Winter 2001-2
Features News FUSION REPORT 11 Pedro Paulet: Peruvian Space and Rocket Pioneer 44 Will the U.S. Join the World Sara Maduefio Paulet de Vasquez Fusion Effort? The inventor of the liquid fuel motor (1895) and the first modern Marsha Freeman rocket propulsion system (1900) was a Peruvian engineer and INTERVIEW WITH SATORU OHTAKE statesman. His story is told here by his great niece. 47 Japan Urges U.S. to Rejoin ITER Fusion Project 20 The Division of the Circle and BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE Gauss's Concept of the Complex Domain 51 The Case for Adult Stem Cell Bruce Director Research The complex plane, as Gauss developed it, is not what you Wolfgang Liflge, M.D. learned in textbooks. ANCIENT DISCOVERY 54 Pitcairn Petroglyph Deciphered Kepler Exposes Aristotle's Sabotage of Astronomy Ross Perfect 27 Translated by George Gregory SPACE Kepler charged Aristotle with 2,000 years of sabotage of science, 59 Astronaut Andy Thomas: for using a false argument to insist that the Sun must orbit a Time for Australia to Get stationary Earth. Into Space AFTERWORD 39 The Context of Kepler's Attack on Aristotle's Lie NUCLEAR REPORT George Gregory 64 Food Iradiation Technology Can Kill Anthrax
Departments EDITORIAL 2 Leibniz, Vernadsky, LaRouche Laurence Hecht 4 LETTERS RESEARCH COMMUNICATION 6 The Implications of Sumerian Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. 8 NEWS BRIEFS IN MEMORIAM 10 John M. Dawson, Fusion Pioneer Charles B. Stevens BOOKS 66 A Voyage Round the World 71 Buzzword
On the cover: The latest design for the NASA montage of Saturn and some of its Keplerian system of satellites. International Thermonuclear Experimental prepared from images taken by the Voyager I spacecraft in November 1980. Reactor (ITER), in cross-section. The human figure in the right foreground indi In a first-ever English translation (p. 27), the fo under of modern cates the size of the fusion reactor. astronomy, Johannes Kepler, charges Aristotle with holding science back Illustration courtesy of the International fo r two millennia by his specious arguments against the heliocentric Atomic Energy Agency; cover design by system already known to the Pythagoreans in ancient Greece. Alan Vue. EDITORIAL
Leibniz, Vernadsky, LaRouche
n order for there to be composite sub Leibnizian monad, conceives an I stances, there must be simple sub "object" of no particular, mass, length, stances, that is, without parts, to make or measure of time. Th is "object," also a them up. Where there are no constituent type of monad which Plato called the parts, there is possible neither extension, Idea, then has power to reshape the nor form, nor divisibility. These simple entire relationship of the human species substances, without length, mass, or time to the Earth and the rest of the universe. measure are called by G.W. Leibniz The difference with Ve rnadsky arises monads, "the true Atoms of nature, and, in LaRouche's recognition of the signifi in fact, the Elements of things." cance of the conditions necessary to An appreciation of the problem of produce such new ideas and to realize how to integrate the necessary existence them. This places the question outside of of monads into a study of the visible, or any possible "objective" interpretation measurable, parts of nature has been the of nature, into the realm of language, mark of all competent science, since culture, and universal history, where the classical times. Our most direct knowl influences shaping the possibility of edge of the monad comes from exami development of new ideas that trans nation of the mind in the process of form nature are to be found. invention, or discovery of a fundamental A Scientific Dialogue principle of nature. In this case, the sub The importance of such matters is rec ject is the higher form of monad, also ognized wherever science is practiced, known as soul, which uniquely charac and in Russia, particularly in the trying terizes the human species. times of the past 10 years, profound dis In the early part of the 20th century, cussion of such ideas has taken root. As the great Russian biogeochemist we go to press, the news reaches us of Vladimir Ve rnadsky was able to recog an extraordinary conference and discus nize an ordering in man's understanding sions, which took place recently around of nature according to three distinct yet an event commemorating the recent ' interacting realms of action in the uni death of an extraordinary Russian scien verse-the abiotic, the living (biosphere), tist, Pobisk Kuznetsov (1924-2000). and the cognitive (noosphere), each one Kuznetsov was a universal thinker and able to act upon the successively lower innovator in many branches of science realms in a hierarchical but also multiply from photochemistry to the design of connected fashion. In particular, management systems for technical Vernadsky recognized the unique capa research. Much of his education took bility of the cognitive to exert power over place in the Gulag. Professor Kuznetsov ciates or the We are not the non-living, and also the biosphere. had become aware of LaRouche's writ manuscripts. . In a conceptual breakthrough which ings in the early 1990s (during Subscriptions by mal 'are $25 for 6 issues or $48for 12 .issues in the,U8A and. Canada. he dates to approximately 1948, Lyndon LaRouche's imprisonment), and hosted a Airmail countries are H. LaRouche, Jr., came to a conception visit of his fellow political prisoner to $50 for 6 issues. $5 each of the relationship of the cognitive to the Russia in April 1994. LaRouche returned ($6 foreign). in U.S. cur- abiotic and living processes, which goes to Russia several times since, and most ' a step beyond that of Ve rnadsky. recently to attend the Dec. 14, 2001 LaRouche saw, in his studies of physical memorial for Kuznetsov, among other economy, that economic value is deter important meetings. A flavor of the dia mined solely by the discovery and real logue under way may be tasted in this ization through society of unique, new excerpt from LaRouche's address to that discoveries of physical principle. In this event. We take up LaRouche's short process, the individual mind, a speech at the point that he notes
2 Winter 2001 -2002 21 st CENTURY EDITORIAL composed of three con cu rrent, but d isti nct, phase-spaces? It was suggested to Ve rnadsky, but he didn't take it up partly because of his age and condition, at that time. There is a unique mathematical-physical conceptual approach to this problem. It's called 'Riemannian geometry.' In particular, this geome try has a very specific name, of great signifi cance, which is peculiar only to Riemannian geometry. That name is, 'differential geometry.' "This is not exotic. It's Ph ysical economist Lyndon LaRouche addresses the Dec. 14-15, 2001 memorial in Moscow in very tangible, very honor of Russian scientist Pobisk Kuznetsov (1924-2001J. demonstrable, but like all scientific facts, it has Ve rnadsky's proof of the differentia are defined from the standpoint of exper to be demonstrated, to be made clear. specifica of life: imental physics, as follows. We know This is where Pobisk became fascinated "Now, Ve rnadsky, using the same certain principles, which can be proven with my definition of 'potential relative methods of crucial, universal scientific experimentally, to be universal, from the population-density,' as a function. proof, which had been used by standpoint of the assumption that the "So, the significance is this: What is the Mendeleyev earlier, made a conclusive universe were abiotic-not a living uni difference between man and an animal? scientific demonstration of the distinction verse. There are also experiments, as typ An animal can not change his nature. of the principle of life, on the basis of bio ified by the work of Pasteur, and Curie, Man does, we hope. How does man geochemistry, continuing the work of and Vernadsky, that demonstrate that the change his nature, in a positive way, of such predecessors as Pasteur and Curie. abiotic universe is efficiently transformed course? By making the equivalent of an "He also went further, and this comes by a principle which exists entirely out hypothesis, which turns out to be an to the question of what man should do side the abiotic universe. This is the prin experimentally provable, universal physi about the biosphere. And I'll state the ciple from which life-forms are generat cal principle. By our adopting these prin thing in my own terms, rather than ed, in the universe. This principle-'Iife,' ciples, as we discover them, and by our exactly the way Ve rnadsky put it. What if you wish to call it that-is apparently cooperating in using these principles, we Ve rnadsky demonstrated (though I think very weak, relative to abiotic forces, but increase man's power in the universe, per not as conclusively as he would have its persistence on Earth demonstrates, capita, in the only way possible. wished to, had he lived longer), from the that life has increasingly transformed this "That is the secret. Therefore, if you standpoint of physical science, is that Earth, so that more and more of the Earth wanted to have the best economy, if you man is made in the image of the Creator is either living processes, or the products want the kind of economy that can mas of the universe, and has special powers of the action of living processes. ter the problems of the biosphere of which no other creature has. This corre "Then we come to a th ird category: Central and North Asia, you must change sponds to a concept, first developed in The power of individual human cogni the policies of education, and qualifica known European civilization by Plato, in tion, as expressed by the discovery of tion and employment of the labor fo rce. his dialogues. This is also a concept, scientific principles, is also a force Yo u must make the educational process, which was developed in what are called which acts upon all aspects of the uni including the university, the driver of the 'spiritual exercises' in certain aspects of verse, both the abiotic and the living, in economy. You must get away from the Christian theology. So, this power is the same way that the living processes textbook approach to education. Yo u known, and we have ways of demon act upon the non-living universe. must burn all multiple-choice examina strating it, as Plato demonstrated it with How Man Changes His Nature tions. Yo u must teach science the way it the dialogues, and as theologians some "Now, what Ve rnadsky considered, was developed: The pupil must experi times demonstrate it, as well. but did not undertake, in his late work, ence the mental act of discovery, of the "So, from Ve rnadsky's standpoint, with on this subject, was a question which I great discovery, from thousands, or hun this background, the universe as we found Pobisk [Kuznetsovl wrestl ing dreds, or tens of years ago. Yo u must base know it, is divided into three special with, at the time I first met him: How the educational process on a heavy kinds of interacting 'phase-spaces.' These can we represent a universe, which is emphasis on pedagogical experiments. In
EDITORIAL 21st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 3 other words, the child must-or the child, earth science, Charles Darwin was the or the adult-the student must experi greatest figure of the 19th Century. He lib ence the paradox, which shows that the erated us from Lamarckism, Cuvierism, present assumptions of knowledge are and the creationists. In geology he recog false. The student must somehow devel nized the mobility of the Earth's crust and op the experience of generating the the eustatic potential of sea level and of hypothesis, which solves that paradox. Letters ice-age winds. Biologists like to claim The student must experience the peda him as their own, but the Earth claims gogical experiment, which is sufficient to him too-a Man for All Seasons. test the hypothesis. And the process of An Earth Scientist With the 20th Century came the new pedagogical experiments must be extend Ap'preciates Vernadsky paradigm: first and foremost, Alfred ed, as a habit, into fundamental-research Wegener's continental drift, widely experiments, which should be the driving To the Editor: rejected by the "Establishment" for 60 concern of the university. In the Spring 2001 issue of 21st Century, years or more, but eventually embraced "Th is must be a process, not merely of there is an interesting item on Ve rnadsky into the general framework of plate tec a few scientists; it must be the process of by Elizabeth Pascali, actually a review of a tonics. Incidentally, the movement of the entire population. Yo u can not have book, The Biosphere, translated by D.B. plates solves many questions in biogeog a scientist directing, effectively, a scien Langmuir (New Yo rk: Springer raphy, just as Holocene climate oscilla tific principle's implementation, to a Copernicus, 1998). From my own point of tions explain the Southern Hemisphere bunch of working people who can't view, with a long-term fascination in the distribution of penguins to South Africa, understand it. From my limited knowl history of Earth Sciences, this review struck Australia, and South America, as acci edge of Pobisk, if he were sitting here a responsive chord. I looked up Ve rnadsky dental passengers on floating ice. now, he would be laughing with pleas (1863-1 945) in the Encyclopedia of In the Earth Sciences again we have a ure, at what I am saying ...." Geochemistry (C .P. Marshall and R.W. 21 st Century intellectual development in 'Statecraft' Fairbridge, eds., Kluwer Acad. Pub!., the field of biotic evolution. Already, in LaRouche's final point was that the 1999), and confirmed my impression (p. the last few decades, the space program idea that science is limited to what we 316): he is regarded as the "Founder of has led to an appreciation of the role of call "physical science" is a great error. Biogeochemistry." Creating the term '�bio asteroid (bolide) impacts on the land "What we should look at, is not the idea sphere," he introduced a fundamental scape. For Darwin, biotic evolution was of physical science as such, but we concept linking lithosphere- hydrosphere "little by little." In the 20th Century should look at the condition of the mind, atmosphere. Stephen Jay Gould (one of my former stu which generates, successfully, the great This biosphere, however, is not an dents, by they way) gave us "punctuated discoveries of universal principle upon exclusive domain of the biological com evolution," and now Michael Rampino which we depend." He gave two exam munity or the weird spirit world of James (also one of my former teaching assis ples, from music and from classical Lovelock's "Gaia Hypothesis." Vernadsky tants) gives us the "Shiva Hypothesis." drama, in which the skil lful dramatist, recognized clearly that the biosphere was This is almost a return to Lamarckism, who is also a student of universal histo an evolving medium, developing in com but the "Hand of God" is replaced by ry, such as Shakespeare or Schiller, plexity throughout the history of the plan astronomy and the occasional visitor develops the idea of a sublime character et Earth. from the outer ripples of our galaxy. The who can lead a nation out of a crisis to Planet Earth as an environment for widespread biotic extinctions create an which it is otherwise doomed. Thus evolving life should be seen in the con ecologic vacuum which invites rapid LaRouche concludes: text of several fundamental laws, not all recolonization, but including all sorts of "So, in addition to this role of the sci of which appear to be widely appreciat mutants some of which (thanks to entist, who is also one of these sublime ed in the biological community (see Darwin) will survive and prosper. people, who lead nations out of poten Encyclopedia of Climatology, Oliver and Evolution is more like a staircase of sharp tial failure, we must see physical science Fairbridge, eds., 1987). Law I is solar risers alternating with broad plateaus. as simply one branch of a larger science, dependency; Law II is physical evolu Rhodes W. Fairbridge properly called "statecraft," in which the tion; Law III is biological evolution (and Amagansett, N.Y. greatest Classical art is used to help a so on). The crux of the matter is this: population educate itself in the kinds of Evolution is a two-pronged advance, institutions and cooperation that society both for the biota and for the sol id Earth, Laurence Hecht Replies must employ to solve its problems. its ocean, air sediments, everything.... Thank you for your comments on That's why I'm a happy revolutionary. Yo ur correspondent Pascali speaks dis Ve rnadsky. We look forward to present That's why I was able to recognize paragingly of Darwinism, equating it ing some of your interesting work on Pobisk as an essentially happy revolu somehow with Gaiaism. I'm not sure I solar determination of climate and tionary: He had the essential quality of a understand what she means by weather to our readers soon. great scientist-laughter." "Darwinism," but I fancy it is some cre On the matter of Charles Darwin, we More to come in fu ture issues. ation of the "New Age" humanists. That disagree. This is best addressed from the -Laurence Hecht would be a pity because in the history of deeper standpoint of scientific method
4 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY LETTERS and philosophical outlook. The problem with Darwin's work, and nearly all of M G N Z R I " III JI" 11111 modern scientific commentary on same, HOT C Q 1111 11111 is the tacit acceptance of the underlying IIIIII premises of Locke and Hume's empiri cism. Darwin (and more so his modern 1111111111 Ilin ea oi ui ia ai fo llowers among molecular biologists) M G N Z R attempts to construct life from the bottom up, so to speak, beginning from the assumed existence of self-evident, ele mentary entities, known as atoms. • ae "Evolution" is considered to be the z • io aggregation, more or less by chance, of � ui complexes of such inanimate elementar 2: 9 ities into an accidental state called "Iife." Part Barry Fell's 0 oi Cognition and the higher processes of m X eo life, are merely more such accidents. Revolution in Deciphering Among the problems of this view, is Old Worldby Julian Fell Scripts that, if one believes it, there is no reason A SOIl's ofmemoir oJ remJrkiJble i�ther. who deciphered mJny previously unknown iCr;pIJiJnd overturned J multitude of es/,lbliJ.hmenl v*"os in epigrilphy, to construct any such thing called sci ilrchdl·O/Ob'}'. histof):iJnd.JfIIltrotJOlogy· ence, which begins from the premise that 1. Introduction it is possible to discover a lawful order ftt'I"Pap/'Io<- ..... O
LETIERS 21st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 5 RESEARCH COMMUNICATION
METALINGUAL DECIPHERMENT The Implications of Sumerian by Ly ndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
oday's (belated) encounter with behavior, and that of hide-bound deduc "For sane people generally, TJulian Fell's contribution to the tionists, is that in cognitive communica Summer 2001 27 st Century,1 reminds me as for Plato and Heraclitus tion the verbal action always transforms of my wrestling against the standard, pro before him, nothing exists the subject-matter, in the same general Biblical Archaeological, British treatment sense that a chemical reaction does. The but change. " of Sumerian cuneiform, back during the "is" of identity, of deduction, virtually early through middle 1950s. How should does not exist functionally in a literate we read the Akkadian and later, Semitic The dead-mindedness of forms of form of human communication. For rendering of the cuneiform, especially in grammatical speech consistent with the example, in literate thought one never light of the obvious functional continuity influence of Aristotle, is typical of the thinks "I am"; one thinks of what one of the Sumerian cuneiform to the problem, as The New York Times's style has been made to become to be. Sumerian culture, which was an offshoot book on spelling, punctuation, and prose Nations and peoples do not exist; they of the Dravidian maritime culture's lan composition, is an even more morally have come into existence. For sane peo guage-group? degenerate conception of prose and ple generally, as for Plato and Heraclitus I have some well-developed, strong poetic composition than that of the before him, nothing exists but change. feelings on this matter, an issue closely brain-deadening Aristotle. The essence By "change," we should signify, essen related to my perpetual horror at hearing of the problem, the same problem posed tially, the process of transformation link what pass for baby boomers' attempts at implicitly by bilingual matching, is the ing two successive points of observa academically literate mouthings of attempt to reduce statements to a sym tion, or some kindred nption of change Classical poetry and drama. Reading bology-colored form of essentially as the meaningful basis for acts of com from the written text itself, will tend to deductive exposition. The problem par parison. promote the worst outcome; reading allels, and overlaps the fa llacies associat In Classical poetry, this role of change from a remembered text in the memory, ed with the delusion that the application is expressed most clearly by the func is usually little better, and sometimes of the methods of statistics to financial tions of irony, especially metaphor. The even much worse. Julian Fell's apprecia accounting, is the basis for economics. essential mode of action which defines tion of features of his father's pioneering To summarize the core of the argu any such poem, is a metaphor situated work, points in a relevant direction. ment, the distinction between human amid ironies. These nested ironies are usually brought into existence for the audience as a juxtaposition of different voices within a single statement, or a ki ndred juxtaposition of integral statements. In Classical poetry, this function of voicing is adapted from those natural potentials of the human singing voice which are brought out, and brought under control only through the Florentine bel canto mode of tr aining the singing voice. (For example, "instrumental music" does not exist, except perhaps among the racket which the feral nightly cats make among the cans and lids Of the alleyway, or pianos perfor med to similar ultimate effects. All true music per formed with man-made instruments, is a voice taught to sing in imitation of the www.arttoday.com qualities of the human singing voice.) Examples of Sumerian cuneiform. Decipherment has to take into considera tion the If a simply literal matching of lan fu nctional continuity of the Sumerian cuneiform to the Sumerian culture, which guages can not contain the idea was an offshoot of the Dravidian maritime culture's language-group. expressed by each, how might the
6 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY RESEARCH COMMUNICATION ture of broadly Dravidian language lem is that modern academic and relat pedigree during that interval, a language ed miseducation and related prej udices, which interacted with the Aryan's Vedic. overlooks the act of hearing by the inner, To situate these developments, cognitive ear of the mind, where the including the Aryan descent upon South functional, cognitive meaning of the Asia, we must take into account the reality, behind the mere shadows called most catastrophic phases of the post- words, is to be found. 17th millennium (B.C.) glacial melt, and Economist and statesman Lyndon H. the succession of climate changes, espe LaRouche, Jr. is on the Editorial Advisory cially from about 10,000 B.C. onward. Board of ·21 st Century magazine. His In brief, we must situate the shards of communication is da ted Nov. 16, 200 1.
evidence and their relationship to one Notes ______another, within the physical geometry of 1. Julian Fell, "Biography of a Renaissance Man, Part Barry Fell's Revolution in Deciphering the phases of ongoing transformation in 2: Old World Scripts," 21st Century, Summer www.arttoday.com 2001, the geometry of the relevant regions. pp.36-63. An impression clay seal from the Indus We must, in a certain sense, re-awak Va lley, 3rd Century B.C. The Dravidian en in ourselves, a memory of the quality language culture of the Indus of passions which must have occurred civilization colonized the Indian Ocean in those ancient times. letters to the Editor littoral, including Mesopotamia. Ta ke the case of two plays of Schiller, Continued from page 5 his earlier Don Carlos, and his later have always felt that North American meaning of an unfamiliar language be Wa llenstein trilogy. When we study education has neglected this view. I am adduced? Astrogation and related study closely the actual history of the events always embarrassed in the presence of of ancient astronomical calendars, point within which Schiller situates those dra foreigners who speak multiple languages to a general principle for solving such mas, as he does the case of Jeanne with such ease. This is in large part due problems. In each of latter cases, we d'Arc, the passions which Schiller to the absence of opportunity in North have a real object, the universe. By aid reawakens are revealed to us as the America, but also regretfully due to a of observations of that reality, man appropriate passions experience by the kind of willful ignorance. After learning attempts to master some challenge. referenced events in real life as real life the fundamental basis of the Indo For example, in cases of ancient navi is to be situated in the historical speci European languages, I now find it very gation, the included subject-matter of ficity of those places, times, and condi easy to pick up a book about almost any any symbolic records left, is implicitly tions. Nor can we overlook the historical language of this group, and catch onto obvious. The trick, is to get inside the specificity of the distance and links the basics of the vocabulary and gram mind of the navigator and his party, and between those historical events of the mar almost right away. If my writings imagine that we are that person in that past, and the audience experiencing the enable others to do this, then it gives a situation. dramatic examination of real history. sense of having done something useful. The general principle involved is typ Both of the first two tragedies, refer Thank you for that. ified by the case of a Riemannian differ ence the decadence of Europe under I have heard that speakers of Basque, ential geometry, as I have applied this to the tyranny of the HabsburgiHapsburg Georgian, and Shoshoni recognize similar the material of a science of physical dynasty: Spain fallen victim to Charles I words in each other's languages; and you economy. We may recognize what is and his successors, through the period appear to have a source that Ta mil, which being said, from adducing the kind of of the evil of the 1511-1 648 religious is a Dravidian language (very ancient, reality which corresponds to the geome wars orchestrated by Venice on behalf from southern India) may be connected try of the relevant set of utterances. of their Habsburg tool. It is as we situate also. I am no authority, so I cannot com That situation points to the impor the communications to be studied with ment further, just make a note of it. tance of a certain sense about historical in the cognitive grasp of the historical Communicating by Ogam is a neat lit specificity. specificity of the "geometry" of the situ tle trick, as it can be acquired so easily So, for example, the case of Sumer, as ation, and the situation defined by the by children. It also lends itself to being emphasized by the account of the histo past's relevance for the present, that the communicated by hand signs (just hold rian Herodotus. From him we are actual meaning of the communication ing up, or down, the right amount of fin informed that the Phoenicians, ancient 'may be adduced, and in no different gers). Hand signage is believed to have Sheba, ancient Abyssinia, and Sumer, way. been the origin of Ogam, each finger ' were among the colonies founded by a In the diffusion of culture, the most combination representing a letter. It is maritime culture ostensibly dominating significant events are not the translation also puzzling, because in order to the relevant regions of the Indian Ocean . of doctrines of one language into anoth exploit it this way, one would have to during a period preceding the Aryan er, but the way in which the common know the language, and be close enough invasion of the Asian subcontinent. The cognitive element of the communication to be seen-in which case, why not just sundry archaeological fragments show a and related practice is expressed, simi walk up and speak directly? Something relatively powerfu l such maritime cul- larly, or dissimilarly, in each. The prob- to speculate upon.
RESEARCH COMMUNICATION 21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 7 NEWS BRIEFS
PROTESTS MOUNT OVER U.S. CUTS TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION The Bush Administration's proposal to eliminate the u.s. contributions to the International Space Station, which would make it impossible to complete the proj ect as designed, has angered America's international partners, and many in the u.S. Congress. Europe, Japan, Russia, and Canada have already spent billions of dollars to design and produce their hardware for the station, and have trained their astro na'uts, in the expectation that they will be able to share in the scientific research resources of the station, as stated in international agreements. And Congress faces the bleak prospect of having spent tens of billions to orbit the station, only to have it lack the capability to carry out the science research, which is its purpose. President Bush has apparently delegated responsibility for the space program not to his science advisor, or to NASA, but to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Sean O'Keefe, the nominee for NASA Administrator, comes to the space agency from the OMB, and has stated in the past that the administration will accept NASA no increases in NASA's budget to cover cost overruns in the space station, that the U. S. budget cuts threaten the project will have to be "downsized." completion of the International Space Station and its scientific research ENRICO FERMI HONORED AT ITALIAN EMBASSY IN WASHINGTON, D.C. capabilities. Here, astronauts Sturckow, U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, and the Ambassador to the U.s. from Barry, and Forrester in orbit. Italy, H.E. Ferdinando Salleo, jointly sponsored a "Celebration Honoring the Centennial Birthday of Enrico Fermi," Nov. 27, at the Italian Embassy in Washington, D.C. Italian nuclear physicist Fermi led the effort to build the first nuclear fission pile in 1942, at the University of Chicago. This great turning point in the first realization of nuclear energy in the 20th Century was marked by the coded message: "the Italian navigator has landed in the New World." The celebration included a seminar titled "The Legacy of Enrico Fermi in America: Science, Energy, and International Collaboration," addressed by U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Francis S. Blake and Presidential Science Advisor Dr. John Marburger. The high point of the seminar was the presentation by Dr. Harold Agnew, the former director of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, who was a student and close collaborator of Fermi. Agnew went from the University of Chicago, where Fermi built the first nuclear pile, to Los Alamos during the war. He showed a fi lm of Fermi mowing his front lawn when Agnew was only a graduate student: "Not many grad students have their Nobel Laureate Professor mow their lawns for them," Agnew quipped. Steel cables anchor the tower To the audience's surprise, Dr. Agnew pointed out that Fermi's favorite was Dr. Edward Te ller, despite their apparent differences in style, politics, and general philosophy. Agnew also noted in passing that maybe Fermi was the fi rst to sug gest to Te ller that he look into "radiation-driven compression" to achieve nuclear fusion-the key to harnessing the hydrogen bomb which Te ller had been Lead weights placed working on. on north side
LEANING TOWER OF PISA REOPENS AFTER ENGINEERS STABILIZE ITS TILT One of Italy's most fa mous landmarks, the 190-foot "Leaning Tower of Pisa," reopened to the public in December, after a 12-year restoration project by an inter national team of scientists and engineers. Construction on the tower began in 1173, and because it was unknowingly built on the soft silt of a buried riverbed, it began to list almost immediately. By 1990, the tilt of the tower had become so pronounced (nearly 17 feet), that it was feared it would fall over. The stabilization plan was the New Federalist, Dec. 24, 2001, p. 11 brainchild of John Burland, professor of soil mechanics at Imperial College, London. The engineering approach in volved Based on his calculations, engineers extracted soil from beneath the Tower's foun cables and lead weights to secure the dations, in what was described as "the civil engineering equivalent of microsurgery." tower while the soil was removed, in Highly sensitive detectors measured the slightest movement of the tower at each order to stabilize the tower in the cavity. stage of the intervention.
8 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY NEWS BRIEFS GRAHAME WALSH WINS SUIT AGAINST OXFORD ON ROCK ART SLUR Australian rock art expert Grahame Walsh, whose work was featured in the Fall 1999 27 st Century, won a lawsuit in October against Oxford University Press and the Australian National University, for defaming him in The Oxford Companion, published in 2000. An article written by an archaeolog ist, titled "The Dating of Rock Art," stated that Wa lsh's work on the Bradshaw paintings in the Kimberleys "are too fine to be Aboriginal and must be the work of earlier peoples some 75,000 years or more ago, have no archaeological basis, and are informed by racist perceptions of what Aboriginal people are capable of." Walsh has never claimed that the Bradshaw art (see illustration) is 75,000 years old, but probably 25,000 years old, and he never made a racial slur. As a result of the suit, Oxford University Press had to reca ll thousands of ' copies of Th e Oxford Companion, in order to insert a revised article, while the Australian National University has to pay Wa lsh's legal costs and print an apol ogy in three Australian archaeology journals. The reason for the hysteria about Walsh's work is that it proves that the Aborigines were not "the first Australians," and therefore threatens to overturn the land rights scam, promoted by Prince Philip and his Worldwide Fund for Nature, which has sequestered large land areas and their mineral resources in the name of Aboriginal One of the Bradshaw rock paintings rights, away from the use of the state and into the hands of private multinational discovered and recorded by Wa lsh over interests. the past 25 years, in his data base of 7.2 million images of rock art. The RITALIN HAS SAME EFFECTS AS AMPHETAMINES AND COCAINE paintings are named after explorer Ritalin, 'commonly prescribed for children with so-called Attention Deficit Joseph Bradshaw, who fi rst observed Hyperactivity Disorder, has effects similar to those of methamphetamines them in 7895.' (speed) and cocaine, according to new research. A research team at the University of Buffalo has found that Ritalin "has potential for causing long-last ing changes in brain cell structure and function," and that "genes linked to [Ritalin] addiction" are the same as those affected by cocaine and ampheta mine." The findings were reported Nov. 11 by Reuters.
CHINA REAFFIRMS PLAN FOR FIRST MANNED SPACE fliGHT Speaking at a forum in Beij ing Nov. 22, Luan Enjie, administrator of the China National Space Administration, reiterated his nation's plan to orbit its fi rst astronauts by 2005. Attending the forum were more than 100 leaders of the Chinese government, including the ministries of Development and Planning, Foreign Affairs, the Academy of Science, and other aerospace research insti tutes. Luan emphasized that no astronauts will fly until their safety can be assured. At an earlier forum, Academy of Sciences member Jiang Jingshan delivered a report describing the exploitation and util ization of energy and mineral resources on the Moon. Jiang proposes sending orbiters, then rovers and sample return missions, and eventually human explorers. The ultimate goal, he said, is setting up a "Iunar village."
FRANCE SETS UP MAD COW DISEASE LAB AT ATOMIC RESEARCH CENTER A new Biosafety Level 3 microbiological laboratory, devoted to research into Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease) was inaugurated at The initial phase of the laboratory has the National Atomic Research Center in Saclay, southwest of Paris, Oct. 11. The already been built, including a test facility will study the modes of inter- or intra-species transmission, and work to room, an animal house, and a cell develop diagnostic and therapeutic techniques. The fi rst stage of research will be the culture lab fo r the production of immediate application of a screening test for BSE, already developed for nerve tis monoclonal antibodies. Here, a sue, to other related tissues. biosafety researcher.
