st
SCIENCE21 CENTURY & TECHNOLOGY Vol. 10, No.3 Fall 1997
Features
26 Was Darwin an Evolutionist or, Just a Social Reformer? Dina de Pa oli The continuing evolution of man depends on the cultivation of his inborn light-creative cognition-not Darwin's Malthusian "survival of the fittest."
46 Space less-Timeless Boundaries in Leibniz by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. The Platonic notion of a self-bounded domain is the center of work fo unding modern experimental physics, and the central feature of economist LaRouche's own work on the subjects of cognition, evolution, and the physical-economic notion of "anti-entropy."
64 Interview with Charles P. Vick: Why the Soviets Never Beat the u.S. to the Moon An expert on the Soviet space program discusses how recently declassified material confirms his painstaking discoveries over decades about why the Soviet Union was unable to win the space race.
News
SPECIAL REPORT 10 China Is Going Nuclear! 11 Interview with Dr. Ronald L. Simard : China's Nuclear Program Has Tremendous Potential for the U.S. NUCLEAR REPORT Stuart Lewis 16 The Hazards of U.S. Policy on Low-level Radiation Students today must relive the process of 23 Radiation Research: How the Data Were Suppressed and Misrepresented discovery of new physical principles made by past discoverers , and learn the SPACE method fo r making valid new discover 78 Pathfinder Discovers a New Mars ies of principle, as LaRouche discusses ENVIRONMENT (p . 46). Here, a model of Ampere's Sec 80 Fight for the Fast Breeder Takes Offin France ond Equilibrium Experiment, con ASTRONOMY REPORT structed by Bob Bowen fo r the Schiller 83 Remembering Clyde Tombaugh Institute. BIOLOGY & MEDICINE 86 Intact Tissue Structure Acts As Tumor Suppressor in Breast Cancer PEDAGOGY 89 Leonardo fo r Young Scientists: Light: 'That Which Most Elevates the Mind'
On the cover: A view of the Mir, taken from Departments the Space Shuttle Atlaniis, just before dock ing, in July 1995. Photo courtesy of IMAX 2 EDITORIAL 5 THE LIGHTNING 8 NEWS BRIEFS Corp'/Lockheed Martin; Sputnik image cour 4 LETTERS ROD 93 BOOKS tesy of RSC Energia, Korolev, Russia. 6 VIEWPOINT Cover design by Rosemary Moak. EDITORIAL
PUT MAN IN SPACE!
The Extraterrestrial Imperative.
he fact that millions of people around the idea that such exploration is not an Tthe world have been watching the arbitrary activity for mankind, but a nec Mars Pathfinder mission, which began essary one. "If God had wanted man to on July 4, with great interest and excite explore space, He would have given him ment, should not be a big surprise to a Moon," Ehricke often stated in his writ close observers of the human spirit. ings and public presentations. Throughout the last 20 years, while Ehricke's life's work, which is �ot as the media and Hollywood have worked widely known as it should be (he died in tirelessly to replace enthusiasm for space 1984), is a technological and philosoph exploration with stories about aliens, be ical treasure that needs to be brought ing stranded in space, or the prevalence back to life, especially now. (A memoir of UFOs, 10 mi II ion people a year have on Ehricke appears in 21st Ce ntury Win been visiting the National Air and Space ter 1994-1995, p. 32.) Museum in Washington, learning about Ehricke: No limits to Creativity man's conquest of the skies and of space. Before a rapt audience in New York The Pathfinder lander sitting on Mars, City in November 1981, Ehricke de with its diminutive companion, So scribed how the Earth's biosphere has journer, roving about the landing site, re faced two great crises during its evolu minds Americans, that as difficult as a tion. These were overcome, he said, task might seem, it can be accomplished. through the development of photosyn There are whole new worlds to explore, thesis, the ability of a plant to produce its about which we know relatively little. own "resources," and the subsequent There is enough exploring to do in space development of multi-celled life that to keep the next hundred generations of could make use of the new oxygen at humans busy. mosphere that had been created by the We also have well-thought-out plans plants. In each crisis, he said, "Iife had for how to accomplish such exploration only three choices: Give up and perish, and colonization. Economist Lyndon regress to a minimal state of existence, LaRouche, for example, has described in or advance and grow." detail a Great Project to establish a sci It was very clear to Ehricke that the ence-city on Mars in the next 40 years human race is now faced with those (see 21 st Century, Winter 1996-1 997, p. same three choices. He showed, in 16). As he notes, this would create graphic form, that the alternative of a skilled jobs and an economic recovery; no-growth policy would lead to the but its greatest benefit wou Id be the kinds of catastrophic convulsions we are beauty of discovering the ideas that experiencing today: "geopolitical power make such a program possible, and politics, wars over natural resources, which is the true inspiration of entire waves of epidemics, death-oriented peoples. popu lation stabi I ization, extreme In the same spirit, space scientist Krafft poverty," and real ecological crises. In Ehricke, 25 years ago, coined the term 1982, he wrote: "In 1979, of all things "extraterrestrial imperative," to convey in the Year of the Child of the United
2 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY EDITORIAL Nations, there were 12 million children to the well-understood laws of nature." we have the intelligence and the means who did not reach their first birthday . Looking at the future from the stand to gain partial independence from our That's 50 percent more than all battle point of the past, Ehricke observed that planet." deaths in World War I, in fo ur years. "it is an extraordinary fact that we find On to the Moon; and Mars And that is an outrage to a species that ourselves at one of the very rare nodal Krafft Ehricke spent 20 years proving calls itself civilized." points in an evolutionary history, in in exquisite detail, that man indeed does By the 1960s, the concept of "growth" which the confluence of patient, negen have the "intelligence and the means" to was being challenged by a melange of tropic processes of eons accumulates a begin the creation of a new civilization so-called environmentalists and Malthu tremendous growth thrust potential on Earth's nearest neighbor, the Moon. sian zero growthers. Ehricke developed whose acceptance and discharge will From there, the next target is the most the concept of the extraterrestrial imper creatively play itself out over another Earth-like planet in the Sun's convoy, ative to confront head-on this attack on eonic period." This thrust will be toward traversing the ocean of space: Mars. the unique nature of man. an Earth-based system, that is no longer After we have gathered first-hand The central concept Ehricke developed closed. knowledge about how to live in space is "the distinction be- on the International tween multiplication and Space Station, we will growth." In contrast to be well-positioned to the Limits to Growth return to the Moon and comparison of man's set up shop there, fo r growth to the "mindless scientific observation, and senseless multiplica and to learn how to tion of lillies in a pond" "live off the land," us (or today, Prince Philip's ing the resources on the comparison ofthe growth Moon with revolution of population to cancer), ary new technology de Ehricke stated in a 1982 veloped on Earth, to es article, "Growth, in con tablish cities and a new trast to multiplication, is civilization. the increase in knowl It is only natural that edge, in wisdom, in the the expectation of most capacity to grow in new of those who have fol ways." As far as "I imits" lowed the extraord i go, Ehricke pointed out nary Pathfinder mis that the Malthusians, who sion, is that after a never consider space ex series of necessary pre ploration as a domain of cursor missions there man's activity, 'see 'the wi" be a program in Earth as a closed system. place to send people to "I don't," he said. "Hu Mars. At the present manity's action world is time, there is no such no more closed than it is plan in place. There are flat." Man is not the pol some promoting a "get luter of the Earth, but the rich-quick" manned "naysayers" are "the pol Mars mission, to go as luters of our future." Countering the anti-science descrip soon as possible, regardless of the dan In a 1973 article about his mentor, tion of the view of the Earth as seen by ger to the crew or the limited science Hermann Oberth, Ehricke wrote, "For the Apollo astronauts on thei r way to and technological development that me, the development of the idea of space the Moon, as a "fragile" globe that would result. travel was always the most logical and mankind is destroying, Ehricke wrote, Four months after he took office, Pres most noble consequence of the Renais "Earth is not merely a spaceship. It is a ident John F. Kennedy announced the sance ideal, which again placed man in member of the Sun's convoy traversing Apollo program, in May 1961 , which an organic and active relationship with the vast ocean of our Milky Way galaxy. had a different, long-term vision for this this surrounding universe and which per ...It is fortuitous that we need only to nation's space program. He said, "Now ceived in the synthesis of knowledge and traverse open space to reach our remote it is time to take longer strides, time for a capabilities its highest ideas .. ..The terrestrial resources .. ..Our compan great new American enterprise, time for concepts of 'limit' and 'impossibility' ion worlds are underdeveloped. Earth is this nation to take a clearly leading role were each relegated to two clearly dis the only luxury passenger liner in a con in space achievement, which in many tinct regions, namely the 'limit' of our voy of freighters loaded with resources. ways holds the key to our future on present state of knowledge and the 'im These resources are for us to use, after Earth." possibility' of a process running counter Earth has hatched us to the point where Now is also such a time.
EDITORIAL 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 3 Letters
Why Not 'Mars Direct'?
To the Editor: While I normally enjoy Marsha Free man's writings, I was very disturbed by her review of Robert Zubrin's book, The Case fo r Mars, in the Spring 1997 issue. For the record, I am not associated with, or even have spoken to, Robert Zubrin. Robert Zubrin wrote about fusion rockets and interstellar ra mjets in this Ju ne 27, Freeman misstates that the concept 7982, article in New Solidarity newspaper. will, "require a stay on the Mars sur face of 550 days." This is the whole on July 4, the question is once again be stay on the 'surface for 550 days, which point: to design a mission that spends ing asked, when are we going to send is all that is possible with Zubrin's chem most of the time on Mars, not in transit. people to Mars? ical rockets. Further, it is not a fu nction of the type Before Zubrin became demoralized More than a convenience, this possi of vehicle or propulsion system that by the lack of vision exhibited by most bility to quickly end a mission, if neces dictates the 550 days; it's the positions of the past decade's national leaders, he sary, and return to Earth within a reason in orbit of Mars and Earth on a conjunc was an enthusiastic promoter of pushing ably short period of time, is the level of tion type fl ight .. .. the outside of the envelope of science safety any astronaut making the trip What comes through is that this re and engineering, to develop the tech would, and should, expect. Zubrin's view is a blind, knee-jerk response to nologies for future space exploration. Mars Direct aims to replace technologi- the fact that Zubrin is proposing a way Then, he was not proposing to use 20- , ¢al innovation and greater safety with to initially get to Mars that she doesn't year-old expendable chemical rockets, expediency. like: Without a nuclear engine, and but interstellar fusion ramjets and explo Do not kid yourself. There will be no without massive Moon base and space ration of other galaxies. manned missions to Mars if there is not stations. Because of this, she does not In his 19 82 article on this subject, the commitment to take on a fight with read his book with an objective eye. He published in New So lidarity, Zubrin proc the anti-space, anti-nuclear movement clearly states that a nuclear engine posed that while it might take 50 years in this country. People who represent would be better for exploration of Mars. to start the colonization of the galaxy us that point of view also believe that sci The problem is, we don't have one. ing an interstellar ramjet, nearer-term fu ence and technology are dangerous, that We're not likely to get one, either, if the sion powered rockets "are more than ad the government should not be wasting reason for its development is to go to equate fo r complete mastery of the Solar money on such endeavors, and that a re Mars. That requires overcoming two ig System." turn to a more "primitive" time, with norant opposition groups (anti-space Indeed, it is the development of dra many fewer people, would solve the and anti-nuclear). It ain't gonna happen matically new propulsion technologies world's "problems" (like alleged global in the foreseeable future. that will make colonization of our Solar warming, limited resources, or other Freeman dislikes his 1 O-year concept. System safe and scientifically productive. hoked-up scare scenarios). However, Zubrin is simply facing politi Mr. Hanley is misinformed. The align Facing political reality does not mean cal reality .. .. ment of the planets is only a critical fac giving up your principles to garner sup Art Hanley tor, when the propulsion system being port from the I ikes of budget balancers Sacramento, Calif. used is limited to chemical or first-gener like Newt Gingrich (who is pictured ation nuclear propulsion technology. with Zubrin in his book). It means un Were we to develop the constant derstanding that the fight for a manned Marsha Freeman Replies thrust thermonuclear fusion rockets Bob Mars program, and the return to the It is very easy, if you are interested in Zubrin was writing about in the 1980s Moon, will require a political mobiliza and excited by space exploration, to be as was, also, space pioneer Krafft Ehricke tion to change the cultural pessimism in come enticed by Bob Zubrin's "get-rich and Lyndon LaRouche-we would be the country-the kind of pessimism that quick" manned Mars mission, which he free to come and go between the Earth results in articles saying that NASA calls "Mars Direct." Especially since the and Mars, much more often than at 26- never landed the Pathfinder spacecraft landing of the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft month intervals, and wou ld not have to Continued on page 7
4 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY LETIERS eratively at Mr. Bumble. put on a diet of 11/2 pints of gruel per Dickens describes the scene thus: day and a total per week of 12 ounces of "'Oh, you know, Mr. Bumble, he must bread, 14 ou nces of suet or rice pud be mad,' said Mrs. Sowerberry. 'No boy ding, and 2 ounces of cheese. Barely in half his senses could venture to sp�ak enough to sustain "live bodies," to use The so to you.' Bumble's terminology. "'It's not Madness, ma'am,' replied Now, dear readers, to come back to Mr. Bumble, after a few moments of current times, consider how this gruel Li htnin deep meditation. 'It's meat.' philosophy fits so nicely with that odious g g "'What?' exclaimed Mrs Sowerberry. sentiment, put forward in The Times of "'Meat, m'a'am, meat,' replied Bum London as recently as Jan. 5, 1995, by ble with stern emphasis. 'You've over Sir William Rees-Mogg (a modern ver ROd fed him, ma'am. You've raised an artifi sion of Mr. Chief-Bumble): Namely, that cial soul and spirit in him, ma'am, the post-industrial society requires only unbecoming a person of his condition: 5 percent to be the educated elite "on My Dear Friends: as the board [of the workhouse], Mrs. whose success we shall all depend," Encouraged by your kind response to Sowerberry, who are practical philoso while the other 95 percent can labor my return as a columnist in this fine phers, will tell you. What have paupers without benefit of education-and, pre publication, I am continuing my com to do with soul or spirit? It's quite enough sumably, without benefit of the "meat" ments on some old and nasty views that that we let 'em have live bodies. If you diet for those deemed worthy enough to seem, unfortunately, to have taken on a had kept the boy on gruel, ma'am. This have "soul and spirit." new life today. As you undoubt- Well, dear friends, as you know, such edly know, I am an ardent practi philosophy, in my day, was why we re tioner of hearty eating and a well belled against the British crown to estab balanced diet. So, it is with alarm lish this republic. that I have viewed the increasing polemics against protein, espe cially those against meat. Of course, tastes vary: Some prefer fowl or venison, and others beef; some just plain do not like meat. Such diversity is to be expected. But the vehemence with which SAVE YOUR COPIES OF the anti-meat, anti-protein diatribe is waged today; the fu l l-page ads 21st CENTURY directed at turning people, espe These custom·made titled cases and binders are ideal to protect cially children, away from eating your valuable copies from damage. They're designed to hold two years' the meat of "animals with faces"; issues (may vary with issue sizes), constructed with reinforced board the ever-shifting, so-called scien and covered with durable leather· like material in blue, title is hot· tific results on what is, or what isn't, would never have happened.' stamped in gold, good for one-all this brings me to the "'Dear, dear!' ejaculated Mrs. Sower cases are V·notched for easy access, inescapable conclusion that the attack berry, piously raising her eyes to the binders have special spring on a protein source that is essential for kitchen ceiling: 'this comes of being lib mechanism to hold individual human growth and development has eraI!'. . . rods which easily snap in. other motives. "'Ah!' said Mr. Bumble .. ..'The I am rem inded of what the English so only thing that can be done now, that I cial commentator Charles Dickens, had know of, is to leave him in the cellar for CaMs: 1-$7.95 3-$21.95 6-$39.95 Blnde,.: 1-$9.95 3-$27.95 6-$52.95 to say about diet in his 1837 novel, a day or so, till he's a little starved Poor Oliver, a young or 21st Century Science & Technology Oliver Twist. down; and then to take him out, and Jesse Jones Industries. Dept. 21 C phan apprenticed to an undertaker, and keep him on gruel all through his ap 499 East Erie Ave .. Philadelphia. PA 19134 Enclosed is $ for __ Cases; fed the table scraps considered unfit for prenticeship.' " __ Binders. Add $1 per case/binder for postage & handling. OutSide USA $2.50 per casel the family dog, one day rebelled against Let Them Eat Gruel binder (US funds only). PA residents add 6% sales tax. his unjust treatment. Alarmed, the lady This gruel philosophy, as described by Print of the house, a Mrs. Sowerberry, called Dickens, predominated in England, Name'______on the workhouse beadle, Mr. Bumble, when, in 1834, the government ended AddreSS' ---;;N;:';O PO;.O" . i::Bo '''N;;:;um::::b:::...''P ;.::lo.:::-.o:---- for help. (Mr. Bumble had arranged for welfare-or what was called "outdoor City______Oliver to leave the workhouse for the relief," which had supplemented the S1atelZip,______Sowerberry apprenticeship.) poor wages of laborers with families. CHARGE ORDERS (Minimum $15): Am Ex, Visa, The rebellious Oliver, however, Those paupers who were unfortunate MC, DC accepted. Send card name. N, Exp. date. CALL TOLL FREE days, 24 hours 7 . locked in the cellar, screamed uncoop- enough to land in a workhouse, were 1·800·825-6690 ___ SATISFACTION GUARANTEED __ _ THE LIGHTNING ROD 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 5 VIEWPOINT
6 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY VIEWPOINT Letters _ continued from page 4 on Mars on July 4, or that we never landed Scientifically Illiterate vs. PoliticallyClueless astronauts on the Moon. FoIlooou\Jrd... SovinIa....a.""Sp.tn,k.�I'tII(>Cf'd Protein Vs. Carbohydrates To the Editor: Whoever wrote the articles in the Special Report, Summer 1997 ["We Can Feed the World"] has little experience with farming, and even less knowledge of nutrition. No doubt they are followers of the calorie the ory, which is fine for the feeding of labora tory animals, but is of no use in the feeding of humans. As fo r what genetics has done for our grains, consider this: When I was a boy in the 1920s, Kansas wheat would run 18 per cent protein, and the best of it would be 28 percent protein. Today, for all the improve ments in the wheat breeding, Kansas wheat now runs 12 percent protein, and the best of it wiII go to 1 8 percent. The same prob lem comes up with corn. About World War I, field corn analyzed from 9 percent to 10 percent protein. Today, the corn will run near to 4. 5 percent to 5 percent protein. Even with the increased yields in bushels, the amount of protein produced per acre is no better now than it was 50 years ago. . . . The crucial problem in food is the pro tein content. The feeding problem in the Continued on page 82 VIEWPOINT 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 7 NEWS BRIEFS SANDIA DEMONSTRATES TECHNOLOGY FOR DRIVING FUSION ENERGY In July, scientists at the Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, demon strated that their Z accelerator is capable of driving inertial confinement for the production of fusion energy. The accelerator, which is comparable to a scaled up Leyden jar, generated a 21 O-trillion-watt pulse of X-rays from an input 50-tril lion-watt electrical pulse. These X-rays can be used to implode minute fusion fuel pellets to the high densities and temperatures needed to ignite nuclear fu sion reactions. As in Benjamin Franklin's apparatus, the Sandia "Leyden jar" is discharged into wires. But this pulse is far greater-millions of volts and tens of millions of amperes of current. In July the accelerator achieved temperatures of 1.5 million degrees C by this method, close to the 2 to 3 million degrees needed. In the preceding 10 months, breakthroughs had enabled the machine to more than quintuple its output to this level. Three hundred thin wires form a cylindri cal configuration the size of a thimble, in which the fusion fuel pellet is to be Sandia National Laboratory placed. Electrical discha rges illuminate the su r fa ce of the Z machine, the wo rld's most INDIA'S EXPERIMENTAL FAST BREEDER REACTOR JOINED TO POWER GRID powerful X-ray sou rce, du ring a recent India's experimental Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) was formally joined to the accelerator shot. power transmission grid on July 12, working at 11 MWt. Placid Rodrigues, director of the Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research (IGCAR) at Kalpakkam, in the state of Tamil Nadu, termed the latest success a historic achievement that will pave the way for the country's first SOO-MW prototype fast breeder reactor, a step toward de veloping commercially viable breeder reactors domestically. CFC REPLACEMENTS IN AIR CONDITIONERS CAUSE LIVER DAMAGE Workers in a Belgian factory suffered liver damage from air conditioners that were leaking hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), replacements for CFCs. Nine workers at the same plant were diagnosed with acute hepatitis, according to the Aug. 23 issue of The Lancet, the British medical journal. The CFC replacements, HCFC-1 23 and HCFC-1 24, were known to be highly toxic, unlike the now-banned freon-which is virtually harmless-but were rushed into production without the usual testing that chemical products such as pesticides are required to have. CRISTA-SPAS SHOWS NO OZONE CRISIS, GERMAN DAILY SAYS There is no ozone hole crisis, according to data from the Crista-Spas experiment taken aloft by the Shuttle in December 1994. This is the message of an Aug. 10 arti cle, "Is the Ozone Hole a Fiction?" in the German daily, the Hessische-Niedersach sische Allgemeine Ze itung, occasioned by the second lofting of Crista-Spas by the Shuttle in August 1997. An analysis of the earlier Crista data, which was the cover story of 21st Centu ry, Spri ng 1996, showed that meteorological, not chemical, processes determine the appearance of ozone holes. The data from Crista make it possible, for the first time, to construct a continuous picture in three dimensions of ozone density between heights of 15 and 70 kilometers. The newspaper article, by Sepp Spiegl, quotes Prof. Klaus Grossmann, of the Uni versity of Wuppertal, who heads the Crista-Spas experiment: "Data about the ozone layer [prior to Crista] come from about 40 stations around the world. If you simply NASA extrapolate these data . . . you have a pretty good guarantee to be completely off Crista -Spas, the Cryogenic In fra red with your computer models. Also, current satellite devices measure in so spotty a Spectrometers and Telescopes fo r the fashion, that structures such as actually exist in the ozone layer cannot be found." If Atmosphere (Crista), housed on the the 1994 Crista data are confirmed by the new fl ight, Spiegl says, "environmental Shuttle Pallet Satellite (Spas), is shown ists, scientists, and above all politicians, around the world, must throw overboard here in a check-out phase on the robotic their climate models, ozone hole theories, and especially their long-range fore arm of the Space Shuttle. casts." 8 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY NEWS BRIEFS POPULAR SCIENCE BLAMES OZONE BACKLASH ON 21ST CENTURY, LAROUCHE The October issue of Popular Science magazine features an article that laments the "sti ll raging" debate over the ozone-depletion theory, and credits 27st Century and Lyndon LaRouche for this continuing "ozone backlash." The article, "Attack on Ozone Science" by Arthur Fisher, opens with the fact that pickets from the "Schiller Society" (actually the Schiller Institute) greeted F. Sherwood Rowland, inventor of the ozone-depletion theory, when he arrived at the Stockholm Concert Hall in De cember 1995 to receive his Nobel Prize for Chemistry. The rest of the article is a re hash of Rowland's and the Environmental Protection Agency's propaganda, high lighting, in red type, the skin cancer scare story. The main line of Fisher's argument is the claim that the majority of scientists agree with Nobel Prize winner Rowland and other "Nobel Prize-caliber" scientists! How is it, he asks, that a "tiny majority of scientists has managed to keep alive the ozone debate?" Fisher quotes Steven Schneider saying that the problem is the tactic of "arranging what seems to be an even-handed presentation," with both sides being heard. CHINA ASKS UNITED STATES: PLEASE EXPORT NUClEAR POWER! During preparations for the fall summit of Presidents Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin, Beijing urged the United States to lift sanctions on sales to China of nuclear equip Popular ment, digitally controlled machinery, and other advanced technology. "There is a Science: 'shortcut' to quickly enlarge bilateral trade. That is to eliminate the exports sanctions What's towards China," according to Zhou Shijian, an expert on Sino-U.S. ties, quoted in popular is China Daily's Business Weekly, Aug. 17. "U.S. companies are competitive in both science? technology and price, but they lack these opportunities," Zhou said, referring to the sanctions. Since 1989, China has bought or contracted for about $8 billion of nu clear reactor equipment from France, $3 billion from Canada, and $4 billion from Russia, Zhou said. (See this issue's Special Report, p. 10, for more on China's nu clear energy plans.) GHOST OF GALTON: NATURE PROMOTES HERITABILITY OF IQ A new statistical analysis of familial IQ correlations is promoted in a commentary in the July 31 issue of the British journal Nature, arguing that intel lectual ability is largely determined by genetic influences ("The Democracy of Genes," by Matt McGue, University of Minnesota). The study, by B. Devlin, M. Daniels, and K. Roeder, in the same issue of Nature, compared data on twins separated at birth with those raised in the same household, and concluded a "broad-sense heritability esti mate" of 48 percent, and a "narrow-sense heritability" of 34 percent. Such claims by eugenicists were most recently discredited when similar studies at Harvard in the late 1960s by Arthur Jensen and Richard J. Herrnstein were shown to rest on fraudu lent data. McGue praises the 19th century British founder of the modern eugenics movement, Sir Francis Galton, noting that this racialist was also a fo under in 1869 of the journal Nature. LARGE BINOCULAR TElESCOPE MIRROR CASTING NEARLY COMPLETED The temperature in the oven where the Large Binocular Telescope's first mirror blank is being cast reached 44°C on Sept. 1, and the expected date fo r peeking into the oven is Sept. 10, with a more ceremonial opening on Sept. 12. After the initial cooling was complete in April, additional glass was added to compensate for unex pectedly large leaks, and there was partial reheating to fuse the new glass to the old. John Hill, director of the Large Binocular Telescope project at the Steward Observa University of Arizona tory Mirror Lab, told 27st Century, "If it is in one piece, we will declare victory." The mirror oven at Steward Observatory Readers can get an update at http://medusa.as.arizona.edu/lbtwww/l bt.html, and a Mirror Lab spins, to produce a parabo story will appear in the next issue. loid surface on the molten glass. NEWS BRIEFS 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 9 SPECIAL REPORT China Is Going Nuclear! by Jonathan Tennenbaum Inner Mongolia Qinghai Operating reactors Under construction Quinshan 2 and 3 Lingao 1 and 2 Hong Kong >r:r.jitinan �n NUClEAR POWER IN CHINA China's nuclear construction plans include two 600-MWe units at the Qinshan site, two 950-MWe units at the Lingao site, near the existing Cuangdong plants. Other sites under discussion are two I, OOO-MWe plants, in cooperation with the Russians, at Wufangdian, and possible sites in Jiangsu and Fujian provinces, in cooperation with the South Koreans. Pro vincial projects under discussion include one unit on the island of Hainan; up to fo ur units in jiangxi; two or fo ur units in Zhejiang; and two units in Jiangsu at the port city of Lianyungang. oal is now the chief source of energy nomic cost as well as costs associated of nuclear energy were initially devel Cfor China's economy. Although with pollution and other side effects oped in connection with military pro China has large reserves of coal, the dictate the urgent need to develop nu jects. Although plans to build nuclear enormous costs of mining, transporting, clear energy as the decisive option fo r reactors for civi I ian power generation and burning more than 1.3 billion tons of the future. go back to the early years of China's coal every year-in terms of direct eco- China's own capabilities in the field Continued on page 15 10 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY SPECIAL REPORT INTERVIEW WITH DR. RONALD L. SIMARD China's Nuclear Program Has Tremendous Potential for the u.s. UNDP China's Cuangdong nuclear plant at Daya Bay. The fi rst two Cu angdong units were begun in 7986, with the participation of Hong Kong, Fra nce, and the United Kingdom. Ron Simard is the two items that before trade with China in that the President will be able to make Director of Suppli the nuclear area can resume, the Presi the necessary certifications by the fall of ers and Interna dent must make some certifications. The this year. tional Programs fo r President has to send a report to Con the Nuclear Energy gress that says, basically, the Chinese Question: At the current time, China has Institute, the U.S. have assured us that they are not going only about 2,000 MW of nuclear capac trade association of to transfer the materials that we provide ity. Can you describe what the Chinese the nuclear energy industry. He has 25 them to a third country, that they're go are planning in terms of increasing their years of experience in the commercial ing to act in accord with non-prolifera nuclear capacity, and why this is an im nuclear power industry, and is responsi tion agreements, and so forth. So, to portant question for the United States? ble fo r managing issues that concern change the situation, step number one You probably understand what is driv maintaining an international leadership is, that the President forward this certifi ing them to consider nuclear-the prob role fo r U.S. nuclear technology. cation to Congress; and step number two lems they've got with where their coal is Simard was interviewed by Associate is, that if Congress takes no action, after located, where their hydro is located, Editor Marsha Freeman in July. 30 days of continuous session, then the and where they need the electricity the current restrictions are lifted. most. On the basis of their planned Question: At a press conference on May economy, they have specific commit 29, Marvin Fertel, vice president of the Question: Since 1985, has any President ments. As you said, they have 2 gi Nuclear Energy Institute, discussed the submitted this certification report to the gawatts (GW) in operation today. By potential for u.s. nuclear exports to Congress? 2010, they are committed to have 20 China. Would you go through some of No. Currently, the administration and GW of nuclear. the history, and explain what obstacles the Chinese are involved in negotiations Let me give you three dates to put this U.S. companies face now in selling nu and, according to the Department of in perspective. The Chinese are commit clear reactors to China? State, China has made considerable ted to have 20 GW by 2010. In the fo l There are two obstacles, both legisla progress toward some of the agreements lowing 10 years, by 2020, they are going tive: a 1985 Congressional resolution and principles that are at stake here. If to raise that two and a half times, to 50 and a 1990 act. Congress said in those that progress continues, there is a chance GW. And then, in the following 30 years, SPECIAL REPORT 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 11 to 2050, they are going to triple it, to variety of designs and operation. eighth plant. Eventually, when we've 150 GW. What we have done for the future is built the tenth plant, these plants will be That's a tremendous growth. Even the standardize three designs, and we have nearly identical in their design as well as United States in the 1970s, and France already completed a significant amount in their operations. So there will be a which relies on nuclear energy for about of design detail. We have some thirty 3- tremendous advantage in assuring safe 80 percent of its electricity-didn't ex inch binders-3 feet worth-that de operation, in terms of regulating safety, pand that quickly. There is tremendous scribe the design detail that has been re and in terms of the economics of being potential there for the United States, not viewed and approved by the NRC. In able to run these plants. only in terms of trade, but also in terms addition, there is a stack of detailed sys These plants will be much more cost of being able to influence the safety and tem drawings that must be about 3 or 4 competitive, in terms of being able to reliability of these plants. feet tall. share the same proced u res, the same plant simulator fo r training, the same Question: When the Chinese Minister "The Chinese are committed crews of people to go from one plant to for Science and Technology was in the to have 20 GW nuclear by the other to do refueling outages. Those United States earlier this year, dis 2010. In the following 10 are the advantages the Chinese see to cussing Chinese plans for building nu our designs. clear power plants, he mentioned their years, by 2020, they are work with the French, Canadians, and going to raise that two and a Question: Is there a projected gain in ef the Russians, and then said, "But really half times, to 50 GW. And by ficiency, in addition to safety? what we would like is U.S. technology." The reason we see an improvement in 2050, they are going to triple What do we have to offer the Chinese that area is because it was designed in in terms of the new generation of nu it, to 150 GW." from the beginning. About 15 years ago, clear reactors developed here? a group of U.S. util ity executives got to The NEI had the press briefing in May What we have to offer the international gether to look ahead to when they because we had reached a major mile markets-right now-is an essentially thought they might need to reconsider stone here. Today we have 109 plants, complete design, where the safety issues nuclear plant orders, when there would with wide variations in both design and have already been reviewed and ap be a need for new generating capacity. the way they are operated. They are all proved, and where there is a demon They started to think of the problem from running safely-if they weren't, the Nu strated margin of safety about 100 times the point of view of the customer, the clear Regulatory Commission (NRC) greater than the plants in operation today. utility industry, and they developed what would shut them down. But any time The second thing we have to offer is called "util ity requirements." that a potential safety issue comes up, them is this concept of standardization, So right from the beginning, the utili one of the fi rst things that the industry the fact that the design details are locked ties, the future customers, told the plant and the NRC have to do is determine in by the NRC in terms of rule-making, designers that they wanted assurances whether that particular problem exists at so they will remain standardized across that these three new plant designs wou ld each one of these plants, because of the the first plant, the second plant, the meet detailed specifications: They wanted assurances that this plant could be built in NUCLEAR ENERGY MARKET POTENTIAL IN CHINA three-and-one-half years Plant Size (MWe) Province Completion/Status (for the 600-MW passive design), or fo ur-and-one- Under construction half years, for the bigger or in advanced plant designs. They had negotiations specific and detai led Qinshan 2,3 600 Zhejiang 2001 -2002 (three binders' worth) re lingao 1,2 985 Guangdong 2002-2003 quirements on safety, eco Qinshan 4,5 740 Zhejiang 2004-2005 nomic performance, and Lianyungang 1,2 1,000 Jiangsu 2005-2006 so on. So, the plant de signers started from those Proposed stations basic specifications as Lingao 3,4 1,000 Guangdong Site expansion they began working out Yangjiang 1-6 600 or 1,000 Guangdong New site the design details. San men 1,2 700-1 ,000 Zhejiang New site The other thing that is Fujian 1-4 700-1 ,000 Fujian Pre-feasibility study key to the evolution of Shandong 1-4 700-1,000 Shandong 2004-2010 these designs, is that the Jiangxi 1-4 1,000 Jiangxi Pre-feasibility study utility executives set up a Jiangsu 1,2 700-1,000 Jiangsu 2001 -2005 committee, through the Hainan 1,2 700-1,000 Hainan Pre-feasibility study Electric Power Research Source: Nuclear Energy Institute Institute, and that commit tee has been meeting with 12 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY SPECIAL REPORT the designers three times a year fo r the well-establ ished I ink between growth various kinds of weapons and military past 15 years. At every meeting, the de and the use of electricity. The use of en related material to countries that we signers report on where they are. They ergy matches the growth of gross na may not approve of. Is the trade con may say: "we have finished the spent tional product almost one-for-one. If you straint very specific, applying only to fu el pool system. Here is the verification fo llow their line of reasoning, you recog nuclear material China is buying from that the design meets your require nize their plans for growth, you under the United States, or does it have a ments." So there has been a steady itera stand why they are going to need more broader application, in China's having tion and ongoing process between the electricity. Then, you get into what their to meet non-proliferation requirements designers of these plants and the ulti options are. That helps you understand in other areas? mate customers, to make sure that the why they have got such an ambitious The concern that led to these trade design was driving toward the require program in nuclear. constraints relates to nuclear prolifera ments that we had put in for safety, relia You mentioned the railroad infrastruc tion. For example, there is the July 1985 bility, economics, and other measures of ture. Today, China is the world's largest nuclear cooperation agreement, titled, performance. producer and user of coal. The problem liThe -Agreement fo r Cooperation Be ' is, most of their coal i:; in relatively re tween the Government of the United - " Question: It may not be obvious to peo mote areas, an� apout 40 perce�t of the States and the Government of the Peo ' ple why China-which is a·developing railroad track in China is used for trans ple's Republic of China Concerning country even though it is one of the_f ew porting coal. When you look around the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Technology." nuclear weapons states and laul)C�eli its country, and where the growth will oc Congress approved that agreement, but own rockets and missiles-would be go cur� . . -where the electricity will. be passed a resolution in December 1985, ing ahead with nuclear power at the needed the most-you are looking at the which says, first of all, that any transfer of pace that you mentioned. China sees it southeast and coastal regions, which are nuclear technology under that agreement self as a centerpiece of a series of pro far from coal resources. Nor-do they would be solely fo r peaceful purposes. jects involving more than a dozen coun have the pipeline infrastructure to get Then, the resolution talks about the tries in Asia, Central Asia, and into the natural gas there. You can begin to un broader point that you mentioned, that Middle East, described as the Eurasian derstand why China is relying so heavily China must provide assurances that it is land Bridge, looking back in history at on nuclear energy. not engaged in the "prohibited transfer the old Silk Road, to connect the Pacific of nuclear weapon technology to a non to the Atlantic. "What concerns us is that if nuclear weapon state." There have been China is starting with transportation, the United States doesn't act concerns about China's transfer of chem such as completing and extending re soon to open up the market, ical weapons and missile technology, gional railroad projects, but envisions but the restrictions that we are talking the construction of whole new cities the Chinese will move to about, that keep us from exporting our along the Silk Road. The agriculture and standardize on a design, and advanced reactor designs, are specific to industry, along with the new cities, will it won't be ours." the peaceful use of nuclear energy. require tremendous amounts of energy, and specifically, electricity. So it would Those areas are very heavily polluted Question: How did the 1991 legislation seem that the Chinese are determining now, and nuclear gives them the clean change the stipulations from 1985? their need for energy in the future based energy that they would not have if they It expanded on it. The Foreign Rela on this plan for broader economic devel-_ _ went to coal or oi I. If you look at the tions Authorization Act was passed in opment. Have you discussed this larger world's 10 most polluted cities, three of 1990. Because of concern over what had economic project with any of the people them are Chinese. There are some 500 happened at Tiananmen, there were six you have been talking to in China? major Chinese cities that don't meet the restrictions placed on trade with China. Only with respect to the point that you World Health Organization guideli nes Five of these dealt rather broadly with fi touched on. This kind of growth is going on clean air. So they are motivated, too, nancing and issuing of export licenses to require a huge increase in the use of by concerns about their environment. for military products, but the sixth was electricity. There are so many interesting You're beginning to see in some of the specific to nuclear. Again, it requires that facts about China's current condition cities in China, like Beijing-and also in before we could resume trade in nuclear and its planned growth, as you just men Tokyo-kiosks on the street that will sell materials with China, the President tioned. you fresh oxygen. You can actually get a would have to certify to Congress that If you take China and India alone, for whiff from a facemask of pure oxygen for China has provided clear and unequ ivo example, if they were able to link up, as a few cents! I think you are right on tar cal assurances that it is not assisting any you suggested, and bring their gross na get when you point to their ambitious non-nuclear-weapon states in acquiring tional product just up to the level of plans for growth, which requires elec nuclear devices. It's similar in intent and Po land today, that would represent an tricity, which requires the use of coal language to the 1985 resolution. increase in energy use that is equivalent where they can, hydro where they can, to today's energy use by Japan, and and nuclear, where it's appropriate. Question: Many of these questions are Western Europe, and the United States. very technical and there will be an We're aware that they have tremendous Question: Periodically there are accusa amount of judgment in determining plans in terms of growth, and there is a tions in the press that China is giving whether countries are adhering to vari- SPECIAL REPORT 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 13 ous treaties. It seems to me that the Clin ton administration has made it very clear that its policy toward China is one of engagement, and that there will be ar eas where the United States and China will disagree, and will agree to disagree, but other areas where they will work closely together. This is really not that different from our relationship to Russia, in many ways. One potential area for cooperation is in the economic sphere. In his press conference, Mr. Fertel stated that there was significant progress that the U.S. administration had seen in China's addressing non-proliferation concerns. If this progress were to con tinue, he said, "we're hopeful that when the President of China and President Clinton meet this fall for their summit meeting, the President will be prepared to make all the certifications to Con gress, that will then allow the 1985 agreement to become effective. Our tar get is either this fall, or, if things are not wrapped up by then, the summit the fol lowing spring that will take place be tween the two heads of state, in China." Is there any update? Will this be on IAEA the agenda in the fall for the meeting Chinese nuclear specialists brief an Operational Safety Review Team of the In terna� , between the two heads of state? tiona I Atomic Energy Agency during a visit to China's Qinshan nuclear power plant, We understand that they are sti ll on the nation's first. track. That is the target they're working toward . You said that there are some pie involved, China has provided some he can report to Congress that it is okay subjective judgments that have to be pretty sign ificant evidence, and sti II to lift those restrictions because China made. You're right to some extent, but, seems to be on track. has made progress on a program of polit actually, there is a pretty fa ir amount of ical reform, and that is what was driving objective data that the President can Question: What does the United States Congress after Tiananmen. Or, the Presi point to. Remember, the resolution and have to do in terms of financial policy, dent can waive those restrictions in the the legislation that we were talking about such as the Export-Import bank, or other national interest. go back to 1985 and 1990. ways to make it easier for China to buy Since then, in 1992, China joined the U.S. nuclear technology? Question: There are many possibilities treaty on non-proliferation of nuclear I'll give you one example. If you go for more advanced nuclear technology weapons. So, separate from any interac back to the legislation from 1990, as I to be developed. One of the most tions that the Chinese have been having mentioned, there were six specific re promising is high temperature reactors, with our State Department and people strictions on trade with Ch ina. One of where the waste heat that does not go in the administration, within the world those has to do with issuing any new in into electricity production can be used wide community, they are participating surance or reinsurance, providing any for industrial and other applications. through the International Atomic Energy loans or guaranteeing any financing or Are the Chinese looking at these new Agency in all the international nuclear any other kind of fi nancial support with nuclear technologies? Are we cooperat safeguards agreements, so there is a respect to the People's Republic of China ing with them in any R&D? pretty good record of progress that the by the Overseas Private Investment Cor I think they probably are looking at administration can point to, since these poration. One specific th ing that the high temperature gas-cooled reactor two sanctions were put in place in 1985 United States would have to do, is that concepts. I know that they have at least and 1990. when the President certifies to Congress one research institute that is looking at a Then, specific to what the President that China has met the non-proliferation number of options. I can tell you that needs to certify, the administration con conditions, he also has to address these the United States is not interacti ng with tinues to talk to the Chinese, getting the five other restrictions that were in that them on such a program. The support data that they need to provide the rea Act, including this one on fi nancing of fo r that here has vanished. Congress sonable assurances [on non-prolifera nuclear projects. deleted all fu nding fo r further develop tion], and from all we hear from the peo- The President has two choices. First, ment on that reactor concept from the 14 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY SPECIAL REPORT appropriations bills last year, so the reasonably firm plans for building sev Canadians and the French and the Rus United States has no effort to develop eral more, and there are some in the sians. But they realize the problem they that concept any further. stages between feasibility studies and have trying to operate five or six com initial bids. The U.S. industry is very in pletely different designs. What concerns Question: What other countries in Asia terested in interacting with Japan, and, of us is that if the United States doesn't act are you looking at, for the export of nu course, the Koreans are building some soon to open up the market, the Chi clear technology? thing that looks very much like one of nese will move to standardize on a de We certainly are interested in the the other standardized designs. sign, and it won't be ours. We have Asian market, overall. The Japanese are What concerns us with China is the what are arguably the safest nuclear de also interested in our technology, and timing. The Chinese recognize the ben signs in the world today, and we're wor are, in fact, building it. They have two of efits of standard izing on one design. ried that if the resumption of nuclear the advanced boiling water reactors in They have been very good at negotiat trade is not soon, China won't have ac commerc ial operation now, they have ing financial arrangements with the cess to that. China Is Going Nuclear Continued from page 7 a nuclear program, the first full-scale civilian reactor project followed on the heels of the initial economic and politi cal reforms of Deng Xiaoping in 1978- 1979. This resulted in the construction and successfu I operat ion of the 300- MWe Qinshan nuclear power station, on the basis of domestic technology de veloped by conversion of military-in dustrial potentials. Although the Qinshan station has pro vided impressive demonstration of China's own capabilities, China empha Schiller Institute sized the acquisition of foreign technol Author Tennenbaum (second from right) and Schiller Institute representatives Helga ogy for its next big reactor projects. The Zepp LaRouche and Mary Burdman tour the Nuclear Technology In stitute of first such major project was the Daya Qinghua University, where Ch ina's High Temperature Reactor is being built. Here, Bay nuclear station comprising two re a project leader explains the construction of another Chinese nuclear project, a re actor blocks of 930 MWe each, com actor fo r district heating and desalination applications. pleted in 1994 largely by a consortium of Western companies with France play from China's east coast all the way to Also planned are a 200-MWt scale-up ing the leading role. Contracts have now the Atlantic coast of Europe. China has of China's own low-temperature heating been signed, by the same consortium, to expressed great interest in cooperation reactor technology, suited fo r district build a second nuclear plant of two 985 with the United States on fu rther nu heating as well as desalination applica MWe units, not far from the original clear projects. tions, and construction of. a fast breeder Daya Bay location, near Hong Kong in Other Chinese Designs reactor. At the same time, it is expected the South of China. At the same time, China is pressing that China will build additional nuclear In addition, negotiations between forward with its own nuclear projects. power stations based on upgrades of the China and the Atomic Energy Commis One of these is ongoing construction of domestic technology used in the Qin sion of Canada, are already far ad a small-scale helium-cooled High Tem shan plant. A list of more than 20 poten vanced, for the construction by Cana perature Reactor (HTR) based on the tial sites for future nuclear plants has dian companies of a nuclear power German design with spherical fuel ele been drawn up, and China's provinces station with two 700-MWe units, based ments. This technology offers the advan are all eagerly vying to have nuclear on Canada's CANDU technology. Fur tages of "inherent safety," mass-pro plants. thermore, China and Russia are negoti ducible modular design, as well as Jonathan Tennenbaum heads the Fu ating a contract for construction of a higher outlet temperatures (up to sion Energy Foundation in Europe and is large (possibly four units of 1,000 1 ,OOO°C or more) suited for industrial working closely with the Schiller Insti MWe) nuclear power station near the process heat applications as well as the tute on the Eurasian Land-Bridge project. port city of Lianyu ngang, in Jiangsu possibility of highly efficient electricity His previous articles on China and the Province. Lianyungang is important as generation by means of a helium turbine Land-Bridge appeared in the Special Re the chief "eastern terminal" of the in the primary coolant loop. The first port section of 21 st Century in Spring Eurasian Land-Bridge railroad, running Chinese HTR will go critical in 1999. 