo-Skyship 100 gestion that traditional forms will use helium for its main of transportation create. lifting power and turboprop Thermo-Skyships, Ltd., engines for thrust and will plans to attract passengers be capable of carrying up to who appreciate a quiet and ten tons and 100 pas- efficient form of travel, even if sengers. Major advantages it does look like a leftover the Skyship 100 has over prop from Forbidden Planet. conventional ships include a — JaneBosveld shape and thrust system that ensure control even at low "There is a hopeful airspeeds and an ability to symbolism in the fact thai be easily anchored to the Hags will not wave in a ground for loading and un- vacuum." r Your faithful dog or c;; piobsbU- prole's horsemeat or tun loading. —Arthur C.Clarke expert e-pn'ains lien fo transform them into veggie nosher 36 OMNI EDUCATIONAL information better for re- RED STAR pass through the MHD ALCOHOL trieval later on. In the study, POWER BOOST stage, they can be put mice were put in a lighted through aconventional Will alcohol one day be- chamber connected to a The world's largest dem- steam-power plant to pro- come a tool for education? Plexiglas alleyway that ran onstration plant for the duce more electricity. The Will folks start drinking to intoaholeinadark production of electricity MHD/steam-power plant remember rather than to chamber. Because mice by using magnetohydro- combination can turn up !o forget? A recent study of instinct gravitate toward the dynamics (MHD) is on the 60 percent of the combus- mice shows that ethanol— dark. Ihey scurried into drawing Ooards in the Soviet tion energy into electricity, pure booze— may enhance the dark chamber, where Union. The Soviet Ministry of contrasted with only 40 per- memory if it's ingested in they were jolted with a mild moderate doses right after electric shock. one learns something. The mice injected with a "Our experiment suggests saline solution right after this that alcohol actually en- lesson took place averaged hances memory," says Dr. 80 seconds to cross over Ronald L. Alkana, assistant into the dark on a replay, but pharmacology professor at the mice given shots of the University of Southern efhanol averaged 190 sec- California pharmacy school, onds for the trip. While some who ran the project with Dr. might conclude this means Elizabeth S.Parker, of the the boozed-up mice were National Institute on Alcohol simply slowed down by Abuse and Alcoholism. the alcohol, Alkana's con- Whether alcohol registers clusion is that they delayed the same effects in humans going into Ihe dark be- as it does in mice remains cause they remembered the open to question, "It's electric shock better dangerous to draw such than the sober mice did. conclusions from differing The study postulates that species," says Dr Alkana. alcohol can spark a kind insicic i'.'e;v or a Soviet MHD plant The theory here is that of dialogue between nerve turning out 10,000 megawatts in ifis ethanol helps the brain store cells in the brain thai can intensify memories both re- Power and Electrification recent in a conventional plant. cent and distant. "It could cently announced plans to Soviet plans call for gas- help us understand better construct a 500-megawatt burning MHD plants to why people drink in the first piant southeast of Moscow, produce about 10.000 place," Alkana speculates. The attraction of MHD is megawatts in the early — Roberi Brody its potential to increase the 1990s. In the United States efficiency of generating the present focus is on coal, fossil Ihe largest existing "The speculation . . . is electricity by burning and MHD interesting, but the fuels. In an MHD generator plant produces only one

impossibility of ever doing it an easiiy ionized element megawatt of electricity. The

is so certain that it is not such as potassium is added difference in scale is due practically useful." to the hot gases produced largely to the difficulties of —The editor of Popular by combustion, and the mix- adapting coal to MHD Astronomy in a rejection ture is Ihen passed through generators, rather than to letter to Robert H. Goddard a magnetic field. The mag- lagging U.S. development, concerning his article "On netic force deflects electrons says Jean Louis, associate the Possibility of Navigating in one direction and positive director of the energy labora- interplanetary Space," in ions in the opposite direc- tory afthe Massachusetts which he proposed the idea tion, generating an electric Institute of Technology. of nuclear energy (1907) current. After the hot gases — Jell Hecht CDRjTinjuurui

SAFER SURGERY and Drs. John R Bunker and PLAY BILL After last summer's Alain C. Enthoven, of Stan- gasoline crisis, all teams For certain kinds of high- ford University, found no rela- Last year Energy User appointed club energy risk elective (nonemergency) tion between the number or News , a trade publication, coordinators to upgrade in- surgery, choose a regional operations and the death assessed how the national formation and systems. As hospital where 200 or more rates for simpler steps such sport— baseball — was in- with the rest of us, progress such operations are per- as gallbladder removal teracting with the national is steady but slow — S.D. formed year each and you'll and vagotomy (lo control preoccupation— energy. The have a better chance of sur- stomach acid in ulcer newspaper found little uni- "Fooling around with viving. That is what is sug- patients). formity among baseball alternating current is /us/ a clubs. 'A few systems were waste of time. Nobody'll use sophisticated by any meas- ft, ever, it's too dangerous ure; others could be charita- It could kill a man as quick bly described as primitive," as a bolt of lightning. Direct said Barnaby Feder, who current is safe." wrote the story. Voluntary — Thomas Edison to conservation programs, Nikola Testa he found, worked fitfully

There are all sorts of "if you don't rehearse over logistical problems. and over, you're going to be The highest electricity bills surprised in space. And dog the club that pays the the surprised man, out there, most (or almost everything: isthedeadone. Weget the New York Yankees. The ready, then, by trying to cost: more than $350,000 surprise ourselves." a year, the result of high elec- —Ray Bradbury tric rates and a lack ol aggressive energy management, the paper found. The low-energy champion was the Chicago Cubs, Elective surgery gives you time to make a ctiotoe, and the safest bet who rely on solar power be- seems to be those hospitals where many operations are performed. cause Wrigley Field has no gested, anyway, by a study The two-year, 840,000-pa- lights. Total electric cost: done by three California re- tient study examined the re- $22,000 in 1978. searchers. lationship between surgical Some clubs, such as the rrt The death rate in hospitals load and mortality for 12 op- Philadelphia Phillies, have with more experienced staffs erations at 1,500 hospitals. stadiums with computerized is about one-quarter lower — Alton Blakeslee energy-management sys- for open-heart surgery, vas- tems thai cut costs by 25 cular surgery, coronary "I can accept the theory of percent. Others, such as the bypass, and prostate-gland relativity as little I as can St. Louis Cardinals, still play surgery than in those hospi- accept the existence of under inefficient incandes- tals where fewer such opera- atoms and other such cent lights, which must be tions are carried " out. dogmas. replaced every year. The And the mortality rate in -Ernst Mach (1838-1916), club rents the stadium; it total-hip-replacement opera- professor of physics wants the owners to finance tions is about one-third lower at the University of Vienna efficient metal-halide light- in hospitals performing 50 or ing, but the stadium owners more each year. "He needs to stand on want the Cardinals to pay. It's The study, by Dr. Harold S. tip-toes that hopes to touch the kind of dispute repeated Luft, of the University of " the moon. in many apartment com- Cub pitcher winds up in California at San Francisco, — Fuller Thomas plexes, powered" Wrigley Field. 38 OMNI "

CREATING OLD LIFE microfossils yet discovered. ASTROSTRUCTURE Engineers believe the IN THE LAB dated at 2.7 billion years. iishnetiike material, in tubu- "We found morphological Gigantic orbiting "space- lar form, can be made into a

Evidence of life on Earth as well as less reliable chem- scrapers" of the future may series of beams, joined to. 3.52 billion years ago, the ical evidence of the not be made ot metal but gf form miles-wide platforms in oldest yet come across, has stromatolites," Dr. Walter iiine'ciass. sav chemistsof space. Such structures, built been found by a group of said, "and used two isotopic Hughes Aircraft Company, in by shuttle construction scientists working on a spe- dating methods. So we have California. crews, would constitute cial project at the University a lot of confidence in the The aerospace firm has future communication and of California at Los Angeies. date. These sedimentary developed fiberglass mesh, public service satellites. rocks are fairly well pre- which, when baked by the space factories, or perhaps

served for their age, but it suns ultraviolet rays in even solar-power stations for may not be possible to find Space, turns into high- beaming back energy to 'e'iabie structural evidence Strength material, half the Earth. of life older than this, be- weight of aluminum Hughes is currently build- cause the rocks deteriorate ing a prototype seven-by- three-foot "instant beam" for

Schopf said the project, ! i 3tfon by NASA's Mar- which will formally end in shall Space Flight Center in August 1980, is designed to whe Uhe Huntsville, Alabama. answer questions "funda- constant blasting of solar — Leonard David mental to everything we radiation. The substance

know and want to know begins hardening within a "Science is spectrum

about life— when and. how it half-hour of exposure and analysis. Art is came about." becomes completely firm photosynthesis. " Besides finding and within six hours —KarlKraus analyzing the oldest Pre- cambrian fossils available, the scientists will attempt to re-create the early earth's atmosphere in the

, , , i , So e.'!(. s;i:-,vi.''.'a.', ':'i;p, :ri5.'i ii!..l fe;s laboratory and chemically Creation in this equipment, age it to simulate changes R:.acn scientists from five that would have occurred countries are participating in over billions oi years. They the Precambrian Paleobiol- will also create and study ogy Research Project, cre- laboratory models of the at- ated by UCLA professor mospheres of other planets. J, William Schopf. — Allah D. Maurer Formed last summer, the

group has sent fossil hunters "What I tike about scientists to Canada, Africa, and Aus- is that they are a team, so tralia, where the evidence of that one need not know their 3.52-billion-year-old stro- names. matolites (structures formed —John Wiimot, Lord of as a result of a chain-forming Selmeston, 1895-1964 bacterial organism) was dis-

covered in a remote mining "t don't know what you could community ironically named say about a day in which the North Pole. The Austra- you have seen four beautiful

lian fo'ssi I- hunters, directed sunseis." by Dr. Malcolm Walter, also —John Glenn, found the oldest "good" February 20, 1962 .

canjTiruuurui

NOSTRUM FOR specific plans have been FUELISH HINDSIGHT ourfarms and cities." MARE NOSTRUM ratified to reduce pollution The first modern internal- from ships and planes, and The real price of gasoline combustion engine— the Sickness has befallen the an initial $6.4 million for has not changed in 40 years. Otto Cycle of 1876— ran on Mediterranean Sea, haven monitoring and research has In 1941 gasoline cost 19.2 alcohol as well as gasoline. for 100 million annual tourists been appropriated. cents per gallon At the end More than a century later we and the backdrop for Seventeen nations last are returning to this concept. thousands of years of history. June drafted their first Here are some other en- Continual pollution from the agreL-ment to curb land- ergy morsels: 16 countries that border it based pollution, such as fac- •Coal is not only a fuel. It is a has turned portions of the tory wastes, municipal sew- feedstock for perfumes, vi- huge body of water into age, and fertilizers. The tamins, nylon, food preser- foul-smelling, multicolored agreement is expected to be vatives, ink, dynamite, ecological disasters. "The signed in Athens this month. detergents, linoleum, var- Mediterranean is dying," the The overall task is formid- nish, fertilizer, plastic dolls, United Nations Environ- able. Ninety percent of the and mothballs. ment Programme (UNEP) sewage from 120 coastal Eighty pounds of coal. declared in Juiy1977. cities now enters the eight gallons of gasoline, Now, however, UNEP is Mediterranean either un- and 240 bottles of table wine slowly securing cooperation treated or only minimally all hold the same amount of among nations that lie about treated, causing outbreaks energy— 1 million Btu's. the Mediterranean to halt of hepatitis, typhoid, and •Americans today, per toxic discharges— both from cholera. The sea has been capita, use four times as land and from ships — and a dumping area for DDT, much energy as their grand- to control development to crude oil, cadmium, lead, parents' generation did. prevent future pollution. copper, mercury, cyanide. •The price of Saudi Arabian In February 1975, 16 na- and disease-causing bac- oil in 1970 was £1.80 per bar- tions first agreed in principle teria. It is estimated the rel. Today's price is about to clean up the sea, which is cleanup will cost at least $10 $26 per barrel. -S.D. about a third the size of the billion over the next two United States. Since then, decades. — S.D "/( is not at all true that the

.... r:-: ,\ repon Qivei ^-;,';pfi:!.v: scientist goes after truth. It to modern gas prices. goes after him."

of 1 979 gasoline cost only —Sdren Kierkegaard 19.3 cents per gallon — in 1941 dollars, that is, afterin- "Damn the solar system. flation is taken into account. Bad light; planets too Last year's actual pump distant; pestered with price was about $1 per gal- comets, feeble contrivance; lon. Thus, the consumer could make a better one price index has more than myself." quintupled since 1941 —Lord Francis Jeffrey The U.S. Department of Energy lists these and other "Heaven and Earth were tidbits in a recent publica- created all together in the tion. "Interesting Energy same instant, on October23, Facts." For example, we find 4004 B.C.. at nine o'clock in that in 1922 Alexander the morning." Graham Bell called alcohol —John Lightfoot, vice- "a beautifully clean and effi- chancellor of Cambridge cient fuel, which can be pro- University just before the Idyllic scene illustrates the beauty of the Mediterranean, but DDT, duced from vegetable mat- publication of Darwin's crude oil, and d'sease-carrying bacteria are ruining the sea. ter .. . waste products of Origin of Species JO OMNI SPERM PERK caffeine helps infertile men NATURE TRIVIA •The English sparrow has 14 whose 'unfit' sperm can't neck bones— twice as many

Sounds wacky, but give make it to the ovarian tubes, Another installment of as the giraffe. sperm a caffeine boost and where fertilization takes ecological amusement from •Ninety-five percent of all Wildlife are they'll swim twice as fast. place. I would like to be the National Federa- animals spineless— The end result, according to doing work along the same tion: literally. They are inverte- an Israeli expert on fertility, is * Marshmallows weren't al- brates, such as insects and a higher probability of ways made from sugar and crustaceans. pregnancy. packaged in plastic. Once •Among the world's most Dr. Joseph Barkay, of Cen- upon a time they were made careful suitors is the male tral Emek Hospital, in Afula, from the roots of the marsh- black widow spider. His Israel, artificially insemi- mallow plant. The roots also poison is weak and ineffec- nated 58 women with five yielded a syrup for sore tual. If he tries to mate at the parts semen to one part caf- throats, coughs, and burns. wrong time, the female black feine. There were 10 percent •Caterpillars have more widow stings him to death. more pregnancies in this muscles than humans.The Or she may first mate with group than in a control group human body has 639 mus- him, then sting him to death of women artificially insemi- cles. The caterpillar has more and eat him. — S.D nated with untreated sperm. than 4,000 muscles. Happily, babies born to More Americans die each "Rail travel at high speed is these "caffeine -treated" year from bee stings than not possible, because women were healthy and from snakebites. In a recent passengers, unable to showed no chromosomal year it was bee stings, 25: breathe, would die of abnormalities. snakebites. 16. asphyxia." Knowing that caffeine •There is truth behind the —Dr. Dionysys Lardner interferes with cell phrase leap frog. A full-sized (1793-1859) metabolism, scientists tree frog can jump 20 times started, in the early 1970s, higher than its body length, "Science originates Irorn mixing the stimulant with It would be as if an adult curiosity and weak eyes." semen samples. Early exper- human male jumped —Bernard le Bovier de iments using bull semen 120 feet high. Fontenelle showed that caffeine causes energy to shift out of the Fii:<; Allen sperm body to the taillike scene shows Woody flagella.-which propels [he as a decidedly unperked sperm. sperm. lines." But, unlike Israeli sci- Dr. Cy Schoenfeld, head entists, American scientists of New York School of have to do numerous animal Medicine's fertility clinic and tests before doing research the first person to do test- on humans. tube research on caffeine "My laboratory simply and human sperm, loid doesn't have the resources Omni, "Under the micro- to do the animal testing," scope, a perked specimen Schoenfeld says. looks like rush-hour crowds — Caroline Rob in the New York subways. An unperked sample looks "To kill a man will be more like Sunday in the considered as disgusting as subways." we in this day consider it Dr. Schoenfeld has this to disgusting to eat one." say about his Israeli col- — Andrew Carnegie, league's work: "Sarkay's ex- speaking on an end to war in periments clearly show that the twentieth century (1900) ,

coruTinjuuRfi

RUNNERS* EDGE can reduce wind drag by 30 FEMALE SUPERIORITY A. H. Ismail, of Purdue Uni- percent. versity.

Stock car drivers do it, Kyle, in an article in the Genes may be the reason A physical education spe- bicycle racers do.jt, and so British journal Ergonomics why men are hit with more cialist, Dr, Ismail says mus- dp' some speed skaters. claims that by using pacers, dbesses than women, why cle training can alter the s don't doit, but a or "rabbits," to shield an men live about eight years body's biochemistry, and new study shows that maybe eventual winner, the world less-, on average, and why this in turn can produce per- they ought to. mile or 1 ,50'0-meter record they are more frequent car- sonality changes, including

We're talking about draft- could be broken by several riers of viruses. loss of "fat person's jolli- ing: the racing technique oi seconds. To do this would Evolutionary selection has ness." equipped females with im- People who are obese

muno'egulatory genes on tend to be gregarious and to. iho X chromosome 'or cop- have high cholesterol levels, ing with life-threatening he says. Dropping pounds illnesses. Females, who through exercise "quite likely" means they will undergo a personality itectious metamorphosis and become top cer- introveried. ca.ncer, Drs. Persons who tested low in avid Purtilo L. Iky jlOl^g! T. and. John emotional stab oefce Sullivan, of Worcester, Mas- starting Ismail's fitness pro- sachusetts, write in the Jour- gram became more stable in nal of Diseases of Children, final tests of personality, the a publication of the Amer- instructor reports. They also ican Medical Association. showed graphic improve- A female's greater immu- ment in serum cholesterol, nity may be a compensation, blood sugar, and blood they say, for the suppression pressure— all of which be- of her immune defenses came lower, according to during pregnancy — so that Ismail, -A. B, the woman does not reject ' her "foreign" fetus— and so W ensures the survival of the pregnant woman and also the survival of the entire require not only the tradi- species. — A. B. tional use of rabbits but also d another exact pacing and precision "Animals, which move, have a he on abicy- drafting, which is nearly im- limbs and muscles. The in-acar, or possible in earth , open competi- does not have limbs on foot. tion. and muscles; therefore it According to a recent Even so, Kyle says, "a na- does not move." study conducted by Chester tional team with several —Scipio Chiaramonti R. Kyle, a professor of me- world-class middle-distance chanical engineering at runners should be able to THE CHEMISTRY OF California State University at use this tactic with dramatic OVERWEIGHT Long Beach, runners-can results." cut wind resistance over 50 If the extroverted "jolly fat percent by following within "You will never amount to man" loses a lot of weight five feet "of another runner very much." through a physical fitness who breasts the wind. Even —A Munich schoolmaster program, he's apt to become at ten feet, Kyle says, one to Albert Einstein, aged ten an introvert, says professor 42 OMNI WARS

Prime coverage of the nation's "super bowl of tomfoolery"

BY RICHARD CHAPMAN

^^^K\s [he desert sun evaporates the mists off the mountains overlooking Pasadena, California, Caltech seniors disappear from campus. Behind them, in the dim labyrinth of dormitory corridors, underclass "wimps" begin to stir. Nigh! visions of quantum mechanics and chemical reactions still waft through their brains. Breakfast beers in hand, they ramble the halls, discovering the seniors' doors bolted - not just with simple turn-the-key locks, or even with complex combinations. These rooms are protected by a startling array of devices rigged to respond to sound, heat, light, magnets, water pressure, computers, or ... a snake, did you say? From one door emanates a series of electronic boops. beeps, and tweedles— a syn- thesized musical code to un- ravel. A fearsome python named Aristotle writhes before another door, with clues suggesting his use as a door opener. Some doors, like senior Werner Pyka's. are barred with masses of steel and concrete, but most feature computer terminals, spaghetti mazes of wire, tubing, and gadgets that musl somehow be manipulated to afford entrance.

It's as if Albert Einstein had been reincarnated as a "frat rat." Rube Goldberg meets Luke Skywalker?

It's Ditch Day, an eccentric yearly ritual at Caltech that's an intellectual field day for the young geniuses who pit their

PAINTING BY RENEMAGRITTE considerable head muscles againsl one reputation as campus practical joker virtu- president. By attacking the dorm's electri- another in a daylong tournament of wit and ally ensured outrageous acts against his cal system, the wimps hope to neutralize a brawn. These are the technocrazies, Ihe room this year: "I could leave three naked sinister silver box guarding Cohn's door. same pack of whiz kids whose slunts have women, Colombian dope, and a bottle of Along the way, they've discovered another befuddled sober minions of order, ranging Seagram's, and they'd still counterstack bonus that Cohn has left them: a chemistry from the FBI to giant corporations. me." Lauer's bribe this year would be a minilab, in which underclassmen are Ditch Day had its origins in some distant, half-eaten cupcake. commanded to select several vials and mix modest prank in which underclassmen At 8:15 a.m. the wimps are massing be- various chemicals to obtain further clues. broke into the seniors' rooms while the oc- fore Pyka's brute-force stack. A demolitions An energetic wimp headsforthe bathroom, cupants were off on a day of relaxation expert plays around with a mixture ot gun- having just discovered the extent of Cohn's before final exams. Since then, Ditch Day powder and mercury fulminate, while villainy. One of the unmarked vials contains has rumbled its way up the Richter scale oihers explore the ventilation ducts and foul-smelling ether— thrown in just for (invented at Caitech) to become a major crawl spaces above the room. Another as- laughs.

for it's of led muscular wimp Caltech event; some, the highlight sault force, by a SPAWNING GROUND 'o.j' mind spiriting years of nearly uninter- nicknamed Froggie, attacks the steel plat- rupted pressure. This "super bowl of tom- ing with crowbars and sledgehammers. Anyone who's survived four grueling foolery" is calculated to give these brilliant Outside, a third group of daredevils has years at ihe California Institute of Technol- students a chance to blow off pre-exam scaled Ihe dorm wall and is testing the ogy deserves a few laughs, It's a decep- anxiety and to avert a cerebral meltdown. windows. A cutting torch is on the way. tively peaceful and lush campus, where Ditch Day is governed by an established Downstairs, the wimps are stumped by some 200 professors and 1,600 students set of rules and a rigid code of honor. The Ghris Lee's musical door lock, emitting an ponder everything from black holes to the wimps must follow— to the letter— any in- insistent series of grating tones. After re- basic structure of matter. structions posted on the seniors' doors, peated attempts to break the code by Add up the I.Q.'s of the Caltech football and they must gain entrance before the serenading the door with a variety of musi- team, and the sum exceeds the total seniors return at 5:00 RM, number of pounds they weigh, But, then,

The rules list three kinds of locks, or Caltech's linemen are not being groomed "stacks," on the doors. The first, the "brute for the NFL. More likely, they're headed for iorce" stack, can be opened by any means the JPL, Caltech's Jet Propulsion Labora- short of nuclear weapons. Getting into a tory, which operates the sophisticated &One year a senior brute-force stack, according to one senior robot spacecraft that are now exploring ou r who's dealt with several, "requires no scuba enthusiast returned to solar system. dynamite." A few Tech students also log time at the seis- intelligence— just some his room onty to be years ago underclassmen resorted to hy- mological lab, monitoring creaks and draulic lifts on one brute-force stack and greeted by a pool of sharks. groans in the earth, trying to puzzle out raised the room's ceiling to crawl into a Another opened his when the Big One is coming — the super- senior's room. quake that will see Califomians treading door and found a horse and The "finesse" stack must be opened by water in the Pacific Ocean. manipulating whatever technological de- a cow rummaging Caltech astronomers scan the night vice (elecfronic, chemical, or biological) is through his cioset.5 skies with their telescopes, including the installed on the door. This year an entire 500-ton giant at Palomar— gathering light room would be transformed into a radio from quasars and exploding galaxies. With telescope, and every clue would relate to awesome responsibilities like these, it's radio astronomy easy to see why "Techies" aren't out on The "honor" stack requires wimps to Saturday nights, simulating the fall oi Rome solve a written problem or puzzle before cal instruments, a call goes out for any in writhing flesh piles. opening the unlocked door. It's claimed wimps with perfect pitch. Caltech's academic demands and its in- that this is the easy way out for lazy seniors, Across campus in Blacker House some credibly tough workload make MIT look like yet several years ago a senior devised a underclassmen discover an entire corridor a trade school. Despite average national quantum mechanics problem that not only has been stacked. They crowd around a college entrance-exam scores in the kept out underclassmen but also stymied a large spring-loaded Plexiglas window re- ninety-ninth percentile for math and the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. vealing a hallway resembling a giant pin- ninety-seventh percentile for verbal skills, The wimps also have a few rules of their ball machine — festooned with beer bot- 30 percent ot entering undergraduates own. On Ditch Day any senior caught on tles, Christmas tree ligir.s and Penthouse never do graduate. Caltech is the toughest campus, after 8:00 am. can be abducted centerfolds. The wimps listen intently to a school in the nation. It is a boot camp for and tied to ihe nearest tree. When the se- set of recorded instructions, having just genius, the spawning ground for many curity of a senior's room has finally been been informed the tape will self-destruct. leaders of government and industry who breached, either the wimps can accept a In an adjoining dorm a small, yet deter- can speak the arcane language of science. "bribe" of food, drink, or other goodies left mined, group is already hard at work on The coolly efficient Harold Brown, secre- by the senior in hopes his room will be what appears to be a simple honor stack. tary of Defense, is a former Caltech presi- spared or they can reengineer the locks or The senior has left five physics problems dent, and Frank Press, presidential sci- leave unusual surprises of their own. One tacked on his door Simple enough, yet ence adviser, once headed Caltech's past "counierstack" was masterminded by quite lethal, since these problems can be seismological laboratory. a group of wimps who disassembled a attacked only after consuming four ounces BREAKTHROUGH senior's sports car, then put it back to- of bourbon and the box of foul cigars left in gether in his room, with the engine running. front of the door. By 9:00 a.m., only one cigar By midmorning, mounds ot sand pour Another year a senior scuba enthusiast re- remains, and one wimp lies passed out in into the hall from Pyka's room. The tena- - turned to his room only to be greeted by a the middle of the hallway. cious wimps crowbar their way through the pool of sharks. Last year a senior opened But at Ruddock House the wimps are first steel plating, shoveling out the his door and discovered a horse and a cow trying hard to penetrate Stan Cohn's room. sandbagged surprise, and are well into the rummaging., through his closet. The de- It would be a distinct honor, not to mention second layer. They know it'll be only a few signer of that cuunlui slack was senior Tod pleasure, to be the iirst underclassmen to more minutes before they punch through Lauer, a New Jersey astronomer whose break into the room of the senior class the sets of railroad ties and get into the 46 OMNI room. "Brute force ..." snickers a of places. When a newly constructed au- student replied. "I -sppeo the Strategic Air sledgehammering sophomore, "... it's a ditorium resembling an ornate wedding Command hot line." piece of cake." cake was to be dedicaied on campus, a For the next two hours the student pleas-

Several excited students enter Blacker huge bride and groom appeared alop it, antly explained how he'd tapped into the House under an archway with this sculpled gazing serenely-down at the assembled SAC's hot line from a nearby air force base motto: "Doest thou love life, then do not dignitaries and crusty patrons who'd paid to Ihe Pentagon. The student was warned squander time." Inside, a big group wastes lor the building. A gigantic Mickey Mouse, not to attempt any further shenanigans, no time in attacking the stacked hallway A complete with hands, sprouted on the main and Ihe shaken agen: emerged to phone wimp standing at the Plexiglas window Caltech clock tower another year. his superiors. Itwas later reporied that sig- carefully aims a laser device directly at one A Caltechprank could lead to a scientific nificant changes had been quickly made in

nipple of a Penthouse centerfold. "We're breakthrough, or it might just -have some the SAC communications system,

sure there's a laser detector up there." he fun with national security It was rumored If they could get to the air force, another shouts. one year-that students were tapping phone group of electronic zanies from Caltech Across the courtyard, up several sets of lines, and an FBI agent showed up Io check reasoned, then ihey were ready for a

crumbling stairs, and along a rabbit-warren it out routinely. tougher foe: McDonald's. When the ham-

. maze of hallways, one of the day's first "Someone claims you've been tapping burger chain ran a promotional contest in finesse stacks has been conquered. Bui the professors' phones," the agent told a California a few years ago, Caltech stu- the victors are nowhere to be seen. Only the student who was a prime suspect as the dents exploited a loophole in the rules and victim — an electronic glass contraption culprit. ginned up their compuier to crank out 1.2 several feet high, which a sober-faced "Oh, no, not the professors' phones," the' million entries, bilking Ronald McDonald wimp explains is a computerized pot CCNTINUI-Lj ON PAGE 120

smoker— is still on the. scene. The stack's mathematical clues produced an equation stating the magic number of tokes necessary to open the door. Following the honor code undeviatingly, the underclassmen had been required to smoke 27 units of grass. The wimps explained thai each hil of fully inhaled weed was counted by (his "tc~ kometer" when the puff interrupted a lighi

beam in the tube. After 128 hits the device automatically released ihe door's lock. The empty baggie at the base of the tube was mute testimony to their accomplishment,

bu! the five wimps who did it were nol avail-

able for comment, They were last seen in . the vicinity of the cafeteria. CALTRICKERY

The city of Pasadena breathes a munici-

pal sigh of relief on Ditch Day. It means at leasf 24 hours of peace for Pasadenans. A bastion of conservalism, Pasadena's the kind of place where General George Patton would've retired to cultivaie roses. Having

Caltech in its midst can be a little unnerving

for this staid community It's as if the be- hemoth, glittering mother ship from Close Encounters had sei down in a sea of well- manicured lawns. And the locals have

never been quite sure how to deal with it, especially when things begin getting out of hand. Besides annoying the neighbors with an occasional good-naiured prank, the students frequently engage, in comic duels with the harried Pasadena police, who by now are thoroughly convinced that Caltech siudents can zip into other dimensions at will. This seems to be the only explanation (besides marsh gas) for some of the amazing student capers. Techies once surreptitiously hauled a full-sized F-84 jet-fighter on display at Cal- tech through three miles of downtown

streets to install it on the lawn of the ROTC commandant's home. Giant signs, cannons, and sculptures routinely vanish from their rightful locations, only io appear in the courtyards of Caltech dorms. Entirely original decorations occa- sionally materialize in the most unexpected short cuts that would save us a few hundred