NEWS BRIEFS 21 sf CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 9 IN MEMORIAM John M. Dawson, Fusion Torch Pioneer, Dies
by Charles B. Stevens
ne of the giants of plasma physics the waste into valuable non-radioac Oand fusion energy research, John tive transition metals and radioiso M. Dawson died on Nov. 17, 2001 , at topes for medical applications. The his home in Los Angeles. He was 71 . Dr. economical separation of all chemi Dawson was a professor of physics at cal isotopes would also make possi the University of California ·at Los ble the construction of long-I ived and Angeles (UCLA) and the director of its safe nuclear power plants. The so center for plasma physics and fusion called waste problem would be elim engineering. He also worked at TRW on inated. various government projects. Despite the enormous potential of Professor Dawson experimentally pio plasma separation, President Jimmy neered the concept of the soliton while Carter was opposed to the development working at Princeton Plasma Physics of nuclear energy, and so he had the Laboratory. He later developed the con Plasma Separation Process program cept of a "plasma particle accelerator," killed, and the technology buried under which can generate huge electric fields secrecy. to accelerate subatomic particles to near John Myrick Dawson (1930-200 1) John My rick Dawson was born in the speed of light in a few millimeters, Champaign, Illinois in 1930. He instead of tens of miles. can be read ily separated. This means received his bachelor's degree and John Dawson's major achievement that trash and hazardous materials are Ph.D. from the University of Maryland was the rea lization of the first industrial put in at one end of the torch, and (where the author first met him as a scale and effective "fusion torch," while valuable materials come out at the child) in the mid-1950s. He worked at working at TRW in the mid-1970s. In other end-the ultimate recycling Princeton and then at UCLA. There 1975, an Egyptian physicist working at machine. would be no more fitting memorial for the University of Iowa determined that This procedure also holds true for Prof. Dawson than for the United States all previous calculations concerning the nuclear waste. Instead of dangerous to revive the fusion torch, and reinstitute fusion torch were incorrect, and that the radioactive materials, the Plasma the program to develop his Plasma fusion torch was a practical technology Separation Process would transform Separation Process. that could be immediately available, even before fusion reactors were real Antenna ized. As a result of her finding, TRW and MagnetiC coils Lawrence Livermore National Labora tory launched a crash program to realize the fusion torch, which they called the Plasma Separation Process (PSP). Dawson headed up the experimental team. A Beautiful Idea The fusion torch is a beautiful idea. Because a fusion plasma operates at 100 million degrees, all materials introduced into it are instantly ionized. That is, all Th e Plasma Separation Process, the fi rst working fusion torch, perfected by chemical bonds are immediately bro John Dawson during the mid- 1 970s, when he was at TR W ken. This means that any chemically A source of mixed isotopes is introduced as a plasma, at left, into the hazardous material can be readily and magnetically contained chamber. Radio antennas tune in to the desired safely destroyed, such as biochemical isotopes, increasing the radii of their spiral paths. Using a barrier which is weapons. shaped like a venetian blind, the tight spiralling isotopes pass through, while But that is only the beginning. the larger radius isotopes are trapped in the plasma chamber. In this way, Because the fusion plasma is contained isotopes of any desired kind can be efficiently and easily separated in one by a magnetic field, the various chem stage. ical elements and chemical isotopes
10 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY IN MEMORIAM Pedro Paulet: Peruvian Space and Rocket Pioneer
by Sara Madueno Paulet de Vasquez
The inventor of the liquid fu el motor (1895) and the fi rst modern rocket propulsion system (1900) was a Peruvian engineer and statesman. His story is told here by his great niece.
aking on the economic, moral and cultural crisis that is ravaging the world today, requires a new universal cul Ttural renaissance, in which each nation adopts a nation al educational policy designed to encourage our children and youth to rediscover and take as their own, the classical princi ples which have occupied the best scientific, artistic, and philosophic minds of our civilization. In this context, it becomes necessary to bring to the fore those great men and women who represent a point of refer ence, a touchstone for evoking a commitment to the sciences, to discovery, to good government. Among this exemplary lin eage of world citizens, is the great Peruvian scientist Pedro Paulet (1874-1 945), pioneer of aerospace aviation, who also postulated the principle of universal scientific and classical education, as the basis for progress among peoples. Pedro Paulet discovered the advantages of liquid fuel for rocket propulsion, and designed, bui lt, and tested the first liq uid fuel rocket engine known to history. Paulet also designed an early spaceship prototype. Peru also counts among its illustrious sons, the astronaut Carlos Noriega who, as a member of the December 2000 Endeavour Space Shuttle crew, helped install the solar panels of the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS represents the bridge across which man must travel on his way to the colo nization of the Moon, then Mars, and beyond. Paulet and Noriega, seen from this historic viewpoint, rep This bust of Pedro Paulet graces the exhibit of his sketches and resent a continuity of the same purpose: to extend the bound models at the Pedro PaL/let room of the Aeronautical Museum aries of man into space, to be fruitful and multiply, as Genesis of the Peruvian Air Force in Lima, Peru.
21st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 11 commands. They also represent small town of Tiabaya, near the positive role models for guiding prosperous city of Arequipa in our children and youth along the Peru's southwest. According to road of science and discovery, to Megan Paulet, his daughter: the benefit of all humanity. In his book Wo rld History of From early childhood, Pedro Aeronautics (co-authored with Paulet showed a passion for Fred Ordway), Wernher von reaching the stars. With his Braun, former head of NASA's primitive model rockets, Marshall Space Flight Center, and inspired by the town's fire director of the Saturn V rocket that works, his whole childhood took men to the Moon, states: was a collection of anecdotes "Pedro Paulet was in Paris in those about his curiosity for discovery years (1 900), experimenting with and scientific creation; curiosity his tiny two-and-a-half kilogram that often led him into risky motor, and achieved 100 kg of experiments. force. By this act, Paulet should be considered the pioneer of the liq After a strict primary and second uid fuel propulsion motor." ary education under French Further, in his History of Rocketry Lazarists led by Father Duhamel, and Space Tr avel, von Braun rec Paulet entered the St. Augustine ognizes that "by his efforts, Paulet University of Arequipa, where he helped man reach the Moon." studied arts and sciences for sever Paulet's scientific contributions al years. In 1894, when he was 18, were not, however, limited to the the Peruvian government gave discovery of the advantages of liq Paulet a scholarship to study engi uid fuel for rocket propulsion, or the neering and architecture at the design of the reaction motor known Sorbonne in Paris, in recognition as the "Paulet Motor" (1 895), and As a ch ild, Pedro Paulet was fa scinated with the of his academic excellence. He the design of the Girandula propul idea of using rockets to reach into space. He went later enrolled also in the School of sion system (1900). He also on to carry out the fi rst experiments with liquid fu el Fine and Decorative Arts. While designed the "Avion To rpedo" rocket engines. studying engineering and architec- (1902)- his "perfect airplane," ture, Paulet attended public lec which is an aerospace ship with specific aerodynamic charac tures in chemistry by Prof. Marcelin Berthelot at the College of teristics, and room for a small crew, resistant materials for space France, in Paris. Then, in 1898, he decided to enroll at the and atmospheric conditions, thermal walls, and electricity sup Applied Chemistry Institute at the University of Paris to study plied through thermoelectric batteries. with Prof. Berthelot. In the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C., In an interview with Argentina's La Cronica, on April 18, we can see a small plaque honoring the memory of the 1944, Paulet recalled that, "at the Institute I was mainly Peruvian Pedro Paulet, as one of the fathers of aeronautics. But attracted to the work of Berthelot, on the forces of explosive Paulet deserves more than a plaque in his honor. He is a materials. I could not understand why his book is not featured model for the present and future generations of the world, but in every technical library." especially for the so-called "Third Wo rld." He was one of Paulet graduated from the Institute in 1901 . many children born into a mestizo family living in one of the From the very beginning, Paulet concentrated on thousands of forgotten little villages in the Peruvian jungle, research and experimentation in that area which had who demonstrated through his contribution to universal sci obsessed him since childhood : rocket design and propul ence that every person is capable of achieving the highest sion. For Paulet, the dream of plowing through space level of human creativity. depended solely on the infinite capacity of individual In Peru, Paulet is not only considered the "greatest Peruvian human creativity. Convinced that there are truly "no limits inventor of all time," but his birthday, July 2, has been offi to growth," and that man's mission is to go forth and multi cially declared National Aeronautics Day. ply, and dominate the Earth, he stated, in an interview with The Peruvian Air Force, in its Aeronautics Museum in Lima, La Cr6nica in 1944: has made the "Pedro Paulet Hall" into a major exhibit, where Paulet's works, original sketches, and scale models of his Progress does not consist of matching the processes of inventions, are on view. nature, but of surpassing them. [Thus] what we must study is not aviation as it comes from the birds, and 'Reaching Space,' a Childhood Dream which only invites us to imitate fl ight, but weightless Pedro Paulet Mostajo (1874-1945) was born on July 2, ness. Transport above the planet must be probed, where 1874, the son of Pedro Paulet and Antonia Mostajo, in the there is no air, no clouds, no ice.
12 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY At the same time, Paulet conceived and designed his "fly connect the above-mentioned nitrogen peroxide and ing machine to reach space," and he began a period of benzene tanks to a lead from the spark plug to the elec intense experimentation. His challenge was to find the most tric mains. The rocket would ascend between the two appropriate explosive to use as a propellant. This issue dom taut, parallel and vertical wires, between whose upper inated his constant consultations with his teachers: Charles part was installed a strong spring thrust measuring Friedel (renowned chemist and mineralogist); Marcelin device, supporting the pressure of the firing rocket. The Berthelot (known for his work in organic chemistry and ther dynamometer could give the approximate measure of modynamics); and the famous Pierre Curie (Nobel physicist the lifting forces. in 1903, who together with his wife Marie Sklodowska The results of these experiments were very satisfying. Curie and Henri Becquerel, are considered the pioneers of A single two-and-a-half kilogram rocket, undergoing 300 nuclear energy by virtue of having discovered polonium and explosions per minute, could not only maintain a con radium). stant pressure against the dynamometer, of up to 90 kilo It was during this stage of his life (189 5-1902), that Paulet grams, but could operate without damage for nearly an reached the first conclusions that would lead him to the dis hour. Under such conditions, it would not be reckless to covery of liquid rocket fuel, and later to the physical principles predict that, using two batteries of 1,000 rockets apiece, upon which he based the conception and design of the Paulet one in operation while the other rested, it would have Engine, the Girandula device, and, finally, his To rpedo Plane. been possible to lift several tons.
The Experimental 'Paulet Engine' (1895) In Paris, Paulet dedicated himself to his project. When both the conception and form of his "flying machine" became clear, he designed both (see ING Figure 1 and photograph of model). S, British author A.V. Cleaver writes that, by 1900, 1)y� A MO ME rJe:: ".....,.r---r--r----....-J Cl Paulet III ;� has to his scientific credit, recognition of his ,..."""" ... invention of the "rocket engine," the first T,o .... example of the bi-propellant rocket, where the oxidant and the hydrocarbon are in separate tanks, and only mix in the combustion chamber. This is a forerunner of that which is used in today's spacecraft, with the difference that today, nitric acid replaces the nitrogen peroxide used by Paulet.
In 1927, in a letter written in Rome on August 25, and published in October of that year in the Lima daily EI Comercio, Paulet describes his pro totype for the experimental reaction motor for rocket propulsion:
My most definitive experiments were carried out with steel and vanadium rockets, then a novelty, and with Plankacite [a powerful explosive), which had just been invented by Tu rpin, the discoverer of melinite. The interior -1895" part of this metal rocket was a conical interior PA I.JL CT H(JrOR . rIC If!(aK �T"V" TID'" "�H ;($Cff/P'TUUI) measuring some 10 centimeters high by 10 ( -H,Ht!'fA centimeters at the open base. Opposing ducts FIG. I provided with spring valves, introduce nitro gen peroxide steam on the one side, and petroleum benzene on the other. Ignition was Figure 1 effected by an electric spark plug similar to SCHEMATIC RECONSTRUCTION OF THE PAULET MOTOR that in an automobile, and placed halfway up This diagram of Pedro Paulet's fi rst experimental rocket engine was the interior of the rocket. reconstructed by James E. Wyld in 7946, from the inventor's written At the same time, to carry out the prelimi description. The spring dynamometer at center top would measure the nary experiments, the rocket was ringed on fo rce produced by the thrust of the rocket engine below. the outside with long flexible tubes which
21st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 13 As can be seen in the schematic recon struction of his "Paulet Engine-1 89 S," ren dered from his description (Figure 1), this is a detailed plan f9r the experimental reac tion engine that Paulet invented. In fact, as he himself said, it was a conception for a rocket-C!irplane motor, or the "Torpedo Plane," as he was to call it.
'Gi.randula': Paulet's Liquid Fuel Rocket Paulet undertook to study and experi ment with rocket propulsion, using various kinds of explosives. Through extensive research and arduous experimentation, as well as the guidance of Professor Berthelot, he reached the conclusion that liquid fuel is 11)0st appropriate for the reaction motor. He also experimented with his rocket-pro pelled device, the "Girandula," which he de.scribes in his 1927 letter to EI Co mercio, and refers us to the results of his experi ments with this:
Th is fu ll-scale model of the Paulet Engine is part of the exhibit at the Aero It consisted of a bicycle wheel, fit nautical Museum in Lima. ted with three rockets fed by tubes attached to the spokes. The fuel comes through the tubes from a kind of fixed carburetor, placed near the axis, with a ring of holes. This explosive mixture flows through the tubes, every time the nozzle faces one of the holes. The number of rockets could be increased, until they come to look like a comfortably enclosed turbine. The results [of the Girandula tests] were very encourag ing: the wheel turned apparently indefinitely, and although the experiments were, as indicated, highly secret, word of their success reached the Latin Quarter [in Paris], which is perhaps why an English author has referred to me as one of the first driving forces of rocket flight.
It was decided to use Tu rpin Plankacite, a powerfu l explo sive derived from picric acid, for the liquid fuel. This was a highly volatile and expandable fuel, which could be diluted with the appropriate solvents. The experiments were a suc cess. What now needed to be established was the speed of rotation that the rocket-powered wheel could reach. In the midst of his experiments, an explosion occurred, causing the perforation of Paulet's left eardrum, which was later to lead to deafness. In his 1944 interview with La Cr6nica, Paulet describes the accident as follows:
A serious accident caused by an acetone explosion in a beaker next to a Bunsen burner, alarmed the Institute's director, Dr. C. Charbie, who vehemently prohibited the handling of explosives at the laboratories, which were then located in modest facilities near the Luxembourg Pedro Paulet's Girandula consisted of rockets attached to the Gardens in Paris. As I was unable to continue these outside of a wheel, to be fe d fu el through tubes in the spokes. experiments at my hotel-less so, when the police, on Ign ition was provided by spark plugs, similar to those used in account of some anarchist activity, were unfavorable to automobiles. The rocket exhaust caused the wheel to rotate. the manufacture of explosives�1 abandoned my work
14 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY on the Girandula motor, and its subsequent applications. (5) descend vertically. "Torpedo Plane, Paulet System, 1902." That is how Paulet The Paris police detained Paulet, who was released when signed the final sketches of his spaceship, which he liked to Professor Bethelot testified that he was not an anarchist. The call, in Spanish, "Autob6Iido." (See Figures 2 and 3). These police said that such experiments could only be done in mili final sketches can be found in Antwerp, a city in which he tary centers, or laboratories, not independently. Nonetheless, lived for several years, when he was named Peruvian Consul the efficiency of his experimental machine had already been to Belgium in 1902. proven. Paulet describes his space ship in his 1927 article in EI Comercio: The Paulet 'Torpedo Plane' (1902) Paulet laid out the general concepts for a rocket plane's The first advantage of the application of rocket motors flight through the atmosphere, on its way to reach space, in his is that they create a force external to the apparatus, but interview with La Cr6nica: are controllable from within, thus allowing us to give that apparatus the most appropriate shape. In order to It is not a matter of "attracting" the air, but of "push slide through a fluid, such as the atmosphere, which is a ing" the air with rockets. The ship with which we will homogeneous and stress-fi lled mixture, the shape, in my reach space will have to be aerodynamic in form .... judgment, should be that of a very convex lens, almost The propeller and the glider elements should disappear. ovoidal like our planet. By incorporating batteries of They must be replaced with a new form, which corre rockets, positioned both below and equatorially, whose sponds to its astrodynamic functions, once gravity has angle of firing could be varied, it would be possible to been overcome through the rockets. direct the vehicle vertically, horizontally, or obliquely, resisting any contrary forces that the atmosphere might In the process of conceptualizing the design of his "flying produce, to remain in space, and then descend to the machine," Paulet concluded that, "It is possible to traverse the ground. atmosphere, both dense and thin, by means of ships whose ends must be like spear- heads ...." The interior of the flying machine, he said, should be such that: ...., ·. S�S ·· ,p,,� LET';. (1902)
. . • .� . .>. it must allow that, within the airtight . StHEMATIC PLAN WiTH CAJJlrt'S SECTiON chamber, the astronaut has full freedom of movement. To achieve this, the spher ical form is certainly appropriate, because it is more resistant to external pressures.
The exterior of the machine, he said, should have a shape that:
allows the outside tip to be maneuvered from inside the chamber. It must also be assured, as occurred with submersibles, that whoever inhabits it would have no problem controlling the interactions of the metal ship with the outside environ ment. InstillJto de fstudios HlstOrioosAeroesp a<;iale:s
To achieve the "perfect airplane," that is, Ranoo �ntlnelllal his spaceship, said Paulet, it must: . , (1 ) ascend vertically , l (2) stop [or hover] at any point in the atmosphere Figure 2 (3) be able to fly at more than 20,000 PEDRO PA ULET'S ROCKET PLANE DURING VERTICAL FLIGHT meters altitude Th is fr ont-view 7902 dra wing by Paulet of his To rpedo Plane, shows the (4) possess an exterior impervious to the two batteries of rockets, on either side of the crew cabin. Wh en the rocket atmosphere, and an interior comfortable plane is ta king o� and is in vertical flight, the rockets, attached to the enough for a large number of passengers spear-shaped fra me, are pointed downward. and a great deal of cargo weight; and
21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 15 Since this vehicle is destined to navigate stellar space, (e) Navigate under water, as a submarine. where there is no air, it needs neither propeller nor glid ers. It is shaped like a triangular spearhead, on the base In the 1927 EI Comercio letter, Paulet made observations of of which is placed, on each side of the astronaut's the then "modern" airplanes, which he described as simple cabin, 12 batteries of 3 rockets per battery (that is, 36 "self-propelled comets," with their "poorly performing pro rockets). This allows the orientation of this triangular pellers, their almost totally exposed bodies, and the impossi spearhead to an axis on the center of gravity of the bility of their remaining motionless in space. [They] satisfy astronauts' cabin. none of the conditions" of the "perfect airplane." Paulet there With such a system, a ship should be able to: fore suggests that "they should be viewed in aerial navigation (a) Rise up vertically, with the spearhead pointed to as forerunners, similar to those sailing vessels in maritime nav the zenith; igation, which had also crossed the oceans." (b) Maintain itself at any point in the atmosphere, Remember that while Paulet was presenting his daring using rockets to balance the force of gravity; "Torpedo Plane" in 1902, the American brothers Wilbur and (c) Fly horizontally, with the spearhead rotated to Orville Wright, were completing their record of 1 ,000 glider point toward the horizon; fl ights. (d) Transition from the air to submersion in water, by Regarding the helicopters of that era, these, he says, while aiming the spearhead below the horizon; they "can rise and descend vertically ... the complexity of their makeup has meant that thus far, they have been unable to carry out effective fl ights." Many years earlier, in 1909, while working as director of the magazine lIustraci6n Peruana, Paulet had explained, in his article "War and Aerial Navigation," the advantages and disadvantages, as weapons of war, of the hot air balloon, kite, and dirigible, as well as the Wright biplane, the Bleriot monoplane, the Krupp cannon, and the self-propelled mor tar. Paulet wrote his 1927 letter to EI Comercio, 25 years after his crucial discoveries and designs had already been made. Thus, he asks himself:
With such advantages, one can ask why rocket-planes have not already been built, even more, why rockets have not been placed tangentially on a wheel, which would form the simplest and most powerful of industrial forces; and the why rocket projectiles have not eliminat ed the costly use of cannons in war, and so on. Well, as a result of my own experience, I can reveal why: It is because of the great difficulty that a civilian encounters, especially in Europe, trying to obtain information on, and experiment with, explosives. Moreover, the needed explosives, which are of the binary type and are not solid, but rather liquid or gaseous, are not sold commer cially, due to their unsafe and dangerous composition.
Anticipating Nuclear-Propelled Rockets How is it possible, Paulet stresses in that letter, that the rock et-plane has not yet been built when, as he writes, it is already Figure 3 conceptually feasible in that period to imagine nuclear-pro THE TORPEDO PLANE AT REST AND IN FLIGHT pelled rockets? The upper dra wing shows the To rpedo Plane from a side view; while it is "at rest, " or hovering in the atmosphere. But during the past 15 years, the science of explosives The lower drawing, also a side view, shows the vehicle is one of those which has made the most progress .... fl ying horizontally through the air. The spear-shaped tri Internal combustion motors are replacing steam motors angle holding the rockets has been rotated a quarter everywhere; pyrotechnics is no longer simply an art; and turn, by the crew inside the cabin, from a vertical to hor chemical manufacturers provide a range of explosives as izontal postion. Th e spearhead is now pointed toward varied as dyes and perfumes. And this progress is going the horizon, in order to move fo rward, ra ther than to be even greater with the studies of radioactive forces. toward the zenith, to ascend. For example, M. Esnaut [sic] Pelterie has calculated that a rocket ship weighing 1,000 kilograms, with a motor
16 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY fueled by the disinte gration products of a mere two decigrams of radium, would pro This model of duce a force of Paule('s To rpedo 40,000 horsepower Plane clearly shows over a period of half the rocket batteries an hour, sufficient to underneath the be able to go the spear-shaped trian Moon in 24 minutes 9 gle, and the ovoidal seconds, and return crew cabin, with from that satellite in 3 windows. The bust minutes 46 seconds. of Pedro Paulet can The truth is that we be seen at the top still don't know how left of the photo to use the mechanical graph. er)ergy of radium, as we do that of petrole um. But, not much is needed to be able to travel modestly from Europe to Lima in a couple of The Dec. 7, 1910, edition of Ilustracfon Peruana), was ded hours. icated, for example, to reporting on the 1908 construction of the first Peruvian monoplane. The building of this 36-foot Paulet, Pioneer of Peruvian Technical Education monoplane, was carried out by Peruvian engineer Carlos In 1900, Paulet's life took a turn. Because of the various Te naud Pomar, at the School of Arts and Trades. Educated at diplomatic responsibil ities he was given by the Peruvian gov the Carnot Lyceum in France, Te naud came to Lima with ernment, he joined the diplomatic corps. He was first assigned Paulet, to collaborate on his project for the school. as Peruvian consul in Paris, and in 1902 he was transferred to Paulet also promoted the founding in Lima of an "aviation Belgium, as consul general in Antwerp. It was there that he fi n club," or "aerostation," to "encourage the efforts of our inven ished his drafts for the "Torpedo-Plane, Paulet system." tors," and to "inspire our future aeronauts." The magazine reg The Peruvian government assigned him a number of official ularly supported the activities of the National Pro-Aviation duties, which distracted him from his project. But the govern League, which Paulet had also founded. Among its first activ ment also needed his technical and scientific input for other ities, the League hired young Peruvians who had studied aero projects. For example, they asked him to evaluate the feasibil nautics in Europe, primarily in France, to come back to Peru ity of applying wireless telegraphy across the Pacific Ocean, to serve as instructors. and it is on the basis of his research that a telegraph system The 1910 founding of the National Pro-Aviation League by was installed in Peru. Paulet, which was directed by Gen. Pedro Muniz, was close In 1904, Paulet was called upon by the Peruvian govern ly fo llowed by the founding of the Peruvian Air Club, both of ment to assume the founding and directorship of the School of which were precursors of the Peruvian Air Force. A prominent Arts and Trades (predecessor of the current Superior member of the League, fl ight pioneer Juan Bielovucic Tec hnology Institute). To carry out this project, Paulet studied Cavalier, was among the first to fly across the Alps. In 1913, he the curriculum of the most prominent centers of European brought a French Vo isin plane to Peru, which was assembled technical education. He invited a prominent teaching team of there with the help of the local experts. It was one of the first engineers to join him in founding the School, which was also airplanes to fly in the skies of South America. provided with the best laboratory equipment and machinery Although Paulet hoped, through his Pro-Aviation League, to for fulfilling its purpose. win economic backing from the Peruvian government for Paulet combined the directorship of the School with the building his prototype ship, he did not get that support. Four management of the magazine that he had founded in 1906, years after getting his school established on firm ground and lfustra ci6n Peruana. This magazine, directed toward youth, with renown, at the end of 1910, Paulet decided to return to was known for its scientific-technical orientation, and had as Europe to seek financing there, and to continue with the devel its objective the preparation of youth for engineering, and opment of his aerospace project. especially aeronautical, vocations. He persisted, despite the fact that World War I and lack of He also turned the magazine into a voice, demanding the financing conspired against him. Although his family was attention of the Peruvian government in encouraging and based in LQndon, Paulet travelled through various European investing in the generation of scientific vocations and in sci nations, carrying out diplomatic duties for the Peruvian gov entific research. Paulet's dissertations at the Society of ernment and seeking, unsuccessfully, to win financing for his Engineers, on the advantages to Peru of encouraging educa project. tion in the sciences and in engineering, were very well Paulet married, and from 1911 to 1919, lived mostly in known. Paris. Paulet travelled occasionally to other countries, repre-
21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 17 senting the Peruvian government, particularly at scientific con tion of several well-known engineers there such as Hans Doerr ferences. y Philip, and with them began work again on the construction Paulet's first five children were born in this period, but it was of his "Paulet Motor" prototype. Years earlier, the first proto during a difficult time of great economic hardship. He faced type he had built had been damaged by war. the tragedy of the death by starvation of his two youngest chil In a letter to European scientists who had asked about his dren. In 1920, he moved to London for financial reasons, but work, �ritten in about 1943, Paulet explained the thermo the next year, the government of Peru named him consul in electric power system he had proposed for a "moving habitat" ' Dresden, Germany, where he stayed until 1924. in air and space. He also proposed the same system be used While Paulet was in Germany, he became familiar with the "for fixed dwellings, which would eliminate the present neces rocket car experiments of Max Va lier, and criticized Va lier's sity of lighting, heating, and providing power from expensive design for a spaceship in his 1927 letter to EI Comercio. electricity plants. I presented this proposal at a Congress on In his 1928 book, Spaceflight, Va lier writes: Rural Housing in Liege, Belgium, in 1930, and many of the attendees, and several newspapers there, were interested in Paulet's work is even more sign ificant [than earlier this idea," he wrote. attempts] for the present project of development of a Paulet's work made it into the Rotterdam press. One of the rocket ship, as they have proven for the first time-as articles about his invention, titled " A New System of Aviation," compared to the few seconds of the burning of powder says in summary: rockets-that it is possible, by the use of liquid fuels, to construct a rocket engine that wou ld burn for an hour. There are experiments currently under way in Rotterdam, whose results are going to revolutionize the In 1965, in preparation for the centenary of Pedro Paulet's practice of aerial navigation. Engineer Paulet, after more birth (in 1974), the Peruvian government named a than 30 years of research and experimentation, is pro Commission to investigate the contributions of Paulet, to posing a new system of aerial navigation, based on prin establish his place among the pioneers of aerospace aviation, ciples completely different from those currently known and also to resurrect his other contributions, to the education and applied. Mr. Paulet's airplane has neither airfo ils, of scientists and engineers in Peru. One of the Commission nor a winged fuselage, nor a gasoline motor, nor pro members was Dr. Manuel del Casti llo. pellers. It is essentially composed of an aluminum sphe Dr. Castillo contacted Hermann Oberth, requesting to visit roid, with a steel interior measuring three-and-a-half the German space pioneer at his home in Feucht. Professor meters long and two-and-a-�alf meters wide. Inside the Oberth replied: " ...The name of Pedro Paulet is known to me, cabin, similar to that of Swiss Professor August Pfccard, if I have been correctly informed. He has worked chiefly with which he uses for his studies of the stratosphere, there is nitric acid and benzene propulsion motors, until the police room for three or four crew· members .... forbade it." In 1929, he was sent to Rotterdam as Peru's consul general. While working on his engine prototype, and on the proto Without losing sight of his objective, he sought the collabora- type of his "Torpedo-Plane," Paulet faced new challenges spe cific to the development of the project, such as the need to provide a permanent supply of energy to the interior of the ship. In this regard, Paulet wrote in his 1931 notes:
I have come up with a system for a thermoelectric wall which produces electricity in flight. This device is very important, given the enormous differ ence in temperature that exists between the interior of the vehicle, where tem perature has to be normal, and the exterior in the atmosphere, where it is very cold. Thermoelectric batteries are already well known, but what was missing was how to apply them to the provision of electricity in a travelling habitat.
Paulet began to receive recognition by well known scientists, as the forefather of reaction Pedro Pa ulet, in his office in Lima, Peru, after a 25-year absence, on various motors for rocket propulsion. News of his diplomatic missions. Upon his return, he fo unded, orga nized, and directed the invention went beyond Europe, and in 1928 he Trade Department of the Peruvian Foreign Ministry. received a million-dollar offer from Henry
18 Winter 2001 -2002 21 st CENTURY Ford, who wanted to "buy" his invention with the idea of before me concerned adapting the rockets of his "Torpedo-Plane" to his motor cars. himself with a torpedo Ford suggested that Paulet renounce his Peruvian nationality, rocket plane, I don't and adopt American citizenship, so that his invention could be seek to claim paternity patented as American. But Paulet rejected the offer because, he for this invention, said, his "Torpedo-Plane" had been conceived to "navigate because, as with all 348,000 kilometers of space, until touchdown on lunar soiL" projects, it is not valid The German Astronautical Society invited Paulet to join a until it is realized. The team of scientists to study rocket propulsion, a proposal pre inventor of the rocket sented as an opportunity to test his invention. But upon learn airplane will be the ing that it would be used to fabricate a weapon that could dou first one to fly in an ble the range of the "Great Britain Cannon," he rejected the apparatus powered by offer. rockets. In the midst of all of this, in 1932, the Peruvian government named Paulet consul general in Yokohama, japan. While at In the same way, he The author (left), with Pedro this post, he studied the japanese economic model, leading to clarifies, "it is not enough Paulet's daughter, Megan, in the publication of a book titled Modern Japan and Its to say that the project of 7996. His legacy and accom Economic Foundation. He also wrote a series of reports for the the German [Max] Valier plishments are an example of Peruvian Foreign Ministry, which included proposals for has been preceded, by 30 the limitless possibilities fo r all Peruvian development based on the japanese economic years at least, and by young people in Peru, and model. even perhaps more con around the world. Paulet was called back to work at the Peruvian Foreign clusive experiments, by Ministry from 1935 to 1941 . While there, he returned to that of a Peruvian," referring to himself. building a replica of his "reaction engine" and "Torpedo Then, in a gesture that revealed his conviction that "genius Plane," and gave his models to the Aviation Ministry, in the is not born, but made" and that "every Peruvian child could be hope of winning financing to continue work on his project. a scientist" because all men possess the divine spark of cre His appeals did not succeed. During this period, he also ation, he delegated the continuity of his invention to young appealed for support from the British, and gave a set of origi Peruvian scientists, saying to them: nal drawings and writings on his project to the British Embassy in Peru. He never received a reply, or the return of his origi [I want] to call the attention of our nation's techni nals. In 1941, he was transferred to Buenos Aires for another cians and inventors to this important matter.... In diplomatic assignm·ent. effect, what I was unable to achieve, through unfortu ' In the middle of World War II, Peru broke diplomatic rela nate circumstances, well might some other, better-pro tions with japan, and Paulet's son (married to a japanese vided compatriot obtain, to the glory and advantage of woman), who had been protecting his reaction motor and Peru. To rpedo-Plane prototypes, had to suddenly leave the country. Although put in storage, the prototypes were lost over the years. Sara Maduefio heads the Lima bureau of Executive Paulet died in Buenos Aires in 1945. Intelligence Review magazine in Peru and is a long-time political collaborator of international statesman Lyndon H. ' Testament of a Scientist LaRouche, Jr. She notes that this article is in payment of a Years later, when questioned why he had not made his early long-standing debt to Megan Paulet, daughter of Pedro Paulet, experiments public at the time, Paulet responded in his letter and is written in memory of her own mother, Sara Paulet de to European scientists, explaining why there had been little Maduefio, Pedro Paulet's niece. The article was translated into written about his experiments at the time they were carried English by Va lerie Rush and Carlos Potes. out: Sources and Acknowledgments,__ �______My special thanks to Megan Paule!. My discussions with her were the. inspi Those who witnessed these experiments knew I meant ration and first-hand source for the preparation of this article. . to invent a kind of motor which seemed simpler and The letter to EI Comercio was written by Pedro Paulet on Aug. 25, 1927, more powerful than any known up until that time . . But I while he was attending a congress in Rome. The entire text of this letter appears as an appendix to the book by Megan Paulet, Pedro Paulet, Fa ther chose not to publish anything about it, nor to apply for a of Astronomy, published by the National Council of Science and Technology. patent, because even though the rocket seemed perfect (CONCYTEC) of Peru, 1988. to me, the explosive used was very dangerous and my The Feb. 1996 exhibit, "Pedro Paule!: Forerunner of the �pace Age," at the Institute of Aerospace Historical Studies of Peru, included original drawings of intention was to find a safer and cheaper one. Paulet's inventions. It can be seen today at the Institute's Pedro Paulet Museum, in his native Arequipa, and is the source for the illustrations' for this article. Sketches and full-scale models for the "reaction engine," the "Girilndula," In his letter to EI Comercio, Paulet wrote with a scientist's and the "Torpedo-Plane," can be seen in the Pedro Paulet Hall of the humility: Aeronautics Museum of the Peruvian Air Force, in Lima, Peru.
The photographs of the sketches and models in this article were taken by Even though I have no information that anyone Sara Maduefio Paulet.