7997 and Winter 7996-7 997. SPECIAL REPORT 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 15 experts argue that current u.s. policy of a "linear no-threshold" approacf} to radiation damage has no science behind it and d wasting billions of governmentdollars in c/ean-up that could be spent on real health benefits. Metropolitan Edison Co. A shipment of low-level radioactive waste. EDITOR'S NOTE Nuclear Society. knowledgeable in radia tion science and Jim Muckerheide is Massachusetts Ted Rockwell is a fo unding director of public policy. State Nuclear Engineer, and a member MPR Associates, In c. and worked fo r This article is based on the Radiation, of the Governor's Advisory Council on many years as Technical Director of the Science, & Health policy statement pro Radiation Protection, under whose aus Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program un vided in July 7997 to the President's pices a great dea l of the data that contra der Admiral Hyman C. Rickover. He is Council of Advisors on Science & Te ch dicts current policy has been compiled. the author ofThe Rickover Effect: How nology fo r its review of U.S. energy re He also directs the Center fo r Nuclear One Man Made a Difference. search and development, and its impact Technology and Society at Worcester Muckerheide is the president, and on the economy, environment, and na Polytechnic Institute, and is chairman of Rockwell is the vice president, of the or tional security. RSH can be reached at the Biology and Medicine Division, and ganization Radia tion, Science, & Box 843, Needham, Mass. 02 7 94, the Low-Level Radiation Health Health, In c. (RSH), an international Tel./fa x (6 77) 449-22 74, or Em ail to Effects Committee of the American group of independent individuals [email protected] 16 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY NUCLEAR REPORT overnment officials and scientists decades, it was argued in the 1950s that search, analysis, and assessment of radi G keep repeating that any amount of it would prudent to assume, fo r adminis ation health effects. ionizing radiation, no matter how small, trative purposes, that the detrimental The EPA is now the lead federal must be consider�d hazardous. This health effects of radiation were roughly agency on radiation standards, and re statement is not a scientific truth; in fact, proportional to the amount of radiation cently the agency challenged the Nu it is contradicted by data from laboratory received, and would continue in a linear clear Regulatory Commission's intention experiments and epidemiological analy relationship all the way to zero radiation to set the decontamination limit (above sis, and by basic biological theory. exposure. which any radioactive contamination Nevertheless, this statement, and the This is called the linear no-threshold would have to be cleaned up) at a small government policy based on it, are the (LNT) model of rad iation damage. It percentage of the existing natural radia sole justification for fantastic scenarios gave rise to the concept of "as low as tion background. The EPA argued for an of single man-made radioactive atoms reasonably achievable," or ALARA. even lower limit, citing linear-no migrating for miles, through billions of ALARA states that even when all other threshold-based calculations of hypo naturally radioactive atoms in the desert regulations have been met, one must thetical cancer deaths. The EPA brushed soil, to contaminate water supplies mil lower radiation exposures still fu rther, aside objections that the claimed health lennia from now. limited only by that ambiguous term risks were fictitious, and that the in Such scenarios create needless fear, "reasonable." creased clean-up costs would be enor endless delays, and extraord inary ex The Adverse Effects of LNT mous, and stated further that its position pense, for harmless low-level waste stor The institution and use of the LNT is not negotiable. If the EPA prevails, tax age. They are also the basis for a June 3, model has several serious implications: dollars will be spent to make slightly ra 1997, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) (1) No threshold radiation level is es dioactive material slightly less radioac report that 23 people will die from triv tablished below which exposure can be tive. In terms of radioactivity, it will be ial doses of radiation as trucks of disregarded. lower than naturally radioactive granite, shielded radioactive waste drive across (2) Little account is taken of the adap including that in New York's Grand Cen the country. In fact, such waste pro tive response in human beings-repair, tral Station, the U.S. Capitol, and many duces lower exposures to radiation than healing, and apoptosis (cell death)-that other buildings and soils. many naturally radioactive materials in automatically takes place when radia Federal agencies acknowledge that everyday use. tion is received over an extended period they are all required to abide by the Because of the fear created by this of of time, as in occupational or environ "consensus" of the scientific community, ficial policy, many people avoid life-sav mental exposure to radiation. which Congress presumes will be deter ing medical techniques that involve radi (3) The concept of "collective dose" mined and expressed by the BEIR (Bio ation, and hundreds of billions of dollars was created, to apply to large popula logical Effects of Ionizing Radiation) are allocated to "decontaminate" loca tions exposed to low-level radiation. In Committees formed under the Board of tions that are well below the natural ra this fiction, trivial individual doses are Radiation Effects Research (BRER) of the diation levels where people have lived added up in a large population, to "pre National Research Cou nci I/National healthily for generations. If this harmfu l dict" adverse health effects, and even Academy of Sciences, as well as by the misconception were corrected, we could deaths, in an exposed population-al National Council on Radiation Protec eliminate most of the problems of fear though there is no scientific validity tion and Measurements (NCRP), a pri and cost that now constrain the use of whatsoever to support th is concept. vate, non-profit corporation chartered by nuclear technology. Initially, regulatory concern was fo Congress for that purpose in 1964. History of a Bad Policy cussed on situations involving potential However, the independence of these How did such a bad policy come into exposure to those higher radiation levels bodies is compromised by their being being? where health effects had been observed. led by, and dependent on, persons who Despite repeated lowerings over the Now, however, regulators and hazards are largely funded by those Federal agen years of permissible radiation levels, the analysts are increasingly applying the cies with an interest in maintaining cur evidence is that the first radiation protec ALARA concept to radiation levels that rent radiation protection regulations and tion standards, recommended in 1934 are less than the natural radiation back "clean-up" programs. Most of the indi by the National Council on Radiation ground, and also are far less than the viduals involved have demonstrated al Protection and Measurement (NCRP), variations in the natural radiation all of legiance, or at least acquiescence, to the provided adequate protection fo r the us encounter in daily living. The costs, LNT hypothesis and its derivatives. Such population. After World War II, data direct and indirect, of this situation are concerns support Federal programs and from the A-bomb victims, and irradiation immense. research funding. data from mice and other animals, Who Sets the Standards? In turn, these same organizations pro showed that radiation doses of more Both the U.S. Environmental Protec vide fu nds and support to the NCRP. The than about 500 rem from atomic bombs tion Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory NCRP and BRER select their own mem were generally fatal, while doses of less Commission have some responsibility bers and appoint their own committees, than 40 or 50 rem left no detectable for setting radiation standards. And they, which have become increasingly nar short-term damage. along with the DOE, Food and Drug Ad rowed to persons known to favor, or at Because any cancer or genetic dam ministration, and other Federal agencies, least accept, the current LNT, ALARA, age would not show up for several have extensively funded programs for re- and collective-dose philosophy of radia- NUCLEAR REPORT 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 17 tion control. The NCRP and BEIR Com ated with numerous foods. The time has ica's heartland.) mittees meet in closed ses'sion, without come to use irradiation; we must not let Much illness is caused by "sick build public participation, and do not publish any group use arguments without a sci ings," made so by sealing them tightly in records of their meetings. Their delibera entific basis to keep such an important an effort to save a little energy. Is it more tions are not subject to peer review by technique from the marketplace." important to save energy than to keep the scientific community until after their The 10,000 Americans who die each people healthy? fo rmal reports have been released. year from food poisoning are real per We look everywhere to find the The substantial criticism of these ree sons, with names and fam ilies. They money to meet urgent public needs and ports in the scientific literature has been should not be sacrificed to save hypo curtail our national debt, yet we keep largely ignored by both the committees thetical persons, who are threatened overlooking the hundreds of billions of and the Federal agencies that apply the only by baseless fears and a government dollars allocated to reduce radiation lev pronouncements justifying ever further policy that nourishes those fears. els that are already harmless, and to reductions in radiation dose limits, and Further, tens of thousands of Ameri study scenarios, and implement associ increases in public expenditures. cans die each year from inhaling partic ated regulations and "decontamination" Deadly Consequences ulate matter, most of which comes from programs, based on nonexistent hazards. The deleterious consequences of cur burning fossil fuels. This is in addition to Furthermore, the cost of nuclear tech rent rad iation standards policy impose the even greater health and environmen- nologies of all kinds-power plants, nu an immeasurable cost on society. Con clear medical centers, critical research sider first some of the actions (and inac procedures-would be drastically re tions) driven by unwarranted fear of low duced if we could eliminate much of level rad iation. How does one measure Proceedings of the Tytentieth Annual the large, unnecessary effort nOw de the number of people who avoid needed Meeting of the, National Council on Radiation voted to measuring, analyzing, account ' ' ' mammograms, X-rays, and other life Protection imd Meas�remen� ,' ' ing for, reporting, controlling, reducing, saving radiomedical techniques? Or the and disposing of trivial amounts of radi ' cost of 100,000 fear-inspired abortions ,SOME ISSUES IMPORTA ation and radioactivity: with no result td. in Europe in the year fo llowing the Cher IN DEVELOPING BASIC ing benefits. nobyl accident? Or lives lost because , RADIA:TION PROTECTION A Nuclear Absence RECOMMENDATIONS some people will not buy smoke detec Consideration of nuclear power-its tors containing a rad ioactive source potential benefits and its associated (which firefighters say are lifesavers)? problems and limitations-has been How do we determine the cost of bur strangely absent from top-level meetings densome regu lations on handl i ng ra and daily press accounts of efforts to diomedicines, which have caused some cope with environmental degradation. hospitals to stop offering these life There seems to be wide agreement that saving procedures, and which are pric burning fossil fuels must be curtailed, yet ing other radiomed icines off the avail no one utters the dread word nuclear. ability lists of health maintenance orga We have prqgrams to help other na nizations? !N[CLRiPl tions with their energy problems, but we For some situations, there are avail have specifically and inexplicably ruled able fatality figures. For example, about Although permissible radiation levels in out discussion of nuclear energy (except 10,000 people die each year, in the the United States keep going down, the for the special case of North Korea, United States alone, from food poison scientific evidence is that the fi rst radia where we have taken the opposite ing, and the problem is growing in mag tion protection standards, recommended stance). And until nuclear becomes a nitude and complexity. The New Eng in 7934 by the NCRP, provided ade major energy source, the possibility of land Journal of Medicine reported quate protection fo r the population. international conflict over the world's re concern over this problem, May 29, Here an NCRP report from 7984. maining fossil fuel supplies and the se 1997, and stated flatly in an editorial: vere environmental consequences of "We already have the means of virtu tal problems caused by SOx and NOx. their use, will escalate. ally eliminating the problem-namely, Why do we burn fossil fuels instead of We cannot properly deal with energy irrad iation. The use of ionizing radiation clean nuclear energy, and instead of sav and environmental problems, until this for food pasteurization has been exten ing these valuable chemical raw materi reluctance is overcome. We have to face sively evaluated and is supported by the als for future generations to make medi the inescapable fact that the world will World Health Organization, the Food cines, textiles, and other basics? be increasingly dependent on nuclear and Agriculture Organization, the Inter Why do we worry about shortages of power in the years ahead, even with a national Atomic Energy Agency, and var water, our most abundant resource, in maximum use of wind energy and solar ious other international agencies, scien stead of using nuclear energy to purify for those situations in which these tech tists and government officials. Irradiation the oceans and pump the water wher nologies are appropriate. Although hy provides the greatest likelihood of sub ever it is needed? (We have no problem droelectric power is a proven power stantially reducing bacterial and para with pumping millions of gallons of oil provider, on a global scale its potential sitic causes of foodborne disease associ- from the north slopes of Alaska to Amer- contribution is grossly inadequate. 18 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY NUCLEAR REPORT I • [ , 0 " t I (S 0 F •• ' PUBLl t H EALTH AID ,_( NUCLEAR INDUSTRY COl.-_L6 u.s. and internationalpolicy on low-level radiation fe eds into the anti-nuclea r movement's irrational fears of anything nuclear. What Does Radiation Do? which results from routine eating and fect of low-level radiation that is not The biological justification claimed for breathing. Our bodies continuously re strong enough to degrade the body's tis the LNT model, is that when a single ion pair this damage with few mutations sue-repair capacity? The answer is sug izing photon or particle hits a living or unrepaired or misrepaired DNA. gested by the epidemiological evidence ganism, it may damage DNA in the cell The resultant mutations from metabo and by how the body reacts to low levels and this may impair the cell's function. lism outnumber those caused by natural of other potential toxins: When we inject But to understand the significance of this radiation by several thousand-fold. This small quantities of disease bacteria into event, we have to look at the numbers of is the case, even after making generous the body, the result is to stimulate the such events. allowances for the fact that rad iation immune system, so that subsequent at The first consideration is that we all causes more double breaks in the DNA tacks by this toxin, in larger amounts, are live in a sea of natural radioactivity than the normal metabolism does, and effectively countered. This provides the natural sources of radioactivity impact that these are harder to repair than sin biological explanation for the evidence our bodies with an average of 15,000 gle breaks. that some positive health effects are seen photons or particles every second-more These facts raise two questions: First, in response to small increases in radia than a billion such events every day of how can any living organism withstand tion doses. our lives. such an onslaught-how do any of us Some research indicates that radiation But our bodies face even greater chal survive? The answer is that the body has may work just the same way. Numerous lenges: About 5,000 purine bases are a large variety of enzymes that continu studies have shown that DNA and cellu lost daily from the DNA in each human ally scan the DNA to repair damaged lar repair mechanisms are stimulated by cell because the body's normal heat nucleotides. This results in such a high low to moderate levels of radiation. breaks their linkages. Thousands of DNA fidelity of DNA replication that our There are studies showing that organ nucleotides in each cell are also dam germ-line cells are subjected to only isms kept in a below-normal radiation aged each day by free radicals created in about 10 heritable mutations per year. background are affected adversely, and the normal process of metabolism, The second question is: What is the ef- recover when returned to normal. (Note NUCLEAR REPORT 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 19 that we are not talking here about the potential damage from high-level radiation. High radiation levels can overwhelm the organism's normal biolog ical fu nctions and repair processes; they can leave the organism damaged, and vulnerable to the mechanisms that initiate cancer and progress to other adverse conse quences.) To summarize: Our body temperature and nor mal eating and breathing cause thousands more DNA mutations in our bodies than those caused by the natural level of ion izing rad iation. In fact, the low-level radiation that is identified by current pol icy as being subject to reg ulatory consideration, is far below 1 percent of the average natural radiation background in which we all I ive. It is less than 0.1 percent of the higher lev els of natural radiation be Roger StoutenburghlBrookhaven National Laboratory low which more than 90 How many Americans have died because they fe ared to have medical treatments associated with percent of the population ra dioactivity? Here, Brookhaven National Laboratory scientists use gamma imaging to check the now live. And there is evi spread of cancer to bone. dence that populations ex posed to higher background radiation tinely "fit" their nonlinear data from ex the other to consider revising current experience some positive health effects. periments to a straight line that goes to policy on radon (BEIR VI). Suppression of Research zero on a graph. Even in the BEIR V re These del iberations are now under Disparities between the science and port,1 many examples are presented in way. However, on the evidence to date, the governmental policy concerning which "there is no adverse effect below we remain concerned about the integrity low-level radiation have been demon 40 rem," and yet the dose-response is of these efforts. Specific, high-level at strated by numerous researchers for reported as a straight line through zero. tention is required to ensure the open many years. But these reports have been Within the last few years, however, ness and integrity demanded for these systematically ignored and suppressed. these disparities and contradictions have important deliberations, with their enor Their proponents were often marginal come to concern more and more scien mous impact on public costs and basic ized and de-funded, and many were dri tists and policy-makers, not only because energy and environmental policy. ven from the field. of the huge cost and the impact on other Scientists Speak Out When the few remaining knowledge policy questions, but also because the As a resu It of th i s concern, a few able radiobiologists retire, there is no process reflects poorly on the integrity of knowledgeable individuals and groups one to take their places. Research fu nd science itself. In the face of this profes began to speak out. ing is always tight, yet significant funds sional concern, the NCRP set up a spe • In 1995, Zbigniew Jaworowski, for are being provided to programs and per cial Scientific Committee 1-6 to review mer chairman of the United Nations Sci sons committed to support the LNT the validity of the LNT and to recom entific Committee on the Effects of model and to contribute to irrational mend whether present policy should be Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), published fear. revised . In addition, the National Re the fo llowing statement in Nukleonika, Most workers in the field now go search Council has convened two new the International Journal of Nuclear Re along with the prevailing view, or avoid BEIR committees, one to consider search.2 situations where they have to take a whether it should instigate a fu ll-scale "In March 1994, UNSCEAR decided stand. For example, researc hers rou- review of the LNT model (BEIR VII), and to publish its report on radiation horme- 20 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY NUCLEAR REPORT sis, a phenomenon of beneficial effects • The Advisory Committee on Nuclear including specifically those sources that o� radiation. The report, 'Adaptive Re Waste (ACNW) reported July 10, 1996, are said to support the LNT model. The sponses to Radiation in Cells and Organ to its sponsor, the Nuclear Regulatory raw data should be examined anew to isms,' approved after. 12 years of deliber Commission (NRC): assure that scientifically valid conclu- ation, dispels the co�inon notion that "We conclude that a re-examination sions are drawn. Data should not be even the smallest dose of radiation is of the regulatory model is appropriate. fo rce-fit to predetermined models. harmful. Myths are hard to banish, and The first task is an impartial review of the Substantial evidence of health benefits until recently hormesis was a scientific data and their quality. from low-level radiation should not be taboo. This was because it contradicts "The increasing emphasis placed by dismissed as "anomalous." Experiments an assumption which is a basis for the the NRC on risk-informed regulation on small organisms shielded from back- current philosophy and policy of radia makes it imperative that the actual health ground radiation show deleterious ef- tion protection. Over the years, this as risk of low levels of ionizing radiation be fects. Proposed confi rmatory experi- sumption came to be regarded as a sci assessed accurately ....We recom- ments on small mammals have not been entifically documented fact by mass mend that the need fo r special attention funded. This type of work has been sup- media, public opinion and even many be conveyed to the NCRP regarding its pressed and should be reviewed and scientists." study. Such attention should include: (1) evaluated. One special case is the termi- • The French Academy of Sciences Assurance that the study includes scien- nation of the Center fo r Human Radiobi- published a report in fall 1995, objecting tists other than those who are 'recog- ology, fo llowing results that dramatically to a proposal by the International Com nized experts' with a reputation built on contradicted the LNT. Where such im- mission on Radiological Protection the LNT model; (2) An evaluation of the portant research has been termi nated (ICRP) to lower permissible radiation data by an entity with an expertise in sta- prematurely, some additional research limits still further.3 The chief editor of the tistics or information science but no prior should be supported. The amount of report stated : position on LNT.... (3) Consideration money required for these steps could be "After examination of recent scientific of essentially all studies that could relate taken from contracts now allocated to and epidemiological data, the Academy to the LNT. "research" whose sole purpose seems to has confirmed the opinion it gave in "We will follow the [NCRPl program be to further promulgate current policy 1989, that there is no, sCientific reason to and will reportto the Commission on the .,"a'nd public fear-including, especially, justify lowering the standards in force to study and its implication." the EPA's radon program. day, provided they are accompanied by These words reflect the advisory com- This scientific review should be un- a lifetime cumulative dose limit for oc mittee's concern that the secret and in- dertaken independently of the National cupational exposure of one sievert [100 adequate review process used by the Research Council and the NCRP. It remsl." NCRP in the past will not be sufficient. should include radiation and non-radia- • The Health Physics Society, the We share the Committee's concern and tion specialists who do not have a con- technical society for U.S. radiation pro concur in its recommendations. We urge flict of interest. All persons funded by tection professionals, published a posi that government and private interests im- government agencies and private inter tion statement on the subject in March plement mechanisms to help assure the ests that support and profit from the hun 1996:4 scientific integrity of this important dreds of billions of dollars of public re- "In accordance with current knowl process. sources expended fo r government edge of radiation health risks, the Health Radiation, Science, & Health programs, and from regulations based on Physics Society recommends against As part of this move to change the the LNT model, should be considered as quantitative estimation of health risk be LNT model, in 1996, an international having a conflict of interest. Iow an individ ual dose of 5 rem in one group of independent experts on radia- A preliminary independent inquiry on year, or a lifetime dose of 10 rem in addi tion, including noted fig ures such as No- the standards-setti ng process itself tion to background radiation. Risk esti bel Laureate Rosalyn Yalow, formed Ra- should be undertaken. This review mation in this dose range should be diation, Science, & Health, Inc. (RSH), a should not include members of the cur- strictly qualitative, accentuating a range not-fo r-profit organization. One of us rent standards-setting bodies and com- of hypothetical health outcomes with an had organized several technical sessions mittees that have been involved in set- emphasis on the likely possibility of zero on low-level radiation at meetings of the ting and defending the LNT model, adverse health effects. The current philos American Nuclear Society and the although those persons should be invited ophy of radiation protection is based on American Society of Mechanical Engi- to contribute to, and respond to in- the assumption that any radiation dose, neers, with dozens of researchers from quiries, as to the basis for considering no matter how small, may result in hu around the world. These sessions col- and rejecting scientific evidence. man health effects, such as cancer and lected voluminous data that contradict This inquiry should address primarily hereditary genetic damage. There is sub the LNT model. the funding and defunding of persons stantial and convincing scientific evi RSH has reviewed the existing materi- and programs, interlocking personnel, dence for health risks at high dose. Below als and, on the basis of the evidence, we and the controls imposed by the agen- 10 rem (which includes occupational and make the fo llowing proposals: cies and the standards-setting bodies and environmental exposures) risks of health The first step to understand the situa- their contractors. It should address the effects are either too small to be observed tion is to support a modest, independent specific areas of research, and studies or are non-existent." effort to review the relevant existing data, that have been suppressed and/or termi- NUCLEAR REPORT 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 21 of the research community in discussing Existing processes and organizations fo r knowledge and interest in th is impor evaluating this situation have become tant subject is, "1 could lose my fu nd distorted in an effort to defend a prede ing," or "my job." This is not a standard termined conclusion. The impl ications of scientific inquiry that America should of this situation are wide-ranging and accept. profound. Such research includes fo llowing up We believe that all existing policies on substantial work in Japan on using based on predicting detrimental health low-dose radiation fo r successfu lly effects and fatalities caused by low-level treating cancer, and research on the radiation should be considered invalid, millions of persons in the world who and should be required to be revised. enjoy improved health as a result of liv Actions should be taken to assess the ing in areas of higher-than-average significance of R&D to the advantages background rad iation, or who use nat and limitations of applying nuclear tech ural radon or radium health spas. Con nologies to important health and envi firmation of this evidence, and of the ronmental problems. seemingly beneficial effects of radon in The imperative of providing adequate nated, or results left unpublished, and houses, would help establish accurate electrical energy to meet projected the researchers who have been con dose-response relationships. world needs and avoid conflict over en strained in pursuing valid areas of re In addition, the contribution of large ergy resources and environmental search-recognizing that not all deci sources of radioactivity to the enormous degradation over the next two or three sions to fa il to pursue areas of research biological populations surrounding deep generations must be considered. Nu are necessarily unjustified. sea hydrothermal vents, should be stud clear energy can, and must, provide 20 The inquiry should also address areas ied, to establish whether radiation is the to 30 percent of the total world energy of research in which massive fu nds are source of energy that maintains these needs for the more than 10 billion peo expended for research of little or no sci populations 8,000 feet below sunlight. ple in the world in 50 years, in order to entific value, and those whose main pur Our major institutions should respond provide any possibility for a growing pose seems to be to contribute to public to the fact that no health risk is found world economy, with minimal environ fears. The investigation should explore from continuous exposure to rad iation mental costs. In addition, there must be the extent to which those fears are used levels up to 10 times the average natural an accelerated use of nuclear technolo as a basis for Congressional fu nding of background. This should then lead to the gies in supplying food and water, and major projects that have no potential establishment of: medical and other resources. public health and safety benefit. It • A program to assess the application Particular notice should be taken of should address the response (or lack of of this evidence on low-level radiation to China's extraordinary economic growth response) by government agencies to nuclear technologies. Specifically, the and energy needs during th is period, as evidence that is contrary to the LNT task is to document the cost savings that it does not fail to implement the eco model (for example, the data that would result from changes in engineer nomic, energy, and infrastructure devel demonstrate that lung cancer is highest ing codes and standards, design criteria, opment that is in the best interests of its in the low-radon areas of the United and operations, with associated large people, along with the large current and States), and their efforts to suppress this public cost savings in medicine, energy, projected growth of other Asian and de information, and even produce disinfor industry, in disposing of wastes, and in veloping countries. mation, rather than undertake a valid environmental "cleanup" and decom The United States should take its ap scientific review of it. missioning. propriate leadership role in implement This inquiry should produce a prel imi • A program to inform government, ing the technologies and the policies that nary report to the Administration, to the educators, media, and the publ ic about can meet the needs of a growing and National Academy of Sciences/National the health effects of radiation, and to ap sustainable world economy. Research Council, and to the science ply this information to their respective and government affairs committees of areas of responsibility and interest. Notes------BEIR V, "Health Effects of Exposure to Congress. • A program to assess the role that nu 1. 1990. Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation, Report of the Undoing the Constraints clear technologies should play in solving Advisory Committee on the Biological Effects of Effort will be required to re-establish pressing national problems, such as Ionizing Radiations" (BEIR Committee), (Wash ington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences an en vi ronment where researchers wi II health and med ical applications, includ National Research Council). feel free to work, uninhibited by political ing food and water safety and supplies, 2. Zbigniew Jaworowski, 1994. "Hormesis: The and institutional restraints as to what re climate change, air pollution, and so on. Beneficial Effects of Radiation," Nukleonika, Vol. pp. 3-12. A version of this article also sults are "acceptable." Right now, Conclusions 40, appeared in 21st Century, Fall 1994, pp. 22-27. dozens of our best researchers are sub We have been uncharacteristically 3. Academie des Sciences, 1995. "Problemes lies stantially proscribed from undertaking blunt, because it is imperative that we aux effects des faibles doses des radiations ion isants," Rapport No. 34 (Paris), (October). important research on the health effects make clear that very important energy 4. K.L. Mossman et aI., 1996. "Radiation Risk in of low-level radiation. and environmental policies are based on Perspective." Health Physics Society Position One of the most common statements premises that are scientifically invalid. Paper, Health Physics Newsletter (March). 22 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY NUCLEAR REPORT NUCLEAR REPORT 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 23 24 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY NUCLEAR REPORT NUCLEAR REPORT 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 25 I NTRODUCTION underlying "scientific" assumptions on which Darwinism is based. ope John Paul II recently reaffi rmed the acceptance of a This brings us directly to the "nature of man." It fo rces us to theory of evolution, one which would be coherent with give to the "ontological difference of man" a specific meaning. the fu ndamental Christian credo of "man created in the For this, we have made use of the theory of "evolution" of Pimage of God." "With man we find ourselves faced with a Leibniz, and of Lyndon LaRouche.2 diffe rence of ontological order ...an ontological disconti LaRouche has indicated in his presentations, and in his writ nuity," he said.1 ings, that Leibniz's "analysis situs," seen from the standpoint of In the popular mind, the concept of evolution is wrongly as his Monadology, could make an important contribution to sociated only with Charles Darwin. For this reason, I will try to making intelligible the creative effect of the human mind on show that Darwin was not a real evolutionist, but, despite the the world: that mind, which otherwise tends to be relegated to pathetic attempt by his fo llowers to hide it, merely the co-father the ranks of the ghosts, on the presumption of the impossibility of Social Darwinism. Today, people seem to have forgotten that of it being determinable by mathematical or logical means. To Nazism was a brutal, but logical consequence of Social Dar day, as yesterday, for many, whatever cannot be measured winism; so, especially after the 1970s, they are once again will mathematically, does not exist. ing to accept pol icies based on so-called "scientific" proofs, I use a story to show how a mathematical ideology could that there are too many people and too much technology. paralyze cognition. Keep in mind that Leibniz proved the "ex This left-wing eco-Malthusianism has been radically esca istence" of physical curves like the catenary, which Descartes lated, since 1990, as the brutal, speculative monetarism for had excluded, on the ground that they are not measurable by which man is just a commodity whose cost must be mini Descartes's mathematics: mized. We hear, again, experts "proving" that poverty and in Descartes, chased by a I ion, arrived at a bridge. There, he telligence are based on biological factors. We hear, that if en might have escaped by crossing; but, he stopped. The lion ar ti re countries are destroyed by speculators, if fa mine kills rives, and kills him. In Paradise, Saint Peter asks Descartes: millions, that this is all part of natural law, part of progress "Why did you stop? Why did you not go over the bridge, and achieved through the survival of the fittest. Radical monetarism save yourself? Descartes replies: "But, but ...Didn' t you see? and Social Darwinism are and were the two faces of the same It was a suspension bridge!'( coin: Darwin gave the supposedly scientific justification fo r "And so ...?" Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus. "Do you not know?! I have proved mathematically that such It is necessary, therefore, to go a step further, to expose the catenary bridges do not exist!" 26 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY Darwin was the fa ther of Social Darwinism, which spawned and nourished both ra cism and hatred of man in general. P 1 D T Z ART . ARWIN: HE ERO-GROWTH degrees of talent, which are hereditary, are so because the M E ODEL OF VOLUTION brain of the child reflects that of the parent stock."4 The oppo sition to materialism is not to be sought in religious fundamen NEWTONIAN MATERIALISM talism. Darwin was also a daily reader of the Bible; but, that Charles Darwin (1 809-1 882) contributed to the study of seems not to have helped him in grasping the nature of human evolution through the concept of natural selection, which, as beings. Moreover, it was the artificial debates with English fun we will see, can be applied only when the condition of over damentalists, organized by Thomas Huxley, which made Dar population exists, but not under other circumstances. winism popular. In that period, the real anti-materialism came For example, if five individuals are born and all can survive, from Leibniz, as expressed in his opposition to the natural phi there is no selection, and, according to Darwin, no direction losophy of Newton, to the atomism of Gassendi, to the alge for evolution. If ten are born, and only five can survive, then braic mathematics of Descartes, to the social and economic the "selection of the best" is assumed to play a role. The echo theory of Locke, and so fo rth. Even if the superiority of Leib of Malthus's theory is obvious, and Darwin explicitly refer niz's conception resulted in many of the inventions enjoyed by ences him; but, researchers have confirmed that there were the el ite, nevertheless, that el ite's need for Malthusian social other important sources for Darwin: Adam Smith, (Lambert Adolphe) Jacques Quetelet, Auguste Comte, and so on.) If the 1. Address of John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Oct. 22, mother of the concept of overpopulation, is Malthus, the unac 1996, subsequently published in Osservatore Romano. knowledged father comes from a scientific ideology: material 2. Lyndon LaRouche's personal contribution on this issue-through develop ment of the concepts of potential rela tive population-density and the anti ism, in its dual form of Isaac Newton's mechanics and Georges entropic principle of cognition by means of which man is able to increase Buffon's vitalism. These latter two shaped Darwin's doctrine, global "carrying capacity"-is used in the last section of this article. His and still dominate the work of modern Darwinists. works should be read directly. Among those relevant here are The Sci ence of Christian Economy And Other Prison Writings (Washington, D.C.: Darwin wrote, in an early manuscript: "To avoid stating how Schiller Institute, 1991), and, "The Essential Role of 'Time-Reversal' in far I believe in materialism, say only that emotions, instincts, Mathematical Economics," Executive Intelligence Review, Oct. 11, 1996. The latter also appeared in Fidelio, Winter 1996. 3. L.A. Jacques Quetelet introduced the statistical conception of "average Editor's note: All emphasis within quotations, indicated by italics, is the au state," "average man," and so forth, which also inspired James Clerk thor's, unless otherwisenoted. Maxwell. 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 27 added or taken away from it, and so, it is also eternal. Let us designate the con servation of such a given inert, fixed state, by K. Let us imagine K as the fixed quantity of water-mole cules in a river. (c) Internal-External:The value of the magnitude K, is indifferent to the linear or non-linear changes (mo tions) among its parts. Such internal motions, which leave K unchanged, are called "relative." So, either K is fixed for eternity, or the cause of its change has to come from outside itself. Any change of K itself, can The Granger Collection be defined as absolute, on Crossing the impossible (fo r Descartes) catenary bridge, is an everyday occurrence fo r many com tological, or discontinuous. muters. Here, the George Washington bridge over the Hudson River, connecting Manhattan to Should this system be Fort Lee, N,}. called the universe, then its change can come only policies meant that materialism had the only claim to scientific from a deus ex machina, God rearranging a house in which method the elite would accept, rejecting everything else as He does not live. If such a system expresses nature com "mysticism." pletely, then human nature is also so described. Thus, we This is not the place to laugh about how absurd it is to take have obtained homo mechanicus. the alchemist Newton as the paradigm of a scientist, nor to Leibniz had warned that an intelligible world need not nec prove how willful was the attempt of the Marquis de Laplace essarily be a dead world! One could account for the efficient to slander the crucial contributions to science of Leonardo da existence of human free will and real evolution, but one did Vinci, Johannes Kepler, Gerard Desargues, Blaise Pascal, Leib not have to accept a mathematical determination of physical niz, Gaspard Monge, and others. Nor should I elaborate here changes as an absolute determination. Such a universe, deter the ro le which the so-called "X Club" played, in launching mined by a single mathematics, is not of as much significance Darwinism as an ideology. This club was the 19th century as fo r what it describes, as that which (it must not be permitted to sociation that linked Thomas Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and hide that) it omits. John Tyndall to other natural philosophers such as Peter Tait, Lord Kelvin, James Clerk Maxwell, Hermann Helmholtz, and The Second System: Freedom, or Vitalistic Systems Abbot Moigno: all convinced Malthusians. And Life? Society? Mind? Do we need an extra force to ex The role of Thomas Malthus's influence on Darwin, is usu plain their origin and functioning? The mechanists answer, ally acknowledged and accepted; but Malthus was not the "big that, one day, they will prove that our existence is a statistical bang" of Social Darwinism. We have to go one step lower, to accident, a deviation from the average state of matter. see the main assumptions already present in Newtonianism, We must respond with this warning from the beautiful mind which, as Newton himself said, stood "on the shoulders of gi of Louis Pasteur, who, after eliminating vitalism and sponta ants," such as Galileo and Descartes. neous generation, wrote: Newtonianism divided the world into two systems: a physi cal and a living one; the first a tota lity, the second, a part of it. You put matter before life, and you make matter The first of these two, is viewed as the domain of necessity, eternal. How do you know that the progress of science or, closed mechanical systems. We select only a few of New will not force you to affirm that life is eternaland not ton's postulates of necessity, as these are relevant to Darwin matter? You go from matter to life, because your present ism: knowledge tells you that you cannot understand things in (a) Objectivity: An investigation is considered scientific, a different way. Who can assure me that in 10,000 years only if we can isolate a system from its observer, and reduce it we won't say that it is only possible to go from life to to a set of mathematically consistent relations among its inert matter?" 