The future is coming. And with it will come years of Research & Development. They great benefits for mankind. And whole new set of a might present us with practical fusion power problems. Because we are a forest products company, and plant seeds that take up to 50 years to which, so far, has eluded earth's scientists. (It become mature trees, Champion International has to think a lot about the future. We'd like to share could solve the energy shortage in a flash.) Is some of the things we've learned with you—to help cancer universal? Progress report, please. you make intelligent choices in the years to come. Here is something you might want to think about. And the cold? Is it really common? There will also be a few problems. How will earthly religions handle the new facts? In the future, we may How will we manage to get along with an al- discover that we are not ien race that has a different culture, ethics, alone in the universe, and habits, expectations, rituals, and maybe even we may even make con- four arms, when sometimes we even have trouble getting along with the couple next tact with powerful beings door, not to mention other nations. from another world. On the other hand, maybe these differences will teach us something fundamentally How might that awesome enlightening about differences, and we'll end possibility affect our up getting along better with each other here view of ourselves and our on earth. Just that would literally be a gift from the heavens. world? But the greatest fact of all will be the demonstration that highly technological soci- There are trillions upon trillions of stars eties more advanced than ovxsexist. Have in the universe. It is a cosmic light show of lasted. In other words, if they've managed to unimaginable wattage, and it is getting keep from destroying themselves, maybe we harder and harder to believe that we are the can too. only spectators. You can learn more about some of the Amazing discoveries about our universe other critical issues we face in the future and are occuring more and more often. Quasars, get a bibliography for further reading by which radiate more energy than can be ac- sending for our free brochure. Write: counted for in earthly physics. Black holes, Champion International Corporation where all the normal laws of nature seem to Dept. 200N, PO.Box 10141 be repealed. We are even beginning to under- Stamford, Connecticut 06921 stand what happened during thefirst 90 sec- Don't wait too long. onds in the life of the universe. While there is as yet no direct evidence of extraterrestrial life, complex organic mole- Champion— with cules have been found throughout the uni- a forest products company its roots planted firmly verse. Man has landed space probes on only in the future. two planets—Mars and Venus—and the vital We are in the forest products business. We plant trees, grow trees, harvest both of them. ingredient water was found on trees. And from trees we make wood Indeed, scientists have already derived a building products. Plus fine paper for printi and business. And paper packaging for formula which strongly indicates that there shipping and selling. must be many, many technological civiliza- Because we make our living from the forest, our success depends, in one tions out there, and there are huge radio-tel- way or another, on the future. And escopes trained on the skies, listening. So it we're planning—and planting—for it. should not come as a complete surprise if one day an astronomer looks up from a printout and reports that someone just said hello. Champion The benefits of an exchange of informa- Champion International Corporation tion could be enormous. They might give us Planting seeds for the future JOSIE AND THE ELEVATOR

Spoiled rotten and prone to temper tantrums, she was asking for a trip to the ground floor

BY THOMAS M. DISCH

shouldn't do that," said the "Don't bother pressing buftons. Youelevator, closing its doors in young lady. I'm not letting you out of Josie's face and keeping her fast here until you apologize politely."

within its cage, for it meant to Josie pushed the alarm. It didn't teach her a lesson. "You cant be ring. She pushed it again. Still the going to fourteen and to fifieen, es- elevator wouldn't budge. pecially if you're getting out here on "Why have you been pushing those Ihirleen. You're simply causing me to buttons. I should like to know"'

extra work, I it!" do and don't like "It's none of your business why I do It waited for the little girl to speak anything. You're an elevator, and you and, when she wouldn't, prodded her. should just go up and down. I didn't "Well? Speak up." ask you to talk to me." "Elevators aren't supposed to talk," "I don't need your permission. said Josie, without seeming con- child. I go where I like, at the pace I founded, only a bit surprised. After all, like. As that also happens to be where she'd often been in elevators that my passengers want lo go, there's no played music. conflict. But I can keep you here as

"Never mind supposed. I demand long as ever I tike. So you'd best not an apology — and a promise that be surly. Now answer my question." you'll all "I stop punching my buttons punched the buttons because I every lime you leave. You've been wanted to," said Josie, not at all in an doing that for weeks. Don't think I accommodating tone. haven't noticed. It's wrong, ana it And why did you want to?" musf stop," "Because I don't like living in this Josie made no reply. She simply buildingl This building stinks!" stared up at the numbers over the "And so you'd take ouf your resent- door, none of which was lit. Then, ment on me? And on all the other pausing a moment to think, she people who have to wait for me? Do jabbed the button tor the lirsl floor. you really think that's fair?"

PAINTING BY KLAUS DIETRICH " .

"I don't if it is il care or isn't. So there." and then, with a terrible roar, began a wild shoe, the shoe she had thrown at the mirror, "Oh, really?" the elevator replied in a tone descent. Down it plummeted, down past was still inside the elevator

partly sarcastic and partly ominous. "I think the first floor without a stop, and still it For a long time she just sat on the curb, il would be well if you were made to care!" .fell- -ever deeper — down to those dark re- trying to cry People, she had discovered, "I never asked to live here, did I?" gions only elevators know how to reach. will often help you if you are crying. But that "You should be glad you do. This is a fine Down floor to the very of hell, where it was in the world above. In hell no one building, Il keeps you in winter warm and opened its doors with a shudder and notices your tears at all. In any case she dry when il rains. Where would you sleep at shouted at the astonished child, "Get out!" wasn't able to produce more than a bit of

night it didn't you sleep here'' What would Josie got out. dampness about her eyelids, for the air of

you eat for dinner if you didn't have a She didn't realize that she'd been taken hell makes it more difficult to cry. kilchen to cook in?" to hell, for her surroundings looked nearly When looking forlorn produced no re- "It's an awful building," Josie insisted the same as the ground-floor lobby of her sults, Josie decided she must ask a petulanlly "I know what nice buildings are own apartment building. There was the big policeman to help her. That is what she'd like. You can't fool father lives me. My up- aluminum ashtray, beside the elevator door, been told to do if she were ever lost. Slip- town in a penthouse, and when I'm with looking just as it had looked in the world ping off her one shoe and both stockings,

him, I have my own bedroom and my own above. Josie didn't notice thai it was over- she began searching for a policeman, tak- bathroom, and the tub isn't old and yellow, flowing with- cigarette butts and other ref- ing care not to step on the shattered glass and the walls don't have cracks, and there use, nor did she notice, when she went out that covered the sidewalk and the street. At aren't any cockroaches, and there's a upon the street, that all Ihe cars were driven the very first corner she came to she didn't doorman al Ihe front door who always says, much faster and honked their horns on the see that the light was about to change from 'Good morning, Miss Hardwinier. How are least provocation. green to red, and she was nearly run over you today?' Hell, you see, is exactly like Ihe world we by an enormous white Cadillac. She "Those are advantages, surely, but they all live in, the only difference being that jumped back just in time, and the driver all cost money. People who can't afford everyone you meet there is completely i shouted a dirty word out of the window at such luxuries musl make do with what they her. can afford. Whal is the doorman's name?" Josie scarcely noticed the driver's bad "How should I know that? He's only a language, however, -q- she nad just cut her

foot on a big sliver of glass. Hell is full of "it sounds like you're just as rude when nonreturnable bottles, which people throw you live with mJosie made a most unwise your father as you are here. from the windows of their apartments just What sort of things do you talk about with decision. She took off for the satisfaction of hearing them smash. him?" her left shoe threw it "He's usually too and busy to talk with me. It would take much too long and be much He's a famous businessman. his with all the He had force she too distressing to give a full account of all picture in Ihe newspaper, you know" could muster at the elevator's the sufferings that Josie underwent in hell. "I didn't mean. your father; I meant the , Sad to say, she lived there for many years, doorman. mirror. That mirror . . What do you talk about with each one a little more miserable than the him?" was the elevator's proudest year before. It had never been the ele- "I don't talk with the doorman!" Josie said valor's intention to leave her there so long, indignantly. possession.^ but once Josie had gone off lo her father's "You should. Doormen get very bored apartment, the matter was beyond its con- sitting in their about uniforms; they'd like trol. Josie, not wanting to report her dis- They're some company. much like elevators agreement with the elevator to her father, in that regard." led him to suppose that the reason why "Poo on doormen, and poo on elevators, consiriei aie ar.ri rutio. Jjciging by appear- she'd suddenly appeared at his apartment too! I want to get out of here. Right now." ances, they are the same people you knew door barefoot and bleeding, was that her "Not until you apologize." above, but they behave quite differently, mother had locked her out of their apart- "I'll scream." which Josie was soon to discover. ment as a punishment. "No one will hear you." Naturally, she did not want to go back Naturally, when Mr. Hardwinter called his Josie, who by now was genuinely dis- inside the elevator she had just escaped ex-wife on the phone and yelled at her, traught, began to stamp on the scuffed from, nor did she want to climb twelve Josie's mother was quite angry with her linoleum-tiled floor, but the elevator was not flights of stairs. Her father had told her that daughter for telling such a lie and piqued stirred except to angrier itself. if in become she were ever an emergency, she must that her husband believed it and yelled at Josie had never understood that this was call him or go to his apartment, and this her. The argument became embittered, the result invariable of her temper tan- must surely count as an emergency. So and Mrs. Hardwinter subsequently quit her trums. that's where she decided lo go. The prob- job with a life insurance company (there are True to its word, the elevator did not give lem, however, was how would she get there. life insurance companies in hell, just as in. Even when Josie carried out her threat Her father lived in another neighborhood, there are here) and went away across the and screamed and threw herself down on far on the other side of town. Though Josie ocean to the island of Ibiza (yes, hell even the floor it and pounded on with her fists- knew how to get there on the number 12 has its own version of Ibiza), which she had even through all that the elevator remained bus, the bus driver wouldn'l allow her to been threatening to do ever since she and unmoved. board the bus without paying. The fare was Mr. Hardwinter divorced. It then was Josie made a most unwise fifty cenls, and she had spent her last Because of this Josie never had occa- decision. She removed her left shoe and change just an hour ago to buy a Mounds sion to return to her mother's apartment, threw it with all the force she could muster candy bar. which had been sublet to a stranger. And at the elevator's mirror. mirror, That up in the She knew that it would be wrong and so the elevator couldn't take her back to the corner of the cage, was the elevator's shameful to ask passersby to give her the world above. (Only the elevator that takes proudest possession. No other elevator {it money she needed; all the people on the you down to hell can take you up again.) believed), however superior in other re- streets of hell looked crazy or hostile or The elevator felt very sorry, but there was spects, could boast a mirror of such bright dangerous. nothing it could do until Josie reentered its distinction. When it shattered, the elevator But how was she to walk so far, even cage. shivered along Ihe length of its cable whole supposing she could find the way? Her left Although she knew that her life had sud- 52 OMNI :donpagei24 There seem to be great tides that den to codify and digest, proving Operate in the history of civilization, that any nation can participate in the

and nations are prudeni il Ihey esti- great swing ot civilization according mate the force of those lides. iheit to its peculiar capabilities. Portugal genesis, and the extent to which they provided daring sea captains. Eng- can be utilized. A nation that guess- land provided able administrators. es wrong on all its estimates is apt to France provided the philosophers.

be in serious trouble, if nof on the Those that provided nothing lost an brink of decline. Filled wllh specula- entire cycle of historical experience, tion, men with clever minds can from which they never recovered.

make remarkable contributions. Nor do I think that the rewards re- BY JAMES A. MICHENER Toward the middle of the fifteenth sulting from parlicipalion in a great century, nations faced problems cycle need be permanent, reaching

A famed novelist comparable lo those faced by indi- down to all generations. I am quite viduals like Columbus, Vasco da content it my nation gains enlighten- decries the lack of a Gama, and Sebastian Cabot. They ment or riches or advantages of other

comprehensive had to decide whether they wanted kinds for a respectable period. It American space effort to participate in the exploration of the can't be the hullabaloo of a single world and, if so, to whal degree of day or week, nor the celebration commitment. Those nations like Por- without foundation of some acciden- PHOTOGRAPH BY SOMOROFF tugal and Spain thai made early and tal accomplishment with little sub- MICHAEL fast decisions gained empires of fan- sequent meaning. But if a nation re- tastic richness. Oihers, like disunited sponds to a challenge, succeeds in Germany and Italy, which did not its effort, garners the rewards for a perceive the possibilities, suffered sens blc period, and then loses the

grave disadvantages and never commanding position, I think no caught up. England and France were harm has been done. The nation has very tardy, but in the end the first gleaned from that experience about

made a stunning recovery, the latter all that it was destined to achieve, never did. and a great good has been accom-

I am not primarily interesfed in plished, because then Ihe nation is either the exploits of a few daring prooared psychologically to tackle

captains or the economic advan- the next big problem when it comes

tages of the nations they repre- along. And it surely will, for the life of sented. The more lasting effect was any nation since the beginning of his-

on the spirit of the times, that wonder- tory has been a record of how it con- ful enlarging of the human con- fronted the great challenges that in-

sciousness when it realized that the evitably came its way. old definitions no longer applied, History is a grand mix of concepts,

when it knew that the world consisted actions, organizings, and commit- of a great deal more than Europe. To ments thai determines the extent to have missed the explorations was which any nation can achieve a good

regrettable, but to have missed this life for its citizens, and I believe with-

spiritual awakening would have been out question that if a nation misses

disastrous. France and Sweden are "'"ie great —ovements of its time, it

excellent examples of nations thai misses the foundations on which it

did little of the manual work but that can build for the future.

reaped the intellectual rewards of the One word of caution. I am not here

period. One might almost argue that speak rig of either fad or fashion. I am Portugal and Spain dragged home not extolling the attractive ephem-

the raw material for France and Swe- eral. And I am certainly not sponsor- £ A nation that loses its forward thrust is

in danger . . .the way to retain it

is via exploration.^1

soon find itself doomed.

But if all nations have that German Nazism rep- the capacity to utilize resented "the wave of the space defensively, then future." Anyone who the peril is diminished subscribed to that idea and reasonable ar- had a very limited view of rangements can be what the future of the worked out. But only human race could be, through parity can we and few fashionable fully succeed in this ideas have ever crum- endeavor. bled so fast and so disas- Therefore. Ihe United trously The senate of any States must have a sen- nation is obligated to dis- sible space program, cern the merely fashion- whether it wants one or able when it offers itself not. To fail to keep up with andto.reject it. new developments in this

Suppose that all I have field would be disas- said is true, which would trous, and any presiden- be a miracle equal to tial administration that those I've been discuss- permitted a lag should ing. Where does that be resoundingly con- leave the United States in demned. We have to relation to its space pro- know what the capabili-

gram? I am competent to ties of space are, and we comment on only three have got to retain our proof its aspects, leaving the ficiency in using them. more technical details to .others. ago set aside a s.ibsiari ai oudget, and Are there spiritual advantages to be

Are there nonmilitary advantages to be had it authorized the assembling of a body gained from a space program? The spirit of gained from a space program? The high of top scientists, and had it provided them man and the resolve of a nation are tenuous technical requirements for success in with spacious laboratories and told them, things, to be fortified by the strangest expe- space are so fundamental that spinoff re- "Devise a computerized navigational in- riences or destroyed by the most unantici- wards are almost automatic. Radio, televi- strument that will operate regardless of pated accidents. Outward events influence sion, medical instrumentation, miniaturi- where in space it is stationed," this coulo them, but inner resolves usually determine zation, watches, new food processes, surely have been done. But neither Con- outcomes. A novelist sees men and women communications, health advances, and gress nor the human mind works this way. It destroy themselves because the will to improvement in clothing are some of the is only when great felt needs spur the imag- survive has been lost; a historian watches few advantages that I myseli have gained ination that certain accomplishments be- nations' go' down because of fatal wrong because of the space program, and I am come possible. As a project by itself, few of choices that sap the national energy. Usu- speaking only of small items that can be the bonuses cited above would have mate- ally the tragedy occurs when inner convic- comprehended and used by the individual. rialized; as part of a national effort with a tions are lost or when a sense of frustration

If one considers the larger items, such as clearly defined goal, they all came into be- or waning purpose prevails. intercontinental communications satellites, ing, and others like them will follow It is extremely difficult to keep a human the mapping of weather patterns, the anal- Are Ihere military advantages to be life or the life of a nation moving forward ysis of soils and forests, the exploration for gained from a space program? I would be with enough energy and commitment to lift minerals, including oil, the management of lerrified today if only Russian and Chinese it into the next cycle of experience. My own fisheries-, and the like, the potential rewards vehicles were orbiting in space. Their mili- life has been spent chronicling the rise and are multiplied many times. tary advantage would be so tremendous fall of human systems, and I am convinced all terribly 1 have followed our past space adven- that we might almost suffer as a nation a that we are vulnerable. tures about as carefully as an uninstructed kind of psychological shock from which we I do not for a moment believe that the layman could, and I have a rather imagina- might never recover, for we would certainly spiritual well-being of our nation depends tive mind, but I anticipated almost none of be at Iheir mercy. primarily upon a successful space pro-

I these significant by-products, and doubt I fear that potentials of space warfare gram. There are, as William James said, that any of us can predict where the next have yet lo be impressed upon the Ameri- moral equivalents lo war, moral substitutes contributions will be made. can public. We do not realize the over- for any charismatic national experience. I

I have heard one impressive argument whelming advantage a nation would enjoy am sure we could, as a nation, attain great against what I am saying now. A man of if it alone commandeered space, if it alone spiritual reassurance from rebuilding our some probity said, "if we had applied our could direct by radio beam when and cities or distributing our farm produce bet- scientific brajjis to these problems, we where an object or its cargo were to be ter. And my experience in the arts has could have solved them all at one tenth the brought down to Earth. Any nation that al- taught me to be suspicious of late fashions cost." He is right. Had Congress 20 years lowed its enemies such a superiority would or high styles. Space programs are stylish

5B OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 121 ,

FICTION

Only three stood between the world and the threat of another nuclear holocaust

MEN LIKE US BY DAVID DRAKE

There was a toad crucified The trail was steep and narrow against them at the head of The stream was now bubbling the pass. Decades of ten meters below, but in

cooking in the blue haze springtime it would fill its sharp from the east had left it withered gorge with a torrent as cold as the but incorruptible. It remained. snows that spawned it. Coming even now that the haze was only down the valley, Smith had a a memory. The three travelers good view of Mosebywhenhe squatted down before the had eased around the last facet talisman and stared back at it. of rock above the town. It "The village can't be far from sprawled in the angle of the here," Smith said at last. "I'll go creek and the river into which the down tomorrow" creek plunged. In a niche across Ssu-ma shrugged and argued the creek from the houses was a "Why waste time? We can all go broad stone building, lighted by down together." slit windows at second-sfory "Time we've got," said level. Its only entrance was an Kozinski. playing absently with armored door. The building could his ribs as he eyed the toad. "A lot have been a prison or a fortress of the stories we've been told were it not for the power lines come from ignorance, from fear There may be no more truth to this one than to many of the others. We have a duty, but we have a duty as well not to disrupt needlessly. We'll wait for you and watch." Smith chuckled wryly. "What sort of men would there be in the world," he said, "if it weren't for men like us?" All three of them laughed, but no one bothered to finish their old joke.

PAINTING BY CLIFF McREYNOLDS 3

wait for the grim-looking and thickly covered by hair. If he was un- running from it, mostly to the smelter at the Smith did not at all. it was in that he had been riverside. A plume ot vapor overhung its men to force him. He shrugged off his pack usual guards circumcised no longer a common opera- slate roof. and handed it to the nearest of the — had better uses for a One of the. pair of guards at the door of armed with crossbows and hand-forged tion in a world thai time. Then a woman noticed the power plant was morosely surveying swords. He said, "Gently with it, friend. surgeon's never hidden but some- the opposite side of the gorge for want of There's some of it that's fragile, and I need it Smith's left palm, until that moment. anylhing better to do. He was the first to to trade for room and board the next while." how never clearly seen Others leveled notice Smith. His jaw dropped. The traveler He began to unhook his leather vest. She screamed and pointed. hive does waved to him. The guard blurted some- Six of the men besides the chief wore the their weapons, buzzing as a thing to his companion and threw a switch remnants of police uniforms over their jack- when a bear nearslt. blank as the beside the door. ets. They were all older — not lean warriors Very carefully, his face as his left hand What happened then frightened Smith like the crossbowmen but theycarried leather of his pack, Smith held spread his fingers. as he thought nothing in the world could firearms. Five of them had M16 rifles. The toward the crowd and Ridges of gnarled flesh stood out as if they frighten him again: An air raid siren on the anodized finish of the receivers had been paraffin refrozen a moment after roof of the power planl sounded, rising into polished down to the aluminum by ages of had been

sixth a being liquefied. "Yes, I burned it." the . a wail that shook echoes from the gorge. diligent ignorance. The man had close to Men and women darted into the streets, disposable rocket launcher, certain proof traveler said evenly, "getting too something the Blast was some of them armed, but Smith did not see that the. villagers here had at some time something the— it'll never heal, no. But it the people, these people, and he did not looted an army base or a guardroom. too close to. And hasn't gotten worse, either, and that was "fear anything they could do to him. "Just a boy from the Midwest," Smith con-

not the sort of world where I Then the traveler's mind was back in the tinued pleasantly, pulling out the tails of his years ago. It's could complain to have lost so little, hey?" present, a smile on his face and nothing in woolen shirt. "I wanted to see New York City,

it down," the chiel said abruptly. his hands but an oak staff worn by the miles can you believe that? But we'll none of us "Put Then, to the guard who was searching the of earth and rock it had butted against. He live forever, will we?" "Weapons?" continued down into the village, past the pack. this," the said, holding up a fences and latrines .of the nearest of the "Only guard houses. Men with crossbows met him sling and a dozen dense pebbles fitted to pocket. there, but ihey did not touch him, only its leather folding knife in my pants motioned the traveler onward. The rest of "There's a little £What happened Smith volunteered. "I use it to skin the townsfolk gathered in an open area in pocket."

the rabbits I take.'' the center of the town. It separated the then frightened Smith as he "Then put your clothes on," the chief or- detached houses on the east side from thought nothing in dered, and the crowd's breath eased. "You the row of flimsier structures built along the the world could Irighten stay at the inn, since you've truck river The latter obviously served as bar- can enough to pay for it"— he nodded toward racks, taverns, and brothels for bargees him again; An air and smelter workers. The row buildings the careful pile the guard had made of caid siren. . .sounded, rising — had no windows facing east, and even their Smith's trading goods "and perhaps you Street latrines must have been dug on the river- into a wail that shook can find girls on Front to service you * as well. There's none of that east of the side. A few people joined the crowd from echoes from the gorge

Assembly here, I warn you. Before you do them and from the smelter itself, but only a. few anything else, though, you talk to me and "That's close enough," said the foremost the boys in private at the station." traveler nodded and began dressing of those awaiting the traveler. The local was The without embarrassment. a big man with a pink scalp. It shone guards escorted through the long wisps of white hair that he He laid the shirt, folded from habit, on his The police and their his boots of Smith silently, acting as if they were still brushed carefully back over it, His jacket vest and- began unlacing Their destination and trousers were of wool, dyed blue so caribou leather. "There's a crater there 'now, uncertain of his status. building of native stone. It that they nearly matched the shirt of an- and the waves still glow blue if there's even was a two-story before the cient polyester he wore underneath. an overcast to dim the sun. And your skin had probably been the town hall residence as "Where have you come from?" prickles." Blast. It was now the chief's "Just about everywhere, one lime or The traveler grinned. "You won't go there, well as the government's headquarters. again, but I've seen it, Despite that, the building was far less com- another." Smith answered with an engaging and I won't go there of newer structures grin. "Dubuque, originally, but that was a where the observation deck of the World fortable than many the heated by long time ago." Trade Towers was just about the closest that had been designed to be "Don't play games with the chief." hissed mortal man got to heaven with his feet on stoves and lighted by lamps and windows. ." office plywood paneling had . In whose a somewhat younger man with a cruel face man's earth. . an despite its and a similar uniform. "You came over the "We've heard the stories," the chief been carefully preserved — mountains, and nobody comes from the grunted. He carried a stainless-steel re- shoddy gloominess— the governing oli- Smith. Hot Lands." volver in a holster of more recent vintage. garchs of the town questioned " probing businesslike, Chief of police. Smith marveled as he "Trousers 7 Smith asked, cocking an They we're and Smith answered honestly and as fully as he connected the title and the shirts now worn eyebrow at the women in dull-colored sur- said, the last dresses. could. Weapons caches? Looted by . as regalia. Aloud he "When's centuries. time anybody from here walked over the The chief nodded curtly "When a man vivors or rotted in the intervening mountains? Ever?" comes from the Hot Lands, he has no se- Food depots? A myth, seeded by Bearded faces went hard. The traveler crets from us," he said. "Any of us." memories of supermarkets and brought to your flower in the decades of famine and cold continued, "A hundred years ago. two "Well, I might do the same in case," agrseo. ;ugging loose the laces that slew ten times as many folk as the Blast hundred. It was too hot for you to go any- the traveler

I tell Scrap metal for the fur- where that side of the hills, but not now closing the woolen trousers, "but can had slain directly. little truth to the rumors the millions of tons, but there Maybe I'll never sire children of my own, but you there's enough naces? By the of walks the wastelands." He pulled would be no way to transport it across the I what I never needed that. needed to see friends." the garment down and stepped out of it. mountains. And, besides, metals were world, and I have done that, tight the Blast. "Strip him," the chief said flatly. Smith's body was wiry, the muscles often hot even at this remove from "All right," said the chief ai last, shutting ihe handbook of waxed boards on which he had been making notes. The room had become chilly about the time they had had to light the sooty naphtha lamp, "If we think "I never knew of more during the night, we can ask in the morning."' His eyes narrowed. "How long are you expecting to Stay?"

Smith shruoged A. few cays. I just like to

. desire . , wander, I really don't have any to gold rum do anything else." He raised his pack by the straps and added, "Can one of you direct me to your inn?" Carter, the youngest of Ihe six police- like men, stood, He was a blocky man wifh tasted black hair pepper-and-salt beard. and a He had conducted much of the questioning

himself. "I'll take him, "'he said. Unlike his colleagues, he carried a heavy fighting this? knife in addition to his automatic rifle. He held the door open for Smith. The night sky was patchy. When the silver moon was clear, there was more light outside than the bud of naphtha cast within. The pail of steam above the power plant bulged and waned like the mantle of an octopus. Tiny azure sparks traced the power lines across the bridge and down into the smelter. Smith thumbed at the plant. "They made light from electricity, you know? Before the Blast, You ever try that?" His guide looked at him sharply. "Not like they did'. Things glow, but they burn up when we can't keep all the air away from 'em. But you'd be smarter not to ask questions, boy. And maybe you'd be smarter to leave here a little sooner than you planned-

Not to be unfriendly, but if you talk to us, you'll talk lo others. And we don't much

care for talk about Moseby, It has a way of

spreading where it shouldn't." The policeman turned through an open gate and up a graveled pathway. Rosy light leaked around the shutters of a large building on the edge of the Assembly. Sound and' warm air bloomed into the night when he opened the door. In the mild weather the anteroom door was open within.

" 1 ' Carre 1 shcu:ec a big manatthebarof the taproom. "Just in time to buy us a round!" Then he saw Smith and blinked, If you're still drinking It's because yo and the dozen or so men of the company Canadian & soda... tasted gold rum & soda. grew quieter than the hiss of the fire.