21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 19 The Division of The Circle and Gauss's Concept Of the Complex Domain by Bruce Director
The complex plane, as Gauss developed it is not what you learned in text books.
he pursuit of a discovery of a universal principle always T requires the pursuer to fo llow the Socratic method of negation or, as Nicholas of Cusa called it, "Learned Ignorance." That is the method by which Johan nes Kepler, for example, ascended from the tangle of observed motions of the planets seen as if pro jected on the inside of an imaginary sphere, to the "hypergeometric" func tion which characterized his universe. While the cause of these observations is determined from the top down by that function, like the shadows of Plato's Cave, we cannot know that function directly. Rather, we must look at the gaps in the observations, and discern the hypergeometry Christopher Lewis underlying those observations. It is the nature of this method that, as Th e author (left) hard at work upon the sphere. our knowledge of the underlying hypergeometry increases, new gaps appear, through which new principle. But, in the former, that principle is with respect to a characteristics of the hypergeometry become discernible. These manifold of space, while the latter is with respect to a manifold new characteristics, in turn, recast the previous discoveries in a of space-time. It is the manifold from which the characteristic of new light. For example, the principle that light travels the short the path is determined, but it is the characteristics of the path, by est path, discovered by the Greeks as a characteristic of reflec which the manifold is discovered. tion, becomes a special case of the principle that light travels the For more than 2,000 years, it was believed to be impossible path of least time, discovered by Fermat as a characteristic of to construct a 17-sided regular polygon with straight-edge and refraction. In both cases, light acts according to a minimizing compass. But on March 20, 1796, as Carl Friedrich Gauss later
20 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY recalled it, after much hard work, the possibility of accom carried out a strenuous polemic against Petrus Ramus (1 515- plishing such a construction appeared to him in a flash of 1572), a leading Aristotelian of the day, who had sought to ban insight. Gauss was then 18 years old. incommensurable magnitudes, not only from the physical uni Gauss always considered this one of his most important dis verse, but from geometry as well! coveries, which, accompanied by a provocation from his teacher As we will see shortly, it is in the division of the circle that Abraham Kastner, determined the trajectory of his entire creative we encounter these different degrees of knowability. This rais life-so much so, that he asked that a 17-gon be engraved on his es the fo llowing question: If the circle is, at it appears to the tombstone. (Because an engraved 17-gon would look so much eye, a perfectly uniform, constantly curved figure, why, when like a circle, a 17-sided star was engraved instead .) one attempts to divide it, does one encounter magnitudes of The more general treatment to which Kastner was guiding different degrees of knowability? The reader should think of Gauss, was the solution of the "Kepler challenge," which con the different types of magnitudes necessary to construct a tri cerned the divisibility of the ellipse, a curve of non-constant angle, square, pentagon, hexagon, and heptagon, for example. curvature. In fact, Gauss's method for the division of the circle Each different division of the circle gives rise to different was based on the discovery that the constantly curved circle, degrees of knowability, and some divisions, such as seven, is actually a special case of non-constant curvature. seem to be unknowable altogether. This is the question that Kepler investigated in the Kepler's Treatment of the Circle Harmonies of the Wo rld. The question the young Gauss inves Gauss's investigation into the division of the circle, was an tigated was, "What is, the principle that governs the principle extension of the study done by Johannes Kepler in the first of knowability?" book of his Harmonies of the World, "On the Regular Figures, the Harmonic Proportions They Create, Their Source, Their Paradox of the Circle Classes, Their Order, and Their Distinction into Knowabil ity Magnitudes of the first three degrees of knowability, are also and Representability." It is here that Kepler started his elabo called constructible (Figure 1), because they can be construct ration of the harmonic ordering principle that governs the ed from the circle itself, or to put it colloquially, by straight physical universe. "We must seek the causes of the harmonic edge and compass (the straight-edge being the diameter and proportions in the geometrical and knowable divisions of a the compass being the circumference of the circle), It is in the circle into equal number of parts," he began. investigation of what is constructible, that we discover a gap, To divide the circle by geometrical means, according to an anomaly, through which we ascend to the idea that the Kepler, is to determ ine the ratio of the side of the figure to the seemingly uniform circle is, in fact, not uniform at all, but a diameter. It is in the efforts to divide the circle, that the special case of non-uniform action! human mind discovers the different types of harmonic pro Ancient Greek philosophers had fully investigated the fact portions, which Kepler ranked according to degrees of that, although the circle is uniform in all its parts, it does not knowabil ity. The first degree of knowability per- tains to those quantities which can be proven equal to the diameter. The sec ond degree of knowability pertains to those quantities that can be proven to be equal to parts of the diameter. The third degree of knowability pertains to those quantities that are inexpressible in length but expressible in square. From this follows those quantities that are inexpressible, or as the Greeks called (a) (b) (e) them, incommensurable. However, the ranking continues among the types .of Figure 1 incommensurables. The fourth degree of THE DEGREES OF KNOWABILITY knowability pertains to those lengths In the fi rst book of the Harmonies of the World, Kepler showed that the divi that are not expressible by squares, but sions of the circle generate a hierarchy of types of magnitudes. Using the ter are expressible as rectangles. Kepler minology from Book X of Euclid's Elements, he demonstrated that the division continued, fo llowing the Te nth Book of of the circle by the diameter produces magnitudes of the first degree of Euclid, to enumerate the further degrees knowability (a), those divisions measurable by a part of the diameter produce of knowability of the incommensurable. the second degree of knowability (b), and those divisions whose squares, What is significant for us, is that fo urth powers, and other combinations are measurable by the diameter, pro Kepler is reasserting the knowability of duce the third degree of knowability (c), incommensurable magnitudes, not only Such differentiation seems strange to the modern reader, because Kepler's in the context of geometry, but as the opponent, Petrus Ramus, and his fo llowers were successful in removing the very magnitudes by which the physical study of Euclid's Book X from the schoolrooms. universe is characterized. Her� Kepler
21st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 21 divide uniformly. The circle can be divided into two parts by tigated a general principle governing the generation of magni folding in half. By fo lding in half again, and again, the circle tudes, of which the constructible ones were a special case. (A can be divided into 2, 4, 8, 16, and so on, parts. But to divide suggestive example of this concept was supplied by Lyndon H. it into three parts-that is, to inscribe a triangle in it-requires LaRouche, Jr., several years ago, when he posed the possibility the generation of a magnitude of the second degree of knowa that the number 5 associated with the hypotenuse of a 3-4-5 bility. (Half the diameter is the side of a hexagon.) right triangle, should be considered a special type of irrational Once that magnitude is created, it too can be doubled, to number.) produce a division by 6, 12, 24, and so on, parts. But to Additionally, Gauss used a unique application of geometry of divide the circle into five parts, requires the generation of a position, which at first may seem obscure. He inverted the con magnitude of a higher degree of knowability, specifically, ception of the circle. Instead of beginning with the circle and the golden section. The golden section is not commensu trying to find those positions that divided it, he sought the func rable with the diameter, or with a part of the diameter, but it tions that created a divided circle. Thus, the positions were pro is constructible. duced by the division, not the division by the positions. However, it had been believed for more than 2,000 years, Gauss showed that both the above principles relied on two, that all other divisions of the circle were non-constructible. In seemingly unrelated, conceptions that were at the heart of other words, those divisions of the circle based on prime num Greek science, and had been extended by the work of Kepler, bers greater than 5, depended on magnitudes that were beyond Leibniz, Bernoulli, and Fermat: the geometric generation of Kepler's degrees of knowability. This boundary condition sug incommensurables, and the more shrouded principles govern gests that something outside the circle, a higher principle, is ing the generation of prime numbers. And, spurred by governing. It is that principle that Gauss sought. Kastner's prodding, Gauss showed that these principles To discover this principle, Gauss, in effect, inverted the extended beyond the circle. problem altogether. Instead of thinking of two different types As Gauss described it in the opening of the final chapter of of magnitudes, constructible and non-constructible, he inves- his Disquisitiones Arithmeticae:
Gauss and His Teacher
rom 1792 to 1795, Carl Friedrich In a later letter to his Collegium pro FGauss received his early education at fessor E.A.W. Zirmermann, Gauss the classically oriented Collegium said that he was p,articularly attracted Carolineum in Brunswick-WolfenbUttel. to the philology lettures of Heyne and The curriculum consisted of ancient and wished to concen rate on the subject. modern languages, classical sciences, Initially, he thoug t Kastner was a dull aesthetics, poetry, music, and art. old man, but, "1 �ave since rea lized I On Oct. 11, 1795, he left for was in error and ,that he is quite an Gottingen, where he was attracted to extraordinary man." \ . the study of philology, under Christian In May 1796, Gauss told ZImmer- Gottlob Heyne. The philology seminar mann in a letter thkt he had decided to at Gottingen had been founded by devote himself to fathematics after dis Johann Matthias Gessner, a fo rmer col covering the constructibility of the 17- The Granger Collection league of J.5. Bach at the St. Thomas gon. When he firs showed his discov Gauss's professor of mathematics at f Gottingen, Abraham Gotthelf Kastner, . School in Leipzig. Heyne was Gessner's ery to Kastner, the teacher was not ar all ' successor. Also teaching at Gottingen impressed, and GaLss interpreted this as who was a Leibnizian and a fr iend of was Abraham Gotthelf Kastner, one of a hostility to somet ing new. Gauss per Benjamin Franklin. group of intellectuals dedicated to severed, and whEtn he discussed the reviving the thinking of the universal concept further, Kastner was astounded, Kastner's criticism concerning the dis genius Gottfried Leibniz (1 646-1 71 6), but responded tha� the discovery would covery's practical use, from the rest of whose reputation and memory had be of no use, and I hat he (Kastner) had Kastner's reaction. Gauss wrote been destroyed by the oligarchical fac already develope the basis for the dis Zimmermann that Kastner had told tion that placed George I of Hannover covery in his "Beginning Foundations of him that if he "were to be able to give on the British throne. Kastner's circle the Analysis of Finite Magnitudes." a more general treatment of the sub also hosted the American universal Gauss persisted further, obtaining ject, it would be of pleasing curiosity thinker, Benjamin Franklin, when he Kastner's agreement to review the and perhaps produce a brighter insight visited Germany. Kastner, . who came paper. into this area of mathematics." Gauss from Leipzig in 1750, was Gauss's After further c�1 ntemplatibn, Gauss told Zimmermann that he took mathematics professor at Gottingen. realized that h.k had to separate Kastner's judgment entirely to heart.
22 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY Among the most splendid developments Figure 2 contributed by modern DOUBLING THE SQUARE mathematicians, the PRODUCES theory of circular func THE GEOMETRIC MEAN tions without doubt As Plato demonstrated in the holds a most important Meno dialogue, a square of dou place. We shall have ble area may be constructed by occasion in a variety of building a new square on the contexts to refer to th is diagonal of the fi rst. But the side remarkable type of of the second square will be quantity, and there is incommensurable with the side no part of general of the fi rst. The Creeks called the mathematics that does diagonal the geometric mean not depend on it in between two such squares. some fashion .... I will Here, a sequence of doubled speak of the theory of squares is shown. trigonometric functions as related to arcs that are commensurable with the circumference, or of the theory of regular polygons ....The reader might be sur prised to find a discussion of this subject in the present work which deals with a discipline apparently so unre lated; but the treatment itself will make abundantly clear that there is an intimate connection between this subject and higher Arithmetic. D The principles of the theory which we are going to explain actually extend much farther than we will indicate. For they can be applied not only to circular functions but Figure 3 just as well to other transcendental functions .... DOUBLING THE CUBE The diagonal ofa cube does not produce a cube ofdo u The first principle of Greek geometry that Gauss reworked, ble the original volume. How to double the cube, is described by Plato in his dialogues the Meno, the known as the Delian problem, occupied the leading Th eaetetus, and the Timaeus. It concerns the generation of Creek mathematicians fo r some time. In the Timaeus incommensurable magnitudes as a consequence of a change dialogue, Plato reports the discovery of Hippocrates of in dimension. The reader can construct a geometrical repre Ch ios that there must be two means between the origi sentation of this by drawing a square, then drawing its diago nal and the doubled cube, and the lesser of these two nal, and then drawing a new square using the diagonal for its means will be the length needed to fo rm the edge of the side. As Plato demonstrated in the Meno, the second square doubled cube. will have twice the area of the first, but the side of the second We illustrate this here with the original cube of vol square will be incommensurable with the side of the first. (In ume 1, the lesser mean (cube root of 2), the greater Kepler's terms, the diagonal will be the third degree of mean (the square built on the cube root of 2), and the "knowability.") doubled cube. If you continue this drawing, you will produce a spiral sequence of squares whose sides are the diagonals of the pre vious squares, and whose areas are double the previous ed with the doubling of the square. In other words, a change squares. The Greeks called the diagonals the "geometric in dimensionality, produced a different species of incommen mean" between the two squares (Figure 2). surable. However, something new develops if you try to replicate In the Timaeus, Plato reports Hippocrates' discovery: th is process in three dimensions, as in the case of doubling a cube (Figure 3). The diagonal of the cube does not correspond But it is not possible that two things alone be joined to the side of a cube with double the volume. This is the without a th ird; for in between there must needs be famous problem the Del ian priests brought to Plato. some bond joining the two .... Now if the body of the Eratosthenes reports Plato's famous rebuke, that the gods had All had had to come into being as a plane surface, hav posed this problem to the Greeks, because they wanted to ing no depth, one mean would have sufficed to bind chide the Greeks into studying geometry in order to improve together both itself, and its fellow-terms; but now it is their thinking. Hippocrates of Chios had shown that the otherwise, for it behooved it to be solid in shape, and incommensurable associated with the doubling of the cube, what brings solids into harmony is never one mean, but was of a different species than the incommensurable associat- always two [Figure 3).
21st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 23 c i = -r-J .
A
-1 �------r------�
- i = --r-J
Figure 5 Figure 4 THE COMPLEX DOMAIN SPIRA MIRABILIS Gauss's concept of the complex domain was built on Johann Bernoulli called the logarithmic spiral spira the Platonic principles of magnitude and Bernoulli's spi mirabilis fo r all its miraculous properties. Among these ral. To divide a circle into fo ur parts in . the complex are that lines emanating from the center of the spiral at domain, we pick a point on the circumference fo r the equal angles from each other will cut the spiral into first vertex, and call it 7. Th e other three points will all
parts that are in geometric proportion. Thus, A:B = B:C be in geometric proportion to each other, and come
= CD. Also, a line extending from the center of the spi back around to 7. This is accomplished by multiplying ral is cut by the spiral arms in geometric proportion. each time by the square root of minus 7, a quantity des
Th us, a:b = b:c = c:d. ignated as i. Gauss accomplished his division of the circle, and then developed his concept of the complex plane by thinking of the circle as a special case of this responds to finding n-1 geometric means. Those divisions that spiral. can be accomplished by finding one mean between two oth ers, are constructible; and those requiring two or more means are not. Thus, the different divisions of the circle are actually By inversion, if two or more geometric means are required projections of action originating in manifolds of higher dimenc to double a magnitude, the doubling of that magnitude is an sionality, than the seemingly two dimensions of the circle. action that originates in a dimensionality greater than two. Again, like the shadows of Plato's Cave, or "Learned Gauss's insight rested on these Platonic principles, with a Ignorance," we can ascend to knowledge of those mani crucial extension supplied by Johann Bernoulli's discovery of folds, only from the anomalies embedded in their reflec the equi-angular spiral, which he called spira mirabilis tion. (miraculous spiral). Bernoulli showed that this spiral was an Gauss showed that these anoma.lies can bedi scovered, if exemplar of geometric growth. For example, a line extending we think of the circle, not in a Euclidean/Cartesian plane, from the center of the spiral outward, will be cut at ·different but in the complex domain. A simple example is, perhaps, intervals by each spiral arm. These intervals will be in the the easiest way to illustrate the point. To divide a circle into same proportion to one another, as the areas and diagonals of four parts, first think of the circle in the complex domain. Plato's squares. Similarly, lines emanating from the center of Pick a point on the circumference for the first vertex, and call the spiral at equal angles from each other, will cut the spiral it 1. To divide the circle into four parts we would mark off arms in geometric proportion. Thus, equal divisions of the three other points that are 90° from each other. Accord ing to spiral cut the spiral into parts that are in geometric proportion what we said above from Bernoulli and Plato, these points (Figure 4). are all in geometric proportion to each other. Expressed in Now, if we think of the circle as being a special case of the numbers, these points form a cycle of geometric means from spiral, then the division of the circle by lines (radii) emanating 1 to -1 . Using the letter i to denote the square root of -1 , that from the center at equal angles, cuts the circumference in arcs series is 1, i, -1 , -i. These fou r numbers produce a cycle, that are in geometric proportion. The intersections of these such that if you multiply each one by itself 4 times, you get lines with the circumference correspond to the vertices of an 1 (Figure 5). inscribed polygon. Thus, to divide the circle into n parts, cor- Gauss's insight was based on the following: Dividing the
24 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY circle into n parts requires finding n- 1 geometric means between 1 and 1. Kepler had already indicated this direc tion in the first book of the Harmonies of the Wo rld. There, Kepler showed that the construction of the pentagon depended on the construction of an isosceles triangle whose base angles are double the top angle. After · inscribing this triangle in a circle, the pentagon is constructed by bisecting the base angles, which form the diagonals of the pentagon. Each diagonal cuts the sides of the original triangle into two propor tional sections (Figure 6). Kepler then shows that the heptagon is constructed from an isosceles triangle (a) (b) whose base angles are three times the top angle. To construct the heptagon Figure 6 requires trisecting the base angles, or DIVISION OF CIRCLE INTO FIVE PARTS cutting the sides of the triangle into 3 To divide the circle into five equal parts, that is, to construct the pentagon, proportion? (Figure 7). Kepler concludes requires that we construct an isosceles triangle whose base angles are twice that to construct a polygon of n sides the apex angle (a). Such a procedure, which requires the division of a line in · requires being able to cut a line into a proportion known as mean and extreme (the golden section), was. known to (n-1 )/2 proportions. Gauss discovered the Greeks. the general principle by which this is Th is done, we inscribe the triangle in a circle (b). Kepler noted that each of done. the base angles will then subtend a circular arc equal to two sides of the penta Gauss showed that these combina gon, while the apex angle subtends an arc of half th at length. Now, we can tions of cycles correspond to Plato's bisect the base angles, producing the fi ve divisions of the circle. principle of means. Those divisions that can be resolved completely into cycles of two, correspond to inserting one geo metric mean between two others, as in doubling of the square, and are there fore constructible. Those prime number divisions that cannot be so resolved, correspond to inserting two or more geometric means, and, like the dou bling of the cube, are not constructible. Thus, it is possible to construct figures of 2, 3, 5, 17, 257, 65,537 and any other prime number divisions of the n form 22 + 1. All other divisions cannot be constructed because they are reflec tions of actions of a dimensionality higher than two. It is the thinking underlying the above discovery of Gauss, that is at the heart of (a) (b) Gauss's and Riemann's development of the theory of functions. Figure 7 THE IMPOSSIBLE HEPTAGON To divide the circle into seven equal parts, that is, to construct the heptagon, Bruce Director is a leading collabora would require the construction of an isosceles triangle whose base angles are tor of Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. and a three times the apex angle (a). But this is provably unconstructible. If such a director of the Constitutional Defense triangle were constructed, it would be necessary to trisect its base angles (b) Fund. A version of this article appeared in order to divide the circle into seven equal arcs. Th us Kepler showed that in the weekly New Federalist as Parts 11 the impossibility of constructing the heptagon is related to the impossibility of and 12 of a series "Riemann fo r Anti trisecting an angle. Dummies. "
21st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 25 PAID POLITICAL
LARoUCHE _1�fJ'X.tii@Ij!V � www.larouchein2004.com In the Midst of This National Crisis Read and circulate these Crisis Bulletins put out by Lyndon LaRouche's Presidential campaign committee LaRouche Te l/s Americans Ho w To * Depression The Hour and a That Gripped * Crisis Bulletin 1. the World Conversations with * Crisis Bulletin 2. LaRouche in a Time of Crisis LaRouche Atltlrjess.�s the Crisis of * Crisis Bulletin 35 the Na tions of South America Our Republic's Mission * Crisis Bulletin 4. LaRouche's ..a'Elrn"'� of * Crisis Bulletin 5. Civilizations': The Road to Peace
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per pamphlet $1 CALL toll free: 1 -800-929-7566 Paid for by LaRouche in 2004. WRITE: LaRouche in 2004 P. O. Box 730 Le burg, VA 201 78 Contributions are not tax-deductible. The fo under of modern astronomy, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630).
Kepler Ex_ ose Aristotle's Sa Of Astronomy
EIRNS/Dean Andromidas
EDITOR'S NOTE It seems clear, however, that Kepler In a little known document, the fo under never completed the project. The work of modern astronomy, Johannes Kep ler was not published in Kepler's lifetime, (7571-1630), refuted Aristotle 's geocentric and only one manuscript is known. (It is cosmology, point by point. In that refuta in the extensive collection of Kepler tion, Kepler charged th at Aristotle (384- manuscripts in the Pulkovo Observatory 322 B.C.), with his immense prestige, held Library, at the University of St. Peters science back fo r two millennia by reject burg, Russia.) Its editor, Rossmann, con ing-with a specious argument-the idea siders the manuscript a first, or-at of the Pythagoreans that the Earth moves most-a second dra ft. It is in Kepler's in an orbit. Kepler's repeated reference to own hand. Rossmann notes its hasty the concept of universal gravitation hand and its many insertions, deletions, (p oints 12-14, 28-33), is to be noted, revisions, and writing errors. especially by those who still believe the When did Kepler produce it? Because Isaac Newton myth. An incomplete ver of its references to Galileo's discoveries sion of this document was published in a in points 4 and 5, we can be sure it was 19th Century edition of Kepler's astro completed after 1611. The choice of lan nomical works, and it fin ally appeared in guage in the reference to Aristarchus as a scholarly edition by Fritz Rossmann in being indicted before "the Athenian hea 1948. Th e document consists of Kepler's then pope and priesthood, " in point 4, tra nslation into German of Chapters 13 suggests that it was not completed before and 74 of Aristotle's On the Heavens, and the condemnation of the Copernican sys his refutation in 35 points, also in tem by the Ca tholic Church in 1616. German, keyed to passages in Aristotle's Here, we present George Gregory's first text. Kepler's choice of German may have English translation of Kepler's refutation, reflected a desire to take the issue of cos alongside Aristotle's text. In an Afterword mology to a socially broader audience (p . 39), Gregory discusses what Aristotle than the churchmen and scholars who did and did not know, the modern attempt A Greek statue of Aristotle (3 84-322 read Latin and often Greek, and suffered to discredit Kepler's argument against B.C.) now in a Vienna museum. from a strong bias in fa vor of Aristotle. Aristotle, and related issues.
21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 27 Chapter 13 (293a1 3 ff.) t remains to speak of the Earth, of its position, of the question of whether it is at rest or in motion, and of its shape. Aristotle on I I. As to its position, there is some diffe rence of opinion. Most people-all, in fact, who regard the whole heaven as finite-say it lies at the center.[l] But the Italian philosophers known as Pythagoreans, take the contrary view. At the center, The Position they say, is fire, and the Earth is one of the wandering stars,[2] creating day and night[3] by its circular motion about the cen ter. They further construct another Earth in opposition to ours, to which they give the name counter-Earth.[4] In all this, they And Motion are not seeking fo r theories and causes to account fo r observed facts, but rather fo rcing their observations and trying to accom modate them to certain theories and opinions of their own. But there are many others who would agree, that it is wrong to give Of the Earth the Earth the central position, looking for confirmation rather to theory than to the facts of observation. Their view is, that the most precious place befits the most precious thing: but fire, they say, is more precious than Earth, and the limit than the
revolves around the Sun, also around the two orbits of Mercury and Venus, further distant in a larger orbit, and com pletes its revolution in one year. Upon this follows the fo urth, Johannes namely Mars, which revolves in a larger orbit surrounding that which the Earth traverses, in two years less one and one half months. Still more distant revolves Jupiter, the fifth, and completes its revolution in 12 years. The most distant and Kepler's sixth in number, which also has the largest orbit, is Saturn, which completes its revolution in 30 years. All of this was taught 2,000 years ago, since Aristotle was .born that long ago; and Archimedes, in the book .which he wrote on the Objections Sand of the Sea, how many grains there are, reports on a learned astronomer, Aristarchus, a countryman of Pythagoras, also born upon the island of Samos, and who lived some hun dred years after Aristotle, and 150 years before Archimedes, To Aristotle 1,900 years before us, that he also taught the same things: namely that high heaven with the fixed or attached stars, * together with the Sun, are unmoved, but the Earth is led around the Sun in an orbit, which runs between the orbits of Were the heaven infinite, the center of it could nowhere be the other planets, and so on. That is described in .sufficient 1 shown. clarity, for the orbit in which the Earth revolves, has within it those of Ve nus, Mercury and the Sun, and beyond it, those of They spoke in a veiled way, by fire they understood the Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and thus lies among the orbits and 2 Sun, and I agree with them, thClt the Sun is in the center orbiting planets. of the world, and never moves away from this place, and that, As now this teaching is already more than 2,000 years old, on the other hand, the Earth moves once in one year around we may properly be surprised, that Copernicus, one hundred the Sun, that is, it revolves around the center position of the years ago, once again developed the very same teaching him world, as otherwise also five other wandering stars [that is, self, because he knew noth ing of how the ancients thought. the planets], with this order: Mercury which is the closest to the Sun, and the fastest, completes its orbit in one quarter year. Ve nus is the other, revolves around the Sun and around • The fixed stars-which we call simply stars-are to be distinguished from the wandering stars or planets. The fixed sta.rs do not change their places the orbit of Mercury in two-thirds of one year, or in eight and relative to one another, while the wandering stars move among them on the one half months. Now fo llows the Earth as the third, which sky [ed.].
28 Winter 2001 -2002 21 st CENTURY intermediate, and the circumference and ARISTOTLE'S the center are limits. Reasoning on this GEOCENTRIC basis, they take the view, that it is not Earth UNIVERSE that I ies at the center of the sphere, but The Earth was the rather fire. The Pythagoreans have a further center of Aristotle's reason. They hold, that the most important uni�erse, with the part of the world, which is the center, Moon, the planets, should be most strictly guarded, and name the Sun, and the it, or rather the firerS] which occupies that fixed stars rotating in place, the "Guard-house of Zeus," as if the concentric circles. word "center" were quite unequivocal, and The outermost the center of the mathematical figure were sphere in Aristotle's always the same with that of the thing or system was that of the natural center. But it is better to con the Prime Mover, ceive of the case of the whole heaven as who caused a analogous to that of animals, in which the rotation in his center of the animal and that of the body sphere, which, in are diffe rent. For th is reason; they have no turn, caused the need to be so disturbed about the world, or other spheres to to call in a guard for its center: rather let rotate. them look for the center in the other sense,
Since, had he not discovered out of his own mind how the orbit of the Earth is constituted; we would not have discovered how the ancients thought, even if we had read their words.
This is fa lse, Aristotle did not understand the learned 3 teaching of the Italians. For, in addition to revolving around the Sun, the Earth also itself revolves, and by this rev olution it makes day and night. For when a place on Earth revolves away from the light of the Sun, it is night at that place. But it revolves 365 times before it revolves once around the Sun. If one mixes the two movements together, it resem bles a bowl ing ball-it rolls and revolves on the ground, and also moves its way forward toward the pins. Similarly, by moving around the Sun, the Earth does not create day and night, but by means of both, by its orbit and its well-ordered revolution, it miJkes Summer and Winter.
Again Aristotle has forgotten the Pythagorean way and 4 custom, that they kept this teaching secret, and spoke of it veiled, so that no one would understand it, except those who belonged to them. By the word counter-Earth, they meant the Moon, for it is also another Earth, but one which is contrary to our own, and one which revolves around ours. And this is not only because one sees in the Moon val leys and mountains, water and land, as we have on our Earth. But it is also especially because the Moon has no ·pri mary planets for itself which would make their own orbit around their sun, but it avails itself of this orbit, in which the Earth is driven, and it also moves in this orbit, and is johannes Kepler was one of the most powerful, thus also led around the Sun. But, unlike the Earth, as if it productive, and playful minds of all time. His works are were to fo llow or precede in the footsteps of the �arth, how suffused with his love of Cod lmd passion fo r the life of ever, it revolves alone each month twice through the path of · the mind in the pursuit of truth. This portrait is by his the Earth, once in front, once behind it, and furthermore contemporary, jacob van der Heyden. makes its orbit around the Earth as if it stood still, no differ-
21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 29 and tell us what it is like and where nature has set it.[6] That on their view, that we do not dwell at the center, than on the center will be something primary and precious; but to the mere common view, that the Earth is in the middle. Even as it is, position we should give the last place rather than the first. For there is nothing in the observations to suggest that we are the middle is what is defined, and what defines it is the limit, removed from the center by half the diameter of the Earth.[9] and that which contains or limits is more precious than that Others, again, say that the Earth, which lies at the center, is which is limited,[7] seeing that the latter is the matter and the "rolled", and thus in motion, about the axis of the whole heav former the essence of the system. en. So it stands written in the Timaeus.* II. As to the position of the Earth, then, this is the view which III. There are similar disputes about the shape of the Earth. some advance, and the views advanced concerning its rest or Some think it spherical, others that it is flat and drum motion are similar. For here, too, there is no general agree shaped.[10] For evidence, they bring the fact that, as the Sun ment. All who deny, that the Earth lies at the center think, that rises and sets, the part concealed by the Earth shows a straight it revolves about the center, and not the Earth only, but, as we and not a curved edge, whereas if the Earth were spherical, the said before, the counter-Earth as well. Some of them even con line of section would have to be circular. In this they leave out . sider it possible, that there are several bodies so moving, of account the great distance of the Sun from the Earth and the which are invisible to us owing to the interposition of the great size of the circumference, which, seen from a distance Earth. This, they say, accounts for the fact, that eclipses of the on these apparently small circles, appears straight.[l1] Such Moon are more frequent than eclipses of the Sun: for in addi an appearance ought not to make them doubt the circular tion to the Earth, each of these moving bodies can obstruct it.[8] Indeed, as in any case the surface of the Earth is not actu • This remark of Aristotle's is typical of the caution which often accompanies ally a center, but distant from it a fu ll hemisphere, there is no his lies or· omissions: he did not write that what is written in the Timaeus is more difficulty, they think, in accounting for the observed facts the view of Plato [ed.].
ently than the Earth and the other five planets make their diverse other respects, as fo r example that they ate no beans, and orbits around the still-standing Sun. The Earth is as a rider that they came to diverse silly conclusions from the appearance, who makes his way forward, the Moon is as a snail or a bee, the form and the nature of beans; it is not peculiar, I say, that which buzzes around the heads of the rider and his steed, Aristotle rejected this as an old wives' tale: another witty fe llow, sometimes in front, sometimes behind, or, as a dog is wont as strong as a tree, a philosopher by the name of Cleanthes, who to do, moving to and fro. If, thus, the Moon is an Earthly chiefly cleared land and dug stumps, so that he could earn his planet, created to serve the Earth, Jupiter has four of these, bread with hard daily work and carrying water from the well, and Saturn two, as far as has been discovered with telescopes now and then was even able to study, this man, I say, treated the thus far. And this is the reason why the old Pythagoreans poor Aristarchus still worse, indicted him before the Athenian called the Moon the counter-Earth. heathen pope and priesthood, accused him of heresy, and But it is in nothing peculiar of Aristotle that he speaks of the demanded that he be punished by death because he supposedly Pythagoreans here so .derogatorily. They perhaps deserved it in displaced the goddess of idolatry, Vesta, from her altar.** For . Vesta was thought to be the goddess of the Earth, which is KEPLER V IRSUS ARISTOTLE her hearth, such as is built in Cardinal Nicholas� f Cusa wrote that the Earth the middle of every house, moved around the Su� in his Of Learned Ignorance, sacred and consecrated, and 7437-7440. Pope (Clement VII and Ca rdinal he who dishonors the hearth Nicholas Schonberg kave thought to Copernicus' has sinned against the god. work in the 7530s. Ye t the Catholic Counter And since now Hearth meant Reformation, imbue�1 with the spirit of Aristotle, caught up with heft·ocentrism and induced the l Church to condemn it in 7676. In 7679, Kepler's •• Here, Kepler, a Protestant, is likening the rulers of Athens to works were placed on the Index of Prohibited I the Roman Catholic pope and Books-itself a product of the Counter- priesthood for polemical effect, Reformation. calling to mind the Church's insistence on the Aristotelian The influential Ca rd/inaI I Robert Bellarmine of the cosmology. (Although Lutheran Roman Inquisition, skiown here, played a key role authorities generally concurred, in the condemnation. Bellarmine quoted the Bible they had less power.l Pro testants charged Catholics with to "p rove" that the sqn, not the Earth, moved: The idolatry, so Vesta becomes the Sun "rejoiceth as a sf'0ng man to run a ra ce. His goddess of the Athenian idol aters. Vesta was actually the going fo rth is fro m the end of the heaven, and his 1 ancient Roman goddess of the Cardinal Bellarmine circuit unto the ends if it" (Psalms 19:4-6). hearth. Her Greek equivalent was Hestia [ed.].