5 parts. Thus, that which was the valid practice of engineers, be came after Newton, the method. The isolated system became Mechanism, to account for the specificity of life, has to in the universe. vent an extra, ad hoc model. A living cell, a society, is consid (b) Completeness: Matter is described as motion, and Eu ered an open sub-system of the Newtonian physical universe. clidean mathematics is considered complete. Nothing can be "Open," means that it can exchange energy with the "exter- 28 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY nal," that is, the rest of the universe. To conserve itself, to live, s,uch a cell must do external work, which consists of selecting P and collecting a useful portion of energy out of the world. It ds>esnot really produce, but simply collects and consumes the fru its (free energy) of the world within which it maintains itself al']d grows. We call this activity simple work. K ------This mechanistic model of cell or society, as a simple part of the material universe, cannot change the value of K, cannot increase the amount of water from which it drinks, or the fe r tility of the world from which it collects useful energy, and so on. In this sense, the maximum number of its population is al ready pre-defined. Whatever (present and future) qualitative change has been allowed in its characteristics, such a change is outside of its control: it can happen only as accidental mu tations. Life is not allowed really any efficient causality in the physical universe, and, thus, it is described as a parasite of matter, animals as parasites of vegetables, and man the biggest parasite of all. In this sense, man and animal and vegetable are equal: all are impotent to change the physical nature in which they live. We have obtained homo anima/ius. But Leibniz's question is still there: If the universe is dead, whence came this unwanted Figure 1 child? The modern Newtonians answer, that the father is sti ll CARRYING CAPACITY ACCORDING TO MALTHUS L/nknown, the mother is. the goddess Chance, and the act of This typical "S"-shaped curve, L, is used to represent procreation was an accident. population growth, according to Malthus's theory. It in But let us remain within our era, and follow how, from such dicates any growth with a limiting fa ctor intervening to a Newtonian "cell," the concept of economy was derived. stop it. P.F. Verhulst (1804- 1 849) put the concept into a mathematical equation: PIn + 1) = gPn (1 - Pn /K), where The Economy of Simple Work Pn is the potential at time n, PIn + 1) is the number of peo We want to show, in a simple form, how the economic the ple, or potential at time (n + 1); g is the growth fa ctor ories of Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, and Marx (all related to Dar (births/deaths); K is the carrying capacity, or limiting win), are based on the above concept of simple work. This mechanism, such as energy, physical size of the popu kind of activity can accumulate relative surpluses, but cannot lation, natural catastrophes, and so on. produce any absolute increase. The introduction of tools or machines, does not change the basic relation, except insofar as it increases the efficiency (decreases the work-time per unit of labor of his body and the work of his hands we may say are collected energy) or increases the range of activities. In this properly his." And, said Locke, If •••it is labor indeed that puts way, the local potential of the society to do work, can in the difference of value on everything... ," and again, If ••• crease, and with it the density of local population. But, this man, by being master of himself and proprietor of his own per process is comparable to one who digs holes to build a hill out son and the actions or labor of it, had still in himself the great of the same sand. Human societies, as also life, are conceived fo undation of property."6 as parasites drinking out of a fixed flow of water, which then Adam Smith's theories are only an elaboration of this; he defines the maximum number of people able to drink. Once recognized that if work cannot create real energy, it can at one approaches the vicinity of the maximum, any further in least create social commodities and exchange them, such that crease can take only the form of a relative redistribution at the the artificial relative profit could grow independently of nature expense of others. or physical considerations. He thought that the physical regu This is schematically illustrated in Figure 1: The curve, L, in lative equilibrium of action-reaction, was paralleled by a so dicates the growth of the potential of a Newtonian physical cial mechanism for equilibrium: the play between the forces of economy through the number of people allowed (carrying ca supply and demand, that is, the market. This perfect thermostat pacity). The curve moves toward a limit, K, which expresses could be upset only by catastrophes, or climate changes; oth the point of zero growth or of a stationary state. erwise, through the mechanism of competition, waverings The concept of the Newtonian social economy focusses on around an equilibrium line, it would define prices, salaries, the distribution of such relative potentials inside a society, eventually expressed in its monetary form. Given the above 4. Charles Darwin's Notebooks 1836- 1844: Geology, Transmutation of premises, the social becomes more and more disconnected Species, Metaphysical Enquiries, transcribed and edited by Paul H. Bar rett et al. (London: British Museum, and Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University from that physical which is thought to be unchangeable; and, Press, 1987), Notebook M, p. 532. so, the result becomes a simple convention, or else a struggle 5. Louis Pasteur. Pages Choisies (Paris: Etudes Sociales, 1970), p. 56. among powers in society to grab the most at the expense of oth 6. John Locke. An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government, Chapter 5, in The English Philosophers From Bacon to ers. We can call this last the economy of trade and property, Mill, edited by Edwin A. Burtt (New York: The Modern Library, 1939), pp. well expressed by John Locke, who said of the individual: "The 413, 419, 420. 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 29 Libraryof Congress Darwin gave the appearance of objective science to the materialist, entropy-centered philosophy of Thomas Malthus (right) and Adam Smith (left), based on the methodology of Isaac Newton. and so on, and especially would make sure that some part of stocking of commodities around a stationary state, gives the the population does not reproduce excessively: "[P]overty, market the chance to automatically select the best commodity, though it no doubt discourages, does not always prevent mar and assure the evolution between successive productive cy riage." Nevertheless, Smith wrote: cles. Evolution in this form, can mean only relative, quantita tive variations, increases in adaptive specialization, and more Every species of animals naturally multiplies in complex division of labor. proportion to the means of their subsistence, and no The social economy of Smith, operating in this way, can species can ever multiply beyond it. But in civilized trigger two types of exponential growth, each with its own mo society it is only among the inferior ranks of people that mentum, and fully dissociated from the level of the physical the scantiness of subsistence can set limits to the further potential: multiplication of the human species; and it can do so in (a) The reproduction of financial capital, based upon com no other way than by destroying a great part of the pound interest and debts, can grow exponentially, without any children which their fruitful marriages produce.7 relation to the limit posed by the physical constraints. This be comes more and more artificial-"hot air." In case the population shifts: (b) The rate of reproduction of populations, can also escape the control of the supposed regulative mechanism of the The market would be so much under-stocked with labour market. in the one case, and so much over-stocked in the other, as This second problem was elaborated by Malthus within the would soon force back its price to that proper rate which same Newtonian parameters. Before we consider this, we the circumstances of the society required. It is in this need to introduce the last physical element defi ning Newton manner that the demand fo r men, like that fo r any other ian dynamics. commodity, necessarily regulates the production of men; quickens it when it goes on too slowly, and stops it when THE NEWTONIAN ENTROPIC SYSTEM it advances too fast.8 Leibniz had pointed out, that, except in the virtual world of mathematics, a Newtonian world cannot really be in sta To Smith, Ricardo adds: "The natural price of labor is that ble equilibrium: its dead atoms would come to a stop. 10 The price which is necessary to enable the laborers ...to subsist planets would slow down and fall into the Sun; no new suns and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or would form to replace the exhausted cinders of the old: no diminution."9 more action-reaction, nothing. After many closed recy To summarize their argument: the cyclical over- and under- clings, the water of the river has become inert atoms. But if 30 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY ; Library of, Congress . .' : ,.- :. .. .. ',,->, ' ' .... ' ', " .':. ., . '. . Library of Congress ' , Among the ''univer�allY 'entropic'� scientists who promoted D,arwin in the mid- i 9tn 'century, were .Thomas Huxley (shown here with the skull of some unfortunate), Lord Kelvin (Sir WIlliam Thomson), and Hermarin Helmholtz, all members of the X-Club, the river disappears, we can easily imagine what happens to Euler's calculations to prove, that in the United States (the the Newtonian system's alleged parasites: Life and man are country indicated by Smith as unique in having real economic doomed. growth): The circle around the X-Club, with Kelvin in 1852, and Helmholtz in 1854, brought the physical premise of the New ...the population when unchecked goes on doubling tonian system to its logical conclusion, by formulating the so every 25 years, or increases in geometrical ratio .., called "law of universal entropy." Here is Kelvin's version: while the rate of increase of the natural products is not so. And when acre has been added to acre till all the fe rtile (1) There is at present in the material world a universal land is occupied, the yearly increases of food must tendency to the dissipation of mechanical energy. (2) Any depend on the amelioration of land in possession. This is restoration is impossible ... (3) . . . within a finite a stream (or a fund) which, from the nature of all soils, period of time to come the earth must ...be, unfit fo r instead of increasing must be gradually diminishingY the habitation of man.ll Malthus's solution was a combination of social prevention Amen! Life, and man, eat usefu l energy, and produce noth of marriages fo r the poor, and the freedom of the market to ing. In this way, life is speeding up the death of the universe! decide the level of wages, so as to regulate the number of This is the current conclusion of mechanism. We have been people without any artificial or social assistance for the poor. degraded from the role of parasite, to that of a cancer. Smith, The German economist Friedrich List was one of the few who Malthus, Ricardo, and company thought they had already rec realized, that in a Newtonian cycle, entropy will push "carry ognized this in what they perceived as the degradation of agri ing capacity" toward zero, no matter how much the reproduc culture. "Natural fertility," they thought, is not constant, but in tion of the poor is prevented. It is stupid, he said, to take a stead, runs down: crop yields decrease, productivity declines, given productive power as an absolute measure of the poten Malthus, in his Essay on the Principle of Population, used tial population density.13 7. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Na 11. William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, 1852. The Philosophical Magazine tions, Book 1, Chapter 8, in the Glasgow edition of the works and corre (London, Edinburgh, Dublin), Fourth Series, Vol. 4, p. 304. spondence of Adam Smith, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), pp. 12. Thomas Malthus. An Essay on the Principle of Population, 6th edition, 96-97. 1826, in The Works of Thomas R. Malthus (London: W. Pickering, 1986), 8. Adam Smith. Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 8, p. 98. Vol. 2, p. 10. 9. David Ricardo. PrinCiples of Political Economy and Taxation, Chapter 5 13. Friedrich List elaborates this in Oas Nationale System der Politischen (London: J. Murray, 1817), p. 90. Okonomie (The national system of political economy), specifically in Book 10. Gottfried Leibniz. Second Letter to Clarke. See ''The Controversy Between 2, Chapter 11 (Basel: Kyklos Verlag, 1959), p. 140. Also, Justus Liebig, in Leibniz and Clarke" in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and 1840, discovered synthetic fertilizers, and thus broke the idea of the fixed Letters, edited by Leroy E. ·Loemker (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Pub organic cycle; his evidence was rejected by the Royal Society in London, lishers, 1989), hereinafter referred to as "Loemker," pp. 677-679. which refused to publish his results. 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 31 By that standard, he added, there was already overpopula in relation to others; but, after studying Smith, Nature learns tion with 1 million hunters in the Paleolithic! that crises can be used as a means for progress, if free competi- . tion is allowed in the marketplace. Nature being a totality, a Newtonian Ecology: Charles Darwin monopoly, she cannot compete with anybody else! But she Darwin adopted the Newtonian outlook to explain the had the creative idea (without telling Smith) to have animated changes in the living world. He presented this as a theory in commodities, so that they could compete among themselves! 1859 in On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selec Who wins is, by definition, the best (Nature is logical), and, as tion, or, The Preservation of Favored Races in The Struggle fo r the best, it will be re-input into the life factory, and will, auto Life.14 The fu ll title, with emphasis added, is used here to em matically, improve the next generation. phasize that Darwin has in mind the selection of "favored In Darwin's own words: races," from the beginning. The process which led to the for mulation of the theory, correctly here called by Darwin a [T]he Struggle for Existence amongst all organic beings . metaphor, can be summarized as fo llows: inevitably fo llows from the high, geometrical ratio of their (a) It was evident, that the living world was characterized increase .... As many more individuals of each species by differences and variations, whose motor Darwin could not are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, find. Today, this is attributed to a "highly improbable, ran there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it dom" process of mutations. It was also evident, that there fo llows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any were hereditary transmissions of similarities and certain diffe r manner profitable to itself, ...will have a better chance ences. But the nature of heredity, also remained a mystery to of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the Darwin. He overlooked what, in the meantime, the Augustin strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will ian monk Gregor Mendel, a biologist, was discovering in tend to propagate its new and modified form .. ..Natural Brunn, Bohemia. SelectiQn ...causes much Extinction of the less (b) Darwin fo rmulated his form of evolutionary hypothesis, improved forms of life, and leads to what I have called Divergence of Character.19 that species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of I ife are the descendants by true generation of But, the really old problem is still there. Darwin says: "if it pre-existing fo rms.15 vary"; but how? who? what? This seems not to interest Darwin, who seems not to be interested in the factory, in the producers. This was not original to Darwin, as he himself frankly admit After all, Darwin was just a fa mous, and big, landlord! ted; the real debate was, indeed, focussed not upon the exis The success of the theory was immediate, not necessarily on tence of evolution, but on what form it took. How a cell, or a the basis of its details, but on what was perceived as the essen population, grows, differentiates, reproduces itself, and spe tial point of the argument. That point was: Man is like any cializes, and especially, what accounts for the diffe rences be other animal. At one stroke, the entire Christian tradition is tween man and the animals? Those were the key questions to scuttled. But, why is this-as Darwin argues it-so? Where are be answered. the proofs? Darwin answers that, after all, we are just a variety Darwin says that his insights, to find the "means of modifica of the same commodity produced by a Newtonian factory tion and coadaptation" of species,16 had to wait until 1838, which never changed its production mode; its owner never in when he was inspired by two things: first, "the study of domes vented anything new, never discovered any revolutionary ticated animals and of cultivated plants."17 technology! Poor Life! Were this really the case, she would be That is, man-made selection. To use an economic image, we bankrupt, and already an absolute ru in! could imagine the breeder as the demander, and Nature the To affirm that man is equal to an animal, is a strong declara supplier. Nature overproduces, and the breeder selects the best tion, given its social implications. One would expect some in commodity to be re-input into the mysterious factory of Nature dependent proof of it, and not just a theorem of a geometrical called life, with the result of slow, continuous progress, at least model of evolution, which, in his assumption, had already de fo r the breeder. But, with this simple process, no breeder has clared impossible any change of invariance. That type of fac ever created a new species! tory will produce fo rever only potatoes, or eventually some The above was a necessary, but not sufficient means to ob other vegetable, but nothing else!2o tain an automatic model fo r nature. Who is, here, the universal One hundred and fifty years of the most intensive researches breeder? God? Mrs. Chance? Mr. X? The second and comple by the Darwinians to gather proof that there is no difference mentary illumination fo r Darwin came from Malthus: between animal and man, has brought back only contrary proofs. The more the genetic apparatus looks similar, the . . . I happened to read for amusement Malthus on more the mental differences cannot be bridged . Nevertheless Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the the pretense is that all is done, rien ne va plus, we have proved struggle fo r existence, ...it at once struck me that under everyth ing, except some comma here and there. Very often, these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be we hear something of this sort: "Galileo removed the Earth preserved and unfavorable ones to be destroyed. The from the center of the universe; Darwin removed man from result of this would be the fo rmation of new species.18 the kingship of creation; man is just an accident of life, which is itself an accident in the silent, indifferent material universe, Nature is now, at the same time, the supplier, the demander, itself slowly dying!" How beautifu l! How objective ! How and the marketplace. Nature overproduces some commodity "scientific" ! 32 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY The Granger Collection The Granger Collection Th e racist and eugenicist views of Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton (7822- 191 1), at left, and the German Darwinian, E. H. Haeckel (1834-1919), were amplified by Darwin in his 1871 book The Descent of Man. All three considered mental qualities to be inherited, and human intelligence and morality as simply evolved animal instincts. It could be said that all this did not have to wait fo r Darwin! Hobbes and Locke had already said that man is but an animal. "The more a Darwin discovers a correct Smith had already spoken of man as a commodity. Slavery was theory of some unity between men and a long-established practice. That children could be over-pro chimpanzees, the more he has found duced, just to be sold as a commodity to work in factories, did differences between himself and the not have to wait for Darwin. That, in the "free-market" system in England, wages lost 50 percent of their value in 10 years, chimpanzees." was also there before Darwin. Then, what is new? Why the need fo r Darwinism? What is new, is that now, "objective science" has spoken: in England, he wrote, where there was one genius per 4,000 Nature has made a revelation to Darwin! Before Darwin, we inhabitants, naturally, the Darwin fa mily had the highest den were faced with social theories; one could always suspect sity of geniuses! We can easily imagine why Darwin, after some secret interest behind them. That would transform theory reading this, wrote to Galton: into ideology, and, as such, subject to political fight. But now, an ideology has become "natural law"-like Newton's laws. I do not think I have ever in all my life read anything ' Auguste Comte had fu lly understood that; if one leaves the more interesting and original. ...You have made a construction of social ideologies to philosophers and econo convert of an opponent. I congratulate you on producing mists, then one risks revolutions. For this reason, one needs what I am convinced will prove a memorable work.22 "positive, scientific" social theory, to have stable, synarchistic societies, or stable empires. Darwin proudly stated that he, in the tradition of objective 14. Charles Darwin. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or science, like Newton, needed no hypotheses. But, we have al the Preservation of Fa vored Races in the Struggle for Life (New York: Modern Library, 1949). ready seen his bad hypothesis. Moreover, he was no real ex 15. Charles Darwin. The Origin of Species, Historical Sketch, p. 3. perimenter when compared to real scientists of the same pe 16. Charles Darwin. The Origin of Species, Introduction, p. 12. riod, such as Mendel and Pasteur. 17. Charles Darwin. The Origin of Species, p. 12. 18. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin and Selected Letters, edited by Francis Darwin (New York: Dover Publications, 1958; reprint of D. Apple From Natural Selection to Social Selection: ton edition of 1892), pp. 42-43. Similar remarks are also found in Notebook Social Darwinism D of Darwin's Notebooks (see note 4 above). 19. Charles Darwin. Th e Origin of Species, Introduction, p. 13. Inspired by Darwin, his cousin Francis Galton wrote Heredi 20. For example, D'Arcy Thompson represents evolution as a simple geomet tary Genius in 1869,21 in which he developed the theses, that rical transformation with constant invariance, in On Growth and Form mental qualities are biologically inherited, that the white race (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), pp. 318-319. 21. Francis Galton. Hereditary Genius (London, 1869). is biologically shaped to dominate, and that, among those of 22. Letter to Galton, Dec. 23, 1870, in More Letters of Charles Darwin Vol. 2, the white race, naturally the English are the best. Furthermore, p. 41 (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1903). 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 33 Thereafter, Darwin made extensive use of Galton's book. transmitted . With man we see similar facts in almost every Later, Galton co-founded, with Darwin's son, the Society for fa mily; and we now know, through the admirable labors Eugenics, with the aim of improving humans by selective par of Mr. Galton, that genius ...tends to be inherited; and, enthood, and "to give a better chance to the more suitable on the other hand, it is too certain that insanity and deteri races or strains of blood." In the meantime, in Germany, E.H. orated mental powers likewise run in families.2s Haeckel, the other Darwinist, promoted eugenics and eu thanasia, all modelled on Sparta, and created the concept of Natural selection had so far done a good job: the English "Oekologie," as a monistic totality of man-animals. All th is were the most powerful and the most sexually active, and the was part of a new, natural religion to be realized, no doubt, Darwin fa mily among the most intell igent (according to Gal with the help of his monist Masonic lodge, "zur aufgehenden ton, at least). So it was, and, through inheritance, so it should Sonne" (To the rising Sun). Darwin himself published The De continue: "Laissez-faire laissez-aller" : scent of Man in 1871 .23 Here, he drops any pretense of sci ence; he merely amplifies Haeckel's monism, which had al There is reason to suspect, as Malthus has remarked, ready affirmed that the diffe rences between man and the that the reproductive power is actually less in barbarous, chimpanzee were only simple, quantitative ones, and that than in civilized races .. ..It is also probable that the there is more difference between a chimp and a fish, than be increased fertility of civilized nations would become, as tween man and a chimp. with our domestic animals, an inherited character .. . . 26 Darwin adds, that all the visible differences are the result only of natural selection, which promotes variation in the form But, just in case fu nny sexual practices should spread among of specialization, to better capture energy. From this process the upper classes, then, Nature has also devised a negative came what he considered the crucial human development: the way to assure social stability: development of free hands. But let us fo llow Darwin's thought directly: The greater death-rate of infants in the poorest classes is also very important; as well as the greater mortality, from We have now seen that man is variable in body and various diseases, of the inhabitants of crowded and mind; and that the variations are induced, either directly miserable houses, at all ages.27 or indirectly, by the same general causes, and obey the same general laws, as with the lower animals. . . . Should this not be enough, Nature delegates the selected Man ...is the most dominant animal that has ever ap best to reduce the birth rate of the loser: peared on this earth .. ..He manifestly owes this immense superiority to his intellectual faculties, to his Malthus has discussed these several checks [wars, social habits ...and to his corporeal structure.24 fa mine, and so on], but he does not lay stress enough on what is probably the most important of all, namely Darwin then develops a detailed comparison between the infanticide, especially of female infants, and the habit of human mind and animal mind, as categories. Man feels, he procuring abortion .. ..Lic entiousness may also be says, but so do animals; man loves, but animals also love; added to the foregoing checks .. ..28 man has religion, but how does one know whether animals have religion? Here, we see the typical mistake of Kantianism made even by some of the best-motivated people. Material THE INVERSION, OR: 'THE CRUCIFIED AND DIONYSOS' ism can accept mind as a subjective consciousness, reduced Nature and elite were sufficient to keep stability. But, some to categories, but without any efficient causality with respect how, a mistake in the process of selection of values must have to physical or biological nature. The notion of reason as intel occurred. Some external factor above and outside the process ligent win, and love as participation in God's will, is never seems to have interfered. Other values not coming from in introduced. Intelligence, at best, is a simple increase in power stincts seem to have sneaked in from somewhere. And domin of domination. And, who has more power, can obviously ion fee ls endangered. Darwin writes, in The Descent of Man: also define who is more intelligent. According to the same monistic logic, human intelligence, and other mental quali With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon ties and moral attitudes, are nothing but evolved animal in eliminated; and those that survive commonly stincts, and, as instincts, mental qualities are also biologically exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on inherited : the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums fo r the imbecile, the The variability or diversity of the mental faculties in maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our men of the same race, not to mention the greater medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of diffe rences between the men of distinct races, is so notori every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe ous that not a word need here be said. So it is with the that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a lower animals .. .. weak constitution would fo rmerly have succumbed to So in regard to mental qualities, their transmission is small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies manifest in our dogs, horses, and other domestic animals. propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the Besides special tastes and habits, general intelligence, breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be courage, bad and good temper, &c., are certainly highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how 34 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to ist insanity. According to him, the poor, the losers, all those bi the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the ologically inferior people, were trying to win the competition case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to by inventing values derived "from a concept of God invented allow his worst animals to breed.29 as the antithetical concept to Life." And Nietzsche screams in version! inversion! And, later: Have I been understood? ..Dio nysos against the A most important obstacle in civilized countries to an Crucified.32 increase in the number of men of a superior class has been ...that the very poor and reckless ...al most Nietzsche had been well understood, as expressed in Dar invariably marry early. Those who marry early produce win's own final solution: ...many more children .. ..Thus the reckless, degraded, and often vicious members of society tend to If the specified checks ...do not prevent the reckless increase at a quicker rate.. ..Or as Mr. Gregg puts the ..and other inferior members of society from case: "the careless, squalid, unaspiring Irishman increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men, multiplies like rabbits: the frugal, fo reseeing, self the nation will retrograde, as has too often occurred. . 33 respecting, ambitious Scot, stern in his morality, spiritual in his faith, ...passes his best years in struggle and in Therefore, celibacy, marries late, and leaves few behind him. Given a land originally peopled by a thousand Saxons and a There should be open competition for all men; and the thousand Celts-and in a dozen generations five-sixths of most able should not be prevented by laws or customs the population would be Celts, but five-sixths of the from succeeding best and rearing the largest number of property, of the power, of the intellect, would belong to offspri ng. 34 the one-sixth of Saxons that remained. In the eternal 'struggle fo r existence,' it would be the infe rior and less Let Dionysos loose without interference in the global mar favored race that had prevailed-and prevailed by virtue ketplace. Let the �olves run free in the sheep pen, and let ...of its faults" [emphasis in original] .30 there be a democratic contest. Do not protest! Murder is now an objective scientific law! Mass emigrations? Tribal wars? Do Darwinist Friedrich Nietzsche would have said, that the not worry, all is natural, all due to the normal competition, be "priestly moral values" are killing the super-men of the super cause of overpopulation! So keep your feelings to yourself, nations. If one does not vomit in disgust, and still uses logic, it leave morality out of economy! Let natural selection take its should follow from the above, that the natural "savages" will course. In any case, if one accepts the postulate that "man become progressively better than the English! But not so. Not born in the image of God" is a dispensable myth, with no rela so simple, not to Us: We know better! Darwin asks, could we tion to this world, if one accepts the Newtonian postulate, then have forgotten what Locke says about work, power, and prop the Darwinian conclusions are correct, no matter what one's erty? He adds: own moral impulses. We have seen the "right-wing" conclusions of Darwin. Man accumulates property and bequeaths it to his Now, let us close the vicious circle. Let us go back to the be children, so that the children of the rich have an ginning, through the "left-wing" Darwinists. Frederick Engels advantage over the poor in the race for success, wrote, in his 1876 German essay, Antheil der Arbeit an der independently of bodily or mental superiority. . . . But Menschwerdung des Affe n (The Part Played by Labor in the the inheritance of property by itself is very far from an Transition from Ape to Man): evil; for without the accumulation of capital the arts could not progress; and it is chiefly through their power that the Labor is the source of all wealth, the political civilized races have extended, and are now everywhere economists assert .. ..But it is even infinitely more than extending their range, so as to take the place of the lower th is. It is the prime basic condition for all human races.31 23. See the last reference in note 60, below, for the Cantor-Haeckel contro To Hell with logic, mind, ideas, love, and science! The real versy, and for Haeckel's relation to masonry, see F. Bolle in Medizinhis Vol. 16, p. 280 (1981). objective now comes out: let us talk reality-and before we torisches Journal, 24. Charles Darwin. The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, talk, "how big is your bank account actually?" Stupid Mac 2nd edition (London: J. Murray, 1874), pp. 47-48. I have ordered the quo chiavelli, who said that Man produces money, but money tations from The Descent of Man that follow to bring out the content. 25. Ibid., pp. 27-28. produces no Man. To Hell with the so-called "Darwinian 26. Ibid., p. 45. democracy"; that was for the fools. At stake is power, and 27. Ibid., pp. 44-45. only power. The "science" of natural selection shows its real 28. Ibid., p. 46. 29. Ibid. , pp. 133-1 34. face: not the survival of man and through man of the bios 30. Ibid., p. 138. phere, but the survival, at all cost, of the oligarchy, even if 31 . Ibid., pp. 134-1 35. their "egoistic genes" have lost a bit in potency after all their 32. Friedrich Nietzsche. Ecce Homo (London: Penguin Books, 1979), pp. 133- 134 (the final pages of 'Why I am a Destiny" ). inbreeding. 33. Charles Darwin. The Descent ofMan, p. 140. Nietzsche had been more directly theological in his Darwin- 34. Ibid., p. 618. 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 35 ...and so there arose in the course of time that idealistic outlook on the world which, especially since the end of the ancient world, has dominated men's minds.38 Engels's hatred of human creativity was, and is, the problem. How could one fail to see, that the first moment man was man, it was the conscious use of his creative mind that made the dif ference? From the first moment man looked at the stars, or dis covered fire, or a tool, or selected seeds, he was using his cog nitive powers as a physical force-not in competition against other men, but on behalf of a society living in the only possible way that coheres with a developing world. Had man culturally transmitted to the future only a technique, a tool, after a while, society would have necessarily fallen into the Malthusian-Dar winian logic of survival. This has now happened. We have all seen how chimpanzees transmit the discovered use of a tool to the next generation, how the mother patiently teaches her small, stubborn offspring how to use a stick. Ani mals have cultures! But only man has learned the intrinsic limit of the protracted use of any simple discovered tool or theory over many generations. Only man has discovered that he had to learn how to willfully evolve superseding discoveries, tools or theories; that he had to change the type of his energy col lecting modes. He had not only to remind the next generation of the innate power of creativity, but to educate them in its use. Only ideologies can kill civilizations, and only creativity keeps them alive. Library of Congress This is what we must now turn to, the case of homo hu Leibniz's search fo r higher properties in investigating the manus. geometry of space, led him to a series of major discoveries, in ' cluding the infinitestimal calculus, and analysis situs, the cal PART 2. LEIBNIZ S ANALYSIS SITUS: culus of situation. WHERE Is CONTINUITY LOCATED? UNITY existence, and this to such an extent that, in a sense, we THE have to say that labor created man himself.35 Darwin wrote that his theory of simple continuous evolution was based on the motto "Natura non facit saltum" (Nature is Then, after explaining how the apes eventually developed not discontinuous).39 For Darwin, this meant that given two free hands, Engels comments: creatures or objects, A and B (for example, man and chim panzee), one can always find some homogeneous unit, a part This was the decisive step in the tra nsition from ape to of A or B (that is, a measuring rod), to establish differences in man.36 quantity or in forms. Leibniz had used the same motto to ex But the decisive step was taken: the hand had become emplify his principle of physical continuity, or sufficient rea free and could henceforth attain ever greater dexterity and son. This was, in a sense, the unifying principle for most of skill. ... Leibniz's discoveries in mathematics and physics. But, proba Thus the hand is not only the organ of labor, it is also bly, Darwin missed the paradox behind Leibniz's own attempt the product of labor. Only by labor, by adaptation to ever to represent such a general principle as a "universal character new operations, . . . and by the ever renewed istic," an absolute measure to judge truths, and to measure employment of this inherited finesse in new, more and quantitative and qualitative evolution in the world.40 more complicated operations, has the human hand Einstein, once, wrote of Kepler: attained the high degree of perfection that has enabled it to conjure into being the paintings of a Raphael. ...37 Our admiration for this splendid man is accompanied by another feeling of admiration ...of the harmony But, concludes Engels, human beings eventually concen of nature into which we are born .. ..It seems that the trated more on their heads than their hands, and so: human mind has first to construct fo rms independently, before we can find them in things. Kepler's marvelous All merit for the swift advance of civilization was achievement is a particularly fi ne example of the truth ascribed to the mind, to the development and activity that knowledge cannot spring from experience. . 41 of the brain. Men became accustomed to explain their actions from their thoughts instead of from their needs And: 36 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY [S]cience cannot grow out of empiricism alone ...we letter to Huygens: need to use free invention .. ..In the nineteenth century [on the other hand], many still believed that Newton's ...I am still not satisfied with algebra [the algebra of fundamental rule 'hypotheses non fingo' should underlie Descartes] ...so far as geometry is concerned, we need all healthy natural science.42 still another analysis ...which will express situation [situs] directly as algebra expresses magnitude directly If this is true, then to find any type of continuity or law of na [emphasis in the original].46 ture, one has to start with human creativity; Leibniz knew what that was, while Darwin, instead, was proud to be a Newton When he wrote this, he had already bypassed algebra with ian. Empiricism is generally limited as a method, but it be his new mathematical inventions. But more interesti ng for us comes even paradoxical, when, instead of planets, it takes here, is, that, to achieve this, he also had to question the valid man as the object of its analysis. A mathematical theory, to be ity of what was considered the most obvious expression of the predictive, has to be homogeneous with the empirical data, harmony of the world: Euclidean geometry. Leibniz, wrote, fo r but that is impossible when man is its object. example, in "On Analysis Situs," It is important to keep in mind, in this context, that it is not only the discovery of a unity that requires free invention, but What is commonly known as mathematical analysis is also the discovery of differences; and to discover differences analysis of magnitude, not of situation . . . magnitude is between two creatures or objects, as, for example, man and in fact measured by the number of determinate parts, yet chimpanzee, leads, necessarily, to a self-reflexive process. To this number may vary for the same fixed thing, depending forget that, would lead a person, so misguided, into thinking, upon which measure or unit is assumed .. .. that, because the study of corpses can result in a new anatomi Euclid himself was fo rced to assume certain obscure ax cal theory, to have a universal theory one needs only to in ioms, without proof, in order to proceed with the rest. ... clude himself as a corpse! That approach would miss some thing. The more a Darwin discovers a correct theory of some Quantity can be grasped only when the things [to be unity between men and chimpanzees, the more he has found compared] are actually present together or when some differences between himself and the chimpanzees. intervening thing can be applied to both ...[or] if some But, let us follow this process in Leibniz himself. Leibniz third object be cadie'd from one to the other ...if, for was influenced from early life by the writings of Nicholas of instance, some measure such as a yard or a foot . . . be Cusa and his schoo l: Leonardo da Vinci, Johannes Kepler, applied first to one and then to the other.47 Blaise Pascal. The main assumption of this school, was the in telligibility, for man, of the reflexivity between the macrocosm Euclidean mathematics was the first mode for finding conti and microcosm: The whole determines its parts; but, if the part nuity, for finding something that stays equal during a change; is only that, then the whole is dead. Pascal formulated it very something that does not change. But, the "obscure" axiom be poetically, "By space the universe encompasses and swallows hind all this was that to transport a rigid line (measuring rod), me up like a point; by thought I comprehend the world."43 35. Frederick Engels. "The Part Played by labor in the Transition from Ape to After Pascal, Leibniz shows, that even a point is more than a Man," in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, 2 volumes homogeneous point; but, before we arrive there, we must look (Moscow: Foreign languages Publishing House, 1962), Vol. 2, p. 80. at Leibniz's earliest writings. In his 1666 Dissertation on the 36. Ibid., p. 80. 37. Ibid. , p. 81. Art of Combinations, Leibniz wrote: 38. Ibid., p. 87. Any number of things whatever [even infinite] may be 39. Charles Darwin. The Origin of Species, p. 208. 40. On this account, leibniz's conception of the "One/Many" problem, was that taken simultaneously and yet be treated as one whole.... of Plato, as reflected in Plato's Parmenides. One of leibniz's numerous re capitulations of this conception is featured in the last of leibniz's letters to One infinite [whole] is greater than another.... Antoine Arnauld (loemker, note 11 above, pp. 338-350, and on p. 350, Since number [as whole] is therefore something of great endnote 26). This is also one of the central, recurring themes within the leibniz-Clarke Correspondence. est universality, it rightly belongs to metaphysics.... 44 41. "On the Occasion of the 300th Anniversary of Kepler's Death," in Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions (New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1982), p. 265. And, 42. Abraham Pais. The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein (Oxford: Claren don Press 1982), p. 14. . the disposition [order] of the smallest parts ... 43. Blaise Pascal. Th oughts, translated by W.F. Trotter, in The Harvard Clas sics, Vol. 48 (New York: P.F. Collier & Son Co., 1910), Pensee No. 348. in relation to each other and to the whole can itself also Trotter's "an atom" has been replaced with "a poinf' for present purposes. be varied. Such a disposition is called situs .... The original reads: "Par I'espace, I'univers me comprend et m'engloutit comme un pOint; Situs is either absolute or relative; the former is that par la pensee, je Ie comprends." of the parts with respect to the whole, the latter that of 44. Gottfried leibniz. "Dissertation on the Art of Combinations" (1666) in parts to parts.45 loemker (note 10 above), pp. 73, 75, 77. 45. Ibid., p. 77. 46. Gottfried leibniz to Christian Huygens, Sept. 8, 1679, loemker, p. 248. Absolute changes are defined by Leibniz as qualitative. So 47. Gottfried leibniz. "On Analysis Situs," loemker, pp. 254-255. For a stun some unity of the world is assumed, and with it harmony, co ning comparison, see also the opening paragraphs of Bernhard Riemann's 1854 habilitation dissertation, U herence, intelligibility, and some form of continuity, but of ber die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu Grunde Iiegen (On the Hypotheses Which Underlie Geometry), Bern which fo rm? In 1672, Leibniz is in Paris, confronted with hard Riemanns Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (New York: Dover Descartes's mathematics. He comments, some years later, in a Publications reprint, 1953). 