"Friends, I don't bite," said Smith with a

If smile, "but I do drink and I will sleep. I can That's the reaction that's made Make sure the rum is Puerto come to an agreement with our hosl here, Puerto Rican Gold Rum one of the Rican. The people of Puerto Rico that is," he added, beaming loward the barman. fastest growing liquors in America have been making rum for almost "Modell's the name," said the tall, knob- today. It's the smooth alternative to five centuries. Their specialized jointed local. Neither he nor the traveler blends, bourbons, Canadians— skills and dedication result inarum offered toshake hands, but he returned the even Scotch. of exceptional taste and purity. other's smile with a briefer, professional Try our Gold Rum with soda, No wonder over 85'V oi theLiie rum one of his own. "Let's see what you have to trade." ginger ale, or on the rocks. The sold in this country comes The men at the bar made room as Smith' first sip will amaze you. The second from Puerto Rico. ranged his small stock on the mahogany. will convert you. First the traveler set out an LP record, still PUERTO RICnn RUfflS sealed in plastic. Modell's lips moved si- Aged for smoothness and taste. lently as his finger hovered a millimeter above the title. "What's a 'Cher,'?" he finally "The lady's name," said 8 -nth "Sne pio- to one of the stools before the fire. Sau- 1 " nounced it 'share. Knowing grunts from sages, dried vegetables, and a pair of lan- the men around him chorused the explana- terns hung from ihe roof joists. Deer and elk paneling tion. "You've electricity here, I see. Perhaps antlers were pegged to the pine RONRICO there's a phonograph?" all around the room, and above the mam "Naw, and the power's not trained piece glowered the skull of a rat larger than enough yet anyhow," Modell said regret- a German shepherd. The taste that tully. His eyes were full of the jacket photo- "I wonder that a man has the courage to " graph, "It heats the smelters is all, and — walk alone out there," suggested a heavy- "Modell, you're supposed to be trading, set local who tamped his pipe with the ball could start a not running your mouth," the policeman in- of his thumb, "what with the mut.ies and all." chuckled, swigged his beer, and terrupted. "Get on with it." Smith gold rush. " "Well, if not Ihe record, then — Smith gestured with the mug at the rat skull, "Like said. that, you mean? But that's old. The giant

"I might make you an offer on the pic- rats were nasty enough, I have no doubt, ture." one of the locals broke in. but they weren't any stronger than the

"I won't separate them. I'm afraid," Smith wolves, and they were a good deal stupid- find colony rejoined, "and I won't have the record where er, Maybe you'd a now and Strike, it can't be used properly. These may be again in ruins downwind of a but the light, the more useful, though I can't guarantee them they'll not venture far into and after the time they've been sitting. ..." And ones that're left not many— are nothing

he laid a red-and-green box of .30-30 car- that a slingstone or arrow can't cure if tridges on the wood. needs be." He paused and smiled. "Be- "The chief keeps all the guns in Moseby sides, their rears sweet enough, I'm told," besides these," said Carter, patting the Despite the fire, the other faces in the

plastic stock ot his M16. "it'll stay that way. circle went pale, Smith's eyes registered And there's a righteous plenty oi ammuni- the reaction while he continued to smile. tion for them already." "Now travelers tell stories, you know," he "Fine, fine, ""said Smith, unperturbed, said, "and there's an art to listening to reaching again into his pack. He removed a them. There's little enough to joke about on

it plastic box that whirred until a tiny green the trail. So I have to do here."

hand reached out of the mechanism to shut !-i :; 'ace wen: serious for a moment, and

itself off. It frightened the onlookers as he added, "But I'll tell you this and swear to

it: much as Smi:n's own. 'ad:a:-.on scars had. Ihe truth of When I was near what rr

The traveler thoughtfully hid the toy again in have been Cleveland, I thought I'd caught a

his pack before taking out his final item, a mouse rummaging in my pack. And when I

Gl compass. fetched it out, it was no bigger than a

"It always shows north, unless you're too mouse, and its egs ware~oded under it so , KITTLED IN PUERTO RICO I close to iron," Smith said as he demon- ii could' hop and scurry the way a mouse strated. "You can turn the/base to any can. But its head — there was a horn just number of degrees and take a sighting there"— the traveler touched the tip of his -WTH-G01B through the slot there, but I'll want more nose— "and another littler one just behino

than a night's lodging for it." it. I figure some zoo keeper before the Blast

"Our tokens are good up and down the would have called me a liar if I'd toid him river," one of the locals suggested, ringing what his rhinos would breed to, don't you RONRICO a small brass disk on the bar. It had been' think?" struck with a complex pattern of lightning He drank deep. The company buzzed at bolts on one side and the number 50 on the the wonder and the easy fellowship of the

other, "You can redeem 'em for iron ingots man who had seen it. at dockside," he explained, thumbing to- "Scottie meant the half-men, didn't you, ward the river "Course, they discount 'em Scotiie?'" said a bulky man whose mus- the farther away you get." tache and the beard fringing his mouth "I don't follow rivers a great deal," the were dark with beer. He mimed an extra PUERTO RIG

traveler lied wilh a smile. "Let's say that I get head with his clenched fist. "Monsters like — room and board — and all I care to drink that in the Hot Lands." RUM ."

for a week. . . Smith's head bobbed sagely against the The chaffering was good-natured and chorus of grim assent from the other men.

brief, concluding wirh Tiree cays' room and "Sure, I know what you mean," he said, board, or — and here Smith nodded toward "Two-headed men? Girls with an extra pair the stern-faced Carter-- so much shorter a of logs coming out of their bellies?" iime as he actually stayed in the village. In Sounds of horror and agreement.

addition. Smith would have all the provi- "You see," the traveler went on, "the Blast sions he requested for his journey and a changed things, but you know as well a

round for the house now When Modell took do that it didn't change them to be easier the traveler's hand, extended to seal the for men, There've always been children

. . it bargain, the whole room cheered. The de- born as . monsters, you will. Maybe

mands for mugs of the sharp, potent beer more born nowadays than there were t drew the innkeeper when he would far fore the Blast, but they were born, and I've rather have pored over his pre-Blast acqui- seen books that were old at the Blast that sition—marvelous, though of scant use to talk of them. And they don't live now, my him. friends. Life everywhere is too hard, and The dealing over, Smith carried his mug those poor. innocents remind folk of Ihe CONTINUED ON PAQE110 FUTUR6 GOT€RS

There are as many sexes as there are people BY JOHNSTOLTENBERG

Just lor fun," Dr. John Money tells his students at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, "ask

yourself, 'Would I take a pill that could change my sex?'

"I ask you thai," he explains,

"because it's a device to lorce you to think about your own sexual status, your own gender idenlity. and how you really leel about it." Coming from Dr Money, the question has extra impact. A noted sexologist, he's director of the psychohormonal research unit at Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore. He's also one of the men responsible for the first sex-change operation ever pertormed in the United States. And he's convinced that for many practical purposes our gender is a matter of choice, not of genetic chance. "There are not two sexes." he declares. "There is a continuum. You can't do a head count. It doesn't work thai way. You don't even come up with fifteen or fifty different sexes.

It looks like a spectrum." When the Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus announced in

1 543 that the sun does not revolve around the earth, his discovery sel of! a cataclysm in human consciousness. Earth had always revolved around the sun. bul people had long believed the reverse. Suddenly the entire universe had to be rethought. The notion that there are not really two sexes could very well set off just such a shock wave in the near future. Writing in Woman Haling: A

PAINTING BY WOLFGANG HUTTER "

Radical Look at Sexuality in 1974, feminist United States was performed stealthily at a mustache and his wire-rim specs. Until Andrea Dworkin commented that Money's Johns Hopkins Hospital one night in Feb- recently he wore his gray hair slicked down

research into the variability of human ruary.1965. It was John Money and surgeon in straight strands, but now it is modishly sexedness "threatens to transform the tra- Howard W Jones, Jr.,' who made the deci- curled. He speaks elegantly and ditional biology of sex difference into the sion to go ahead with the radical operation. eloquently, often in layman's terms, in a radical biology of sex similarity. That is not Money says the toughest ethical decisions gracefully composed manner that he de- to say that there is one sex, but that there in his career have sprung from the volatile liberately cultivated when he started teach- are many." Dworkin named that condition issue of transsexuality. ing. It is an impressive elocution, and he multisexuallty."VJe are clearly a multisexed "I did it, first of all, because I was prop- uses it almost all the time. species," she asserted. erly interested in the welfare of transsexu- He clearly relished the adventurousness

" it 'Man' and 'woman' are fictions, carica- als," Money says. "But I also did because permitted him here on Johns Hopkins's up-

il is less staid, finds, tures, cultural constructs." I knew that there was no better way at that town campus — he Make a note for the twenty-first century. moment to establish the legitimacy of than the medical school downtown — and Dworkin's reception suits John Money serological medicine and of the change in he obviously enjoys astonishing his stu- well. He is very much a social activist, a medical attitude toward people with sexual dents. He began his class with a 20-minute crusader for a change in attitudes. He de- problems. Surgeons always possess tre- excerpt from High Rise, a pornographic

scribes himself as "a skeptic and a rebel mendous prestige compared with psychia- film from his collection. After it ended, he against establishment hypotheses." He trists and psychologists. The operation remarked somewhat perfunctorily on the argues publicly against the "sexual dic- would force medicine to be far more seri- "sexism" and "sex stereotyping" in the film, tatorship" that he believes rules society, ous about sexological problems. Indirectly then asked, "How young is too young to be and he urges the establishment of a "sex- this would compel society to take a differ- able to see something like that?" Money ual democracy" in which all sexual noncon- ent approach toward the people you might strongly advocates the use of pornography formities would be tolerated so long as they call sexual dissidents." in children's sexual instruction. do not "cross the dividing line of infringing Money is still diligently striving to make Now the room no longer reverberated on the personal inviolacy of the partner." people take unfamiliar sexual concepts with coarse guffaws; rather, there was an Money has been a pioneer of sexual seriously. edgy kind of curiosity in the class. A mon-

medicine throughout his career. He claims One winter evening I sat in on Money's tage of slides flashed before the class- to have been the first to use the phrase class "Biosocial Aspects of Human Sexual- bodies dressed and undressed, genitalia gender role (back in 1955, after which, he ity," which he teaches for undergraduates. in close-ups, faces in smiles; infants, chil- says, the concept "took oft like wildfire"), At fifty-eight, he cuts a dapper figure in a dren, and teen-agers. and he was largely responsible for the ac- tweedy jacket and navy-blue tie, electric- We saw "a person who got born with a ceptance of transsexualism as a condition blue shirt, and hiking boots. There is, perfectly normal-looking penis but who suitable for surgical, medical, and psycho- perhaps, something of his past life as a had two ovaries inside." Another picture, of logical treatment. schoolteacher in New Zealand (where he two babies' groins, showed absolutely The first sex-change operation in the was born and reared) in the neat wedge of identical-looking penile-and-scrotal development. "One of these babies is a genetic XX female, and the other one is a genetic XY male." Money says. "You can throw your penny and make your decision which one is which." Another picture displays two other babies' groins that both look like vulvas; again one is XX and one is XY Then came a picture of a strapping, eleven-year-old boy who is now, we were told, twenty years ot age. "He still has XX chromosomes in every ceil ot his body, and

he was born with two ovaries. If it had been discovered before he was a few days or a tew weeks old, he could have been rehabili- tated surgically and hormonally. By now he could have delivered three or four babies. Such then is the relativity of sex in the way nature designs us, as compared with our way of conceiving and conceptualizing what she [nature] may have done." This "vast range of genital formations," Money explains, occurs because everyone's genitals develop prenatally from the same embryonic tissue under the influence of the hormone androgen. The shape oi the genitals depends on how much androgen was present during their formation. It's a misconception, he says, that there are "male" hormones and "female" hormones and that men have one kind and women the other. In fact, everyone has all of f IZjW/Tq them, in countless different proportions. Money likes to tell his undergraduate students that all the young men present have

enough estrogen in their bodies to grow3 row

. Don'! longer I continue research. know how much can my breasts, were it not that their androgenigen suppresses that effect, and that women have enough androgen in their bodies to grow beards, but estrogen is anti- androgenic and inhibits hair growth. Most people with some knowledge of basic genetics believe that the so-called sex chromosomes determine our gender: Either you are XX (female) or you are XY (male). Money points out, however, that even chromosomal sex is completely variable. "As ot this moment," he says, "we can make a fairly good classification scientif- ically that there are XY men and there are a very, very few XX men; there are XX women and Ihere are a very few XY women. There are X-zero women, but there's no Y-zero anything, because it doesn't live. "Then there are XXY men, and there are XYY men, and there are XXX women. And the mosaics: There's XXY/XY, some cells having one combination and other cells

having the other. I can go on from here until halfway across the room with all of these very rare mosaics that are viable, which have very weird combinations of the X and the Y chromosomes. "There's an even rarer set of conditions in which you have an X and a Y with break- ages and cross-linkages and transloca- tions in them. An arm breaks off one chromosome and gets joined onto another, and then that one replicates itself. I can go all the way across the room with the known cases ot that.

"So I can come up with probably several hundred known varieties — esoterically rare— but they have been recorded. Well, chromosomally there are all that many different kinds of chromosomal sex. And a lair number of them are fertile."

Money's list of sex variables goes on and on: "There are all the different kinds of prenatal hormonal sexual variants— a whole spectrum of how the sex hormones were in balance in the prenatal period. There's what happens to a baby in the birth process that may influence sexual development. There would be many sexes if you chose to use that criterion. There's the bonding of the baby to the mother and the father in the first few hours and days of life. And all the postnatal influences that get in through the eyes and the ears and the skin senses.

"Sex is not determined on the basis of any of its criteria taken alone," Money suggests. There is no absolute correlation between a person's sex and any particular biological or biographical fact. "People are absolute about male and female," he adds.- "Nature is not. Because we're so used to ihe differences being maximized, we simply fall into a pattern of accepting them. It doesn't occur to us to ask, 'Well, what

would happen if I turned the thing around and looked for similarities?'" Some people argue that all the anomalies — the esoterically rare cases of variation in chromosomal sex, for instance, or the babies- bom with ambiguous genitalia— are merely freaks and muta- t0^f tions. They are the exceptions that prove the two-sex rule. Anomalies, il is said, do not make hu^ar sexedr.ess a continuum. can happen once; therefore no theory can Dr. Ehrhardt often recommends that Money confronts this argument with a stand up until it's been tested against this.' children be taught a gender identity oppo- story from his days as a graduate studeni in Since nobody had ever worked in the psy- site to their biological sex, If a child is born social relations- at Harvard, concentrating chology and behavioral development of with XY chromosomal sex and possibly fer- in cultural anthropology, sociology, and clin- hermaphrodites before, t gave me a field tile testes but with only a minuscule penis, ical psychology. He wrote his doctoral dis- day to turn traditional belief upside down. Ehrhardt is apt to recommend that the child sertation on hermaphrodites and inter- That's fhe beginning of all new science, be raised as a girl instead of as a boy. sexes— people born with somewhere-in- isn't it? To say, 'We have to ask some new The reason lor ttjjs sex reassignment is between sex organs. questions now'" simple; She has seen tragic consequences During his research-he came upon one Money is not the only sexologist who when such infants are raised as boys. particularly unusual case, a person who challenges traditional views. He is hot even "They usually go through an absolutely had been considered to be a boy all his life, the most radical. brutal childhood, victimized by their peers. although his penis had been "defective" at Dr. Anke Ehrhardt. Money's coauthor on All those issues, like being able to stand up birth and had been "corrected" surgically, the influential and controversial book Man to urinate, are of incredible importance in The boy's diagnosis was abruptly revised, & Woman, Boy & Girl, grew up in Germany childhood in our culture." however, when, at age eleven, he began to and received her doctorate at the Univer- These boys, she says, grow up "beset by menstruate through his penis. Only then sity of Dusseldorf. At Johns Hopkins, work- seli-doubts" and lacking any hope of an was it discovered that the "boy" had two ing with Money, she studies children who erotic relationship in which their fertility normally functioning ovaries and a uterus. had received higher-than-normal levels of might be of any use to them, even when- Money "s problem was to make statistical androgen prenalally, continuing a research after 10 or 12 operations— they have a sense out of a clinical condition that he had project she pursued at the State University reasonable-looking penis, But if they are seen only once and that had been reported of New York at Buffalo. raised as girls instead — their testicles only six times. He consulted Dr. Frederick Even now many oi the children she sees having been removed at age nine orten— Mosteller, a mathematician in the depart- are referred to her because of indetermi- "these young women [dol very well in their ment of social relations and later president nate genital sex at birfh or because of en- sexual response patiern. Typically, they are of the American Association for the Ad- docrinological departures from the- norm. orgasmic." vancement of Science. The statistician told She is deeply concerned about their wel- Thai such individuals become women him, "Well, you've got one case that com- fare, growing up in a world where male and with normal sexual response patterns pletely destroys everybody's conception female gender icontiiiGsa^e ngidly divided raises some intriguing questions; Is there about what can happen to a genetic and codified. 'A person's gender identity, or really an anatomical basis for the differ- female. You just need one of them to show primary identification as male or female, ence we believe exists between normal ihat all hypotheses have to be revised." seems to be very much dependent on what male and normal female eroticism? Don't The exception, in other words, disproves happens alter birth rather than before," she these individual sjggesi. "adical similarity the rule. "The first step in the history of this says. "One's gender identity can be in total in the erotic potential o! so-called men and science," Money continues, "is to say, 'It contrast to what happened before." women? Perhaps. "The whole perineal area has the potential to be orgasmic," Ehrhardt says. She admits that her recommendation ' that a genetically male iniant with a micro- phallus be raised as a girl flies in the face of

conventional wisdom: "It touches on the taboo that these two sexes, these two genders, are predetermined by the reproduc-

tive potential. If you go against that, you know, you are an absolute rebel." She sees four very separate areas in which biology might influence human sex differences. Three of them are fluid, or continuing, categories, where no male-female dichotomy exists. Only one is an either/or; gender identity, our belief that we belong to one sex or to the other, Prenatal effects have virtually nothing to do with that belief;

it is not immutably linked to any anatomical

fact at all.

Second is sex dimorphic behavior, such as temperament or energy level. Ehrhardt's studies show that extra prenatal androgen produces a high level of gross physical energy in childhood. Yet no such behavior

is biologically inevitable, nor will it express itself no matter what happens after birth; rather, these behavior patterns will occur

only if the environment permits.

Third is sexual orientation, the degree to which one is sexually attracted to males or females or both. Ehrhardt doubts that biol-

ogy influences this at all. The fourth cate- gory is cognitive sex ditferences, particular patterns of cognition such as verbal ability, space-form perception, and so on. "We deal with an overlap among men and -.• j,y. women in any o( ihese behavior areas," Ehrhardt says, "except in gender identity." The question arises, "What exactly is a 'sex'?" Is there really any such thing? Alter all, gender identity does not correlate with any single biological variable, not even with reproductive capability. If there are people whose belief about their "sex" completely contradicts every biological variable by which a sex is conventionally defined — including reproductive capability— then we seem to be faced with those remarkable exceptions that disprove all old rules. We will need a whole new theory to explain things. So far we don't have it. ' Where does this leave us? "There is no absolute dichotomy of male and female, even with respect to chromosomal and gonadal sex," Money teaches us. Ye;, asked whether science has any responsibility to help bring people's absolutist ideas about gender dichotomy more into har- mony with nature's vast variability he answers evasively, "Well, don't forget that people are nature. Nature designed us have a way of approaching things in i "BeforeTDKpicked me, thoughts in terms of laws of nature and I moral absolutes, and that's in itself a fact of nature, isn't it?" That translates, roughly: I picked them" "People may not be created male or female, but they are created to think of -Stevie Wonder- themselves as male or female. Perhaps science should leave well enough alone." So- why are so few people interested in diversity, though nature is?

"Oh, it's easier to process your thoughts when you make Ihem all come into focus on one thing," Money says. "It's like the good paranoid. You know, one explanation c ers everything."

Money has written that it doesn't matter what differences there are between male and female in human culture; what matters is only that reproductive and coital func- ! ° tions be clear and decisive. "It doesn't mat- Ste.ir and through. He ter whether Daddy makes the pancakes records a'song track by track. Plays it back countless and Mommy drives the tractor, just so long ' and performance. as the kid knows, from as far back as times to check quality ever remembers, that only women carry ." We felt we had a lot in common with Stevie. Each pregnancies and only men put ih TDK cassette has 250 components, assembled with penisesin. And if you know what your penis or your vulva and vagina are for, then you microscopic precision. There ate1J17 check points for don't have to bother a damn about how you the shell alone. TDK is tested under extremes of heat, earn your living or where you enjoy your recreation." humidity and shock. It performs brilliantly. Which is Coming from someone who has de- why eachTDK package clared the utter relativity of human gender, has a full lifetime it seems an oddly orthodox view. One gets the feeling that John Money is a pathfinder warranty.* who will never really live in the land he dis- ' AsWediscovered, covered.

' Some critics have indeed suggested that Stevie has been using the medical establishment, to which Money TDK cassettes for years. belongs, serves to reinforce the false separation between male and female — Long before we asked particularly by promoting the "treatable him. For a perfectionist, syndrome" of transsexualism. Foremost that says a Jot. among those critics is Dr. Janice Raymond, assistant professor of women's studies and medical ethics at Hampshire College and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. V'- <£ '-. : - CONTINUED ON PAGE 116 ... Giants of aerospace are gathering to show us our future 8T 2000 BY KENNETH JON ROSE

future sweeps in at an Theaccelerating pace. Science and technology touch every aspect of our lives, changing everything they touch. Astronauts place humanity's footprints on the dusty suriace of the moon. Surgeons save lives with lasers, microminiaturized instruments, and prosthetic organs. Fingertip-sized computers revolutionize inlormalion processing. Bioengineers tailor bacteria to produce human insulin and interteron. "Ninefy-five percent of America's new technology will be developed tor transportation, energy, space science, and defense," predicts Jerry Grey, director of public policy for the American Institute of Aeronaulics and Astronautics (AIAA). This prestigious aggregate of engineers annually sponsors a Technical Display, which this year will be open to the public for the first time. Global Technology 2000, as it's been designated, may be the most ambitious display of aerospace technology in U.S.

Lett: Tentlike "tension structures" glow in the Florida night at Sea World, near Orlando. These

.'.'g.if'.ve'G' 'I;, erwgy -efficient buildings nave skins of Owens- Corning Fiberglas coated with DuPont Teflon. Top: NASA's Manner; Maneuvering Unit, developed by Martin Marietta, will propel weightless astronauts with jets of gas. £ Downtown air buses will land on top of buildings or enter through openings in the s/de.9

history. Its general chairman, Laurence Adams, president of Martin Marietta Aerospace, views the industrial exhibition as nothing short of a milestone in the history of modern technology.

"Technology is where the world's future lies, and GT 2000 wili show what we're doing about it," he declares. Everything from glittering satellites to wind turbines will be exhibited, as well as scaled-down jets, rockets, future space shuttles, lasers, computers, and solar cells. The display, pari of AlAA's international annual meeting, is being held May 9 to 11 at the new Convention Center in Baltimore's downtown inner-harbor area, only a few miles from the National Air and Space Museum, in Washington, QG. The museum houses the largest permanent display of aerospace technology in the world. inside the five-acre structure-- and spilling out onto the parks and 3

677?e important thing is that technology, no matter how good, how promising it is, takes time

harbor nearby— companies like General Electric. IBM, Westinghouse. Hughes Aircraft, Aerospatiale. Fokker, and others will be showing off

Iheir latest wares, From the look of it, a good deal of Ihe world's technological future will be on exhibit. Rockwell has reserved space for its mock-ups of the space shuttle. Lockheed will display images of the robotlike Mars rover and models of hydrogen-fueled planes, which may someday Iransporl passengers nonstop across the Pacific faster than ever before. IBM's newest computers will be well represented, and Ford Aerospace will display its most advanced Intelsat telephone relay satellites. Intelsat 5 is now being used by 103 nations. Among the gleaming communications satellites of Hughes Aircraft and COMSAT, the TRW company will exhibit everything from megaliihic solar arrays to fusion equipment, which might someday take energy .

•The world's future is technology; GT 2000 will show what we're doing about US

from the sea. "This is the public's opportunity," says Lawrence Craner. AlAA's director of displays, "to peek into the future as it is perceived by the world's leading practitioners of research and development." For Edgar Cortright, president of Lockheed-California Company. Craner's statement is especially true. The Lockheed executive fore- casts an impressive future for air trans porta lion: "I believe we will see infracity and intercity vertical-takeolf aircraft that might follow along that railroad lines as their right-of-way . . . commuter-type air buses would fly downtown and either land on top of buildings or fly into openings in the sides of vertical terminals." Communications, Burton Edelson at COMSAT predicts, will loom even larger as satellites increase in size and power output. Soon, perhaps before the century is out, receiving stations on Earth might be

Right: Grumman's beam builder extrudes aluminum members for space constructions. Above: Magnetic bubbles on an IBM lattice store 5 million bits ol information per square inch. Top left: Performed aboard Sky! ad. Lockheed's experiment on cellular convection in zero gravity will aid future high technologies. Top right: Hughes's 14-foot-diameter LEASAT makes maximum use of the space shuttle's 15-toot cargo bay. Beginning in 19B?.LEASATs will ring the earth to relay telecommunica lions By the turn of the century, 5 percent of the power used in the U.S.A. will be so/ar.9

as small as a wristwatch. "The restrictions on satellite communica: tions," he says, "will not be technological. They'll be economic." No one at GT 2000 really expects to foretell our exact future, bright as their hopes are. "The fact that something exists in concept, so that o can build a model or prototype today, does not make it currently usable technology," cautions Alexander Flax, president of the Institute of De- fense Analysis, in Virginia. And Fred Koomanoff, director of the De- partment of Energy's satellite power systems project division, says, "The important thing for people to understand is that technology, no

matter how good it is, how promising it is, takes time." DQ

Far left: A bold new way of life Is outlined by this unorthodox economist who combines widely disparate disciplines into one coherent vision of the near future irUTERV/IEUU

never fought for Air. Later she worked with Ralph Nader and Campaign someone had put me in Economics 1, 1 might have Clean automaker Ifmy way out," Hazel Henderson once said. And the world might GM to bring consumer accountability to the largest economic issues never have gained one of its most original thinkers in that "dismal Henderson decided to focus her energies on writing for publications including Harvard Business science" economics, particularly as il relates to science and pub- and began Review, The Futurist. She and her husband, lic policy. Without benefit of formal education beyond high school, Review. Saturday and Jersey, where they Henderson is recognized for her unconventional views and il- Carter Henderson, moved to Princeton, New luminating ideas. Her appointments to several prestigious organi- established the Princeton Center for Alternative Futures, an infor- which has zations include the congressional Office of Technology Assess- mal conference center, operating out of their home, ment (OTA), where as a member of the Advisory Council she helps been described as a "mom-and-pop think tank." been direc- draft studies on a wide variety of future- related issues— solar In addition to her duties with OTA, Henderson has a the Insti- I technologies, for example, or the effects of nuclear war. Much in tor of the Council of Economic Priorities and Worldwatch the globe, attending tute and a member of President Carter's Economic Task Force. She i demand as a lecturer and writer, she roams Publishing), » conferences and spreading her vision of a new economics. is the author of Creating Alternative Futures (Berkeley of her The Politics of Reconceptualization I A native of England, Henderson came to the United States some a collection essays, and Anchor/Doubleday Press). 1 20 years ago, married, and began to raise a family in New York City. (to be published in September by with Henderson; as in most con- 2 A power plant across the si roof prompted her first involvement with Omni editor Eric Rosen spoke the first topic energy. I environmental issues: She became a founding member of Citizens versations these days, was Omni: For more than a decade you've There are many "human enzymes" in the been warning that we are coming to the old system, trying to figure out how to re- end of the cheap-energy era. What kind of deploy themselves. There are enough cran- economy and technology do we need for nies in the system, enough entrepreneurial the'era to come? spirit, enough free information, so that people Henderson: We need to shifi to a renew- arebeginningtomakethechangesweneed, able-resource economy, which implies a but the changes are small and local. So shift from our single-minded concentration they're difficult to identify as a new pattern. on physics and engineering to an empha- They don't show up as the old GNP type of sis on the biosciences and ecosciences. economic growth. I'm sure that much of the Our goal should be to develop processes renewable- resource sector will, in fact, be with greater thermodynamic efficiency and derailed, distorted, taken over to serve old to align them with long-term ecosystem ef- institutional needs, and be burdened by

ficiency. We still have a lot to learn about costly overhead. We'll see both. that. Omni: How do these "human enzymes" Omni: What do you mean by thermody- communicate with each other? namic and ecosystem efficiency? Henderson: By either/or logic, it's a para- Henderson: Our current machines and dox: The old dinosaur institutions have de- manufacturing processes grew in an veloped an incredible high-technology energy-inefficient way because we had communication system, computer net- cheap petroleum. Our electrical generat- works, data banks. And inside the dino- ing systems, for example, produce a lot of saurs are the "enzymes," networking what we defined as "waste heat." So we've around obstacles and communicating lat-

built cooling towers to get rid of it. That's a erally. It reminds me in some ways of a thermodynamic- obscenity: spending extra jungle-drum system, in some ways of the Qln the beginning OPEC energy and material to get rid of energy "committees of correspondence" that pre- produced in the wrong way. Now we have to ceded the American Revolution. was vilified as this develop cogeneration schemes to make The same technology that makes it pos- dreadful cartel. Now some use of the low-pressure steam or hot water sible for a multinational corporation, for sell paten! in of us reatize that it that we once could afford to waste. example, to its medicines Ecosystem efficiency combines ther- many countries makes it possible for con- was the best thing that could modynamic analysis with bioscience. If sumer groups to get in touch across na- have happened, and you're seeking ecosystem efficiency, you tional boundaries and say, "Beware of this

pave over salt marsh one of the product; they may be about to dump it on we are praying for them to don't a — • most productive ecosystems on the you." hold their prices down . planet— for an airport, and meanwhile Omni: Can everyone be as adaptable as

keep adding o I- based te- tilizer to hype the the "human enzymes"? Isn't the stress of productivity of your farmland. change going to be too much for a lot of Omni: What should we look for in new people?

technologies? Henderson: No, I think most people have Henderson: We should be developing lots no particular stake in the old systems; the of small, rather humble technologies that real difficulty is for the dinosaur institutions will give the system a lot more flexibility. that are rigidified around old technologies That's the trade-off we see in evolution: and strategies of energy and material use Success comes from increasing adapta- that can't be sustained. It's those sectors, bility instead of being set in past adapta- and the people employed there, who feel tions. The industrial mind-set on which the the stress. old economics was built is unsuitable for Omni: Is the Chrysler "bail-out" an exam- the new view of bioproductivity, whose ple of that?

basic principles are diversity and redun- Henderson; Yes. I think it's quite typical of dancy. what we can expect. We shouldn't bail out Omni: But aren't the renewable-resource the institution and all the stockholders, in- sectors following the traditional pattern, vestors, and managers who enjoyed the too? Every analysis of solar cells, for exam- ride up. They gottheir dividends and stock ple, counts on mass production to bring options: we don't have to underwrite their prices down, market subsidies to encourage the big companies to get into the field, We should subsidize the redeployment and so on. of the workers, who are fairly blameless, Henderson: There will be some of both. We into renewable-resource sectors of the it's have to go beyond either/or logic; it's going economy As far as I can see, more to be both/and. Much good new science efficient both socially and economically to and technology are being subsidized al- supporl them generously until they're re- most unwittingly by the old system. deployed, or until the Chrysler board has

James Yen, a researcher at Grumman, people on it who can turn the company for example, has developed what'scalled a toward production of buses and rapid- tornado wind machine, which extracts en- transi: systems. ergy from a vertical spiral of heated air. Omni: Do we need a crisis to knock us over

Maybe it could be installed instead of cool- the head? ing towers at power plants. Anyway, while Henderson: Obviously, we don't need a

Yen was developing the idea, it didn't fit into systemic crisis, in which everything goes to Grumman's policies, and the corporate pot all at once. In such a case people sim-

structure worked to reject it. ply freak. They can't deal with it. But small. - -

subsystem crises have social learning ex- "I ONLY SPEAK ENGLISH.

perience built into them, especially if we encourage public dialogue, such as we BUT, WITH MY CRAIG have had over the Chrysler question. TRANSLATOR, I CAN Omni: How has our experience with OPEC MAKE been a lesson? MYSELF UNDERSTOOD TO it only Henderson: I think was the shock that could make us realize how far out of OVER 2 BILLION PEOPLE." line with the rest of the world our energy consumption has been. At the outset OPEC was vilified as a dreadful cartel. Now some that.it was the best thing that of us realize jtven world traveler could have happened to help us adapt: Jim McKay needs a little help Now that the cartel has broken on the up side and there's petroleum selling at forty now and then making himself dollars a barrel on the spot market, we're understood. That's why he ' going to be praying for OPEC to hold the carries the Craig Translator and line. may even realize how much of the We Information Center. OPEC price increase has been simply an It's his French, German, Spanish and attempt to compensate for the dollar's declining value. Italian. Japanese, Russian,

Omni: What are some of the ill effects of Chinese, and Arabic are our current economic thinking? displayed phonetically. Henderson: The two billion six hundred We've added information million dollars in claims against Hooker English* French * Spanish* capsules: a Nutrition Guide and Chemical for what happened at Love Canal, or the millions of dollars that tax- German* Italian? Japanese' Calorie Counter* a Bar and payers are going to have to pay to clean up Dutch* Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Wine Guide* and Business Terms, the Three Mile Island reactor With conven- Danish, Norwegian * Portuguese, even a Word Game capsule tional economics, we've been hiding costs Swedish, and Finnish. He just including Anagrams and Hang- in the environment or in the social system, snaps in a tiny language capsule man, and a Las Vegas capsule as ill health or as risks tothe health of future generations. Now those hidden costs are and has the world at his finger- that lets you play Blackjack coming back to haunt us, and there's no tips. And he can without losing a penny, f^v^ place to hide them anymore. use three differ Visit your ^-—~____3- Will paying those costs impoverish Omni: Craig dealer and other sectors of the economy? WORDSr . q simultaneously, try out the Craig ' Henderson: Yes, inasmuch as they are past-due bills, no longer deferrable. The translating from one to another Translator and first thing that companies tend to do in at the touch of a button. Information Center. And when these cases is to go lor the "add-on" We've doubled capacity of the you're travelmg, you'll never technology — to build cooling towers when most popular capsules to approx- find yourself at a loss for words. they're no longer allowed to heat up the imately 2000 words each, plus nearest river. For each such trade-off, it's going to take a case-by-case decision be- 49 common phrases. tween starting from scratch with a new proc- A remarkable ess and adding on to an existing process. phonetics capsule* Omni: Should the costs be borne by the shows you how to Translator and hi formation Center public or by the private sector? pronounce words Henderson: Inevitably both are going to have to pay. There's tremendous resistance or phrases in in this country to even quantifying social J costs, for example, the annual sixty billion dollar cost of alcohol and tobacco abuse.