30 Winter 2001 -2002 21 st CENTURY shape of the Earth. But they have another argument. They say are endless and endless the ample aether-such is the vain that, because it is at rest, the Earth must necessarily have this tale told by many a tongue, poured from the mouths of those shape. For there are many different ways in which the move who have seen but little of the whole." Others say the Earth ment or rest of the Earth has been conceived. rests upon water. This, indeed, is the oldest theory which has The difficulty must have occurred to everyone. It would been preserved, and is attributed to Thales of Miletus. It was indeed be a complacent mind that felt no surprise that, while a supposed to stay still because it floated like wood and other little bit of Earth, let loose in mid-air, moves and will not stay similar substances, which are so constituted as to rest upon sti ll,[12] and the more there is of it, the faster it moves, the water, but not upon air. As if the same account had not to be whole Earth, free in mid-air, should show no movement at given of the water which carries the Earth itself! It is not the all.[13] Yet here is this grea� weight of Earth, and it is at rest. And nature of water, any more than of Earth, to stay in mid-air: it again, from beneath one of these moving fragments of Earth, must have something to rest upon. Again, as air is lighter than before it falls, take away the Earth, and it will continue its down water, so is water than Earth : how can they think, that the nat ward movement with nothing to stop it.[14] The difficulty then, urally lighter substance lies below the heavier? Again, if the has naturally passed into a commonplace of philosophy; and Earth as a whole is capable of floating upon water, that must one may well wonder, that the solutions offered are not seen to obviously be the case with any part of it. But observation involve greater absurdities than the problem itself. shows that this is not the case. Any piece of Earth goes to the By these considerations, some have been led to assert, that bottom, the quicker, the larger it is. These thinkers seem to the Earth below us is infin ite, saying with Xenophanes of push their inquiries some way into the problem, but not so far Colophon, that it has "pushed its roots to infin ity,"-in order to as they might. It is what we are all inclined to do, to direct our save the trouble of seekiAg for the cause. Hence the sharp inquiry not by the matter itself, but by the views of our oppo rebuke of Empedocles, in the words "if the deeps of the Earth nents: and even when interrogating oneself, one pushes the
Earth (or in old German Herthum) KEPLER'S HELIOCENTRIC and Aristarchus said, that the UNIVERSE Earth does not stand still as Kepler sought to find the principle the Hearth does, and that it behind the organization of the solar was also not the center system. In his Mysterium Cosmo of the universe, as the graphicum, published in 1596, he Hearth is at the center shows the distances between the of the house, he had planetary orbits by inscribing them thus displaced the in ordered Platonic solids. Th e out goddess from her ermost sphere represents the orbit Hearth, and thus of Saturn; inside it is a cube sepa committed blasphe rating the orbits of Saturn and my. On account of Jupiter; next is a tetrahedron, sepa this fear, and on rating the orbits ofjupiter andMar s; account of the reputa then a dodecahedron, icosahe tion of Aristotle, who dron, and octahedron separate the rejected this teaching orbit of Mars fr om those of Earth (although he did not yet fully Ve nus, and Mercury, respectively. understand it), this teaching was Th us, each of the Platonic solids is suppressed, and particularly used. At the center is the Sun. because it was difficult to understand, it was nearly forgotten over the time of 1,800 years; and finally the Sun; the Sun, however, shines upon and warms the Earth, there were no more Pythagorean philosophers, among whom makes it fu ll of life, indeed carries it around in the universe alone this teaching was to be fo�nd. In particular, this teaching with its rays of light, just as a river carries a boat along with was significantly altered after Pythagoras, for after the birth of it. For the Sun indeed stays in its position, but revolves, and Christ, the Platonics also took it up. But they did not rely upon we see every day, with and without a telescope, that the black the mere tradition of the ancients; rather, when they could not get spots in the Sun shift along the path which the Earth and all into their heads the grounds for a Pythagorean conception, they the Planets must run, and quicker than the quickest; thus it is simply left it out, which is presumably what happened with this obvious, that all planets fo llow the rays of light moving ahead point of the teaching about the movement of the Earth. (thus leaping forth out of the revolving Sun, and turning with it) but never reach its velocity, the farthest, Saturn, the least, For fire, understand the Sun, as above, and you will then the closest, Mercury, the most. Thus if one perceives a hollow 5 see sufficient reasons for this. The Sun is more beautiful disk, or instead only a circle drawn upon a surface, this is an than the Earth, the Earth is dark and cold, imparts nothing to image of the Holy Trinity, the Center signifies God the Father,
215t CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 31 inquiry only to the point at which one can no longer offer any is rather the size of the Earth than its flatness that causes it to opposition. Hence a good inquirer will be one wno is ready in remain at rest. For the reason is that the air is so closely con bringing forward the objections proper to the genus, and that fined, that it can not find a passage, and therefore stays where he will be when he has gained an understanding of all the dif it is, because of its great amount;[16] and this amount is great, ferences. because the body which isolates it, the Earth, is very large. Anaximines and Anaxagoras and Democritus give the flat This result, then, will fo llow, even if the Earth is spherical, so ness of the Earth as the cause of its staying still. Thus, they say, long as it retains its size. So far as their arguments go, the Earth it does not cut, but covers like a lid the air beneath it. This will still be at rest.[1 7] seems to be the way of flat-shaped bodies: for even the wind In general, our quarrel with those who speak of movement can scarcely move them because of their power of resistance. in this way, can not be confined to the parts: it concerns the The same immobility, they say, is produced by the flatness of whole universe. One must decide at the outset whether bod the surface which the Earth presents to the air which underlies ies have a natural movement or not, whether there is no natu it; while the air, not having room enough to change its place ral, but only constrained movement. Seeing, however, that we because it is underneath the Earth, stays there in a mass, like have already decided this matter to the best of our abil ity, we the water in the case of a water-clock. And they adduce an are entitled to treat our results as representing fact. Bodies, we amount of evidence to prove that air, when cut off and at rest, say, which have no natural movement, have no constrained can bear a considerable weight.[15] movement; and where there is no natural and no constrained Now, fi rst, if the shape of the Earth is not flat, its flatness can movement, there will be no movement at all. This is a con not be the cause of its immobility. But in their own account, it clusion, the necessity of which we have already decided, and
the outer circle God the Son, and what is between them, the That in a living body the heart is not exactly in the middle, space which is the same around and same divergence of the 6 that is the reason for its needing feet to move and other such circle from the Center, is God the Holy Spirit, for, as no man things, which the universe does not need: thus no reason can be may deny without denying the one Divine being, challenge conceived for the heart of the universe being anywhere else, than what you will about the circle, either that it has no middle in the center. But that is a problem for Aristotle, for he thinks that point or center, or that it has no circumference, or that there one can see with one's eyes, that the Earth is in the center, so that i's no equality of curvature of the circumference from the cen what the Pythagoreans say is the heart of the world (which can ter, thus have you foolishly contradicted the entire circle, and not be the Earth) must be outside of the center point. But he is all three features together. As we allow of an order among the mistaken, because he had not a sufficient account of optics. persons, that the Father is the First, the Son being the other What Aristotle says here, thus sounds as if he wanted to person, for that reason that the Father is the Beginning and explain to the Pythagoreans, that they should not attribute to both, Father and Son, send the Holy Spirit; thus is there also the element of fire, and thus also not to bodily form, that which order in the circle, the center is the first and the beginning, belongs to God, for God were the heart or centerpiece of the · the circle is what is created, and between the two of them, universe. Now, no one denies, that the Beginning is from God: one measures first the curvature, whether it is everywhere the But, as in a living being (this is also what Aristotle wants us to same; and when the point remains a point, then it is no cir conclude), in addition to the soul there is also a member that cle, but as soon as it spreads out and becomes a circle, then was consecrated to the soul from the beginning, and would the circle circumscribes a space between the center and the otherwise be usefu l for no work, namely the heart. Thus one circumference. That is why the Pythagoreans justifiably would not deny that the Sun also is such an instrument of God, thought, but in their own language, that the center is of and therefore He would have to accord it its fitting place. greater dignity than that space which is in between it and the circumference. Since also the Sun is the chief feature of the Aristotle uses the word center quite differently than the entire universe, as far as the spheres are concerned, indeed 7 Pythagoreans; they do not say that the Sun occupies the the heart, and the seat in which the life of the universe natu entire space circumscribed by the outer stel lar sphere, or even rally shines, and the light that is the decoration of the uni a large part of it; they mean the innermost point, which is tru ly verse, it deserves the central position, not for the reasons that the beginning of the circle, which does not require a bound the Pythagoreans thought, that it is protected, but because it ary, but creates and forms the circumference. And in compar sends out its light unchangeably and without any excess over ison with divine things, I do not take the space between the time for the others uniformly in the entire universe. And it center and the circumference as an image of the third person, stands to reason, that the Pythagoreans call this element of the but solely the uniformity of the divergence of such a circum universe, when it is at its central position, Jupiter's guard, for ference from the center. Let it be conceded to Aristotle, that in Jupiter had received the name of life, pseus, of beginning, the circle the circumference has greater dignity than the inner gea, and of light, phaethon, for the reason that they did not space; the reasons he cites, however, which are taken from mean fire as that which consumes externally, but the Sun as a bodily things, I do want to contest, for although there is more living creating fire, and the innermost or the beginning of all art in the fence than in the garden, more in the barrel than the natural forces. water, more in the cup than the juice it contains, yet the fence
32 Winter 2001 -2002 21 st CENTURY we have seen further, that rest also will be inconceivable, flatness (the air beneath being withdrawn) cease to prevent the since rest, like movement, is either natural or constrained. But Earth's motion, where will the Earth move to then? Its move if there is any natural movement, constraint will not be the ment to the center was constrained, and its rest at the center is sale principle of motion or of rest. If, then, it is by constraint, due to constraint; but there must be some motion which is nat that the Earth now keeps its place, the so-called "whirling" ural to it. Will this be upward motion or downward, or what? movement by which its parts came together at the center, was It must have some motion; and if upward and downward also constrained. (The form of causation supposed they all motion are alike to it, and the air above the Earth does not pre borrow from observations of liquids and of air, in which the vent upward movement, then no more could air below it pre larger and the heavier bodies always move to the center of the vent downward movement. For the same cause must neces wh irl. This is thought by all those who try to generate the sarily have the same effect on the same thing. heavens to explain why the Earth came together at the center. Further, against Empedocles, there is another point which They then seek a reason for its staying there; and some say, in might be made. When the elements were separated off by the manner explained, that the reason is its size and flatness, Hate, what caused the Earth to keep its place? Surely the others, with Empedocles, that the motion of the heavens, mov "whirl" can not have been then also the cause. It is absurd, ing about it at a higher speed, prevents movement of the Earth, too, not to perceive that, while the whirling movement may as the water in a cup, when the cup is given a circular motion, have been responsible for the original coming together of the though it is often underneath the bronze, is for this same rea parts of Earth at the center, the question remains, why now do son prevented from moving with the downward movement all heavy bodies move to the Earth? For the whirl surely does which is natural to it.) But suppose both the "whirl" and its not come near us. Why, again, does fire move upward? Not,
exists for the sake of the garden, the barrel for the sake of the would remain suspended or fall together. water, and the cup for the sake of the juice. If the air had only an open pin-hole, it would gradually This is true, the Earth together with the Moon revolve 1 5 shoot to the outside through this hole if it were pressed 8 around the Sun once each year. by such a weight. It can happen that, for example, a comet appears, one so large, and so close to the Moon, and so dark, that it casts shad Aristotle ridicules them because they did not think that ows upon the Moon, and even deprives it of the light of the 1 6 air is in open space all around the Earth, not permitting Sun. Even if this does not happen, there are reasons why lunar itself to be trapped beneath the Earth. eclipses are more numerous than the solar, so we do not require any special reasons to explain this. The conclusion here would be somewhat different, and I 1 7 base my argument on it. It is true, if a thing has no path Let it suffice to say, as large as one generally makes the outer of its own before it that it strives to travel, and when it has no 9 stellar sphere with respect to the diameter of the Earth, they inherent tendency to remain at rest in one place where it is make it just as large with respect to the entire circumference in put, it can still not be said that violence is done to it from the which the Earth revolves around the Sun. According to outside when it is transported and moved. But all corporeal Archimedes, Aristarchus made it larger still, as the center is to the things and the matter of all things in the whole world are of circumference, so is the entire circumference of the orbits of the this kind, or rather of this dead passivity, that they are dumb Earth with respect to the highest hollow sphere of the fixed stars. and incapable of moving themselves from one place to the other, and must therefore live off of another, or be pulled from They mean, that one sees the Sun over the surface of the the outside and pushed, as will be shown in greater detail 1 0 Earth, as if over a long round wave. below.
Indeed, if we stood far away from the Earth, and the Earth The Earth attracts such things as a magnet attracts iron. 11 seemed as large as, but not much larger than the Sun, this 1 8 Heavier air displaces the lighter fire, as water displaces section would have to be round, or if it were straight, the Earth bubbles which have to float above it, and this occurs accord would also have to be straight along the same latitude. ing to the weight, so that what Aristotle wants to argue does not follow, that the Earth would have to have a particular place The Earth attracts it the way a magnet attracts iron. toward which it strives. 1 2 I. distinguish light and heavy quite differently. Heavy is To the contrary, there is nothing else that the Earth 1 9 that which has much Earthly material of a certain densi 1 3 attracts to itself. ty, but light is that which has either none, or only little of this, for example, fire, heat, and so on. And this includes the fact Completely wrong; they would fall to the Earth, and on that both are close enough to the surface of the Earth, that they 1 4 the same side, but if the Earth were too far away, they are gripped by its magnetic attraction.
21st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 33 surely, because of the whirl. But if fire is naturally such as to rest at the center[20]: for the proof turns on no particular prop move in a certain direction, clearly the same way may be sup erty of Earth. But this does not follow. The observed facts about posed to hold of Earth.[1 8] Again, it can not be the whirl Earth are not only, that it remains at the center, but also, that it which determines the heavy and the light. Rather, that move moves to the center. The place to which any fragment of Earth ment caused the pre-existent heavy and light things to go to moves, must necessarily be the place to which the whole the middle and stay on· the surface respectively. Thus, before moves;[21] and in the place to which a thing naturally moves, ever the whirl began, heavy and light existed; and what can it will naturally rest. The reason theR is not in the fact that the have been the ground of their distinction, or the manner and Earth is indiffe rently related to every extreme point: for this direction of their natural movements? In the infin ite chaos, wou ld apply to any body, whereas movement to the center is there can have been neither above nor below, and it is by peculiar to Earth. Again,. it" is absurd to look for a reason why these that heavy and light are determined.[1 9] the Earth remains at the center and not for a reason why fire It is to these causes that most writers pay attention: but there remains at the extremity. If the extremity is the natural place of are some, Anaximander, for instance, among the ancients, fire, clearly Earth must also have a natural place.[22] But sup who say, that the Earth keeps its place because of its indiffer pose that the center is not its place, and that the reason of its ence. Motion upward and downward and sideways were. all, remaining there is this necessity of indifference-on the anal they thought, equally inappropriate to that which is set at the ogy ofthe hair which, it is said, however great the tension, will center and indifferently related to every extreme point; and to not break under it, if it· be evenly distributed, or of the man move in contrary directions at the same time was impossible; who, though exceedingly hungry and thirsty, and both equal so it must · needs remain still. This view is ingenious but not ly, yet be ing equidistant from food and drink, is therefore true. The argument would prove, that everything, whatever it bound to stay where he is-even so, It still remains to explain be, which is put at the center, must stay there. Fire, then, will why fire stays at the extremities. It is strange, too, to ask about
In my opinion, this is easy 20 to solve: I also claim in the COPERNICUS' same way, not only of the center, WORLD SYSTEM but of any position, that that Kepler praised Copernicus which is placed in it is a dead (7473- 7543) fo r ha ving body if it is not drawn by some freshly reconceived the thing outside of itself; it will not necessity of the heliocentric move of its own, just for the very system-for which the reason that it is dead, or is inert heliocentric ideas of the and has no tendency of its own. ancients, in themselves, are no substitute. Ye t The issue here is Aristotle's Copernicus'system was 2 1 own opinion: but he makes a largely a geometrical fundamental mistake when he rearrangement to make the thinks, that we see that the Earth is system work, not a truly tru Iy in the center and that it strives scientific investigation. For to that place. We do not see this at Copernicus and Cali/eo, fo r all. We do, indeed, see that the example, it was unthinkable Earth could not be far away from that planetary orbits might the center of the heaven on not be circular. Here, a account of the immeasurably great deta il fro m Copernicus'fi rst breadth of the heaven. But it does work, the Commentariolus not fo llow from that, that the Earth (Little Commentary), written is actually 'at the center. Here our before 7574 and circulated eyes see far too little to be able to in a fe w manuscript copies. distinguish how far away we truly ' . Source: Rossmann, ed., 1948 are from that place of the starry heaven. It is merely something we believe, each of us, that he is the center of the world, and the only difference between what we whole will also fa ll if it were in the same place. Indeed, if it were believe and what Aristotle believes is some 800 miles, at least. If certain that such a piece desired to be at a particular position, we can make such a mistake, he can make a much greater one, and on its own account, and not because the whole desired it. 1,200 times more. Moreover, the theory of Aristotle is also not But that is not demonstrated here. For we read ily see that a piece correct, when he says that where a piece falls, to that place the of Earth will fall upon the whole Earth. But whether it fa lls
34 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY things staying still but not about their motion-why, I mean, have moved in this manner away from the center, unless the one thing, if nothing stops it, moves up, and another thing to center had been its natural place.[25] the center.[23] Again, their statements are not true. It happens, We have now outlined the views held as to the shap' e, posi- indeed, to be the case, that a thing to which movement this tion, and rest or movement of the Earth. way and that is equally inappropriate, is obliged to remain at the center. But, so far as their argument goes, instead of Chapter 14 (296a24, ff.) remaining there, it will move, only not as a mass, ,but in frag et us first decide ,the question whether the Earth moves or is ments.[24] For the argument applies equally to fire. Fire, if set Lat rest. For, as we said, there are some who make it one of at the center, should stay there, like Earth, since it will be indif the stars, and others who, setting it at the center, suppose it to ferently related to every point on the extremity. Nevertheless it be "rolled" and in motion about the pole as axis. That both wi ll move, as, in fact, it always does move when nothing stops views are untenable will be clear if we take as our starting point it, away from the center to the extremity. It will not, however, the fact that the Earth's motion, whether the Earth be at the cen move in a mass to a single point on the circumference-the ter or away from it, must needs be a constrained motion. It can only pO,ssible result on the lines of the indiffe rence theory not be the movement of the Earth itself. If it were, any portion but rather each corresponding portion of fire to the correspon of it would have this movement; but in fact every part moves in ding parts of the extremity, each fourth part, for instance, to a a stra ight line to the center. Being, then, constrained and unnat fourth part of the circumference. For since no body is a point, ural, the movement could not be eternal. But the order of the it will have parts. The expansion, when the body increased the universe is eternal.[26] Again, everything that moves with the place occupied, would be .on the same principle as the con circular movement, except the first sphere, is observed to be traction, in which the place was diminished. Thus, for all the passed, and to move with more than one motion. The Earth, indifference theory shows to the' contrary, Earth would also then, also, whether it move about the center or is stationary at
because of the presence of the whole, or because of the position Beneath and in the middle of the whole world are to him in which the whole is placed, is still in doubt among the parties. 23 places where a thing may be, but not to me. A thing may But beyond this dispute, my view is correct that a weight will fall be beneath and in the middle of the Earth, but this has noth upon the ground beneath it on account of the ground and the ing to do with the center of the entire universe. Earth itself, and not on account of the position of the Earth. The center is only a point, but creatures are endowed What he intends to say is, that if one attributes to each 24 with body, which occupies a space. On that account 22 creature of nature that a particular position is appropriate alone, it is, of course, true that no thing can be at the center, to this creature, a position toward which it strives, and that it or at a point, but it distributes all parts of its body around such should remain at that position once it has reached it, then one a point, and all of its parts are outside the center, some closer, ought to be able to draw further conclusions in that way con some nearer than the others. Therefore the presumed reason cerning fire and Earth and all creatures. But if one give as the why the parts would remain still, does not exist. reason why the Earth remains in its position, that it is equally distant from all other positions, then this has nothing in partic For a scientist it is not at all sufficient that Aristotle ular ,to do with the Earth, because one might say that of any 25 argues here, with mere words, that the Earth remains at creature, since not every creature remains in such a position as the center of the universe for the sole reason, that its nature is equally distant from all others. As an example, according to strives toward that position; rather, I would also like to know Aristotle, fire has its own appropriate position, that is; at that why that is so, by what means the Earth or its nature could find ' point of the outer circumference from which there is a much and reach this place. And then, how can the Earth, or its greater distance to the opposing end of the circumference than nature, notice, know, and seek the center of the universe, to the next segment of the circumference adjacent to it. But which is only a point-and then move itself to that position? according to Aristotle, those scientists did not think of this, who The Earth is no hawk and the center of the .u niverse is no little also say the same thing about fire, but only argued this ridicu bird, it is also not a magnet which draws the Earth to itself, for lous excuse on account of the Earth remaining still. it has no body, and thus has no such force. The Earth being Now, I am as little satisfied with Aristotle, when he thinks it itself a very large body, ·it would draw all other bodily crea is sufficient to have asked why the Earth remains at the c�nter tures toward itself with a magnetic force, 'but some more than of the world, and to answer, that nature assigned this position others, water more than air, and air more than fire, from which to it. For it is entirely uncertain, and not conceded by me, that it wou ld fo llow that, since water, air and fire are fluid things, the Earth is in the middle of the world; and were it so, it would which avoid each other and distribute themselves everywhere, be so indeed on account of nature, but in the same way that that fire would let the air flow beneath it or be pulled above it, all things are on account of nature. But since one is not satis and air would allow itself to be driven over itself by water, fied to know that things are according to nature, but one asks which wants to be beneath. These are all things which the why they are that way and not some other way; and what Earth does, with its magnetic attraction. But a single point, means nature used to bring this 'about. which has no body, and is also no quantity, such a thing can
21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 35 it, must necessarily move with two motions. But if this were so, return to the point from which they started,[29] even if they there would have to be passings and turnings of the fixed stars. are thrown to an infinite distance. From these considerations, Yet no such thing is observed. The same stars always rise and then, it is clear, that the Earth does not move and does not lie set in the same parts of the Earth.[27] elsewhere than at the center. Further, the natural movement of the Earth, part and whole From what we have said, the explanation of the Earth's alike, is to the center of the whole-whence the fact that it is immobility is also apparent. If it is the nature of Earth, as obser now actually situated at the center-but it might be ques vation shows, to move from any point to the center, as of fire tioned, since both centers are the same, which center it is contrariwise to move from the center to the extremity, it is toward which portions of Earth and other heavy things move. impossible, that any portion of Earth should move away from Is this their goal because it is the center of the Earth, or the center except by constraint. For a single thing has a single because it is the center of the whole? The goal, surely, must be movement, and a simple thing a simple: contrary movements the center of the whole. For fire and other light things move to can not belong to the same thing, and movement away from the extremity of the area which contains the center. It happens, the center is the contrary of movement to it. If, then, no por however, that the center of the Earth and of the whole, is the tion of Earth can move away from the center, obviously still same. Thus they do move to the center of the Earth, but acci less can the Earth as a whole so move. For it is the nature of dentally, in virtue of the fact, that the Earth's center lies at the the whole to move to the point to which the part naturally center of the whole.[28] That the center of the Earth is the goal moves. Since, then, it would require a force greater than itself of their movement, is indicated by the fact, that heavy bodies to move it, it must needs stay at the center.[30] This view is fur moving towards the Earth do not move parallel but so as to ther supported by the contributions of mathematicians to make equal angles, and thus to a single center, that of the astronomy, since the observations made as the shapes change Earth. It is clear, then, that the Earth must be at the center and by which the order of the stars is determined, are fu lly immovable, not only for the reasons already given, but also accounted for on the hypothesis, that the Earth lies at the cen because heavy bodies forcibly thrown quite straight upward, ter. Of the position of the Earth, and of the manner of its rest
not do these things. For these reasons, and-were I of the have to have this nature in it, but rather as the moving power opinion that the Earth remains still-I would want to explain of the soul lies in each person's body, it does not follow, that this by saying that it remains in the center of the universe every piece of fingernail, ear, nose, finger, or hand must also so because it was put there from the beginning, but that it had no move as the whole body moves on account of the power of its living and moving power to be able to move itself from that soul; this is also the situation with the Earth as a whole and its place where it was put, and there would be nothing outside of moving force, and with the Earthly creatures, stone, wood, and it which could move it from this place, or to another place. the like. Now as concerns this movement, coming from the Against th is argument Aristotle has still said nothing. For I am inner force of the Earth, indeed it really struggles to move not of the opinion, that the Earth stands still, but rather am cer against its inertia and overcomes it, as was said above, so there tain of the view held by astronomy, that it not only itself is no reason to think it as an unnatural compulsion. The heart revolves, which revolutions take each one day, but also is also loath to move, as far as its flesh is concerned, but the liv changes its position and continuously moves in a large orbit ing force which is in it moves and makes this fleshy part beat among the other planets, and each of these revolutions takes incessantly, so that it pumps 100,000 times each day, and that one year: So in light of what was said before about its stand over 60 or 70 or 80 years, so that within a human being over ing sti ll, it further possesses something spiritual, like a soul in his lifespan, the heart beats 1,000 times more than the Earth a body, by means of which force it rotates, and there is also a revolves· in 6,000 years. When a boy spins a top, how many magnetic force necessary, by means of which it is moved in its times does it spin around before it falls over, since then the orbit, which force is rooted in· the very large body of the Sun, movement enters from the outside, and the moving force has to from which it flows out into the universe and takes hold of all fight mightily not alone with the inertia of the wood of the top, the planets, and, as it reaches each one, drives it around in its but also with its weight, which pulls the top down, against orbit, in which path the Sun itself, being its source, rotates. which the motion must maintain it upright, likewise with the unevenness of the rough ground upon which the point always These two views are held nowadays by all properly strikes and catches, and necessarily encounters friction. Why 26 grounded astronomers, except that it does not rotate in then would not the inner force of the Earth become so great, the middle of the universe, as the Sun does, but in its orbit or that it be the sole reason for this rotation, overcoming inertia so its own heaven, and moves forward, almost like a ball which completely, to a certain extent as a consequence of the veloci one pushes toward the bowling pins. To this I therefore answer, ty of the rotation, and why would not such a moving force the rotation is caused by an inner reason, but that the Earth also become implanted in the Earth, remaining in it both eternally moves forward has its reason outside, that is, from the magnet and unceasingly, and having effect as if the matter or the Earth ic force of the Sun. Although the rotation has an inner reason, were eternal and indestructible? If our body were indestructi this reason is not laid into the stuff or the material, such that ble, the soul is so constituted, that it would never leave the each part is of such material, so that every piece of Earth would body, for the soul is immortal.
36 Winter 2001 -2002 21 st CENTURY or movement, our discussion may here end.[31] sion of concurrent fragments from every side. For the greater Its shape must necessarily be spherical. For every portion of quantity, finding a lesser in front of it, must necessarily drive Earth has weight until it reaches the center, and the jostling of it on, both having an impulse whose goal is the center and the parts greater and smaller would bring about not a waved sur greater weight driving the lesser forward till this goal is face, but rather compression and convergence of part and reached. In this we have also the solution of a possible diffi part until the center is reached. The.process should be con culty. The Earth, it might be argued, is at the center and spher ceived by supposing the Earth to come into being in the way ical in shape; if, then, a weight many times that of the Earth that some of the natural philosophers describe. Only they were added to one hemisphere, the center of the Earth and of attribute the downward movement to constraint, and it is bet the whole will no longer be coincident. So that either the ter to keep to the truth and say, that the reason of this motion Earth will not stay still at the center, or if it does, it will be at is, that a thing which possesses weight, is naturally endowed rest without having its center at the place to which it is still its with a centripetal movement.[32] When the mixture, then, nature to move. Such is the difficulty.[33] A short considera was merely potential, the things that were separated off, tion will give us an easy answer, if we first give precision to moved similarly from every side toward the center. Whether our postulate, that any body endowed with weight, of what the parts which came together at the center were distributed ever size, moves towards the center. Clearly, it will not stop at the extremities evenly, or in some other way, makes no dif when its edge touches the center. The greater quantity must ference. If, on the one hand, there were a similar movement prevail until the body's center occupies the center. For that is from each quarter of. the extremity to the single center, it is the goal of its impulse. Now, it makes no difference whether obvious, that the resulting mass would be similar on every we apply this to a clod or common fragment of Earth or to the side. For if an equal amount is added on every side, the Earth as a whole. The fact indicated, does not depend upon extremity of the mass will be everywhere equidistant from its degrees of size, but applies universally to everything that has center, that is, the figure will be spherical. But neither will it the centripetal impulse. Therefore, Earth in motion, whether in any way affect the argument if there is not a similar acces- in a mass or in fragments, necessarily continues to move until
Answer: we astronomers prove, that the fixed stars, one in continuous, uninterrupted motion, mixed together. 2 7 way or the other in human conceptions, must always rise at one place on the Earth, whether the Earth stands still or Answer: Here everything depends upon whether the rotates on its axis and orbits around the Sun. And it seems, 28 stone falls toward the center of the universe or to the moreover, that Aristotle did not study his astronomy very well, middle of the Earth. I say, that it does not fall to the middle of as in our times Joseph Scaliger has also lost himself in it. First the universe, but to the center of the Earth. One sees the rea of all, it does not follow, that because this star is passed, it son for this: The Earth draws such heavy things toward it the must have two movements. For this only holds in reckoning by way a magnet draws the iron, and there is no evident reason the Sun, which would also be thought of as if it went from set why the Earth should be interested in a little point, which has ting to rising. Second, we astronomers demonstrate, that such neither body nor force. planets as are passed do not have two movements, but that the But what Aristotle cites as proof about fire, this is not tenable: orbit in which one does not, in our opinion, fo llow the other, Fire does not desire to move upward into the heavens; rather it is only an apparent movement, and it seems that way, because flees all closeness, for it must have room, and expands all moist the Earth moves around with us, whereas we think that the things; besides, it flees air, which is much heavier than it is. And stars, in addition to their own orbits, also move in the orbit of once it gets out where there is room, there it remains, and goes the Earth. Thus we have good reason to turn Aristotle's own no farther. But it is still undecided whether fire moves from the argument against him, since: if the Earth revolved, one would center points of all [particular] things in a straight line outward have to assume, that all stars which truly have only one orbit, toward the most distant point, or whether its flight is directed wou ld seem as if they had many orbits, and one of them toward the center of all things: If, on the one hand, it aims pre wou ld always remain behind. But this is exactly what hap cisely at the center [of all things], this happens only acciden pens, and therefore the Earth has one orbit. Third, it does not tally, for, on the other hand, its flight is then going straight for fo llow that, if all other planets are passed, that this must also the center point while the Earth is outside this center. be the case with the Earth as well. For if they had their own orbits from their rising toward their setting, they would always That all th ings fall in the direction below themselves from be running ahead, and would also leave the fixed stars behind 29 where they are thrown, is the result of the attractive force them. It follovys much less, that if the Earth had two orbits, the of the Earth, and this is not in the center, but in the entire body, stars would therefore set for awhile toward Hungary, then for and those parts of the Earth pull most strongly, which are closest awhile toward Spain; for when astronomers say that a star, or to the stone which is thrown: it thus pulls them in flight around even the Earth, has two orbits, they do not mean by that two with itself, for it pulls them toward itself by the shortest path. orbits such that one revolves around the other, the one for itself, and the other behind it; instead they mean two orbits, For a thing to stand still or remain where it is, it is not such that the one does not preclude the other, but both move 30 necessary, that the thing be so constituted as to move to
21st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 37 it occupies the center equally every way, the less being forced circle of no great size. For quite a small change of position to to equalize itself by the greater owing to the forward drive of south or north causes a manifest alteration of the horizon. the impulse. There is much change, I mean, in the stars which are overhead, If the Earth was generated, then, it must have been formed in and the stars seen are different, as one moves northward or this way, [34] and so clearly its generation was spherical; and if southward. Indeed, there are some stars seen in Egypt and in it is ungenerated and has remained so always, its character the neighborhood of Cyprus, which are not seen in the norther must be that which the initial generation, if it had occurred, ly regions; and stars, which in the north are never beyond the would have given it. But the spherical shape, necessitated by range of observation, in those regions rise and set. All of which this argument, follows also from the fact, that the motions of goes to show not only, that the Earth is circular in shape, but heavenly bodies always make equal angles, and are not paral also that it is a sphere of no great size: for otherwise the effect lel. This would be the natural form of movement towards what of so slight a change of place would not be so quickly appar is naturally spherical. And it is right to call anything by a name ent. Hence one should not be too sure of the incredibility of the denoting what nature intends it to be, and which belongs to it, view of those who conceive, that there is continuity between rather than that which it is by constraint and contrary to nature. the parts about the pillars of Hercules, and the parts about The evidence of the senses further corroborates this. How else India, and that in this way the ocean is one. As further evidence would eclipses of the Moon show segments shaped as we see in favor of this, they quote the case of elephants, a species them? As it is, the shapes which the Moon itself each month occurring in each of these extreme regions, suggesting that the shows are of every kind-straight, gibbous, and concave-but common characteristic of these extremes is explained by their in eclipses the outline is always curved: and, since it is the continuity. Also, those mathematicians who try to calculate the interposition of the Earth that makes the eclipse, the form of this size of the Earth's circumference, arrive at the figure 400,000 line will be caused by the form of the Earth's surface, which is stades.[35] This indicates not only that the Earth's mass is therefore spherical. Again, our observations of the stars make it spherical in shape, but also that as compared with the stars, it evident, not only that the Earth is circular, but also that it is a is not of great size.
the place where it stands still; it is sufficient that it is not fit to and it does this again and again until it becomes a sphere. move by itself; if a thing exists, and also has nothing to move Were the Earth a soft fluid when it was young, it would have it, it will remain in the place where it is put. And the Earth taken on a round shape all of its own. But had it been created would have remained where it was put, unless there were hard, its Constructor would have had to cut off its edges all something which moves it. around, but if He had wanted it to be round from the start, He would have used water, and would not have let it be dry and This does not fo llow: It is possible to explain the first part fu ll of edges and without water. So He would rather have had 31 of astronomy, concerning day and night, summer and it round from the start. winter, the rising and setting of the stars, by such a heaven in which the Earth is at the center, and thus at the center of the I deal with the question with the example of two universe. It is possible to explain all of this and sti ll more, 33 unequal magnets: Let them be put into two small boats however, if the Earth revolves outside the center of the uni and let them swim around in a large vessel. They will move verse, and furthermore, one can not explain the second part of towards each other, the stronger moving less, the weaker astronomy, concerning the particular orbits of the planets, as more. But if one puts them together from the start, neither of well and as perfectly, if the assumption is made, that the Earth them will push the other from its position. We can speak thus stands sti ll, instead of assuming, that it makes its yearly revo of two Earths, because each of them in itself (beyond its mov lution around the Sun, but, thirdly, the reason why it is so easy ing power or soul) is a dead heap, which can not move itself, for people to understand the first part of astronomy if the Earth but alone only has the attraction of magnetic force. If one then is assumed to stand still, is that our face is on the surface of the places two Earths next to each other, neither would move from Earth. Anyone must concede that, if we were on the Moon, we the position in which it was put. The reason is, that they do not would just as soon believe, that the Moon stands still, and we seek the place, as Aristotle would have it, but only the [other] would then develop astronomy in another way. body. It would indeed happen that everyth ing free to move on the smaller one, would fall upon the larger one, and thus the Aristotle claims to prove that the Earth is round,. because smaller one would surely be denuded on one side. 32 he assumes it is at the center of the universe, so that all heavy things have fallen toward it. But I can make much bet Notice that Aristotle is so strongly convinced, that there ter use of his own argument if the Earth is not at the center of 34 was a beginning to the world, that he then adds to the the universe, and if heavy materials did not fall toward it. I do [idea of the possible] eternity of the world, that it is still formed that in the following way: weight is nothing but the magnetic as if it had a beginning. Thus the one that provides form is attraction of the Earth. Now, assume that the Earth is a soft, more noble than another that does not have its form in itself. fl uid heap; it would shrink together into a sphere, just as water droplets and mercury become spherical. For the more mass That would be 10,000 miles, counting 40 stadia for one there is, it pulls the lesser toward it, which is further distant, 35 mile; that is surely about one-half too large.