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 37 (a) / / 0 / / / / / / T / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / B Eye --<:J> (b) F o Figure 2 TRANSFORMATION OF EUCLIDEAN PLANES INTO PROJECTIVE PLANES In (aJ, the Euclidean plane, the indefinite plane represented by the square ABCD, is tra nsformed into a projective plane, A'B'CD', which is closed, or bounded, by 0', the point at infinity. Leibniz called the unbounded Euclidean plane an immensum. In (bJ, the Euclidean plane is represented by the parallel lines AB, CO, EF, and so on. Th e projection onto the sphere represents the bounding or closure of the projective plane. The point at infinity, 0', is now the north pole of the sphere. to make quantitative measures, one has already to assume an man mind, is higher than any "one" mathematics. Euclid's outside entity of one higher dimension and specific properties. axioms were not absolute laws, but represented a changeable The motion of a line presupposes and reveals a higher dimen correct hypothesis about a type of measurement.49 Obviously sion: a surface! The motion of figures presupposes a space! then, also Descartes's coordinates could not assure the mea This cannot be kept implicit and hidden. The characteristic of surement of the "universe," and Newton's "space" was not the space determines the forms of motion and the measuring an absolute. We will see Leibniz's explicit formulation of rod to be used. Euclid had implicitly assumed, in the case of this; but we wish to show, with a few chosen examples, how motion of rigid lines, an infinite plane of constant and null cur he proved the relativity of any axiomatic system, by, vari vature; only that assured that the line did not change in form ously, constructing, or hinting at, new forms of calculus and and length when moved to compare two things. For this rea geometry. son, Leibniz realized how important it was that, "Before deal ing with figure, we must deal with space itself and with the The Continuity of Forms: Similarity point. ..."4 8 In Paris, Leibniz studied Pascal's projective geometry, which The process of discovering, how to determine the higher di had been developed out of Italian pictorial perspective. The mensional entity, to define its property out of recognized types projective plane has the specificity of being a bounded infinite, of changes, is the history of mathematics itself. To us, here, it is while Euclid's plane is indefin ite, because of the hidden as only of interest to stress that for Euclid and Descartes, the sumption we saw above (Figure 2). space was considered homogeneous with respect to its parts. Leibniz already knew of this through Plato, Cusa, Kepler, In this specific case, it means that the elements are rigid atoms and so on; so, he recognized it easily, as in notes of 1676: which never change, and the whole can be completely deter "Hence it is clear that the infinite is other than the unbounded. mined as the sum of its parts: 2 = 1 + 1. ...This unbounded infinite should more rightly be called the Leibniz discovered, that many physical realities and trans immensum."so fo rmations in fo rms, were excluded by such continuity. This The characteristics of this new space, define continuity for indicated to him that the real ity, both of nature and the hu- other types of changes. In the simplest example, one can see 38 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY The search fo r higher properties, indeed, led Leibniz to a se ries of major discoveries, including the infinitesimal calculus Plane A Plane C and analysis situs (the "calculus of situation"52). The latter, re ported in a text sent to Huygens in 1679,53 was, according to the official story, rediscovered only in 1833, and elaborated as "vector calculus" by Hermann Grassmann. In real ity, elements of Leibniz's intuitions had already been transmitted by Ehler to Euler, who omitted his debt to Leibniz, when he developed one of the many aspects of modern topology. But, Leibniz's analysis. situs is exhausted neither by Grassmann's, nor Euler's interpretations of it. Other mathematicians, such as Monge, Carnot, Gauss, Ponce let, Riemann,54 and so forth, each of them with some variation, developed and referenced explicitly Leibniz's concept of "situs." This use of many names for a sim ilar concept, indicates to us, something of the real concept of "situs" in Leibniz's own thinking. But, before we get to that, let us consider some other gener alizations made by Leibniz. As we have seen, he had realized that he had to face directly the concepts of space and of the point itself, that is, the maximum-minimum. In his manu scripts, before 1679, one can fo llow how Leibniz shifted, from the idea of "point" as "rigid atom," to "point" as "variable or dered interval," or situs. This (which cannot be elaborated in these few pages), appears under the different mathematical no Figure 3 tions of diffe rential, geodetic, minimal action, and so on, each TRANSFORMATION OF A CIRCLE INTO AN ElliPSE postulating a different class of transformations, continuity, con A cone permits transformation of a circle into an ellipse, servation, and so on. For example he devised, among others, using the concepts of situs and similarity of fo rms. The three classes of transformations: plane D, which is parallel to the base of the cone, cuts it (1 ) The motion of a "rigid line interval," presupposing a into a circle. Rotating the plane, B, creates an ellipse, plane. while rotating it fu rther creates the hyperbola, C, and (2) The motion of a "rigid arc's interval," presupposing a the parabola A. sphere. [Gauss later will identify both (1) and (2) as motion on two types of constant curvature, zero or positive.] how a cone permits transformation of a circle into an ellipse (3) The motion of a variable interval, presupposing a vari (Figure 3). In this transformation, we do not use concepts of able curvature. Leibniz wrote: "When I speak of fixed points, it equality or numerical differences, as in Euclid; rather, as Leib is not necessary to suppose that those points have necessarily a niz says, we must employ the concepts of situs and similarity fixed distance from each other; rather, I think of them as at (of forms). Leibniz could have simply stayed at that new level; tached by a string that can be made longer or shorter."55 but, he realized that conics are only the simplest among a fam This last concept is the nearest to what Riemann was refer ily of boundary spaces which express continuity. So, while ring to when he wrote, studying Pascal, he wrote: Analysis Situs ...used by Leibniz, although perhaps [T] he method of discovery ...through situs, thus not entirely with the same significance ...may well without calculation, is based on the simultaneous designate a part of the theory of continuous entities grasping of a plurality sharing a common situation, which which treats them not as existing independently of their occurs either by means of a certain figure ...or by positions and measurable by one another but, on the motion or an alteration . . . among the motions and alterations, we see that the alteration of appearance or op 52. It is referred to thus, in "On Analysis Situs," Loemker, p. 257. tical transformation of figures is very usefu lly employed; 53. See Leibniz's discussion of a "characteristica geometrica" in a supplement to his letter to Huygens of Sept. 8, 1679, Loemker, p. 249. It is also pub we must see whether, by this means, we cannot go lished with other interesting Leibniz manuscripts in Gottfried Leibniz, La beyond the cone, to higher properties.s1 caracteristique geometrique, Latin text established and annotated, with an interesting historical introduction, by Javier Echeverria; French translation by Marc Parmentier (Paris: Vrin, 1995). 54. Most famously, from Section 2 of Riemann's 1857 ''Theorie der Abel'schen 48. Gottfried Leibniz, On the Elements of Natural Science (unpublished manu Functionen," the celebrated "Lehrsatze aus der analysis situs fUr die Theo script toward a book, 1682-1 684), "The Plan of the Book," Loemker, p. rie der Integrale von zweigliedrigen vollstandigen Differentialien Gesam 278. melte Mathematische Werke, pp. 91-96. Most relevant for our historical 49. Cf. Bernhard Riemann, note 47. discussion of the matter of method here, is the notable opening paragraph, 50. Gottfried Leibniz. Paris Notes, Loemker, p. 159. The infinite is other than on page 91. the unbounded, but there is also an unbounded infinite. 55. Gottfried Leibniz. De la Methode de I'universalite, circa 1674, in Opuscules 51. Pierre Costabel. "Notes de Leibniz sur les coniques de Pascal," in L'oeu et Fragments inedits de Leibniz, by Louis Coutu rat (Hildesheim: G. Olms vre scientifique de Pascal(Par is: P.U.F., 1964). Verlag, 1966), p. 128. 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 39 contrary, entirely disregarding the metrical relations, impossibility also of that assumption,63 but Leibniz had al investigates their local ...proper ties.56 ready clearly said that the boundary is outside, and higher than, metrics, curvatures, topologies, logical lattices, theories, To come to a preliminary conclusion, after this brief history, and so on: we can already see, that the form of mathematical continuity (a "not-change" to measure changes), has, for the moment, Besides the world or aggregate of finite things, there is a changed constantly. But Leibniz has no problem with that; for certain One which is dominant, not only ...as the Ego him causality is not representable in any single mathematical itself is dominant in my body, but also by a much higher lattice, not even in space-time itself! In 1714, when summariz reason ....For a sufficient reason for existence cannot be ing his concepts in opposition to Newton's absolute space fo und merely in any one individual thing or even in the time, and before Einstein gave Newton new clothing, he wrote: whole aggregate and series of things .... The reasons for the world therefore lie in something I have demonstrated that space is nothing else but an extramundane, different from the chain of states or series order of the existence of things observed as existing of th ings whose aggregate constitutes the world.64 together ...besides that there is no real space out of the material universe. . 57 The Difference Our continuity, our "one," is escaping to a higher and higher And, level. Man's world does not allow itself to be measured by any final simple yardstick. The higher boundary seems to be higher Time is the order of existence of those things which are than ever, and if we were to leave it there, in its Kantian tran not simultaneous. Thus time is the universal order of scendence, we could explain changes only through the occult, changes when we do not take into consideration the as chance, or as the fruit of a pagan's miracles. Leibniz is particular kinds of change [emphasis in original].58 laughing at us, and hinting, that probably we have missed something concerning his idea of "situs": Situs is about forms, Space-time becomes a variable causal ordering of variable or what makes things really different, he says.65 To clarifywhat action-intervals. A flux, but with a sufficient reason, a logos, a makes things really different, he writes, in another work: continuity, indissociable from the human power of invention, from the power to find intelligible higher order of "before-af [T]here cannot be two individual things in nature ter," "higher-Iower," and "reasons." This causality cannot be which differ only numerically. For surely it must be completely expressed in any form of homogeneous combina possible to give a reason why they are different, and this tion of finite elements taken as complete and consistent, be must be sought in some differences within themselves .. cause it is located in the higher dimensional boundary; and, as So perfect similarity occurs only in incomplete and Leibniz says, "It is clear ...that a boundary is not homoge- abstract concepts, where matters are conceived, not in neous with what it bounds ...."59 their totality but according to a certain single viewpoint, In mathematics, this is expressed by the appearance of dif� as when we consider only figures and neglect the figured ferent forms of incommensurables. For example, in the case in matter. So geometry is right in studying similar triangles, which the number 1t is measured by the other numbers even though two perfectly similar material triangles are 1,2,3,4, ...,1t is incommensurable, because it reflects, explic never found. And although gold . . . or salt, and many itly, the specific higher boundary of that domain (the circle liquids, may be taken for homogeneous bodies, this can measured by a line). In mathematics, relative continuity, or be admitted only as concerns the senses, and not as if it commensurability, can be reestablished in such cases, if a cre were true in an exact sense. ative being like Leibniz discovers continuously new forms of The complete or perfect concept of an individual measurement. But with man explicitly present at the center of substance involves all its predicates, past, present, and the world measured by mathematics, the higher boundary will fu ture .... not be exhausted by mathematics, as Cantor wi II formally prove.60 We have to look somewhere else. Every individual substance involves the whole universe in its perfect concept .... Beyond Mathematics There is no corporeal substance in which there is Leibniz wrote: "The theory of similarities or of forms lies be nothing but extension, or magnitude, figure and their yond mathematics and must be sought in metaphysics. Yet it variations. For otherwise there could exist two corporeal has many uses in mathematics also .. .."61 and, " ...there is substances perfectly similar to each other, which is an art of analysis more inclusive than mathematics, from which absurd. Hence it follows that there is something in mathematical science derives its most beautiful methods. To corporeal substances analogous to the soul, which is [present] this I shall have to introduce a somewhat higher or commonly called form.... der of principles."62 What does he mean by "metaphysics"? Is this just "logic," [It follows that] Space, time, extension, and motion are as some interpreters of Leibniz have assumed? Is formal logic not th ings but well-founded modes of our consideration.66 that which Leibniz signifies by his use of the term "character istica universal is"? Kurt Codel supplied a formal proof of the This brings us back into the world; but, now, the illusion that 40 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY mechanics can give a better answer than mathematics, re ment about that "higher arder of infinities," which, later, Can specting causality, has to. be discarded. Leibniz says, that me tor transformed into his ordered transfinites. Any linearization, chanics avaids that "Jupiter who. thu nders," the deus ex any constant, implies a homogeneous space, which Leibniz machina who. is essential far the universe as defined by discarded as not adequate for physics, but-and this is use Descartes and Newtan, anly in this way: ful-any measure (with lines or curves) implies a linearization! In mechanics, Leibniz used the same concepts. The "atam" In my judgment the best answer, which satisfies piety of the physical space becomes a "quantum af change," while and science alike, is to. acknawledge that all phenamena the configuration of such elements, the general situs, becomes are indeed to.be explained by mechanical efficient causes the potential energy. The conservation of "vis viva" is then the but that these mechanical laws are themselves to. be conservation of the "motive power" reflected in all the possi derived in general fram higher reasons ...Once this is ble variations af the intervals (-), and, consequently, in the established, we need nat admit entelechies any mare than change in the configuration or potential. This can be seen at we admit superfluaus faculties ar inexplicable two levels: sympathies ....67 On level "A ": At the level of any measurement, this be comes what Carnot called conservatian of the "geametrical The 'Vis Viva' motions" through use of geodetic or minimal paths, or minimal The cantinuity of the physical warld has always been associ intervals (a - b). This means, a search for the mast effi cient ated with the "canservatian" af samething. Descartes thaught path for the transformation (energy-input - work-output). This of the conservationof quantity of motion, as representable by a notion is subsumed under the name af machine, ar, fo r a class line. Leibniz discovered this error and introduced the conser of the same type af machines, under the name of a technology. vatian af "vis viva," that is, simply said, the conservation af It is impossible fo r any such technolagies to gain a surplus of qualitative changes of motions, representable as a curve. As energy by themselves. That is to say, that energy is considered Darwin had misused Leibniz's iqea of general continuity, so conserved. But, in reality, at this simple level, as causality was Darwin's friend Hermann Helmholtz reduced vis viva to "en 56. Bemhard Riemann, Gesammelte Mathematische Werke, p. 91. ergy," as a fixed substance. But Leibniz, in mathematics, as in 57. Gottfried Leibniz. Fifth letter to Samuel Clarke, numbered paragraph 29, physics, ·never talked about canservation of some "thing": mo Loemker, p. 700. tion, metric, geometry, and so on. Canservation of vis viva has 58. Gottfried Leibniz. "The Metaphysical Foundations of Mathematics" (after 1714), Loemker, p. 666. the same meaning as the "conservation af cantinuity" by in 59. Ibid. , 668. vention, after the appearance af the incammensurable in the 60. Dino de Paoli. "A Refutation of Artificial Intelligence: Georg Cantor's Con tribution to the Study of Human Mind," 21st Century, Summer 1991 , p. 43; domain of numbers. "G6del, Cantor, and Leibniz: Mathematics and the Paradoxical in Nature," In mechanics, the arithmetically "incommensurable" is ex 21st Century, Summer 1997, p. 22; and, for the Cantor-Haeckel contro pressed in the farm of discontinuity: for example, mechanical versy, "Georg Cantor's Contribution to a New Renaissance," Executive In telligence Review, Vol. 22, No. 31 (Aug. 4, 1995), p. 24. shacks. It is around the issue of shocks, that Descartes's and 61. Gottfried Leibniz, "On Analysis Situs," Loemker, p. 254. Newton's mechanics loses its notion of conservation, and of 62. Gottfried Leibniz. "The Metaphysical Foundations of Mathematics" (after causality. Far Leibniz, that was not an ind icatian of the irra 1714), Loemker, p. 666. 63. Dino de Paoli. "G6del, Cantor, and Leibniz: Mathematics and the Paradox tionality of the world, but, of a shortfa ll of Newtonian mechan ical in Nature," 21st Century, Summer 1997, p. 25. ics! So, he sought a new fo rm of transformatians, capable of 64. Gottfried Leibniz, "On The Radical Origination of Things" (1697), Loemker, re-establishing causality. Specifically, he introduced the con pp. 486-487. 65. Gottfried Leibniz. Letter to Walter von Tschirnhaus (1697). cept of transformation of motions into. internalcha nges of con 66. Gottfried Leibniz. "First Truths" (ca. 1680-84), Loemker, pp. 268-269. figuration (elastic vibration), or patential energy. 67. Gottfried Leibniz, "Specimen Dynamicum" (1695), Loemker, p. 441 . 68. Dino de Paoli. "Georg Cantor's Contribution to a New Renaissance," Exec We really have to see that the two cancepts, "situs" and "vis utive Intelligence Review, Aug. 4, 1995, p. 24;"Lazare Carnot's Grand viva," h 21 sf CENTURY Fall 1997 41 not conserved, and, as continuity was not conserved, energy, if never teach us truths that are fully uniVersal, nor what is considered in this way, is also not conserved in physical absolutely necessary, but only what is, and what is found spaces. Leibniz clearly had recognized, and used against New in particular examples, and since, nonetheless, we know ton's mechanics, what the modern teaching of physics has re some universal and necessary truths in the sciences, a discovered as entropy. privilege we have over the beasts, it follows that we have On level "B": The causal relations, expressed in a technol derived these necessary truths, in part, from what is within ogy, are necessary and determined (from cause "X" fo llows, us. Thus one can lead a child to them in the way Socrates necessarily, effect "Y"); but, these relations are not sufficient. did, by simple questions ...[emphasis in originalJlo The sufficient reason, the real causality, lies in the power to conserve activity, by changing the form of the (input ...... output) The inborn light was known to many before Leibniz : itself. When one of such types of changes occurs, it becomes visible by its incommensurability with the metrics used for I believe [thisl with Plato, ...the School men, and measuring on level "A." We have, thus, changes in the total with all those who find this meaning in the passage of St. function defining the technology. Paul (Rom. 2:1 5) where he states that the law of God is We will clarify this in the concluding section. written in our hearts.71 The concept of a universal «-.), an individual, irreducible, not-extended, quantum of change, or situs, valid for man's The general characteristic is there, when discovered, trained world, is recapitulated by Leibniz under the name of monad. and acted upon fo r the necessary changes in our world, when This idea of a not-extended existence, a "change" related to one can love that light, inborn in us, which makes us persons, the higher boundary, is inconceivable within today's mecha not merely self-interested individuals. nistic trad ition of Newton, Descartes, and Euler. But, had 19th In conclusion, in the final pages, we wish to see how this century positivism not marginalized Leibniz's idea, we would necessary law, which makes us "privileged" over the beast, ex have had less epistemological difficulty when the concept of presses itself as a measure of our only way to live humanly in a quantum of action was rediscovered experimentally, by Max non-Darwinian world-in a world which we did not create, Planck. The physical space is not representable even by the and which is not a toy for our pleasures. very flexible "points linked by strings" of the early Leibniz, and the equivalent of Einstein. At the stage of Leibniz's develop PART 3. THE ONTOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE ment on which our attention is foc ussed here, he is now indi WHICH Is MAN cating, that "extension" is only one of the many human "modes of measure." It is not an objective thing, with which one can Let us imagine the fo llowing two situations, without, for the associate final causality. The space-time of ( ...... )does not exist moment, any claim to precision: in any of the given fixed modes of consideration. Wo rld "A ": 50,000 B.C.; 1 million humans; many chim Freedom exists, as many people were forced to recognize, panzees; many trees; and, for a touch of charm, a water-pow when they were confronted by biological "mutations" or ered computer which has defeated the best local human chess "quantum jumps"; but, customarily, they took the term "free player. dom" as signifying arbitrary changes. Like Euclid, they also World "B": hopefully, tomorrow; 1 0 billions humans with a overlooked the "higher boundary." The study of human mind, colony on Mars; many chimpanzees, many trees, and a pile of the third level, where another kind of "mutations" occur, could rubbish. have helped to clarify the notion of causality. Let us now make what Leibniz called a simultaneous com parison of those two worlds, as if we could transport " A" into From Mere Individuality to Individual Personality "B." This should assist in constructing something like the fo l [Slouls in general are living mirrors or images of the lowing: universe of created beings, while spirits are also images of (1 ) The trees easily find a common denominator. divinity itself or of the author of nature, ...each spirit (2) The chimpanzees also have no major obstacles in com being like a little divinity within its own sphere. municating, fighting, playing, and so on; but, perhaps some -The Monadology69 "A" and "B" chimps can not produce offspring between them. (3) The computer of " A" is the pile of rubbish in "B." Life did We can now better comprehend Pascal: the search for the not produce nor conserve it; man produced it, but, enraged totality brought us to the notion of difference, and this led us to about the defeat at chess, did not evolve it, either. Entropy took the one that makes the diffe rence: free with respect to any ho care of it. mogeneous world around him, because he is part of a higher (4) The two sets of humans have big problems in relating to boundary. Einstein's notion of "free invention," makes it futi le each other. They could produce offspring between them, but, to seek a final measure of man's world. But, says Leibniz, if we the " A" people are frightened and enthusiastic at the same can not simply measure the "higher boundary" as number, or extension, we can, nevertheless, discover its necessary exis 69. Gottfried Leibniz, "The Monadology," Loemker, p. 651. 70. Gottfried Leibniz. Letter to Queen Sophie Charlotte on What Is Indepen tence and implication: dent of Sense and Matter, 1702, in G.w. Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, edited and translated by Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber (Indianapolis: This consideration [singularities in geometry and Hackett Publishing Co., 1989), p. 191. 71 . Gottfried Leibniz. New Essays Concerning Human UnderstandiQg, trans experimental sciencel also shows that there is an inborn lated by P. Remnant and J. Bennett (Cambridge: Cambridge University light within us. For since the senses and induction can Press, 1981), Introduction. 42 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY The simple schema above, points not only to the discontinu ity in the development of human culture; it also hints at some different kind of discontinuity in animal development. We wish to see a bit better the difference, and the similarity, be tween the biological and the cultural levels. The Biological Monads Let us assume that we observe a young, living cell: It will grow, age, die. But, life can continue! Not by simple time-re versal (once aged, one does not survive by going back to child hood), but through production of offspring. This represents a space-time discontinuity, that is, the new cannot be obtained by any simple extension of the old. If, then, reproduction con tinues in the same form, within the same species of change, life will reach another limiting point, and could, again, face extinction. Life's conservation is assured only through a new dimen sion, a new qualitative discontinuity: mutation, fo rmation of individuals with new types of characteristics, the latter linked to the use of new types of energy or resources. To sum it up, a cell, to access necessary new energy levels (involving hydro gen, oxygen, photosynthesis, and so on), to move in the Earth, water, and air, had to change genetically. The total process seen simultaneously, would appear as a series of different or ders of genetic discontinuities. The causal continuity, the higher boundary, is not recognizable in the visible, mere simi larity among individuals, but, especially, in the anomalies added by their differences, as translated into an increase of the reproductive power of life. To measure this increase, one cannot concentrate only on the energy or metabolic balance (input/output) of a biological Bill Ingalls/NASA individual, or, of a species. That can indicate the minimal con Life 's conservation is assured only through a qualitative dis dition for a static equilibrium; but is not sufficient to grasp the continuity: the fo rmation of individuals with new types of reproductive potential of life. In Figure 4, we try to represent characteristics, linked to the use of new types of energy or re the fu ll process schematically; we see that any simple expan sources. Neither educated chimpanzees, nor primitive cul sion (line L) of individuals, or species, reaches a limit (1\), the tures, can build fu sion-propelled rockets and colonize the so-called ecological "carrying capacity," which, in turn, indi Moon and Mars. Here, schoolchildren in Ta mpa, Fla., outfit cates the maximum possible population density. In contrast to ted fo r a mission on their bus, which is outfitted like a Space Malthus's assumptions, even for animals, K is not necessarily Shuttle orbiter. constant; on the contrary, it is defined as a variable--KI' K2, and so on. Only this "vertical" motion of K, indicates the in time; they are prostrate before a spokeswoman of the "B" peo crease in the reproductive powers, and can be cal led an in ple. The people of "A" think she is a goddess! Not for her crease in the "economy" of life. beauty, but, because she was seen landing from the sky, be It is clear that these increases, these "absolute" changes, are cause she talks about "burning water" (fusion energy), and not the domain, or the responsibility, of the biological individ about other worlds up in the sky, and so on. Can we establish ual or species. The agency is solely what we called "Life," continuity between man and "goddess"? through the process of inner "genetic" changes of the individu From the standpoint of the available visible elements, "No!" als, with the resulting macro-speciation. A process which ap The humans of "A" and of "B" are incommensurable, although pears to observers as precisely "indeterminate," as if "above" in matters such as Engelian hands, and even the rest of the the simple energy balance of the individual's environment, lies body, they are practically the same in extension and fo rm. in the domain of the individual's apparent decision to generate Nonetheless, the "goddess" will not make herself coherently higher animals. The biological minimal element, as carrier of intelligible, if she uses only external means of comparison: such a "quantum of change," could be considered as a kind of bodies, rockets, airplanes, wheels, water, and so forth. She will Leibnizian monad, never equal to another, nor homogeneous succeed only if she herself is conscious of the real, hidden sim with whatever fixed totality we use to classify it. ilarity. Only if she is able to make clear to the "A" people the Some animal societies and proto-cultures exist, but at that "godliness" that human beings have, and always had in them level, they have no capability for expanding their economies. selves! Only by making explicit the existence of the rea/ lnvisi At best, all they can do, is to discover some better, non-genetic ble Hand, the specificity of human creative cognition, can adaptation to the given milieu, to increase their share. The ani continuity be reestablished. mal is culturally constant, and biologically variable. 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 43 Moon! There are intrinsic limits, which also define the maxi mum possible density of the population. An economy based L on fusion energy can bring man even to Mars, and allow an in �------r------� K2 crease in the population density. The fusion economy be comes incommensurable, if measured with static parameters · linked to the wind economy, and so does its workforce and culture. As for life, so for human economy, the measure of the repro ductive power can not be based on simple balances based on an individual machine's, or a technological level's relation to population-density. Any given technology always implies a possible overpopulation, in prehistory, or today. But, now, it is \------+------j Ko man himself, who can avoid reaching Malthusian-Darwinian limits, can avoid the circumstances which would impel him to compete with one another for adequate living space, or, to kill one another for it. Man, unlike any other biological species of individual, does not have to wait for life to produce a biologi cal mutation to enable the use of new resources. Man has the power, the agency, to directly increase the ecological carrying capacity as-but more than-life itself does. Figure 4 If we really want to make meaningful comparisons, then we SCHEMATIC OF REPRODUCTIVE POTENTIAL OF LIFE cannot compare man with other kinds of biological individu Wh en any simple expansion of individuals or species als; we Q1ust compare man as a species with what Leibniz reaches a supposed limit, K, the 50-called carrying capac called the Life-monad itself. Our continuation of the vertical ity, in reality, contrary to Malthus's assumptions, this lim motion of K, ind icates our conscious contribution to the in it is variable. This vertical motion of K-K Kl K ... crease in the reproductive powers of the total economy of the o' ' 2 -indicates the increase in reproductive powers-an in human world. Our contribution to such "absolute" changes, crease in the "economy" of life. the increase of "carrying capacity," is the result of an inner process, the "inborn light within us," the individual power of creative cognition. With Friedrich Schiller, we could now say: Nature begins with Man no better than with the rest of "We cannot wait and react. We can defend her works: she acts fo r him where he cannot yet act as a our world only by continuously enlarging it, free intelligence fo r himself. But it is just this that through a culture which takes seriously the constitutes his humanity, that he does not rest satisfied meaning of the 'inborn light.' " with what Nature has made of him, but possesses the capacity of retracing again, with his reason, the steps which she anticipated with him, of remodelling the work As human ind ividuals, we each also participate in, and of need into a work of his free choice, and of elevating are, from wi�hin, necessitated by a higher domain which is physical into moral necessity.72 no longer merely life. As such we are absolutely indispens able, and not a simply substitutable part of any social or bio The Spirit Monads logical totality: each newborn is a specific contribution, and Man went from water mills to water-based fusion-power, he each death a terrible loss. In that sense, we also can, each, moved on Earth, in water, in the air, to new planets, without be seen as a Leibnizian monad, but a spiritual monad . It is any major genetic change. The total process, seen in simul this which will appear indeterminate, and "outside" any taneity, would appear as one biological individual, expressed measurement of the economy which takes into consideration in a series of cultural discontinuities. The causal continuity, only technological levels, or biological man in relation to the higher boundary, is translated into the increase in the cre the environment. ative power of cognition, reflected in each single human be This light within us, cannot be either created, or destroyed, ing. Man is biologically constant and culturally variable. In socially, or biologically. But its use, transmission, conscious Figure 5, we see that the ecological "carrying capacity" repre ness, increase, or paralysis, is accomplished socially through sented by KI' K2 , .•., here is made variable, with an increase culture, and it is the relative power to foster-or even to re in human reproductive powers and population density, duce-th is potential which defines the differences among cul through the creation of new species of technologies, discov tures. The height of a civilization does not tell us automati- ered by individual human beings. The discontinuity of the process can be quickly grasped with 72. Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Let an example. A windmill-based economy, no matter how much ters, translated by Reginald Snell (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing one increases the size of windmills, can not bring man to the Co., 1965), Third Letter, pp. 27-28. 44 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY poverty, starvation, but, also, for example, by the fact that p earthquakes can still kill thousands of people. We have to be able to know what we are at present not able to do, given no better than present knowledge. This, alone, can tell us where we stand. We see that life does not wait upon the bureaucracy. We know about terrible new viruses, about bacteria that have be come resistant to antibiotics. So we can never say: "We have arrived, we can just administer." On the contrary, we have to keep alive the flame of the continuous increase in our cultural potential, and its realization as increase in carrying capacity. This is not a simple social automatism, nor a matter only for the science department; it involves the total human being, all the departments, but, especially, it requires the risk of allowing man to be determined from the inside. If the universe were a machine, or if we were just objects of natural evolution, we would need no moral responsibility-the world would simply decide for us. In such a world, our econ Technology omy, culture, and judgment could be a simple artificial con vention. As many already do today, one could concentrate only on the pleasure of exercising power over other people. But, that is not ou� world; that is a suicidal choice of dominant Figure 5 political ideology. TECHNOLOGY'S IMPACT ON POTENTIAL POPULATION DENSITY K , The ecological "carrying capacity, " represented by 1 "Only man has learned the intrinsic K2, ..., increases discontinuously, as a result of man's limit of the protracted use of any simple ability to discover new species of technology. discovered tool or theory over many generations. Only man has discovered cally its potential to survive, as we know from history. The that he had to learn how to simple sum of machines and the energy level or technological willfully evolve superseding discoveries, level reached, tell us only the given "carrying capacity," the tools or theories." relative population density. This is crucial, but if man stops acting to change it, to increase it, nature will take over, by re vealing collapses, overpopulation, and so forth. What indi In conclusion, let me ask: Is life, as we know it on Earth, cates the quality of a culture, is the potential it has to learn, to self-sufficient? A collision with an asteroid, a change in value, to love and create the conditions for the use of the in Earth's magnetic field, the evolution of the Sun, or other ner human resource needed at any level of development, causes, could dramatically change, or destroy, the biologi needed to make the necessary increases in the relative popu cal life on our planet. In any such event, no chimp could lation density. help; but neither could a culture, which had gone back to The motivation to act in this direction, cannot be left to sim the use of windmills, nor an economic ideology in which an ple impulse, nor self-interest which dissociates truth from emo imaginary President might declare: "Dear citizens, we know tion as a pagan ritual does. Even merely good impulses, like a that a large comet is about to hit the Earth. You can fo llow it strong response to a catastrophe, do not suffice. on the Internet! We have the technology to stop it, but we Einstein once wrote that his first major discovery (special are not able to incur any more debt; we have no money to relativity), was stimulated by the need to solve an anomaly in stop it!" Newtonian physics. But, he added, there was no visible anom We cannot wait and react. We can defend our world only aly which pushed him to his second major discovery (general by continuously enlarging it, through a culture which takes se relativity). He arrived at it after he had decided to see where riously the meaning of the "inborn light." The monads of vis the limit of the first discovery lay: where the first theory, as viva, life, and cognition are different, but the diffe rences, and any theory, wou ld break down. A society, in a sense, has the their pre-established harmony, tell us, although in but a same moral imperative to search for truth. To be able not sim glimpse, of the necessity and the joys linked to the higher ply to react to, but to anticipate catastrophes, one must know boundary ofthe best of all possible worlds. in advance. We are not able to predict, as if in a magic world, or in a Dino de Paoli, based in Hannover, Germany, has written Newtonian determinism; but, one can see where a given level widely on the history of science. Th is article is an expanded of carrying capacity breaks down. This is indicated not only by fo rm of presentations given at the universities of Milan and the already visible human disasters around us: migrations, Paris in February 7997, sponsored by the Schiller Institute. 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 45 ino de Paoli had invited my comment on those areas of his article in which he made direct, or implied refer ence to my work on the subject of evolution.' Examin Ding his manuscript, I fo und only one point which would bene fit, in a relevant fashion, from the addition of my amplification. That point is, the Platonic concept of a self-bounded domain, as this occupies the center of the systematic thought of Plato, Nicholas of (usa, Kepler, Leibniz, and Riemann, and is at the center of my own discoveries in the field of physical economy. I think that the parade of ideas represented by de Paoli's manuscript, is, by itself, fully adequate for the specific line of argument he develops there. Therefore, I concluded that the appropriate place for my added points of emphasis, would be an epilogue to his work. As de Paoli touches repeatedly upon this point in his paper, the first known notion of a self-bounded domain, appears in the work of Plato.2 After Plato, that conception finds a central position in writings of St. Augustine, is the center of work founding modern experimental physics, Nicholas of (usa's De Danish astronomer Ole Roemer (1644- 1710)and one of his astronomical instruments, the Machina Domestica (House Instrument}. Roemer, who collaborated with both Leibniz and Huygens, discovered the finite velocity of light, determining its value to a remarkable degree of accuracy. 46 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY precondition for comprehension of any intrinsically non-linear process, such as distinguishing, functionally, between living and non-living processes, and between the mental processes of men and monkeys. On this account, the implications of the Parmenides paradox occupy a central position in all of my ref erences to the scientific principles on which competent eco nomic studies depend absolutely. Since 1952, my most fre quent references to this Platonic principle, have been keyed to the form in which that is presented in Bernhard Riemann's 1854 habilitation dissertation, the paper which fo unded the first true non-Euclidean geometry.s For the purposes implicit in de Paoli's paper, the best choice of my recent treatments of this matter, is my "The Essential Role of 'Time-Reversal' in Mathe matical Economics."6 That much said as a matter of required introduction, we now proceed to construct the relevant argument underlying the no tion of self-bounded domains. In any rational system of thought, such as the geometry of Euclid, Socratic method shows, that the possibility of consis tency among those propositions which we treat as theorems, depends upon a discoverable set of axiomatic assumptions, such as adducible definitions, axioms, and postulates. The Classical term identifying such a set, is "hypothesis." The set of definitions, axioms, and postulates associated with a Euclidean geometry, is to be recognized as a case of simple hypothesis. The collection of theorems associated with such underlying assumptions, is usefu lly described as a "theorem-Iattice." Once such a simple hypothesis, such as a Euclidean one, is adopted, . th'e standard. which a proposition must meet, to qualify as a member of that lattice, is that it must not contradict the exis tence of any among the set of definitions, axioms, and po stu . lates of the relevant hypothesis. That theorem-lattice, so bounded, and subsumed, by its hy Hale Observatories pothesis, constitutes a simply bounded domain. If the hypothe docta ignorantia, is the kernel of Johannes Kepler's method for sis itself could be included within that array, the result would determining the solar orbits, and, is the heart of the method of represent a self-bounded domain. For reasons which de Paoli Gottfried Leibniz.3 It is the central feature of Bern hard Rie references in his published work on the relevant discoveries of mann's revolutionary, 1854 habil itation dissertation, and spills Georg Cantor and Kurt Godel, no formal, deductive-inductive over, from there, into Albert Einstein's notion of relativity. It is the central feature of all those portions of my own work, in 1. Dino de Paoli, "Was Darwin an Evolutionist, or Just a Social Reformer?," which I address the subjects of cognition, evolution, and the 21st Century Science & Te chnology, Fall 1997, p. 26. 2. Most notably, in his Timaeus. physical-economic notion of "anti-entropy." 3. As de Paoli references this: Gottfried Leibniz, "Correspondence with Ar Th is conception of the bounded domain, acquired its most naUld," in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters ed. by Leroy E. Loemker (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989) rigorous expression in Plato's later writings. This leading fea [hereinafter referenced as "Loemker'1, pp. 331-350. ture of all those dialogues, appears by way of the central onto 4. Between the ages of 12 and 18 years, I engaged in an intensive course of logical paradox-the One-Many paradox-introduced in his study, in chronological order, of the most celebrated 17th and 18th cen turies' philosophers of England, France, and Germany, from Francis Ba Pa rmenides.4 That dialogue was a central point of reference fo r con through Immanuel Kant. By mid-course, I had become a follower of Gottfried Leibniz. It is the point of departure for addressing the Leibniz; I occupied the last two of those years both studying Immanuel subject of self-bounded domains, here. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (in English translation), and refuting its im plicit attacks upon the standpoint of Leibniz. It was from study of Leibniz that I learned the method of Plato; moreover, everything subsequently 1. Boundedness: The Case of Simple Hypothesis learned in this matter, assures me that Leibniz's view of Plato is the cor Given, a series of transformations in sundry kinds of objects, rect one, and contrary readings in error. From that standpoint, the Repub lic is indispensable for grounding one's approach to the later works. On the which is more real, the individual objects of that series, or the authority of principles of certainty which I define in these pages, these later underlying process of transformation which orders the changes works of Plato,-I know, with certainty, address the implications of the onto logical paradox posed in the involved? What is the underlying principle of change, Parmenides. One 5. Bernhard Riemann, Uber die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu which, in this way, subsumes the Many elements within that Grunde liegen ("On the Hypotheses Which Underlie Geometry"), in Bern series? De Paoli's paper makes repeated references to the ap hard Riemanns Gesammalte Mathematische Werke, ed. by H. Weber (New York: Dover Publications reprint, 1953), pp. 272-287. pearance of this Platonic conception in the work of Leibniz. 6. Executive Intelligence Review, Oct. 11, 1996, Vol. 23, No. 41). [Also, in Fi The solution to that Paimenides paradox is the indispensable delio, Winter 1996 (Vol. V, No. 4)]. 