We don't hire people to do it. But in Great Britain, for instance, where the taxpayer

foots the whole bill through the National HealEh Service, many economists are hired to find out who's causing what costs. Omni: What will those costs do to our national productivity? Henderson: We should get economists to be much clearer when they throw the word productivity around. Traditionally they've

defined it as labor productivity, per capita productivity. The whole development of in- dustrialism was to increase the individual worker's productivity by increasing the amount of capital investment and energy per worker. But on the social side of the picture, many other workers were shaken out of the 3

system altogether, and their productivity that the basic, sevoi of politics is knowledge the global system, a realization that we are fell below zero. They were on the welfare itself: how we define problems, what consti- animals embedded in a finite ecological rolls, pushed onto the social-cost side o! tutes a problem, what constitutes proof. It's system. Why hasn't that realization sunk in? the system. very basic stuff. Henderson: Because of the academic lag: If you equate productivity with individual Omni: Are we too c-olintoroc a society to be all the intellectual investments that have to workers' productivity and ignore the social able to get down to debate on that level? be written off. People have to recycle them- costs, then it's no wonder thai everyone in Henderson: No, because those are the selves, which means letting go of old mod- Washington is saying, "We must increase realities of moral choice that all of us deal els' And many of them are trying to extract our productivity by adding more capital to with all the time. We know that our activities the last amount out ol their intellectual in-

industrial processes." They've gone inap- visit certain costs on other people. If I do vestments, their old textbooks, and so on, propriately from microproductivity to mac- something to further my ends, my husband before they finally amortize them and move roproductivity across the whole system. has to forgo something he might lifts to do. on.

Omni: The demand for increased produc- I think that in the Eighties we're going to Moreover, we have a vastly overbuilt and

tivity is often accompanied by insistence see more and more of what I call "the poli- overcapitalized educational plant in this on deregulation. Are they connected? tics ot reconceptualization." We're going to country. There' are far more colleges than Henderson: The real trade-off is between have to peel back all the mystifications of we can ever use, and the potential for using technologies that create great social and technique, all the flurry of data, all of the them in real-time education is croat. Wo environmental costs, and thus require regu- baroque elaboration of subdisciplines— can take obsolete disciplines that require lation to control their impact, and more the toxicologists tracing various illnesses complete restructuring, such as econom- harmonious technologies that don't require back to various substances, tracing the ics, and begin to replace them with the kind regulation in the firs! place. Nuclear power costs of x dollars back to Y Corporation — of skills that people need to manage life- requires a massive federal bureaucracy tor and gel down to some eternal human ques- style changes and personal growth. safety, policing, and waste storage. Local tions that all of us are very qualified to talk We have everything we need sitting solar and wind power, alternatively, may in- about. there, waiting to be redesigned and revolve local zoning regulation, but there's no habilitated. The question is. How fast can

need for Washinglon to oversee them. we create a debate all through the society, Again, you have to look ahead to foresee where there is already an experiential un- the trade-offs. Deregulation of the airlines derstanding that something new has to be lowered air fares, but what are the social done? So many people are already far costs? Small cities lost major-airline service Q! think most people don't ahead of those committed to the old struc- and were left with idle facilities, while air- have a stake in the tures that it's like the dinosaur again. The ports like Atlanta's became bottlenecks brain is the last to learn what's happening. old system. The real difficulty with overloaded traffic controls. There were Omni: What should we call the new era? more accidents on small local carriers. is institutions Henderson: It's the Solar Age. People are

Even if you're flying on a trunk route, you're rigidifying around old already calling it that, but they don't realize likely flying to wind up in an overcrowded its full dimensions. Most think it means flat cattle car. All the new competition has also technologies and plate collectors on the roof; they have for- overextended airlines financially. strategies of energy use that gotten that the sun is the only source of Omni: You make a strong case for looking energy on this planet. And it's driving every-" can't be sustained ahead at the consequences of social deci- thing, including the economy. You can't

sions. But isn't it possible that too much even have a combustion process without

caution can keep you from taking advan- those chemical exchanges occurring in the tage of an opportunity at the right time 7 atmosphere. Henderson: Of course. Just as the fu- Omni: Will we be able to change- our cost- sion-energy people are saying that we Omni: That calls into question all the benefit analyses accordingly? Can we in-

must have more money for fusion right now merits ascribed to expertise and objectiv- clude those blo ! ocj!ca ideas vou ve spoken or else the energy won't be coming ity, doesn't it? about? onstream in time, the solar-energy people Henderson: Look at the uses of expertise Henderson: We have to. Until a lew years

are saying that if we don't push photovolta- in Washington today: the interest groups ago my big dream was to incorporate into ic-cell development right now we won't get fighting "information wars," hiring intellec- economic theory all of these important new the benefits of that technology in time. tual mercenaries and building up their ideas of bioproductivily and the real physi- They're all lining up and presenting their computer firepower. cal measures of efficiency from ther- data. But the answers aren't in the data. You The question of objectivity cuts deeper. modynamics. Take the concept of diminish- can't get social directions or moral pre- We have a three-hundred-year tradition of ing returns — an idea developed in early scriptions' from the data. enormous success in manipulating the economics. Now that concept fits very well You can tell when you're reaching a his- world, based on the premise that human with biological concepts of productivity, torical watershed, because you find your- beings can abstract themselves from their where you see S curves dealing with self going beyond the technical questions situation — a species embedded in an growth, maturity, and decline. Up to a cer- to right and wrong, good and bad. Why are ecological system, like all other species- tain point you could take a piece of land

we doing this? For whom? What are the long enough to map and manipulate the and add fertilizers to it and increase its

implications for our children and our world. That will continue to be a successful productivity, and then at some point, if you grandchildren? For a long time we thought method whenever you want to manipulate kept on adding that one additional input, we could push away the philosophical and the forces of nature and make something you would reach a level where additional moral questions, or wrap them up in eco- happen. And we still need to do an awful lot increments wouldn't raise the productivity nomic technique and mathematics. We of it— to step back and trace the ther- of the land any further. And in fact addi- thought cost-benefit analysis could tell us modynamic efficiency of the technologies tional inputs over an optimum level would that the greatest good for the greatest we use, and so on. But we can't let the begin decreasing the productivity. number would be served by building a success of that method hypnotize us into Omni: Where are we on the S curve? given-nuclear-power plant, for instance. using it as a total philosophy. It won't tell us Henderson: We shouldn't take that highly In a period. like this one, however, all the what kind of future we want. aggregated view: that the whole system is technological debates become politicized, Omni: The hell off — Apollo photographs of the going to and we're going the curve. and people become aware— my golly! earth gave many people a strong sense of Instead, we should look for what is new, We already know the theory;

all that's needed Is some advanced engineering

HOW TO BUILD ATIME MACHINE

BY ROBERT L. FORWARD

in a subbasement of sloped away. As he walked, he She made one last check; Deepthe While House, Presi- thought about the astonishing then a spur! of power shot an dent Greatman positioned machine beneath him. For the infiniiesimally short, multihued his right eye against a last two years it had let him pulse of high-energy gamma scanner cup The wall swung peer into the future and speak rays down through the super- away, and he entered an im- to the past. gravity maelstrom of the tiny mense room buried 30 meters Greatman handed the oper- black hole that whirled at the below the Ellipse park. Unlike ator a message. He had re- center of the sphere. The aim- the park overhead, which was ceived it a month earlier and ing point was measured not in littered with splintered remains evacuated the entire Eastern angle or distance but in of the National Christmas Tree, Seaboard. Mow he had to send time — four weeks into the the subterranean room was the warning -to the man he past. barren except lor a 20-meter had been four weeks ago. "Thanks, Janet," said sphere nesting in a steel cup "I suppose you already know Greatman. "Keep an eye on it that curved into the floor line. what's on this," he said to the for me, will you?" He walked Greatman carefully strode young woman. down the side of the tank and up the rising steel curve to a "Doesn't everyone?" the off onto the flat Moor toward the walkway set at the sphere's operator laughed, her grin command bunker. There was equator, tilted at a 45-degree blooming like a flower in her the east coast of the United angle to the Moor below Brac- earth-brown face. States to rebuild, but at least ing himself up against nearly "Three-kilometer meteor fall. the wreckage had no bodies half again his normal weight, Impact at thirty-eight degrees floating in it — thanks lo the he slowly followed the platform north, seventy-two degrees message he had just sent his around to the other side, where west, 12:54 GMT, 22 Decem- past self. He shook his head as an operator sat monitoring the ber 2023," she read. "Just as it the door shut behind him, controls. She, too, was stuck at said in the newspapers at the blocking off the view of the an angle to the side of the of I end November. figured that time machine at the center of sphere, but both she and the you wouldn't dare try to the walkway seemed level it; to change so I have the gam- A time machine? Impossi- Greatman. It was the room that ma-ray laser all coded." ble. Or so most people think. PAINTING BYGUYFERY Yet the most respected and tested There are more immediaie applications, the future will build the time machine if they theories ot physics, Einstein's theories of however. are given the mandate, the money, and the

special and general relativity, allow us to If you had some hard-to-make element mass.

manipulate time. Although we cannot yet so evanescent that it would decay before Einsfein's theory allows many shapes for

control the energies anci masses required ysu could even moasn'e i:s characteristics, a time -machine. It seems that any object to make a time machine, we know the prin- moving the element from the generator to thai produces an ultragravity field can cre- ciples behind time travel, One ot these the measuring machines at near-light ate time-confusing regions. There are some days, instead of being mindless slaves to speeds would let you do the job, This type shapes, however, that can produce regions the clock, we will be able to send our time ot "lime machine" is used today in all labo- that might be usable by humans. Just how

craft on a journey through 60 minutes of ratories that study the elementary particles certain it is that a given time-machine de- time as easily as we now send our space- generated in huge atom smashers. sign will work depends on how closely its craft through 60 light-minutes of space. The processes that generate'these par- designer has been able to follow Einstein's For many people, the very idea grafes on ticles are so energetic that the particles equations. the nerves. The logical paradoxes that time emerge at nearly the speed of light. Many One configuration that can act as a time

travel conjures up are almost mind numb- of the newly generated particles live less machine is a dense, rapidly rotating object

ing. The first came with Einstein's special than a billionth of a second. If their "clocks" that is collapsing to form a black hole as its ' theory of relativity, which said that a clock did not slow down, the particles could not spin speed increases to the speed of light. for human) traveling near the speed of light travel more than a few centimeters before This extreme version of a spinning, collaps- would operate (age) more slowly than a decaying. Because of their high speed, ing star can be described by a rigorous,

clock (or twin) that stayed still, however, they age slowly and survive the mathematically exact solution to the full, This effect is real, not just theoretical. tens of meters from the generator to the nonlinear Einstein gravity equations, The

Velocity does slow time. It has been meas- detectors, where they are analyzed. solution is called the Kerr metric, after the ured by taking two identical groups of On account of the detailed scientific reticent theorist Roy Kerr, who probably clocks, leaving one set ai home and taking analyses of the "twin paradox" problem was dismayed when he found that the the other set around the world in a jet air- mathematical beauty he had discovered liner. The stay-at-home clocks aged more might someday have a practical applica- than the moving clocks did. tion. Yet when the concept was first dis- The. Kerr solution describes the gravita- cussed, many people refused to believe tional field on the outside of a collapsing, iWe are only beginning to such a thing could happen. All their practi- rotating mass that is approaching high cal experience indicated that time was an understand Einstein's density. Large stars are rotating masses, absolute measure, ticking the same way tor and as they reach the end of their short theory of gravity, but we all things. The confusion was compounded lives, they collapse into rotating black by misunderstanding the principle of rela- already have designs holes. One would expect that a real col- tivity. If "everything is relative" and all meas- for several time machines. lapsing, rotating star will form an elliptically urement-coordinate systems are equally shaped black hole, bulging at the equator Given the mandate, good, then why, people asked, can't the because of its spin. It is possible (and traveling twin in the rocket be thought of as the money and the mass probable, given the human race's proclivity fixed, while Earth takes the other twin on a for fooling with nature), however that this they will be built$ relativistic ride? pancake-shaped collapse could be in- The resolution of this paradox comes at duced to form a doughnut, with all the the turnaround point. Until that point, spe- dense mass out in the rotating ring. cial relativity says that the aging question is Once such an object is formed, then ambiguous. In order to compare the rela- Einstein's equation indicates that the tive times of two objects, they must both be and the experiments that prove the effect empty region in the center can be a gate-

at the same place. When the traveling twin is real, the twin paradox is no longer a way into time. If you go through the hole in

activates the ship's rockets to return to paradox. Except for a few who still cherish the doughnut, you don't come out the other Earth, the coordinate system that had been the idea of an inviolable, unchangeable side. Instead you enter a strange type of traveling with the ship continues on its way. time, the human race had absorbed this hyperspace. Your forward space dimen- After he abandons the coordinate system unusual behavior of nature at high veloci- sion has turned into a time dimension, and he started with, the traveling twin can no ties. Not only do we live with this "one-way" the time dimension has turned into a space

longer claim "everything is relative." The time machine, but we also use it. dimension. If you move in the hyperspace M stay-at-home twin is still with his original But how do you build a "real time againsl the rotation of the ring for a number coordinate system and thus has not machine — one that goes both backward of rotations, you will observe nothing unmoved; his price for this stodginess is and' forward in time? What Einstein's laws usual happening. When you return through

aging at a precipitous rate compared with tell us is that if we collect enough mass in the hole to normal space-time, however, you the traveling twin, one place, its gravity field will distort the will find that you have returned to your origi-

. So one way to make a time machine is to time and space we know. In this region, nal position in space, but your position in find a way to move ai velocities close to that where time is confused, it becomes possi- time has moved backward a number of of light. Unfortunately, the special-relativity bleto move ahead or backward through the years. time machine works only one way. You can hours as if they were kilometers. The proc- Even though Kerr precisely followed

go into the future more slowly than normal, ess becomes easier if the mass is moving Einstein's gravity equations in designing

but you cannot go back in time. or if it carries an electrical charge. his time machine, there are mathematical Still, this kind of time machine has its We are only just beginning to understand theorists who say that the special condi-

uses. If you were sick and no cure existed all the ramifications of the general theory of tions required by his time machine cannot for your ailment, a sojourn in a relativistic relativity, Einstein's theory of gravity, but we happen. rocket ship could keep you from dying until already have tentative engineering designs Papers have been written to show that

a cure could be discovered. If you had a for a number of time machines. Theorists even infinitesimal deviations from the spe- rich but very healthy aunt, Ihen a few days may complain that such devices would be cial symmetries of Kerr's solution (such as spent at 95-99998 percent the speed of unstable, and environmentalists may be would be caused by an object trying to use light could let" you enjoy your inheritance appalled at the resources that will be the time machine) would drastically alter while you're still youthful. needed, but the gravitational engineers of the structure of the Kerr solution. They con- 94 OMNI " .

Warping the limits of time plumbs the deepest sources of wish fulfillment

con- All of us share i'ne impulse lo escape the of night and day merged into one sun be- tedium oi everyday life. The desire to tinuous greyness ... the jerking came streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in travel through time reflects our unwilling- —a ness to live with things as they are. Time space in the travel enables us to experience the ro- In Harlan Ellison's "The Prowler mance of the past and the mystery of the City" the time traveler has no choice: ". . future, to try to change our world. suddenly ... he was flooded with light. H. G. Wells invented the modern time And when he looked up he was in that few min- travel theme. In The Time Machino Wells's other place. Paused now, only a hero undertakes his journey out of scien- utes after the transfer, he leaned against the light," tific curiosity: "I saw the moon spinning the wall of the city and recalled swiftly through her quarters from new to full, and had a faint glimpse of the circling Paintings by Richard Lon Cohen and Jon the palpitation Townley (left), and Hans-Ulrich Oslerv/alder stars. . . . Gaining velocity, BY ELLEN DATLOW WLm '

/HE'*' - ..,**» >t & miti'i

I traveling presents unique risks. (E What if you went back in time and killed your own - w"" grandfather? Or what if you found yourself in the posi- * * tion of Philip K. Dick's hero in 'A Little Something tor Us ". Tempunauts"? . . then it hit him. We're in a closed time loop ... we keep going through this again and

again . . . each time imagin- " ing it's the first time There are also blessings An old doctor in C. M. Kornbluth's "The Little Black Bag'' finds a unique medical kit from the future: "The blade sank in, miracu- lously cutting only the dead

tissues . . . declining to affect any system or organ

except the one it was— tuned to. could you say?" .

henhere are di- 'erse views of the effects of traveling in time. One is presented by Henry Kuttner and C. L Moore in "Vintage Season"; "The physio-temporal course tends to slide back to its norm That is why it is so hard to force any alteration." In his story "A Distant Thunder" Ray Bradbury warns that "a little error here would multiply in sixty million years, all out ol proportion." changing the future. And Michael Moorcock writes in The Hollow Lands:

". . . once a time traveler has visited the future he

cannot return to the past . . if he did he could alter the " course of the future Today time travel is a dream; tomorrow we may wake to find it a reality OO

Paintings by f clockwise from above) John Harris . Peler

Kruiior: . and Michael Whatin. B Hfmm A*$\

m WSSmmm (

i sGe for ling machine or just

_ and the hotels on the East

e the Arabs have tl

SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS

AMERICANS .

One of these days I'm going to pay them that very blue sky and start down. I closed "Sometimes," I said. "Anyhow, look at the

back for my hand; right now I mostly try to my eyes, but I couldn't shut out the meat- bright side. You can walk anywhere in New

survive. Now and then I think about Mexico, cleaver sound of the blow; it echoed from York any time of night now There aren't any

where I hear that even laborers drive big the tajl buildings, repeating itself for a long muggers or drunks or pushers." cars and live in houses with a dozen rooms time. "No thieves." Landon's eyes traveled to and with all kinds of electric appliances. Mounted cops began to clear us out, the end of my arm; he shut his mouth and But the border is closed tight; the Republic kicking at anybody who didn't move looked embarrassed. doesn't care, the Mexicans are quickly enough. of big, self- but scared Most them were "That's okay," I said, "I'm not of us. We're too hungry. There are guard beefy, cheerful Irishmen. Our new masters conscious about it.""

towers every hundred meters along the Rio left us our native police; it allows us to work There are a lot of us; in the old days we Grande, and the big, well-fed soldiers like off our hate and frustration on one another. would have organized ourselves and lob-

to shoot Americans who try to go across. It works— I hate them worse than I do the bied in Washington for special privileges.

I hurried along so I could get past Times Arabs. Many Americans, at first, didn't believe how

Square before the execution. It was an- I ducked into a doorway to let one go by; efficient the Law could be; we were used to nounced on the morning broadcast by a the bastard was enjoying his work. His club lawyers and appeals and suspended sen- mullah who looked like an American; reli- caught a middle-aged man on the side of tences. That was why they didn't have gion was a way out— half our television the head and sent him staggering in a enough executioners to go around, and

evangelists saw the light right away and crooked line toward me. I helped him sit General Electric had come up with the .started memorizing the Qu'ran. The man down. He was better dressed than most of Booth. They use only human executioners who was going to die was a Jew; he'd hid- us: a ragged business suit mended at the for capital cases now.

den out during the Oklahoma Transport knees and too wide for him in the waist. "Doesn't it make you mad?" Landon said.

and had used a false I.D. card to live in the "I'm obliged to you, friend," he said. "The thing is to survive," I told him.

Holy City of Brooklyn, thus cheating the "You're going to have a nasty bump," I "Yeah," he said.

Law said. "How do you feel?" 'Are you all right now?"

I didn't much like the mullah with the blue "Sure," he said. "Thanks." eyes — there are some things a man "Anytime."

doesn't do— but I didn't feel one way or I was sure I'd never see him again. The another about the Jew; Jews are Jews and cops were gone and the square was tilling the world is the world. You have to go along up with people walking to work. Men shuf- / I to get along— that's always been the Amer- 4 wish could fled along, in no hurry to get anywhere.

ican I have graduated from sentimen- of sullen, half- Way. afford a bicycle, but . . Most them wore the same

tal foolishness, and that stump on the end asleep, half-dangerous expression; it took on $80,000 a week of my left arm is my diploma. me a minute to remember where I'd seen it A woman brushed against me. Her I'm lucky to pay the rent before— in an old National Geographic

chador slipped; I caught a look at her face, of Indians. The janitor in my and eat. Pan-Islam photo Navajo

and a tremendous sexual urge caught me building has crates of old magazines, and I

off guard. They say we can't control our- Trading doesn't pay . . . much, go down to the basement often to leaf selves, and maybe they're right. It wasn't but a one-handed through them and remember how the world

until I'd walked half a block away that I used to look. man is glad to find work. 5 remembered that she'd been fat, homely, Bob, the janitor, used to be a chemist for

and middle-aged. I had a pretty young wife the state Food and Drug Commission, once, but she died in the riots of '89, after which is now a committee of holy men. He is President Grey had been assassinated. the cleverest man with his hands I've ever

We'd been married a year. known, and he has a little still, which is

I passed an American selling skin- The man was white and sweating, but he disguised as part of the building's hot-wa- darkening lotions and black hair dye out of grinned, "I've been hit harder." He reached ter system. He makes a powerful moon-

a pushcart, and I nodded to him. He used up to feel the place and winced. "I'm Harry shine out of whatever we can scrounge up to be a high-school civics teacher; now he's Landon," he said. for him— potatoes, com, raisins. Peelings

an old man who makes a living helping the "Michael Stein," I said. when we can't get anything else, which is

unlucky ones. I don't use his stuff, but I He raised an eyebrow, which made him most of the time.

don't blame the people who do— pale skin wince again. I got to work fifteen minutes late, and

and blond hair make it harder to find a job "I'm not a Jew," I said. "My great- nobody gave a damn. It amuses the Arabs

these days, or a place to live. Even if the grandfather came here from Germany in to see us live up to our reputation tor gen- landlord is an American. 1919 to gel away from the depression. He eral shiftlessness. "Tomorrow-tomorrow,"

It was later than I thought; when I got to was a Lutheran." they like to say to us with a fake American Times Square, they were leading the Jew "I didn't mean anything," Landon said. accent, and then they laugh like hell. "You up the steps. He wore dark pants and a "But it's an unusual name these days. I'm have to stay on top of Americans every while shirt, like an old-time salesman; he surprised you haven't changed it." minute," they tell one another when they was an old man, and he looked frightened 'A man doesn't change his name be- think we can't hear, "or they'll fall asleep on and weak. The mullahs took his arms and cause some people don't like the sound of you. They're lazy, but they're clever. That's

pushed him down on his knees; the it." how they got where they were." executioner him, motionless. stood behind "No offense," Landon said. He looked I have my corner at the back of the ware- The old man seemed not to know exactly across the square. 'A terrible thing," he house, with an old metal desk, stencil

what was happening, and I hoped they'd said. On the platform the mullahs watched brushes, and a computer terminal that given him something. But at the last second while a red-haired man scrubbed away the works about two thirds of the time at best.

he raised his head and spoke loudly and blood. The body had already been re- When it's on the blink, I type out the waybills

clearly in Hebrew. Behind me someone moved. I shrugged. with one finger on a Stone Age IBM and file whispered, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our "Don't you care?" Landon asked. the packing slips in the drawer of the desk.

God, the Lord is One." "They own the world," I said. 'Anyway, They leave us pretty much to ourselves,

I looked around,- but the faces were ordi- until the oil runs out. Then it'll be somebody little Johnson and me; he runs the forklift,

I nary American laces. turned back just in else's turn. That's history." and I try to make sure that he stacks the time to see the sword carve out a piece of "People make history," Landon said. right boxes on the right dock most of the

104 OMNI time. Now and then Ahmed comes down to He shook his head. "People weren't re- ing on a pile of boxes; he was going to fire make sure our end of the building is still ally happy." him, but Ahmed talked him out of it. there. He's not a had sort, for an Arab. "You don't understand," I said. "Or you The first week in September Jerusalem Sometimes he also comes down to open don'l remember They could buy anything fell to the PLO Second Armored Division, a crate personally, usually one from the Far they wanted at the supermarket; they all and the ayatollah announced a week of

California, I East by way of and have to. had two or three cars; the women walked national rejoicing. When I saw Harry at pretend I don't see the little plastic pack- naked on the beaches. How could they be lunch the next day, he looked as if he'd ages he slips into his pockets. unhappy?" been drinking all night.

And sometimes I send and receive little "I was there," Bob said. "It's finished," lie told me.

packages of my own, more powerful than But he's getting old, and I don't think he "You have to admire them for holding out

Ahmed's. Or maybe they're not; his heroin remembers it right. The Mexicans we see as long as they did with nothing but what probably does more harm to the Republic on television now and then, when the ayatol- the French could give them in the way of than the loss of lah state visit, look to an occasional Mercedes makes a happy me. weapons," I said. "The ayatollah's made a with an Important Person in it, or explosions deal to let the survivors settle in Oklahoma." in the men's rooms of various government Two days later I saw Harry Landon again. "Settle? Do you know what they do with buildings. I wouldn't even call us a move- I was in line to buy lunch from the pushcart Jews in Oklahoma?" Harry said. ment—at best we're just keeping the spirit man on Fifty-first Street; when I turned "Sure. I've seen it on TV It's all big, irri- alive in case one ever comes along. Clerks around with my bread, and beans balanced gated farms now They say the Jews are

and janitors and ditchdiggers and street on an old piece of newspaper, I saw him making a paradise out of it." sweepers; maybe there aren't more than a standing three men back of me. "Have you ever talked to a Jew who's of in hundred us the whole country. I don't "How're you doing, friend?" he said. He been there?" want to know. I just send my packages and was wearing the same ragged suit, and "How could I?" hope for the best. there was a bruise big as a hand on the side "I have," Harry said.

When I got home that night, I turned on of his head, above the ear. Two cops came by slowly on their horses; the TV Everybody gets one, courtesy of the they looked fat and sleepy, but under the

Republic; I think it's for our education. caps their eyes were sharp. "I'm a Jew," They're second-rate GE sets— the picture Harry said.

flickers, the colors are false, and the sound 'Are you crazy'?" I said. is always fuzzy— but it's .something to do "Today? A little, maybe." otf

It had a slight yellow tinge and tasled and ate it at my desk. In my corner, with my bittersweet, like fuel oil, but it made the He worked for a jewelry company across stencils and my crates and my Japanese world tolerable. a good deal more the street from the lunch cart. "Deliveries," computer terminal, I felt safe. It's not as if I'd "The next one should be better," he said. he said. "I've got a three-speed bicycle and voted to send the Jews to Oklahoma, or to

"I got ten pounds of real cane sugar to put a leather pouch I sling over my shoulder. give VERTOL fighters to the PLO. Nobody in it." Hell of a way to make a living, but it's asked my opinion — it isn't that kind of Re-

I picked up an old Newsweek and leafed steady." public.

through it carefully. It I was a January 1988 "What did you do before?" asked. 1 didn't want to be near Harry. He was issue, and the lead story was President "I was in real estate. Made a fortune and bound to be caught and transported or

Grey promising to close down the last five then woke up one day and found I couldn't worse, and anybody involved with him plants. nuclear-power They had a picture of buy a dozen eggs with all the money I had would be in trouble with the Law, too, A man him sitting cross-legged on his desk in the in tine bank." who's already lost one hand can't be taking

Oval Office, smiling at the secretary of the "I remember my lather pushing a wheel- chances. The one thing I was certain Interior. She was smoking a cigar. barrow full of hundred-dollar bills to the wasn't ever going to happen to me again

"Those were the days," Bob said. S rileway" I said. was stepping up to the Booth.