38 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY AFTERWORD The Context of Kepler's Attack on Aristotle's Lie
by George Gregory
hen Aristarchus of Samos-Samos where Pythagoras was born-publicly propound Wed and demonstrated that our planetary sys tem is heliocentric, that the planets revolve around the Sun, a fo llower of Aristotle, Kleanthes, denounced him before the rei igious court of Athens for committing blasphemy against the goddess Gaia, by "shifting her hearth" from its proper center. Johannes Kepler, in his refutation of Chapters 13 and 14 of Aristotle's Peri Ouranou, or On the Heavens-generally known under its Latin title Oe Caelo-points out that what Aristarchus proclaimed was known to the Pythagoreans much earlier, but that under the politi cal-religious thr eat of the cult of Gaia, the Pythagoreans fe lt compelled to use a veiled language to describe their teaching. From Aristarchus onward, however, what the Pythagoreans said in veiled form, was perfectly clear. Kepler insisted that Aristotle was to be held person ally responsible for the fact that it was not until Copernicus, that the ancient Pythagorean knowledge could once again be understood. Kepler might have added, however, that Plato also knew what the Pythagoreans knew, but he also wrote in a manner usually thought to be veiled. Kepler's detailed refutation of the sections of Peri Ouranou that he chose to translate, is sufficiently clear and entertaining to need hardly any commentary. The context, however, in which Kepler accused Aristotle of having sabotaged science for some 2,000 years, down to his own time, is worth a remark or two, particularly since it is on that issue thatscholar s have attempted to blunt Kepler's authority. As the reader will notice, in point 4 of his refuta tion, Kepler claims that it was a combination of the fear of the Cult of Mother Earth (Gaia) and the repu tation of Aristotle, which served to obfuscate ancient The Vatican Museum Pythagorean knowledge for so long. In making this po int, which is objectively-historically accurate, The centuries of conflict, between underlying Aristotelian and Kepler, too, seems to have spoken "in a veiled way." Platonic principles of knowledge, is recognized in The School of He might as easily have said, that the "reputation" of Athens, by Raphael Sanzio, in which Aristotle and Plato are central, Aristotle served the political-cult authority of the Cult as seen in this deta il. Kepler was firmly on the side of Plato. Th is of Gaia, and, indeed, that the "reputation" of mural, painted in 1510-1511, is one of several by Raphael in the Aristotle itself was fe ared. Aristotle's reputation was Stanza della Segnatura in the Va tican.
21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 39 authoritative in Kepler's day, and there were political and popular view, which attributes mindless movement to divini religious reasons for the denunciation of Aristarchus. It was ty, and so the Cult of Gaia, which insists that the center, that an act of considerable courage to say so. is, the standpoint from which to discover the movements of Kepler wrote further in a veiled way. In a parenthetical the planets, is the Earth, is itself "blasphemy." It stands to rea remark, he graciously conceded that Aristotle might have son, likewise, that the city cannot expect youth to be reason been ignorant. Another possibility is that Aristotle was not able or civilized if they are taught that the gods move around ignorant, but chose not to write what his knowledge actual the heavens helter-skelter. ly was. But was this combination of Aristotle's reputation and The Athenian Stranger does not say that to his partners in the interests of the Cult of Gaia merely a magical coinci the discussion. He only implies the political accusation, dence of history? If it was not a coincidence, then either particularly with his reticence to speak about it at all. The Aristotle's possible ignorance was used and provided with common view was that the "philosophers of nature" under the status of political-cult authority by the Cult of Gaia, or mine the laws of the city and their sacred, divine basis, and Aristotle was not ignorant at all, and he knew that he was so Socrates (according to Plato's Apology) claimed at his conceding the authority of a political cult when he wrote trial that his accusers had launched the accusations against Peri Ouranou. On that point, Aristotle may be fruitfu lly com him as if he were a "philosopher of nature," which he said pared with Plato. he was not. It is a most peculiar feature of Peri Ouranou that Aristotle The reader will notice that point 2 of Kepler's objections to nowhere attempts to explain the orbits of what the Greeks Aristotle deals with the relative speeds of the several planets. called the "wandering stars," that is, the planets (planetos = In Plato's Laws, the Stranger is not as explicit about the spe wandering). Such a gaping hole in a work on astronomy is cific planets. But: in order to be able to say that the slower all the more astonishing, since the Athenian Stranger in planets do not, in reality, move faster than and surpass the Plato's dialogue, Th e Laws,' does speak about "one and quicker ones, Plato's character, the Stranger, had to have eternal circular paths" of the planets (822a6-7, mian aei known in principle exactly what Kepler says about the spe kukl6i diexerchetat). cific planets. Aristotle must have known The Laws, and he certainly knew Not only did Plato write in a veiled way: he let his corresponding, relevant passages in The Republic. So why Stranger speak to his dialogue partners likewise in a veiled does Aristotle say nothing at all about the movement of the way. The Stranger does not tell his partners in the dialogue planets? all that he knows, nor does he provide them any proof of The Athenian Stranger in Th e Laws (821 a ff.) explains why what he does say. But that does not mean that the careful lis Aristotle says nothing on this issue. He also hesitates (dramat tener or reader needs to doubt whether the Stranger proves ically) to speak about it, because it is a religious issue, and also that he knows as much as Kepler knew. If he did not know a political issue. "What I am trying to say, I know, is startl ing, it, he could not have said what he did say. The proof is suf and might be thought unbecoming in a man of our years, but ficient. the plain truth is that a man who knows of a study which he Aristotle not only left out any mention of the relative speeds believes exalted, true, beneficial to the community, and per of the planets; he likewise claimed (see the opening of Chapter fectly acceptable to the god, simply cannot refrain from call 13 in the translation of Peri Ouranou above) that the ing attention to it." The question is not only what is true about Pythagoreans, by placing "fire" (which Kepler interpreted to the planets, but also what the god likes to hear about such mean the Sun) at the center and letting the Earth and other things, and whether it is useful for the city that the truth be said planets move around that center, were merely theorizing and also taught to the youth. against "observed facts," as if the Pythagoreans had had no From the vantage point of the surface of the Earth, one reason to doubt that the testimony of "observed facts" was rea looks up into the night sky and observes the planets moving sonable. every which way; as the Stranger's partner in discourse, As one scholar recently put it, "Virtually everyone knows Clinias, affirms (821c1). Not only do they manifest apparent that Aristotle sometimes lies."3 We do not know whether ly chaotic movements when viewed from the surface of the Aristotle lied in his representation of the teaching of the Earth (movements which the later Ptolemaic epicycles Pythagoreans, which is to say we do not know whether he attempted to resolve in good Aristotelian fashion, maintaining knew that the Pythagoreans had good reasons to doubt the the Earth at the center), but, as the Athenian Stranger also testimony of "observed facts," and Pythagorean sources are points out (822b), the slower planet even seems to be the either nonexistent, second- or third-hand, or very thin. faster one.2 To day, we would say that Aristotle was a scientific empiri According to the popular Greek view, the planets were cist, and it was that empiricism of his which became his divinities. The Athenian Stranger has a more important assault torically authoritative and "traditional" for science, on the Cult of Gaia in mind than challenging that belief, although we still cannot decide whether Aristotle himself which we today think is just silliness. To attribute to these knew better. "divinities" the sorts of movements which we can observe Aristotle could have invented some Ptolemaic epicycles to from the surface of the Earth, says the Stranger, is "blasphe infuse some order into the "mindless motion of divinities," but mous" and cannot be pleasing to the gods at all: the planets the epicycles could never have solved the problem of the rel really move in regular circular orbits, and the slower ones do ative velocities of the planets, as the Athenian Stranger in not run past the faster ones. The "blasphemy" consists in the Plato's dialogue demands. And epicycles are not regular cir-
40 Winter 2001 -2002 21 st CENTURY cular orbits. astronomy which relies only on the observation of visible Aristotle did nothing by way of acknowledging or "observed facts," will fa il to determine "those movements attempting to solve the problem posed by the Athenian in which the really fast and the really slow ... are moved Stranger in the Laws dialogue. In his work devoted to astron with respect to one another and in their turn move what is omy, he neglected-or refused-to discuss the motion of the contained in them."s planets, except for one lie in Chapter 14, 297a5, " ...the These and other such remarks have been understood tradi observations made, as the shapes change by which the tionally to mean that physical reality, for Plato, does not per order of the stars is determined, are fully accounted for on fectly correspond to a mathematical ideal. So the tradition the hypothesis that the Earth lies at the center." Were the places Aristotle on the side of empiricist sobriety and Plato on "observed facts" indeed fu lly accounted for by the geocen the side of inebriated idealism. The traditional reading, how- tric hypothesis, the Stranger in Plato's Laws could never have posed the paradox of the apparent and real speed AUS DEM ANDERN BUCH ARISTOTELIS VON DER OBEREN WELT of the motions of the planets DAS DREYZEHEND CAPITEL as he did, and Aristotle had WAS DIE ALTE GEHALTEN YOM ORT DES ERDBODENS; OB ER STILLSTEHE ODER to have known. that. NIT. YND WAS ER FOR EIN FORM HABE Kepler answers this in XIII. Noch ist yherig, das jch auch yom point 31 of his critique: the Erdhoden schriehe wo derselhig 8ey, vnd oh orbits of the planets can not er vnder die stillstehende oder vnder die be accounted for from the vmhschwehende geschilpffe zu' zehlen, auch standpoint of the Earth as the youJ,dvWY, xoct 7te:pt TOU O')(�fLOCTO� von seiner form . center of the planetary sys Was anlanget den Ortt des Erdhodens seind tem, although day and night, die gelehrte nit alle einerlay mainnng d'an and the seasons, can. obwol die maiste sagen, Er sey mitten in ' In this specific case, der Welt, jch maine die, so da den Himmel Aristotle knew that he lied. endlich vnd heschlossen fii rgehen: so kehrens ,1 ILEO'OU xe:tO'll-OCt Aey6VTCilY, 50'Ot TOY He also knew the program for aher die in lealia, so man die Pythagoricos astronomy, outlined by gAOY o?ipOCVOY 7tE:7te:POCO'fL&VOV dyoc[ nennet, gerad vmh : dan Mitten in der Welt sagen sie, sey das fe iir, die Erd aber sey 2 Socrates in Book VII of the !pocO'tV, ev(XVT[Cil� ot 7te:pt -rijv 'IToc- einer auB den vmhschwebenden Sternen, vnd Plato's Republic.4 A[OCV, XocAoufL&Vot 81: IIull-ocy6pe:�ot werde vmh das Mittele ort der Welt in einem In the Republic, Socrates Krais herumb gefiihrt, vnd also mache sie set out the program (527d- Tag vnd nacht. Yher das bauen sie noch ein 3 530d) that astronomy must andere Erde auff, vnd setzen sie diser vn8erer measure the invisible pat bekanten Erden entgegen, geben jr auch den terns of motion of the heav Namen, Ant-Erd. Befleissen sich also nit jre 4 enly bodies. When Glaucon lehren nach dem offenharen Augenschain zu responded in astonishment, stellen, oder desselhigen Augenschainsgriind that this is a thing far greater TOCU'Ifl XOCTOCO'Xe:uOC�ouO't y1jv, �v lichen Vrsachen nachzudenckhen : sondern than anything yet attempted &vrE)(ll-ovoc IIvOfLOC XocAOUO'W, o?i zum Widerspil thnnn sie, jre alte einhildnngen in astronomy, Socrates re vnd empfangne Lehren zu bestiittigen, den plied that it must be done "if offenharen augenschain beim haar herzue xoct Ta� OCtT[OC� �'l)TOUVT�, 21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 41 ever, will necessarily fa il to make sense of the specification of political manipulation of traditional belief. In his discussion astronomy as the study of solid geometry in motion, and it will with the Cretan and Spartan, the Athenian shows that we leave aside entirely the summary remark (530b6 f.) that "By need not fear ignorance if we can obtain agreement that the use of problems, as in geometry, we shall also pursue divinity is not irrational. astronomy."6 So, clearly, Aristotle was not ignorant, and Johannes Kepler There is hardly a more explicit way to say that geometrical knew that, of course. There is a delicious irony in Kepler's rep objects are not "models" or "ideals" in opposition to physical resentation that Copernicus revived or rediscovered what the reality, but rather that it is by the study and solution of prob ancient Pythagoreans already knew, because Kepler himself lems in geometry that the measurement of, for example, the revived Platonic science. real speed of planets, becomes possible. Measurement of the speeds of the planets on the basis of "observed facts" is not On Rossmann's Motives possible. The translation of Kepler's refutation of Aristotle printed Kepler understood the methodological argument Socrates here, is from the original, written by Kepler in 30-Years-War makes in the Republic, but he did not cite that argument. German, as published by Fritz Rossmann.? Rossmann also col It was also in the Republic, that Socrates revealed the truth lected the various ancient sources and scholarly philological about the Cult of Mother Earth. It is the source of the tyranni commentaries on them, with the aim of refuting Kepler's cal and despotic Olympian law of the oligarchy. It is on behalf understanding of the Pythagoreans. In doing so, Rossmann's of the Mother Earth cult, that the oligarchy propagates the transparent intent is to concede Kepler's specific points of cri "Phoenician Lie," that human beings are "born of the Earth." tique of Aristotle, while undermining the authority of Kepler's Their souls are therefore "fixed," just as the ores of iron, silver, chief indictment: that Aristotle (or his authoritative reputation, and gold are fixed. The laws of Sparta, which the Spartans as traditionally understood) sabotaged science for 2,000 years claimed were divinely sanctioned by Apollo, were the ideal down to Kepler's own time. Apparently, Rossmann would like Mother Earth cult tyranny. And the word "Sparta" in Greek the reader to believe that the points of detailed critique are means "the men sown of the Earth." The Spartans, who pitted apolitical and "modern," but that the messy political issues, of their laws against the laws of Solon, self-consciously repre which both Aristotle and Plato were aware, have nothing to do sented their city and their political institutions as consecrated with "scientific debate." That was not true in Kepler's time, nor to the Cult of Mother Earth. In such a regime, the �hief "virtue" is it true today. is "to mind your own business," that is, not to challenge the Once the messy pol itical facts are recogn ized, it is clear that oligarchy of the Olympians. Johannes Kepler was accurate in his argument that the The Stranger's remarks on astronomy in Plato's Laws are tan Pythagoreans spoke in a "veiled way." I present some of the tamount to a "reform" of standard Greek "religious" beliefs. As sources which Rossmann collected, and also his sole piece of the Stranger says (821 d ff.), supposed evidence which he believes refutes Kepler, in order to let the reader decide whose authority stands and whose I am now insisting that our citizens and their young cannot stand. people must learn enough of all the facts about the First of all, Rossmann kindly cites from Copernicus' letter of divinities of the sky to prevent blasphemy of them, and transmission of his own work to Pope Paul 111:8 to ensure a reverent piety in the language of all our sac rifices and prayers. I thus undertook to investigate the works of all philosophers that I could obtain, in order to ascertain As Plato orchestrated the exchange, it was then the Cretan, whether someone had entertained a hypothesis, that Clinias, who replied, and not the Spartan, Megillus, whose the movements of the heavenly bodies would have to agreement is manifest only in his fai lure to object openly: be different from that assumed by school mathemati cians. And so, of course, I first found a passage in That is right, provided, of course, that, in the first Cicero, which says that Nicetas [actually Hicetas of place, the knowledge of which you speak is possible. Syracuse] had assumed that the Earth moves. I later On that assumption, if there are errors in our present also read in Plutarch that some others had also been of teaching which study will correct, I, too, confess that a this view. I would like to write down here the literal subject of such scope and quality must be taught. words, so that everyone may be familiar with them: "The usual view, is that the Earth stands still. The In this exchange, the Athenian Stranger does not harvest the Pythagorean Philolaus, however, hypothesizes that it agreement of the Cretan to actually teach the new explana moves in a circle around a central fire and that it tion. He only obtains Clinias' agreement to teach the new describes a slanted circle in so moving, similar to the explanation (822c) "if we can show that [the facts] are so." Sun and Moon. Heracleides Pontikos and the The Greek belief that the "wandering stars" are divinities is Pythagorean Ekphantos indeed have the Earth move, usefu l, because neither Clinias nor Megillus is about to but it does not move from its position, but only such become a student of astronomy, but an agreement that "sci that it revolves like a wheel from West to East around entific research" may be the foundation, rather than the over its own center." throw of a good regime, opens a breach in the possibilities for 42 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY As Rossmann documents, the work Copernicus thought was perhaps thought that a "counter-Earth" is necessary to explain authored by Plutarch, was actually the De placitis the phenomenon of eclipses. Such a rationalization is obvi Ph ilosophorum, proven by Hermann Diels to be a fragment of ously unnecessary, since Thales of Miletus knew perfectly well a work by Theophrastus. Theophrastus became a friend and that the Moon causes eclipses, and he is even credited with student of Aristotle after Aristotle left the Academy of Plato having predicted one. Again, there would be no need for the when Plato died, and went to Assos in Asia Minor. When rationalization at all, were it not for the gullibility of scholars Aristotle subsequently left Asia Minor to go to the court of who believe Stobaios is a legitimate source for the real teach Philip in Macedonia, Theophrastus went with him from the ing of the Pythagoreans. island of Lesbos. Perhaps the reader will agree that this testimony against This serves to qualify Copernicus' source. Theophrastus may Kepler is extremely weak. That impression, I believe, is be termed Aristotle's "first student." His testimony singled out strengthened if one considers that Stobaios was a populariz the Pythagorean Philolaus. Other Pythagoreans did not, er of scientific and literary lore of times which were already according to Theophrastus, have the same view, but the view "antiquity" to him: He wrote in the 5th Century A.D., and it Theophrastus ascribes to Philolaus is fully coherent with is hardly possible that his sources were better than those Kepler's reading of what the ancient Pythagoreans knew. Had available to Aristotle or Theophrastus. The transmission of Kepler simply relied upon what Copernicus thought he was the testimony of ancient sources often resembles the chil reporting from Plutarch, but actually from Theophrastus, he dren's game of whispering in a telephone-circle: The last wou ld not have gone wrong. The reader will notice that child to attempt to say what was originally said, is generally Kepler, in point 4 below, refers to the "Platonics" after the birth far from the mark. So, although Aristotle lies, he may be of Christ, who had lost the meaning of the Pythagorean teach taken to be a sufficient source of the argument Kepler made ing. In other words, the "Platonics" in the Christian era had against him. lost the capacity to read Plato. That does not mean that Kepler George Gregory is currently completing his doctora l disser himself had not read Plato. ta tion on Plato's Republic. Several of his translations from Aristotle himself, and his student Theophrastus are, there German have been published in Fusion and 21 st Century, and fore, the most direct and immediate "sources" for the veiled his tra nslations of works by Schiller appeared in the three hel iocentric planetary system of the Pythagoreans. volume Friedrich Schiller: Poet of Freedom (Washington, D.C.: Theophrastus identifies the Pythagorean, Philolaus, specifical Schiller Institute, 1985- 1 990). ly, and, in ancient times, that identification ultimately peaked in the claim of later Aristotelians that Plato himself had pla Nmes ______1. The translation of the Laws is that of A.E. Taylor in Edith Hamilton and giarized the Timaeus dialogue from three books of Philolaus, Huntington Cairns, eds., The Col/ected Dialogues of Plato, with minor which he had allegedly bought in Sicily. changes for the sake of the literal sense. The language of these "sources" is clear enough. The only 2. When does the slower of two planets appear to be the faster? Imagine a source available, which Rossmann claims undermines distant comet travelling directly toward Earth. For observers on Earth, it would exhibit no motion across the "surface" of the heavens at all. It would Kepler's reading of the Pythagoreans, is Stobaios' Eclogae seem motionless-until, eventually, observers noticed that it kept getting Physicae: bigger! Thus, the faster of two planets can be in a part of its orbit in which much of its motion is toward the Earth, whilethe slower planet happens to be alongside the Earth-so that nearly all of its motion is seen as transverse Philolaus teaches that fire is in the middle and at the motion against the heavens. Then the planet that is actually slower may be center-point, which he calls the "hearth of the universe" measured by Earth observers as moving faster against the sky. and "god-mother and -altar" and "connection and meas 3. Seth Benardete, The Argument of the Action: Essays on Greek Poetry and Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). See the begin ure of nature." And he assumes a second fire which sur ning of the chapter, "The First Crisis in First Philosophy," p. 3. rounds the universe. The first according to nature is the 4. The translation of the Republic is that of Allan Bloom (New York: Basic center; about this center do divine bodies dance: after Books, 1968), with minor changes for the sake of the literal sense. the sphere of the fixed stars, the five planets, and after 5. Or '�ruly fasf and '�ruly slow." The emphasis, of course, is mine. them, the Sun, beneath that the Moon, beneath this the 6. When used in the context of mathematics or logic, problema is generally translated as a simple transliteration, that is, "problem." In its more general Earth, beneath that the counter-Earth; and after all of usage, however, it meant something which "juts out," or something set up these comes fire, which is at the center in the position of as a defensive barrier or obstacle, like a wall. This sense is relevant to the crucial issue in geometry of incommensurable magnitudes, which the the hearth. Stranger in the Laws dialogue introduces just prior to his discussion of astronomy. Most Greeks, he says there (81 8e If.), believe that all magni Rossmann claims that Stobaios' report that Philolaus men tudes are commensurable, but they are not: that is, there is a "barrier" or "obstacle" to measuring the internal geometrical features of all figures with tioned two fires, means that he could not have identified the same units. Incommensurable magnitudes are, therefore the problem, "fire" with the Sun, and the mention of a "counter-Earth" the barrier which alerts us against trying to apply units of measure to the and the Moon, means that the two could not be the same movements of planets as they present themselves in the form of "observ able fact." object. 7. Fritz Rossmann, ed. Nikolaus Kop ernikus: Erster Entwurf seines It is also on the basis of the sole testimony of Stobaios, that Weltsystems, sowie eine Auseinandersetzung Johannes Keplers mit English-speaking scholars such as Heath and Hicks sought to Aristoteles aber die Bewegung der Erde (Munich: Rinn, 1948). A later edi tion was issued by Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt in 1986. construct some rationale for there being both a Moon and a 8. My translation of the German. "counter-Earth" in the Pythagorean hypothesis.9 The only con 9. Sir Thomas Heath, Aristarchus of Samos: The Ancient Copernicus (Oxford: ceivable rationale, or rationalization, is that the Pythagoreans Clarendon Press, 1913), Chapter 12, "The Py1hagoreans." 21st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 43 FUSION REPORT Will the u.s. Join the World Fusion Effort? by Marsha Freeman n july 2001 , the European Union, I japan, and Russia came to agreement on the design of the world's first continu ous-burn fusion device. The United States was conspicuously absent. Construction of the machine, which is the next step in harnessing the virtually unlimited energy supply of controlled thermonuclear fusion, will begin in 2003. Tw enty years ago, the United States led the world in the number and range of experimental facilities for research in thermonuclear fusion. Since then, the development of this potentially unlimit ed energy source fe ll victim to the short range thinking promoted by the "share holder values" of the era of globaliza tion, where any activity that does not show. an immediate payback is not worth investing in. Government policymakers have not sought to try to "privatize" fusion research yet (as they have proposed for everything from the Space Shuttle to public schools); instead they have sim ply chosen to ignore it. During the Clinton Administration, the Congress was unwilling to continue to commit The TFTR tokamak under construction in 1982, at Princeton Plasma Physics resources to such a long-term effort. The Laboratory. Th e U.S. Magnetic Fusion Energy Engineering Act, signed into law by Bush Administration has promoted an President Carter on Oct. 7, 1980, speCified an engineering reactor to be built by energy policy that foolishly relies almost 1990, and a commercial prototype by the year 2000. But the Act was never fu nded entirely upon the short-term exploitation by Congress, and the to kamak program, as well as many other types of promising of petroleum and natural gas. U.S. fu sion research devices, were killed by budget cuts. But the rest of the world is not so short A description of ITER and how fusion works 'appears on the inside back cover. sighted. According to Dr. Anne Davies, director of the Office of Fusion Energy operating experimental fusion reactor, a design work for the international fusion Sciences at the u.s. Department of Energy, proposal that had been formulated by experimental reactor was completed, at present, the u.s. fusion program repre Academician E.P. Ve likhov. Sub with ambitious design goals, and a price sents merely one sixth of the international sequently, the European Union and tag of $8 billion. But federal budgets fo r effort. Even the cash-strapped Russian gov japan were invited to join, and several scientific research, particularly in ernment accounts for a larger share--20 other countries, including Canada, also Russia, the United States, and Japan, percent. The nations of the European participated . The project was known as were on the decline. Union have the most wide-ranging fusion the International Thermonuclear The next year, technical specialists program, and are now responsible for half Experimental Reactor, or ITER. from the United States, Russia, and japan of the resources committed to fusion Scientists from more than a dozen reported that the projected capital cost of research, in the world. nations contributed to the theoretical ITER could be cut by 40 to 50 percent if A World-Wide Fusion Effort research to understand the behavior of the performance objectives were In 1985, at the first Reagan high-temperature plasmas, and the engi reduced, making the actual construction Gorbachev summit meeting, the two neering and component design work of the reactor more feasible, while sti ll leaders agreed to collaborate in order to that an operating reactor would require. meeting the ambitious goal of producing design and construct the world's first By 1997, the first-generation overall hundreds of megawatts of fusion energy. 44 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY FUSION REPORT As this redesign work was proceeding, lived. The only funds that Congress ment. It states: "At present, it is difficult the six-year ITER Engineering Design would appropriate for Department of to accurately estimate the overall cost Agreement among the international part Energy work on ITER were enough to for the realization of fusion energy. ners came up fo r renewal, in July 1998. It close out u.s. participation in the design Moreover, it is almost impossible to esti was proposed that the engineering design activities of the program. mate the profit from the realization of phase be extended for three years, to For the past three years, the interna fusion energy. It can be understood that 2001 , when a decision on a final design tional partners have continued work on the investment in developing fusion and a commitment would be made to ITER, recently completing the engineer energy is regarded as a sort of insurance build the international fusion device. ing design activity, without official par premium for securing a wider degree of The U.S. Bows Out ticipation by the United States. freedom for humankind in the future." In the summer of 1998, the fiscal year The international partners, particular On June 5, the Japan Atomic Energy 1999 appropriations bill to fund the ly Japan, have tri�d to lobby the United Commission approved the final report, Department of Energy eliminated the States to reenter the project. During a noting that flit would be of great signifi $12 million the Department had request trip to Washington in May 2000, Japan's cance for Japan to host ITER in addition ed to continue work on ITER. The bill Minister of State for Science and to participating as a key member." included "Ianguage" in its report that no Technology, Hirofumi Nakasone, issued On July 17, 2001 , the International funds for ITER engineering design work a joint statement with Energy Secretary Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), marked were obligated past fiscal year 1998, and Richardson, once again recognizing the official completion of the engineer could not be, without concurrence by "the potential value of ITER in develop ing design for ITER, describing it as a Congress. The Clinton White House was ing the scientific basis to promote fusion "landmark achievement in fusion energy not able to sway the Congress. as a viable energy source." research." The IAEA noted that ITER On June 25, 1998, House Science On April 3, 2001, the Japanese "will be capable of generating 500 Committee Chairman James Sensen Atomic Energy Commission approved a megawatts of fusion power for hundreds brenner (R.-Wisc.) wrote to Energy report by Japan's ITER Special of seconds," and could "lead to the con Secretary Frederico Pena, urging him to Committee, and released it for public struction of a demonstration fusion delay signing the ITER extension agree and government circulation and com- power plant that generates large ment. On July 15, Fusion Power Associates director Dr. Stephen Dean, wrote to Sensenbrenner, asking him to reconsider: "Yesterday the Government of Japan signed the three year extension agree ment to continue the ITER international collaboration on fusion energy develop ment. The European Union and Russia signed previously, leaving the United States the only Party whose signature is not on the line." The agreement, Dean stated, simply commits "the United States to work in good faith with the other Parties to develop fusion as a future energy source, and I hope that you wi II agree with me that it is in the interest of our children and grandchildren that we do this." Sensenbrenner was not moved. In September, he reacted angrily to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson's agreement at an international conference in Vienna, to extend U.S. participation in ITER for one year. "The project has fa iled," Sensenbrenner railed, "and it's time to move fo rward. It defies common sense that the United States should agree to continue to participate in a dead-end project that continues to waste the The ZT-40, a reversed field zeta pinch fu sion device at Los Alamos National American taxpayer's dollars." Laboratory. Th is is another line of promising fusion research that was stopped by lack Energy Secretary Richardson's attempt of fu nding, although it had already been demonstrated that the concept could work. ed end-run around Congress was short- Other smaller reversed field pinch experiments around the world are in progress. FUSION REPORT 21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 45 amounts of electricity." During a meeting held in Vienna july 16-1 9, delegations from japan, the European Union, Russia, and Canada agreed to start the next step-negotia tions for the plan to implement ITER construction by the end of 2002. In a meeting in To ronto the week of November 5, 2001 , delegations of the international ITER participants began the negotiating process. A second meet ing will be held in japan in january 2002, and japan hopes the United States will be attending. On September 6, Koj i Omi, japanese minister for science and technology, informed U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in Washington that japan has made a formal request that the United States return to the ITER project. Lobbying Efforts Make an Impact Apparently, the lobbying by U.S. fusion scientists, the international part ners, and especially japan, has had some impact. At the end of October, DOE fusion head Dr. N. Anne Davies reported that the United States would be a partner in one of the handful of work ing groups-the International To kamak Physics Activity-established by ITER to support the theoretical underpinnings of building an operational device. This working group aims to foster coopera Th e Ta ndem Mirror Experiment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, was tive research for advancing the under also shut down by budget cuts. Th e Russians are currently using a mirror device, standing of a burning fusion plasma. along the same lines as the t?ndem mirror, which produces a small amount of This work will be carried out under fu sion fo r purposes of materials testing. bilateral agreements between the United States and each of the major partners; step toward understanding the physics Congress before the U.S. can reverse its the United States will not rejoin the of fusion reactors." withdrawal from ITER. project as a whole. However, unwilling to stick their Europe, japan, Russia, and Canada At the beginning of November 2001 , necks out too far, the Congressmen con are ready to choose a site and start to the leadership in the House Science tinue, "while we are not ready to offer build an international thermonuclear Committee added its voice to those pres our unqualified support for this initiative, experimental reactor. The question is, suring the United States to rejoin ITER. we do bel ieve exploring the current ITER will the u.s. contribute its expertise and Reps. Sherwood Boehlert (R.-N.Y.), and options makes sense .. ..Time is of the resources to that effort? Ralph Hall (D.-Tex.), the chairman and essence with the ITER initiative and the Choosing a Home for ITER ranking minority members of the U.S. should begin to assess the project's At the annual meeting of Fusion Committee, respectively, wrote to Energy feasibility, evaluate what role the U.S. Power Associates (FPA), held at the Secretary Abraham, stating that the United might play in it, and participate in dis Embassy of Canada in Washington, D.C. States "should send a representative, at cussions to refi ne the project and select a on September 25-26, 2001 , ITER least as an observer, to the fo llow-up site. We have been approached by both Director Robert Aymar reported that the [ITER) meeting now scheduled fo r To kyo." the japanese and Canadian governments plan for the approximately $4 billion "The current ,ITER proposal merits about this matter, and they are eager to machine is to have the goal of producing consideration," they wrote on have the u.s. join the discussions." 