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 47 the hypothesis which underlies the generation of those theo rems, does not change from the first to last element of that ped Parallel rays � agogical sequence: The hypothesis has the quality of relative � from the Sun timelessness; that hypothesis exists simultaneously in all times � and places which might be occupied by the occurrence of any present or future theorem of the corresponding theorem-lat � tice. Thus, because of this consideration (simultaneity), and, also, of the notion of hypothesis as "efficiently underlying" the Alexandria whole existence of the theorem-lattice, the relatively timeless hypothesis "bounds" the entirety of the virtual space-time do main coincident with that lattice. I imagine the commonplace expression in today's U.S.A., would be: "Switch channels fo r just a moment." De Paoli ref erenced, repeatedly, passages in Leibniz's writings in which Leibniz was expressing an application of Plato's Parmenides conception; and, sometimes, also, the Classical Christian con ception of God as dwelling within His universe (not outside it). However, God dwells not within the confines ("bounds") of time and space, but, rather, exists pervasively in "the universal , simultaneity of eternity" of His entire Creation. That is the kind , , , of conception toward which we are working our way, step by step, here. The "relative timelessness" of even simple Socratic Figure 1 hypothesis, already contains the germ of the conception which ERATOSTHENES' METHOD Leibniz knew as "simultaneity of eternity."s OF MEASURING THE EARTH Now, that said, back to where we left off before this interpo In the third century B.C., the scientist Era tosthenes mea lation. Move ahead, from the case of simple hypothesis, to sured the shadow cast by the Sun, on identical sundials higher hypothesis. Focus upon the case of Bernhard Riemann's at the Eg yptian cities of Alexandria and Syene, about revolutionary discovery : a generalized notion of physical 490 miles directly south of Alexandria. The gnomon of geometry. each sundial was perpendicular to the Earth, and the measurements were taken at noon on the day of the 2. How the Human Mind Actually Functions: summer solstice. There was no shadow at Syene, but a Higher Hypothesis shadow of 7.20 at Alexandria. Imagine that you are the most celebrated fellow-scientist From this anomaly, Eratosthenes knew that the Earth among Archimedes' contemporaries and colleagues, the had to be a spheroid-2,300 years before anyone had mathematician Eratosthenes, from Plato's Academy at Athens. actually seen the evidence from space. Knowing the Eratosthenes was, during the time of his correspondence with distance between the two cities, he was also able to cal Archimedes, the leading scientific mind of Egypt. Among Er culate the Earth's circumference to be about 24,500 atosthenes' numerous other revolutionary discoveries of uni miles. Th e significance of Eratosthenes' experiment is versal principle, he conducted an experiment which not only not the remarkable accuracy with which he was able to proved that the Earth was approximately spherical-not flat compute the circumference of the Earth, but his demon but also gave him a remarkably good estimate for the size of stration that knowledge is not based on experience, but the Earth.9 In fact, this discovery in the field of geodesy, dur on investigating the paradoxes in our experience. ing the third century B.C., made possible the construction, Eratosthenes' discovery contains the germ of the es about 17 centuries later, of the world map drawn by Nicholas sential principles common to all valid, fu ndamental ex of Cusa's associate Paolo Toscanelli. The latter was the same perimental discoveries of universal physical principles. map which Columbus used to plan his first, 1492, voyage of discovery to the Caribbean.lO The specific importance of that system, such as a Euclidean geometry, could satisfy the re discovery by Eratosthenes, for our purposes here, is that it quirements of a self-bounded domain.? Nonetheless, the rela contains within it the germ of the essential principles common tions between the theorem-lattice and hypothesis, even as they to all va lid fundamental, experimental discoveries of universal appear in a deductive-inductive domain, are worth examining, physical principles. That is the principle, as developed by Carl as a preparatory step toward comprehension of actually self F. Gauss, upon which Riemann based his revolution in bounded domains. physics; we reference that experiment here to illustrate Rie Anyone who recalls the experience of a "pre-New-Math" mann's principle. education in Classical Euclidean geometry, could reflect on "Is the Earth flat?" That is to say, if a plumb-bob on a string the fact, that the pedagogically efficient chain of lesson-plans points downward, could we construct, at a level below any ordering the theorems of that curriculum, form a sequence. Ex part of the Earth's water-level surface, a plane which would al tension through any orderable sequence, connotes the func ways intersect, at right angles, all of the lines extended from all tional notion of relative time. The working point here, is that, plumb-bobs? If so, then, we could also construct a plane just although the theorems may be thus orderable in relative time, sufficiently above any local region of the Earth's ground/w ater 48 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY Sun's rays N S Alexandria Syene Hemispheric sundial, built for replication of A flat Earth? Eratosthenes' experiment. Figure 2 WHAT DID ERATOSTHENES HAVE TO KNOW? At first glance, Era tosthenes' experiment seems simple to replicate: Find a partner about 500 miles north or south of you, and measure the shadow of the Sun at a predetermined time on the same da y. But, if you put yourself in Eratosthenes' shoes, you see how much thinking about geometry and celestial mechanics are involved in this experiment. For example, to determine the time of the summer solstice, requires much observation, over years. And once you deter mine that the daylight hours are longest on the solstice, there is the question of why this is the case. What is the relation ship of the Earth to the Sun? What is the relationship of angle and circular measure? Wh y can you assume that the Sun's rays are parallel when they hit the Earth ? If the Earth were fl at, would there be any shadow at Alexandria ? How do shad ows on a sundial change over the course of a day? surface, that it would always be at approximately right angles with all plumb-bob lines, and yet never more than merely touch the surface of earth or waters, tangentially, in that local ity. Choose a region along the Nile from Aswan to Alexandria. Select the direction of this line to correspond to an astrophysi cally determined south-north direction. Define noon, as the in stant the shadow cast by an upright pin (as aligned by a plumb bob) lies along that south-north line. Now, as the Sun appears to move from east to west, consider the area swept by the shadow of the pin upon a surface which always lies at a right angle to the plumb-bob lines. This shadow will define the rele vant sector of a circle. The plane of that sector, then, defines the supposed "flat Earth." Measure the distance from Aswan to Alexandria along the south-north line. Construct a number of virtually identical, hemispherical sundials. Place a straight pin (gnomon), whose upward orienta Ke nneth Murray/Ph oto Researchers tion is to be supplied by a plumb-bob, at the South Pole of A 1734 sundial in an astronomical observatory built by Jai each such hemisphere (pointing along a plumb-bob line, Singh in Rajasthan. downward). Mark the interior of each of the hemispheres simi larly, to measure the angle of the shadow cast by the pin. Place same effect is seen in each of the other deployed sundials: si these sundials at measured intervals along the south-north line multaneity. (See Figure 1.) between Aswan and Alexandria. Consider the point in time at Now, compare the marked angles defined, simultaneously, which the shadow of the pin is cast in the northerly direction, by the shadows of the pins of each and all of the sundials. The to be defined by the experiment, as the same time at which the angles are different; the difference is ordered, south-north, by a consistent difference of "more than" that shadow cast by the 7. I knew Leibniz's notion (and, therefore, Plato's) of "simultaneity of eternity" preceding sundial. If the Sun were a large object, located at a as a self-bounded domain, from my adolescent studies. A new line of ap great distance from a presumed "flat" Earth, the angles ought to proach, the one represented here, was opened up for me by an early 1952 review of my then ongoing discoveries in physical economy from the appear no worse than very nearly equal, accord ing to the standpoint of first, Georg Cantor's notion of the transfinite, and, then, later proposition expressed by the design of the experiment. Express that same year, a rereading of Riemann's habilitation dissertation from the vantage-point in physical economy which Cantor had assisted me in copies of each and all among these angles, as sectors of a cir achieving. cle. Shade-in the sector of that circle defined as the difference 8. Cf. de Paoli, 'Was Darwin an Evolutionist? ," Part 2, passim. between the smallest and largest of these angles. Note the 9. "XVIII. Eratosthenes," in Greek Mathematics, trans. by Ivor Thomas, "Loeb Classical Library" (London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1980), pp. 260-273. length of the arc of the circle defined by that shaded area of 10. Ricardo Olvera, "Columbus and Toscanelli," Fidelia, Spring 1992. difference. Now, that latter arc corresponds to the idea of the 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 49 distance between the rela tively most southerly, and relatively most northerly placements of the sundi als. By the principle of simi lar figures, the Earth is shown to be a spheroid, and the length of the ap proximate Great Circle, defi ned by the experi ment's south-north direc tion, can be estimated by treating the arc in question as an arc of that Great Cir cle. Eratosthenes' estimate for the polar diameter of a spheroid-Earth, was off by a margin of about 50 miles.ll An adaptation of Paolo Toscanelli's 1480 map. Th e geodesic work of Eratosthenes during the third The purpose of supply century B.C. made possible the construction, about 17 centuries later, of this world map, which ing this description, here, was used by Christopher Columbus to plan his first, 1492, voyage of discovery to the Caribbean. is to demonstrate, that in the scientific method developed by Plato, and also such among his collaborators as Theaetetus and Eudoxus, there is con tained the germ of the same principle upon which Nicholas of Cusa based the launching of the modern experimental physics of his fo llowers Leonardo da Vinci, Johannes Kepler, Gottfried Leibniz, et al.; the same principle at the fo undation of Carl Gauss's discoveries· in astrophysics, geodesy, and geomagnet ism; the same principle of experimental physics expressed QY Gauss's development of the theory of curved surfaces out of his work on biquadratic residues, all this the work of Gauss upon which Bernhard Riemann premised the discovery of the first true non-Euclidean (for example, physical) geometry.1 2 Look again at Eratosthenes' experiment, from this modern vantage-poi nt. Andrew Spannaus As we indicated, the design of the experiment conformed to Nicholas of Cusa 's associate, Paolo Toscanelli, designed this testing the "flat Earth" assumption. In other words, an assump measuring gauge fo r his gnomon, inlaid in the floor of the tion that the subject of the experiment lay within a two-dimen Ca thedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. The upper part sional phase-space. The evidence showed a deviation from sim of the instrument, placed 90 meters above, in the lantern of ply linear extension, requiring the introduction of a third the cathedral cupola, projects an image of the Sun. The two dimension, a three-dimensional phase-space. As Nicholas of circles and the thin lines to the right are brass inlaid in marble. Cusa showed the transcendental nature of pi (n), in demonstrat- Th e small circle was used by Toscanelli himself. Th e Latin in scription, written in 1510 after Toscanelli's death, reads, 11. Thomas, op. cit. Readers should attempt to replicate this simple experi "1510, First Day of the Ides of june/' the day of summer sol ment with means corresponding to those available in third-century B.C. stice in the calendar at that time. Egypt; thus, they would learn respect for the degree of precision achieved by Eratosthenes, and in Columbus's map of the world, the one drawn by the Paolo Toscanelli, who also instructed Columbus on some relevant ing that the sides of a many-sided regular polygon could never points, in their correspondence. coincide with the circumference of the circle inscribing it,13 the 12. B. Riemann, on his specific debts to Carl Gauss for the sources of his own revolutionarydiscovery, op. cit. , pages 273 (biquadratic residues) and 276 fact that the Earth's surface is curved, not flat, shows that at (curved surfaces). The prime Gauss references are (originally): On biqua every smallest infinitesimal interval along any attempted linear dratic residues, the famous, variously translated Th eoria residuorum bi extension of the tangent to that surface, the two dimensions of quadraticorum [first treatise, 1-23, 1828; second treatise, 24-76, 1831-32]; on curved surfaces, the ·Copenhagen prize essay" of 1822, and the vari the tangential plane are rendered discontinuous (that is, "non, ously translated Disquisitiones generales circa superficies curvas of 1828: linear") by the causally efficient, "bending" presence of the third (Hildesheim-New York: Georg alms Verlag, Carl Frie drich Gauss Werke dimension. This feature of Eratosthenes' experiment, becomes 1981), Vols. I, II, IV. German translations of the two parts of the paper on biquadratic residues are found, in Untersuchung uber H6here Arithmetik crucial in that work leading through Gauss's contributions into von Carl Friedrich Gauss, ed. by H. Maser (New York: Chelsea Publishing Riemann's employment of Leibniz's principle of Analysis Situs, Company, 1981), pp. 51 1 -586. to generate the discovery of the first true, "non-linear," physical 13. De docta ignorantia (1441). See, Lyndon H. LaRouche, .Jr., "On The Sub ject of Metaphor," Fidelia, Fall 1992. geometry. 50 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY Now, focus sharply upon the question: "What is the kernel Such critics behave very foolishly. Unlike the empiricists, re of this experimental method?" That kernel is, that all validata ally intelligent people know these kinds of ideas far better, ble discoveries of a new physical principle, are each derived with far greater scientific certainty than anyone cou Id know as the generation of original conceptions which resolve an ex sense-impressions as such. The proof of that latter fact, is read peri mental paradox of the following general specifications. ily demonstrated to intelligent, competently educated school In each case, as in the referenced case of Eratosthenes' exper children. This statement is to be recognized as representing a iment, we approach the experimental subject-matter burdened paradox about paradoxes and their solutions. with the freight of our pre-established opinion: at best, with a This extraordinarily relevant, 'and most important paradox, well-grounded hypothesis, as we have defined the notion of must be restated here, once more. That act of discovery, which simple hypothesis above. However, we have added something proves experimentally to have been a valid, original discovery else. In the first type of instance, we confront our pre-established of a new physical principle, occurs ef"!tirely within the sover mind-set with a fact which is as believable, by its nature, and by eign domain of the individual persor]'s cognitive processes. the same methods of observation which we have employed to The production of such ideas could never be analyzed in the support our pre-existing hypothesis. We are able to show, and way a manufacturing design is analyzed into the form of a divi that in a fashion to which our pre-established beliefs could not sion of assembly-line labor in a manufacturing fi rm. The object, that the disturbing fact has the same kind of experimen sophist might be tempted to interject: "See, you admit that you tal authority as we have supposed our pre-established hypothe do not know what was going on in the mind of the person who sis had had up to this time. However, the efficient existence of made that discovery!" False! Some among us do know. the new fact introduced, can not be accepted as a valid theorem of the pre-established hypothesis. Thus, these two, equally vali "All validatable discoveries of a new physical dated sets of facts, can not co-exist in the virtual universe which principle, are each derived as the generation we had believed we inhabited. A true paradox. Plato's Pa rmenides is exemplary. Do the terms of the series of original conceptions which resolve an exist? "Without doubt." Does the difference among the terms experimental paradox.... " of the series exist? "Also, without doubt." Do these two ki'nds of facts inhabit the same universe? "It can not be denied." Then, the commonal ity of the terms of the series, is the ad Really intelligent people, do know. Hciw do we know this? ducible commonality of their diffe rences? "Yes" (perhaps, one We can repeat the discovery within our own sovereign cogni hears a tone of reluctance). Then, thaf commonality exists? Si tive processes; intelligent primary- and secondary-school pupils lence: paradox. Then, that commonality subsumes the co-exis do this often. This is what is commonly called "a good educa tence of t�e terms and their differences? Stunned silence: Once tion." In a good educational program, the pupils are aided in again, by means of ontological paradox, we are compelled to reliving the act of each among a series of those original discov cross over from the virtual reality of mathematical formalism, eries of principle, the which have been passed down to us from into Riemann's "domain of physics," science.14 persons who often lived centuries, or even millennia earlier. Confronted with such paradoxes, successful original dis "How?" We confront the pupil with the facts of the paradox coverers have generated ideas which prove to be solutions. If which confronted that discoverer. We structure the curricu we are able to validate these ideas experimentally, we call lum to bring each such challenge to the pupil, at the point in these ideas "new physical principles." The problem is, that al the curriculum that that student has accumulated the prereq though we are able to prove the existence of the discovered uisites for tackling the problem. We structure the social situa principle by experimental methods, we can not represent ex tion, to foster a positively catalytic, relevant quality of Socratic plicitly, in mathematics, or in any other medium of communi interaction among the members of the class (teacher and cation, the mental processes, entirely within the individual pupils). We do not "tell" the pupils the answer, until they, or, mind, by means of which such valid ideas are generated. This at least, some among them, have made the relevant break process of discovery, entirely within the sovereign recesses of through. We, th�n, assist the pupils in discovering how the the individual discoverer's cognitive processes, can not be de discovery may be experimentally validated. We, then, walk graded for representation, into a form of analysis which could the class, as a whole, through the Socratic process of re-exam be explicitly represented within the bounds of words or math ining each step of the preceding process, from paradox ematical procedures. We can represent the object, the discovery, produced, as it 14. Naturally, we are referencing the types of series in which the differences are not of a simply mathematical form, in which the essential feature of the or may be explicitly presented as an experimentally validated so dering of the difference includes a qualitative feature, as Riemann echoes lution for the explicitly stated relevant paradox; but, we can Leibniz in his crucial observation (op. cit., p. 285-286): Wenn aber eine not satisfy the demands of the smelly street-beggars of fo rmal solche UnabMngigkeit der Korper vom art nicht stattfindet, so kann man aus den MassverMltnissen im Grossen nicht auf die im Unendlichkleinen logic and sense-certainty, to produce a representation of cog schliessen; ....Es fOhrt dies hinDber in das Gebiet einer andern Wis nition which is agreeable to their prejudices. The fact that senschaft, in das Gebiet der Physik, welches wahl die Natur der heutigen these ideas can not be explicitly represented in such ways, Veranlassung [Ma thematik-LHLJ nicht zu betreten erlaubt. This was al ready Leibniz's argument, a century and a half earlier, as de Paoli stresses misleads such misguided persons, who are sometimes known the relevant issue in Part 2 of his paper, under ''The Continuity of Forms: as empiricists, positivists, or sophists, into arguing, that this Similarity." The fact, that we must depart mathematics for physics, as Rie difficulty signifies something defective in this class of ideas. mann demands, does not mean we are helpless to discover efficient notions of functional ordering which are different from customary mathematical "Perhaps," they argue, "these kinds of ideas are only airy, ones, but no less rigorous, and, indeed, far more powerful.We tum to a cru mystical fantasies." cial aspect of that in the two concluding. sections of this epilogue. 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 51 700 Figure 3 EUROPEAN POPULATION GROWTH AND LIFE-EXPECTANCY 600 "This notion of higher hypothesis, so situated, defines the economic-demographic process as a bounded domain. The higher hypothesis, otherwise to be recognized as the principle of cogni tive, successive generation of validated, paradox-driven, new discoveries ofprinci ple, is time 500 less relative to the sequence represented by the series of physical-economically realized manifolds." 400 Note the revolution that occurred in population growth, population density, and life expectancy in the 75th century. 300 Population 200 100 Population .. (Millions) 10 0 8 I Mesolithic 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 I() 6 Paleolithic t.i 0 ci 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 I() 0 I() 0 I() 0 I() 0 I() ..... N N ' 60 40 �___ �---1P�o�p�ulation-density 20 3 , �.. Paleolithic Mesolithic .. 2 I I §::��:;:;�::���-r-r���r-�'--r��(A�v�g�p�0�p��m�2)-f0 :�: �: : L.e-eXP, ectancy ��� �" I I �t t I :=::=�-----":'L-::�� through to experimental validation. ing the successfu l generation of a new idea which solves an In an educational process of that sort, the subject being ontological paradox of the type indicated here. Although we taught is "the experimental scientific method." Yes, we are can not look directly, by means of our senses, into the sover also fostering the pupil's reenactment of particular discoveries eign cognitive processes of another person's mind, that person of principle, in his or her own mind. Those are the individual has the potential ability to look into his, or her own cognitive terms of a process of education, but not the ed ucational processes. process itself. Our familiar friend, the ontological paradox of The success of this attempt, to know oneself, as Socrates Plato's Pa rmenides, has, once again, put in its appeari;lnCe. The prescribes, depends, more or less absolutely, upon a second individual topics addressed in the successive lesson-plans, are class of conceptions. This second class focusses upon the so the individual terms of the sequence of education, the Many. cial process within which individuals' cognitive processes of The corresponding One, the real subject of the course consid discovery are situated . ered as a whole, is the Socratic method for generating valid new discoveries of principle. That One is the educational Teacher: "How did Johnny discover the solution? process, within which these Many are making their function Jimmy, do you wish to take a stab at it?" ally ordered appearance, manifesting the diffe rences among all Jimmy: (Smiling proudly) "Sure. He had to be th inking of them, each in turn.1 5 the same thing I was thinking ...." If we are successful, we are invoking two classes of concep tions within each individual student. Johnny, at that point, may be thinking, that if Jimmy can First, on the relatively lower level, the student is being en look into Johnny's mind, perhaps, Johnny, by thinking about abled to watch the cognitive processes which are in play, dur- that, can see into his own mind. In other words, if Johnny can construct a kind of clone-image of Jimmy, within his own, sovereign domain of cognition, that "clone-Jimmy" would be 15. "Function," in this instance, is subsumed by the notion of Analysis Situs, rather than "algebraic function." situated to watch Johnny's cognitive processes at work. In that 52 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY On that account, the opening two paragraphs of Riemann's habilitation dissertation, are the most important part of that entire work: they state the paradox which the dissertation, in its entirety, is deployed to solve. There, first, Riemann instructs us to recognize (as Leibniz had already warned us of this), that the whole busi ness of a mathematics derived from us ing Euclid's geometry as a basis for al gebra, is flawed, from the outset, with incurably mystical, and, in fact, false presumptions. Second, that, up to that time, the most famous mathematicians and philosophers, from Euclid through the great A.-M. Legendre, had failed to pierce this veil of darkness.'6 Third, that Riemann himself will proceed, af ter those two paragraphs, to I ift that veil, inch by inch, and, so, present a new conception of mathematics, from DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN POPULATION the standpoint of experimental physics. In the Platonic way of thinking which way, Johnny could be looking over clone-Jimmy's cognitive Riemann's discovery expresses, as did Leibniz before him, the shoulder, at Johnny's own cognitive-processes-at-work. That idea of space and time as Kantian absolutes, is banned from sci is the "secret" of the Socratic method's superiority to any ence. Each of the two is reduced from the aprioristic rank of other mode of thinking. The essential fu nction of the school mathematical royalty, to that of just another participating, colli room class, is to produce that optimistic quality of Socratic in gating citizen, like mass, of the n-dimensional republic of ex teraction among the pupils, the which is the most likely perimental physics. method for producing the relatively maximum ration of such As is adequately elaborated in sources such as my above geniuses. cited paper,'7 in Riemannian "non-Euclidean," or "physical" We can not look directly into the cognitive processes of other geometry, every permitted extensible dimension of that geom persons. There is no "objective" method, through the senses, or etry, is derived from an experimentally validated discovery of through a medium of language, to see directly the cognitive universal principle. Paradigmatically, we associate this notion, processes operating within the mind of another person. Nor, for of a physical, or non-Euclidean geometry, with so-called that matter, has any scientist ever seen directly the domain of "physical principles." However, since the efficient existence of nuclear microphysics. However, we have three "objective mankind, and the sovereign cognitive processes of discovery facts" respecting any validated discovery of new physical prin of principle itself, are integral features of a self-bounded uni ciple (for example), by aid of which we can know how the versal domain, this universe-we must, as de Paoli has empha mind of another person, even one long deceased, produced sized the necessity for this, and as Riemann also recognized that val idated idea. These three facts are: the paradox, which this,'8 include the discovered characteristics of cognition itself demanded the solution; the reflection, in the fo rm of an instruc as "principles of nature." tion, of the discovered idea, which represents the discovered So, Riemann strips the idea of "space" and "time," as sup solution for that paradox; and, the experimental validation of posed geometric dimensions, of their claims to a priori exis the efficient existence of the discovered idea of the new physi tence within geometry. Aprioristic presumption is to be re cal principle. Ifany among us has replicated the generation of placed, entirely, by relativistic notions of space and time, each that solution from our own cognitive processes' successful replication of the original discoverer's attack upon the paradox, 16. Of course, Gottfried Leibniz had made that specific argument, repeatedly, that internal cognitive experience by each among us, represents more than a centurybefore Riemann. However, it was politically unsafe for any candidate for habilitation to present openly any explicit or implied shared, validated knowledge of the generated idea. praise for the reputation of Leibniz, or to omit ritual praise for Isaac New "Look at your mind, Jimmy. What is the real reason you said ton, in the Hannover still ruled by the British royal family, where Gi:ittingen University was located. The published output of Carl Gauss, as that of his that? Look behind what you were thinking, then. Was there protege Bernhard Riemann, is the product of faithful students of Leibniz, some assumption, which caused you to choose that answer?" who held Newton's work in that contempt which certain of Riemann's The same principle, by means of which a class of pupils may posthumously published writings state most cogently. However, for the same British political reasons which impelled Gauss to refuse to publicize find the excitement of being able to "see directly" into their his own discovery of non-Euclidean geometry, Riemann, in his habilitation own and other pupils' minds, by aid of the kind of social inter dissertation, not only suppressed acknowledgement of Leibniz's work, but action just described, is the key to the Socratic method of look supplied ritual passing praise for the Newton whose scientific claims Rie mann held in contempt. ing at one's own sovereign processes of cognition, in an effi 17. "The Essential Role of Time-Reversal' in Mathematical Economics," op. cit. ciently critical way. 18. Riemanns Werke, op. cit., pp. 509-538. 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 53 of these premised upon nothing other, and nothing more than, the experimental standard of proof for physical principles. The false, in competent, contemplative view, which is proposed by an Aristotle and Averroes, as by the material ists, the empiricists, the positivists, and the existentialists generally, is prohibited from future .intrusions upon the domain of scientific Reason. At this point, the science of physical economy takes over. The empirical foundation of physical economy, is the progress of mankind, as expressed in a pos itive correlation between in creased potential relative popula The Granger Collection Library of Congress tion-density, and improvement of demographic characteristics of the LaRouche's contributions to the science of physical economy are built on the work of households of that population Gottfried Leibniz (left) and BernhardRiemann (right). taken in its entirety.1 9 (See Figure 3 and table.) The outstanding, and indispensable feature of such tive terms, we have the following. Let the amount of physical progress, is scientific and technological progress; however, the economic investment per capita, required to maintain equipo principles of Classical artistic culture have indispensable bear tential of the demographically expressed potential relative ing upon the ability of a population to assimilate, and to gener population-density of the economic process, be regarded as ate the benefits of scientific and technological progress. For the per capita "energy of the system." Let physical-economic our immediate purposes, let it be understood that what we say output in excess of required "energy of the system," be re respecting scientific progress is merely exemplary of the com garded as "free energy." Then, under the condition that the per bined effect of advances in knowledge in both physical sci capita physical-economic costs of the per capita "energy of the ence and in Classical art-forms. The science of physical econ system" increase as a function of technological progress, the omy is rooted in the study of the reciprocal' relationship ratio of "free energy" to "energy of the system" must not de between advances in knowledge of principle effected through cline, and must, preferably increase through technology-dri the cognitive processes of the individual mind, and how the ven, capital-intensive, power-intensive modes of increase of ordering of the practice of the same society fosters, or injures, the productive powers of labor. This expresses "anti-entropy" the reproduction and further improvements in power of those of the productive process as such. sovereign cognitive processes within the individual members My second general contribution, involves the use of the of society. mathematical notion of "cardinality" to express the quality of The correlation and connection between the two facets of transformation which occurs through increasing the implicitly that cognitive process, its inputs and outputs, so to speak, and denumerable density of mathematical discontinuities per arbi the increase of "anti-entropy" of the physical-economic trarily chosen interval of action. This, I correlate with the in process, is the proper center of attention, in efforts to define crease of a Riemannian manifold, from one of "n dimensions," relevant notions of functional relationship between mankind to a higher order of "n -+ 1 dimensions." This is another way of and the universe at large. expressing the dimensionality of the manifold. We now examine, summarily, the minimal relevant essen Thus, the increase in "cardinality," so defined, represented tials of that science. by a succession of scientific and technological advances of the The general principle which I have employed, since late form n � n + 1, is an anti-entropic impulse. The realization of 1952, to represent the impulse of scientific and technological that impulse, in the mode of capital-intensive, power-intensive progress, is the notion, that the number of dimensions of a Rie progress, generates that increase of the ratio of "free energy" to mannian manifold is (implicitly) the number of validated dis "energy of the system," the which expresses the anti-entropic, coveries of principle cumulatively represented by the relevant physical-economic determination of an increase of the poten human practice. Each new, validated discovery of principle, tial relative population-density of the society. thus, effects a transformation denoted by the ordering, n to Thus, the impulse of scientific and technological progress n + 1. That taken into account, we have the following. corresponds to an ascending series of manifolds, n, n + 1, My first general contribution to advancement of Leibniz's n + 2, ....Sin ce each such manifold is bounded by an hy science of physical economy, was the notion of "anti-entropy" pothesis, the which is absolutely inconsistent with the hy as expressed by physical economy itself. Expressed in descrip- potheses corresponding to all other manifolds of the series, we have a new form of the Parmenides paradox, in which the in 19. E,g., LaRouche, op. cit., passim. dividual terms are simple hypotheses of the Riemannian-mani- 54 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY fo ld form. The diffe rence among these manifolds (hypotheses) timeless, in respect to the hypotheses it subsumes (bounds), it defines a subsuming hypothesis, corresponding to Plato's no is the principle of higher hypothesis which enables man to ef tion of "higher hypothesis." This "higher hypothesis" expresses fect a "reversal of time," such that the future efficiently deter that principle of cognition, through which the relevant, vali mines the present. dated new discoveries of principle have been generated. This combination of the creative, sovereign power of the in That, in essence, is the kernel of the LaRouche-Riemann dividual !=ognitive processes, and the efficient role of "time-re Method, so called, because it is the application of Riemann's versal" within cognition, constitutes Reason. discoveries to the problems of measurement posed by my own The connection between the principle of hypothesis and definitions of both physical-economic anti-entropy, and of the principle of time-reversal, is adequately represented in cognition. the recent paper of mine which I have already noted for refer This notion of higher hypothesis, so situated, defines the ence here.20 Therefore, I limit exposition here to two illustra economic-demographic process as a bounded domain. The tions. First, a summary illustration of the role of "time-rever higher hypothesis, otherwiseto be recognized as the principle sal" in the management of a well-run modern industrial firm. of cognitive, successive generation of validated, paradox-dri Second, a comment upon de Paoli's contrast of the roles of ven, new discoveries of principle, is timeless relative to the se special relativity and general relativity in the work of Albert quence represented by the series of physical-economically re Einstein. alized manifolds. First, a few relevant, prefatory remarks, situating my selec The Pa rmenides type of paradox so posed, is resolved by the tion of the case of a capital-intensive industrial enterprise. discovery of this higher hypothesis through the processes of cog As a result of a process of willful deconstruction of the U.S. nition. This discovery represents simply a higher order of the economy (among others), which has been ongoing since ap same kind of discovery realized as validated simple hypothesis. proximately 1966, the percentile of the U.S. labor-force em This higher hypothes is is itself subject to improvement. ployed as operatives in production of goods, has collapsed cat Think of a series of higher hypotheses, as a representation of astrophically. Whereas, at the close of World War II, over 60 the process of improvement. Name that series "hypothesizing percent of the labor-force was so engaged,' today, it has fallen the higher hypothesis." The latter is'only a higher order of the to about one-fifth. Worse, even among' those surviving opera principle of discovery associated with the generation of an tives, the levels of skill and cognitive development are vastly higher hypothesis. inferior to the qualities prevalent during the 1946-1966 inter Each of these higher hypotheses is relatively timeless-rela val. This is aggravated by an imminently catastrophic spiral of tive to the series'of terms which it subsumes. collapse in quality of education and cultural development of The experimental validation of hypothesizing such higher the personality, at all educational levels, throughout almost the hypotheses, defines, implicitly, a generalized notion of the re entirety of post-war generations.21 lationship between man and the universe. The positive correla Still worse. Thirty years ago, the overwhelming majority of tion of increase of mankind's potential relative population U.S. adults, whether associated with industry as administra density, with improvem�nt of the demographic characteristics tion, engineers, or operatives, took pride in the contributions of all of the society's households, defines the relevant experi of production to our standard of living and national economic mental relationship between mankind and the universe, and, security. The frontiers of technological progress, in the do thus, between the cognitive processes of the individual person mains of tool-making, and research-and-development, were in the society and that same universe. the popularly sought, elite qualities of employment, and em Essentially, the experimental validation of the internal hier ployee satisfaction, in our productive sectors. Today, under archy of higher hypothesis, in this way, implicitly defines the the ideological deconstruction brought about through the in universe as a self-bounded domain, pre-designed to bend to fl uence of such "post-industrial" utopianisms as "con mankind's will when man's demands conform to valid higher sumerism," perhaps a majority of our population views the hypothesizing. This is man's only possible access to knowl producers as "greedy, irresponsible" adversaries of the con edge of the lawful ordering of our universe. This is the sole ba sumer. Under such conditions, even mere sanity in popular sis for what is termed "natural law." This is science. thinking about our economy, let alone what has become the relatively alpine quality of actual competence, is not to be 3. 'Time-Reversal': What is Reason? taken for granted. There are two distinctions in behavior which separate the In these times, that endangered species, the technologically human species from all animal species. One of these, which advancing, capital-intensive, power-intensive mode of indus we have just addressed, is the creative power of the ade trial production, is almost the last bastion of sanity in the u.s. quately developed, sovereign cognitive processes of the indi economy's daily life. The relevant, persisting, distinguishing vidual: the process, by means of which, validated discoveries feature of such a firm, now, as in lost, happier economic times, of new physical principles are generated by original discover is that such a firm is the best choice of microcosmic reflection ers, and that generation replicated by students. The second is the Prometheus-principle, the capacity to use fo reknowledge 20. Op. cil. 21. If present trend-rates continue, we are not far distant from the state of af of the future consequences of changes in behavioral hypothe fairs, in which the following hypothetical incident might become common sis, as a guide to selecting the changes in hypothesis to be place. A pollster, employed in going from door-to-door, reports that when adopted presently. he asked the respondents whether or not they were in favor of democracy, the overwhelming majority replied, "Yes." However, when he asked those Since any orderable series of hypotheses is subject to an same persons, if they have voted in the preceding general election, more higher hypothesis, and since that higher hypothesis is relatively than 50 percent replied with the question, "What is voting?" 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 55 Philip I "In a good educational program, the pupils are aided in reliving the act of each among a series of those original diScoveries of principle, the which have been passed down to us from persons who often lived centuries, or even millennia earlier. " Here, Or. Robert Moon, a nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, works with children to replicate Am' pere's electrody- namic experiments. of the processes at work in the national and world economies of a comment on a paragraph from de Paoli's manuscript: as entireties. Here, the combined forces of capital-intensity and matching pressures of technological attrition, find their rel Einstein once wrote that his first major discovery atively most concentrated expression. (Special Relativity), was stimulated by the need to solve a In sum, each present moment of life of such an industrial given anomaly present in Newtonian physics. But, he firm, is, in itself, a microcosm of its situation in the vast eco added, there was no visible anomaly which pushed him nomic process in development in the world at large. Immedi to his second major discovery (General Relativity). He ately, that moment assumes the form of the expression of the arrived at it after he had decided to see where the limit of past in the present moment's production, but, also the expres the first discovery lay: where the first theory, as aflY sion of the future development which the gains from present theory, would break down. A society, in a sense" has the production must be directed to fostering. The productive same moral imperative to search fo r truth. To be able not process is using up physical capital invested years earlier, con simply to react to, but to anticipate catastrophes one must suming materials and components which went into supplier know in advance [emphasis addedl . firms' production months, even years earlier. At the same mo ment of today's produced output, there is ongoing work in De Paoli's argument here, should be restated for emphasis, preparing those capital purchases, those product designs, and He argues, that whereas Einstein's work on Special Relativity so on, which will not be seen in production for months, years, was provoked by an existing experimental paradox, the work or even longer, yet to come. on General Relativity was provoked by foreknowledge of a fu The most characteristic feature of that ongoing process, is ture paradox which wou ld challenge the validity of Special change. Technological change, and also other kinds of change. Relativity. Many of these changes involve modifications of the hypothesis governing production, product-design, and marketing. Fore 22, See Anton Chaitkin, "Leibniz, Gauss Shaped America's Success," Ex ecu· casting-foreknowledge-is the essence of effective manage tive Intelligence Review, Feb. 9, 1996, pp. 22-57. See also "How Henry Carey and the American Nationalists Built the Modern World," ment: a veritably Promethean quality of foreknowledge, is the Th e New Federalist, June 2, 1997, an edited transcription of Chai*in's May 10, aura surrounding the great industrial managers of the modern 1997 presentation to an FOR-PAC Policy Forum, The complete FOR-PAC economic history of the pre-1 966 United States, and of Ger Policy Forum, which also includes Lyndon H, LaRouche, Jr.'s "The Signifi cance of FOR for Today," is available on videotape from FOR Political Ac many's industrial development since 1876.22 tion Committee, P,O. Box 6157, Leesburg, VA 20178 (No. FOP 97-01 1, The illustration from science as such, is provided in the form 180 minutes). 56 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY Focus upon the antepenu Itimate sentence in that quoted which he had been conditioned, toward Riemann's, Leib paragraph. How should we read "limit" in that sentence? Let niz's, and Kepler's standpoint in method, constituted at least us substitute the term "boundary," as we have developed it a fair approximation of a new choice of higher hypothesis. In here. Restate the sentence, to reflect that substitution: " ...to this way, Einstein confronted himself with the issues of discover where the boundary of the first discovery lay." That whether the universe within which Special Relativity might substitution implicitly removes any reader's defensible attribu lie, were bounded, or not. tion of mystification to that paragraph. In short, in his approach toward General Relativity, Einstein The "boundary," of course, lies with in that which bounds acted out of foreknowledge of a future devastating paradox, an hypothesis, the relevant higher hypothesis, the latter rela which would confront Special Relativity in the same manner tively timeless with respect to the series of hypotheses which Special Relativity itself had been generated as a solution for a it bounds. To restate the point accordingly: Once we have devastating ontological paradox incurred by the then "politi been guided to a validated hypothesis under the guidance of cally correct" Newton-Cauchy-Clausi�s-Maxwell ideological an higher hypothesis, the principle of change embedded mind-set. within the latter suggests the successor term of the series. The ' The universe which de Paoli identified by Leibniz's term Im rela�ive timelessness of higher hypothesis is thus, once again, mensum, is bounded, but not quite;in the sense Einstein ar seen at its work. gued the point. Nonetheless, the issue of bounding was suffi Thus, when Einstein, like his relevant contemporary, Her cient to prompt Einstein to think of the requirements this issue mann Minkowski, was impelled this way, by considerations of itself required be addressed. non-Euclidean geometry, Einstein's mind was directed toward Here, respecting the illustrative point at hand, relativity, the reflection upon the precedents supplied by Kepler, Leibniz, issue is not that Einstein's approach contained some error. The and Riemann. In other word s, toward adoption of a new point here, is, that every good scientific discoverer is guided to higher hypothesis, the higher hypothesis of relativistic physi a validatable new hypothesis-e.g., new physical principle cal geometry. This, even in that form, already reflects the gen under the influence of a set of assumptions corresponding to eral nature of true foreknowledge within the setting of individ what we have identified as an higher hypothesis. An higher hy ual human cognition. pothesis in any expressed approximation, such as the Einstein Recall the elegant excerpt from Minkowski's famous lec case indicates, implicitly begets one or more successor hy ture on the subject of Einstein's formulation of so-called potheses to any initial hypothesis so generated. "Special Relativity": that, henceforth, time, by itself, and As modern, capital-intensive industrial production provides space, by itself, must vanish, to be superseded by physical us one illustration, the case of a science-driver "crash pro space-time. Minkowski did not fully grasp the implications of gram" of task-oriented research and development, provides the what he himself had uttered in that lecture. He had not fu lly second illustration. escaped from the grip of the "politically correct" classroom Return to that classroom where bright students Johnny and ideology of those times, "linearization in the extremely Jimmy were sharing reflections on the feasibility of insight into small."23 Nor, did Einstein's commentator Hermann Weyl es the sovereign domain of one another's, creative, cognitive cape the "politically correct" grip of this same fa llacy.24 Ein processes. Let time pass, such that all of the members of that stein's movement away from the positivism of Ernst Mach, to illustrative classroom-case, are now participating in a great "crash program" science-driver teamwork, such as the U.S. Manhattan Project, or the German-American space program 23. E.g., Raum und Zeit (1907). There are usefully provocative implications in under the (relevant) brilliant logistics veteran of Lt.-General Russian mathematician Minkowski's scientifically flawed adherence to the cause of a compatriot, Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevski. The mathematical George S. Patton's U.S. Third Army, General 0. Bruce) formalist's shortfall in Minkowski's argument, was the subject of a paper by Medaris, and, later, the John F. Kennedy Manned Moon-land Dr. Johnathan Tennenbaum, "A Topological Shock-Wave Model of the ing imperative. The first thing which Johnny and Jimmy ought Generation of Elementary Particles," Executive Intelligence Review, Feb. 1, 1983. On Gauss's view of Lobachevski's Geometrische Untersuchun to have known, by no later than the time they entered this gen zur Theorie der Parallellinien ["Geometrical Investigations on the The crash program, is a few historical facts about modern "crash" ory of Parallels"] (Berlin: 1840), see a relevant remark by Carl Gauss to H.C. Schuhmacher, in concluding paragraph of a letter of Nov. 28, 1846: varieties of science-driver programs; this knowledge would Carl Friedrich Gauss-H.C. Schuhmacher Briefwechsel, III (Hildesheim help them keep their intellectual moorings amid the some New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1975), pp. 246-247. This is the location in times storm-tossed internal life of the kind of program they are which Gauss dated his own discovery of a non-Euclidean geometry to 1792, a relevant claim which is bome out by close examination of the plan entering. of action subsuming Gauss's Disquisitiones arithmeticae considered in en The first approximation of "crash" science-driver programs, tirety. Compare with Lobachevski's last published (1855) views on this was the 15th-century Golden Renaissance, inclusive of the subject, Pangeometrie (1858), which had first appeared in Russia about the time of Gauss's death. Provocative, but ultimately a fatal shortfall, is work of Filippo Brunelleschi and of Nicolas of Cusa's fo llow Lobachevski's use of spherical action, a less general consideration than ers through Leonardo da Vinci. The next notable example, is Riemann's [see footnote 12, above] "Wenn aber eine solche Unab the late-1 7th-century science-economy mobilization, under hiingigkeitder K6rper vom Ort nicht stattfindet, so kann man aus den Massverhiiltnissen im Grossen nicht auf die unendlichkleinen schliessen. France's Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. The th ird outstanding . . . As Leibniz warned, any such use of simply curved metric, implies the example, was launched in France, beginning 1792-1 794, un same ontological error against which we are warning here. Lobachevski, like Minkowski after him, was unwilling to make the final, crucial break with der the direction of Lazare Carnot and, his collaborator, and mathematical formalism, thus to enter, wholeheartedly, the domain of ex former teacher, Gaspard Monge. The next science-driver pro perimental physics. gram was that directed by Prussia's Alexander von Humboldt, 24. Hermann Weyl, Raum, Zeit, Materie (1918), and expanded English edition Space, Time, Matter (1922) (4th ed.) (New York: Dover Publications who, in collaboration with Carl Gauss, established Germany's [reprint], 1950). See, again, footnote 12, on the issue of this fallacy. 