"I wonder why she shot him," I said. We got into the habit of eating lunch to- It wasn't the pain— they're not interested

"Well, if it hadn't been that, it would have gether; we generally sat on the same bench in pain, only in teaching,a lesson. But every

been something else," Bob said. "People and watched the people and talked about time I thought about it I wanted to lie down simply figured it would go on forever, that the old days. Harry had lived in the San on the floor and curl up in a ball with my left the scientists would keep on inventing Fernando Valley; his wife had been killed in arm hugged tight against my belly. Some- things to let us live the way we were used to. the Santa Barbara fireslorm; his two kids times I wake up at night and I can feel every

Even after San Onofre melted down, the had it to before of fingers; I made Mexico they'd can- one the missing have to pump . only people who really howled were the celed :he Amercan quota. my flashlight and point it at the end of my relatives ones who'd had in Oceanside or "They send me a little money some- left arm before I can convince myself Lag una Beach." times," he said. they're gone.

"California," I said. The only chance I'm taking is with the

Bob looked -at "It thai It quiet I me. was never was a summer. got to know Harry little packages Bob makes for me and I ship good."' he said. "Not even before." pretty well. One of the front-office types out in Pan-Islam's crates. But it isn't as risky

it "Sure was," I said, came by and caught. little Johnson sleep- as it sounds. As enforcers of the Law, the 106 OMNI terrific, Arabs are as detectives, they're "The Mexicans used to love them," I said. "Harry called me," he said. "How're they

useless. I could do this for a hundred years "Maybe the Americans will, too, in troat'ng you?"

and they'd never catch on. another hundred years. Right now I'd give "Pretty well," I said. Little Johnson went around happy all anything for a steak. I get depressed some- "I brought you something."

week. "What did we ever get from helping times just because 'I know I'll probably It was a National Geographic with a them in the old days?" he said. "Nothing but never eat one again. What about you?" cover photograph of Santa Barbara before

a lot of static and interfering with our poli- "I don't know. I was still in college when the LNG tanker blew up in the channel,

tics. I'm they're still glad gone." things started to go bad, and I mostly ate when there was a Santa Barbara. The

"Hurry up wifh your lunch," I said. "We've peanut butter and yogurt anyway." sea in the picture~was an extraordinary got work to do." "Look over there," Harry said. "On the blue, and the green palms in the fore- 'Ahmed said they might give us a raise." corner of that bench. We sit here dreaming ground seemed to explode from the tops of

He snapped his lunch bucket closed and about food, and they've got so much they their trunks— a wonderful dusty green. I

went off to find the forklift. can leave it lying around for the pigeons." looked down and saw myself fingering the

"Stop that whistling," I said. damn "You're "It's an apple," I said. "Do you know how pages.

driving me crazy." long it's been since I tasted an apple?" It "Take it back," I said. "Here." I wadded

The next week I couldn't stand it any- was a little, scrawny, yellowish- green fruit, up the magazine and threw it across the

more, and I went back to find Harry. Talking lumpy and misshapen, but it made my cell into his lap. "Go home." I said. "You

to him made the world a little more iolera- mouth water. So I had to keep swallowing. can't do me any good. Get out of here."

. ble, like Bob's moonshine; anyhow, he "I'm going to eat it," I said. They turned off the lamp in my cell so I might not have been caught. He surely "Better not," Harry said. could sleep, but there was light from the

didn't look like the Jews in the TV plays, with "Come on," I said. "A lousy apple. Those hallway; in the half-glow I found myself their dark clothes and their funny way of bastards can buy a bushel of them anytime studying my right hand. What a clever

slouching along. they feel like it. Who's going to care?" piece of creation it was: the complex articu-

I He was on our same old bench, eating could already taste it. I took a small bite lation of the knuckles, the fleshy pads at fhe his beans and bread. The leather pouch end of the fingers that give us a grip on the

with God knows how many diamonds and world, the wrist, which is more ingeniously rings and bracelets and other precious joined than any machine. And in a few

things in it was lying beside him, as secure hours that masterwork of bone, muscle,

as if it were in a vault. Nobody steals any- tendon, ligaments, skin, and blood vessels

more— it isn't safe. 6He was bound to be was going to be lying at the bottom of a "How come they didn't get you in the first caught and transported or stainless-steel can, clenched on nothing,

place?" I asked. "I thought they went rigid and dead. The fingernails. The finger- worse, and anybody through the computer files and found all the nails alone were little works of art, ridged, Jews." involved with him would delicately shaped, subtly colored, no two

"Do you want to know?" Harry said. He -eally aiike if you look close. be in trouble with made a place for me on the bench. The Booth was in another part of the

right. it. Let's talk the Law, too. A man who's "No. You're Forget building, I knew, in a chamber that opened about the weather" already lost one off the courtroom, so that the sentence •

could be carried out immediately. I knew hand can't take chances* in late October the city is sometimes so very well what it looked like. It was about beautiful that we can forget for a while that it the size of a photo machine and had the isn't ours anymore and we're just tolerated same little curtain for privacy. Instead of here because we're cheap labor. White, sitting down and staring into a mirror, you puffy clouds hung in the sky like personal stood in front of a flat metal wall with one

blessings from Allah; the. air this noon and turned to grin at Harry; he was gone. round hole in it, a little less than shoulder lasted like cut grass and the sea; the Cres- Something touched my shoulder. high. The mullah who stepped in with you

cent and Bars rippled and snapped in the "You!" the cop said. His stick lapped me helped you put your arm into it, up to the breeze over fhe doorways of the buildings on the ribs. "You! Is that your apple?" elbow. You wore a special white shirt with no all up and down the street. Even the cops The little kid beside him couldn't have sleeves, A clamp took you softly and firmly looked a little bit happy. been more than twelve; under the head- just above the wrist; a cuff sensed your "In California the weather was some- dress his brown face had the expression of blood pressure; a computer counted your

times like this for months on end. We could one who owned the world and knew it. pulse. It was all automatic. The needle

pick oranges right off the trees." "It's mine," he said. "This man is stealing found your arm and numbed it, and there

it." "It must have been something," 1 said. wasn't any real pain. Only the sudden terri-

"It still is. You ought to see it." "No," I said. "Wait a minute. You don't ble sense of violation and loss.

"Sure. I'll understand. No." just buy a ticket on the next I curled up on the floor and hid my right plane." kid to left arm. is The pointed my "He hand in my belly so they couldn't find it. I

"It isn't as easy as it was before, but it can already a thief," he said. tried to go to sleep and dream about

still be done." He wouldn't tell me more than California. I wondered whether they'd set

that, though I pestered him for a while. Next The jails aren't crowded. Nobody stays in me free it I denounced Harry as an illegal to paying back some Arab for my hand, the them very long. The Law was invented by a Jew. Probably not, and anyway there are

it thing I'd like most in the world would be to nomadic people; doesn't believe in lock- things you simply don't do. I don't give a see California once. 'All in good time," ing up a man for punishment. The cell was damn aboul the Jews, but Harry was a Harry said. "Maybe someday you'll get a reasonably comfortable and very clean. friend.

chance." The guards were Arabs; they weren't brutal It wasn't going to hurt, I told myself. I

I "Tell me," said. "Of all the things you and they weren't triendly. They treated me hugged my hand. I thought about the palm

remember from before, what do you miss as if I were already a corpse. trees and that wonderful, warm blue ocean. most?" The dinner was better than anything I'd There would only be the prick of the needle "The food," Harry said. "1 never have been able to afford in several years; there and then the numb feeling that crept slowly

enough to eat now And even what we get is were actual chunks of lamb in the stew. I up the arm. No real pain. I thought about miserable, inedible. I'm sick to death of was just finishing when the door slid open the beaches. The naked women walking. chili and beans." and a guard stood aside to let Bob come in. The sea.OO .

"Oh. come on!" the local said, flushing in the policeman's. "It's a wide world," he embarrassment. "You know about Ihe said, "as MEN LIKE US you must know and I surely do." Changelings. Everybody does. The Blast He drank, smiled again, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 65 and said, "You're made them. They mer. before, were but familiar with bombs, it would seem, friend. Blast, and who would remember that?" now'they glow blue and change their I've heard talk in my travels that there was a He looked around the room. The eyes shapes and walk around like skeletons, all stockpile of bombs in the mountains that met his dropped swiftly. "There's been bones!" Scottie lowered his eyes and around here. Do you know that story?" some born here in Moseby, haven't there?" slurped his beer in the silence. At last he Carter looked at Smith with an expres- Smith asked, his words thrusting like knile repealed, "Everybody knows," sion that was terribte in its stillness. "Mo- blades and no doubt in them. "Where are Gently, as if the suggestion did not ap- dell." he said in Ihe silence, "it's time to they now?" as pear absurd to him as it suddenly did to throw another log on the fire." He paused. The they had called Scottie bit man everyone else in the room, Smith said, "I've The innkeeper scurried to do as directed. through the reed stem of his pipe. He splut- seen of the J some Strike Zones. I guess I've "Arid it s time," the policeman continued, tered, and the front legs of his stool clacked said that. There's nothing there, friend. The "to talk of other things than the Blast. What on Ihe puncheon floor destruction is total, everything. It isn't likely sort of game do you find in the Hot Lands, now, I'm "Say, not here to pry," Smith con- that anything was created by the Blast." tor instance?" tinued swiftly. "What you do is your own "The Blast changed things. We all "Well, I can snare more than I knock on the business. For my own part, I'd appreciate agree there," said Carter unexpectedly. head with my sling," Smith began easily, another mug of this excellent beer." Eyes turned toward the policeman seated and Ihe room relaxed a little. " ' Chairs scraped in agreement as all the at one corner of the hearth. "Random They talked and drank late into the night. men stood, stretched, and moved to the change," Carter continued to muse aloud, Smith told of gnarly woods and of following bar. Modell drew beer smoothly, chalking "That'll generally mean destruction, yes. miles of trails worn no higher than a hog's drinks on the board on Ihe back wall— ev- But there was lot a of power in the bombs, shoulder. The locals replied with tales of eryone but Smith was a local. The innkeep- and a lot ot bombs. So much power that . . their farms in the river bottoms, managed er even broached a new without cask Who knows what they could have done?" for them by hirelings, and the wealth they noticeable delay. Several of the company Smith looked at the policeman. He nod- drew from shares in the smelter's profits. went out by the rear returned, door and ded again. "Power, yes. But the chance that Few ot them actually did any of the heavy, lacing their trousers. There a was brief the changes, cell by cell, atom by atom, dangerous work of steel production them- settled pause as everyone the . back around . would be . not destructive, That's a billion selves. Moseby was a feudal state, but its fire. Then Scottie swallowed, scowled, and to one against, Mr. Carter." basis was the power plant, not land. said belligerently, 'Ml right, what about the "Well, the books say there were billions of When Carter finally left, only Scottie and Changelings?" men in the world before the Blast." the another local remained in company with "Pardon?" The traveler's were eyes policeman said, spreading the fingers of Smith and Modell, and the talk grew looser friendly above the rim of his mug, but there his left hand, palm upward. Finally Scottie wheezed, "They drift in here was no comprehension in them. Thetravele" s scaneU !el" hand mirrored to Moseby, up the river and down. You're

"Fire! We light can have at night! We can heat the cave! We can cook our meat! We can light up a joint!" . . ,

the lirst across :ha rv-oL/ua ns. boy, I'll tell the world. We put 'em to work in the fields or the smeller, or they crew the barges tor us. Now! A Scientific Way to But they're not Moseby; they're not of the

Assembly. It's us who've got the power, under the chief and the police, that is. We "SCRUB" the Air Clean! keep the Light, and then—" Modell touched Ihe line of Scottie's jaw. silencing him. Scottie's surprise bloomed into awakened fright. "You've had enough tonight, old man," the innkeeper said. "Natures Aire" "Pook, you, too. Time for you both to get makes dust, odor home and for me to gel to bed." and pollutants "And me," Smith agreed. Modell had al- vanish leaves ready brought out blankels and opened a — side bench into a col. "Though, first I'll take air country fresh a leak and. say, a walk to settle my head. If you leave the door on the latch?" Modell nodded dourly. "You've been listening to that fool Howes and his talk of the girls across the Assembly. Him with a wife and six children, too! Well, don't try to bring one back herewith you. They should know better, but if one didn't, it'd be the worse for both of you." The innkeeper blew out one of the lamps and moved toward the other. dby(pT) Smith urinated in the open ditch behind the building, letting his eyes readjust to the moonglow. Then he began to walk along the sewer with a deceptive purposeless- ness.. In the shadow of the house nearest days— iJ 4ioi thorough*/ impressed « ;h (his revolu-

1 1 " !--.-- -: the I the eyeing nodding I" u ! 1 1 creek he paused, . we'll n Ea .il I- ;. imply •i-v.m I a no send you guards across the gorge. The traveler took a prompt, courteous refund. No guesiiDns asked! Discover nature's own "secret' lor fresh air. . Immediate Delivery — No Waihng! off his boots. He ducked into the ditch and Ever notice how wonderfully fresh arKcleartrxars Pure . air.. .Pure value! used its cover to crawl down onto the creek after a good thunderstorm? Well, il wasn't the rain

" air *=;. ihe ion* I mag re' Fci fresh, pure air every day of your life— bank. bat r:ean-ed :i neuah/e liberated by the storm. Now yo;. hi iv: :iat samr: -atura you pay just 179.95. A small investment when it The rock was steep, but it was limestone phenomenon into your home. r™r^ or car W'th 'jomes ,'rj proiixiing me well-being or your whole

- and weathered into irregularity enough for Natures Aire, the ion jetwatn-^at works lie Wr n ar.o Smith's practiced fingers :o grip. Smoothly, Nature to cleanse. ;ufv retesh "e i- ycu rid Safe enough Tor a baby. . .yet effective enough to but without haste, the traveler slipped breathe! /our home of lingering smoke, odors and poiiutanis.

1 Leaves it wonderfully refreshed and sweet smell me along below the line of sight of the guards Natures Aire— a controlled thunderstorm

Thai's right! Nature^ A ; -t'e ,- vii r >:;rjni«n-( al Ihe power plant. When he reached the emiis negative ions 'c an'.e :*< sa~e oene'ci„i again, breath- I CAMBRIDGE bridge trestles, he paused be a ice of .ons founr " : c'j'ti-' W.cms — ncn! i"

jusi |i -i n a?.n it sie'tv cnc « ing carefully. His hands examined the. your home. You ug INTERNATIONAL, he. immsdiaiely begins to $-*sep upei-p ' :>;:. nearest of the handsawn oak timbers, trac- '700 Waukegan Rd. Morion Grova, IL 60053 Jf1Z| SeftSSIO .'< smoke and pollutants fro" )r leaves - ing it from where it butted into the rock to refreshed and smelli'c s*-e:i3*e :cu"i vlt-' Credit Card Customers where it crossed another beam halfway to Unlike many similar p-ooucts.. Call Toll Free 24 hours a day the stringers. Smith swung onto the trestle Natures Aire p'cd.ces p:'ecisaly ii;e right balance of 800-228-5440 negotiate gorge like an and began to the ions— 25.000/cm3. Much more or less wou'd -of (In Neb. a00-6J2-a777) ant in a clump of heavy grass. "nve inr benef cirJ eife::. In iar; f.slire; Air; s i'ij'.v Any sounds the traveler might have the standard by which Uitau'wrHins Lscnrsio'ic-. Clip & Mail to: measui- II be the Cambridge International, Inc. Dept— X-40 made were muffled by the creek. Smith " first ion generator to receive UL 1 j n Road, edged left toward the west corner of the Morton Grove, Illinois Proven sale and effective 60053 building-. The wall there was built almost to YES! Please rush me - (quantity} Yes, Natures Aire s g-apnils ^.nidi.clive lions arc sc D

, NaiLre; Ait Ian tier- era lo' is) al just S79.95 plus the rim of the gorge. Smith's clothing Safe a iiiil.iy ''iii-i:! che .v on I'-cni. Ane Naturss A:'e

sad handir.g ill . residents add ," '"( S3 9c la- shiifina aiii'iiir; cro^-sizE acNi.iarn^ iieni matched the color of the wet stone so that sweeps : ny m r.' o c saas:ax.: u nee rata,- r) I'al if I am not absolutely air and deposits the- n lie '.vali ;." floor. ;;,... !:t/ca;vr- his outline was at leasl blurred for a poten- «l afied : ih ".y purrase, I may return it within 30 sl eliminating smoke and odors, you'll notice Ihe tial watcher from the village, but lack of days for a prompt and courteous refund. pleasant difference in just minutes' alertness on the guards' part was his real OPTION! Send me (quantity) Mountain

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Smith raised his head. Both guards were ine what a grey bene''! NaLrss Are wi I on when you LI Check or M0 enclosed nodding in their chairs, crossbows leaning have parties. No lingering cooking odors il1 embar- G Charge to: P American Express P Diners Club : rass you — no smakt i lied rooms whir "f p'-asts against the doorposts beside them. The P Carte Blanche D Master Charge -P Visa

aie gono! Yi:s. Nan.'"* Aire wi I actually astray siuh- lithely. step later traveler up A he 1 swung bom odors and pollutants— not just cove Ihera up Accoun _Exp. Date_ was hugging the power plant's west wall. with an artificial ' freshener.'' Lers -he who ; e family The stone hummed.

The building was as massive a construc- Prove It to yourself tor 30 days _ r : -:;l'le Kai :r;; . tion as anything Smith had seen created You really m-jsl experience : e -ema

Aire phenomenon for yor.rse i lo 'i: stun utely con- after the "Blast. The walls were dry stone, vinced. It's the i;v .-enr-ratj- tha: -g/v .vciks Enioy natural layering of limeslone using the and ! Naiu'e5A'-ein v a.icwnhcme.o ficeoiG3'lti'3aful their one-mete' :rik;lv'isss i.o aitain an ade- quate seal without mortar. Their weathered hooted ferally. Knowing that there was no blank walls were more than a physical re-

it for of Smith's seams made easy someone escape downward if he had been seen, the minder of the grip the freeholders of strength and condition to mount the five Iraveler slipped sideways and began to Moseby held on the minds and lives of meters of blank wall to the lighted slits just clamber up belween a pair of the windows. those who would work in their village. The below the roof. The interior was much as As his fingers touched the edge of the business tonight was no business of a the traveler had expected it to be, much as slates, a voice from below shouted, "There ba-gee or a factory hand. he had seen it before here and there across he is!" Smith mounted the steps. Two policemen the face of the world. Smith galhered himself to swing onto the received him, holding their rifles by the pis- Six electric motors huge were ranked gently sloped roof; something tapped his tol grips as if they were still functional below him. They were being used as knuckles. He looked up. The muzzle of Car- weapons. Well, perhaps Ihey were. generators, driven by a complex pattern of ter's M16 stared back al him. The police- There were other improbable things in shafts and broad leather belis. Only one of man smiled over the sights. "I saw some- this place. them was turning at the moment. When the thing block one of the plan! windows." the The moonlight was shadowed by the smelters were working at full capacity and local man said. "Thought it might be worth flimsy walls. It- gave only hints of the en- called in turn for the maximum output of the waking the guards for. Now, triend, you just closed area: the policemen in their ragged plant, the room would be a bedlam of ma- climb down easy to where the people are uniforms; two large, vertical cylinders, the chines and their attendants. Now one man waiting, or me and the boys here won't wait one mounted somewhat higher than the and a woman were sufficient. The light of for the ceremony." other; and, at the front of the platform, a .the naphtha lanterns illuminating the The pair of guards flanking Carter had wooden block the height of a man's knee. chamber may have exaggerated the at- faces as tense as their cocked crossbows. "There," muttered one of the policemen, tendants' pallor, but they certainly saw less Smith shook his head ruefully and de- guiding the traveler's neck onto the block. of the sun than the villagers across the scended into the waiting manacles. No force was necessary. Smith was as stream did. It hard to believe that con- was docile as a babe at its mother's breast, trol .of this apparatus was left to slaves, yet it The siren gave three long cries as the Carter took a quick lashing from Smith's was even more unlikely that freemen who right wrist to a staple set for the purpose in knew what they were doing would enter the [he flooring. "If it wasn't that you know too chamber below much." the policeman said conversation- In the center of the north wall, built ally, "we'd let you spend the rest of your life against the living rock of the mountainside, mThere was inside the plant. But somebody who's was the reactor. a traveled as you have, seen what you have Its genesis was evident, for the black . . ... new . sound in the night. we don't want to be like Samson, chain- hulls of ten fusion bombs were ranged in the temple it A score or more of ing you so you can bring along the partition wall to the east. Smith, down on us, hey?" his head framed in the narrow window, men were thudding across "Tie him, and we'll get this over with," the licked his lips when he saw the bombs. the bridge to the chief growled. They would no longer be- weapons; the Carter unlocked the manacles and -power plant. Smith ducked. Plutonium of their fission cores would have bound Smith's left wrist to another staple. decayed beyond the capacity to form criti- . . . As he did so, "It was a good idea when they chopped cal when mass compacted. But those muties here every week," he said. "It's a _ the siren . , , hooted ferally.J cores, taken from their cocoons of lithium good idea now The ceremony reminds us hydride and inner the baths of deuterium, all that it's us against the world and all of us could still fuel reactor. a together. I'll take the ax if you like." The latter was an ugly mass ot stone Smith, facing the panels, could not see blocks, mantislike der- overshadowed by a the exchange. The air licked his neck and rick. Steam from the reactor drove the pis- guards marched Smith back across the cheek as something passed from hand to tons of a crude engine. Unlike the pre-Blast bridge. Citizens, warned by the initial sig- hand between the men. "Drop the walls," electric motors, the steam engine had nal, began walking out of their houses, the the chief ordered, "and turn on the Light." been its manufactured for present pur- men armed, the women bleak as gray steel. The pins locking together the corners of

pose. Inefticient. it leaked vapor through They drifted toward the shrouded platform the hoardings slipped out. The panels and rope gaskets, but the seams power to across the long axis of the Assembly from arced down simultaneously in a rush of air create steam from water was virtually in- the bridge. None of the citizens seemed to and a collective sigh from the Assembly. exhaustible on the scale required here. want to be the first to reach the common The purring of an electric motor awoke Manufacturing skiil and nol theoretical destination. They dawdled in pairs and under the platform, rising and becoming knowledge had frequently been the brake trios, turning aside as Smith and his cap- Sibilant in the absence ot competing on progress. human Leonardo da Vinci tors passed among them. sound. A taut drive belt moaned; then the could design a workable aircraft, no but The chief and the remaining policemen moan was buried in a sudden crackle, and one for four hundred build years could an had hurried up the steps to what was while light played like terror across the up- engine to drive it. Nuclear-power technol- clearly a covered altar by the time Smith turned faces. ogy was so simple, given the refined fuel reached it. Cords fluttered as the canvas Smith twisted his head. The policemen

and expendable to work it, humans that an roof was gathered within the screen of stood in a line across the width of the plat-' that not age could manufacture smokeless hoardings built on a base of stone blocks. form. Carter, in the middle, gripped the haft powder could nonetheless build a fission Something mechanical purred and of a fire ax. Ils head was still darkened by plant. All it would have taken was a paused. Sparks hissed about the power flecks of red paint. He grinned at the weapons stockpile and a technician or two line strung to the platform along a line of low traveler. Behind the rulers of the village from Oak Ridge, vacationing in the moun- posts on the western edge of the Assembly. glared another burst of lightning between tains at the time of the Blast. "On up,"' Carter said, smiling. He the static generator's heads: the polished It was what Smith had come to learn- tweaked Smith's manacles toward the casings of a pair ot fusion bombs. No ob- There was a new sound in the night. A steps. The guards were taking position at jects could have been more fittingly sym- score or more of men were thudding across the base of the altar, facing out toward the bolic of Moseby's power. The Van de Graaff - the bridge to the power plant. Smith Assembly. Despite the siren calls, there generator provided a crude but effective ducked his head beneath the sill of the was no sign of life or movement from the way of converting electricity to light. Its DC window As he did so, the siren on the roof smelter and ils associated buildings. Their motor pulled a belt from which electrons .

were combed into one bomb casing. The Iheir cloaks. The lapping arcs played Only Carter still stood before the cas- static discharges to the grounded casing across the half of Kozinsk-'s \-;ce and rorso ings. He had thrust the muzzle of his M16 all ihe were more spectacular for being in- that was naked bone. The bare organs into his mouth and was trying to fire the termittent. pulsed within, and his one eye darled like a weapon with his outstretched finger. The "You still have a chance to save your- black jewel. The Blast had sometimes "pre- round under the hammer misfired. selves if you let me go," said Smith, shout- served and had sometimes destroyed; Ihis ing the ripping arcs. over "There is no once it had done both in near equality. The power plant exploded again, a gout punishment too terrible for men who would Ssu-ma would have stood out withoul Ihe of lava that loosened the hillside beneath it use atomic power again, but you still have artificial lightning. She had the same trim, and sprayed the village. Wood and cloth lime to tlee!" beautiful figure as Ihe girl she had been the iiHcan lo tJUTi m ;, pale irrigation of wna: Carter's smile broadened, his teeth night she stared into Ihe sky above Lop Nor was happening across the creek. In slag- flickering in light reflected onto his face. He and saw dawn blaze three hours early. Now ging down, Ihe reaclor was fusing the rock roared. "We dedicate this victim lo the that figure shone blue, brighter even than and the hulls of the remaining bombs. power that preserves us all!" and he raised the spreading fire thai ate through the wall Plutonium flowed white-hol with its own his ax. of Ihe power plant behind her. internal reactions, but it was spread too thin "You fool," the traveler said quietly. He did The crowo was scattering toward homes to self-lrigger another Blast. The creek not' try to slide back from ihe block, even as and toward the river. No one approached roared and boiled away as the rain of rock he watched multiple a discharge strobe the the platform except the two Changelings and mollen metal spewed into it. The vapor edge o! the descending ax. The hungry walking ;oward their fellow. that had been a plume over the power plant ' steel caught him squarely, shearing like a The chief threw up his revolver and was now a shroud to wrap the burning

shard of ice through his flesh. Hisverlebrae snapped it Ihree times, four, and at Ihe fifth village. in his popped louder ears than the hollow attempt an orange flash and the thump of a "I hadn't called you yet." Smith said, report of the blade against the. wood, The shot in the open air Five of the policemen shouting over the tumult as he clasped ax head quivered, separaling all but a fin- were triggering Iheir automatic weapons Kozinski's hand with his own left hand. He ger's breadth of the Iraveler's neck. He extended his right to the smiling Ssu-ma. blinked at Carter. "We heard the siren," the Ukrainian The policeman rocked his blade free. said, his voice strange for coming from a Static discharges sizzled behind him at mouth that was half bone— the half that three-second intervals. Smith felt a line of •She screamed and had been turned away from the Strike that warmth as his Blast-changed flesh knitted vaporized his inlantry company, he had together again while the steel withdrew. pointed. Others leveled once explained'. Still kneeling, the Changeling turned to- "We could all tell they weren't burning their . . ward weapons. the crowd. "People!" he shouted. coal, couldn't we?" Ssu-ma added. of "Whatever it costs men today, men tomor- Ridges gnarled flesh The three travelers began groping row must know that nuclear power is death! stood out as if through the night, through the smoke and It made this world what it is. It is the one evil the screaming^ "I don't ihink we've ever that they had been paraffin cannot be lolerated, ever again! For plant " checked whether the Oconee was Man's sake, lor the world's — refrozen a moment still operable," said. "It'd Smith be a good . Screaming. Carter slammed the ax down after'being liquefied * time to see." on the traveler's temple. The blade bit to the Kozinski shrugged. "We ought to get helve. Smith reached up with his right back to England some time. It's been too hand, tearing the staple from the flooring. long since we were there." He gripped the wood, and ii splintered as "No. there's time for that," Smith argued.

the from it he drew ax where was lodged in "Nobody there is going to build a fission his bone. The Changeling his stood, head and lugging at the cocking pieces to spill plant as long as there's one man left lo tell flowing together like wax in a mold. His lefl mistired rounoson iheolatfor-n. But the old what we did when we found the one at wrist re-formed as Ihe rawhide lashing cut guns could still fire. Shots slapped and tore Harewell." through it. at the night in shorl bursts that pattered A pair of burning buildings lighted their like of Sparks shards sunlight clawed over the flesh of the Changelings. like rain- path, sweeping Ihe air clear with an angry through the high windows of the power drops on thick dusl. And still they came. updraft. Kozinski squinted, then reached plant. That gush of light died. The siren walking toward Smith and the platform. out his hand to halt Ssu-ma. "Your birth- began to wind, higher and higher. The Incredibly, the antitank rocket igniled mark," he said, pointing to the star-shaped motor of the Van de Graaff generator was when the sixth policeman tugged its blotch benealh the girl's left breast. "It used

speeding also, the current that drove it no lanyard. In ignorance he was holding the to be on the right side." longer controlled. The arcs were a constant his tube against shoulder like a conven- She shrugged. "The rocket just now. I white sheet between the bomb casings. lional weapon. The back-blasi burned suppose,"

Someone— two ligures— crossed the away the man's arm and chest in a ghastly Kozinski frowned. "Don't you see? If we bridge from the power plant. The blue glow simulacrum of Kozinski's mutilation. The can change at all, we can die someday." from the bui cine; backlighted them. rocket corkscrewed, but chance slammed "Sure," Smith agreed. "I've got some "Flee!" Smith cried, lifting to the crowd it into Ssu-ma's chesl. The red blast white hairs on my temples. My hair was sol- the scarred hand he had thrown the up two momentarily covered Changeling's own id brown the . . . when I went to New York." centuries before to the flare of a hundred- fell glow. Her body splattered like the pulp "We'll live a's long as the world needs megaton bomb. "Flee this abominalion be- of a grapefruit struck by a maul. Simulta- us," Ssu-ma said quietly, touching each of fore it devours you — as it surely will, as it neously the front wall of the power plant tore the men and guiding them onward toward did the world before this world!" apart, snuffing the arcs dancing madly be- the trail back through the mountains. The Carter screamed again and struck with tween the bomb casings. steam and the night wrapped them, muf- his rifle bull, hurling the Changeling off the Then, evident in the sudden darkness, fled them. Through it her words came: "Af- platform. Smith picked himself up. The the bits of Ssu-ma's glowing protoplasm ter all, what sort of men would there be in guards backed away from their him, eyes began to draw together like droplets of the world if it weren't for men like us?" Iheir wide, cooked bows advanced as mercury sliding in the bowl of a spoon. Her And all three of them spoke the final line talismans and not "threats. head had not been damaged. The waiting of the joke, their voices bright with remem- The two ligures on the bridge Ihrew back eyes smiled up at the platform. bered humor: "Men like us!"OQ perpeluafion of the society that creates it." remarkable vision of the variety, of human FUTUR6 G€MD€RS He does not intend. Money says, io en- sexedness. It suggests that, like the soci- dorse the perpetuation of that society: "The ety around him, he is committed to maintain CONTINUED FROM PAGE 73 whole purpose of paying aftention to trans- the social division between people, with the In her 1979 book The Transsexual Em- sexualism is to force society to change its act of coitus as the bottom line. Unlike so- pire: The Making of the She-Male, Dr. entire attitude toward, for instance, the sex ciety at large, however, Money recognizes Raymond argued that transsexual surgery education of its children, and its attitude that none of the apparent differences be- is nothing less than "an antisocial activity toward normal primate sexual rehearsal tween humans really justify an absolute di- that promotes the worst aspects of patriar- play In infancy." vision ot the human species into two sexes. chal society by encouraging adaptation to Children's sexual rehearsal play is a But, like society, Money has chosen any- its sex roles." Because transsexualism so topic about which Money may be more way to divide people by a single variable: emphasizes a dichotomy between women zealous than he is about any other subject. the presence of a penis large enough for and men, it "constitutes a 'sociological Projecting on the classroom screen a pic- intercourse. program' that is undercutting the move- ture of young monkeys playing at coital sex, So where do John Money's insights lead? ment to eradicate sex-role stereotyping he wonders aloud, "If sexual rehearsal play What is the fuiure of human gender iden- and oppression in this culture." is so essential to psychosexual normalcy in tity? "I wouldn't want to be dogmatic about singled out for She John Money having these young monkeys, then what on Earth it," he says, "but I think the evidence rather contributed "a pseudometaphysics" in Is it that we're doing to our children by strongly suggests that if you have a society transsexualism's defense— "a new theory prohibiting and punishing sexual rehearsal in which there isn't a hangup about chil- of the social 'nature' of sex-role differences play? dren's sexual rehearsal play, you're going that is just as immutable (and absolute) as "I think that we produce all the psycho- to cut down on the developmental differ- older biological natural law theories." sexual disorders, all of the sex-oftender entiation of gender-identity disorders of

Raymond cites as an example Money's disorders that get people thrown in jail, every type." view that gender identity is irreversibly because, instead of encouraging children to Would a society that is less hung up on fixed by the age of about eighteen months. develop normal heterosexual play patterns. the separation between "male" and Up to a point. Money agrees. "You can't we encourage them to develop no sexual "female" have the same advantage? ignore the fact — if you want to say it this play patterns at all. That's a hypothesis that "Well," he replies, "I don't think that par- way— that a sick society produces trans- cries out for further research, which I sup- ticular thing alone— what do you want to sexualism, or any other sexual problem," pose one day will be done," he tells his call il? the androgyny factor— necessarily he says. "But you can't simply say, To hell class as he projects slides taken secretly has much to do with it. Androgyny doesn't with all these poor suffering individuals. I'm by telescopic lens of a boy about five, with do away with penises and vulvas, does it?" going to clean up the society first.' You do his pants down, mounting a girl slightly Science, however, may, at least as a fixed both together, don'tyou?Thesinisthatyou younger. part ot our lives. would just keep on treating the suffering Money's emphasis on "copulatory sexu- Johns Hopkins, the site of Money's first while at the same time you endorse the ality" stands in sharp contrast to his own sex-change operation, decided in mid- 1979 to stop performing the surgery, in response to a study by psychiatrist Jon K.