500 to 700 megawatts of fusion energy. November 1. "The current ITER initia "If we do not begin to examine ITER He estimated that it would take four tive is based on a design that is half the soon, we may lose the chance to join as years to build ITER. cost, or less, than the original. ...The a partner," Congressmen Boehlert and By the end of 2002, he reported, there ' burning plasma experiment that would Hall conclude. The Department of will an agreement to build, a legal certi be conducted at ITER is the next logical Energy needs the sanction from the Continued on page 50 46 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY FUSION REPORT INTERVIEW WITH SATO RU OHTAKE Japan Urges U.S. to Rejoin Fusion Project Associate Editor Marsha Freeman ITER, because they can contribute real interviewed Mr. Satoru Ohtake, Director work. Each members has to contribute. It fo r Fusion Energy of the Ministry of is necessary to have some statement from Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and the newcomers, a commitment. Te chnology, on Dec. 5, 2007, at the Japanese Embassy in Wa shington, D.C. Question: If a country wanted to partic Mr. Ohtake was in Wa shington to dis ipate in ITER at this time, going into the cuss ITER with U.S. energy officials. construction phase, how could it con A fu ll version of the interview will tribute? appear in Executive Intel.ligence Review. If they do not have the potential to contribute hardware, cash is also need Question: What is the purpose of your ed. Each member has to contribute hard visit to the United States? ware or cash. They would enjoy partici I came into this position of Director of pating in the learning phase. And in the Fusion Energy in mid-july, and have operational phase, they will have a worked since then mainly on ITER. It is Fusion Director Ohtake: "We are ready chance to do experiments. necessary to secure large-scale to start to build ITER. " ITER will produce a burning plasma resources and a fixed, rigid international continuously for several minutes or sev framework for that program. The discus the United States re-entered ITER, it eral hours. It will be the first time for us sion .in japan about whether or not to would be more, or really, international. to have a fusion system on the ground. participate in ITER or, furthermore, to Scientists or researchers, and engineers host the experiment, is continuing, and Question: The Japanese plan, then, is to would like to do experiments. From the in that discussion, the attitude of the try to encourage the United States to re scientists' point of view, they want to United States is very important. enter. But it seems to me that the part know what is going on in a burning plas As you know, ITER has been in prepa ners are making a commitment to go ma, which is a complex system, quite ration for a very long time, about 15 ahead and construct ITER, even without different from the elementary particle years, from the very initial stage. For the the United States. Is that the case? question, or something like that. It's a past 9 years, the countries concerned Frankly, u.s. re-entry is quite impor very huge, complex system. have carried out the preparatory study tant, but not conditional. It would be From the engineering side, they would and conceptual design activity, . leading better, but is not inevitable .. .. like to know how to produce energy from to an engineering design. These 9 years [A]fter constructing ITER, we will have the burning plasma, using some apparatus ended in july, and the engineering a burning plasma, and this is an essential for exchanging the energy of the fusion design is completed. and important step to make nuclear fusion neutrons, to produce high pressure water, The United States initially was a mem into a source of energy. We can share this which will require some intermediate ber but, unfortunately, three years ago goal with all of the international partners process. ITER is an engineering reactor, so there was some discussion in the United who have the potential to carry out this the goal is not to make energy on a full States and there was a misunderstanding kind of scientific and engineering work. scale, but some engineering phase or trial or conceptual change there, and the We are open to every country and also to to take boiling water will be carried out, United States got out of the circle in 1998. the United States, especially, because we and in some cases, we can produce a Now, ITER is ready to come up to the full are old partners and, there is no doubt that small generation of power, as well. fledged phase of construction. At this time, the United States has a top, world-class I think it is necessary to come to the United fusion potential. So, we encourage them Question: What is the schedule now for States and discuss with the people con to re-enter. It is up to the United States to ITER? cerned, the u.s. re-entering the project. decide, but what we can do is encourage. The schedule for ITER now is that we have to make the so-called joint imple Question: Why is it important that the Question: Are there other countries menting agreement betWeen the parties. United States to rejoin the ITER project? that have expressed an interest in par This is the legal frame'work, which will Because regarding ITER, we-mean ticipating in ITER? provide the duties and rights of the par ing japan, the European Union, Russia, Yes. China showed an interest in ITER ties. This work will continue up to the and Canada-are quite ready and confi first, and Korea expressed an intention to end of 2002. In order to finalize the draft dent and have enough engineering tech participate. China shows a very apparent of the joint implementing agreement, it nology background to realize ITER now. interest. We are glad to have a sign or is necessary for us to decide a site, and But it is an international program, so if proposal from other countries to get into we are scheduled to decide in the mid- FUSION REPORT 21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 47 die of 2002, in May, or a little later. There are 19 such superconducting As you know, Canada has already "Even if ITER is a great magnets, which require new materials. offered a candidate site, and Europe is success, we need a domestic Making the superconducting wire takes finishing a technical assessment of fusion energy system. Our a lot of time and is very difficult. It has a Cadarache, in the south of France. Spain, complex structure. In Japan we have a energy security in Japan a European Union member, has given a stellarator machine, which has a very very preliminary intention to invite ITER won't be solved just by ITER, long helical magnet, and to wind up this there. Their technical assessment is not so we need to have our own magnet takes two years! Then the mag fi nished; just their intention was shown. fusion system in Japan." net will have to be tested, and finally it In Japan, we have finished the domes will come to ITER. tic site assessment, which is a technical The construction process can possibly assessment, but we haven't yet confirmed have at least three candidates, we can be shortened by two or three years. a conclusion about a site, as the Japanese discuss making a joint site assessment Then we are in the operational phase, government hasn't yet decided on a for and discuss cost sharing. Then we will for at least 20 years. For the first 8 to 10 mal position in ITER. The discussions are finalize the agreement. In some coun years, we will be "warming up" ITER. now continuing on whether we will be tries, the agreement will need to be rati First, there will be experiments intro hosting ITER, but we have finished the fied, like a treaty. duced with a simple hydrogen plasma, technical assessment of the sites. We hope to start the construction in order to test and condition the metal Three prefectures (we have 47, like phase in 2003. It will take two years to machines. Then, they will introduce the your states) offered, or showed an inten establish the international organization deuteron, or double hydrogen. Finally, tion, to host ITER. They were Hokkaido, to carry out the construction, operation, they will introduce deuterium and tri Ibaraki, and Aomori. After the technical and decommissioning of ITER. The con tium to produce the real fusion phenom assessment, Ibaraki and Aomori are eli struction will take 10 years. enon. Then they will start real engineer gible for the building of ITER. So we ing and science experiments. have at least in Canada, the Clarington Question: Why will it take that long? For example, we will introduce a new center, one in France, maybe Spain, and Because there are many high-technol type of blanket, which will be used to two eligible sites in Japan. Now that we qgy parts, such as the toroidal magn�ts. pull energy from the burning plasma and An overview of the JT-60U, one of Japan's large tokamak devices. 48 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY FUSION REPORT convert the neutrOn energy into change. They can share time on high-pressure boiling water. Or, the top-class machines, which is we can use the fusion neutrons to also done with accelerators. I make tritium. Fusion neutrons have been discussing this with can be used together with the many university professors, and light metal lithium, and you have they are now aware of the situa tritium. That is one of the advan tion. The japanese economic sit tages of fusion, that it can pro uation is so bad, it is not easy to duce energy and its own fuel. We have so many devices, or a plen will have about 10 or more years tiful budget from the finance of energy experiments. Engineers authorities for the fusion pro and scientists will get the results grams. We should have the best and we will have enough experi use of the limited budget to ence to transfer it to the energy maintain fusion research. producing machines from the experience on ITER. Question: What kind of finan cial commitment would be Question: There is concern in the required for japan to h�st ITER? United States that if money . is During the construction phase of spent on international collabora ITER, the peak in the annual budg tion, there may not be funds for et for the host country will be about a robust domestic fusion effort. $400 million. The total ITER cost How is this viewed in japan? will be 1.2 trillion yen, or about We have the same issues in $10 billion over 35 years. This japan. After the reform . Iast includes, in the final five years, the january, almost all of..the ,fusion cost of decommissioning. The host programs in Japan are under the country, if it is one of the three supervision of my office, in the major partners, would be responsi Ministry of Education. This Inside the donut: A Japanese engineer standing inside ble for 50 percent of the total budg allows us to organize all of the JT-60U torus. et, or about half, of the cost. japan's fusion resources. If japan were to host ITER, at The real problem is that there are lim back to japan and advance the results in some time in the construction phase, it ited resources, which we must know the research in many ways. We need would cost $400 million for the peak how to allocate properly. ITER is an top-level plasma machines in institu funding year, which would compare to international, single-purpose machine. tions in japan, in parallel with ITER, We the $200 million that should be budget Its major purpose is to produce a burn must maintain plasma science·. � ed for the domestic program every year. ing plasma, and to .make sure of the pos In many institutes and in universities, So we need to add double to our sibility of fusion as an energy source. there are small plasma machines in resources to host ITER. That is the major purpose of the japan. It is apparent that it is not realistic machine, not science. to have ITER, in addition to all these Question: When will japan decide if it It is necessary to maintain good poten small machines all over japan. So we will participate in the construction tial fusion science research in. japan, for started discussing our plasma science phase of ITER, and offer a site to host two reasons. First, because compared to programs with all the university directors the project? the United States, in japan . our energy of fusion science, and how to improve japan is still discussing this. The Atomic problem is very ser.ious. We ' have no japan's domestic fusion program . . We Energy Commission has decided on par petroleum sources, as you d9 ·in Alaska, have six or seven mid-size or .,big-scale ticipation, and now the supreme advisory or Te xas, so energy is 'quite ah important machines now in japan, but probably in board, the Council for Science and ' issue. Even if ITER is a great success, we the future we will have three. or four Tec hnology Policy, which is chaired by the need a domestic fusion energy system. advanced top-class machines, and all the Prime Minister, is discussing it. They have Our energy security in: japan·. won't be universities and laboratories will cooper issued an interim report. They recognize solved just by ITER, so we need to have atively use these machines. . the importance and meaning of ITER, but e . our own fusion syst m in japah . For very small machines, it's okay to will want to be convinced about its cost ' Second, ITER is a very long-term proj have many, because they do not cost benefit. Participation is assured, but host ' ect. As I joke, when ITER is finished, I much, so they will maintain these ing ITER costs double the resources, so will be retired. So we must continue to machines using research grants. they will think about it. If there is addition secure good human resourc�s: and per Some middle-scale machines, if they al money, they will say yes, but the current sonnel regard ing fusio� research in would like to keep them; wi'll' only get situation is very severe, so they are doing japan. Scientists will work on ITER, carry "out of fashion," and not be involved in everything imperfectly. out good experiments, and then return the top-level research, so they have to I hope that they will come to the con- FUSION REPORT 21st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 49 clusion that japan will be hosting ITER. I Counselor from the Embassy of japan, . feel fusion is a very difficult program. Will the u.s. Join? who participated in the japanese ITER We need to have the experience of a Continued from page 46 design work, reported that there was a burning plasma, and then be sure it is a fication, and an entity created to procure competition held in japan for local gov good candidate for a future energy the license and constructor. After the ernments to offer sites for ITER's con source. We have to pass this very high United States withdrew from the project, struction. They received three proposals, level challenge. he said, there was a lack of agreement as and will be choosing two possible loca to where it should be located. Canada tions. At the FPA meeting, Mr. Morimoto Question: People here often say to sci submitted an offer in june 2001, and stressed that japanese government offi entists, "you have been working on Europe and japan are currently prepar cials had come to Washington to request fusion research for 30 years, and we ing bids. that the United States reconsider rejoin still do not have it. Why do you still "There is no technical justification for ing the project. keep doing iH" postponing a decision to build ITER," Dr. Lev Golubchikov, director of In the case of fusion energy, people Aymar said. In Europe, "if it is not done, fusion energy in the Russian Ministry of don't know very much about it. In japan, fusion will be reassessed, and it won't be Atomic Energy, reported that in August, the case is the same. Fusion is something so positive." He concluded: "The time the Russian government had approved like a mirage because some of the for ITER is now." the fusion program for the next five years researchers said in the 1970s that in 30 On june 7, 2001 , at an ITER meeting for ITER. He explained that ITER is 75 years, you can have energy. Now 30 in Moscow, the Canadian government percent of Russia's national fusion pro years have passed, but still we say, 30 announced that it is offering the gram budget. Although Russian scientists years from now. Some of the leading Clarington site, near To ronto, as its pro have a variety of fusion experiments they politicians in japan say this, so we have posed bid to house ITER. As Dr. Peter would want to pursue, now, and while been discussing this. Barnard, Chairman and Chief Executive ITER is being built, resources are scarce, We do not have so many possible Officer of ITER Canada, explained at the Golubchikov reported. energy choices. Of course we have FPA meeting, the project was supported Presentations at the FPA meeting were some renewable sources like solar ener by government offices, labor interests, also made on qther current and possible gy or hydrogen. But solar energy is not a universities and professional societies, fusion experiments in laboratories large-scale energy source. It should be a and the private sector. around the country, including burning local, complementary energy source, Canada is offering to supply the infra plasma devices. but it is not possible to replace oil burn structure and supporting services for the FPA head Dr. Stephen Dean stated ing systems, or coal systems, or nuclear project, while the other countries would that the United States needs a "robust fission reactors with it. supply most of the components. national program," to determine how to Hydrogen should be a secondary ener The Clarington site is desirable, best develop fusion. The physics of toka gy, like gasoline for cars, because it is Barnard said, because the Darlington maks, for example, can be studied in necessary to have a strong electricity nuclear station is located there, and machines smaller than ITER. In addition, source, or hugely powerful source of high there is a tritium removal facility on site, ITER will not be . .fu lly operating for temperature to produce the hydrogen. So as well as the largest cement factory in another 10 years, so new, smaller fusion is one of our future choices. That is North America. machines are necessary, in addition to why we pursue this possibility. It costs a Dr. Barnard estimated that the build the upgrade of existing facilities. lot, I know, but if we can be successful ings and infrastructure from the host There should be a vigorous program with a burning plasma, a very convincing country, were ITER to be built in also to investigate alternative approaches new alternative will be assured. Canada, would require about Canadian to produce magnetically confined fusion $1 billion, and operating support, some than the tokamak, Dean stated, or we ' Question: In the United States, fusion what less than that amount. He also stat "may miss .a better approach." research has received very little funding ed that were ITER to be built in Canada, Nevertheless, he said, the United States or public attention. How would partici it would increase the likelihood that the should be participating in the internation pating in ITER help that situation? United States would rejoin the project. al fusion effort, which would mean fund ITER is a great international, and very jean jacquinot from France described ing the fusion technology development encouraging, endeavor. If we introduce the site at Caderache as a possible home programs that have been sacrificed to tight the question of u.s. participation, we for ITER. There is infrastructure already budgets. Then, the United States would can reinvigorate the discussion in the there, such as a nuclear research center really be able to contribute to ITER. United States. I think we are ready, in with 4,000 people, and 18 nuclear instal The u.s. rejoining ITER, Dean said, any case, to start to build ITER. But for lations. The local government, jacquinot would be a "boost up," for the nation's fusion science, for all human beings, it is reported, would contribute money for fusion effort. It would "gain the attention better for the United States to participate. construction. He reported that a detailed of Congress and heads of state, who The United States' potential to carry out study is under way, and that in a few would start taking fusion more seriously." fusion research should be reinvigorated, months, the European Union would The U.S. still has the opportunity to and it will be of great help for all human decide on a proposed European site. reenter the ITER program, but time is beings. That is what I honestly feel. Mr. Kiochi Morimoto, Science running out. 50 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY FUSION REPORT BIOLOGY AND , MEDICINE The Case for Adult Stem Cell Research by Wolfgang Lillge, M.D. he question of stem cells is currently Tthe dominant subject in the debate over biotechnology and human genet ics: Should we use embryonic stem cells or adult stem cells for future medical therapies? Embryonic stem cells are taken from a developing embryo at the blastocyst stage, destroying the embryo, a developing human life. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, are found in all tissues of the growing human being and, according to latest reports, also have the potential to transform themselves into THE STEMcal. DEBATE: Patients, Politics practically all other cell types, or revert andPotential Treatments to being stem tells with greater repro 'IR,IOIfAL _H�".&.�"'� ductive capacity, Embryonic stem cells have not yet been' used for even one Weighing th� J3�ig;�ts therapy, while adult "stem cells have of the Embryo Agains Chan� e'Y&ryooeknows iCtneotle a are already been successfully used in with debUfUuing d�asewhose beaJlb and lite could bevawy tmprOVed ir it were numerous patients, including for cardiac infarction (death of some of the heart tis sue). out to be a case of completely empty What Are Stem Cells, Exactly? Stem cells are of wide interest for promises: Given the elementary state It is appropriate here to sketch the medicine, because they have the poten of research today, it is by no means yet characteristics of stem cells, and the tial, under suitable conditions, to devel foreseeable, whether even one of the overthrow of some dogmas of develop op into almost all of the different types hoped-for treatments can be real ized. mental biology. Broadly speaking, a of cells. They should therefore be able to Basically, such promised cures are a stem cell is one that-in the course of repair damaged or defe ctIVe tissues (for deliberate deception, for 'behind the cell division and increase in the num example, destroyed insulincproducing mirage of a coming medical wonder bers of cells-is able to reproduce itself cells in the pancreas). Many of the so land, promoted by interested parties, and also mature into various specialized called degenerative diseases, for which completely other research objectives types of cells. The stem cell with the there are as yet no effective therapies, will be pursued that are to be kept out greatest potential (totipotential) is the could then be alleviated or healed. of public discussion as much as possi fertilized egg cell, which is capable of It is remarkable that in the debate ble. developing into a complete organism. ' often carried on with little compe Perfect candor should rule in stem cell According to the usual-but actually tence-the potential of embryonic stem research. This requires that the scientist very doubtful-explanation, the fertil cells is exaggerated in a one-sided way, himself clearly establish the moral limits ized egg cell has totipotential up to the while important moral questions and of his activity and' declare what the con stage of division into eight cells, and in issues of research strategy are passed sequences of research with' embryonic later stages the cells retain only over in silence. Generally, advocates of stem cells rea lly are. In the process, no "pluripotential." That is, they can form research with embryonic stem cells use one can escape the fact that, should one many different types of tissues, but not as their main argument that such wish to use embryonic stem cells for the complete organism. Embryonic stem research will enable us to cure all of the "therapeutic purposes," the very tech cells-that is, those 50 cells within a diseases that are incurable today-can niques will be developed that will also blastocyst, which then continue to cer, AIDS, Alzheimers, multiple sclero be used for the cloning of human beings, develop into the embryo proper-have sis, and so fo rth. Faced with such a the making of human-animal hybrids, this pluripotential. In the course of fur prospect, it is supposed to be "accept the manipulation of germ lines, and the ther specialization, stem cells of individ able" to "overlook" a few moral prob like-thus for everything other than ther ual tissues are formed, such as that of lems. apeutic purposes. Any coverup or the bone marrow, from which all the On closer inspection, however, the hypocrisy in this matter will very quick other kinds of blood cells develop. much extolled vision of the future turns ly reflect upon the research as a whole. Behind this description lies the con- BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE nst CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 51 ception that a linear process of differen tiation is played out, in the development of the individual, toward increasingly "mature," specialized cells in the indi vidual tissues, from totipotentiality to tis sue specificity. This process is supposed to run only forward, but never back ward. That is, as soon as a cell has reached a certain degree of "maturity," the way back. to earl ier stages of devel opment is closed off. So it is evident that a stem cell's capacity to perform is increasingly limited to specific func tions, and it loses, correspondingly, the manifold capabilities still present in ear lier developmental stages. According to latest reports, however, this dogma of developmental biology does not hold. Evidently, tissue-specific stem cells have the ability-as has been impressively demonstrated in experi Laboratory Vi rola in Ukra ine has demonstrated that bone marrow stromal cells in ments with animals-to "transdifferenti culture are pluripotent-that is, they are able to differentiate into cells of liver, ate" themselves when in a different envi bone, fa t, cartilage, and so on. Researchers at this laboratory have developed ronment-that is, to take on the cell techniques to differentiate in vitro mouse bone marrow stromal cells into different functions of the new tissue. Thus, neu types of neuronal and glia l cells. Th e laboratory is seeking fu nds to develop similar ronal stem cells of mice have trans methods fo r human bone marrow stromal cells. formed themselves into blood stem cells and produced blood cells. Indeed, there Normally it goes unmentioned, that it only 80 percent has been achieved. That are indications of another capability of is only a small step from this so-called is in no way sufficient for cell transplan adult stem cells: Apparently they have "therapeutic cloning" (because, it is tation as a human therapy. In a cell cul the potential to be "reprogrammed." Not claimed, in this way a therapy for dis ture for therapeutic purposes, there must only can they adjust to the specific con eases can be developed) to what is not be a single undifferentiated cell, ditions of a new tissue environment, but called "reproductive cloning." The only since it can lead to unregu lated growth, they can even assume more generalized, difference is that the development of the in this case to the formation of ter earlier levels of development, so that it embryo is not interrupted in the early atomas, a cancerous tumor derived from even appears possible that they become blastocyst stage; instead the embryo is the germ layers: This problem would not totipotent again. implanted in a uterus and a complete be expected with adult stem cells, Problems of 'Therapeutic Cloning' organism develops-an exact genetic because of their greater differentiation. Until now, talk of a possible source of copy of the donor. "Dolly," the first Genetic instability. Only recently a human replacement tissue has centered cloned sheep, was produced by this further problem has emerged . on embryonic stem cells, the production method, and here is the basis for the Fundamental doubt of the suitability of of which has been extremely controver widespread fear that the same method embryonic stem cells for transplantation sial. They are a typical product of "con that is used for "therapeutic cloning" has come to the surface because of the suming embryonic research," so called, can also be used for the selective breed genetic instability of cloned cells. because in obtaining them from a human ing of humans. Cloned animals like Dolly give the embryo produced by artificial fertiliza In addition to the obvious moral con outward appearance of fu ll health, but tion in vitro, the embryo is destroyed. sider-ation, there are still other serious the probability of their having numerous The most important research tech disadvantages that make this path to the genetic defects is very high. Moreover, nique for which such embryos are development of human "replacement the entire cloning procedure is extreme obtained is "therapeutic cloning." In parts" appear to be untenable. ly ineffective. Most cloned animals die principle, a human egg cell is denucle The danger of tumors. So far there has before birth, and of those born alive, not ated, that is, the DNA is removed, and in been no solution to the problem of even half survive for three weeks. In the its place is put the nucleus of a somatic developing in the laboratory an unmis best case, there is a success rate of 3 to (body) cell. The egg cell is stimulated takable identifier for stem cells that can 4 percent. with a short electrical pulse, and it then distinguish them unequivocally from One of the reasons for this high failure develops into the blastocyst, from which cancer cells. For this reason, it is also rate has now been discovered by the stem cells can be removed. These are not possible to produce sufficiently pure German scientist Rudolf jaenisch at the identical with those of the donor of the cell cultures from stem cells. So far, with Institute for Biomedical Research at the somatic cell nucleus. embryonic mouse stem cells, a purity of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 52 Winter 2001 -2002 21 st CENTURY BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE and makes them mutually interchange able. This was discovered by Alexei Terskikh at Stanford University School of Medicine in California. He was able to prove that adult stem cells of blood forming tissues, and of the brain, acti vate the same genes, in order to preserve their status as stem cells. In May 2001, a further, spectacular experiment was reported, which was carried out on mice by scientists at Ya le University. The researchers obtained stem cells from the bone marrow of male mice, and injected it into females whose own marrow had been destroyed by radioactive irradiation. Eleven months later, the male stem cells (identi fiable through the male Y-chromosome) were found not only in the females' bone marrow, but also in their blood, Neuroblasts differentiated from bone marrow stromal cells by Laboratory Virola. and in their gut, lung, and skin tissues. If these observations are correct and and his colleague, Ryuzo Yanagimachi. considered. impossible. In recent years, are confirmed by other teams of scien Their conception is that in cloning-that however, pluripotent stem cells were tists, science should concentrate on is, when the nucleus of a somatic cell is discovered in various human tissues-in research with adult stem cells and inserted into a denucleated egg cell the spinal cord, in the brain, in the mes renounce further experiments with the the reprogramming of the genes does enchyme (connective tissue) of various embryonic. not proceed properly, so that not all of organs, and in the blood of the umbilical Human Treatments the genes that are necessary to the early cord. These pluripotent stem cells are Moreover, very promising treatments phase of embryonic development, are capable of forming several cell types of serious diseases with adult stem cells activated. Even when cloned animals principally blood, muscle, and nerve have already been tried. The special survive at all, probably every clone cells. It has been possible to recogr:)ize, advantage is that there are no rejection would have subtle genetic abnormalities select, and develop them to the point reactions, because the cells are from the that wou Id frequently become notice that they form mature cell types with the same body. able only later in life. help of growth factors and regulating Of longer standing is treatment with Jaenisch performed his experiments proteins. bone marrow stem cells. The treatment with mice that had been cloned using This shows that in tissues of the body, comes into play when, for example, a embryonic stem cells in place of the adult stem cells possess a much greater patient has lost his or her blood-forming somatic cells, which produces better potential for differentiation than previ tissue through radiation or high-dose results. But to his surprise, the repro ously assumed. This knowledge must be chemotherapy. Previously removed gramming of the inserted genetic materi brought into the public consciousness bone marrow stem cells are then retrans al by the embryonic cells proceeded in a with all possible emphasis. If stem cell planted, and are able to resume the for very unregulated way. There were no research were really only meant for ther mation of blood cells. two clones in which the same pattern of apeutic uses, which it most obviously In 2001 , however, a team of doctors at gene activation was found, and Jaenisch should be, adult stem cells would prom the Duesseldorf University Clinic car is convinced that the use of embryonic ise a very productive research field-and ried out a treatment of very far-reaching stem cells was clearly responsible. beyond that, a possibility, without moral consequences. For the first time, they What consequences follow from this objection, to discover fundamentals of treated a cardiac infarct patient with for the therapeutic use of human embry the dynamics of tissue differentiation. stem cells from his own body. The car onic stem cells-consequences that will It has become clear from transplanta diologist, Prof. Bodo Eckehard Strauer, is in fact be multiplied through cloning tion �xperiments with animals, that stem sure that the stem cells from the patient's are not yet foreseeable. cells of a particular tissue can develop bone marrow, after injection into the Whoever Would Cure, into cells of a completely different kind. infarct zone, autonomously converted to Must Use Adult Stem Cells Thus, bone marrow stem cells have heart muscle. The functioning of the It has been known for about 30 years been induced to become brain cells, but severely damaged heart clearly that stem cells are present in the tissue of also liver cells. improved within a few weeks. the adult, but it was assumed that they Adult stem cells obviously have a uni Four days after the infarction, the doc could only form cells of a particular tis versal program for division that is com tors took bone marrow from the patient's sue. That is, reprogramming them was mon to all the kinds of tissue stem cells, Continued on page 72 BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 21st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 53 ANCIEN T DISCOVERY Pitcairn Island Petroglyph Deciphered by Ross Perfect he Pitcairn Island petroglyph is locat Commissioner of the island, and is Ted at the base of a steep cliff in a bay included in his publication "Notes for known as "Down Rope," at the eastern Visitors to Pitcairn Island." In this deci end of the island. These drawings, pherment, I have extracted each sec which have been the subject of numer tion of the petroglyph, with a detailed ous archaeological studies over the past explanation for it. The sections have century, have never been fully interpret been placed so that the entire picture is ed. They were first discovered by the set read from right to left, and from top to tlers from the ship Bounty in 1790, bottom. [Note that, conventionally, Phengare = Moon (Greek) ' together with other native artifacts, and white chalk fs, rubbed over petroglyphs . ' as such were always considered to be to make the markings stand out in a Polynesian in origin. However, if this photograph.] 