19th-century world supremacy in physical science. The next, 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 57 Chicago Historical Society IIWhen we pack togetherl so to speakl a large number of gifted and highly motivated professionalsl together with the technicans ' who assist theml we have created a fo rcing-chamber fo r the relatively highest ra tes of scientific progress: II Herel a painting by ' Gary Sheahanl depicting the scenel on Oec. 21 19421 whenl with key Manhattan Project scientists presentl the fi rst nuclear reac tor achieved a self-sustaining chain reaction. world-shaking "crash science-driver" leap in economy, was here earlier, the important thing, above all else, which they unleashed under the U.S. Presidency of Abraham Lincoln, came to know, was the principle of a Classical-humanist form which established the U.S. economy as the world's most pow of educational process)"t is their youthful attunement to that erful nation-state economy, and the most technologically ad process, which will make .them v.aluable recruits to the pro . vanced, during a period of approximately two decades.25 The gram they are now entering. " sixth "crash program," modelled directly on the U.S. prece Thus, when we pack togethe;, so to speak, a large number of dent, was the late 19th-century hitching of GermanY's world gifted and highly motivated profes-sronals, together with the leadership in science, to the development of a united Ger technicians who assist them, we have created a forcing-cham many's economy-driver, the expansion of its machine-tool ber fo r the relatively highest rates of scientific progress. This, design sector.26 on the condition that some unifying sense of purpose supplies The U.S. Manhattan Project and the Germany-U.S.A. aero a red thread of coherence to a c�mplex array of diverse, rela space "crash programs," can not be competently understood, tively more short-term/often ad hoc objectives. in any economic-functional sense, until we view them as out The connection of such science-drivers to the economy, is growths of a modern tradition which features prominently the essentially the fo llowing. earlier case-histories to which I just referred. So, situate our There is an essential, underlying equivalence between the Johnny and Jimmy, in the anteroom awaiting induction into a perfection of the design of a proof-of-principle laboratory ex new "crash program." periment, and the principle underlying a corresponding, en Nothing stimulates the creative scientific capabilities of the tirely new family of machine-tool designs. It is the perfected unblocked professional as much as a social environment in design of a proven, proof-of·principle laboratory experiment, which he, or she, is prodded to replicate virtually daily, floods which supplies the model of reference from which a corre of original discoveries, both old ones he, or she, had not sponding, new set of machinectboL designs is derived. Such a worked through ear.lier, but also a constant outpouring of new machine-tool-design principle, then assumes the ro le of an proposed solutions to both well-known and previously unsus hypothesis in generating a fertile' theorem-Iattice of beneficial pected ontological paradoxes. This is the environment for appl ications. which the suitable, earlier classroom experience of our Johnny Perhaps the most dramatic dem.onstration of this connec and Jimmy prepared their minds. From that classroom, Johnny tion, is the unpleasant fact, that, during the present century, no and Jimmy learned many particular things; but, as we stressed leading nation of modern European civil ization has generated an actual, net physical-economic profit, except under the im pact of large-scale military mobilizations, either in preparation 25. Anton Chaitkin, op. cit. 26. Ibid. for, or conduct of what is termed modern ."annihilation war- 58 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY , fare. m The vast economic waste, which military expenditure The points to be listed here, in summation of these illustra represents, is certainly not the source of this net physical-eco tions, are these. First, the source of progress in both the poten nomic profitabil ity. It is, rather, the spill-over of frontier tech tial relative population-density and demographic characteris nologies, from science, into the machine-tool-design sector, tics of family life, is that which Christianity identifies as the under conditions of fo rced-draft economic growth for national nature of each indivi9ual person, as made in the image of security, which is the source of profitability. In these cases, the God. That nature is expressed by that facet of cognition, which spill-over from the military into the civilian economy, results in efficiently links the individual personality to the "simultaneity an exceptionally high rate of improvements in design of prod of eternity," those cognitive processes by means of which ucts and of productive processes. The Germany-U.S. "crash" mankind hypothesizes the higher hypothesis. Second, estab space-program, had a famously similar benefit fo r the U.S. lishing forms of social relations which are appropriate to forc economy as a whole. ing the relatively highest rates of generation, and replication, of This in no way is an argument fo r war. Rather, it is a demon discoveries of both physical and Classical-artistic principles, stration of the fact, that, since the assassination of U.S. Presi produces an individual type which represents the relatively dent William McKinley, only under war-time or related condi highest degree of development of the moral character of the in tions of national urgency, are the economically depressive, dividual person, while it also ensures the relatively highest parasitical habits of Wall Street and similar carpet-baggers, rates of generation and efficient assimilation of scientific, tech held in check. If we could rid ourselves of the tyranny of those nological, and artistic-cultural progress. monetarist and kindred parasites (and their Federal Reserve Whether Einstein's General Relativity survives, or not, the System), who were the constituency for Presidents such as nature of Einstein's motivation in that matter, as de Paoli rep Teddy Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge, the people of the U.S. resents this, is the key which unlocks the treasure of cogni would never have experienced anything inconsistent with gen tion, and presents the greatest ration of its benefits to mankind eral and soaring economic prosperity, throughout the past cen generally. Rather than responding only to the goads of present tury as a whole. fa ilure, as when a devastating ontological paradox forces itself upon us, it were better to act out of a conscience governed by foreknowledge, including foreknowledge of those issues of 27. This is a definition exemplified by the notions of Alfred Graf von Schlief fen's Cannae: Th e Principle of the Fla nk, and also his design of the so principle which will foreseeably oblige us to abandon what called "Schlieffen Plan: "Annihilation" does not signify exterminating some we often cuddle as "our traditional culture." Prevent the disas large number of people, military personnel and/or others, but, rather, anni trous consequences of sins of omission now, before they be hilating the adversary's capacity needed to continue organized warfare, as the Confederacy was destroyed by the combination of Sherman's "ham come the ruinous sins of commission which bring our civiliza mering" right flanking attack and Grant's bloody "anvil." tion down. Frank Zullo/Photo Researchers "It was through the astrophysical methods of constructing solar-sidereal calendars, that man developed those methods of astro physical investigation, the which were then applied to develop, first macrophysical science, and, next supply, from astro physics, the methods of necessary and sufficient inference upon which a competent microphysics relies. II Here, the constella tion Orion in a moonlit sky. 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 59 ing processes, is between cognitive and non-cognitive processes (as the anti-entropic ordering of cognitive processes has been distinguished so here). The distinction among types of evidence, pertains to the ef fect of the inhering limitations of the human sense-apparatus, respecting the observation of ordering-relations among phe nomena. For example: How did a culture, living, for several thousand years in Central Asia, during a time the Vernal Equinox was in the constellation of Orion, construct an ap proximately 26,000-year equinoctial cycle? It was through the astrophysical methods of constructing solar-sidereal calen dars, that man developed those methods of astrophysical in vestigation, the which were then applied to develop, first, macrophysical science, and, next, supply, from astrophysics, the methods of necessary and sufficient inference upon which a competent microphysics relies.28 Once the requirement for a generalized Analysis Situs is recognized, the currently popularized views on scientific spe Figure 4 cializations must be subordinated, by placing the primary em EXPERIMENTAL DETERMINATION OF phasis upon efforts to master the nature of the combined inter THE ELECTRODYNAMIC CONSTANT relations among the nine cells defined by the just-described BY KOHLRAUSCH AND WEBER types and categories of evidence. Each of all possible permu Bernhard Riemann participated in the 7854 experimen tations of the nine cells, corresponds to an actually existing tpl determin<;Jtion of the electrod'yf)amic con�.tant (c) at experimental subject-area of generalized Analysis Situs. Sci G6ttingen University. His habilitation thesis of the same ence is then primarily located in that hypothesizing of the year, On the Hypotheses Which Underlie Geometry, re higher hypothesis which subsumes each and all of these per fl ects on the deeper considerations of geometry and mutations under a commitment to satisfy the requirements physical measure embedded in such experimental (sooner or later) of a single conception of universal ordering work. This schematic, from R. Kohlrausch and W. We principle. e ber's 7857 report of the experiment, diagrams th static The experimental basis for such a generalized Analysis Si electric discharge and measuring devices used to deter tus, is located within the domain of the science of physical mine the ratio of the mechanical to the electrodynamic economy: mankind's essential existential interrelationship measure of electricity. within the universe as, in every possible sense, an entirety. Contrary to popular science accounts, Riemann had That is to say, th� experimental basis for a competent general recognized the significance of the relationship of their notion, which distinguishes between what is, and what is not physical constant to the velocity of light in 7854, years to be considered "science," lies in the evidence of that "Great before Maxwell proposed his problematic interpretation. Experiment," the which is mankind's total relationship to the universe as a whole. The subject of science is mankind's will Source: R. Kohlrausch and W. Weber, "Elektrodynamische Maassbestimmungen insbesondere ZurQckfUhrung der Stromintensitiits-Messungen auf mechanisches ful relationship between the ordering of transformations within Maass," Leipzig, 1857. the universe, as correlated with both the increase of human potential relative population-density in the universe (relative to the Earth's surface), and the improvement of the demo 4. Generalized Analysis Situs: Simultaneity of Eternity graphic characteristics of households in the human popula The standpoint of Leibniz's Analysis Situs obliges us to reor tion taken in its entirety. ganize the presently popular notion of science according to These scientific ideas must incorporate the efficient role of the implications of a nine-cell matrix. We must divide the em "time reversal." "Time reversal" is to be understood, not pirical evidence of science among three types of processes, merely as foreknowledge in its simplest expression; the possi and the evidence bearing on all processes among three well bil ity of the efficiency of such foreknowledge within this uni defined categories. The notions of the three types, we derive verse, must be taken into account as showing us the neces from a carefu l scrutiny of the traditional distinctions among sary functional character of the lawful ordering of the non-living, living, and cognitive processes. The three cate physical universe. That man could exist, to command the gories of evidence, are astrophysical, microphysical, and universe to increase our species' potential relative popula macrophysical. tion-density, with accompanying improvement of the demo The relations among the nine cells so established, are or graphic characteristics of households, signifies that the willful dered as follows. The three types are distinguished by their respective differ 28. One of the best demonstrations of this point, is the history of the Ampere ences in internal ordering. The division between living and Weber discovery of the implications of the macrophysical angular force of non-living processes, for example, is implicit in the moment electrodynamics for understanding of the ordering of electrodynamic rela tions within microphysical relations on the scales of atomic and nuclear of transition from a living (anti-entropic) to a dead (entropic) physics. See Laurence Hecht, ''The Significance of the 1845 Gauss-Weber ordering of biological organization. The difference among liv- Correspondence," 21st Century Science & Technology, Fall 1996, p. 21 . 60 Fall 1997 215t CENTURY aspect of man's efficient relationship to the universe, is an in domain, and defi nes it as a self-bounded domain. God cre tegral potential embedded in the adducible design of the ated this universe, and bounds it, but, always and forever, laws of the universe. from the inside. This, as Leibniz rightly insisted, is the best of Once we situate science thus, there is no law of univer all possible worlds. sal entropy in this universe. The universe submits to There are no "yardsticks," of any kind, existing outside this mankind, only when man's command is intrinsically anti universe, this self-bounded domain whose limits are the si entropic. The law of the universe, in the only way we could multaneity of eternity. There exists no external place, from know its law, is the law of universal anti-entropy. The prin which an observer might contemplate the universe; there is no ciple of anti-entropy, so situated, is the fu ndamental princi deus ex machina. The universe can be known only from the ple of science. inside. The test of such latter knowledge, is securing the proof To grasp the more deeply underlying implications of this, of the existence of the would-be observer as an efficient actor extend the successful self-development of this "Great Experi occupying a necessary place within the universe which is to ment" forward and backward in time, without straining to be observed. That is to emphasize, that the first question the ward the non-existent "infin ity" which hesychastic fools seek would-be observer must address, is the question whether the to touch. The boundaries of existence of the universe, are not observer himself exists, the question which Rene Descartes so to be found in some distant past, some distant future, or, far, flagrantly fl unked. far away. Man's mind locates the actual boundary, as We know we exist within the universe, when we begin to Nicholas of Cusa did, in that which bounds hypothesizing the change that universe for the better, when we begin to realize higher hypothesis, which is Plato's notion of the Good, Plato's the inborn, special potential of the human individual, the notion of an efficient agency located within no lesser domain cognition whose power to make miracles fascinated our than the simultaneity of eternity. Johnny and Jimmy. Somewhere, in the higher reaches of hy If we but extend the process of hypothesizing the higher pothesizing the higher hypothesis, mankind is known to exist hypothesis respecting the relations internally characteristic as the kind of special creature whose innermost nature, of this universe, that hypothesizing represents a series of whose outermost efficiency,Johnn y and Jimmy were explor higher hypotheses. That sequence is time. If we treat this ing in the classroom. Man exists because man is needed. The "time" as any other dimensionality of a Riemannian uni nature of this need is obvious; man ·is deployed, as the agency verse, as Riemann's discovery demands that we treat time assigned to change this universe, from within: to improve it, so, then the ontological unity of time defines the series rep and, · in the process, to improve the moral character of the in resenting the Manyness of the universe as a whole as a One, dividual person, as Johnny's and Jimmy's moral character which Plato named the Good, and defines that One as the was being improved by the characteristics of the kind of relatively timeless, efficient existence, inhabiting and ruling good, Classical-humanist education they were enjoying in the simultaneity of eternity. The necessary existence, within that classroom. the domain, of the Good, as that existence is shown by the Economist Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., is a member of the sci characteristics of the domain itself, is that which bounds the entific advisory board of21 st Century. 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 61 Figure 5 ERATOSTHENES AND RELATIVE CONSTANCY OF EARTH'S CURVATURE Did Era tosthenes assume, in his experiment, that the arc defined by the difference between the two angles, corresponding to the distance from Syene to Alexandria, was a spherical one? Or did he take some precaution which gave him persuasive evi dence that the arc was situated in a spherical geometry? Compare the ratios among measured arc-inter vals (into which arc 5 ---7 A is divided by the plac ing of sundials), to the ratios of the differences in the angles subtending those arc-intervals. Th e construction of the experiment, shows that Era tos thenes designed the experiment in such an ax iomatic way, as to provide fo r a simple geometri cal determination of the relative degree of self-similar constancy of the rate of curvature along line 5 ---7 A. 62 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY 21 sf CENTURY Fall 1997 63 INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES P. VICK Why the Soviets Never Beat the U . 5 . to the Moon An expert on the Soviet space program discusses how recently declassified material confirms his painstaking discoveries over decades about why the Soviet hG"IJL� Union was unable to win the © 1991 LES P. VICK " EDITOR'S NOTE They were in fact planning it ahead of time. What is even The Soviet Union was the only nation besides the United more interesting is that when Kennedy made his speech, the States that ever developed the ability to put man into space. Russians did not completely understand what he was saying, The Soviets did it fi rst. But they could not sustain an effort of and it took them some years before they actually completely such magnitude, because they were not able to transfer new understood. Once they did, then they said, "Oh. Wait a technology from their civil and military space programs to minute. We've got to look at what we're doing." They were, the economy, as a whole. As space expert Charles Vick ex however, committed to other priorities. plains, the pie was limited in size by this fa ilure, and when the political situation changed, other programs took priority Question: let's go back further, to when the Soviets would over sending men to the Moon. Today, the Russians will have been first thinking about landing men on the Moon. doggedly try to maintain their space capabilities, Vick states, Their plan is rather self-evident, when you go back and look but time is running out. at their open literature, even back into the 1950s. You have to Russia today is at a crossroads. If the current financial poli consider the fact that the Germans had the idea, and the Amer cies, under the heel of the International Monetary Fund, icans also had the thought. It was in the general, open litera should continue, the one-time Soviet superpower will be rel ture going back before World War II. The Moon has always egated to Third World status, suffering been an interesting subject. the political and economic chaos that Their lunar program was more evident will result from such a devolution. once we started seeing the Russians flying After his most recent trip to Russia in unmanned lunar missions in the late 1950s April 1997, during which he traveled and early 1960s. Plus, their other public throughout the country to various space statements made it very clear that some fa cilities, Vick commented that the IMF thing was going on. But not until 1963 did policies in Russia "amount to economic we really have anything solid and official, tyranny. " One result, he observed, has bu i It arou nd a series of statements by been the meteoric rise of corruption and Nikita Khrushchev, that really revealed criminality, and the corresponding lack there was something going on. Ultimately, of available resources fo r basic economic you find that our side was looking for the reconstruction, or the space program. evidence, and not finding it, until August Vick, currently a senior research associ 1963, and we were not really certain until ate at the Federation of American Scien the fa ll of 1964. tists, has more than 35 years of experi ence in assessing Soviet space technology. Question: What was it that the United His technical drawings of Soviet launch 'States saw in August 1963? and space vehicles are known worldwide. Soviet space expert, Charles P. Vick. The beginning of the construction of the By applying his own creative powers to Baikonur Cosmodrome, of the TT-5, or analyze whatever paltry data were available from the Soviets what would become known as the J facilities. That's when the before 1989, Vick was the first to publish a drawing that recon first road work and stakes in the ground were going into place. structed the N- 1/L -3 Soviet manned lunar vehicle, at a time The National Intelligence Estimate of 1965, from the U.S. Cen when the Soviets were denying that they ever had a manned tral Intelligence Agency, which has not been released, reviews lunar program. this. It is mentioned in the 1967 National Intelligence Estimate Vick is now working to develop the seventh N- 1/L-3 book on Russian space programs, which has been released. This is length study. He was interviewed in July by 21 st Century Asso confirmed by the now-declassified reconnaissance film from ciate Editor Marsha Freeman, who is the author of the book the Corona camera. How We Got to the Moon: The Story of the German Space Even more interesting is the fact that when you compare Pioneers. their initial dates to what you see in the reconnaissance pic tures, there can be a wide gap between when they say con Question: The Soviets were the first in space, with the struction started and what the pictures show. This may be due launch of Sputnik 40 years ago. They had the first man in to the fact that, of course, they have to prepare the ground and space, as well. So, one of the greatest mysteries of the Soviet put the roads into the general area, and once they actually get space program is why the Soviets never beat us to the Moon, the ground prepared, then, they say, "Now we're really starting and why they still have not sent people there to explore. construction for real." But, in fact, construction had started When President Kennedy announced that the United States much, much earlier. was making landing on the Moon its goal, it would seem to Up to that point, frankly, America was looking for the evi be undebatable that the Soviets were likewise planning to dence and saying: "Are they going to give us a sporting race, have a manned lunar mission. Were they planning it before or aren't they?" We weren't seeing it in the literal sense. But Kennedy's announcement? Khrushchev tipped his hand about the same time as these thing were going on, so things had gotten started and we be A 1991 dra wing by Charles Vick of the N- 1 booster with its gan to see it. L-3 lunar payload, on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cos NASA Administrator James Webb, made statements in April modrome in Kazakhstan. and May 1964 in which he said he was not certain that they 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 65 were racing us at all. In a speech to the Missouri Cotton Pro and the space race. Our policy people hoped they would ducers Association in May 1964, Webb said, "There is some choose the space race, but they did not. evidence the Soviets are working on a larger rocket, but we cannot say yet for sure." But in an article on Oct. 14, Wa shing Question: Right after the war, the Soviets made the decision ton Post writer Howard Simons reports Webb saying, "there is that they would be developing rocket technology fo r military increasing evidence" that a new, super rocket was being read purposes. In August 1957, there was the first successful test of ied for testing, in the 1967-1 968 time frame. their ICBM, and then Sputnik, in October 1957. What were they doing on a lunar program in that early period, and what Question: So we could see certain activity, and then later approach were they taking to land a man on the Moon? Khrushchev started making public statements saying they From 1957, and even earlier, as far back as 1955, Sergei Ko were going to try to land men on the Moon? rolev [the chief designer of the N-1 booster and the manned His statements were very devious, and occurred in the fa ll lunar program] was doing design studies on a heavier-lift of 1963, when there was discussion by President Kennedy launch vehicle than the Sputnik R-7 booster, and the derivative about the potential for cooperative missions. In fact, Kennedy, fo rms of the R-7 booster evolved as the N-1 Moon rocket. A in August 1963, mandated a red uction in the level of con number of variations were also developed. The initial designs frontation with the Russians, and looked more toward cooper that Korolev developed were a multi-block vehicle, meaning ation with them. That was government policy. Many people multiple modules, much like the Sputnik booster. It has multi were circling the wagons to protect their projects, including ple pa rallel blocks. The N-1 had six parallel blocks and one the Apollo program at NASA at that time, because we had not sustainer block, and then booster stages on top of that. seen evidence up to then that the Russians were undertaking a lunar program. Question: What do you mean by blocks? Is that stages? But then Khrushchev made some statements that were not Yes. It was a multiple-stage vehicle, and then they added direct, but indirect, and there were arguments about whether upper stages to it. That was while they were doing design stud- they were, or were not, racing us to th� Moon, depelldil")g .on , ies, until abQut tbe· l. 961-1962 time frame. They were looking ' ' ' how reporters interpreted what Khrushchev said. And he' . ' at the rcicket engir1�s they were thinking about using. Those twisted it around and around. early rocket engi'n�s were open-cycle engines, which are not Ultimately, we ended up finding out that you have to look at as efficient as closed-cycle engines. the money: Follow the money and that tells you the truth. What was really startling to me, was the realization that the Question: Can you explain the difference? Russian budget, up through 1963� 1964, continued to rise for. In the open-cycle engines the actuation gas used to ru n the ' the lunar program. Then it became almost flat, through to turbo-pump; tbe $ubstance that actually makes the pump spin, about 1970, when they added about another 600 million is dumped overboard. It's wasted energy. In the closed-cycle rubles to it. And then, it dropped off from there slowly, system engine, that gas is dumped into the oxygen-rich thrust cham atically, until 1974, when the program was cancelled, al ber and burned with the rest of the fuel. The Soviets suddenly though remnants of the program continued through March rea lized in 1960-1 961 that they could develop those high 1976 fo r a manned circumnavigation, and manned lunar land pressure, closed-cycle engines and get a better launch vehicle. ing program. It's just amazing to rea lize that the budget went Using engines with increased efficiency led to a dramatic up to a certain point, then went flat. Whereas, if you look at change in the design of the N-1 . the strategic rocket area, the budget just kept right on skyrock When they compared the two different launch vehicles, us eting, much above that of the United States. When you realize ing one engine type versus another, they went to a different that the Soviets put the money into that program, and not into structural type altogether. They finished those design studies the space effort, you say, "Wait a minute. Is this a commitment officially in the July-September 1962 time frame. There are by the government, or isn't it?" quite vivid descriptions of that in the open literature, published In retrospect, the 1962-1 964 period was critical to the events at the time. They were fascinating. They were arguing about and decisions in the Soviet lunar program, as well as to com the logistics of the vehicle, and how you get it to the Cosmo mitments to the strategic rocket program. The advent of the drome, and how you manufacture it, transport it, and so on. U.S. Minuteman missile and Corona reconnaissance pro grams, forced the Soviets to make sti ll larger outlays to create Question: And that was published in the open literature? silo-based strategic ball istic missiles, with the ability to stay It was indeed. Part of it was published in The New York fueled in the ground, for a long time, in a ready state and with Times, and was very revealing. It described a booster that was a quick reaction time. The second-generation missile systems, 55.8 feet across its base, with the first stage 150 feet long, in for which they had appropriated money, were already out one design they were looking at. But they ended up breaking dated before they were deployed, and the Soviets had to de that up into three separate stages, because a vehicle that size velop a third-generation system, which we would see de would be exceptionally difficult to transport, in land-locked ployed in the latter part of the 1960s. Russia. As a result of the Cuban missile crisis, the legitimacy of the Soviet regime and the credibility of its strategic forces were be Question: Similar to the Saturn V? ing questioned. U.S. Defense Secretary and geopolitician In some respects, but the shape and design of N-1 is dramat Robert McNamara stated, after the Apollo announcement, that ically different from the Saturn V. The first three stages of the the Russians would have to choose between strategic systems N-1 actually constitute the first two stages of the Saturn V. The 66 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY first stage in N-1 has a Nova, enough altitude and clears the or super-Saturn/Nova-class launch facility. In this case, launch vehicle written all over the Soviets did not have that it, because its thrust was 10 built into the program. They million pounds-plus. There do now, in all their launch ve were 30 engines in its first hicles, but they learned the stage, at 150-1 54 metric tons hard way. thrust each, giving it more than Your heart just drops, when 10 million pounds of thrust at you watch that thing lift off, launch. By comparison, the during the July 3, 1969, test Saturn V first stage had five en launch. The N-1 rises up and gines, producing 7.6 million clears the tower, and then all pounds of thrust. the engines but one shut off The original N-1 design was and it just starts dropping of a somewhat smaller vehicle. back on to the launch pad. The N-2 derivative of N-1 Those engines were shut off would have used the upper automatically, because a fire second stage of the N-1 for its had developed in the engine first stage, then N-3 would bay from the explosion of one have used the third stage of the engine at lift-off. It's unbeliev N-1 as its first stage. That de able to see the fi lms of that. velopment was dropped, but should have been followed Question: I was unaware that through; they could have fin they were not able to static ished development of the up test those engines. per stages a lot sooner, having They did static-test-fire a already successfully static-test selected few of the engines. fired those in the late 1960s for They had a batch-production the N-1 . They were not able, capability. They'd produce ever, to static-test-fire the N-1 so many engines, and take X first stage. They did not have number of them and test fire the facilities for that. They do them. If they worked, they'd not have them even today. install the rest of the engines. That is one of the major rea NASA That's the way they did it sons that the first stage repeat President John F. Kennedy, in a historic speech before a joint with the first stage. The first edly fa iled in flight tests. It is a session of Congress on May 25, 7967, declared, /II believe stage was originally designed more catastrophic fa ilure in this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before for 24 engines, but had 6 ad fl ight than on a test stand, if it this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and return ditional engines added to it, fa ils the wrong way, and there ing him safely to Earth./I and then 4 additional Vernier is no infl ight destruction sys engines, for a total of 34 en tem, which the Russians, as a general rule, do not have. Their gines in the final design for the first stage. philosophy for inflight safety and destruction of the booster, if it fails, is very different from ours. Question: Didn't they look into using more efficient liquid hy Until after the second flight test of N-1, which took place drogen engines? on July 3, 1969, the Soviets did not have a procedure whereby They were looking at it and developing the technology, but they could keep the engines running, just to clear the facility, they were way behind the United States. Some papers were just before they allowed the booster to go on and fa il. They wiped released in Moscow on that, but I do not have them yet. We do out an entire launch facility when they let a fa iling vehicle know that Nikolai Kuznetsov, at his design bureau in Kyuby collapse on the launch pad in July 1969. The engines were on shev (now, Samara), was working on a hydrogen engine con automatic command to be cut off, if there were a problem, cept. M.A. Lyulka Engine Design Bureau, did successfu lly de just as it cleared the turn ing tower gantry. When the booster velop an engine, known as the 0-57, 0-57M, which was one fell back on the ground, it cratered the launch pad, as well as of the many engines that have been proposed. It was designed the underground, multiple-story building that was the support to be applied to an upper stage for N-1 . But the engines they facility for the vehicle. . actually tested all used kerosene for fuel, and liquid oxygen. The Soviets developed whole families of engines for the N- Question: How could have they avoided doing that? 1, and other programs. Many other engines were actually in They could have avoided that by keeping the engines on, in volved, wholly separate of the manned spacecraft. spite of the engines' fa iling. If the computer is programmed The first three stages of the booster are known as N-1 . When right, and it considers things in a certain way, it will not shut you get into the fourth and fifth stage, and then the lunar mod down the engines, for safety reasons, until the booster gains ule and the lunar orbiting spacecraft, and the big, huge shroud 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 67 taken up by the lunar samples. The lunar cabin, or module, in volved the Block 0 rocket stage-which on Proton is its fourth stage, and on the N-l is the fifth stage. Block 0 was designed to use a kerosene and liquid oxygen engine, RO-58M, to break the spacecraft into lunar orbit, and to refine that orbit, down to about 10 km above the lunar surface. Then, the Block 0 en gine, with the lunar lander on top, would fire for the last time, to start the direct-powered descent to the lunar surface. For the last 1.5 to 2 km prior to landing, the lunar cabin would have separated from the lunar braking module, Block 0, and done the final powered descent and maneuvering to landing, from about 1.5 km altitude, down to the lunar surface. Question: We had a lot of discussion in this country of how to do the Apollo landings. We considered Earth-orbit ren dezvous, direct descent, and lunar-orbit rendezvous. We de cided on lunar-orbit rendezvous. A Soviet technique, at that. Ultimately theirs wou ld have been lunar-orbit rendezvous, but it was also lunar-surface ren dezvous. As we understand it today, Korolev's last directions before he died in January 1966, would have involved at least two N-l launches and several unmanned Lunakhod launches also. Lunakhod, meaning "Moon walker," was a rover that the Soviets used, designed to accompany cosmonauts on explor ' ing the Moon. Korolev's program required multiple-launches, Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, in 1964, when and had backups all the way around for the entire mission. the decision was made to modernize Soviet strategic capabili The Americans did their own separate studies of Earth ties and lower the priority of the manned lunar mission. orbital rendezvous, direct, and lunar-orbital rendezvous. Lunar-orbital rendezvous ultimately turned out to be the best that goes over that, that's known as L-3. So it's called N-l/L-3, option. The Soviets themselves had done lunar surface ren for lunar missio'ns.The lunar part was a separate package and, dezvous, direct launch, Earth-orbital rendezvous, and, later, in fact, they parallel-processed both vehicles, the L-3 and N-l , lunar-orbital rendezvous studies. as separate packages, in order to process the vehi'Cie. But when the United States actually did it, and the Soviets From 1962 through 1967, the design underwent repeated sat down and looked at the figures, they considered our con changes. N-l was initially designed to deliver 45 metric tons of cept of lunar-orbital rendezvous to be particularly brilliant, to payload to low-Earth orbit. Then it was redesigned fo r 75 met quote Alexei Leonov. Only later did they-and we-d iscover ric tons, and then it edged up to about 92 metric tons, and, ul that a Russian had presented the concept many years before, timately, 100 metric tons, by 1972. and done the mathematics. They backed away from the Earth orbital rendezvous and direct concepts, and went instead to Question: That would make it comparable to the Saturn V? what became lunar-orbital rendezvous and lunar-surface ren Close to it. Saturn had a capability of delivering between dezvous, for themselves. 130 to 140 metric tons of payload to low-Earth orbit, and N-l That would have involved two different kinds of launch ve was comparable, but not as capable. This diffe rence in pay hicles. Prior to the N-l launches, they would have launched at load capability meant that the Soviets would have been able least one or two Lunakhod unmanned precursor surface-explo to place only one man on the lunar surface, not two men, as ration vehicles on the Proton rocket, and landed in the general we did in each Apollo mission. Their lunar module was de areas where they planned to do the manned lunar landing. The signed for merely one man, not two; it was very tight inside. unmanned Lunakhods would have acted as radio beacons fo r It was designed as a one-man lunar excursion module to go targetting the landing area. Then, the Soviets would have to the surface, and the vehicle was different from the way we launched an unmanned N-l , with full lunar equipment, and did it. landed a lunar module, or cabin, in that preselected area for In addition, the Soviets were launching at 50 to 51 degrees landing. That would have effectively provided an unmanned inclination to the equator out of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in vehicle, approximately 28 days before the next mission, and Kazakhstan, going north to skirt the Chinese border, not going the Lunakhods would have been able to inspect the lunar due east as we do from the Kennedy Space Center at 28 de module, to see that it was okay. The Lunakhods would then grees. That really cuts into the launch vehicle's optimum per back off from the site, in order to get pictures of the area. formance capability. Because they launch at such a high incli In the manned lunar mission itself, which was planned to be nation, they have to also do a plane change in order to go to launched 28 days later, the Soviets would have done a pow the Moon, and it takes a lot of energy to do that. ered descent with the Block O. That is, a constant burn, con The Soviet lunar-orbiting spacecraft was a two-man space stant thrust descent, in which very quickly, all of your forward craft. What would have been the third man's seat was to be velocity is lost and you come down almost vertically. This al- 68 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY APOLLOJ5ATURN-V � 1960 -66-11 NI-l)M J 9lt 74 ·6·8 o < NI "_ 3M , ,. J 9 7L· ,. -6 ·3 � BLOCK i C .Tl1 MO � a r o 0 a 0 Q G- I- e SL -15 SL-XITT-5 1"Z;, ". .54 CONCEPT Charles P. Vick Th is series of comparative diagrams of the Saturn V Apollo rocket and the Soviet N- 1 with its lunar stages, was dra wn by Charles Vick between 1978 and 1993, fr om the very limited open literature available to the public before the fa ll of the Soviet Union. lows you to see your landing point very precisely, and to ma stant-burn approach is a vertical landing profile that requires neuver to see the target, very early on. less energy, but can be far more dangerous. But they felt that they could do this, and had demonstrated the lunar module in Question: Because it's right underneath you? Earth-orbit in 1971 and 1972 quite successfully, through three Right. It's a near-vertical landing procedure. In the Apollo flight tests. The Block D was tested at least once in a fl ight test, program, we used a gradual, throttled powered descent to the besides its unmanned lunar missions, and Zond circumnaviga landing point, which is an elliptical approach. The Soviet con- tion precursor missions. 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 69 Question: Was this a direct descent, or would they have gone having double vehicles and unmanned launches before they into lunar orbit first? would send people. How did that change? They would have gone into lunar orbit first, and the lunar It changed because of economics and the limits of the pro orbiter would have been there along with the other [back-up] gram, and the problems they were having with the booster it one, the unmanned one, in the same general vicinity. Ren self. The Soviets actually had five flight-test vehicles, the first dezvous was required. Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov has said one of which was expected to be fl ight-tested in the August there was an incredible series of rendezvous required for the October 1968 time frame. As they built up to that fl ight test, lunar mission. There are two vehicles, and two rendezvous in June 1968, hairline cracks developed in the huge, first one on the lunar surface and one in lunar orbit-as well as stage liquid oxygen tank, and that first stage had to be canni one coming back from the lunar surface to rendezvous and ba I ized. So everyth i ng was delayed unti I Feb. 21 , 1969, dock with the spacecraft that is in lunar orbit. It's very compli when they finally flew the first vehicle. The United States did cated in that respect. not understand, or successfully interpret and detect, that But as far back as 1965, the Soviets knew from their guid launch. The British did, through national security facilities, ance people that they could land them within a 5-km ellipse but it was never accepted by the intell igence community on of the landing point on the lunar surface. That was the guid this side. So, in effect, the Soviets did a flight test, and we ance parameter they had to work with. By 1969, they had re didn't know it. duced that down to 2.5-km guidance quality. The cosmo nauts were required to be able to walk across the lunar Question: Was that first flight test successful? surface, with their lunar suits on, over to the back-up lunar It lasted through 40,000 feet, before the first stage fa iled, be module, if the first lunar module fa iled. They also looked into cause of engine vibration and the rupture of some propellant using a Lunakhod rover, which would carry a man across the lines, which created a fire. A false signal was then given by the lunar surface to the back-up lunar module. So it wasn't ex KORD [Engine Operation Control System], shutting off the en actly like landing one lunar module on top of another one, so gines. One engine had failed, and the control system was sup to speak; there was some distance between them. posed to shut off two opposite pairs of engines to maintain bal ance. This was an aerospike design. If you shut off an engine Question: Is the reason this is so much more complicated than on one side, you have to shut off the exact opposite engine on what we did in the Apollo program, the fact that their launch the other side. But when the KORD instrumentation failed, it capability would not have allowed them to take as much pay shut all the engines off. The booster began to break up from load along in one launch? the ta il end. Then the launch escape system pulled the space It's more the safety factor, in every sense of the word. They craft free at the top of the stack, away from the rest of the L-3 really did not trust their equipment that much. Rendezvous in portion of the vehicle, which started breaking up. lunar orbit really scared the heck out of them. They did a lot of But the first stage kept right on burning for some time, until it revisions and avionics work, as well as fo rward vision capabil went ballistic. I think the first and second stages kept right on ity systems for doing that. They would have the unmanned or going fo r a little while, until it didn't have any guidance system biting spacecraft as a back-up. It's the standard package that to guide it. The rest of it had all broken off. It's very dramatic to they had developed, crazy as it may seem. watch that arching fa ilure. You see it going fine, and then, The question becomes, once they had actually successfu lly poof! The launch escape tower pulls away from the booster, launched an N-1 , would Soviet First Secretary Leonid Brezh and everyth ing just starts coming apart. Then you finally see nev have given the orders to go with the manned lunar land range safety blow it up, several minutes later. ing, regardless of whether everyth ing else was in place? The bottom line is that, for political reasons, the mission would Question: What is an aerospike engine? have been conducted with one single launch, with no lunar The N-1 first stage was a very advanced propulsion concept. surface rendezvous available to it. In its original design, when it had 24 engines, they were atmo sphere-adapting aerospike engines, much like that being con Question: As the time got shorter, and they wanted to see re sidered fo r the Space Lifter X-33 concept that NASA is looking sults, they would have gone ahead and done it, without the re at, even though it has some technical problems-a lot more dundancy? than NASA understands at this point, I think. The aerospike at Right. That is what is indicated. Brezhnev was making de mospherically adapts and increases thrust as the atmosphere mands, and then, after a certa in point, the doctrinal policies gets thinner. changed in Russia; as detente developed, in the early 1970s, There is an Achilles' heel to the aerospike design, and the the lunar program really lost favor. One, the Soviet Union had Russians learned this the hard way, with N-1 , in two ways. lost the race, and two, the program was way behind schedule, One is the thermal load required to create a nozzle in which so since it couldn't come off, it wasn't worthwhile. Also, there you have multiple rocket engines burning on the outside. You were other programs that could be done that were already fly have a long nozzle that the expanding gas goes against, to cre ing, such as the Salyut space station, which evolved into to ate the thrust that you want. That nozzle has to be cooled. The day's Mir space station. thermal loads, the energy loss from that cooling in the aerospike design, veto any possibility of acquiring a better per Question: You've described a very expensive scenario for how formance capability out of the N-1 booster, compared to using the Soviets were planning to do their manned lunar program, six additional engines with standard nozzles on them. The So- 70 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY ;I SOVIETMANNED LUNAR MISSION PROFILE NI-L3S -)/cOK '6/r", (PD) LOK LOK-LK � \ Q �---=-- . "'LK� 1 2 NI-L3S Charles P. Vick The Soviet manned lunar mission would have used the fi rst three stages of the N- l (A, B, and Vat lower left) to gain orbital alti tude, and then the C stage to put it on a trans lunar trajectory. Block 0 would have taken the spacecraft into lunar orbit and then to the lunar surface. viets learned the hard way, that if you have too much surface exploded into fire. area fo r that nozzle, the energy lost in cooling actually vetoes You can see the fi re developing as the N-1 lifted off and the performance. cleared the tower. Soon after, the automatic control system There's also another aspect. shut off all but one engine. That explosion had, in fact, cut the When the Russians transitioned to the 6 additional engines lines that would have shut off that engine, so the engine in the center, within the 24 engines, they didn't make all the couldn't be cut off. That one engine tipped the N-1 over on its revisions required to preclude the entire engine boat-tail oper side, and it collapsed sideways and fishtailed, dropping back ating as an aerospike. That produced the aerodynamic effects on the facility and doing the tremendous damage that we have with the third fl ight test that were the hair-trigger that created seen in the declassified Corona photo reconnaissance pictures. that fa ilure. The gas was coming in from the sides of the The third fl ight test was on June 27, 1971. It lifted off and booster, as it rose up from the launch pad, and from the shock fa iled almost immediately, when an after-effect, a shock wave wave coming up from the bottom of it. produced by the acoustic gas pressure, travelled back up the During the second flight test, some debris-bolts, nuts, or vehicle-much as we have with the Shuttle-and sent the whatever from manufacturing-got into one or two of the en booster spinning about its center line. The interstage, between gines and caused a fire to break out in the fi rst stage. This hap the second- and third-stage structure actually broke, and the pened to a Space Shuttle main engine that blew up on a test top of the booster started fa lling off. As the booster continued stand in the late 1970s, and that's what happened in the N-1 to climb out, it gained some stability, but the whole L-3 unit engine bay, when the oxygen line ruptured and fuel dumped started fl ipping over. Ultimately, the front end broke off, and all over everything. Because everything was hot, the engine the booster broke up at that time. 