Meyer. Meyer found that there was no ap- • preciable difference in "adjustment" between patients given the operation and those who applied for a sex change but never got one. Even before thai, however, Money stated,

"I don't think sex-reassignment surgery with hormone treatments will continue to be the method of choice for treating transsexualism. There's going to be such an explosion of knowledge of how the brain works— about the physiology and transmit- ter chemistry of pathways that mediate sexual tunction and identity — that there's no limit to the science-fiction things we will be able to do." In his class, he describes the cleaner fish, a species that can change its reproductive sex. "There will come a time when biologists figure out the endocrine and cellular mechanism by which that sex change takes place," he predicts. "Once the biochemistry is understood, we'll figure out

how to do it in mammals. The nexl step will

be to do it in human beings. And transsex-

uals would be profoundly grateful if you could bring about that kind of change of sex— a change in fertility and breeding power, too." Will our multisexed nature then find expression sensually and societally? Ironi- cally Dr. John Money, the man who revealed how astonishingly varied human sexuality is, cannot see where his discovery leads. DO ious technological choices— but not irUTERVIEUU necessarily benefiting from them— be in- cluded as representatives on the advisory panels for such studies, along with persons what's growing, and what has real poten- possessing (he more traditional kinds of

tial. Those can go on anew S curve, but in a expertise. Yet this information on impacts

completely different place. requires a very real sort of expertise: it is Omni: Will we have a multieconomic social feedback, or anticipatory social phoenix rising from the ashes of Keynes "feed-forward." and his theories? This "early warning" creates a betler def-

Henderson: Yes. I think so. The main body inition of the problem. I justified the inclu- of traditional economic theory can help with sion of people who don't have orthodox

quantifying all ol our social costs. But il will degrees, such as consumer and labor rep- finally bog down when the understanding resentatives and environmentalists. Their dawns that all economics was ever con- experience is vital to securing a definition cerned with was the monetized sector. of the problems. Economists were hypnotized by this Omni: Will these people have less of a abstraction called while there of isolation the defining an economy , sense from people is really no such thing, as an economy; the problems? there's a sociotechnical system embedded Henderson: Yes. You see what happens is in an ecosystem. the people from the traditional disciplines, Omni: How will problems affecting the in- the physicists and the engineers and the dustrial nations affect the Third World? economists who normally have been in- Henderson: The Third World has been volved, have been isolated and have a caught in the same debate between sense of unreality of how these technologi- capitaiism and Marxism that has occupied cal ideas really impact on human beings in the Northern Hemisphere over the last sev- real situations.

eral decades. They have two very clear Omni: Would it be mainly because they're examples: the apparent— almost hypnot- not quantifying the things we've spoken of, inrmruii ic—successes of the West, and the Marxist like bioproductivity? way, which clearly points out the anoma- Henderson: Right. Those old disciplines lies of the Western way of life. Most Third are too specialized and do not include the World leaders now seem to be talking of a second- and third-order consequences. third type of approach, perhaps something We had a terrible problem when OTA like Sweden, which has a very ingenious .started in that so many of the contractors mi* of private enterprises and public con- who came in were just putting old wine into trols, They are looking to pick and choose new bottles. They would come in and swear the best from both worlds— to see where on a stack of Bibles that they knew how to the rubber really hits the road — and create make technology assessments. But when ii pnnnji something that fits inlo their own cultures. you really unraveled it and you examined Omni: Could technology assessment help their assumptions, you'd find that what they us cross the barriers we've been talking were talking about was technological and about? Turn everything around, so to economic feasibility, which is very different.

speak, and plant the seeds to let the flow- That's not techno ogy assessment at all. ers bloom? It's very unscientific to look at a problem

Henderson: I think that it has enormous and then jump to a methodological conclu- potential. I've been on the Advisor-y Council sion, or not even to think about the method

of the Office of Technology Assessment that you're going to use. There is no justifi-

ever since it began six years ago. I saw cation to using cost/benefit analysis that technology assessment used an inte- merely because that's the thing that you grated, interdisciplinary approach, with happen to be trained in. A good technology economics only one part of a much larger assessment examines real world problems patterning of problems. There was tremen- case by case and says, "First, there's the dous potential for remapping the situation technological feasibility and first-order in such a way that we could come up with consequences of going in this direction. all kinds of innovative policy alternatives. Then there are the second-order problems Today policymakers are stuck with using when a technology diffuses: What happens

old maps to define the "problems" in the when it is used in an institutional framework same old way, which means they are going of commercialization? What kind of prob- to keep redoubling their efforts to do the lems does that create?" old thing that already failed. The alternative You need to synthesize the answers to Is to put on a different pair ot disciplinary these questions, and whatever environ- spectacles and see a new pattern and mental, health, and safety impacts there reconceptualize the problem— or even may be, using four or five different models

discover that it isn't the problem at all. and methods. That's one reason why the The Office of Technology Assessment is advisory panel should incorporate people

one of the few governmental agencies with all kinds of viewpoints and biases. We'll rush you the magazines where lhat questioning and the reconcep- Some will have a physics bias; some an tualizing have been institutionalized. One environmental and some an economic or of tomorrow that were on

of the ways that I tried to open OTA's con- social perspective. We've learned that sale yesterday. ceptual approach was to insist that per- there is no such thing as "objective" sci- sons and groups- in society affected by var- ence or value-free technology. DO .

When they e"icoun:er a prank, the good By 4:00 rm., most of the stacks have BRAIN WARS gray heads of Caltech's professors only been either broken into or broken down. :.;CMNr;i.lEj :: ^W P,\C>~ 4.- nod appreciatively. They can hardly Isolated knots of frenzied underclassmen criticize, having engineered stunts as wild are working to beal the clock on the remain- out of thousands ol dollars in prizes, all of as any dreamed up by their students. ing puzzles. Oulside Page House, the crisp which later were donated to charity and to Richard Feynman, theoretical physicist pop of a .22 rifle is heard as wimps, poised refurbishing the dorms. Honoring the ham- and Nobel laureate, is also a bongo drum on an adjacent roof, fire into an open win- burglars' brilliance, a delighted rival, player and master safecracker. While work- dow striving to hit the more diverting parts Burger King, awarded the intrepid students ing on- the Manhattan Project developing of another Penthouse centerfold, breaking a S3.000 scholarship lor their school. the A-bomb, Feynman practiced on safes, circuits that will spring Ihe lock. Bui the proudest moment in the history of leaving "Guess who?" notes arrjong the in an older dorm three wimps are locked Caltrickery, the most sublime of ail student top-secret papers. in mortal combat with a computer console, pranks, is certainly Ihe Great Rose Bowl Another faculty member, Harry "The battling an intricate program that requires Hoax of 1961, pulled off during Pasadena's Horse" Gray, is a brilliant chemist and bon them to enter a series of mythical caves most sacred civic event and witnessed by vivant who frequently enivens his complex where they face an electronic monster millions on national television. lectures by delivering them in, would you named Ork. Two wimps can only watch, 'The stunt was conceived by bored stu- believe, a horse suit. having already been "devoured'' by Ork. dents in Lloyd House dorm during Christ- How does all this eccentricity sit with Cal- As each stack is liberated, the group in mas recess. The first slep called for a stu- lech President Marvin L. Goldberger? A front of Barbara Hsu's room grows. Above dent, disguised as a high-school reporter, respected physicist, he possesses a dig- her door a transom has been converted to iengthy interv conduct a ew with the flat- nified carriage, a proud profile, and a mane into a three-dimensional maze with 60 in- tered student direcfor of half-time events for of white hair that would be the envy of any terconnecting coded compartments. With the University of Washington, a Rose Bowl senior statesman. However, the good doc- only three obscure modern poems provid- that year. contender tor is well suited for the job of tracking the ing clues and with a little white mouse oc- The student quizzed the. unsuspecting casionally appearing at the openings, the director on how the planned card stunts wimps deduce they have to force the were arranged and later managed to make mouse into one compartment, which will off with one of the instruction sheets. Back close an electrical circuit and open the at Caltech, the students night worked and door. But which compartment? If the mouse day, wThe FBI was called meticulously reworking and counter- knows, he's not talking. Nor is he cooperat- feiting all 2,300 instruction cards. On New in when it was learned that ing, having eagerly accepted the numer- Year's Eve a commando team broke into ous bread bribes the wimps have Caltech students offered, the director's hotel room and pulled the only to retreat into a back corner of the switch. were tapping the professors' maze and promptly fall asleep. At halftime of the Rose Bowl game, the phones Actually, An impenetrable web of thousands of cocky Washington card section went feet of string will greet another reluming -the through their first nine stunts without a undergrads had tapped senior, while Cohn, senior class president, hitch. On the tenth, the director called for "a the Strategic will discover his new roommate — a 1 .000- big Washington," but, to his amazement, pound rock sculpture carted gleefully Air Command hot line* the cards came up "Caltech." Nonplussed, away from a formal garden. hurriedly he ordered the next trick, which Pyka's room is resealed with enough was to spell "Huskies" slowly across the steel to build an. aircraft carrier and deco- r section, !tcaineout"SGiksuh."Thedi ector rated with the immortal words Caltech stu- became Irantic and called for Ihe next se- dents share with every other college stu- quence, a picture of the Washington Hus- strange orbits of Caltech's students; he, dent: "Eat it, Werner" Once inside, Pykawill kie mascot. Up popped a leering Caltech too, has that Wizard of Oz sparkle in his also discover 400 cases of bottles filled beaver, and all semblance of order lost was eye. The students recognized it immedi- with water. Bui he'll have to drill through the as the shattered card section gave up. It ately after his arrival last year from wall and crawl through a dresser drawer was a shame, for the next trick, a patriotic Princeton, and they saluted him by tossing to get in. to appeal "Buy Bonds," had been trans- him into the Pacific Ocean. Not to be out- No one is quite sure why Caltech devel- muted into "Buy Blondes" by the Caltech done by the informal welcome, Dr, oped into such a den of tricksters. Some students. Goldberger later made his own entry into say it's a fusion of Ihe students' natural It's noon and reports are flooding in from Caltech legend. brilliance and California's nutball tradition. the field that more senior stacks have To celebrate Einstein's hundredth birth- Others claim that confronting challenges joined the growing casualty rolls: Pyka's day, President Goldberger donned a riding like Dilch Day is a worthy part of the stu- room was broken into hours ago, and a habit and polo helmet and triumphantly pi- dents' training, like a lion cub engaging in counterstack is already in progress. loted a rented elephant along Ihe same mock combat. When they graduate to be- In another dorm Aristotle Ihe snake is campus walks where the gentle Einstein come full-fledged toilers in the halls of sci- gingerly lowered on a sling through the had wandered on his visits. Later, wielding ence, they may be inspired in their efforts transom into the The room. snake responds a saber, and with a samurai yell, by remembering, "Once there was this- beautifully and wraps himself around a box Goldberger expertly slashed into a three- door." containing the key. He's pulled back tiered birthday cake. Ditch Day is over, and the young prodi- through the transom, and another finesse All are agreed that the master faculiy gies are weary from their mental workout, stack bites the dust. is jokester the puckish Nobelist Murray but you'll hear from them again; if not direct- The Blacker beer bottle- laser stack is Gell-Mann, the theoretical physicist who ly then indirectly through the machines declared out of order, while smoke fills bestowed the unlikely name quark on na- they'll build to keep our technological soci- another dorm corridor. Several wimps try to ture's fundamental unit of matter. From now ety afloat. After all, anyone who can break scotch a fire caused while they atlacked a into infinity, whenever sober physicists into a complex finesse stack can surely heat-seeking finesse stack. An enthusias- gather to discuss the serious business of solve small problems like the energy crisis, tic sophomore. had poured hot wax into the the nature of the universe, they will be re- Three Mile Island, or a falling Skylab. lock, unintentionally celling fire to a pile of quired to make a sound not unlike a However, they were stopped cold by a underwear on (he other side of the door. lovesick stork. mouse. DO 120 OMNI a '

chain of numbers, augmenting some, di- must have been millions of Americans who minishing others, so that the photographs did not even know Mars had been photo- previous Ill III K[ became always clearer and more defined, I graphed. But we do know that in realized that we could accomplish almost periods when great explorations were throughout soci- today and tun the risk of being abused. anything out in the farthest reaches of made they reverberated there are moments space. ety Dante and Shakespeare and Milton re- But I also believe that their the day I sponded to the events of day. Scien- in history when challenges occur of such a My lite changed completely on tists to new discoveries.. And compelling nature that to miss them is to saw those Mars photographs, for I had par- were urged modified -their practices in accord- miss the whole meaning of an epoch. ticipated in that miracle. My tax dollars had nations for the project. universities ance with these discoveries. Space is such a challenge. It is the kind of helped pay The provided the. brains to All the thoughts of men are interlocked, challenge William Shakespeare sensed that I supported, had in area produces unfore- nearly 400 years ago when he wrote; arm the cameras. And the government that and success one seen successes in others. It is for this rea- I helped nourish had organized the expedi- affairs of men. There is a tide in the light that a nation like ours is obligated to tion. I saw the universe in a new and son at the flood, ieads on to for- Which, taken I myself and my nation in a new set of re- pursue its adventure in space. am not tune: sponsibilities. My spirit was enlarged and competent to say how much money should Omitted, all the voyage of their life my willingness. to work on future projects be spent. I am not competent to advise on Is bound in shallows and in miseries. fortified. how the program should be administered. afloat, On such aiutl sea are we now it done. No one can predict what aspect of space But I am convinced must be DO we must take the current when it And will invigorate a given individual, and there serves Or lose our ventures.

spirit of We risk great peril if we kill off this 5TS] adventure, for we cannot predict how and in what seemingly unrelated fields it will F^ manifest itself. A nation that loses its for- classic! ward thrust is in danger, and one of the A future most effective ways to retain that thrust is to CLARKE 'It has the weight and texture of DUNE."—ARTHUR C. keep exploring possibilities. The sense of exploration is intimately bound up with human resolve, and for a nation to believe "Welcome to a "A book I wish I'd is that it is slill committed to forward motion —Theodore Sturgeon. to ensure its continuance. WrittBn. -Anne McCaffrey DIQ DllB! is- of I doubt there a woman a man who author of The White Dragon. "Reading Vinge is like running honestly believes that the United States "Bloody good, with a highly the fingers over satinwood. An could ever fall backward, as other nations structured society unusual novel, full of richly have within our lifetime. Intuitively we feel realized and woven characters." that we are exempt Yet for us to think so is whose roots are back at bookstores to fly in the lace of all history, for many in our own dim $10.95 nations at their apex were inwardly distant past now. .because their willpower had doomed, ... A splendid begun to falter, and soon their vulnerability novel." became evident to all. Enemies do nol destroy nations; time and the loss of will bring them down. Therefore, we should be most careful Joan about retreating from the specific challenge of our age. We should be reluctant to turn our back upon the frontier of this epoch. Space is indifferent to what we do; it has no feeling, no design, no interest in whether we grapple with it or not. But we cannot be. indifferent to space, because the grand, slow march of our intelligence has brought us, in our generation, to a point from which we can explore and understand

and utilize it. To turn back now would be to deny our history. our capabilities.

I was not overly impressed when men

it walked upon the moon, because I knew to be out there at a specific distance, with

specific characteristics, and I supposed that we had enough intelligence to devise the necessary machinery to get us there and back. But when we sent an unmanned object hurtling into distant space, and

when it began sending back signals— chain of numbers, to be exact— that could be reassembled here on Earth to provide us with a-photograph of the surface of wonder. And Mars, I was struck dumb with when computers began adjusting the ATTENTION COLLEGE STUDENTS! is not the only shape for a time machine. The Kerr metric has the theoretical advan-

tage of being a complete solution to the full Einstein equations. However, there are many, less rigorous solutions to Einstein's gravity theory that offer us possible de- FOR FUTURE signs for a time machine. Another configuration for a time machine is the spinning cylinder described by Tipler in 1974. The theoretical model for this time machine uses a mathematical approxima-

tion; so it is not as rigorous as the Kerr

RE ERENCE model. Theoreticians find it easier to attack. But any electrical engineer attest that Moving? We need 4-6 weeks notice of a Listing/Unllsting Service? Omni makes can change of address. Fill in the attached form the names and addresses of its subscribers the approximation works well in elec-

tromagnetic theory. It should work , be tow. available to other publications and outside equally companies. The publications and com- well in gravitational theory. New Subscription or Renewal? One year panies selected are carefully screened for Tipler's time machine is a long, ultra- of Omni is $18 in the U.S., $24 in Canada their acceptability and quality of their offers. and overseas. Please enclose a check or dense, rotating cylinder with a spin speed money order for the appropriate amount and at its surface one half that of light. In this allow 6-8 weeks for delivery. Please check the appropriate box below. design, time becomes distorted near the cylinder's midpoint but outside its mass. To travel through time, you simply orbit the Renewal Attach mailing label below and send to: cylinder halfway along its length. The important feature of the Tipler two-way time

RO- Box 908 it i Please remove my u This is a change of machine is that allows travel both back- Farmingdale, N.Y. 11737 namefromyour address; new forward in time (depending | my ward and upon mailing list. address is below. whether you circle with or against the spin of the cylinder), Neither the time traveler nor the time machine has to move at velocities

Address . close to that of light. j City State Zip So we cannot rule out the possibility of ] \ building a time machine based on our cur-

Payment must accompany order. oessn - rent understanding of physics. In fact, it seems quite likely that we will eventually build one.

If we can travel back and forth in time, known forms of force can be united in a though, what seem to be real paradoxes , TIME MACHINE practicable 'machine by which men shall arise. We'll be spared one version of this [travel back in time] seems to the writer as famous problem. According to Ei.nstein's CONTINUED FROM PAGE 94 complete as it is possible for the demon- laws, time machines can take you back- elude that nature will not form such mass stration of any physical fact to be." ward in time only to the moment when the configurations; so, they reason, time ma- This quotation is a slight modification of a machine was turned on and forward only to chines are impossible. Yet when you read similar statement published by Simon the moment the machine is turned off. A the papers, you find thatthey use assump- Newcomb in 1906 at the conclusion of his future time-machine maker will not be able tions "realistic such as collapse," "normal classic paper demonstrating the impossi- lo go back in time and tell himself how to matter," and "stable configurations"— bility of heavier-ihan-air flying machines. make the machine, loopholes large enough to build a time ma- Newcomb had been proved wrong even But this kind of paradox takes other chine in. before his statement reached print. One forms. Exhuming an old cliche; "Why There are in many things our world that feels that Tipler has deliberately hedged couldn't you go back in time and kill your are not in a "realistic" or "normal" or "stable" his "impossibility proof" with the form of his grandfather before he had any children?" state of nature. A transistor is an unnatural conclusion. These paradoxes all boil down to a violation ultrapure silicon miracle— an crystal. A liter It may be true that nature will not form a of a strict, time-ordered, cause-and-effect of liquid helium, a purebred poodle, a laser, Kerr metric time machine from a collapsing relationship. There are those who would a geosynchronous communications satel- star. But with a little guidance from our far- argue that this is enough: The very fact that lite—all are "unnatural" oddities kept sta- future descendants, a star bigger than our causality would be violated means that ble by their human makers. sun might be made into a ring-shaped time time travel is impossible; nothing more

1 This is an uncomfortable situation for machine— 100 kilometers in diameter— need be said. theorists, as a recent statement published and be maintained even though it could not Yet we learned to accept the truth of Ein- by Dr. clear. Frank Tipler makes be stable if left alone. This time machine stein's special-relativity mathematics de- In 1974 Dr. Tipler pointed out that "gen- would be big enough and safe enough to spite its insistence that time was net the eral relativity suggests that if we construct a send an entire rocket ship, and its passen- same for all but could be stretched and sufficiently large rotating cylinder we cre- gers, back in tirrie, compressed. In the future we may adjust to ate a time machine." Some physicists object that the Kerr met- Einstein's general-relativity mathematics, Three years later he proved that you ric solution requires the mass in the spin- which says that time can also be made to could not build a time machine with "nor- ning ring to move at the velocity of light, and run backward. mal" matler— matter that did not reach this never attained. can be Yet other solu- I don't know the solution to the logical black-hole densities. Tipler concluded his tions have shown that the speed-of-light paradoxes presented by time travel. I sus- second paper with the deliberately pontifi- requirement is slightly relaxed if the mass pect that we shall be forced lo concede cal state meritsThe demonstration that no also carries an electric charge. that time order is not absolute but can vary possible combination of known sub- But the debate about the Kerr time ma- according to our experiences with time ve- stances, known forms of machinery, and chine is not that important, A spinning ring hicles, just as we were forced to accept that 122 OMNI time rate is not absolute, but would change dramatically for passengers in a space vehicle (raveling near the speed of light. Once CANADA a. time machine exists, then decisions made at one point in the time line of an individual can affect not only the future but the past. In our example, President Greatman made the decision to send a message back in time. That decision set off a chain of events that warned him in the past thai a catastrophe was about to occur, allowing him to evacuate the east coast of the United States before a meteor struck. The decision "caused" the evacuation "result"

• to occur "before" the "cause." Yet from a logical viewpoint that neglects temporal order, the evacuation "effect" was a direct cpnsequence of the decision "cause"; the causal "impulse" just happened to be transferred by a message that moved backward in time.

It may be tens or hundreds ot thousands of years before the human race has evolved to the point where we can control collapsing stars in order to make a time machine big enough for a vehicle loaded with human travelers. Long before then, however, we may be able to make miniature would be enough to ATRADmONOFFRIENDSHIP time machines. This allow messages encoded on pulses of There's so much to see and do and share -and laser light to be sent backward and forward knowing you're with good friends and in time. PonciHa very special vaca- V-/eLI ldClcl If we took the mass of an asteroid, neighbours makes Canada a around 15 billion metric tons, and com- tion choice. Drop by soon. SO MUCH TO GO FOR.

pressed it enough to unhinge time in a

it would have the dimensions small region, gq camputiquE eg computique rrrrrrx of an atomic nucleus — a superheavy, superdense nucleus. Strong electric, INTRODUCING -. Texas Instruments „,,„«„ magnetic, and radio fields would be mi/IM PACKARD >' electronic calculators HP-85! needed to keep it levitated, elongated, and THE spinning at the proper speed.