1:0;'; '1 . eklei-ekleipo = Be eclipsed. petroglyph is viewed from a The top right section appears to be a Greek/Egyptian perspective, a new story script depicted by consonants with These three sections together translate is presented. vowel pointings. With the assistance of as "lunar eclipse." The photograph on page 55, and a the phonetic script developed by Barry The bottom section in this first area sketch of its markings, show the entire Fell,l and by read ing in a counterclock represents three celestial globes: the pictu re of the petroglyph at Pitcairn wise direction from the top, this section Moon, the Earth, and the Sun, aligned at Island, which was supplied by the is deciphered as fo llows: the time of a lunar eclipse, with the Sun I casting the Earth's shadow on the Moon. A line from the Sun, in the lower right-hand corner, through the Earth, and then to the Moon, in the upper left hand corner, shows the Sun to be approaching summer solstice. This occurs when the Sun reaches its maxi mum southern declination, and would indicate an eclipse that occurred around December. The next section, the middle portion of the petroglyph, is the date stamp, The five-pointed star represents the Pharaoh or ruling monarch. Underneath the star are the Greek numerals 10 and 6, which repre- �-k sent the 16th year of the . ;' reign of the monarch (in . this case, Ptolemy III). JJ�t, The two hemispherical shapes in the upper-left part of the picture are repre sentations of the Moon near eclipse, On Map drawn by Stephen Kraft the extreme left of the petroglyph is a Pitca irn Island, made fa mous as the refuge of the mutineers from the Bounty in 1790, symbolic representation of the constel is located in the Pacific Ocean, at approximately 250 South and 1300 We st. lation Gemini. During the eclipse, 54 Winter 2001-2002 21 st CENTURY ANCIENT DISCOVERY The petroglyph at "Down Rope, " Pitcairn Island. The rock markings have been chalked in, so that they can be seen in a photograph. Th is photo appears in an official government publication titled "Notes to Vis itors of Pitcairn Island, " and is also reproduced in a postage stamp (righ t). center of learning for the Mediterranean region. Major advancements were made in the knowledge of all sciences, astron omy in particular. Ptolemy III Euergertes came to the throne in 247 B.C., and reigned jointly with his father, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, until his father's death in 245 B.C. The start of the Egyptian New Year, on the first of Thoth (Oct. 23, 247 B.C.) would A copy of the petroglyph, as seen in the photograph above. have recorded the start of Ptolemy Ill's second regnal year. The lunar eclipse which lasted approximately six hours, The Explanation observed at Pitcairn Island on Dec. 14, the Moon was situated in the constella A copy of Egyptian hieroglyphics from 233 B.C., would therefore have tion of Gemini. the To mb of Osiris shows the extensive occurred in his 16th regnal year. use of the five-pointed star. This is a ref History shows that the ancient Greeks erence to "ruling monarch," whose name would be attached. The Greek occupation of Egypt, which started with Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., was a time of great wealth and cul ture. During the reigns of Ptolemy II and The central portion shows a little man III, the Library of Alexandria, under the expressing gratitude to his God for witness leadership of Eratosthenes, became the ing this lunar eclipse after travelling halfway around the world. Situated behind the little man is a drawing of a water clock ClEPSYDRA, OR WAT ER CLOCK (see also illustration) set up on a stand to A water clock, record the interval of time between Local known to the Mean Time of noon and the time of the Greeks as "Clep lunar eclipse. This would enable a direct sydra, the Wa ter calculation of the longitude of the observer. Stealer. " In this . The stick-like . ' wa ter clock, a central, tapered _� ___ � . . pot leaks water �;,�i -*:�. • at a regular rate. A pot with �i��;:��AC':,;�i"; �O parallel sides leaks more slowly as y F , . �i the water level drops, and the ellers were known Egyptians overcame this by as "the People of tapering the sides of the pot Manu." The word "Manu" is very com inwards by 70°. Note the repeated use of the fi ve mon throughout the peoples of the Pacific pointed star, symbol fo r "ruling Source: A. Pavel and F. Honzak, Living in and translates as "animal," or more gener the Past. London: Hamlin, 1988 monarch, " in these hieroglyphics fr om ally, "bird." the To mb of Osiris in Egypt. ANCIENT DISCOVERY 21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 55 LUNAR ECLIPSES OCCURRING 234 R.C. TO 230 R.C. Lunar eclipse on Dec. 26, 234 B.C. Overhead at Lunar eclipse on Dec. 14, 233 B.C. U.T. P. A. Long. Lat. U.T. P.A. Long. Lat. Event h m s Event h m s Moon enters penumbra -21 18 25 68 +87 +20 Moon enters penumbra 6 25 33 90 -46 +23 Moon enters umbra -22 30 9 58 +70 +20 Moon enters umbra 7 26 36 95 -61 +23 Total eclipse starts 0 187 +48 +20 Total eclipse starts 8 30 2 295 -76 +23 Maximum eclipse 0 12 8 +45 +20 Maximum eclipse 9 11 16 -86 +23 To tal eclipse ends 0 23 12 62 +42 +20 To tal eclipse ends 9 52 30 45 -96 +22 Moon leaves umbra 54 5 291 +20 +20 Moon leaves umbra 10 55 57 245 -1 11 +22 Moon leaves penumbra 3 6 2 281 + 3 +20 Moon leaves penumbra 11 57 13 250 -1 26 +22 Magnitude of umbral eclipse = 1.018 Magnitude of umbral eclipse = 1.369 Lunar eclipse on June 20, 233 B.C. Lunar eclipse on June 10, 232 B.C. U.T. P.A. Long. Lat. U.T. P.A. Long. Lat. Event h m s Event h m s Moon enters penumbra 17 26 7 104 +148 -21 Moon enters penumbra -23 17 4 79 +55 -25 Moon enters umbra 18 28 43 107 +133 -21 Moon enters umbra 0 37 5 63 +36 -25 To tal eclipse starts 19 30 44 297 +118 -21 Maximum eclipse 2 7 14 +14 -25 Maximum eclipse 20 19 43 +106 -21 Moon leaves umbra 3 37 28 322 - 8 -25 Total eclipse ends 21 8 45 79 + 94 -21 Moon leaves penumbra 4 57 27 306 -27 -25 Moon leaves umbra 22 10 49 269 + 79 -21 Magnitude of umbral eclipse = 0.665 Moon leaves penumbra 23 13 20 272 + 64 -20 Magnitude of umbral eclipse = 1 .575 Lunar eclipse on Dec. 4, 232 B.C. U.T. P.A. Long. Lat. Event h m s Moon enters penumbra -21 27 57 111 +92 +25 Moon enters umbra -22 52 16 140 +72 +25 Maximum eclipse -23 38 20 +61 +25 Moon leaves umbra 0 24 22 191 +50 +25 These data were prepared by Dave Herald, Canberra, Australia. U.T. is universal time. Note that the penumbral eclipses would be barely notice- Moon leaves penumbra 1 48 50 219 +29 +25 able. Magnitude of umbral eclipse = 0.188 were fam iliar with eclipses in general, the constellation Gemini, as seen in the and lunar eclipses in particular. Thales, Northern Hemisphere, is shown at left, who is credited with predicting the first p. 58 .. The two brightest stars in this con solar eclipse in 585 B.C., was aware that stellation, ex and (3, also called Castor the Sun, Moon, and Earth returned to and Pollux (the Dioskouroi) were the their same relative positions after a peri savior gods of the Greek seafarers. od of 18 years, 11 days-the so-called The drawing on the right, p. 58, shows Saros Cycle: It was recognized in ancient the Southern Hemisphere's northeastern times that an eclipse of the Moon offered sky for the month of December. This a method to determine longitude by would have been the sky as observed being an accurate clock, visible from from Pitcairn on the night of the eclipse, many parts of the Earth. The exact time with the full Moon rising with the con that the Earth's shadow comes onto the stellation of Gemini. disk of the Moon is independent of The lunar eclipse, which occurred on Ptolemy "' Euergetes, as depicted on a where the event is observed. December 14, 233 B.C., wou ld have gold coin of Alexandria, after his death. An early Greek attempt of this tech been overhead in the mid-Atlantic at 6:25 The trident of the sea god Poseidon is nique, compared the reported timing Universal Time. The Moon then passed at his shoulder. Ptolemy "' was king at of the eclipse of Sept. 20, 331 B.C., over the Bahamas and obtained maxi the time of the exploratory voyage of made in Carthage (in modern Tu nisia) mum eclipse over the Gulf of Mexico at Maui and Rata, across the Pacific in and Arbela in the Middle East. The 9:11 Universal Time, before terminating 232 B.C. different times read on the clocks over the Western Pacific, off the coast of when the ecl ipse began were taken to California at 11 :57 Universal Time. Source: From the British Museum in London, as indicate the difference in longitude of On Pitcairn Island, situated at longi reproduced in City of the Stargazers, by Kenneth Heuer (New Yo rk: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972), the two cities . tude 1300 West, the Moon would have p. 41 The astronomical representation of been clearly visible in the northeastern 56 Winter 2001 -2002 21 st CENTURY ANCIENT DISCOVERY Lunar eclipse on April 30, 231 B.C. U.T. P. A. Long. Lat. Lunar eclipse on April 19, 230 B.C. Event h m s U.T. P. A. Long. Lat. Moon enters penumbra 11 11 34 179 -127 -25 Event h m s Maximum eclipse 12 34 25 -1 47 -25 Moon enters penumbra 15 59 38 140 +163 -25 Moon leaves penumbra 13 57 8 232 -1 67 -26 Moon enters umbra 17 10 15 154 +146 -25 Magnitude of penumbral eclipse = 0.305 Maximum eclipse 18 39 52 +124 -25 Moon leaves umbra 20 9 24 260 +102 -26 Lunar eclipse on May 30, 231 B.C. Moon leaves penumbra 21 20 15 275 + 85 -26 U.T. P. A. Long. Lat. Magnitude of umbral eclipse = 0.742 Event h m s Moon enters penumbra 27 3 45 +20 -27 Lunar eclipse on Oct. 14, 230 B.C. Maximum eclipse 2 56 15 - 1 -27 U.T. P. A. Long. Lat. Moon leaves penumbra 4 25 25 348 -23 -27 Event h m s Magnitude of penumbral eclipse = 0.346 Moon enters penumbra 8 59 56 44 - 95 +24 Moon enters umbra 10 12 53 33 -1 13 +24 Lunar eclipse on Oct. 25, 231 B.C. Maximum eclipse 11 53 23 -1 37 +24 U.T. P. A. Long. Lat. Moon leaves umbra 13 34 270 -1 61 +25 Event h m s Moon leaves penumbra 14 46 53 259 -1 79 +25 Moon enters penumbra 1 20 25 17 +26 +26 Magnitude of umbral eclipse = 0.964 Maximum eclipse 3 17 8 - 2 +26 These data were prepared by Dave Herald, Canberra, Australia. U.T. is 5 14 3 290 -30 +27 Moon leaves penumbra universal time. Note that the penumbral eclipses would be barely notice· Magnitude of penumbral eclipse = 0.802 able. West - East + o SCHEMATIC OF FULL LUNAR ECLIPSES, 234 B.C. TO 230 B.C. sky on the evening of Dec. 13, 233 B.C. hours Local Mean Time on Dec. 14, 233 around the world at regular six-month inter The Moon would have entered the pen B.C., with the Moon leaving the penum vals. The Greeks, having recorded these umbra at 21 :45 Local Mean Time, soon bra at 0�:1 7 Local Mean Time. eclipses on previous occasions and being after rising above the horizon. Maximum Between Jan. 5, 234 B.C. and Dec. 3, aware of the regular Saros Cycle, knew eclipse would have occurred at 03:1 2 232 B.C., seven lunar eclipses occurred in advance when these eclipses would ANCIENT DISCOVERY 21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 57 THE EVENING SKY AS SEEN FROM PITCAIRN ISLAND, DECEMBER 28-31, 233 B.C. .. Th is illustration shows the Moon as it passes through • the constellation Gemini * * during the month of De cember, as it could have The constellation Gemini. Its two been seen from Pitca irn brightest stars, Castor (ex) and Pollux (�), Island in the Southern were the savior gods of seafarers in Hemisphere, looking north Ancient Greece. east. recur. It is therefore highly possible that an expedition was organized to traverse across and map the Pacific Ocean, using predetermined lunar ec lipses to establish longitude. Barry Fell described the drawings on an eclipse recorded in a cave at Irian jaya in the 15th Regnal Year.2 This would have been the lunar eclipse on Ross Perfect, Licensed Surveyor with Notes ______Dec. 26, 234 B.C., which would have New Zealand, Fijian and Austra lian Qual 1. See Appendix 1, Epigraphic Society Occasional Publications, Vol. 2, No. 21 (1975). Part 1 of the been visible at both Irian jaya and ifications, now lives in Queensland, biography of Barry Fell, by his son Julian Fell, ap Egypt. Pitcairn was recorded on Dec. Australia, and has spent considerable time pears in the Winter 1999-2000 issue of 21st Century, "Barry Fell, Epigrapher: Biography of a 14, 233 B.C., and it is possible that the in the South Pacific. He was inspired by Renaissance Man," pp. 40-63. Part 2 appears in last eclipse was recorded at Santiago on the biography of Barry Fell to pursue this the Summer 2001 21st Century. june 10, 232 B.C. analysis of the Pitcairn Island petroglyphs. 2. Ibid. CATCH UP WITH ANCIENT DISCOVERIES! st In 21 CENTURY SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Barry Fell, Epigrapher: The Maui-Rata 3rd by Marjorie Mazel Hecht, • "Maui's Tanawa: A Biography of a Century B.C. Vo yage to Spri ng 1999 To rquetum of 232 B.C.," by Sentiel Rommel, Spring Renaissance Man the New Wo rld • ''The Decipherment and by Julian Fell Discovery of a Voyage to 1999 • Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., America in 232 B.C.," by A son's memoir of a "On Eratosthenes, Maui's Send check or money order to: remarkable father, who Voyage of Discovery, and Marjorie Mazel Hecht, deciphered many previously Reviving the Principle of Winter 1998-1999 21st Century P.O. Box 16285 unknown scripts, and Discovery To day," Spring • "Indian Inscriptions from ' uncovered the true history 1999 the Cordilleras in Chile," Washington, D.C. 20041 of Polynesia and the ancient by Karl Stolp (1 889), Or order via credit card on the • "Eratosthenes' Instruments travellers to the New World. Winter 1 998-1 999 21 st Century website store: Guided Maui's 3rd Century www.21stcenturysciencetech.com Part 1 Winter 1999-2000 B.C. Voyage," Part 2 Summer 2001 Back issues are avai lable from 21st Century at $ S each ($8 foreign) 58 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY ANCIENT DISCOVERY SPACE INTERVIEW WITH ASTRONAUT AN DY THOMAS It's Time for Australia' To Get Into Space! Australian-born astronaut Andy Astronaut Andy Th omas has made two flights on the Thomas: "The Space Shuttle, and spent 130 days on reception from the the Russian Mir Space Station. A PhD. people I talk to, the in mechanical engineering from the man in the street, as University of Adelaide, Dr. Th omas has well as educated lay given many public lectures in Australia, persons, has been and is an outspoken advocate fo r extremely positive Australia to join the international com about human space munity in its manned space programs. flight. " Dr. Thomas was interviewed by Marsha Freeman on Nov. 7, 2001. Question: You testified last summer program in Earth remote sensing. Could on on the Space Station-life sciences, before the International Space Advisory that area be a possibility? microgravity science, and basic Group, on Australia's future in space. That was one of the things I also sug physics-Australia has the educational What were your recommendations? gested, as an area where Australia could capacity to contribute to any of these. My role was to give them some ideas, do something with the Space Station and Life sciences is one field that comes to particularly about possible involvement provide a capability that would be unique mind. Australia has a very strong med in the International Space Station. We for Australia, sensing of geography of the ical community, and there is a lot of were talking about a potential landing land, sensing of the surrounding oceans, interest in the medical issues faced in site for the X-38 veh icle, and a landing for ecological and resource management, long-duration spaceflight as they apply site for a crew return vehicle for the and environmental management. The to people on the ground. Space Station, should it evolve from the question you have to address is, are you In microgravity · sciences there are the experimental X-38. Because Australia is best off doing that on a Space Station, on a basic skills in the universities. There are a big, wide open space that is easy to hit human-tended vehicle, or. on a free-flyer? the skills in basic physics, in remote sens with a crew-return vehicle, it is very The conventional answer is that a ing. In any of those areas, Australia could attractive for a landing site. free-flyer is the best way to go, but I do collaborative science,. and I made a big made the point that that doesn't account push for them to do·that. I think it would ;'; Question: Which areas of Australia for the fact that if you do it on a Space be very much in the country's best interest would be considered appropriate for Station, you have a person in the loop because you leverage the resources and such a landing site? who can make real-time decisions, you start getting a community of educated There are actually a number of pos can modify your instrument, you can fix people building up in the society. sible landing sites, but the most prob your instrument if there is a problem You develop very unique, advanced able is a test range in the northern part with it, and you can bring your instru skills. They may not stay in the space of south Australia called Woomera. I ment back to the ground and refu rbish it. program, but those skills diffuse into the think it would certainly be very much If Australia was to do it, it would have community and after 10 years you start in the Australian Government's inter a device that would be applicable not to see them paying dividends in other est to do that, to support the infra just to Australia, and it would be able to areas, in other innovative technologies, structure, because it is a very unique do collaborative ventures with other start-up companies, and venture funds. test range. countries, to use the same data sources That's where the big payoff would be for that they generate. Australia, aside from the fact that doing Question: There would seem to be these things enriches the community in many ways that Australia could con Question: Beside remote sensing, what its own right. People find it exciting, and tribute to the International Space other areas could Australia participate in? that's enough justification in its own Station. Australia already has a large In all of the areas of research that go right to do it. SPACE 21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 59 there is no Australian space office, or agency comparable to NASA? That is correct. I made a push for that. I thought that with the various activities that Australia could participate in, either through the International Space Station or through the Woomera test range, or the work going on at Christmas Island [launch site], that Australia did need to have a focussed, centralized space office which would report to a cabinet minister at a high level, and have a clearly defined mandate and budget and goals. That would avoid some of the turf bat tles you get when you have multiple organizations trying to do things. Yo u'd have someone clearly in charge, and I think that is very important. Question: Why has it been so difficult to establish a centralized space agency? There have been attempts to do that in NASA the past, but space and those really long Andy Thomas has proposed that Australia provide a landing site fo r the Crew term investments in research are not part Return Ve hicle (CRV), that will be developed fo r the International Space Station. of the Australian culture. Tr ad itionally, Seen here is the NASA X-38 test vehicle, the precursor to the CRV Australia doesn't do that. It funds more near-term things. Question: It would seem that Australia If Australia provided communications Australia has had, in fa irness to the could also develop modest pieces of systems for a station module, that would political leaders, some economic prob hardware for the Space Station, as any also have applications to systems for lems that required pretty immediate even small involvement is a foot in the military vehicles, as well as commercial action, so there haven't been the door into this international effort. vehicles on the ground. resources to do this. I am of the opinion I suggested developing flight hard If Australia had a fu ll-time support that the world is changing and the 21st ware of some kind to support the Space capability for an emergency landing site Century will be a world of very sophisti Station. I don't think Australia is fiscally for the Space Station crew return vehi cated technologies; and certainly remote in a position to develop a module. cle, which is another option, Australia sensing has suddenly taken on a whole However, it could easily develop com would require search and rescue capa new importance since September 11. ponents of modules for another agency, bility and special medical vehicles, to be I think you have to look and see what such as the European Space Agency or deployed in the event of an emergency will be the values of the 21 st Century the Canadians. There are a lot of collab on the space station. world. They're going to be in high technol orative opportunities, where Australia But those resources would be available ogy systems, research and development, has the technology skills to do it. to Australia in times of national need. It of which one element is space-based When I suggest that, the question I get wou ld not be something sitting there gath activities. I think if any country is going is, "Why should Australia develop some ering dust; it could be functioning, sup to be a player on the world stage, and thing to support a Space Station module? porting the communities in the remote therefore, an active player in the world What does Australia get out of it?" areas of Australia, at the same time that it economy, then that country needs to Australia would actually get a lot. If is on call to support the Space Station. embrace those values. That is something Australia developed a life support system That's the approach that I took in my Australian political leaders need to do. for a space station module, Australia briefing. I said that all of these things are would get all that technology, which has not something that is done in isolation, Question: There is, very often, a discon appl ications, for example, to sub just to support the space program. They nect between the political leadership of marines. We ll, Australia is building a all have application to the needs of the a country and the kinds of programs fleet of submarines for itself, and that life country. In that sense, you are enriching that would be supported by the citizens support technology has immediate appli the capabilities of the country by doing of that country. What kind of response cation there. It also has application in the these things because you are gaining do you get when you give talks about refurbishment and maintenance of com access to the technologies and capabili space in Australia? mercial aircraft, which is a big business ties that you would not otherwise have. I've generally found that the reception in Australia. Many airlines go there to do from the people I talk to, the man in the it because it's attractive, financially. Question: Is it correct that at this point, street, so to speak, as well as educated 60 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY SPACE lay persons, has been extremely positive we do?" ing at what is going to be the return in about human space flight and being The fact of the matter is that none of the next election cycle, because some inolved. There's great excitement there. these was formally linked with Australia. things take longer to develop than that. For young people, of course, that's Australia does not have a formal role in If the United States had worked on undeniably true, but it's not just young human space fl ight. just trying to get a return before the next people, it's also the people at large. I election, we wOL1ld not have all the think some of that has been picked up Question: To accomplish the kinds of computers and the Internet, and all the on by the political leaders, too. goals you are recommending for capabilities we have, because they have I had the great privilege to address the Australia, there would have to be a taken many, many years to develop. Australian Federal Cabinet in July-this government policy to do so. Would that They take a stable policy of research and is made up of the various ministers who be part of a larger orientation of the development that is bipartisan in sup report to the Prime Minister. That was a government towards research and port, and is agreed upon by everyone as great honor. I briefied them about the development pr()grams? being in the country's national interest. Space Station and about Austral ia's That is the big issue. The big push I've unique capabilities by virtue of its geog tried to make is to get the government to Question: One 'very important long raphy, which includes Christmas Island think about these kinds of activities, that term benefit from investment in and Woomera, and I made a big push are really part of a bigger research, research and development, and space for Australia to get involved in these development, and technology plan that I exploration, in particular, is in advanc activities, because I think there will be a think governments do need to fo llow ing the quality of education in society. significant economic benefit to the through with. Yo u have to make an That's true, and if you look at what country in years to come. investment in the future, in research and NASA has done over many years, NASA It won't be a near-term economic gain; development. You have to make an spending has made a huge contribution these things never are, they are a long investment for your grandchildren. within the university system of this term economic gain. But I think Australia Yo u can't run an economy just look- country. It's just huge. is well positioned to be a participant in those because it has a good technology infrastructure, it has a good education sys tem, it has a good R&D base, it's very sta ble politically, and it is an English-speak ing country. These are all definite advan tages, and pluses in why Australia should get involved in some of these things. Question: One would think that there is great interest in manned space pro grams in Australia, because it has two astronauts who have flown in space. That needs to be clarified a bit. The two of us got our start in Australia, but we do not represent Australia in any way. Paul Scully-Power was a payload spe cialist as an oceanographer. In fact, he was not an astronaut. He was an oceanographer who did not represent Australia, but flew as a U.S. citizen. I flew as a U.S. citizen on my first flight. I subsequently had my Australian citizen ship reactivated, because they changed the laws there, so I also do fly as an Australian citizen, but I don't represent Australia formally. It's an informal repre sentation by virtue of my heritage. That's a point I make when I'm in Australia, because a lot of people say: "Why should we get involved in space? We've had Andy Thomas as an astro NASA naut, we've gotten an Australian citizen One of the contributions that Australia can make in space technology is in the field into space, we've had Scully-Power as a of Earth remote sensing. Here, a space image of the Perth area in We stern Australia, payload specialist. What more should taken in 7998. SPACE 21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 61 An unbelievable amount of the work programs, by just spending some mil geography for launch vehicles, and it that goes on in flying the Shuttle, in lions of dollars in research and develop would be very much in Australia's inter developing the payloads and the sys ment programs that wou ld, for example, est to follow the Brazilian paradigm and tems, believe it or not, is done by grad be done coll?boratively with investiga start getting involved. uate students earning their degrees. tor.s here. By doing that, you access all I think there's a large school of Those graduate students may not stay in the. other research and development thought there that this is a valid mes the space program, but they get a spe that's going, so you leverage your small sage. cialized skill which they take out into investment. You get a lot more for it than This year is an election year [in the community, and that enriches the you might otherwise. Australia] . I think neither of the political community in other areas. parties was willing to step up to this kind That was one of the pushes I made Question: When you discuss Australian of high-risk vision, during an election with the Australian government, that if participation in the International Space campaign. However, I'm hoping that you do these things, you put value Station, does anyone bring up the fact after the election campaign we will see added into the community which, I that Brazil is making a significant con steps in this direction. think, is impossible to quantify, but is tribution to the Space Station program? A thrust for both political parties for profound. Yo u change the nature of your I bring that up all the time. I use Brazil this election has been on improving society in a very positive way for the as an example, I point out, as I've done education and research and develop next 20 years. That's the intangible part. with the Prime Minister's Chief Scientist, ment. I think it is generally being recog It's a very hard sell to political leaders that Brazil is spending money on the nized that Australia has languished in because they have to justify the return to Space Station and has got an astronaut those areas in the last·20-odd years, that their constituency, and it's hard · when here [at NASA's Johnson Space Center in the quality of education in universities people are unemployed, and so on, to Houston]. has fa llen, and there is no doubt that it get them to think that they need toworry They are trying to show the world that has, unfortunately. about the legacy they are going to leave they have these capabil ities, and that Class size is larger, teaching loads for their grandchildren. they are a player on the world stage. have become larger, pupil-teacher ratios When I briefed the Federal Cabinet They want countries to come to them to have gone up, with fewer and fewer about the Space Station, they were of the launch vehicles, because they have a teachers in universities. It is generally opinion they could only be involved in geography that's ideally suited for recognized that Australia is paying a it if they committed hundreds of millions launching vehicles. By being a player in price for this, by virtue of the fact that of dollars. That's true, if you waht be a this activity, they are bringing that busi right now the Austraiian dollar is about full-up active partner. ness, potentially, into their country. 51 U.5. cents. It was nearly on a par However, you don't have to do that. I make the point that Australia is with the U.S. dollar 20 years ago. You can be a participant in the science exactly the same. It has the same kind of To a very large extent Australia's econ omy-which is a service economy, it serves the economies of the rest of the world-does not do a lot of value-added in its own right. When you don't have research, and you don't have education, that's the inevitable outcome. You have a 50-cent-on-the-dollar economy. If you want to change that, you're not going to do that overnight with some pol itical policy. It's going to take a huge shift in the values of the society, and the promotion of innovation. The way you do that is through education and research and development. Question: There are certainly many avenues Australia can take to partici pate in the Space Station. What path way would you recommend? I think Australia could get to the point where it flies an experiment on the Space Station. I don't think it wou ld be Astronaut Fra nk Culbertson, Commander of the third Expedition Mission aboard right to just spend hundreds of millions the International Space Station, holding a syringe kit, used to grow tissue in NASA 's of dollars. The plans I've proposed to the biotechnology program, in a photograph ta ken on Aug. 29, 2007. Australia, Andy chief defense scientist were to move Th omas states, could contribute to every area of research on the Space Station. cautiously on this. 62 Winter 2001 -2002 21 st CENTURY SPACE Start with a modest investment in n't lie with Europe or even, for that research and development and some matter, with the United States. collaborative science. Slowly build up It's going to lie primarily with that capability. Start developing, per Southeast Asia, and especially haps, flight hardware as a collaborative Indonesia, and that's the big cul venture with the major [space) agencies, tural paradigm that is changing in to develop your credibility and capabil Australia. I think that's all the ity, and then slowly build up to the point more reason why Australia should where you can build flight hardware be involved in these space activi that specifically serves Australia's needs, ties, because those nations are and can be funded at a level that is going to be looking for representa appropriate for Australia. That's the way tion in human spaceflight and in you do it. launch capability. Question: There is under way a tremen Question: What do you see for dous economic reorientation throughout Australia in space, farther in the Asia as a whole, which Australia must future? become. involved in. A series of very There is going to be a great large infrastructure projects, including human adventure of the 21 st the building of new rail connections to Century, and that is going to be a form a Eurasian Land-Bridge, creating trip to Mars. It's probably not real- development corridors throughout Asia. . istic to have an Australian crew Over the last year, many Asian countries person fly on that mission, unless have realized that their dependence NASA there was a huge investment, upon the United States to import their Andy Thomas trying on his Russian space suit which probably is not viable. But goods is on shaky ground. inside a Russian Soyuz in January 7998, in Australia could certainly develop These countries are looking at what preparation fo r his 7 30-day stay on the Mir. some of the hardware for that mis- large-scale infrastructure projects must be sion and when that mission goes, implemented, and Australia is sitting near so, which is to come to recognize that just imagine how excited the people of by with industrial and other capabilities. Australia is, in fact, part .of the Pacific Australia would be to say: "That mission I agree with that. I think that's the big nations. Australia traditionally was part is happening because we've got this cultural shift that Australia is facing, and of the British Commonwealth, but really device that we built. We actually con has been facing over the last 20 years or Australia's role in the world today does- tributed to that mission." Australia has promIsing sites to be developed fo r the launch of commercial satellites. The Wo omera test range (a), which dates back to the end of Wo rld Wa r II, is ideally,suited fo r test ing launch vehiii:les, which can fl y northwest over 2,000 kilome No;liwrn T� rri!or}' ters of virtually uninhabited land, and to put satellites into a polar orbit, launching toward the north. Cape Yo rk (b), near the equa SCHltn AltSlr-aii" tor, could accommodate satel (a) :'Ioomer. lites that would tra vel east, on Perth Nf'lAo' S()(lIh W"IOH their way to geosynchronous orbit. And Christmas Island (c) is under consideration fo r joint development through the Asia o. Austfalia's P6tentlar:i,f Pacific Space Center, which Launch Sites would launch the Russian Aurora rocket. SPACE 21st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 63 NUCLEAR REPORT Food Irradiation Technology Can Kill Anthrax by Marjorie Mazel Hecht ood irradiation technology, which F uses ionizing radiation to kill bacte ria, mold, fungi, and viruses on food stuffs, will also safely kill anthrax bacte ria on mail. The U.S. Postal Service is now decontaminating some Washing ton, D.C. mail at an electron-beam irra diation plant in Lima, Ohio, and the government has ordered eight electron beam irradiators from SureBeam, a San Diego-based company affi liated with the Titan Corporation, at a cost of approximately $26 million. SureBeam now operates two food irradiation plants, one in Des Moines, Iowa and the other in Chicago, both geared to processing chopped meat, and a third plant is expected to open in the Los Angeles area. Ionizing radiation, produced by an electron beam accelerator or by a radioactive source like cobalt-60 or cesium-1 37, is a "cold" process that penetrates the cell of a bacterium-sal Surebeam Corp. monella, E. coli, camphylobacter, Artist's illustration of an electron-beam irradiation fa cility. The containerized anthrax, or other harmfu I microorgan product travels on a conveyor belt through the e-beam de vice. isms. There is no radioactive residue left in the product, and the product is not being picked green to ripen during stor 10,000 people die each year of food heated. age and shipping. And irradiated ham borne illnesses, and hundreds of thou The electron beam accelerator can burger patties can be eaten rare, without sands become ill. also be used to produce X-rays for irra fear of food-borne illness. There are about 50 commercial irra diation. These very short, very energetic At higher levels, ionizing radiation diation plants operating in the U.S., rays penetrate solid particles and kill can sterilize foodstuffs so they are shelf most of them using cobalt-60 as the microorganisms bf breaking down the stable, without refrigeration. The astro radiation source, and most sterilizing cell walls or destroying the metabolic niluts ate irradiation-steril ized foods to not food, but medical supplies. The pathways (DNA) of the organism so the prevent food-borne illness; irradiation facilities to decontaminate mail will be cells die. Foods are processed inside sterilized food is available for immune separate from existing facilities, to pre sealed packages, to prevent any new compromised patients. vent any chance of cross-contamina contam i nation. 50 Years of Research tion. At low levels, ionizing radiation can Although food irradiation technology In the early 1990s, spurred by vision delay sprouting in potatoes and onions, has been in development for 50 years, ary entrepreneur Sam Whitney, a com lengthen the shelf-life of fruits and veg its commercialization was slow, until the mercial irradiation plant was built in etables, or ensure that. meats, poultry, last decade, when highly publicized Mulberry, Fla., to aid local farmers in fish, or spices are 99+-percent deaths from food-borne illnesses com disinfesting strawberry crops. The com pathogen-free. The irradiation causes pelled more large companies to consid pany, Vindicator, came under attack by virtually no changes in taste, texture, er use of irradiation, because they fear some well-funded anti-nuclear activists, aroma, or wholesomeness of the food . In the liability of not using it. There were but the company survived, market tests fact, the fru its and vegetables are often 129 recalls of bacteria-contaminated of irradiated strawberries were very suc superior in taste, because they can be foods nationwide in the year 2000, for cessfu l, and the company operates today allowed to ripen on the vine before example, up 37 percent from 1999. as Food Te chnology, Inc. being irradiated and shipped, instead of According to U.S. government data, In the last two years, Titan Corp., a 64 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY NUCLEAR REPORT defense contractor, has launched a month, because of the anthrax threat, unless they have some form of approved campaign for food irradiation using than in the past 50 years! disinfestation. electron beam accelerators and calling How It Works Mail is not food, and killing the process "cold pasteurization." Each method of irradiation has its weaponized anthrax requires a higher SureBeam, a Titan subsidiary, now has advantages. Gamma rays can penetrate dose of irradiation, more than 40 kilo contracts with major suppliers of meat, produce to a depth of 30 inches, irradi gray (kGy). The exact dose and proce poultry, cold cuts, and other products, ating the product on one side only. dure is not being made public, as well as the Department of Defense. Usually, the produce will be packaged, Surebeam spokesman Wil Williams told (Diarrhea caused by food-borne boxed, and stacked on pallets which 27st Century, to prevent such informa microorganisms is a common health ride a conveyor belt that goes around tion from aiding the anthrax perpetrator. problem for troops, especially in tropi the radiation source, to get even pene Existing studies have shown that the cal countries.) tration throughout the pallet load. The antrax bacillus is inactivated at 41 .5 Irradiation is now approved for use dose and time of exposure have been kGy. During the 1960s, Australia suc on a wide variety of products in about calculated for all kinds of products, and cessfully used irradiation to destroy 40 countries. In November 2001, the to be sure the radiation reaches all parts anthrax spores in imported goat hair that U.5. Defense Department announced of the pallet contents. was used in making carpets. that had added irradiated ground beef The electron beam (1 0 MeV) uses no Now, new protocols have to be and poultry products to its military food radioactive source, just electricity to turn worked out to ensure that workers are procurement authorization. Estimates the accelerator on. Electrons are pro protected, and that the final product is are that 25 percent of food produced in duced, contained by a magnetic field, decontaminated without allowing any industrialized countries, and 40 to 60 and accelerated into a narrow beam. The cross-contamination. The problem is a percent of food produced in developing e-beam penetrates only about one and daunting one, but the nation has faced countries, spoils or is eaten by insects three-eighths of an inch, passing through serious threats in the past, and won (the or rodents, before it can be eaten by water or something of equivalent density. Manhattan Project of Wo rld War II human beings. As part of the 1950s If the product is irradiated from both comes to mind). Food irradiation tech Atoms for Peace project under sides, the beam would penetrate two and nology must be part of any national President Eisenhower, it was assumed three-quarter inches or so-about the defense program against bioterrorism, as that irrad iation plants in developing depth of eight hamburger patties. Again, well as protecting Americans from food nations would help feed growing popu the boxed product is moved on a con borne illness. lations-until the shift to a post-indus veyor belt through the electron beam. trial society and its anti-population, X-rays are made from deflecting an anti-nuclear ideology stifled the tech electron beam on a heavy metal target, Read more about food irradiation nology'S development. like tungsten. The target has to be thin in Although the United States pio enough so the electrons will give up neered the technology, it is only recent their energy, which is converted into X 21sSCIENCEt CENT & TECHNOLOGYURY ly that U.S. consumers have been able rays. These can go several feet, but their to reap the benefits: Irradiated ham production requires more electrical • Food Irradiation: burger patties, chicken, and some fruits power, and so is costlier �han electron A Pu�lic Health Measure are available in many supermarkets beam or gamma-ray irradiation. A new Long Overdue! across the country. Ironically, plant in Hawaii uses X-rays to process by James H. Steele, D.V.M., M.P.H Americans have learned more about papaya and other tropical fruits, which • Scientific Answers to the benefits of irradiation in the past cannot be shipped to the mainland Irradiation B.ugaboos by Marjorie Mazel Hecht Both in 21st Century, Fall 1999 • Special Report on Food More Lies from the Anti-nukes Irradiation The same groups that have has gripped the nation, unsubstanti 14·page re print fro m 27st Ce ntury, attacked food irradiation jumped into ated claims about a technology's Fall 1991 action soon after the Post Office ability to kill anthrax are irresponsi Back issues are available from 27st announced that it would use irradia ble and dangerous. Claims of this Century at $ 5 each ($8 foreign) tion to kill anthrax spores. Public magnitude should be supported by Send check or money order to: Citizen issued a release on "Anthrax peer-reviewed scientific research." 