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 71 Apparently all the launch-escape systems did work as they tary programs, through those years. should, and it is certainly very dramatic. Thank goodness that It's amazing they were able to do what they did. To a large it did work that way, because you wouldn't have wanted to be degree, when you look at the appropriations level, you realize around when that thing collapsed on the pad : It gouged out a that Korolev had challenged the leadership in Russia well oe 90-foot crater, about 20 km downrange. fore he died in January 1966, even before Khrushchev went I think the most dramatic pictures I have ever seen are the out of office. He said, "Are we going to do this, or aren't we pictures I saw in Russia when I was there in April 1997, of th'e going to do this?" The ultimate answer was, "Yes, we're going fourth, and fi nal, flight test of N-1 , on Nov. 23, 1972. It had al to do this, but this is all the money you're going to get. And most worked through the entire first stage burn; it failed i� the you're going to have to make due with that." That's the way it last few seconds, about 10 seconds after completing its first was done. They went on to do the work, and I'd have to say stage burn and going to the second stage. The programming that, so far as the government was really concerned, for all was such that it could not start the second stage, in spite of the practical purposes, there was no lunar race. first stage having fai led at the last minute, during the center en But the scientists themselves with the tremendous effo rt that gine shut-down procedure. There are 6 center engines and 24 they put out, at what became the Energia Company of today, outer engines, plus fo ur Vernier engines on this fo urth version actually turned it into a lunar race-a very close one, in a lot of the vehicle. of respects. "They had all the wrong fai lures at the wrong time, You watch the vehicle lift off; it's clean, it's beautiful, and and we had all the right ones," to quote Dr. Charles Sheldon, you can't believe how much fire and intensity of energy there former chief of the Science Policy Research division, of the is in the flame trench. The vehicle completely clears the facil Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress. If ity and the flame trench; the concrete is sti ll glowing yellow, the opposite had been the case, it may have been a very differ we ll after the vehicle has cleared the facility. I have never, ent picture. ever, seen anything like that before. That had to play hell with the concrete ...ju st the very energy involved in that Question: Were our failures early enough in the program so blast furnace. that we still had enough time to correct them? When they shut down the center six engines, there was a That's right, and we did thorough ground testing; which the propellant line that fed some of the gas generator systems on Russians were not able to do. They were able to test fire all the engines which ruptured. It started a fire that spread very the upper stages of N-1 and all the payloads, a�d flight test all rapidly. The severe pogo vibrations broke up everything at that equipment, as a general rule. But they did not have the that point. The vehicle failed, and the engines were shut test stands for the entire launch vehicle stack to be dynami down by the KORD engine control system again. The second cally tested, although they did it in subscale fo rlT!. They did all stage was not started. They never blew the booster up. They the testing in Korolev, formerly known as Kaliningrad, in the let it go completely ballistic downrange, some 200 to 500 Moscow area. They did test firings of the first stage at Zagorsk, km, and crash there. I'm sure some parts broke off, but a outside of Moscow, and then did other tests at Baikonur, large portion of the vehicle went all the way downrange, which is where they ended up building the boosters' first two crashed, and exploded. or three stages. The rest of it was built elsewhere in Russia, primarily Question: This answers the question of why the Soviets were Samara, and shipped by either air or railroad to the launch never able to send people to the Moon. What was the reason site. The first and second stages were built off-site at the Cos that in the mid-1 960s the money was not available for this mod rome inside the N-1/Energia assembly building. In fact, program? the facilities are still there and are available for use for the En You end up saying to yourself, "Was the lunar race real?" ergia booster. Yes, and no. It's a very ambiguous answer. There was clearly a In Samara, the Soviets destroyed a total of seven boosters. At greater priority than the lunar mission, and perhaps the Russ Baikonur, they destroyed six boosters, over and above the fo ur ian leadership felt that they had to keep the Americans in the fl ight test vehicles, plus the scrapped first stage of a fl ight test lunar race to keep them away from the strategic rocket game. If vehicle. They had ground-test vehicles and dynamic-test vehi they could keep us occupied with the lunar effort, it would cles. They broke three dynamic test stages at the Cosmodrome. make us divert a lot of fu nds that would have gone, perhaps, They are very proud of that. They broke them during structural into more strategic rocket or military programs. dynamic testing, to find the limit. And they broke the flight test vehicles, too. Question: But by that time didn't the United States have an overwhelming military superiority? Question: One of the incidents that, it is said, had an impact We had the superiority and the capability, and they didn't. on the lunar program, was the death of Korolev in early 1966. To a degree, they wanted to slow us down, stop us, and keep If Korolev had lived, it would not have made any difference us occupied. At the same time, there was no separation be in the lunar effort. The Soviets were two-and-a-half to five tween their military and space programs. Their whole space years behind U.S. developments, which we had already started program was based on the surge capacity boosters that they in the 1950s. Khrushchev started the space race, but one produced for the military. They were made available for the would have to legitimately say that he also ended the space space program because they were excess production. A num race, when the decision was made to put the appropriations ber of boosters were made available every year, and the space into the strategic rocket programs. program grew, over and beyond the already committed mili- But it is amazing what the Academy of Sciences and the 72 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY RSC Energia, Korolev, Russia An N- l test vehicle with the L-3 lunar stage on top, lifts off the launch pad at Baikonur, None of the fo ur test fl ights was suc cessful, Russians managed to accomplish-the sheer momentum of 1960s, early 1970s-to learn what is known as the "rough what Korolev and the Academy of Sciences had started, By the combustion curve," If certain parameters of design are outside time Korolev died in January 1966, things were beginning to this curve, you won't get rough combustion in the thrust cham come apart for him, Even if he had lived, they would not have ber; if the design parameters are inside, you will have rough beaten us to the Moon. N-1 would not have been ready on combustion, It took a long time to learn that. But the Soviets time, developed a very robust engine that is being applied to Ameri In terms of propulsion, the United States was already work can commercial launch vehicles today-NK-33 and the NK- ing on the F-1 -class engine and hydrogen/oxygen engines, 43-which could even stand rough combustion. which were used on the Saturn V, back in the 1950s. The hy You might ask, why so many engines? It was what was pos drogen work was done by Aerojet initially, and other work was sible to be developed in the time frame required. There was done by Pratt and Whitney. This work led to the J-2 engine, also a very severe argument between Valentin Glushko and which was used on the second and third stages of the Saturn V. Korolev. Glushko, who headed the Soviets' prestigious Gas Rocketdyne did the work on the E-1 engine, which was a Dynamics Laboratory, refused to build kerosene/LOX engines, buildup to the F-1 , at a half-million pounds of thrust. and would only build storable propellant engines for Korolev's Both countries had considerable problems with rocket en launch vehicle for the lunar effort. There were discretionary gines, kerosene/liquid oxygen, or LOX engines, because of funds available for storable propellant engines, for the military, rough combustion, We took quite a few years-until the late which was using storage propellants, 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 73 Mishin, was a General-Designer. Glushko became a General Designer of rocket engines. Vladimir Chelomei was a General Designer, who also had the UR-700/LK-1 competitive design to Korolev's lunar design. Mikhail Yangel was also a General Designer with his design bureau in Ukraine; he had the R-S6, based on the R-46 super-ICBM concept, another competitive design to Korolev's N-l . Yangel was initially developing the R-46 super-ICBM, as Chelomei was developing the UR-SOO super-ICBM "city buster," as vehicles this size used to be called. They were de signed for a 1 50-megaton warhead that was doctrinally in fa vor in the early 1960s. Chelomei's UR-SOO, later the Proton, won the contract; the R-46 was dropped. But then, the lunar contract came along. Khrushchev had de veloped this technique of having competitive contracts, sup posedly to get better designs. Initially, looking at the lunar booster, they had selected a booster for the program, but then the competitive boosters were presented midstream, when N-l was already under development and facilities were being built. At the same time, money was being spent on those compet ing programs, and wasted. The chief designers were literally out of control at that point, and the government did not rein them in, except that the R-S6 was dropped when Mishin, Ko rolev's successor, wrote letters complaining about it to the RSC Energia. Korolev. Russia Ministry of General Machine Building, which rarr the space Sergei P. Korolev, sometimes referred to as the Soviet Wern program starting in 1965-1 966, with the new Five Year Plan. her von Braun, was the chief designer of the N- l booster and This so-called competition was very 'destructive, because the manned lunar program. Toda y his design bureau is known people were not working as a single team, for a single goal, on as RSC Energia. a single vehicle. They were saying: "I'm going to work on this. He's going to work on that. Mishin can do what he wants to Question: What are storable propellants? do, but we're going to do our thing." I'm thinking about UDMH [unsymmetrical dimethylmethyl There also were the unmanned lunar programs, including hydrazinel and nitrogen tetroxide, storable hypergolics. They the automatic sample programs, and the Lunakhod program, can be stored in a normal environment chamber, but they're plus the Zond circumnavigation program. So there were more highly toxic and very harmful to human beings; they can kill than half a dozen manned and unmanned lunar programs in you, if breathed in. When UDMH and nitric acid come to progress at the same time, in very intensely competing organi gether, they explode instantly into flames. zations. Pure chaos. It made it very difficult for Mishin, who The other approach uses kerosene and liquid oxygen, LOX. succeeded Korolev as General-Designer of what eventually The LOX is cryogenically cooled, and the kerosene is storable became Energia, because he had all these competitors to the and can be super-cooled to a degree. The kerosene the Soviets N-l , and he didn't have the money he needed. use, which they still use today, is actually a derivative of gaso Mishin would make recommendations that they build test line. It's more gummy than our kerosene. Kerosene works quite stands for the first stage, or do testing, or put on certain kinds well with those engines. The differences are really very small, of instrumentation to be certain that the engines were perform as has been demonstrated in test firings in the United States. ing. Some of the instrumentation he was suggesting was very Glushko refused to develop kerosene engines because he advanced for rocket engine performance observation-much didn't think that a lS0-metric-ton thrust engine using of which we still do not have perfected, even today. Their kerosene/LOX could be developed. He essentially refused to computer technology was not the best in the world. Their in do it. strument control technology for N-1 was very advanced think ing, but it just was not right. It would have been perfected over Question: It seems that an important factor in the Soviet lunar time. I think with the fifth flight test, they would have finally program was the competition that was maintained and fos successfu lly flight-tested the booster. But Mishin never got the tered by the government between the different design bu support he needed for these efforts. reaus. How did this affect the progress of the lunar program? A lot of people said Mishin messed up the management and Few people realize that Stalin, a long time ago, gave the everything else. You have to realize that he had 2S-plus pro chief designers the right to refuse to do a project or be a part of grams dumped on him when Korolev died. And he had a lot of a project, without penalty. When a General-Designer is ap people reporting to him, directly. It took him a while before he pointed, it is a rank, a military rank, quite literally. And when began to delegate authority, and he got reprimanded by the they're appointed, they are appointed for life. They are gods. Ministry of General Machine Building for it. The actual devel There were the various aircraft design bureaus. Korolev was opment of N-1 was going at about the pace you would expect a General-Designer. The person who succeeded him, Vasily for development of a booster, looking at the limitations of the 74 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 75 ground testing that was permitted by the Ministry and the gov Question: That's why I was surprised to see that, even after ernment. our lunar landing, the Soviets continued to test the N-1 . So you end up saying to yourself, "Hey, the government, They continued to test it well after we had nearly finished the Ministries, and the political leadership are not putting the flying Apollo. Starting in 1970, they committed 600 million money in there, so they're getting what they're asking fo r, as a additional rubles to the lunar program, over and above the ap result." But Mishin became the fall guy, and by 1974, when propriations level, which was a total of 4.5 billion rubles from the doctrinal change in detente was beginning, the lunar pro 1960 through 1974. They were looking at an advanced lunar gram no longer had its place-as was the case geopolitically booster that would use hydrogen upper stages-a derivative and in terms of policy in the United States. Mishin was re N-1 design, that is in some of my illustrations. It was going to lieved of his job in March 1974, fired, in effect, in a hostile be used to create a lunar base, which could provide 30 to 120 corporate takeover, sanctioned by the Russian leadership. days on the lunar surface. That would have been possible by Quite brutal. 1980 or so, but the program was never committed. For a long time, Mishin has been very much criticized, and If the Soviets had continued N-1 development, I doubt that has been accused of being responsible fo r the fa ilure of the lu the Shuttle would have ever completed development. That nar program. In reality, he was an exceptionally intelligent would have changed the entire direction of our space efforts, deputy General-Designer to Korolev. One reason that Mishin both Russian and U.S. I doubt that Saturn V would have tota lly was not very popular, is that he tried to prevent others from gone out of production. working on their own hidden agendas, and to get all of them working on the assigned task. Question: Because we would have continued the lunar pro Glushko continued to fight Korolev even after his death. He gram? fought Mishin, looking over his shoulder. Roald Sagdeev, for The White House was very concerned about the continuing mer head of the Russian Space Science Institute, has a lot to of the N-1 program. The Nixon White House knew about the say about that in his book, Th e Makings of a Soviet Scientist. fourth N-1 launch vehicle fa ilure before the Kremlin did. I Glushko was an utter zealot, egoist, demagogue, and very de know that. The White House was clearly very concerned, be structive. He ultimately brought down Mishin and the lunar cause it would affect our space policy and what we were do program. And he even went so far as to write the manned lu ing. The Air Force and other factions wanted to go to a Shuttle nar program out of history, never acknowledging it-ignoring class vehicle, which the aerospace industry wanted. Industry it, as if it didn't exist. wasn't getting a lot of new, lucrative research and develop Soon after Glushko died in 1988, and when perestroika came ment contracts out of continuing Apollo. But if the Soviets had along, guess what? Mishin began to talk about the lunar effort. been able to launch their lunar program in the 1970s, we That's not all. As far back as 1981 , I did a lot of publishing in would have probably continued Apollo. the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology. One draw ing that I did there is infamous with the Soviets, because it ef Question: What was most striking to you in your trip to Russia fectively showed N-1 and said to Glushko: "Ha, ha. You want and the Baikonur Cosmodrome last April? to rewrite history, but this is what existed ." That drawing was The trip was an eye-opener for me. It's the second one I've published in the Soviet newspapers Pra vda and Izvestia. It's taken with the Friends and Partners in Space. The Baikonur not a perfect drawing; it's not dead right, but it actually shows Cosmodrome is being consolidated, and the older facilities, the N-1 . It was close enough to shake them up, because the which are 40-plus years old, are being abandoned. There is a book was at a big British and American book show, held in lot that is deteriorated; entire apartment complexes have been Moscow once a year. All the chief designers, including Mishin abandoned. But people are coming back to the Cosmodrome. and Glushko, went out and looked in this encyclopedia. "They You don't see much out-of-control military. Discipline is being declassified it!" It wasn't exactly right, but it really shook them maintained. up, no end. Two years ago, there was almost no activity inside the N-1/ Energia and Buran assembly buildings, but now they're mov Question: During the period of the Nixon/Brezhnev detente, ing in commercial activity, and the Soyuz and future Rus the planning began for the joint 1975 Apollo/Soyuz mission. booster. The Rus booster is a derivative of the Soyuz booster, But before that, there was a decision by the Soviets, in the ear called Soyuz-2, in fact. It is an improved, upgraded version of ly 1970s, to develop a series of space stations, largely for mili it that will be used in the space station. tary reasons. Didn't that become the focus of their manned They are refurbishing areas and consolidating into the activities? newest and the best, which is the N-1/Energia/Buran facility. The first Salyut station was launched in 1971 . That deci They have not gotten rid of the Buran orbiters, or the Energia sion was made in the fa ll of 1969, after the July 1969 launch boosters. There are two fl ight boosters available, although fa ilure. they need engines for the strap-on boosters. There are other ground-test elements associated with it there. They have a Question: And of course, in 1969, the Americans landed on complete dynamic test tower. It's practically brand new. The the Moon, so the race was over for all intents and purposes, N-1 facilities and the Energia facilities can eventually be re because getting there second was like not getting there at all. fined to accommodate the Rus booster and possibly, Ener Right, and with a program that was not as good, with not as gia/Buran. many people on the lunar surface. The Russians feel that nobody is going to abandon those ve- 76 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY hides totally, and not utilize them. They don't want to lose the Question: One major part of their activity today is commer capability, because they're looking toward the future and, I'm cial operations, and the other is the international space sta sure, not merely in Earth-orbit, but in lunar and planetary par tion, and, parallel to that, keeping the Mir operational as long ticipation, way down the road, when their economy gets bet as possible. How are the Russians positioned to carry out the ter. I respect that completely. Even the Russian Space Agency space program they have going on now? has tried to develop an all-new launch-vehicle fam ily of im They're not in the best of shape; that's for sure. But they are proved vehicles, as well as new ones, utilizing old ICBMs or systematically consolidating, in such a way as to be able to def newer ICBMs for space boosters, instead of throwing them initely support the international space station. The funding and away. They are offering them both commercially and for their the facilities will be ready for that. I saw a lot of feverish work own military and civilian space programs. going on to support that, at Baikonur as well as in Moscow, I saw some of the other facilities, including hardware that where work is being done on the Service Module. Proton you had never hoped to see in your lifetime, military rocketry launch vehicles are going to be available to launch various ele hardware. I saw the competitor to Yangel's SS-9 ICBM, and Ch ments of the station. They have more than enough of those, and elomie's UR200. I saw the R-26, which used to be one of the their commercial launches are being sold quite rapidly for Pro parade missiles, known as Sasin. I saw the R-7 ICBM, the old ton. They're selling the Proton booster like crazy, for commer Sputnik booster. You could see it even inside-the details, and cial communication satellite launches and things of that kind. the guidance packages. We went to mission control. It was a The Soyuz booster is also going to be used for that. The de beehive of activity. velopment of the Rus booster will almost certainly be guaran We went to TsNllmash, the Central Specialized Design Bu teed because of that. So, Samara will get the advanced Soyuz reau of the Institute of Machine Building. This is an awesome booster and its Molinya derivatives with various upper stages. fac ility, which is roughly equivalent to the Tullahoma Air The international space station work, the development and Force facility, Marshall Space Flight Center, Lewis Research construction of the individual modules, is continuing. We saw Center, and more, combined in one place. It's unbelievable that very clearly in Moscow, now that they are apparently re to look at this, how spread out it is, and what that facility solving the appropriations problems, or at least prioritizing does for their strategic as well as space programs. They do that. The Russian budget is actually falling, with tax collections primarily dynamic'acoustic, environmental, wind tunnel test some 45 percent short of the revenue needed for financing the ing-fu ll-scale testing. That's where all stages of the N-1 entire government. But the space program is a protected bud were tested, not only in a scaled version, but with full-sized get. It will get at least as much as it got last year. With the con hardware. Each stage was dynamically tested. They never solidation going on that I've seen, I think they will be able-or dynamically tested the fu ll stack, unless they did on the are positioning themselves to be able-with the help of the launch pad. commercial launches and the money they're earning from that, to accomplish what they say they are going to do. It's go Question: What did you see of the N-l ? ing to be tight, though, because some of the commercial activ I saw N-1 's interstage, between the first and second stage, in ity is independent companies that are not paying the Russian photographic form, undergoing dynamic testing. I also saw government, but may be contributing to the programs. photographs. I wasn't able·to see the model, but I saw two dif There are some direct contracts that are being paid from the ferent versions of N-1 's design-quarter-scale dynamic mod United States to the companies, which is really the only way to els, full-up vehicles-on which they did the dynamic testing. do things. Don't go through the Russian government to give They were very confident in their dynamic testing techniques; appropriations, as the United States learned the hard way this they did not worry about doing a fu ll stacked vehicle under dy last spring and fa ll, because that money might get diverted to namic testing, which we did with Saturn V. something else and never get to the Russian Space Agency. That is literally what happened in relation to the Service Mod Question: Did you see any N-1 hardware? ule, as I understand it, at least. Something has been done to Yes, I did. I saw some of the interstage truss structures. I saw address that issue and resolve it, and work is moving forward. many of the kerosene tanks for the fi rst, second, third, and fourth stages. I saw some additional structure where the six en Question: What reflection of their heritage from the Soviet lu gines wou ld sit on the engine boat-tail-the actual plate that nar program do you see in the way the Russians have tried to sits there and is the end plate of the vehicle, where those six deal with the June 25 accident aboard the Mir space station? engines sit. I saw the erector transporter that was used, al In a lot of respects, we are very lucky that they had the acci though it was revised to hand le the Energia. I saw the launch dent on Mir recently, because of what we can learn in order to pad at a distance, several thousand feet away. We were inside be ready for similar problems on the international space sta the N-1 assembly building, which is being used for Energia/Bu tion. I feel reasonably sure the Russians are going to resolve ran. As I said before, they are consolidating facilities in support that, solve it, and get it back on line. of the space station, and are putting the Soyuz booster in there. Their tenacity is unbelievable. You fix it. That's what we do They will be handling the Rus booster, and eventually, the N-1 also, whether we want to admit it or not. And Mir is a major, pad is going to be handling the Rus booster, too. All the Soyuz major technological accomplishment on the part of the Rus pads and the assembly building are going to be shut down. It is sians. Credit needs to be given accordingly. Even their lunar fasc inating that they are looking at the future and combining it program, which fa iled and was ultimately scrapped, has much all in one place. to teach us, and was a major accomplishment. 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 77 SPACE Pathfinder Discovers a New Mars by Marsha Freeman Continued from back cover Through the "eyes" and other scientific instruments on the Pathfinder lander and the diminutive rover, scientists are seeing yet another "new" Mars, one which will eventu ally reveal whether or not life developed there, and which will be an abode for human explorers who fo llow the ro botic explorers that have led the way. The Magnetic Phase of Mars One of the indirect ways scientists wi II learn more about the history of liquid wa ter on Mars, a prerequisite for life, is by understanding the magnetic properties of the soil and rocks on the planet. The element iron, which is the third most abundant element on Mars (after oxygen and si I i JPUCIT/NASA con), reacts strongly with I iq A mosaic made with data from the Viking orbiter of the Mars Pa thfinder landing site, Ares Va l uid water. The history of water lis. The landing ellipse is 60 by 120 miles, and north is up; it is 527 miles from the Viking on Mars is reflected in the iron landing site in 1976. mineralogy of the soil. The The mosaic shows the large outflo w channels that emptied into Chryse Planitia, as Ares Va l presence of diffe rent crystals of lis flo wed to the northwest from the southeast across the landing site. Th e channel fo rmed iron oxides, and the trace min from the release of water from the Martian subsurfa ce and fl owed across the surface, creating erals such as titanium that have the channels and the large islands (just to the south and northeast of the landing ellipse). precipitated in the water, will help geologists understand how much two weaker magnets. There are two dif been known to be the highly magnetized water there was, at what time in the his ferent arrays at different heights on the Martian soil. tory of Mars. lander, to attract salty sand grains on the A comparison between the magnet ar Permanent magnets carried on the lower, and wind-borne dust on the up ray on Sol 6 (Mars day 6 of the Pathfinder Viking landers were found to be satu per. The Imager on Mars Pathfinder mission), and on Sol 13, shows an accu rated with magnetic soil from the very (IMP) camera is transmitting images mulation of dust on the two strongest beginning of the mission. As a result, the back to Earth of the dust particles that magnets during that time. As more dust is Mars Pathfinder carries on it magnets of have accumulated on the magnets. attracted, scientists expect the pattern on varying strengths, including weaker These will provide the data on which the magnets to become clearer. ones that should not saturate so quickly conclusions about the magnetic phase Mounted on the IMP camera itself, is and should give a diffe rentiated picture of the Martian soil will be based. the Tip Plate Magnet Experiment, which of the magnetic phase of the Martian Diffe rent iron oxides have differing is one magnet embedded in magnesium soil and dust. magnetic properties, so by observing on metal. Because it is placed near the cam There are three different magnet ex which magnets the dust adheres, scien era's eye, a high-resolution image wi ll be periments on Pathfi nder: The Magnet tists will be able to determine some of possible, and scientists hope to be able Array Experiment consists of one block the essential properties of the dust. It is to determine if the magnetic grains align carrying two magnets of the strength hoped that it wi ll be possible to identify in chains, or do not form chains, again used on Viking, and another carrying the minerals responsible for what has giving them an insight into the particular 78 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY SPACE iron oxide that has been captured. Magnet arrays The third experiment consists of a (440 nm) magnet at each end of the ramp used by the rover to exit the lander. At some point, the Sojourner rover will return to the ramp and place the sensor head of its Sol 6 Alpha Proton X-ray Spectrometer on the magnetic dust collected on the Ramp Magnet. The spectrum will be recorded and compared with the spectrum of the general Martian soil. At a science briefing at the jet Propul sion Laboratory on july 10, Dr. jens Sol 13 Martin Knudsen from the Niels Bohr In stitute fo r Astronomy in Copenhagen, reported that pictures of clear patterns on the lander magnets would emerge in the fo llowing weeks. From the prelimi nary results, it appears that although the particles on the different magnets vary somewhat, the magnetic mineral seems to be the same; it is the mineral used in Sol 26 the memories of computer discs, maghemite, or Fe 0 . . . THE MAGNETIC PROPERTIES EXPERIMENT . 2 3 '. "No one knows how the soil on Mars The permanent magnets in this experiment are assembled to produce a bull's formed," Knudsen said. "Is it an ongoing eye pattern of attracted dust. The magnets depicted at the top are of the lower process today th rough the interaction magnet array on the Pathfinder lander on Sol 6, its sixth day on Mars. The with an oxidizing atmosphere and rock?" strongest magnet, on the right, shows slight evidence of dust collected. The The results from his experiment, Knud middle photograph, on Sol 73, shows a more pronounced pattern. The lower sen said, will help us to understand the set of magnets are mounted higher up on the lander, and on 501 26, show that evolution of the soil. "Are only the air more dust has been attracted to the magnet. borne portion of the particles magnetic?" Source: NASA. he asked. In response to questions from the press, Knudsen said that it would "not be The typical soil appears to consist of a timeters possible with Sojourner's instru easy to fi nd a terrestrial soil as magnetic mixture of drift and small dark gray parti ment, the rock composition is homoge as the Martian soil. I don't understand cles resembling the rock, indicating the neous. But it may be composed of fine how such a magnetic soil can be formed continuous soil-creating activity of the grained materials, that cannot be seen in such large amounts." The Pathfinder winds and weather on Mars. Some of the with the APXS. science team hopes to learn the answers rocks, appear to have pinkish or white Yogi appears to have a weathered during the mission. pebbles and crust, lacking the coloration coating, but also exhibits a fresh face to Mars's Changing Rocks and Soils associated with iron minerals. Scientists the northeast. Scientists think that the One of the primary goals of the suppose that these rocks are less weath planet-wide dust may be scouri ng that Pathfinder mission is to provide data to ered than the redder ones. face of Yogi, or that pieces may be frac allow the quantitative analysis of the ele The first target of the APXS on the turing off to expose a fresher surface. mental composition of the variety of diminutive spacecraft, was the rock Bar It is clear that the weather on Mars rocks and soils at the Ares Vallis flood nacle Bill, which was only a few feet conti nues to change the face of the plain. Scientists believe that many differ from the lander. The second was the planet. The Pathfinder engineers and pro ent kinds of rocks were washed down larger rock, Yogi, a bit farther away. ject scientists hope that both the lander into the plain from the highlands. The Barnacle Bill is typical of the unweath and rover will continue to operate as the Alph Proton X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) ered smaller rocks at the landing site. seasons on Mars change from summer to on the Sojourner rover has, so far, pro Upon examination of the spectra the fall and then winter, over the next few vided scientists with enough data to keep APXS sent back to Earth, scientists fo und months. In September, the Mars Global them busy for months, if not years. that the chemical measurements mir Surveyor will arrive at Mars, and will ob These data have revealed at least five rored what they could see in the pho serve from orbit many of the same phe kinds of rocks and soil in the immediate tographs. Barnacle Bill has two basic nomena Pathfinder has been observing vicinity of the lander. There are areas of kinds of spectra: one is soil-like deposits on the ground. drift that are pink in color, and most of (its barnacle-like appearance), and the This multilayered view of the planet the rocks are dark gray, and are less red other is the dark rock face. will continue to present a "new" Mars in color than the drift. At the spatial resolution of 1 to 2 cen- over the next year. SPACE 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 79 ENVIRONMENT Fight for the Fast Breeder Takes Off in France by Emmanuel Grenier ven in France, the country with the Ehighest share of nuclear electricity (80 percent), it is highly unusual to see a grassroots movement in defense of nu clear power. Nevertheless, that is what is going on around Creys-Malville, near Lyon, where the world's largest fast breeder reactor has been constructed. Superphenix, as the reactor is named, has been at the center of a campaign deal made before the parliamentary elec tions in June 1997. In April, the Socialist Party and the Greens signed a joi nt agreement committing their parties to shut down two major infrastructure pro jects in France: the Rhine-Rhone canal and the Superphenix. The canal is an important waterway between central Europe and the Mediter ranean countries, whose construction had just begun. Now the project is com pletely stopped. The Superphenix is a 1,200 MW fast The Committee to Save Superphenix is taking an aggressive approach to saving the breeder reactor, built jointly by French, world's largest fa st breeder, breeder technology, and advanced technologies in Italian, German, and Belgian electricity general. util ities. After many initial problems, it operated excellently in 1996, reaching a uses. It was then supported by all the po however, provided a new awakening for 95 percent reliabil ity rate. It is now con I itical forces that emerged from the the younger generation. These young demned to death by the Red-Green French Resistance movement, from the nuclear engineers have joined with local coalition, for purely ideological motiva Gaullists to the Communist Party. In the entrepreneurs, residents, and elected of tions. On June 19, the new French Prime 1970s, a massive construction effo rt led ficials in a "Committee to Save Super Minister, Lionel Jospin, announced be to the building of 54 nuclear plants, pro phenix," which is waging a peaceful fore the National Assembly that he will ducing 75 percent of French electricity. guerrilla war against the Greens. close the plant. Over recent years, as the generation The employment of 3,000 persons de Historical Support for Nuclear of nuclear pioneers has been progres pends on Superphenix, and the life of Until now, people working in the sively replaced, the situation has the Creys-Malville region is in great jeop French nuclear industry fe lt somehow changed. "Baby-boomers," who have ardy if the plant is closed. Moreover, the protected, unlike their colleagues in no experience of the fight necessary to fast breeder is only the fi rst domino: Af other countries. They relied on a general implement a new technology, are now ter Superphenix, the plutonium recycling agreement existing in the country, for the in command in the nuclear industry. Liv plant in La Hague (Normandy) wi ll be continuation of a strong nuclear industry ing under the umbrella of governmental threatened, and next, the nuclear indus as a science driver. After World Wa r II, support in the past, they never had to try as a whole. General Charles de Gaulle created the fight. This explains their failure in facing For the past year, in fact, the La Hague Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique today's political situation, where the plant has been subjected to constant at (Atomic Energy Commission), which led Greens were able to ambush the na tacks from the Green lobby. The antinu the national effort to master nuclear tech tional infrastructure. clear militants claim that a small cluster of nology, both for military and civilian The shock of the Greens' success, leukemia cases in the region was caused 80 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY ENVIRONMENT by effl uents from the plant. (This has been shown not to be true.) Greenpeace, which has vastly reduced its operations in France, has nevertheless dedicated a number of its irrational media shows to the La Hague plant, which it considers its highest priority in the country. There is also an offensive going on, jointly led by free-marketeers and Greens, to make sure that the next elec tricity utilities built in France will use gas as their fuel. Accord ing to them, gas is the least costly way of producing electricity. A Broad-based Fight In this situation, the members of the Committee to Save Superphenix under stand that they must now wage a fight at the highest level possible. In other words, they cannot be content simply with defending their own jobs, but must fight over the necessity of continuing the operation of the world's most advanced fast breeder, in the context of an increas ing use of nuclear energy, especially in Asia (China, Korea, Iran, and so on). The propaganda against the fast breeder has been so strong, and so per vasive, playing on the fear of plutonium and liquid sodium, that it is necessary here to remind American readers why France, Russia, Japan and India have planned and realized these kinds of nu clear plants. First, recall the context of the 1970s. That was the time of the "oil crisis," ma AEC nipulated by then u.S. Secretary of State Superphenix, the 1,200 MW fa st breeder reactor, built jointly by French, Italian, Henry Kissinger and his friends. At the German, and Belgian electric utilities, now condemned to death by the Red-Green time, the Malthusian Club of Rome ar political coalition. gued that there would be no more oil by the beginning of the 1990s. Hysteria burns." Does this sound like magic? Let neutrons of fission reactions, is trans reigned. In Belgium, it was fo rbidden to me explain: Imagine shipwrecked peo formed into plutonium. To achieve this use a car on the weekend. In France, ple on a desert island. It rains and every transformation, requires neutrons at high there was a maximum allowable temper thing is wet, except a tiny quantity of speed. Thus the word "fast" is associated ature of 19°C (66°F) in apartments. dry wood. They build a fire, but know it with the breeder reactor. In this context, nuclear energy ap will not last long. One clever person The breeder fu nctions like an ampli peared as the logical solution, as an ad thinks that, maybe, by putting some wet fier of natural resources, because it in vanced technology that would overcome wood arou nd the fi re, it wi II dry out. creases by 1 OO-fold the energy equiva a shortage of energy resources. France They try that, and realize that you can lent of the uranium reserves that can be then invested massively in this technol dry more wet wood than you burn dry produced in traditional light water nu ogy, but was not the only nation to do wood. clear reactors. This makes nuclear en so. As a result, the question of the These shipwrecked people had just ergy a renewable energy, whose fuel world's uranium resources came to the invented the "breed ing" of wood. They cost is relatively unimportant. In a fast fore. Far from being inexhaustible, ura can now consume all the wood on the breeder, the operating costs are mainly nium resources are relatively limited : At island, not only the small amount that is the salaries of the highly qualified men today's rate of consumption, there are dry. and women working on it. 60 years of uranium left. This is exactly what goes on in a fast Given this information, how is it the Enter, the Breeder Reactor breeder. Here, the dry wood is the pluto breeder has not met with success? The Then came the idea of the breeder re nium; the wet wood corresponds to nat first reason is, of course, the worldwide actor, which "produces more fuel than it ural uranium, which, submitted to the Continued on page 85 ENVIRONMENT 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 81 Letters has been exhausted-which is the oft you quickly, but the problem you were heard I ie that Lester Brown, of World discussing was too important, and could continued from page 7 watch Institute, is paid to promote. not be solved on the spot. As a member We do not disagree with some of the of [one of the United Nations interna world is a protein problem, not a carbo other issues you raise, but we recom tional environmental panels] , I read hydrate problem . The world produces mend that you look at the policies that your paper very attentively. plenty of carbohydrates, but it is short of caused the problems. For example, soil You are absolutely right in your protein. That is a crucial problem. fertility. Yes, soils in many farm belts, protest against dishonorable science, As for feeding the world, it's a mistake are degrading from lack of proper fertil but I don't think it is easy to differenti for the United States to export any food. ization practices (including trace as well ate dishonorable scientists from among When food is exported, it's at the expense as bulk minerals). Likewise, basic grains others. I am sure .that most of the scien of the soil capital. In the cultivation of the have shown a decline in protein content tists are sincere in their aims, and only soil there is a steady oxidation of the hu in recent decades. time and results of investigations can mus, which is the soil capital. In addition, These, and similar conditions, are all show whether those aims were true or each crop depletes some of the trace min associated with the takeover of national wrong. erai reserve. It is said that a soil is good food and farm policies by cartels of pri In my recent practice, I had a similar fo r 100 years, or 100 crops, because by vate commodity interests and their inter situation. We were preparing the sci that time, the trace minerals are taken out connected ·financial circles. ence plan [for one of the U.N. environ of the soil, the food quality goes down, Look at the policy crisis, in the case of mental programs], and a responsible and the trace minerals are not replaced another country, the dramatic example person for the program asked me not to by our modern fertilizers .. .. of Russia. There, the recent years of IMF insist on some points and corrections Harold N. Simpson, Biochemist free-trade "reforms" have driven food (although he agreed with them), because Chicago, III. production down so fa r (way below otherwise the Japanese would not give even the levels of the Soviet command money for some of the joint work. I was economy system), that malnourishment astonished and said that we made the The Editor Replies and disease are rampant. Last year, only plan for scientists, not for pol iticians. an average of 12 kg of ferti lizers were Maybe, I said, politicians wou ld give The Special Report in the Summer applied per hectare, compared to 99 money, but scientists would not join the 1997 issue makes the point that the Earth kg/ha, on average, in the years between plan if it would not be scientifically ar has the potential for food output fo r bil 1986 and 1990. The Russian Research gued and forrTlUlated. : .. lions more people, and this is strictly a and Project Institute for Agriculture r see another aspect of the problem" policy question. "Natural resources" for Chemistry reports that the losses caused also. True science is not needed now' in agriculture-soils, water, temperature, by this, amount to 90 million tons of our society of "global" consumption. To and so fo rth-can be "man-made." grain equivalent per year. preserve themselves and the possibility From this vantage point, we differ Last year, only 28 percent of grain for research, scientists often have to ad with your outlook in several respects. area planted was fertilized at all; this just to the consumption requirements in First, the world is not producing "plenty year it will go down to even 15 percent. two ways: (1 ) to pretend to solve the of carbohydrates," as you claim. The Depletion of the soil is 4.5 times greater "consumption" problem, but to use a real ity is that world food suppl ies are than the input of ferti lizer. large part of the money for fundamental deficient in all respects-whether calo science; (2) to frighten people and gov ries or proteins and other nutrients. In ernments by sounding the alarm around North Korea, 24 million people are in Another Scientist Speaks some problem .. .. fa mine conditions; similarly, there are Out on the Non-Science To illustrate my point, let's take the severe shortages in Central Africa. Food example of [former Soviet state] scien re lief can and should be mobilized ur Of Global Warming tists. My salary is a little more than $200 gently. per month, and my subordinates get two There is a worsening food crisis in the In the Summer 7997 letters column, to three times less. To continue our sci world today: an insufficiency of food we printed several letters from around entific work, we have to earn money in output and supplies (including storage the world sent to Dr. Robert Stevenson any possible way. As for me, I can do it and handling); an insufficiency of pro in response to his article "A n Oceanog with the help of my car, sometimes act duction potential (because of lack of in rapher Looks at the Non-Science of ing as a taxi driver ...but my subordi frastructure, maintenance of soil fertil Global Wa rming, " which appeared in nates don't have such a possibility. And ity, underpayment of farmers, and so the Winter 7 996- 7 997 issue of21 st Cen you understand that we are ready to in on); and the use of food control as a tury. Here is another letter, provided to vestigate any problem, provided it will weapon. us by Dr. Stevenson. It is from a scientist be paid enough to support our life and Bad policies have created this situa and university professor in a fo rmer So normal work. tion; there is not a lack of science in viet nation, whose name has been with Of course, this [country] is now an agriculture and biochemistry that could held. extreme example, but in principle, the be applied. And it is not true that the Several months ago, I received your situation is the same in all countries. physical resource base for agriculture 27st Century article. I wanted to answer Maybe we are too good for our time? 82 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY LEITERS ASTRONOMY REPORT Remembering Clyde Tombaugh by Dr. Charles Osterberg stronomer Clyde Tombaugh's recent Adeath was widely reported, and he was described as "truly one of the great men of science." Strange. His discovery of the planet Pluto wasn't even included in my trusty set of World Books, which seemed to give astronomer Percival Low ell all of the credit. I worked at Lowell Observatory from 1946 through early 1949, helping Dr. Earl Slipher, who was studying and photographing the planets, mostly the inner planets-Mars, Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter-a nd occasionally, Mercury. Pluto had been discovered long before, in 1930. I never worked at Lowell when Tombaugh was on the staff, but I was fa miliar with his work. On one of my first days at Lowell, as part of my education, one of the astronomers had ,set the paired photos (one of the sky before Pluto arrived on the scene, and one af ter) in which Pluto was d iscovered, on the blink comparator and let me see Pluto hopping back and forth. The as tronomer explained how these two pho tos (actually glass negatives, 14 by 17 inches) were handled by the optical ma chine-a primitive machine by today's standards. The blink comparator looks at one negative, then the other. Stars don't have much proper motion, so sl ides taken a few nights (or months) apart show no motion fo r stars. That is, you can overlay one plate on the other and look through it, and everything will be the same on each plate. But an asteroid may zip a long distance on the film in that period, Courtesy of Lowell Observatory as would some comets. As for a new Clyde Tombaugh 1906-1997 planet, it would be a much more modest Tombaugh, who discovered the ninth planet, Pluto, in 7930, died on jan. 77, 7997. jump from one night's position to one a He is pictured here at the entry to the "Pluto Telescope, " carrying a plateholder fo r few nights later. the type of large glass negatives