The laser messages shot into it would have to be made of extremely short pulses of gamma rays, with wavelengths smaller than the time-transfer region, A message' would consist of a small numberof gamma rays, each at a slightly different frequency corresponding to its "code word" in the message. At these high energies, gamma- ray detectors a-e highly efficient; so decod- cluster of photons that had 400 S59! ing the Tl HOME COMPUTER 99/4 . , . S11BO.O0 Jll

800^ . . . 99! emerged a few weeks in the past would be yl\, ISTARTE " MACHINE . . . 495.00 relatively easy. AGINATION ATARI ^J" The gravitational field from a 15-billion- .999.95 " " 16k . ^jfcppte computer memory 2 ton mass at ten meters distance is about CASIO" FX-68 one Earth gravity. If the time machine were K" NEW EXECUTIVE 99.95 HI CHESS «« . enclosed in a 20-meter sphere, there would 34.95 CHALLENGER be two Earth gravities on its top, zero grav-

. ity underneath, and 1.414 g's— tilted at 45 degrees— at the equator. susysiEim x-iohw

These time machines could exist within '5 PRICE ON MOST ITEMS IF HE HAS Ml

100 years if there are breakthroughs in our IE (BOO) 95405 3 II understanding of elementary particles and ultradense matter. Some of us now living CALL FOR FREE CATALOG may eventually owe our lives to the warn- WRITE OR ings brought to us from the future by these "impossible" paradox producers. After the computique crisis is over and we have time to reflect, we m will wonder -about those ancient philoso- DLL FREE (800) 854-0623 (outside CAI o, (714)549-7373 (witl phers who were so worried by those "time machine paradoxes. "DO PERSONAL ELECTRONICS AT PROFESSIONAL DISCOUNTS in hell, naturally, they're much, much worse. lobby half the mai boxes 'oo-;ed as if they'd JOSIE AND THE ELEVATOR Nevertheless, one day Mrs. Hardwinter's been broken into. The aluminum ashtray insanity disappeared as inexplicably as it had disappeared, and now the floor was : win i inuu; HOM PAiii: ;; had come. That is to say, she stopped littered with butts. denly become drastically unhappier, Josie being able to see' the devils around her. Graffiti covered every surface with ir- never suspected that she was in hell. At After she'd convinced the examining doc- refutable evidences of the hatred, lust, and school she was always made to sit in the tors that she wasn't crazy anymore (which imbecility so prevalent in hell, front row. Her teachers were boring, stupid, took rather a long while), they let her out of Josie regarded the elevator button and either weepy or very mean. Her class- the hospital. Having no other idea whereto doubtfully, unable to believe that in such a mates teased her mercilessly for being fat. go, she returned to the apartment building derelict building the elevator might still be At home her father ignored her, and she where she used to live and asked whether working. But even in hell one hopes against spent her afternoons and evenings all there was an apartment she could rent. hope. She pressed.the button, and, lo and alone watching mind-numbing programs Since the building was scheduled to be behold, there was a rattling of chains and on television and eating junky desserts, demolished in two more years (the renting then a long, deep groan, and the doors of which made her still fatter. These desserts agent didn't mention this fact to Mrs. Hard- the elevator opened. were poisoned, as all the lood in hell is winter), there were several vacant apart- Suddenly it all came back to her — poisoned, so that when she was in school, ments to choose from, and so, twenty years everything the elevator had said to her, and she couldn't think clearly. She flunked after she'd left it, Mrs. Hardwinter returned how she had replied. Her rudeness, her fourth grade and seventh grade, too. By to apartment 13-D. cruelty, the broken mirror. this time her father had become an al- When Josie received her mother's post- "Oh, elevator!" she cried out, falling to coholic. He and Josie moved to a cheaper card inviting her to visit her at the old ad- her knees and pressing her hands and apartment, in a neighborhood where mug- dress, her first reaction was simply to be then her lips to the scuffed, unswept lino- gers abounded and where even on sum- furious. The nerve of her, after running away leum tiles. "Elevator! Dear elevator, I'm mer afternoons it wasn't safe for a child to and leaving her with her old soak of a fa- sorry! I'm so sorry. Please, please forgive go outside to play. longer Josie I'll No could me! replace the mirror I broke. And brag about having her bathroom or I'll own keep you clean, And — And I promise even her own bedroom, for the room she never never to do such a terrible thing had to sleep in now was also a kind of again." office. There was an awful stench in the Without a word (being too moved to at- that her life kitchen thai never went away. £She knew tempt a reply) and without waiting for Josie Josie became a teen-ager, and then a had become, all of a sudden, to press 13, the elevator hurtled upwards, grown-up, and each year was more dismal up past the boundaries of hell, up past the drastically unhappier. than the year before. But really there's no ground floor of the world above, up in a

into . . need to go too much detail. Enough to . At school she was always single glad rush to where Josie's mother say that by the time she was twenty-four lived on the thirteenth floor. There it made to sit in the she had been married three times and stopped and opened its doors, and Josie ' front raped twice— once, when she was fifteen, row. Her teachers were got off with a sense, irrational but nonethe- in the locker room at her high school and boring, stupid, and less unshakable, that her life had taken a the second time, when she was twenty-two, turn for the better. either weepy or very mean.? first by her ex-husband, who almost killed And of course it had. Josie found that she her. She had also attempted suicide twice, liked her mother better than she'd ever with pills, but in hell suicide attempts are liked her before, and though Mrs. Hard- never permitted to succeed. Otherwise, winter was a little suspicious at first and everyone could just kill himself and be done inclined lo believe her daughter was a little with it. ther! After twenty years of almost unbroken crazy (for she could not be kept from con- Despite everything that had happened silence! (There had admittedly been versing with the elevator whenever she was to her in hell Josie still somehow believed Christmas cards, for even in hell one is in it), she eventually came round to liking there was a- way things might get better. obliged to send Christmas cards.) After Josie in return. After all those years in the She believed, in the words of one of her locking her out of the apartment without her mental hospital she was inclined to be favorite songs, that somewh ere there was a shoes! (Josie had come to believe her own tolerant toward the kinder sorts of crazi- place for her, a place she could at lasl be long-ago lie.) To send a postcard after all happy in. But where? She would never have that! "I'll send her a postcard," she thought They decided tolivetogetherthereinthe believed that that happier place was no aloud. "See how she likes them apples!" old apartment building, which wasn't torn farther off than the other side of town, for by But then (for Josie was leading a very down, after all, but was renovated instead. now she'd- forgotten everything that had lonely life in hell) she decided, after all, that Josie, true to her promise, replaced the passed between her and the elevator, the a single visit could do no harm. Her mother mirror she'd broken, and the poor old way you forget the things that happen in might actually have become a nice person. elevator was so overcome that it was stuck nightmares. In hell there are so many nasty If she hadn't, Josie would at least have the for four days on thirteen. But after the re- things all if happening the time, that you satisfaction of telling her off. So, donning pairman came and tinkered with it, il kepi track of every one of them, you'd soon her brightest pantsuit and arming herself seemed as good as new. go quite insane. with a purse containing a spray can of Josie's life, too, took a turn for the better. That, in fact, is what had happened to Mace {a standard precaution in hell), Josie With a bit of friendly bullying from her Josie's mother in Ibiza. First she had come set off on the number 12 bus and arrived in mother she got her weight down to a com- down with infectious hepatitis; then, while her old neighborhood in a little less than an fortable hundred thirty pounds, Nicest of she was recovering from that, something all, hour. she found a job that didn't drive her . went wrong inside her head and she was The years had not been kind to the old crazy with boredom and paid a decent able to see all hell's usually invisible devils. apartment building. Its stone doorway had wage besides. (In fact, she became a For years she was confined to mental hos- been vandalized, and its remains were teacher, but that is another story.) pitals, jeered at by these devils the way covered over with yellow formica, part of All in all, Josie could not complain, or at poor Josie "was jeered at by her class- the decoration of the pornography shop least she preferred not to. If this wasn't mates. Even in our world mental hospitals that had moved in on the ground floor. The heaven (elevators, alas, cannot go there), it are nowhere anyone would want to live, but buzzer system didn't, work, and inside the was clearly an improvement on hell. DO 124 OMNI EARTH CANADA

Academy of Sciences in 1974 showed thai there are at least several hundred plant species that seem to offer immediate po-

tential for -use in relieving hunger and im- proving nutrition. In addition, wild- species help established agriculture. All conventional crops need to have their genetic constitutions regularly "topped up" in order to maintain, let alone expand, their productivity. The addition of wild germ plasm is also crucial 'in resisting new insect pests, adapling to our changing climatic conditions, and other environmental threats. America is especially dependent on these wild gene reservoirs, since much ot its agriculture is imported from Europe and Asia. When a medical prescription is filled at a pharmacy, there is a 50 percent likelihood that the medicine is of natural origin. The commercial value of these drugs in the United States alone is put at over $5 billion per year; Nonprescription preparations, similarly derived from wild creatures, are worth another $5 billion. bonappetit As for industry, the need for raw materials growing rapidly as the world's population is Great meals help make great vacations. increases. The energy shortage has Come sample our cuisine, from traditional prompted Melvin Calvin, of the University ("^r. »-»<-» *~1 '

hydrocarbons similar to oil.

All in all. the value of foreign supplies of genetic resources to the U.S. economy amounts to $10 billion a year, which is a conservative estimate. However, we are eliminating the very source of our livelihood

in little more than the twinkling of an eye, geologically speaking, for this is the LEARN TO greatest Piological debacle since life began 3.6 billion years ago. Extinction is, of course, an overwhelming

fact of life. Fewer than 10 percent of all the species that have ever inhabited this planet are alive today. Yet, until now, the world has never seen the broad-scale elimination of species to match a rate of one species per It is a rebirth of the mind. Simple sional photographers will critique day, let alone the impending demise of surroundings take on a new mean your work and stimulate your photo- species. thousands, perhaps millions, of ing, a new dimension, ft graphic senses. You'll Even the disappearance of the di- is the world of photogra- even have the opportun- nosaurs, normally characterized as a "freak phy, and you can be an ity to win photographic dying," occurred at only a rate of roughly integral part of ft through competitions. the innovative new Foracomplete pack- one species every 1,000 years. Dinosaur McGraw-Hill Photog- et offree information, call extinction caused only a.small proportion of raphy Workshop, toll free, operator #203 Earth's total complement of species to va- in the convenience at 800-648-5600 (in Nev scene. cate the of your own home, atyour ada call 800-992-5710), or Nothing — nothing — in Earth's history own pace, you'll learn to mail this coupon to Mc- matches what is occurring today, both think like a photographer. Graw-Hill Photography quantitatively and qualitatively. Dr. Thomas You'll be given projects to Workshop, 3939Wiscon Lovejoy. of the World Wildlife Fund, de- utilize your newfound sinAvenue, N.W., Wash- clares, "There have occurred, during the skills. A panel of profes- ington, D.C. 20016, unfolding of life's story on Earth, the Paleozic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic eras— the eras of Ancient Life, Middle Life, and Recent Life.. In theory we are still in the Era of Recent Life". But perhaps we should de- clare that era ended and designate a new one: the Era of Life's Impoverishment. "DO '

Designatures II: Turn this, page upside down CQRflPETITOrU By Scot Morris

We saw 120 variations on the name

Einstein (usually combining it with "E=mc2 "), 50 different Asfmovs, and 25

Omnis. It was a delight opening the mail as the entries in Omni Competition #9 in. came i OCHNESS/MONSIER, by Ray A. Jorgensen, We asked ior designatures— our name Las Vegas, Nov. for the calligraphic wore: play -hat is half design, half signature— and readers responded, molding letters into shapes of stunning symmetry. Last month we published prizewinners; this month, some u/)CocVn very honorable mentions. All of the -.-'WSVoJwsv AtfMIsMan designatures on this page can be turned upside down. Some words stay the same when inverted; others hold a surprise; Lincoln, by Sandra J. Zack, Cambridge, first becomes last, Omni becomes FUTURE. We regret thai space permits so few of the 3,000 desic.nai-.jres received to be published. If you like these, watch for an expanded collection in a special Omni J£SM5THLCh55r book we are now preparing. It you're jesus the christ, by Bill Lezlr inspired by these designatures to create Dunham and Perkins, Merced, Calif. more of your own, send them in. relativity, by B. T Brame, Euless, Tex,

Congratulations, and thanks to all!

HONORABLE MENTION jdJSTwjr1 n

THOMAS EDISON/JAMES. CARTER, by Eric Tissue, Pittsburgh, Pa. A> ^ 3±ff€K>/Ji/Te OIOV black/white, by Clay C. Jones, Fort Worth, asimov, by Dean Rusk, Brooksville, Fla.

Rdplpu Bqb|Hqbcj grryru

DESiGNATURE, by Frank H, DeJong, happybirthday, by Debbie Parker, Huntington Beach, Calif. Eugene, Ore. 126 OMNI CANADA economically used :c suopori the projects planned by NASA for the 1980s and 1990s. Lunar oxygen could be used as rocket fuel and for life-support sysiems in space; lunar silicon could be fabricated into solar collectors for satellites; and lunar metals could form the supports and hulls of large space structures. The door to large-scale manufacturing and agronomy in space is likely to open sometime during the 1980s after the space shuttle starts routine flights.

• Recent engineering studies have examined the possibility of retrieving Earth- approaching asteroids for space manufacturing. This resource is vast. There are probably more than 100,000 such objects with diameters greater than 1 00 meters and masses around 1 million metric tons. The unit cost to retrieve asteroids may be many times less than the $1 ,000 per kilogram lift cost of earthly materials using the shuttle or $1 to §2 tor lunar materials. The small asteroids have nearly zero-gravity fields. So the prospect of costly landings is avoided. SEE HOWH'S DONE Solar energy for processing and propulsion is continuously available on the asteroid. The skills ofgenerations show in our craftsman- The favorable economics of asteroid re- ship and most folks are willing to share theii y~n 1 * 1 trieval, combined with the apparent attrac- J stories, their experiences and maybe even a tiveness ot space agronomy, raise the pos- few V_

A three-kilometer carbonaceous as- fit and complete satisfaction. teroid towed earthward by a solar-powered mass driver (most of the mass-driver mass and expense would go into the power planl and its radiators) could provide enough growing area to support 6 billion people — the projected world population for the year 2000, In the interim smaller asteroids could into be turned smaller growing areas as D Please send full-color. 24 page catalog of J&M famine insurance. JACK DANIEL'S shoes and leather accessories, ti.oo Enclosed Please ship postpaid A retrieval system would cost in the FIELD TESTER CAP pairof Pompano® $73 (Ky. lesidenls add lax) range of $100 billion to $200 billion, spread This is a comfortable sportsman's billed over the next 20 to 30 years. This invest- ':; IJ:c- :-, :a.-d :=(.*. I i-eo K::-r-=-2027. 9-5 EST. cap. Black (air cooled) adjustment compares favorably with the $700 bil- mesh and i'.t.-:nrky cal a'lle-r: 50" 63?--2:<3i Or send coupon. able to any size head, with an official DCheckEncI DMaslerChg rjviSA DAmer. Ex lion it would cost between now and the year 2000 to provide irrigation and to modernize "Jack Daniel's Field Tester" patch on shade your eyes agriculture in the Third World. Given a po- the front. Guaranteed to tential market of $200 billion to $500 billion and start a lot of conversations. a year, the payoff would be rapid. My 55.25 price includes postage Food production in the United Stales to- and handling. tals approximately $100 billion; 20 percent Send check, money order, or use Ameri- of this is exported. Given reasonable pro- can Express, Visa or Master Charge, ductivity in self-supporting space colonies including all numbers and signature. and low-cost transport to Earth, the cost of Qa> food production on Earth may be rivaled by the economical breadbaskets of space.OQ run them through the bet, either person is EMRJ1ES t as likely to win as to lose. However, the amount that would be won and the amount that would be lost in the long run would be Petals Around the Hose. The key is in the >-.-... identical. name of this dice game. The is "rose" the 7. The 12 Coins. Weigh coins 1, 2, 3. and 4 center dot on a die face, and the- "petals" against 5, 6. 7, and 8. If the pans balance,

the it. are dots around The only faces with a you know the odd coin is 9, 10, 11, or 12, central "rose" are the odd ones, 1, 3, and 5, Weigh coins 9 andIO against coins 11 and, but only on the 3 and 5 are there any "pet- say, 8 (we know from the first weighing thai

als" around it. The number is of all , „„„ the sum t 8 is a good coin). If they balance, we know the petals; two on every 3 face and four on coin 12, the only unweighed one, is the odd '--.wall every 5 That's all there is to it; one. The third weighing indicates wheiher it is heavy or light. FACTS; STRANGE If, however, at the second weighing (above), coins 9 and 10 are heavier than 11 1 Magic Stuff. Baking soda. celling « and 8, then you know that either (a) 9 is 2. French Spread. Margarine. heavy, or (b) 10 is heavy, or (c) 1 1 is light. To 3. Rare Treat. Blood. solve this "three-coin problem" in one

4. Light Fantastic . The glowworm. floor route, A, is 42 feet. The route across weighing, compare 9 and 10. If they don't 5. Moving Easy. A man on a bicyGie. the floor and one sidewall, B, is a bit over 40 balance, the heavier side is the odd coin. If 6. Hot or Cold. December The sun is 3 feet. The third path, C, across the floor, one they do, coin 11 is light. million miles closer to the earth in winter, sidewall, and the ceiling, is the shortest of But what if the pans don't balance on the the Northern though Hemisphere is colder all — exactly 40 feet. first weighing? Suppose the side with coins then because the sun's rays strike at a more 2. in Once a Lifetime. At that instant one 1,2,3, and 4 goes down. It could mean that oblique angle. could line up the first eight integers to write there is a heavy coin among 1, 2, 3, and 4,

7. Commonplace . Eclipses of the are the sun time and date— 12:34, 5/6/78. This will or that there is a light coin among 5, 6, 7, more common, but the area ot the earth not be possible again until the year 2078. and 8. To find out, set the second weighing from which they can be seen is usually so 3. Spirals. Shade the spirals to show that between coins 1 , 2, and 5 against 3, 6, and small, very few people ever see one. left is the one on the a continuous loop; the 9. If they balance, it means that either 7 is 8. Jewish State. In Utah, where gentile one on the right is two separate loops. light, or 8 is light, or 4 is heavy— the three- means any non-Mormon. coin problem again. Weigh 7 against 8 to 9. Bull. True. The bullwhip's "crack" is a determine the answer small sonic boom. And what if the pans don't balance on the 10. Size. Royal. California olives come in second weighing (1, 2, and 5 vs. 3, 6, and 12 sizes, the of which were desig- names 9)? Suppose the left pan goes down. Then nated officially by the California General either 1 is heavy or 2 is heavy or 6 is light Assembly. The three smallest sizes are (we've already determined that 5 is not. Small, Medium, and Large. From there they heavy and 3 is not light). That's the familiar grow to Family-Size, Extra Large, Mam- 4. 13. are. Lucky There 13 stars above the three-coin problem, as above; solve it by moth, Giant, King, Jumbo, Royal, Colossal, eagle's 13 head, stripes on the shield, 13 pitting 1 against 2. If, instead, the 3-6-9 pan and Supercolossal. war arrows held in the eagle's left talon, 13 is heavy, either 5 is a light coin or 3 is heavy. leaves and 13 olives on the olive branch of By weighing 3 against any good coin, the The Centrifuge. Five test tubes are bal- peace in the eagle's right talon. There are solution is arrived at. Got it' DO anced in the arrangement given. Dillard 13 steps on the pyramid and 13 letters in the explains; Once the centrifuge is balanced. motto above the pyramid, Annuit Coeptis. you can add pairs of test tubes exactly There are 13 letters in the motto on the PHOTO CREDITS opposite each other, and the radial balance ribbon in the bald eagle's beak, E Pluribus Sincere ape page 30, Lr. is unchanged. The tubes at 3, 7, and 11 Unum. At the base of the pyramid, the date o'clock balance the centrifuge as an 1776 is written in Roman numerals; and 7 euelooed and designed Oy equilateral triangle. extra Two tubes have plus 6 adds up to 13. G-eigerBerg r.iSEQCiates. V w York. been added opposite each other at 12 and 5. Wrong Ones. Truman's middle name Page a, Dan 3udnik.TomZim (imf[.psg9l2,ji.r McCoy o'clock. 6 You could add two more tubes at was simply the letter S. Since the letter page 14, F ( 4 and 10 o'clock or at 2 and 8 o'clock and doesn't abbreviate anything, there thus spin seven tubes without upsetting the shouldn't be a period after it. Babe and *-, : •:<:::> i-. balance. Nine tubes can be arranged so Meadowlark are both given names, not rs page 3fl right, Rich that the three empty wells are at the angles nicknames. So they should not have quota- age 39 left, Urm

J of an equilateral triangle. tion marks around them. sri Diraiii C '-.. page 40 left an:> In other words, despite its eccentric ap- 6. Put Your Money Down . the rea- By same right, O-si.;; pearances, one can run the centrifuge with soning. I could argue that the bet is favor- ari-.es/3lack F sr. pags 4? right, !::.' any number of test tubes other than 1or11. able to me. Since a bet cannot be of advantage to both sides, there fallacy. must be a it: page SB, NASA pBDH POTLUCK PUZZLES There is. The problem is stated as if it were page 78 tell age 78 tap right, Cojg as a pure probability question, but the amount of money held by the two of us and our -:>:: page B0- SI Pot torn iage81 lop right, Amor, floor decisions whether or not m to accept the bet are not determined by chance. If I'm carry- IZ top right, Dccoi.kl; K -k 3M; pages 82-63. Jamas ing a small amount, I'll take the bet; if I have )age84lett,-Dc

a large amount, I won't. If one of us is cCoy: pages 84-85, Douolsi Kirkland: 1, The Spidsrand the Fly. Imagine the shrewder at guessing how much the other ill. pege13SlBl ge133 left, Srsiffl-MvS'S room unfolded like a shoe box so that the is carrying, the odds are no longer 50-50. If s&s&s e14S. Mcv.e Sli.l Archive. different routes can be laid flat. The direct we select two other people at random and 12B OMNI JACKIE SKYWALKER

By DickTeresi

Jackie Parker was born on the from the University of Central Florida with

Fourth of July 1960 and, like any a degree in computer science ("Well, I was all-American girl, wanted as a always pretty good at math"), she worked child lo become an airline stewardess. for NASA as an intern. By summer of 1978 Later the times had changed, and she she had a full-time job as a data process- wanted to be an airline pilot. ing controller. Today she has her pilot's license, but Parker describes her present job as her ambition has risen even higher. When "Super, just super." She says she has no NASA puts the space shuttle into orbit problems with her coworkers because of later this year, its journey will be monitored her age. And who knows? Given the by flight controllers at ihe Johnson Space delays caused by misfiring engines and Center, in Houston. And one of those con- tiles falling off the fuselage, Parker may trollers, the very youngest at age nineteen, end up being the oldest flight controller by will be Jackie Parker. the time the shuttle gets off the ground. Her ultimate goal? To fly the shuttle.

Parker is used to being the youngest. "I Scientists always complain they can't get

entered college when I was fourteen," she enough money for basic research-

told us. "That's when I decided I could do long-term projects with no immediate anything I put my mind to. And being an payoffs. So when George Low dropped by

astronaut was what I wanted to do." our offices fhe other day, what he had to While in college, she applied for ajob. say caughl us off guard. Low. formerly as a space shuttle astronaut and was manager ot NASA's Apollo program and promptly turned down. This didn't stop her. now president of Rensselaer Polytechnic

"I went to Houston on my own, a year Institute (RPI), believes we need more

I beiore recalls, find for short-term , graduated." she to out money projects with quick , Low: Big buck:; ,v. ',7i;.'L.',' <;\z-ni Uiccjing what jobs were open and how to get one. payoffs to entice good students back into A year later, after graduating at seventeen manufacturing. be solved are how to use computer- "Sixty-eight percent of the wealth controlled robots to increase production production in this country comes from the on assembly lines and how to decrease manufacturing industry," began the man friction on bearing surfaces. who had the overall responsibility for Of course, all these projects need placing the first astronauts on the moon. money. The project engineers will be paid "Yet today only a small fraction of our industry-competitive salaries; the students research and development effort goes into have a choice of either a paycheck or manufacturing engineering. The best course credit. And, oddly enough, Low will' people are not atlracted to manufacturing- accept no government-funding. "The

related jobs. It" is not exciting to them." ultimate customer has to be industry," he

So he's got this plan. Under Low's insisted. "It's got to be paid for by the

direction, RPI has founded the Center for person who can best supervise it. The Manufacturing Productivity. The university person who can hold your feet to the fire is has drawn up a list of about 100 manu- the guy who really needs that problem facturing problems, which will be pared solved, and he's in industry." down to the 10 best. Then groups of students So far, General Electric has taken Low will be assigned to each problem, each up on his offer to the tune of $500,000. headed by a project engineer. These General Motors is kicking in $250,000. project engineers will not be faculty Come next fall, RPI students can look members. Low explains, but "a person out forward to having their feet held to the fire. of school, having worked in industry, say, five years." They will make .the students Flash news item: Three Johns Hopkins meet schedules and keep to a budget scientists have not discovered Ihe secret

things faculty members are not good of life, but tney may have figured out how it at, according lo Low. duplicates itself. Donald S. Coffey, Drew Among the prob ems selected so far to M. Pardoll, and Bert Vogelstein, of the .

university's oncology center, announced cell nucleus is indeed much like a tape recently that DNA. the master molecule of recorder. In fact, it even has recording heredity, reproduces itself in a far different heads, called replisomes, that duplicate way than had previously been believed. If DNA. The DNA itself is arranged in loops. right, their discovery could lead to a each of which is reeled through a deeper understanding of heredity replisome like a tape cassette and For decades, sc enis'.s have assumed reappears as two brand-new loops. that DNA's double-helix structure was How important is this new theory? The reproduced by enzymes that moved trio was modest— for the most part. But linearly along its twisted strands, Vogelslein let slip that they thought this untwining them into separate threads and was pretty hot stuff: He compared their then copying each to form two new double work to that of Copernicus. Copernicus helices. told the world that the earth revolved Not so, say the Johns Hopkins around the sun, not the other way around, scientists. The trio explained that this Vogelstein said, and they've shown that would be far too messy a process to work DNA moves through the replisome, rather inside a living cell. Coffey compared DNA than vice versa. But Vogelstein did note in the nucleus of a cell to audio-recording one difference: "Copernicus was tortured tape in the reels of a cassette. Then', in for his beliefs," he said. "We've been front of an audience of reporters, -he pulled treated very well for ours." all the tape out of an ordinary cassette and Searching for the Holy Grail waved the jumbled mass over the podium Along the Appalachian Trail, to illustrate his point. When I found that herb Then how does DNA reproduce? Using

They call ginseng. . radioactive labeling in rat and mouse Growin' deep down in the woods, Altstatt; Nuclear bluegrass beat. cells, the Hopkins scientists, working I swear I got the goods, Bristol-Myers grant, under a found that the inevitability of human error in operating The herb that turns nuclear-powerplants all in bluegrass The autumn into spring. — Style, of course. On banjo is Rich Thomas. Il's a bluegrass tune, and the lead a Walter Reed technician Bob Tate, a singer and composer knows whereof he Weslinghouse employee, plays mandolin, speaks. When he isn't playing bass for the While posing no threat to Bill Monroe and Howard County Dump, the band that cut the Bluegrass Boys, the group none- the record "Ginseng" above, James Duke theless plays a lisienable, rollicking kind of is chief of the Department of Agriculture's music (Duke calls it "redneck all the way"). Economic Botany Laboratory, in Beltsville, The Howard County Dump performs Maryland. Dr. Duke, one of the world's mostly at parties, church socials, and the foremost experts on the medicinal uses of like. Their last gig was for a national plants, has twice been featured in Omni: meeting of entomologists. And, for once for his work with mints and again for scientists, their lyrics even get a bit racy at bringing the spiny ginseng back from times. For example, the last few lines of China, where it'ssaid to cure everything "Ginseng": from impotence to cancer. Duke is less Makes an older man more foolish than enthusiastic about such claims for And a younger man more coolish; ginseng, and the result is his satirical Makes an older woman younger song. Other members of the Howard And a younger woman hunger. County Dump also have heavy science Ginseng I backgrounds. Besides Duke, there's Les Sing gin. Altstatton guitar and vocals. Altstatt, who Sing a little song, and swing. recently retired as director of the Division of Medicine at Waller Reed Army Hospital, As they used to say on American penned the flip side ot the record. "Three Bandsland, it's got a good beat and you

Mile Island," points out the it. it which can dance to I give an 85 DO volve a half-million births. The first (Menaker, W., and Menaker, A. 1959: Amer. FDRUrUl Jour, of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 77, CONTINUED FROM PAGE12 905) reports a 1 percent excess of births in New Wives' Tales the two-week penoo following full moon; the In your Games column [January 1980], you second (Menaker, W. 1967: op. cit, 98,

have number 10 of the Old Wives' Tales quiz 1001) reports a 1 percent excess in the

marked as false, when it is actually true. two-week period centered on full moon;

The question states that aiter eating, it is and the third (OsieyM., et al, 1973: op. cit,

best to wait at least a half-hour before going 1 1 7, 413) reports a 1 percent excess in the swimming. Perhaps a full stomach im- two-week period preceding full moon. mersed in water Goes not cause cramping None of these contradictory .'Cports include of the skeletal muscles. What does hap- enough information to evaluate the selec- pen, however, is that when someone exer- tion of data and the statistical procedures; cises vigorously right after he eats, large Osley and his colleagues do not even pro- blood supplies that are in the stomach and vide the dates of their study. intestines to aid in digestion are sent to the In myjudgment, an effect so unexpected skeletal muscles, where the blood is as the claimed correlation between birth- needed in large supply during muscle rate and lunar phase can only be regarded

stress. This can cause stomach cramping as established after it has been repeatedly or vomiting. One should always rest after replicated by carefully controlled investiga- eating so that digestion can take place at tions by many independent and qualified its optimum efficiency researchers. Joel Q Scherer Uttca, N.Y Ineligible Receivers Regarding James Delson's Arts column in John Lacarrubba, water safety specialist Omni's January 1980 issue: The words of

for the American Red Cross, replies; If you Mr. Fred Hopengarten to the contrary his

have a couple of sandwiches and a bowl of "Channel One' satellite receiving system is soup and go for a recreational swim, you're apparently illegal. in no danger ot cramping, because there is To quote from the January 1980 issue of enough oxygen in your system for your the radio amateur's journal CO, "... the stomach and intestines and for the muscles unauthorized reception and beneficial use used in swimming. The only way a person of addressed communications in the will get cramps is if he eats a Thanksgiving Multi-Point Distribution Service [isj illegal dinner and then tries to break the world's under Section 605 of the Communications swimming record. Act of 1934 (as amended). Similar regula- tions' apply in the case of unauthorized

I wish to say something about question 8 of interception and use of satellite TV trans- the Old Wives' Tales quiz. You say that the missions such as the so-called home box

rate of childbirth does not increase at the office (HBO) transmissions. That is, mate-

time of a full moon. The earliest study on the rial transmitted by MDS or HBO stations is relation of the moon to childbirth was done not intended to be 'broadcast' material in France and was published \x\La Presse within the meaning of Section 605, and so

Medicate. This study showed the birthrate authority for its reception and use must be nearly double normal in the two days just given by the sender." after the full moon. Other studies in Ger- To use a "Channel One" type system le- many, Florida, Virginia, and New York City gally, you merely need to procure a home have reported similar results. satellite television earth terminal license

'The largest study was done by Dr Walter from the FCC. It costs nothing, and the Menaker, covering a half-million births, and forms are relatively easy to complete. was published in the 1959 American Jour- One more thing: As for the S1 5.000 price nal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. tag on Mr. Hopengarten's "Channel One" Menaker found a higher frequency of births system, you can get by much more cheaply

around [he lime of the full moon. if there is an MDS station in your area. OMNI The effects are strongest in areas with These are over-the-air relay systems for fewer lights, but even in Mew York City-there cable TV (including HBO) programming, TIME CAPSULES. was a definite lunar effect on births. and their reception packages cost about

Now, the magazine of the future can Gary Lockhart $60. These are not. however, off-the-shelf be kepi safe for the future. Store your Seattle, Wash. items, and their use so far has been limited issues of Omri in a new Custom Bound to technically oriented types (like hams) Library Case made of black simulated

1 leather. It .; buk to las! n'ii ' will keep 12 George O. Abell, professor of astronomy at who have the know-how to construct a 2.15 UCLA, coauthor of the study we cited, re- GHz receiving system "converter." Most spine is embossed with a gold Omni logo and in each case includes a gold transfer plies: Carefully conducted investigations MDS company operators will authorize you do not find correlations between lunar to receive their transmissions with your own

Send your check or money order phase and the birthrate. Our UCLA study of home-built receiving equipment if you will ($4. 95 each; 3 for $14. 00; 6 for 124. 00; 11,691 live births over a 51-month period agree to pay the monthly service charge postpaid. USA orders only) to: OMNI Library Case, RO. Box 5120, Philadelphia, also showed completely negative results like any other viewer. Actually, the law is

Pa. 19141. . . (Abell, G„ and Greenspan, B. 1979: New almost unenforceable, but it's besl to make

England Jour, of Medicine, 300, 96). it legal, just to be safe. There are actually three (not one) New Wayne Ditsworth York studies, each of which claims to in- Cedar Rapids, Iowa DO TROUGH THE LOOKING OLA EXPLORMTOnJS

, By David Saltman

emergency supply of ^^ ^^agic shows are just like life, Merlins congregate at the Gaiety you might need an II only fairer. In life, you don't Restaurant, 224 West Forty-seventh flash powder, red silk scarves, or I U I know you've been fooled until Street, site of the Magic Table, one of the multiplying billiard balls. it's already too late. most venerable, yet most illusive, of New There is probably a thriving magic Since the days when sorcerers cast York's misteriaso attractions. dealer in your town or nearby. If your spells on entire kingdoms, magic has To the uninitiated, the restaurant seems neighborhood spons a magnificent old never failed to baffle and io intrigue. The to be nothing more than a nondescript theater converted from vaudeville to ancient, prestidigitatory art is the only Broadway eatery. Yet— Shazaml — Disney to porno, you should find an aging certain "body of miracles" that every every day magicians and fans of magic nostrum seller not far away person on Earth has witnessed. materialize there for lunch. Be prepared to Ed Seguin — the Mysterious M— lives in

Fortunately, it's booming today, with some cut open a melon and find a three of Akron, Ohio. He'll be able to tell you the 50,000 magicians practicing conjuring in spades inside. Of course, the three of lore of bygone times when there were two

the United States alone. spades has your initials on it and appears shows a day and "magicians wore scarlet, Don't settle for the third-rate jokes of fo be the very same one you chose and damson, and verdigris, their hoods and pranksters. Take a magician's tour of the signed a few minutes before, upon sitting cloaks and smiles asnap with wizardry. United States. Visit the places where down. Amazed, you ask for the sugar, and (Magicians' wives wore brown and were .)" magic is practiced, and be genuinely a live dove materializes in your hand. Ask very hard to see. . .

fooled. Amateurs, professionals, or simply for the menu— if you dare! Magic shops vary in atmosphere from ' magic lovers are all welcome everywhere Snyder's, in Cleveland, to the Wizard, in AT THE MAGIC SHOP in the charming world of illusionists. Boulder, Colorado, to Lou Tannen's. Times Square, in New York City, is New York is not magic's sole home. back in New York. Snyder's is a dusty unquestionably the hub of America's Along the faded tracks of vaudeville you'll meander through the attics of vaudeville. magical activily. Not only the hot child in find many shops and clubs catering to The Wizard represents the modern magic

the big city ends up in Times Square, but magicians. After all, if you were playing the dealer: slick, colorful, well packaged, with the lonely wizard, too. Many of these old Gus Sun circuit, you never knew when every hair in place on the ventriloquist's dummies. Tannen's boasts of being the world's largest magic shop (see box). Every Saturday afternoon, by tradition,

all the wonder-workers in every town

wander down to the local magic shop as if drawn by a black silk thread. There they show off new tricks and dust off old ones.