21st Century and Surebeam" Oct. 18, with no sci Imagine what might happen if p.o. Box 16285" entific basis, stating that "radiation is Public Citizen applied such wisdom Washington, D.C. 2004 1 ineffective against anthrax spores." to any of its own fear-promoting or order at the 21 st Century website store Further, the Public Citizen release "claims" about advanced technolo states: "Given the level of fear that gies. www.2Jstcenturysciencetech.com NUCLEAR REPORT 21st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 65 BOOKS The Suppressed Story of Captain Cook's Second Voyage by Rick and Lenore Sanders A Voyage Round the World years old, he accompanied his George Forster father on a trip to Russia, com Eds. Nicholas Thomas and Oliver 8erghof Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999 missioned by the Russian gov Hardcover, 860 pp., $115.00 ernment, to inspect the settle ments of German colonists near Vo yage Round the Wo rld is a won the river Vo lga. It was a journey A derful book, which was suppressed of about 4,000 kilometers, in when it was first written in 1777. A doc the course of which the Forsters umentation, in narrative form, of the described a large number of sometimes harrowing adventures aboard new animal and plant species. Captain Cook's second voyage, it gives But when Johann Reinhold not only the navigational trials of the Forster's humanity would not voyage, but also a naturalist's. descrip permit him to keep silent about tive chronicle of indigenous plants and the lawlessness, enslavement, animals, of oceanic, terrestrial, and and harsh living conditions in atmospheric characteristics, and, what is the region, his Russian patrons more, a truthful humanistic anthropolo withdrew their support, and gy of the peoples of the South Sea father and son took leave for islands and of British-European social England, where they were liv structures and behaviors. The University ing when this adventure begins. of Hawai'i Press must be gratefully con The Forsters accompanied gratulated for publishing this book, was the eldest of the seven survIving Captain Cook on his second voyage which also includes the most important children of Johann Reinhold Forster aboard the Resolution (July 13, 1772 to documentation of the controversy which (1 729-1 798), a Protestant minister and a July 30, 1775), which was commis surrounded it, and many illustrations naturalist. Financially, the family was sioned to continue the drive toward the from the journey. quite impoverished. South Pole, to once and for all establish The author, Georg (George) Forster, In 1765, when Georg was only 11 whether or not a southern continent B ANTARCTICA 66 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY BOOKS existed. Johann Reinhold Forster was being 2,000 feet long, 400 feet broad, called upon to serve as the ship's natu and 200 feet high. On the 10th, Forster ralist, after the hostile indifference of the writes: "The ice likewise served to shew First Lord Commissioner of the Board of us the great difference between the tem the Admiralty, the Earl of Sandwich, had perature of the northern and southern caused the withdrawal of Joseph Banks, hemisphere. We were now in the midst the naturalist who had accompanied of December, which answers to our Cook on his first voyage. June, and the latitude observed at noon Johann Reinhold was promised that, g�ve only 51 degrees 5 minutes south, upon his return: he would receive main notwithstanding which we had already tenance sufficient for the care of his large passed several pieces of ice, and the fa mily; that he was to be employed to thermometer stood at 36 degrees. The write the narrative history of the voyage; want of land in the southern hemisphere that the engravings reproduced from the seems to account for this circumstance, drawings made during the journey would since the sea, · as a transparent fluid, belong jointly to Forster and to Cook, absorbs the beams of the sun, instead of and; that they would be printed with reflecting them" (p. 65). Forster's written history. He was promised They crossed the Antarctic Circle on the profits from the sale of the narrative. January 17, 1773, seeing more than 30 , All such promises were broken, and large islands of ice and a glaring white Johann was prohibited from writing the reflection from the sky over the horizon. account. When his son Georg, therefore, Georg Forster Persevering, they passed through a vast who was not encumbered by the injustice quantity of broken and spongy brown of contrived legalities, wrote A Vo yage July 13, 1772, crossing the Equator on ice which thickened around them. Round the Wo rld, the Forsters and this September 9, thus beginning a journey Reaching 67° 15' south latitude on the fine book were so viciously slandered that would last three years and sixteen 18th, with an immense field of ice that the book simply did not sell in days, in the course of which the �q�iva extended southward, Cook, seeing that England. In the midst of these battles with lent distance of three times the circum it was impossible to advance any farther, the British Crown, Georg translated his ference of the globe would be travelled. ordered the ship to head northeast. By book into German, resulting in his recog Four approaches toward the South Pole January 31, having gone northeast up to nition, in Germany, as a genius endowed would be made during the summer a latitude of 50° south, a new southeast with the highest qualities of humanity. months of the Southern Hemisphere. ern approach was made. First Attempts to Reach the Pole On December 9, with the temperature On February 24, at about 6° south, The Resolution sailed from Plymouth, at about freezing, being at 49° 45' south they were once again stopped by a field England toward the coast of Spain, on latitude, they see large ice floats, one of solid ice. The obstacle, however, this time pleased nearly everyone on board, having been so long at sea, more than three months without fresh nourishment, and with the weather auguring a fierce SOUTH winter in these seas, the nights now AMERICA lengthened, making navigation more dangerous. "It was therefore very natural," says Forster, "that our people, exhausted by fatigues and the want of wholesome food, should wish for a place of refresh ment, and rejoice to leave a part of the world, where they could not expect to meet with it" (p. 76). Several people now had advanced signs of scurvy. The violent climate had also affected the livestock, which had been taken on board and were intended as gifts for the natives of the South Sea islands. Goats and sows either miscar ried, or their offspring were killed by the cold; it would take nearly another four weeks, much of which was spent in icy wo waters, before touching land at Dusky A Voyage Round the World, pp. xxx·xxxi BOOKS 21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 67 Bay, New Zealand. church-spires appeared from R & R in the South Seas time to time. Their height was The ship's R & R was not exact not much inferior to that which ly what Hollywood has popular we had observed among the first ized about the South Seas. For islands of ice in 1772; and many those of you who might have likewise resembled them in been overdosed with a romanti being of a great extent and per cist notion of beautiful, half-clad fectly level at top ..." (p. 288). maidens, innocently and freely Is This British Culture or Hell? generous with their "favors" Two days before Christmas, think again! Here is Forster's surrounded by islands of ice, description of these lovely crea many on board are painfully ill tures: including Johann Reinhold "In the afternoon, many of our Forster, who is bedridden with sailors were allowed to go on crippling rheumatic pains and shore, among the natives, where fever. The wretched conditions they traded for curiosities, and in his cabin render it rotting purchased the embraces of the with mold, and only two and ladies, notwithstanding the dis one half degrees warmer than gust which their uncleanliness upon the open deck. inspired. Their custom of paint Ninety large ice islands were ing their cheeks with ochre and in sight on Christmas day. "This oil, was alone sufficient to deter being Christmas-day, the cap the more sensible from such inti tain according to custom, invit mate connections with them; ed the officers and mates to din and if we add to this a certain ner, anp. one of the lieutenant's stench which announced them entertai ned the petty-officers. to'". '� Q"� i even at a distance, and the abun- The sailors feasted on a double dance of vermin which not only . portion of pudding, regaling �"j'�". ' ���j �� .� infested their hair, but also ���*th " ! themselves with the brandy of crawled on their clothes, and their allowance, which they had A Voya ge Round the World, p. 698 which they occasionally cracked saved for this occasion some between their teeth, it is aston Ti tle page of William Wa les 's pamphlet attacking the months before-hand, being soI ishing that persons should be 7777 English edition of Forster's book. The quotation in I icitous to get very drunk, fo und, who could gratify an ani French, which Wa les attributes to "Forster, from De though they are commonly sol mal appetite with such loath Missy," reads:. "The truth cannot in silence be licitous about nothing else. The some objects... " (p. 123). dismissed; and however it be halted along the way, this sight of an immense number of Second Attempts to Reach Pole will be seen as an outrage one day, whose fa tal fr uit icy masses, amongst which we They had spent the winter was shame at least. " drifted at the mercy of the cur travelling from Dusky Bay, to rent, every moment in danger of Queen Charlotte's Sound, New Zealand, ice just ahead. Keeping as near to the being dashed to pieces against them, to the Society Islands (Tahiti, Hauhine, wind as possible, the ship passed just could not deter the sailors from and Raiatea), to the To ngan archipelago within her own length windward of it. indulging in their favourite amusement. and back to New Zealand, improving Forster writes of this event: As long as they had brandy left, they their diet, brewing anti-scorbutic tea, "Notwithstanding the constant perils would persist to keep Christmas 'like mapping, and exploring. When summer to which our course exposed us in this Christians: though the elements had came, everyone dreaded the new unexplored ocean, our ship's company conspired together for their destruction. attempts that wou ld be made to find the were far from being so uneasy as might ...Though they are members of a civi southern continent; they had not fully have been expected; and, as in battle the lized society, they may in some measure regained their health from the previous sight of death becomes familiar and be looked upon as a body of uncivilized summer, they now knew the hardships often unaffecting, so here, by daily expe men, rough, passionate, revengefu l, but to be expected, and they no longer riencing such hair-breadth escapes, we likewise brave, sincere, and true to each believed that they would find land. passed unconcernedly on, as if the other" (p. 290). By December 15, 1773 surrounded waves, the winds, and rocks of ice had Georg describes the scene of the fol by a thick fog and amid great numbers not the power to hurt us. The pieces of lowing day: "Towards noon the next day of floating rocks of ice, their situation ice had a variety of shapes, in the same we were sti ll in the same situation, with was extremely dangerous. About one manner as those which we had observed a very drunken crew, and from the mast o'clock in the afternoon, there was the to the southward of the Indian Ocean; head observed one hundred and sixty ice sudden appearance of a large island of and many pyramids, obelisks, and islands, some of which were half a mile 68 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY BOOKS long, and none less than the hull of the ward was very boisterous, and obliged south as far as other navigators had gone ship. The whole scene looked like the us to keep all our sails double-reefed; towards the North Pole. wrecks of a shattered world, or as the the sea ran high, and the ship worked But on January 30, at about seven poets describe some regions of hell; an very heavily, rolling violently from side o'clock in the morning, a solid ice-field idea which stuck us the more forcibly, as to side." of immense proportion was before the execrations, oaths, and curses re-echoed But they have achieved something: ship as far as the eye could see. They about us on all sides" (p. 291 ). "[Ilt is sufficient for us, to have proved had reached a latitude of 71 ° 10' And here is how the Crown treated its that no large land or continent exists in south, that is 18° 50' north of the South guest scientists: the South Sea within the temperate Pole, "but as it was impossible to pro "In order to fit the ship for sea she was zone, and that if it exists at all, we have ceed farther, we put the ship about, cut down at Sheerness, and the round at least confined it within the antarctic well satisfied with our perilous expedi house, formerly intended for the circle" (p. 292). tion, and almost persuaded that no nav Captain's reception, was thrown off. On January 11, the Resolution igator will care to come after, and much This so much lessened the room in the changed course, and was now running less attempt to pass beyond us. From ship, that we, as the last comers, found southeast again, when on the 15th the these circumstances my father has been only two small cabins, one on each side, wind increased greatly into a tempestu led to suppose, that all the south pole, nearly abreast of the main mast, and ous gale. Forster recal ls: to the distance of 20 degrees, more or unconnected with any other cabins. "At nine o'clock a huge mountainous less, is covered with solid ice, of which They had been patched up in a hurry, wave struck the ship in the beam, and only the extremities are annually bro and standing where the ship supports filled the decks with a deluge of water. It ken by storms, consumed by the action the greatest strain, were open to the poured through the sky-light over our of the sun, and regenerated in winter" winds and waves, which forced into heads, and extinguished the candle, (p. 295). them through every cranny. leaving us for a moment in doubt, They began to run north. "[AJ great "The Captain was so sensible of their whether we were not entirely over number of our people were however uncomfortable condition, that he whelmed and sinking into the abyss. afflicted with very severe rheumatic offered of his own accord to enlarge my Every thing was afloat in my father's pains, which deprived them of the use of father's cabin and make it contiguous to cabin, and his bed was thoroughly their limbs; but their spirits were so low, that of the master. The Captain, first soaked. His rheumatism, which had that they had no fever ...and my father, Lieutenant, Astronomer, and Master had now afflicted him above a fortnight, was who had been in exquisite torments dur excellent roomy cabins on the same sti ll so violent as to have almost ing the greatest part of our southern deck, supported by each other, and not deprived him of the use of his legs, and cruize, was afflicted with tooth-aches, torn to pieces by a continual strain. his pains redoubled in the morning. Our swelled cheeks, sore-throat, and univer They had large scuttles, which admitted situation at present was indeed very dis sal pain till the middle of February, sufficient light, whilst we could scarce mal, even to those who preserved the when he ventured on deck perfectly ly see a glimmering through a small blessing of health; to the sick, whose emaciated" (p. 295). hole overshaded by the chain plates. crippled limbs were tortured with exces The Main Purpose Accomplished Morning and evening every day,' on sive pain, it was insupportable" (pp. "The principal view of our expedition, washing the decks, our cabins were 292-293). the search after a southern continent filled with water over the ancles, and by The distress of the crew was exacer within the bounds of the temperate this means, or when it rained, or as bated by the condition of their rations. zone, was fu lfilled; we had even often as a wave struck over the ship, our Their biscuits, brought on board at New searched the frozen seas of the opposite beds were thoroughly drenched; and Zealand, were now largely decayed, and hemisphere, within the antarctic circle, this hardship was wholly confined to for economy sake they received only without meeting with that vast tract of ourselves, all the other cabins being two thirds of their usual allowance, one land which had formerly been supposed watertight and warm. By living in these half of which was rotten. The first ice to exist. At the same time, we had made wretched hovels, my father was tortured islands met with on this run were at 62° another discovery important to science, with rheumatic pains, which frequently 30' south, on January 20. Proceeding that nature forms great masses of ice in confined him to his cold damp bed, and southward, they crossed the Antarctic the midst 6f the wide ocean, which are once laid him up during two whole Circle again on the 26th. On that day an destitute of any saline particles, but have months, whilst we cruised to the illusion of land appeared, which after a all the useful and salubrious qualities of Southward among the ice in December, few hours vanished in the clouds. On the pure element. At other seasons we 1773, and January, 1774. I was likewise the 27th, they reach 67° 52' south, far explored the Pacific Ocean between the plagued with frequent illness and scor ther south than any of the former tropics, and in the temperate zone; and butic complaints" (p. 790). attempts, and met no ice to stop them. there furnished geographers with new The Resolution advanced northward They were now once more in the islands, naturalists with new plants and as much as the winds would permit, and regions of perpetual day, and had sun birds, and, above all, the friends of lost sight of the ice on January 1, 1774, shine at the hour of midnight. Able to mankind with various modifications of at 5° 7' S. latitude. Forster reports: "On pass through a large bed of broken ice, human nature. In one extreme we saw, the 4th, the wind blowing from the west- the hope was held of penetrating to the and not without compassion, the dull, BOOKS 21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 69 hungry, deformed savages of Tierra del Benjamin Franklin. When describing a New Zeelanders came on board from Fuego, incapable of guarding against the water spout seen off the coast of New the watering-place. At sight of the head severities of their wretched climate, and Zealand, Forster says, "all our observa they expressed an ardent desire of pos having their mental faculties reduced to tions only tend to confirm the facts sessing it, signifying by the most intelli that miserable situation which places already noticed by others, and which gible gestures that it was delicious to the them next to brutes. In the other, the are so largely commented upon by the taste. Mr. Pickersgill refused to part with happier tribes of the Society Islands, learned Dr. Benjamin Franklin, F. R.S. it, but agreed to cut off a small piece beautifully formed, placed in a delight His ingenious hypothesis, that whirl from the cheek, with which they seemed fu l climate, which supplies all their winds and water-spouts have a common to be well satisfied. He cut off the part wants; sensible of the advantages of a origin, has not been invalidated by our he had promised, and offered it to them, well-ordered society, affectionate observations... " Forster then refers his but they would not eat it raw, and made ' towards each other, and accustomed to "philosophical readers" to Franklin's signs to have it dressed. Therefore, in the ' gratify their senses, even till they lead to philosophical papers, as "containing the presence of all the ship's company, it excesses. From the contemplation of most complete and satisfactory account was broiled over the first; after which these different characters, the advan of water-spouts" (p. 113). they" devoured it before our eyes with tages, the blessings which civilization The Tories' Revenge the greatest avidity. The captain arriving and revealed religion have diffused over The vengeance with which William the moment after with his company, the our part of the globe, will become more Wales, the voyage astronomer (by New 'Zeelanders repeated the experi and more obvious to the impartial appointment of the Board of Longitude), ment once more in his presence. It oper enquirer. .." (p. 684). sought to silence Georg Forster and his ated very strangely and differently on the The Return father, presumably with the blessings of beholders. Some there were who, in It would take the Resolution nearly the Earl of Sandwich and the British spite of the abhorrence with which our another year and a half on the return Crown, was massive. Wales issued a education inspires against the eating of voyage before they would once again lengthy and boring pamphlet, which human flesh, did not seem greatly disin set foot in England. used the art of outright lies, quibbles, clined to feast with them, and valued During this phase of the journey, the character assassination, and fa llacy of themselves on the brilliancy of their wit, Resolution would make stays at Easter composition. Wa les attacked everything while they compared their battle to a Island, the Marquesas Islands, the including Forster's waterspout observa hunting-match. 0/1 the contrary, others Society Islands (for the second time), tions, naturally, without mentioning were so unreasonably incensed against Niue, To nga, Namoka, the New Benjamin Franklin. Wales reveals him the perpetrators of this action, that they Hebrides, New Caledonia, Norfolk self a To ry lickspittle when, in his attack declared they could be well pleased to Island, Queen Charlotte's Sound (for the on Johann Reinhold Forster for attempt shoot them all ..., third time), Tierra del Fuego, New Year's ing to change his miserable living con "But the sensibility of Mahine, the Islands, Patagonia, Possession Bay, the ditions on board, Wa les cannot write young native of the Society Islands Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, "king," but must bow down before the shone out with superior lustre among us. Ascension Island, and the Azores, monarch, by writing it "k-g," as if the Born and bred in a country where the before anchoring at Spithead, England king were God! inhabitants have already emerged from on July 30, 1775. "We had scarce got out to sea, before the darkness of barbarism, and are unit Between the time of the Resolution's he quarrelled with Mr. Gilbert, the mas ed by the bonds of society, this scene return to England, and the completion ter, and treated him in a very ungenteel fi l led his mind with horror. He turned his . e ' of Forster's book, th world ' wou Id manner, because he did not chuse to eyes from the unnatural object, and become forever changed by the sign give up part of the space which had retired into the cabin, to give vent to the ing of the American Declaration of been assigned by the Commissioners of emotions of his heart. There we found Independence, and it is clear that the the navy for his cabbin, that the Doctor him bathed in tears; his looks were a mind of Georg Forster, as reflected might enlarge his own with it; and, what mixture of compassion and grief, and as philosophically throughout this book, was yet more extraordinary, when he soon as he saw us, he expressed his con is implicitly that of an "American." found he could not obtain it, was even cern for the unhappy parents of the vic Georg would later become a mentor to guilty of so much fo lly as to ' threaten tim" (pp. 278-279). ' the young Alexander von Humboldt, him with complaining to the k�g at his Georg Forster died in poverty in with whom he journeyed, in the spring return ...." Paris at the age of 40. But he had left of 1790, from Mainz through north� Perhaps K-g G-e the T- d should have his imprint on one of the great friends west Germany, the Netherlands, and done some soul-searching regarding the of America, Alexander von Humboldt, France, to England and back. The fo llowing scene, described by Forster: and his passing was mourned by one of account of that journey (Views of the "Mr. Pickersgill proposed to purchase the giants of the 19th Century, Lower Rhine) was written in 1792 by the head [of a youth killed in battle], in Heinrich Heine. His contributions now Forster himself, and Alexander von order to preserve it till his return to come back to life in this wonderfu l Humboldt pays homage to Forster in England, where it might serve as a book, which was withheld from the his Cosmos. memorial of this' voyage .... We were English-language reader for the last Forster would also come to know all occupied in examining it, when some 224 years. 70 Winter 2001 -2002 21st CENTURY BOOKS Biotechnology Can Dry Up Terrorist Financing by Va lerie Rush Buzzword the combined forces of drug lords and Walton Cook mafia dons-and by a U.S. government Ashland, Ohio: Public Policy Press, 2001 sanctioned hit-squad!-Wyckham is . Paperback, 380 pp., $15.95 � forced to go underground while ready uzzword, by Wa lton Cook, suggests ing his biowarfare scenario for deploy Ba new approach to the war on ment. narco-terrorism. Cook argues-in fic A Question of Political Will tional form-for the mass deployment of With all the exciting potential Cook's bio-engineered, host-specific plant Buzzword proposal offers, Wyckham's pathogens against the world's coca and is, unfortunately, not the "final solution" poppy crops, the source of cocaine, for the drug trade plaguing our planet, opium, and heroin narcotics. Cook's sci much less an answer to the criminal entifically detailed solution, if effective empires whose money supply he wants ly deployed by governments, not only to cut off. Nonetheless, drying up the would wipe out a significant portion of cocaine and heroin trade, and the vast the illegal drug trade, but, by doing so, hot money flows it engenders, is clearly would also help to dry up an important both necessary and doable, as source of financing for terrorist opera Buzzword so eloquently demonstrates. tions around the world. All that is required is the political will. The exciting potential raised by Cook's novel, which is based on the so forth, are in many ways identical to Va lerie Rush is a journalist with Execu real-I ife research of real-I ife scientists, arguments employed today by drug tive Intelligence Review, who has written makes Buzzword a must read: not only legalization advocates, in all their guis extensively on the Andean drug trade. for the political, military, and intelli es. gence communities directly responsible For example, the "environmentalist" for battl ing narco-terrorism, but for the insists, won't the anti-drug pathogen average citizen who has for too long mutate and wipe out our food supply, or been battered by media lies, which insist worse? And what if coca proves to be the war on drugs can never be won, and medically viable? The "human rights" that "legalization" is the only solution. lobby protests: doesn't this violate the . Buzzword tells the story of plant rights of the coca-farmers, who rely on pathologist Dr. Alex Wyckham, whose these drug crops for a living? The free quiet life in the South American Andes, marketeer demands: What right do we dedicated to building a better potato, is have to deprive an individual, or a shattered when his beloved wife is mur nation, of their income? And if we do, dered by a drug-lord after she acciden how do we contain the hordes who will tally stumbles upon his guerrilla-protect want to descend on the United States? ed trafficking operation in the jungles of And then there are the other argu Peru. Backed by a couple of good guys ments, which insist that Wyckham's inside the U.s. diplomatic and intelli solution would constitute a "violation of gence community, Dr. Wyckham national sovereignty," "an act of biolog embarks on the ultimate revenge ical warfare," an "assault on private genetically engineering a pathogen property," and so on. capable of wiping out the region's coca Dr. Wyckham, Buzzword's hero, plants. But when he tries to get U.S. gov refutes these arguments, one by one, by ernment backing to deploy his taking the higher standpoint that politi "bioweapon" against the drug trade, he cal expediency must always yield to is stymied. moral and ethical truth, otherwise To this reviewer's mind, here is where known as natural law. Infinite Energy Magazine Cold Fusion Technology, Inc. the novel gets especially interesting. The Wyckham is ultimately denied offi P.O. Box 2816 - TF arguments Dr. Wyckham encounters cial U.S. government authorization for Concord, NH 03302-2816 from the Pentagon, the State his scheme, forcing him to turn else Ph: 603·228·4516 Fx: 603·224-5975 Department, the Drug Enforcement where for backing. And when he http://www. infinite·energy.com Administration, the White House, and becomes a target for assassination by BOOKS 21 st CENTURY Winter 2001 -2002 71 Australian researchers of the Wa lter and cells comes about and how, in detail, it Adult Stem Cells Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research proceeds. Only by this morally unassail Continued from page 53 have now found a way to isolate nerve able route will it be possible to develop pelvis using local anesthesia. The stem stem cells with "extreme purity" from new therapies for serious, heretofore cells in the marrow were concentrated the brains of mice. In Nature of August incurable diseases, and beyond that, to outside of the body and implanted in the 16, 2001 (Vol. 41 2, pp. 736-739), they improve our understanding of the devel infarct area the next day with a special reported obtaining a culture of 80 per opment of life itself. technique via a coronary artery. cent purity, compared to a previous rate However, the doctors could not yet take of 5 percent at best. Wo lfgang Lillge is the Editor-in-Chief cardiac tissue to prove definitively that It is now urgently necessary to tackle of the German-language Fusion maga the implanted blood stem cells had con the research in precisely this direction, zine. His article appeared in the Sept. verted to heart muscle cells. But, accord in order to find out the exact conditions October 2001 issue of Fusion, and was ing to Strauer, there is no other way to under which the differentiation of stem translated into English by David Cherry. explain the marked improvement in the patient's condition. After this first suc cessful operation, six more patients have u.s. Postal Service already been treated with their own stem STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP AND CIRCULATION Required by 39 u.s.c. 3685 cells, with similarly positive results. 1. Publication TItle: 21 st Century Science & Tec hnology There are also reports of successful 2. Publication No. : 0895-6820 treatments with adult stem cells in cases 3. Date of Filing: October 30, 2001 4. 4 of Crohn's disease (a chronic infection of Issue Frequency: times a year. 5. No. of Issues Published Annually: 4 the gut), thalassemia (a blood disease), 6. Annual Subscription Price: $16.67 and a rare skin disease. And-despite 7. Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of Publication (Not printer) (Street, city, county, state and ZIP+4): 21 st Century Science Associates, 60 Sycolin Road, Leesburg, VA 20175 the fact that basic research with adult 8. Complete Mailing Address ofHeadquarters or General Business Office of Publisher (Not Printer): 21st Century stem cells is in its earliest beginnings Science Associates, P. O. Box 16285, Washington, D.C. 20041 9. Full Names and Complete Mailing Addresses of Publisher, Editor, and Managing Editor: Publisher (Name and and is in no way being promoted with complete mailing address): 21 st Century Science Associates, P. O. Box 16285, Wa shington, D.C. 20041 Editor urgency-there have been a growing (Name and complete mailing address): Laurence Hecht, P.O. Box 16285, Washington, D.C. 20041 Managing Editor (Name and complete mailing address) Marjorie Mazel Hecht, p.o. Box 16285, Washington, D.C. 20041 number of reports lately of experiments 10. Owner (Do Not Leave Blank. Ifthe publication is owned by a corporation, give the name and address of the with animals, from which it emerges that corporation immediately fo llowed by the names and addresses of all stockholders owning or holding 1 percent or more of the total amount of stock. Ifnot owned by a corporation, give the names and addresses of the individ adult stem cells can successfu lly trans ual owners. If owned by a partnership or other unincorporated firm, give its name and address, as well as those of each individual owner. If the publication is published by a nonprofit organization, give its name and address.}: form themselves into differentiated cells 21 st Century Science Associates, p.o. Box 16285, Washington, D.C. 20041 . of organs of many kinds. 11. Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security Holders Owning or Holding 1 Percent or More of To tal Amount of Bonds, Mortgages or Other Securities: None. In contrast, reports of successful con 12. Tax Status. (For Completion by nonprofit organizations authorized to mail at nonprofit rates): Not Applicable. versions of embryonic stem cells are very 13. Publication TItle 21 st Century Science & Technology infrequent and cautious. Thus, we fi nd in 14. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below 6/1/01 Average No. Copies Each Issue No. Copies of Single Issue Science of Dec. 1, 2000 (Vol. 290, pp. 15. Extent and Nature of Circulation During Preceding 12 Months Published Nearest to Filing 1672-1 674): "In contrast, the human A. To tal No. Copies (Net Press Run) 21,031 22,000 embryonic stem cells and fetal germ cells B. Paid and/or Requested Circulation 1. Paid/Requested Outside-County Mail Subscription that made headlines in November 1998 Stated on Form 3541 , (tnclude advertiser's proof 3,402 because they can, in theory, develop into and exchange copies 3,072 2. Paid In-County Subscriptions o o any cell type have so far produced rela 3. Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street tively modest results. Only a few papers Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Non-USPS Paid Distribution 13,598 11,170 and meeting reports have emerged from 4. Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS 114 130 the handful of labs that work with human C. To tal Paid and/or Requested Circulation (Sum of 15b(l). (2), (3), and (4) 16,784 15,242 pluripotent cells.. ..The work suggests D. Free Distribution by Mail (Samples, that it will not be simple to produce the complimentary, and other free) 23 24 pure populations of certain cell types 1. Outside-County as Stated on Form 3541 2. In�County as Stated on Form 3541 o o that would be required for safe and reli 3. Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS 152 145 able cell therapies ... . " E. Free Distribution Outside the Mail (Carriers or other means) 2,508 1,430 This is the restrained language used F. To tal Free Distribution (Sum of 15d and 1 5e) 2,660 1,575 by established science to describe a G. To tal Distribution (Sum of 1 5c and 1 Sf) 17,902 16,81 7 truly disastrous set of results. H. Copies not Distributed 3,129 5,183 22,000 There are, of course, still substantial I. To tal (Sum of 1 5g and h) 21,031 J. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation 94% 91% problems to be overcome, even with 16. This Statement of Ownership will be printed in the Winter 2001 issue of this publication. adult stem cells: They are relatively rare, 17. Signature and Ti tle of Editor, Publisher, Business Manager, or Owner MARJORIE MAZEL HECHT. Oct. 30, 2001 . I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone and are hard to find with the techniques who furnishes false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or information requested used so far. They are also not very easy on the form may be subject to criminal sanctions (including fi nes and imprisonment) and/or civil sanctions (including civil penalties). to culture outside of the body. It was therefore an important advance that 72 Winter 2001 -2002 21 st CENTURY