Stopping by is one of the pleasantest ways to become initiated in the art of chicanery AN EVENING ATTHE MAGIC CASTLE

The spirit of shamanism still lives in Hollywood, California. A drive into the hills will take you to a remarkable temple of thaumaturgy called the Magic Castle.

Entering the Castle is like walking through the looking glass. You must sidle up to an owl on a bookshelf in the lobby, wink your left eye very slowly, and pronounce the incantation: "Open,

! Sesame " A section of the bookcase swings aside to let you enter the bar There you encounter a piano without a pianist that plays any tune on request. You can peruse a small magic museum crammed with old-time gear: stage guillotines, "Water from Persia," mechanical chess players, and other .

marvels. Booby traps iurk everywhere, I from So was happy to bump into Sam Kent, I turned to Sam and asked, "Got any the men's room to the bar. proprietor of the Wizard. Magicians usually Ouija boards?" If you're lucky, you may get to see the know where the card games are, though Magicians rarely use them, but Sam Incredible Shimada. reigning Crown Prince they, seldom play. (If they win, everyone stocked one for the pseudo-occult crowd. I of in the Castle's magic, auditorium. His act thinks they cheated; if they lose, everyone had played around with Ouija boards but is silent and uses choreographed moves thinks they're lousy magicians.) did not know whether what I had in mind from the Japanese martial arts. The stage As we strolled back lo Sam's shop, with would work. starts bare; then, presto! A black-sleeved me steering the conversation to three-card We assumed the position: seated, knees arm plunges from behind the back curtain monte, a kid came up to us. touching, fingers Ifghtly on the sliding din- and produces a flaming torch out of thin air! 'Are you guys magicians?" he asked. gus with the plastic window. Shimada inches out like the torch a snake, "Sure," we answered. "Now I want you to concentrate on your in his hand. Dressed in faultless evening "Okay," he said. "Read my mind." name," I said to the kid. He screwed up his clothes, he looks like a Buddha at a debu- This is the sort of challenge magicians eyes. 'Are you concentrating?" I asked. tante ball. Suddenly Shimada stretches hate. But empty pockets are sometimes "Yes." he answered. into the air, and a second flaming torch more powerful whiffle than dusl. "On your name," I insisted. "Don't try to appears from nowhere. continues He to "You have any money kid?" I asked. fool me by thinking of someone else's." produce them until the whole stage is il- "I've got five dollars." We sat a moment. Then the dingus

luminated of I'll by dozens flaming torches "Okay. read your mind for five bucks." began to move. It circled the board with the shining Shimada at the center. He looked hesitant. clockwise three times, hovered, and nearly

I "Look, kid," said to him. "We've never stopped It I THE SECRET OF OR. VOX at the S. began to circle again. met before, isn't that right?" can tell you for sure, I wasn't moving it. It magician 7". A needs just one trick, as a. "Right." stopped on the It began to circle again, recent incident at the if i Wizard magic shop "So could tell you your name, wouldn't and this time it stopped on the £. shows: thai you consider a feat of mind reading "Steven! Your name is Steven," I said to It was the day of Pearl Street's annual worth five dollars?" I'd need at least $5 to the startled kid. outdoor magic show, a gala event in this buy chips. "Th-that's right," he admitted. The crowd small town at the loot of the Rockies. As I "Well, yeah." He looked suspiciously of kibitzers had grown quite substantial by approached, a crowd peered up ataman, at himself to make sure he didn't have then. The spectators cheered, and Kent locked Houdini-like in a straitjacket, sus- some kind of name tag sticking out of his came up and threw his arms around me. pended upside down from a crane 30 me- socks or somewhere else. He didn't. "Saltini," he said, "let's make us some ters in the air. "Okay. Come inside." We entered the money with that trick of yours." He outlined But my thoughts were not on magic. They magic shop. the following madcap plan: I was to give

were on distant cousin of I a magic: gam- Ouite frankly, had no idea how I would myself out as Dr. Victor Vox, the infamous bling. I was trying to hustle up a card game read the kid's mind. But inspiration — wonder-worker who had developed — after

for the simple reason that I was broke. or perhaps desperation— led to a plan. rigorous practice with Tibetan lamas and various other sorcerers— a genuine, no- hokum "touch of larceny" that could locate

any object of value, no matter where it was hidden. Using old magic posters and press type, Center for UFO Studies we whipped up hundreds of handbills and inveigled the kids hanging around the shop to pass them out. By that night, bills bally-

Worldwide, there is an average of 100 UFO sightings hooing "Dr. Vox and the Wizard" were an every 24 hours, one every fifteen minutes. The Center eyesore in Boulder. The show was set for the next day at the was established in 1973 to serve as an international shop. We were successful beyond our clearing house for the receipt and investigation of dreams. UFO reports. Kent performed splendidly in his part, appearing unhurt when "hypnotized" To keep abreast of the most current UFO sightings, and pricked with magical "needles." He immediate investigation, follow-up and conclusions also managed to give the illusion of quaff- reached, Dr. J. Allen Hynek's Center for Studies UFO ing vials of steaming acid. But the greatest publishes The International UFO Reporter, a monthly, hit of all was, to my surprise, "The Secret ot in depth, reliable and accurate examination of UFO Dr. Vox." reports. In addition, the Center for UFO Studies main- It was a simple adaptation of the Ouija- tains a research library, distributes bulletins and board scam to the theater. When I ieft the offers recommended books and literature for purchase. shop, a spectator would come up and hide Operation of the Center (Not-for-Profit) is possible an object— a coin, a bracelet, a watch, through support and contributions from the public. whatever— somewhere on the stage. When

the object was well hidden, I, Dr. Vox, would We invite you to support UFO research with a contribution return and hold the spectator's wrists or fill out below to subscribe to the International UFO Reporter lightly asking her (it was usually a woman) to concentrate on the place where she had hidden the trinket. Invariably, within about

30 seconds, I would feel the woman's wrists

tugging me in a definite direction. I simply followed One year, $15 U.S. (non U.S., $20. air mail, $27) Like the dingus going in circles, we Make check payable to International UFO Reporter would usually perambulate the stage until,

after a minute or so, I would feel a definite Center fOr UFO StUdieS 1609 Sherman Ave., Evanston, IL 60201, pull in the direction of one quadrant or Your contribution is Tax Deductible

another. To Ihe audience, it appeared as if I 136 OMNI " .

zeroed in on that part of the stage, and

since I was usually "getting warm," the tug would be confirmed by an intake of breath thai was as loud as a thunderclap to a magician with holes in his pockets and a reputation at stake. In another 30 seconds or so, as we

walked around the indicated quadrant, I would get another tug. Stopping dead in

my tracks, I would turn to the nearesl cup or

candlestick and lift it in the air. Voriai There would be the bracelet. Develop Your Intuition . . Really, this is only a half-trick. I believe it works on the principle that the subcon- The Unlearned Knowledge scious always influences the so-called fine muscles. Even when one tries mightily not Whence come the whisperings of to think of elephants, one's fine muscles self—the still small voice within? strain in the direction of Africa. This phe- Who has not experienced that cer- nomenon has never been studied by be- tain impelling impression that sud- havioral scientists; in fact, it was never even denly flashes into consciousness? It dreamed of. It is proof of the existence of an conveys that undeniable conviction underlying psyche, because even if the of truth that neither reason nor subject tries lo mislead you, his muscles persuasion can set aside. The in- will still give that involuntary tug. tuition is a source of unlearned Clearly, there is a part of us that wants knowledge—a reservoir of superior the wizard to win. And there lies the real judgment that lies enshrined in the Yes! Rush me your FREE catalog! magic: The subconscious mind inevitably subconscious. It strives to guide Name. tricks our cunning rational self into . and advise you—even against the revealing its true motives. As proof of that, Address dictates of will. There is nothing Kent, the kids, and I, Dr. Vox, all made City supernatural or uncanny about in- out very handsomely We received an im- tuition. Beneath your surface con- pressive number of perfumed notes deliv- Clip and Mail Coupon to: sciousness exists another mind. It Today ered backstage. Edmund Scientific Co. Dept 2020 KN10 can be a source of inspiration, of Edscorp Bldg., Harrington, N.J. 08007 PLACES WHERE MAGIC DWELLS new and startling ideas. Intuition -. :.- .!.: ':- ..':. Mr.' 1Gb i ;., i--.- is the fountainhead of creative Chicago: Magic, Inc., 5082 North Lincoln. ability. Every person's life can be A dealer of hot tricks. fuller, richer in achievement, if he Dallas: It's Magic, 5417 Greenville Avenue. learns to awaken and direct intui- A club on Restaurant Row. Stage and qual- tion. Don't wait for enlightenment. ity performers in an intimate setting. Call it forth. San Francisco: Earthquake McGoon's Magic Cellar, Clay and Montgomery streets. Performers of varying skill, some Accept this FREE BOOK outstanding, like Arthur Murata, the "house" conjurer. Great decor. There is nothing of greater satisfaction practical advantage than New York: Lou Tannen's, 1540 Broadway. nor of more the full employment of your personal The world's largest shop. magic powers. Let the Rosicrucians, a world- Cleveland: Snyder's. 216 West Superior. A wide brotherhood of learning (not a

relic of vaudeville days. religion) , send you a free copy of the "Crystallomancy is a method of divina- LIFE. It will tell tion by the Crystal, whether pyramidal Akron, Ohio: Ed Seguin, 4153 Meadowlark book, THE MASTERY OF you about this useful knowledge. Use or cylindrical. Trail. Old-time tricks and routines. -P. delancre{1622) the coupon for your free copy or write Las Vegas: Caesars Palace, Bacchanal Scribe Y.0.C- Room. The legendary Jimmy Grippo, Introducing our . . . magician in residence. Crystal Pyramid Pendant Washington, D.C.: Al's Magic Shop, 1115 The ROSICRUCIA1SS H Street, N.W The only tricks in Washington Each pendant is hand cut by our (AMORC) master Lapidary from pure Quartz that are not dirty, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA 95191 North Crystal, to the exact scale of the Winston-Salem, Carolina: NBK Distributors, Great Pyramids. We mount each 1240 Churton Street. ScribeY.O.C. Fast-growing, modern pendant in sterling silver, then place magic shop and Rosicrucian Order, (AMORC) jobber. Rosicrucian Park it on our finest quality 18" sterling San Jose, Calif. 95191 U.S.A. silver chain. Minneapolis: Eagle Magic Store, 708 Portland Avenue. Old-fashioned, low-key. The result is a truly elegant piece Gentlemen: Hollywood, California: The Castle, of jewelry you will be proud to Magic Kindly send me a free copy of the 7011 Franklin Avenue. Though this club is MASTERY OF LIFE. I am sincerely in- private, many Angelenos belong will terested in the mysteries of self and Your satisfaction is guaranteed. and the Cosmic. provide you with a guest card. The Magic of To order send S39.9S in cash, check or Corner, 6338 Hollywood Boulevard. Excel- NAME „ lent magic shop. Cosmic Connections Colon, Michigan: Colon Magic Festival, P.O. Box 1 2807 Tallahassee, Fla. 32308 sponsored by Abbott's Magic Shop. Held Please allow 6 weeks for shipping. _ every year, the third week in August. OO CDrviruiuruicMTiarus

| CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1D ruEXT annoji s near Earth every several thousand

Such a system would allow for body in- tegrity through the eons with the possibility of future retrieval and revival— a slight chance exists of possible revival by another intelligent race in a distant star system—remote, but a possibility definitely worth considering. Chester Twarog Aurora, Colo.

Slight Miscalculation Your article "Infinite Voyager" [February

1980], by F. C. Durant III, properly emphasizes the meticulous care Chesley Boneslell has taken in his imaginative ren- derings of our universe. Knowing Mr,

Boneslell s reputation, I must conclude that

the error on page 72 is yours. Your caption

for the painting The Milky Way states that it

is a view of our galaxy from a distance of 250,000 miles. Hardly. Two hundred fifty thousand light-years would be a better

Nonetheless, a fine sampling of Mr,

Rod Ausura Gaitre-rsburg, Md.

light-years -Ed.

The Life of John *

I just read "The Life of Allie" [January 1980], Thanks, Mr. Stine. You've described the fu-

ture just the way I always hoped and

dreamed if would and should be. John Fitzgibbon Miami, Fla.

Dear Ben

As an old friend and reader of yours, I ap-

prove of your views of the world, and I like the way you write.

Nevertheless, I was not prepared for the

utter joy and excitement with which I read your editorial in the February 1980 Omni.

It was well wrilten and well thought out. yes. but its elegance and sense had me

cheering as I read.

And also biting my lips. How I would love

to have written that essay myself if I had

only been smart enough to think of it first! Isaac Asimov New York, N.Y

Canadian Cow Flap After reading Harry Lebelson's article "Death on Ihe Range" [UFO Update, Janu-

I ary 1980], hope more light will be cast on . these unexplainable cattle mutilations. One point Mr. Lebelson overlooked was that these mutilations were not confined to Ihe United States. They have also occurred in increasing numbers in Alberta, Canada. Rod Faust Cranbrook, B.C., Canada DO X MARKS THE UNIVERSE FAR5

By Mark R. Chartrand III

n Novembers, 1895, Wilhelm The mystery intensified when another Einstein's birth. This telescope is destined Conrad Roentgen could hardly rocket flight in 1962 revealed that these to have as profound an impact on have known that the mysterious rays emanated'from the center of the Milky astronomy as the man himself, for it can "X rays" just he had discovered would Way. The old stars though! to be the make images of x-ray sources while be used to detect heart ailments, to find inhabitants of galactic centers should not locating and measuring their intensities. flaws In precision ~iela castings, and to emit enough X rays for us to detect them For the first time astronomers can examine uncover art forgeries. astrono- He and the over a distance of 30,000 light-years. What photographs by using television. This has mers of the day (if they paid any aliention makes slars that we think we understand revolutionized the field and produced what at all) certainly would not have suspected radiate so much? one researcher called a grab bag of that these rays would plumb the depths By 1966 some three dozen x-ray sources: Aim the telescope in any direc- of Ihe universe. sources had been identified. The search tion, and you're bound to find a new x-ray It took a while, because, far as as X rays continued with rocket probes and high- emitter. Or if you prefer a more refined are concerned, we live under the equiv- altitude balloons. But the heyday of x-ray approach, study the sky where previous, alent of meter-thick a lead shield. That astronomy came with Ihe satellites and less sensitive telescopes found nothing. shield is the atmosphere, which slops orbiting observatories that followed. The X rays used by doctors are typically X rays from penetrating to Earth's surface. In a meeting last January of the high- known as "hard" X rays. The energy of Then in 1949 a rockef-borne x-ray energy astrophysics division of the each particle, or photon, of radiation is detecfor, more like a Geiger counter lhan a American Astronomical Society, six dozen quite low, ranging from tens to several _ camera, found X rays coming Irom the research papers reviewed the turbulent, thousands of electron volts. Astronomers sun. era of The x-ray astronomy had exciting, and still puzzling field. Most of use these and less energetic "soft" X rays begun. the results reported came from to peer at the cosmos. Because of the high There is. an element of serendipity in experiments aboard such satellites as energy of all X rays, it is hard to focus them every science, and this new oflshoot is no Small Astronomy Satellite 3, Uhuru. and so that they will form an image. There are exception. A rocket flight in 1956, sent out the High Energy Asiroohysical Observa- no x-ray lenses to refract the energy, and to investigale solar flares, picked up a tories 1 and 2. only when they encounter mirrors at very strange phenomenon— a general x-ray HEAO-2, dubbed Einstein, was shallow grazing angles will they reflect. "background" coming from all over the sky. launched in 1979, the centennial year of Such are the difficulties, and rewards, of building a satellite like Einstein. There are now more observations than theories to explain them. X-ray sources such as the sun, remnants of supernovas, and quasars are scarcely surprising to

scientists. There is still some mystery about: the X rays that emanate from other galaxies: intense, briefly emitting sources at the hearts of globular clusters of stars; x-ray stars in the nearest spiral galaxy that do not lie along the spiral arms so prominently seen in visible light; and a pervasive glow of X rays from hot gas throughout the universe. In- all likelihood the most interesting results will come from the more general investigations. The title ot one ohihe papers presented last January gives a hint of how far advanced this branch of science is: 'An Optical Identification Program for Serendipitous Einstein X-Ray Sources," by astronomers from Columbia University and UCLA. X-ray astronomy may be the most interesting channel to watch in the coming HEAO-2, the Einstein orbital observatory, has revealed a startling variety of x-ray sources. decade. Stay tuned. OO 14D OMNI PHEIUDfUlErUM ff*-fi /

the left, the pilot to the right.

TWi i Wf!

nits— located directly in front of the its— for Quick visual display on three

. Finally, i w^m.

Jr/

V- * 4,- -S The heart of a rose, strange facts, and potluck puzzles

By Scot Morris

with it after intercourse, it "It's more fun to arrive at a conclusion than only approximate that here. We have douches production of male to justify it." reproduced a series of 12 throws, with the encourages the a — Malcolm Forbes, The Sayings of correct responses fin parentheses) that baby. What is this magic substance? Chairman Malcolm (Harper & Row) 2. FRENCH SPREAD. It was invented in 112 5 ' France in 1863 and was the first artificial

It consisted of That sentiment echoes our thoughts; It's OHoee food ever created. initially milk, sheep-stomach the frolic in playing, not the logistics, that beef suet, warm and makes games worthwhile. Knowing that all filing What is it? nutritious the readers who follow this column are in 3. RARE TREAT. It is the most food of any kind. It is richer in vitamins it for fun, this month we present some playful pastimes. than meat. It is easy to prepare and. is all over the world, yet few people Our first offering is an induction game available

it in restaurant or called Petals Around the Rose. It is played use it, You cannot order a

buy it in a health-food store. What is it? with five dice. One person rolls the dice, dOqdO light production looks at the outcome, and then announces 4. LIGHT FANTASTIC. Its called the most efficient form a number. The thrower is Potentate cf the has been It coldest light of Rose and knows the secret. Others try to known to man. gives the determine the formula by which -the any in the world. Only about 1 percent of • Potentate derives his number, its energy is lost as heat. What is It?

It is most efficient The name of the game is significant. The 5. MOVING EASY, the science, announced number is always even and is kind of motion known to all moving machines (from jet indeed a true function of the five faees. ooqoo surpassing planes to sports cars and rowboats)

and all animals (from cheetahs to eagles and trout). In transporting a quantity of weight across a given distance, this form of movement uses less energy than any

other. What is it? 121 ,1 6. HOT OR COLD. When is the sun closer — 0OO£ OO0OO to the earth in June or December? 7. COMMONPLACE. Which is more common, an eclipse of the sun or an (6 eclipse of the moon? ' * GO0OO QOOOO 8. JEWISH STATE. Where is a Jew a gentile? the Potentate of the Rose should give for 9. BULL. A hyperbolic matador once said each. Can you figure out what simple that the tip of a bullwhip travels so fast It system is used to come up with each breaks the sound barrier. True or false? answer? 10. SIZE. Which olive is largest— Large, Those who are in on the secret easily Royal, King, Jumbo, or Mammoth? agree on the number thai applies to each STRANGE FACTS throw. For every set of faces there is only Here's a curiosity of mathematics. It is one number, though different sets effaces The following items are excerpted from said that many years ago Ethiopian may at times have the same number. my Doubleday/Dolphin paperback The peasants could not understand " Petals Around the Rose was called to Book of Strange Facts and Useless multiplication. They could, however, halve our attention by Martin Gardner. The game Information (1979): and double numbers with counting

It (dividing a number of pebbles first made its appearance about four years 1 , MAGIC STUFF can help clear up your pebbles ago in computer circles and has become acne, clean your teeth, soften your into two equal parts to find half of the increasingly.popular with the general beard, deodorize your body and your refrig- number, duplicating a pile of pebbles to primitive puzzler. It is most fun when played in a erator, calm your upset stomach, fireproof double the number). From this group with one person who knows the your Christmas tree, cure your cattle of beginning they developed an ingenious secret and several others guessing what the bloat, and make your chickens pro- "multiplication system," which baffles

the numerical answer might be. We can duce eggs with yellower yolks. If a woman most Western mathematicians. 144 OMNI ,

merchant one end wall, a foot above the floor, is a Suppose a wanted to buy 15 READER ORIGINAL: $25 goats at, say, $13 apiece. We could spider. The spider wanis to eat the fly calculate the price he'd pay by simple THE CENTRIFUGE. L. A. Dillard, of caught in its web in the middle of ihe multiplication ($195), but to see how the Temple, Texas, writes: "I work in a opposite end wall, one foot below the is Ethiopian would find it, set the numbers 73 laboratory and have a puzzle concerning a ceiling, Whaf the shortest path the and 75 in two columns, labeled Half and common piece of lab equipment, the spider can take to reach the fly?

centrifuge. It contains 12 wells in 2. IN A LIFETIME. Something very Double . Either number can go in either 12-place ONCE column, but tor the sake of this illustration which test tubes may be placed and spun unusual happened on May 6, 1978, at set them up like this; rapidly The centrifuge will run smoothly 12:34, What was it?

only if the tubes are balanced. How many 3. SPIRALS. What is the difference HALF DOUBLE different numbers of equal-weight test between these two designs? 13 15 tubes may we spin at once and have " Now halve the 13 to get 6V2. Ignore the V2; a balanced centrifuge 9 Ethiopians don't understand fractions. Then double the 15. Continue halving and doubling pairs of numbers, discarding all fractions, until the

Half column reaches 1: HALF DOUBLE 4 LUCKY 13. Look at the green side of a 13 15 ex 30 dollar bill, on which are reproduced the " 3 60 Dillard eliminates the easy two faces of the Great Seal of the United m 120 One cannot spin just one tube alone States. The number 13 is represented in without setting the centrifuge off balance: at least nine'ways on this side of the bill. At this point, legend says, Ethiopians nor can one balance 1 1'tubes, for the Find five of them. invoked an ancient superstition. They vacant space will throw the machine out of 5. WRONG ONES. What is wrong with the considered that any pair of numbers with kilter. It is just as obvious that any even following names? an even number in the Half column was number of tubes can be arranged to Harry S.Truman evil and had to be destroyed. In this balance out, by placing them in the "Meadowlark" Lemon example, scratch out the 6 and the 30. centrifuge by pairs. "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias

Finally, add the remaining numbers in What if there are three, five, seven, or 6. PUTYOUR MONEY DOWN. Here's the the Double column and there's your nine test tubes? Three can be handled bet: I'll bet you all the money in my pocket answer: easily by placing them at the 12, 4, and 8 at this moment that I have less money than HALF DOUBLE o'clock positions {above, at left). Are the you have in your pocket. other numbers possible? At right, for Should you take the bet? Consider: example, is a possible arrangement of five Either of us could be carrying any con-

3 60 lest tubes, Will it make the centrifuge spin ceivable amount of money so that in the

1 120 smoothly or make it wobble? long run the chances of winning this 195 bei are 50-50. But consider also that the amount of money you stand to win is

It works! POTLUCK PUZZLES greater than the' amount of money you Try the system wiih any pair of numbers, stand to lose. In the long run, this wager large or small. II always works. seems to be in your favor. What can

Mathematicians say that if we were more you say aboul such -reasoning? familiar with the binary number system we 7. THE 12 COINS You have 12 coins. One would find the procedure Intuitively is counterfeit and is either heavier or obvious. But most of us, accustomed to lighter than a -genuine coin. With a two-pan thinking in decimal numbers, find balance scale, how can you find the odd

Ethiopian pebble multiplication .almost coin and determine whether it is heavier or

incomprehensible, a curious set of 1 . THE SPIDER AND THE FLY. This puzzle, lighter, in \ust three weighings? This haphazard rules that somehow more concocted by Henry Ernest Dudeny, weighing problem is a sure cure for a by magic than math, invariably involves a closed, 12 x. 30-foot room that sound night's sleep. OO leads to the correct answer. hasa12-foot-high ceiling. In the middle of Answers: page 128. CENCE-FOON SURVIVAL KIT UUDRD

struck me, as I sal watching the movie tells us that they want only "to serve Alien critters— microscopic or ItAlien, that readers of science fiction are mankind," we should inquire whether they mastodon-sized — are alien. Their much better prepared to face extra- wish to serve us baked or fried. biochemistry is not our biochemistry. terrestrial emergencies than movie Yet what have Carl Sagan and the Earthly viruses and bacteria make us ill people are. astronomers done? On each Voyager and because they are adapied to our

Here was a shipload of officers and Pioneer probe that's been hurled out biochemistry and can live parasitical ly crew, scared to death because they had beyond the solar system they have put upon us. set aside the rules and had brought a maps aboard that tell any alien with Alien microbes can't. And won't. Sure, voraciously carnivorous, thoroughly nasty eyestalks exactly where Earth is! NASA put the Apollo astronauts into alien creature aboard their vessel, and Just because it may take a million or quarantine on a "better safe than sorry" they didn't know howto get rid of it. more years for these Judas-goat policy. And Michael Crichton got rich and

"Jump into your spacesuits and open all spacecraft to reach another star system famous by scaring millions of people with the hatches!" the science-fiction readers is no reason for us to feel safe or The Andromeda Strain. But science-fiction among the audience shouted. complacent. We do care about our readers were bored with both NASA and The actors playing the idiotic crew of the descendants' welfare, don't we? Crichton. We could have saved a lot of doomed ship Nostromo ignored that There are all kinds of survival facts money there, if the rest of you had listened advice. Until the very end ofthe film, of known lo readers of science fiction that the to us. course, when the last remaining member average person has never even thought However, human biochemistry is of the crew donned her spacesuit, opened about. probably poisonous to alien creatures. all the hatches, and blew the alien into the Mo matter where you travel, you really And vice versa, if you ever visit final credits. don't have much to fear from alien germs. extraterrestrial resorts, don't drink the

Okay. So they had to give the audience Persons who don't read science fiction water! If an alien carnivore takes a bite out a couple of hours of chills and frights for worry about contracting some alien of you, it may be unpleasant for you, but it their price of admission. But most disease only slightly less than about being might prove fatal to the alien. The science-fiction readers lost interest in gobbled up by an enormous alien chemicals thai make us strong and the film very early, simply because they carnivore. Neither threat is much of a healthy may very well be poisonous to an knew how to handle the alien and because possibility, in actuality. extraterrestrial. (Another strike against the the crew of the ship obviously didn't. film Men.) This set me to thinking. There are lots of There are seemingly endless things that science-fiction aficionados implications here for extraterrestrial sex, know so well that they take the knowledge but these are clearly without issue. lor granted, and they assume that Further survival hints known to everyone else knows these things, too, science-fiction aficionados: Not so. You will never die of loneliness in space. For instance, consider the problem of No matter where you are marooned, all First Contact. You're in a spacecraft, way sorts of "people" and/or things will drop in out there among the stars, and you meet for visits. Just read the literature. Even the spaceship of an alien race. You Robinson Crusoe had his hands full before exchange pleasantries with them. After all, too many chapters had gone by. it's not every day that you make contact Perhaps the most important piece of with an intelligent extraterrestrial species. survival knowledge that is familiar to

But you don't tell them where your home science-fiction readers and tew others is world is! this; In most movies, scientists are The aliens may seem kindly disposed, portrayed as having the intelligence and but how much do you really know about moral scruples of movie producers. (That them? Perhaps they're aggressive, is, virtually none of either quality.) This is carnivorous, sex-starved. Anything is not true in real life. Scientists are about as possible. You certainly don't want to invite intelligent and morally straight as, say, them to Earth until you are absolutely science-fiction authors. certain they. won't wipe out mankind or Therefore, we have very little to fear from . enslave us, use us for pet food, or steal all scientists. They are really fine people, lor ourwimminfolk. As H. G. Wells once put it, the most part. But we do have rather a lot when a highly superior extraterrestrial race A I ¥ to fear from movie producers. DO 146 OMNI