that were used in the discovery of Pluto. Wonderful. If I have a planet or an as teroid or a comet, it will blow its cover But don't despair. It never happens And believe me (and Clyde Tom by jumping back and forth in the blink that way. Every dust speck, unless there baugh), there are lots more dust spots comparator. So all you had todo was is one exactly placed on the other plate, than all of the planets and asteroids put scrutinize all parts of the plate, and if will hop around too, giving you quite a together, more than all of the stars in the nothing was jumping, you didn't find thrill until you figure out that it's only galaxy. I'm a bit sorry to have thrown your planet, or whatever. dust. comets into this mix, because comets ASTRONOMY REPORT 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 83 look diffe rent-j ust hazy patches, some much larger V-2. Tombaugh was in storms, and cloud masses that occasion- times with an even fuzzier tail, rather charge of optical tracking at the launch- ally blotted out the planet's surface de- than a good solid blip, like a dust particle ing site, so he showed us all of this tails-the meteorology of Mars. or planet. equipment. Then, after looking at and My job at Lowell was to develop pho- A Passion for Pluto talking telescopes (and' rockets) all day tos and help out where I could. Since I Tombaugh, fresh off a Kansas fa rm, long, after supper at his house, he took liked the job (while going to college too) knew nothing about blink comparators (I us out into his backyard, where he had a and wanted to keep it, I made myself as think ours was a Zeiss, made in Ger rather large telescope and dome set up useful as I could. One thing I did was to many), but you can bet your hide he for his own enjoyment. learn how to set the right ascension and knew lots about them after spending I came away from my years at Lowell declination so I could have the tele- countless hours looking at new plates as and my small amount of time with scope already set on Mars (or whatever he shot them. It must have been tough to Tombaugh convinced that if he hadn't Dr. Earl was working on) when he re- keep the faith, that there was actually a found the planet Pluto in 1930, it turned after supper. One night I had the planet up there somewhere waiting fo r wouldn't have been found for a long telescope set on Mars, awaiting the boss. him to discover, and what boredom time, as that work was truly tedi.ous . C\nd . Seymour and I had been taking turns • ' , . ' . . �"., � ., , .. .. f' _",1' " . , v ,_ � there 'was looking at every piece of every it' took a believer to keep after iL Clyde: "' rOcikingthr ough it, and commenting on plate. And when I used the machine, it didn't get enough credit. They even how little we could see, when Dr. Earl was quite easy to rest your head and named the planet Pluto, with its symbol showed up. "How's the seeing?" was his close your eyes; then the gentle jumping PL, ·in honor of Percival Lowell. He and"" fiist question. Seymour and I allowed as of the machine, chasing dust spots back Clyde made quite a team. Both extremely it looked pretty good-at least Mars and forth, could easily put you to sleep. persistent, Percival very cerebral and wasn't hopping up and down because It was a mechanical device, not elec Clyde, perfect for the job, a dedicated of turbulence. tronic, so it gave a lulling meshing sound Kansas farm boy, determined to earn his Dr. Earl (I call him by his first name be- as it worked. Clyde was of sterner stuff place in history. My neglig�nt Wo rld cause his older brother, Dr. Vesto, also ' th�n I, a�d stayed awake and pursued Book overlooked a worthy discoverer. worked at Lowell) looked for maybe 30 the plates with a passion. life on Mars seconds without comment, and then he ' But it was all Percival Lowell's idea. I My few years working at Lowell Ob- enthused, "Oh, something remarkable can sti ll remember the quote from Low servatory were an experience I couldn't has been going on down south of the ell on his mausoleum-or was it on a buy anywhere. For example, Lowell had Syrtis Major. That certainly has changed plaque on the 17-inch telescope? Lowell written Life on Other Worlds, and was a from last year .. Remarkable." Naturally, had written, "It means a planet out there, believer, as were his closest fo llowers. Seymour and I had to take a look at this stitl undiscovered by man." And if that Not just "Iife on Mars," but intelligent remarkable development. Nothing. Mars isn't enough, there is the mechanical life, capable of modifying the surface of was about the same size and color as the computer he used to predict the pres a planet enough that the three senior as- red eraser on my pencil, and with about ence of a planet and its probable loca tronomers on the staff could see changes equal detail. Seymour and I compared tion in the sky. Now talk about primitive, in the canals through the telescope. They notes later, and we were convinced that that mechanical computer wouldn't fit in nearly convinced me, but I co�ldn't see Dr. Earl was putting us on. your pocket or even on your desk. You what they were seeing and couldn't Then Dr. Lampland came in, stomping had to be a math major to use that one. quite take that last big jump and join in the cold. "How's the seeing?" (If you Lowell qualified; he was fresh from them. Fortunately, none of the old-guard want to be an astronomer, that seems to teaching math at Harvard. astronomers lived to see NASA destroy be the question to ask.) "Intermittent, A. Lawrence Lowell, president of their dreams and beliefs. good, and bad," said Earl, "take a look." Harvard for many years, had the 17- Dr. Seymour Hess was a young man Dr. Lampland studied Mars for about inch telescope specifically designed for at the observatory. Seymour had just 30 seconds, and then, in a voice ringing the Pluto search, and gave it to the ob completed his PhD. on the meteorology with elation, said: "Look at what is going servatory. Without it, Clyde would have of Mars at the University of Chicago. I on south of the Syrtis Major. That is so b�en severe ly handicapped; the new helped him with the brainless, tedious different from last year." telescope could plot more of the sky stuff. Dr. Earl had taken most of the Seymour and I assumed the two old than any other instrument available to plates of Mars with what he considered guys (both in their late 60s or 70s) were Clyde. the best telescope in the world, our 24- setting us up. But we gamely asked for Clyde Tombaugh came to Lowell Ob inch refractor, built by Alvan Clark. Most another look, and, sure enough, there servatory on a visit, where I met him. He of the other pictures of Mars used in was the red eraser of my pencil, just as invited most of the staff over to the air Hess's thesis had been taken with a bor- before. base near Las Cruces, New Mexico, to rowed telescope in South Africa, when The next day I went into Dr. Earl's of- see the launch of the last of the captured Mars was in close to the Earth, but in fice, and, since he didn't appear too German V-2 rockets, used to bomb Lon southern skies. I'd use a planimeter to busy, I confessed that I couldn't see any- don in the last part of the war. Then, af measure the area of the polar ice cap thing through the telescope the previous ter it went up, they fired one of the first (more likely frozen CO2 than ice) on night, at least nothing that looked like American-made rockets. It too went up, Mars, and Seymour related a bunch of the globes of Mars with canals and stuff but was not nearly as impressive as the the visible changes to circulation, dust in our display cases. 84 Fall 1997 21 st CENTl)RY ASTRONOMY REPORT Dr. Earl sm i led sympatheti yourself to see, to really see, I cally, and asked gently, "Did think you will become a be you ride a bicycle the first time liever too." you tried?" But I never did, and I don't "No, sir, it took a few tries." think Seymour did either. But I "Yet, you expect to see canals will say that those older on Mars on your fi rst try?" astronomers could discuss "Yes sir. I've been seeing and changes in the planet that indi looking at things all my life. Why cated they were both describing shouldn't that include canals on the same phenomenon, what Mars? I didn't see any, and I ever it was. It must have been have real good eyes. I was a telepathy; that's what Seymour sharpshooter in the army. Be and I believed. sides, I've been read ing and, the Charles Osterberg, who re oretically at least, you shouldn't tired from the Department of see them even if they are there Energy in 7985, graduated because they are so thin." from Northern Arizona Univer Dr. Earl walked me to the sity, taught high school biol back door of the building and ogy, and then received a Ph.D. pointed over at Mt. Elden, about in oceanography from Oregon 10 miles away. Can you see that Author Charles Osterberg State University. He became cable coming down from the top involved in gamma-ray spec of that tower?" And he pointed toward can be seen when you would say they trometry of the oceans in the late the top of Mt. Elden. shouldn't be. Lowell's eyes were espe 7950s, working at the Atomic Energy "No, sir." I could barely make out the cially sharp." Commission laboratory, fo r the DOE, tower. Then he chuckled. "There are lots of and at the InternationalAtomic Energy "I can see it in the telescope, even astronomers who don't bel ieve in Agency's international laboratory of though, like the canals, it is too thin to canals on Mars. Old Professor ... from marine radioactivity in Monaco. be seen theoretically, " and he accented Wilson Observatory didn't, but he came Osterberg is a member of the board of that last word. "We spent a lot of time here once, and, seeing them, he now the Society fo r Environmental Truth, and here looking at cables and wires like believes. Charles, the only people who this article is adapted fro m his column in that through our telescopes, and ex believe in canals on Mars are those of the March-April 7997 newsletter of the tended images like a cable or a canal us who have seen them. If you train society, The Torch. leaders came to look upon breeder reac der to make sure that the nations pos Environment tors as useless. This is the same kind of sessing the greatest oil reserves behave. Continued from page 87 linear reasoning that led bankers to Of course, there is nuclear fusion. But plunge into real estate speculation, with with the freezing of the budgets for the breakdown of the nuclear industry. The results that are obvious. International Tokamak Experimental Re number of reactors built was much The situation today presents the artifi actor (ITER), and the U.S. fusion pro smaller than predicted; uranium was not cial view that there is as large a uranium gram, the realization of advanced fusion in demand. In fact, uranium prices went reserve as is wanted. But this is untrue. technologies will be pushed far to the down when post-Soviet Russia dumped The Greens revel in pedantic propa future. its enriched uranium on the world mar ganda about "future generations." Let's What is left? Renewable energies? ket. take them at their word, and see what These do not permit sustaining the needs Second, the Greens concentrated all the perspective wi ll be for the grandchil of modern industrialized societies, with their forces against the breeder, which dren of today's decision-makers, some an acceptable economic and environ appeared to them as the "lead duck": If 50 years from now. (The reasoning here mental cost. Therefore, in the long term, they cou Id stop the breeder, they is from a European standpoint but it re the fast breeder is absolutely necessary. thought, they wou ld stop the rest of the mains more or less true for other devel For this reason, the fight to defend Super nuclear industry. The Greens succeeded oped countries.) phenix is not a fight to defend nuclear first in the United States, duri ng the In 50 years, North Sea gas will be energy per se, but one for the continua Carter administration, then in Germany, completely exhausted. Uranium prices tion of the fast breeder option, and the and now in France. will have increased greatly, making nu continued introduction of more ad The Long-term Perspective clear power hardly competitive. As for vanced technologies. In a situation where policy-makers are oil, it may be necessary to wage "bloody Emmanuel Grenier is the editor of the thinking on a very short-term basis, and little wars"-like the one Margaret French-language magazine Fusion, and where very specific conditions permitted Thatcher, Franc;:ois Mitterrand, and the newsletter Industry and Environ gas plants to be competitive, energy George Bush waged against Iraq-in or- ment. ASTRONOMY REPORT 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 85 BIOLOGY & MEDICINE Intact Tissue StIt ructu re Acts As Tu mor Suppressor in Breast Cancer by Colin Lowry NORMAL, MALIGNANT, AND REVERTED BREAST EPITHELIAL CELLS Th is confocal fl uorescence microscopy shows how normal tissue architecture acts to suppress malignant cells. The normal cells are at left, the malignant cells in the center, and the treated cells at right. Left (1): normal cell colony (5- 1 cells) with nuclear stain (gray) and actin fi laments (white). (2): normal cell colony showing lo calization of cadherins and catenins at cell-cell junctions. Center (1): Malignant colony (T4-2 cells) with nuclear stain ,and actin filament stain. (2) : Malignant colony stained fo r cad herin and catenins. Right (1): Reverted T4-2 colony after treatment with Beta 7 integrin antibody, with nuclear and actin staining. (2) : Reverted colony stained fo r cadherins and catenins. The reverted cells show cell-cell adhesions, actin filaments, and cell shape similar to the normal cells at left. ost research on cancer assumes The breast cancer experi ments at cells-as long as the normal tissue archi Mthat genetic mutations determine Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, tecture is maintained. The signals from whether a cell becomes malignant. This described here, have shown that the the extracellular matrix of the tissue is part of the dogma that the genetic con restoration of signals from the normal tis override the cancerous genotype. tent (genotype) determines the pheno sue environment can cause malignant This work challenges the basic as type, or behavior of a cell. Recent breast cells to revert back to a normal pheno sumptions about the development of cancer experiments have challenged this type. These experiments demonstrate cancer, and has prompted scientists to view, and offer another approach to that cells that wo uld otherwise become investigate the importance of the tissue treati ng breast cancer that uses intact tis mal ignant, because of the presence of environment in determining .the pheno sue structure to eliminate malignancy. genetic mutations, behave as normal type of individual cells. 86 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY BIOLOGY & MEDICINE Cells in a tissue are signalled to grow Laboratory in California, have been in and dropped out of the cell cycle. or to differentiate to carry out a specific vestigating integrin-mediated signalling The malignant cells (called T4-2) did function by cues in the extracellular en in breast cancer. Their initial experi not form normal acinar structures, and vironment that are received at the mem ments involved characterizing the differ instead formed large, disorganized brane by a variety of receptors. In this ences in growth and behavior between colonies of rapidly growing cells, which way, the behavior of an individual cell is malignant and normal cells in three-di failed to differentiate. The T4-2 cells did regulated at the level of the tissue. mensional culture, which was devel not secrete an organ ized basement Integrins are a fam ily of protein recep oped in order to mimic the process that membrane, and their actin cytoskeleton tors that mediate interactions between occurs in the developing breast. Instead consisted of random bundles of fila the cell and the extracellular matrix. The of culturing the cells on a flat surface in ments. Also, cell-cell junctions were dis integrins are composed of two subunits, one layer, the cells are dispersed within organized, with a loss of cadherin one alpha joined to one beta. There are 8 a mixture of proteins normally present in catenin complexes, as well as the loss of beta and 15 alpha subunits that can com the extracellular matrix, that constitute a functional adherens junctions with the bine to fo rm 21 different receptors, each basement membrane. The ECM material ECM. with a distinct binding specificity. These provides the cultured cells with the cor The expression and localization of in receptors span across the membrane, and rect signals fo r differentiation into a nor tegrins were found to be completely dif have a cytoplasmic tail inside the cell mal polarized epithelial tissue. The cells ferent between the S-1 and T 4-2 cells. and an extracellular domain on the sur then have a three-dimensional environ The normal S-1 cells had basally distrib face that can bind to various proteins. ment in which to migrate and grow in uted beta 1, beta 4, and alpha 6 inte Individual integrins are involved in cell this culture system. grins, and basolateral alpha 3 integrin adhesion, and may receive signals from The two epithelial cell lines used'were expressed on the cell surface. In con the extracellular matrix (ECM) that stimu from a breast sample of a nonmalignant trast, the T4-2 cells had these integrins late cell migration, growth or differentia lesion, with the malignant cell line the randomly distributed along the cell sur tion. On the cytoplasmic side, the integrins resu It of a spontaneous genetic muta face, as well as 'some integrins' improp interact with proteins associated with the tion. When grown in simple two-d imen erly localized in the cytoplasm. Also, cytoskeleton through their tail. The signal sional culture, both the malignant and the T4-2 cells overexpressed beta 1 inte received at the surface is transmitted the normal cells had similar growth grin, while underexpressing beta 4 inte through the cytoskeleton in order to,alt er rates, and failed to undergo differentia grin, increasing the ratio of beta 1 to the cell structure; which may directly tion. However, when grown in three beta 4 on the surface by almost three transmit the signal to the nucleus. Integrins dimensional culture within a basement fold. also interact with important regulatory en membrane, the two cell types displayed Was the malignant behavior of the T4- zymes called ,kinases, which are involved very different behaviors. 2 cells linked to the changes in the ex in determining how a signal is amplified or The normal cells migrated together to pression of the integrins? If so, could the processed in the cell. Although the various form a spheroidal structure, called an restoration of correct integrin signalling integrin receptors are involved in different acinar structure, similar to that found in from the ECM cause the T4-2 cells to re functions, they all generate very similar the secretory epithelial cells in the vert back to a normal phenotype? The signals at their cytoplasmic domains, so breast. They underwent differentiation, next set of experiments tested this hy the processing of the signal by the cell de and the shape of the cells became polar pothesis. Using an antibody that inhibits termines the final response. ized . The cells also secreted the ECM the binding function of the beta 1 inte Tumor cells undergo several changes proteins laminin and collagen IV on the grin, the two cell types were treated with in order to metastasize throughout the basal side, contributing to an organized this antibody, and grown in three-di body. First, the tumor cell must alter its basement membrane. To examine the mensional culture in a basement mem adhesion to the extracellular matrix so as internal architecture of the cells, fluores brane. The normal S-1 cells reacted to to detach from the original site. Then, it cently tagged antibodies reactive to pro the beta 1 integrin-blocking antibody by needs to migrate and penetrate through teins that make up the fi laments of the undergoing massive programmed cell the adjacent ECM to get into the blood cytoskeleton, were introduced into the death (apoptosis). vessels. Because integrins mediate stable cells and viewed under the microscope. In many differentiated cells, contact adhesion within tissues, and provide sig The normal cells (called S-1 ) displayed signalling from the ECM is required for nals which arrest the growth of differen an organized actin filament cytoskeleton maintenance, and the disruption of the tiated cells, malignant tumor cells alter associated with adherens junctions at signal usually causes the cell to undergo the expression and localization of inte the membrane-ECM interface, as well as apoptosis. In the lactating breast, after grins on their cel l surface. cell-cell junctions containing the normal weaning has ended, the ECM is broken As breast cancer develops, the normal cadherin receptor complexed with down by proteases, which leads to dis tissue architecture is disrupted ; tumor catenin proteins. The cadherins are an rupted integrin signalling, followed by cells lose their cell-cell junctions, along other class of membrane receptor pro cell death in the secreting tissue. with the polarized cell shape character teins that are involved in cell-cell adhe The T4-2 cells did not undergo apop istic of the differentiated epithelial tissue. sion, which require catenins complexed tosis in response to the beta 1 integrin The Berkeley Experiments on the cytoplasmic side in order to make blocking antibody. Instead, these cells Scientists working in the laboratory of stable junctions. Once the S-1 cells dif assumed a morphology like that of the Dr. Mina J. Bissell, at Berkeley National ferentiated, they became growth-arrested untreated S-1 cells, and after 12 days in BIOLOGY & MEDICINE 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 87 culture, had formed acinar structures tissue to differentiate into mammary ep However, integrin signalling is coord i composed of polarized differentiated ithelial cells, reconstituting the ducts nated with many other signalling recep cells. Amazingly, the T 4-2 cells had re and structure of the normal mammary tors, such as the cadherins, and the cell verted back to a nonmalignant pheno gland. interprets these signals as a whole, be type ! The reverted cells had normal actin Differentiation of a cell requires fore determining a response. cytoskeleton organization, cadherin and changes in gene expression and regula Tissue Structure as Tumor Suppressor catenin localized with functional cell tion, which is directly influenced by the Experiments done by scientists in Mina cell junctions, and the establishment of interaction of receptor signalling at the Bissell's lab in 1990, inj ected active adherens junctions with the ECM. The membrane. Another example of the ef oncogenes into chick embryo cells, to cells organized into acini also were able fect of ECM-receptor signalling on gene see if normal tissue structure could sup to basally deposit laminin and collagen expression is the case of the secretion of press the development of malignancy. IV onto the basement membrane, as did milk proteins by mammary cells. Mam These cells were identified by molecular the 5-1 cell acini. mary cells respond to hormonal signals markers, and appeared as normal cells To see if the reversion was permanent, that induce the activation and expres in well-formed tissues. When these cells or the result of changes in signalling from sion of genes for milk proteins only if were removed from the embryos at a the culture environment, the reverted they are in contact with the basement later stage, and placed in culture, they T4-2 cells were collected and re-cul membrane. rapidly transformed into a malignant tu red in the absence of the beta 1 i nte While it is clear that signals coming phenotype. grin-blocking antibody. Without the an from the ECM through integrin receptors The research on the role of signalling tibody treatment, the T4-2 cells returned play a role in gene regulation, the exact from the ECM through membrane recep to their malignant phenotype. mechanisms by which it carries out this tors presents a challenge to the view that After showing that the T4-2 cells could function is partly unknown. The cy genotype primarily determines the phe be reverted to a normal phenotype in toskeleton seems to be an important notype of a cell. The experimental evi culture, the scientists implanted anti member in signal transduction and gene dence presented here shows that the tis body treated T 4-2 cells into mice to see regulation. Experiments mechanically al sue architecture, and the signals from if the cells would remain nonmalignant teri ng cell shape have shown that the ECM, determine the phenotype of in a natural tissue environment. Interest changes in the fi lament networks inside cells. It may be that an intact tissue ingly, the reverted T4-2 cells had re the cell can directly influence gene ex structure is the most powerfu l tumor duced tumor potential in mice as com pression. Inside the cell nucleus, areas of suppressor of al.l . These studies have pared to untreated cells. chromosomes that are active are often shown the importance o(looking at the Tissue Signals Determine Phenotype attached to the protein matrix that is con interaction between a cell and its tissue The reversion of the mal ignant T 4-2 nected to the nuclear membrane. The in environment, in designing approaches cells to a near normal phenotype by termediate fil ament network of the cy to treating cancer. blocking beta 1 integrin fu nction is a toskeleton has been shown to interact startl i ng resu It, cons i deri ng that these with the proteins of the nuclear mem References ------ cells have genetic mutations in several brane. Changes in cell shape, or stress F. Berdichevsky, R. Wet;zels, J. Taylor-Papadim itriou, et aI., 1994. "Integrin Expression in Re growth-control genes. This indicates that on the cytoskeleton may induce changes lation to Cell Phenotype and Malignant Change the tissue architecture of the ECM dic in the nuclear matrix, which can directly in the Human Breast," Molecular and Cellular Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 255-274. tates the phenotype of the residing cells, affect the activity of chromosome areas Differentiation, N. Boudreau, Z. Werb, and M.J. Bissell, 1996. overriding the genotype, as long as the interacting with the matrix. "Suppression of apoptosis by basement mem cell-surface signalling network is able to Integrin receptors that are activated by brane requires three-dimensional tissue orga nization and withdrawal from the cell cycle," receive the proper signal. The results of binding to proteins in the ECM, form a Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. Vol. 93, pp. 3509-3513. these experiments emphasize that inte complex on the cytoplasmic side with G. Edwards and C. Streuli, 1995. "Signalling in ex grins are part of a large integrated signal many proteins that interact with the cy tracellular-matrix-mediated contral of epithelial cell phenotype," Biochem. Soc. Trans., Vol. network involving the cytoskeleton, the toskeleton. The tail domain of beta 1 in 23, pp. 464-468. membrane, and the nucleus. tegrin can bind to the proteins tensin, al F.G. Giancotti and F. Mainiera, 1994. "Integrin-me diated adhesion and signalling in tumorigene Previous experiments by other scien pha actinin, and talin, which bind to and sis," Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, Vol. 1198, tists give us insight into the dynamic re organize actin filaments. For stable ad pp. 47-64. lationship cells have with the extracellu hesion to the ECM, the cytoskeleton C. Roskelley, A. Srebrow, and M.J. Bissell, 1995. "A hierarchy of ECM-mediated signalling regu must be organized locally to the adhe lar environment. A critical experiment lates tissue-specific gene expression," Curro done by Propper and Gomot in 1973, sion site. The change in one area of the Opin. Cell BioI. , Vol. 7, pp. 736-747. tested whether developing cells could cytoskeleton affects the overall structure M. Takeichi, 1995. "Morphogenetic roles of classic cadherins," Curro Opin. Cell BioI., Vol. 7, pp. be programmed to differentiate into spe within the cell. 619-627. cific types by the extracellular matrix of Integrins also recruit kinases and phos V.M. Weaver, O.W. Peterses, F. Wang, and M.J. a tissue. The researchers took embry phatases to propagate a signal within the Bissell et aI., 1997. "Reversion of the Malig nant Phenotype of Human Breast Cells in onic chick epidermal cells, and inserted cell. For example, beta 1 integrin can ac Three-Dimensional Culture and In Vivo by In them into the mammary stroma of a rab tivate focal adhesion kinase which can tegrin Blocking Antibodies," J. Cell BioI. Vol. 137, No 1, pp. 231 -245. phosphorylate other proteins and en . bit, which had the rabbit epithelial cells K. Yamada and S. Miyamoto, 1995. "Integrin trans removed. The chick epidermal cells zymes, changing their conformation and membrane signalling and cytoskeletal control," were directed by the ECM of the rabbit activating or de-activating their function. Curro Op in. Cell BioI., Vol. 7, pp. 681-689. 88 Fall 1997 21 st CENTURY BIOLOGY & MEDICINE PEDAGOGY LEONARDO FOR YOUNG SCIENTISTS Light: 'That Which Most Elevates the Mind' by Susan We lsh Figure 1 LEONARDO'S SKETCH OF THE VERTICAL GLASS PANE "Perspective is nothing else, " Leonardo wrote, "than seeing a place behind a pane of glass, quite tra nsparent, on the surfa ce of which the objects behind that glass are to be dra wn. Th ese can be traced in pyramids {what we would call cones} to the point in the eye, and these pyramids are intersected on the glass pane. " Source: Atlanlicus folio 1 v down" with a camera obscura, or has observed how an oar looks bent when it enters the surface of a stream, can tell you that our eyes play many tricks on us. Like the prisoners chained in the cave in Plato's The Republic, we see only shad EIRNS/Susan Welsh ows on the wall; what "reality" is, is At a party celebrating Leonardo's 545th birthday, participants test out the vertical something for the mind to determine glass pane. It is made with empty picture fra mes, propped up on either side by blocks not the senses alone. of wood. The eye of the viewer must remain stationary; he looks through a peephole The study of optics confronts one with that has been drilled through a narrowpiece of wood, which is attached to a wooden a multitude of paradoxes. This makes it a stand. The student draws directly on the glass with an erasable marker. particularly useful subject for scientific pedagogy, because, as Lyndon LaRouche, The fi rst part of this series (Summer Why did he think that? Jr., has elaborated in many published lo 7997, p. 81) introduced the work of the One could imagine many reasons. The cations,l human creative discovery takes Leonardo da Vinci Science Club in Lees most obvious, is light's beauty. Not just place when the mind grapples success burg, Virginia, which conducted weekly its natural beauty, but the higher beauty fu lly with a paradox: a clash between classes from October 1996 through April which the artist creates, when he uses one's previous axiomatic assumptions, 1997. Th e students were six- and seven light in a painting to illuminate the hu and an undeniable reality that cannot be year-olds. Part 1 dealt mainly with geom man soul and to convey a conception of explained according to those axioms. etry; Part 2 takes up another of the Divine. The precious few paintings Our classes with these young chil Leonardo's fa vorite subjects, optics and by Leonardo that have come down to us, dren were a small step in the direction the science of perspective. give abundant evidence of that. of such a pedagogy. Our purpose was Another reason, is the very devi I ish to engage the children's minds in un mong all the studies of nature, way that light behaves. How can we derstanding that such paradoxes exist, ALeonardo da Vinci wrote, "light know truth? Through our senses, as the and imagining how they might be over chiefly delights the observer" and "ele empiricists say? Not at all! Any child come. We did not fo llow Leonardo lit vates the mind of the investigator." who has "turned the world upside erally, but relied upon him as our muse, PEDAGOGY 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 89 Figure 2 THE CAMERA OBSCURA To build a camera obscura, you will need: • Large cardboard box, big enough fo r child to sit inside. A box that a large household appliance comes in works well. • Small cardboard box, about 6 inches deep • Masking tape or duct tape • Piece of white tracing paper • Aluminum fo il (1) Assemble the small box: Cut offthe bottom and replace it with a piece of tra cing paper, fa stened with masking tape. The top of the box should be open. (2) Cut out a small square of aluminum fo il, three or fo ur inches on a side. Poke a hole in the center with a pin. Enlarge the hole slightly by wiggling the Outside view pin around just a bit. (3) Cut a hole about one inch square in the large cardboard box, at the level of a child's fa ce when sitting inside the box. Tape the square of aluminum fo il over this hole, so that the pinhole is in the cen ter. (4) Tape the small cardboard box securely inside the large cardboard box, over the pinhole. Use duct Foil with pinhole tape to cover any cracks that would let light in. i: I (5) Using duct tape, cover up any cracks in the Cut-away side view large cardboard box that would let light in. Yo u wiil be able to find these easily if you climb inside the box. You want light to come into the camera obscu ra only through the pinhole. (6) Take the camera obscura outside on a sunny day. With the Sun behind you, point the pinhole in the direction of a scene that is well illuminated. Brightly colored objects (or people), with sharp con trasts of dark and light, work best. .' "', (7) Climb inside the box and give your eyes a fe w minutes to adjust to the dark. Looking at the screen of white tra cing paper, you will see the image out side projected onto the screen, upside down and backward. (8) To get the clearest, brightest image possible, experiment with enlarging the pinhole slightly. What happens if the pinhole gets too big? If the image is very dark, make sure you do not have light leaking into your box throLfgh cracks. whose genius and enthusiasm provided drinking straws and pipe cleaners, they spective cannot be overemphasized. It is unity to a class series that touched on viewed a slide show, which included not just some technique for "making many diverse subjects. We did not at many of Leonardo's beautifu l drawings things look real"; it is one of the most tempt to teach the complex science of of the Platonic, Archimedean, and other important scientific discoveries in world optics, either as Leonardo understood solids, prepared in collaboration with history. As Karel Vereycken points out, it, or as it is understood (or misunder master geometer Luca Pacioli. The chil in an excellent article in Fidelia maga stood) today. That would be a much dren took turns holding their own solids zi ne,2 it was the development of per more ambitious undertaking, appropri in the beam of light from the slide pro spective as a science that gave rebirth to ate for an older age group (and requir jector, thus projecting the outline of the civilization in the Renaissance. Among ing a teacher better qualified than this solid onto the screen, where Leonardo's other achievements, it took mankind author, so far, is). drawing of the same shape was also pro from the age of craftsmanship, to the age The Science of Perspective jected. They enjoyed "giving Leonardo a of industry: It was no longer necessary to Let us start where we left off, in the test," to see how well he had drawn the build wooden models of artillery pieces previous article: with geometry. After the shape in perspective. or machine tools, for example; they children had built Platonic solids out of The importance of the science of per- could be built straight from drawings. 90 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY PEDAGOGY Leonardo's drawings of machines are a case in point. The Renaissance discovery of perspec tive has a further important dimension. It cannot be approached by the rules of Euclidean geometry, by normal "class room mathematics," because it is a phys ical geometry, a geometry of processes in nature. Our perception of an image involves the physics of I ight, the mor phology of the eye, the physiology of the brain, and, uniquely to human beings, the cognitive fu nction of the mind. It should thus come as no surprise to find that the Renaissance artists' exploration of perspective is inseparable from their celebration of the glory of God and His creation, and their depiction of man in , the image of God. Following our Leonardian slide show, came a fo ur-week series of drawing classes. In one class, instructor Susan Ulanowsky took the children outside, and had them "measure," with index fin ger and thumb held before their eyes, the apparent height of a person standing Figure 3 10 feet away, then 20 feet away, then 30 LEONARDO'S DIAGRAM OF' THE PRINCIPLE OF THE CA MERA OBSCURA feet away. What happens? Is the person The object is abcd (written backwards, on the top line). From it, rays go really getting smaller? Ah, our eyes are through the small hole mn, cross, and then diverge onto a sheet of paper, st. playing tricks on us! Yet our brain tells The image is reversed from right to left, and is upside down. us that the person has not really shrunk, but is fa rther away. How interesting! Source: Manuscript D, folio 8r How do we draw that? Leonardo approached the problem, in ors, but much smaller; and they will be which could be explored in depth, in an a first pedagogical approximation, for his upside down by reason of that very in expanded "Leonard ian" curriculum for students, by use of the "vertical glass tersection. These images, being trans children. Our introduction to the sub pane" (see photo and Figure 1). mitted from a place illuminated by the ject was brief.3 The first paradox that surprises one, in Sun, will seem as if actually painted on We began by asking who could ex using this device, is how small the image this paper, which must be extremely thin plain what a lens is. Nobody was quite is on the glass, even when the subject and looked at from behind. And let the sure. Someone suggested that lenses yo u are drawing is not far away, and little perforation be made in a very thin make things look bigger. Well, let's see: looks "about the normal size." Try it plate of iron." We used petri dishes and watch glasses yourself, and see if you can figure out In our class, we made camera obscuras (marketed as an overpriced kit under the why that is so. out of cardboard boxes large enough fo r label "Edible Optics") to make concave The Camera Obscura a child to sit in. The students enjoyed and convex lenses out of jello, then Another delightful paradox, is that pre "turning one another upside down" (after shone rays of light through the lenses to sented by the camera obscura ("dark confirming that it did not hurt}, and draw see what would happen. While the enter room"). This device (Figure 2) was used ing the inverted image on a piece of tis prise was amusing, the lenses produced by artists before Leonardo, in their study sue paper placed inside the box. were of about the quality you would ex of perspective and the behavior of light. How does it work? Figure 3 depicts pect from gelatin, and at least one child Here is how Leonardo describes it: Leonardo's understanding of what is go became so preoccupied with her desire "An experiment, showing how objects ing on. There is some resemblance to to eat the jello, that her concentration on transmit their images or pictures .. .. what goes on in the eye, but only as a the lesson faded. Perhaps this feature of The images of illuminated objects pene first approximation. The eye of a living the curriculum should be scrapped-es trate into a very dark room by some creature is far more complex than a pecially if the class is close to lunch-time! small round hole. Then you will receive camera obscura, as Leonardo knew very Next, we explored another kind of these images on a white paper placed well. lens: a glass of water. Try this experi within this dark room rather near to the Reflection and Refraction ment, suggested by Leonardo: hole; and you will see all the objects on The reflection of light by mirrors and "If you place a ball of glass fu ll of wa the paper in their proper form and col- its refraction by lenses is a vast topic, ter in front of the eye, all the images of PEDAGOGY 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 91 He asked himself, are the colors of the rainbow created by the eye of the viewer, as many people believed in his day? He devised ·an experiment that de composed a beam of sunlight into its fu ndamental colors, and displayed the spectrum on a screen. This convinced him that it was not the eye which pro duced the colors (Figure 4): "How the eye has no share in produc ing the colors of the rainbow. Place a glass fu ll of water on a window sill so that the Sun's rays will strike it from the other side; then you will see the aforesaid colors formed in the impression made by the Sun's rays that have penetrated through that glass and ended on the floor in a dark place at the foot of the window. And because here the eye is not exerted, we can evidently and with certainty say that such colors do not have anything to do with the fu nction of the eye." Isaac Newton is generally credited with having done the fi rst experiment showing that refraction through a prism decomposes light into the colors of the spectrum. In fact; as this experiment shows, the credit belongs to Leonardo. Another question Leonardo posed was: Does everybody see the same rain bow in the sky, or does each see a differ ent rainbow, depending on where they are standing? Neither I nor my students are fu lly pre pared to answer that one. For one thing, you seldom see ra inbows in this part of Figure 4 the country. (In my youth, I saw lots of LEONARDO'S EXPERIMENT TO SPLIT UP LIGHT them. Is it a question of geography, or INTO THE COLORS OF THE RAINBOW have rainbows become a victim of the Above, the eye looks at a ra y of light directly through a glass of water; below, "post-industrial society"?) But then, early a beam of sunlight shines th rough the glass and the colors of the spectrum are this summer, I heard a shriek from the projected onto a screen below. Leonardo concluded fro m this experiment, backyard, where my son was watering that it is not the eye that produces the colors. the lawn with a hose:, "Mommy, come quick, I made a rainbow!" I saw it, and Source: Windsor, folio 19150r he saw it. And, we're pretty sure we caught a glimpse of Leonardo there, too, objects that pass through it will appear will be inverted, but the tiny image of looking over our shoulders. upside down; and if you place 2 [glass the more distant lamp "inside" that glass In the next part of this series: conic balls full of water) one behind the other, will be rights ide-up. sections and conical growth patterns in the images of the first will appear to the Rainbows living orga nisms. eye to be re-erected into their natural di Finally, we had some fu n with rain rection." bows, with the help of instructor Elijah Notes------1. See, for example, Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., Instead of glass balls, use a brandy Boyd. "How does a rainbow come "Why We Must Colonize Mars," 21st Century, glass or other glass with a fa irly round about?" I asked one child. Her answer: Winter 1996-1997, pp. 23-25. bowl. Look through these at a lamp. The "Jesus makes a big soup, and stirs it up, 2, ''The Invention of Perspective," Fidelia, Winter 1996. second, re-erected image is tricky to see 'and takes green from the grass, blue from 3. Useful resource books on optics for children in at first: You have to fi nd the quite small the sky, all the colors, and that's how clude Bernie Zubrowski, Mirrors: Finding Out image of the glass that is farther away you get a rai nbow." After I recovered About the Properties of Light (New York: Mor row Junior Books, 1992), and Robert Gardner, from you, in the bowl of the glass that is from that one, I told the children what Investigate and Discover Light (Englewood closest to you. The image of the glass Leonardo thought about it: Cliffs, N,J.: Julian Messner, 1991). 92 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY PEDAGOGY BOOKS Little Science or Reason, Just Population Reduction by Dr. Malcolm Ross coal and other energy interests." Betrayal of Science and Reason . PAUL R. EHRLICH Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich Dr. Michaels does rece.ive flinds to Washington D.C., Corelo, Calif.: Island support his research laboratory from var Press/Shearwater Books, 1996 ious organizations, public and private, Hardcover, 335 pages, $24.95 but he does not bend his science to suit a client. If he did this,.other investigators Ow does one review a book whose BETR(�lA YAL] could easily expose it, by poin'ting out H authors believe that there is no rea errors of fact in peer-reviewed scier,lt.ific son that the population of the United SCIENCE journals. Nowhere 'in this book do the States should be greater than 135 mil (I//{/ Ehrlichs refute Mi�liaels's work by refer lion; that 130 million of our citizens are ence to any scieritifrcjotirnal 'ilils 'book excess baggage; that our military defense REASON is written for .the non-sCientist, so the costs are only to enrich certain "pa Ehrlichs feel no need to follow the proto trons"; and that one of the most environ col demanded of the research scientist Ilow Allli-Elll'in'IIIIl<'lltnl Rlrcto�i( mentally damaging activities of human that requires citation to the scientific lit rln<'IlIC/JSOur Flltllre beings begins in the bedroom? erature to support any disagreement with Pau l Ehrl ich is a professor of biology previously published studies. at Stanford University and is most noted Complete Ignorance in non-academic circles for his 1968 The Ehrlichs demonstrate a complete book, The Population Bomb, in which ignorance of the literature pertaining to he predicted-incorrectly-the coming the capitalist polluters and other anti acid rain research. Throughout the doom of mankind. In academic circles, environmentalist organizations. 1980s, the U.5. government financed a Paul Ehrlich is best noted for his research The anti-environmentalists are the bad massive $500 million study of the ef on insect populations: guys who wear black hats and who want fects of acid rain. At this same time the Since the publication of the The Pop to destroy the Earth; they are the "brown environmental advocates were telling ulation Bomb, Ehrlich has written sev lash" anti-heroes who are often in the the public with thousands of news sto eral more books, some with his wife, pay of private commercial interests and ries how acid rain was devastating the Anne Ehrlich, as a co-author, which thus may distort their scientific conclu forests of the eastern United States and continue to elaborate on the conjecture sions to satisfy their patrons. The Ehrlichs Canada and that the lakes were dying that the survival of planet Earth depends believe the "brown lashers" (also referred and were fishless. But by 1989, much of on curtailing world population growth to as contrarians or skeptics), through the acid rai n research had been com and industrial advance. The present their activism, prevent equitable solu pleted and the results published in sci book, Betraya l of Science and Reason, is tions for environmental problems and ence journals and in the exhaustive Na the latest of this series on man and the thus must be exposed as misinformed, tional Acid Precipitation Assessment environment. deceivers, frauds, or ideologues-as the Program (NAPAP) report. The main purpose of this book is to case may be. The NAPAP report is dismissed by the discredit those scientists and journalists If one is looking for "science and rea Ehrlichs as "a mixed bag"-one wonders who find fault with the ideas and policies son," there is little to find in this book. if they even read it. This commentator promoted by advocates for protecting the The Ehrlichs do not cite the original peer has. The NAPAP studies showed that planet. In the world according to the reviewed scientific literature to refute the acid rain had little effect on the north Ehrlichs, the environmentalists are the brown lashers' criticisms of the greenlash eastern forests; most are in very good good guys who wear white hats and ride conjectures. For example, the scientific condition, and where there was forest into the fray on white horses to rescue publications of Patrick Michaels, profes damage, it was mainly due to pests, very the Earth from environmental degrada sor of climatology at the University of cold winters, and/or drought. There were tion; they are the "green lash" heroes Virginia (he is also the Virginia State cli only a few lakes in the northeast United whose scientific conclusions are always matologist) are discredited, because he States that became acid because of correct and who do not accept pay from accepts "six-figure consulting fees from man's activities. Most of the acid lakes BOOKS 21 st CENTURY Fall 1997 93 chemicals contributes very little to over tific papers of Ames, Gold, and their as all cancer mortality, thus refuting the sociates-that simply living on the Earth fear-mongering pronouncements of the Authors Anne H. and Pa ul R. Ehrlich exposes us to innumerable naturally oc anti-chemical green lashers. curring carcinogens; that naturally oc Disgraceful are found in Florida, where there is little curring chemical carcinogens (as de The Ehrlich treatment of journalists acid rain. The NAPAP researchers also fined by animal experiments) are who do not follow the green lash party reported that as the forests retu rned, after ubiquitous in the foods we eat; that line is especially disgraceful. They par having been clear-cut in the 18th and about 50 percent of the chemicals ad ticularly single out Gregg Easterbrook as 19th centuries, forest soils became acid ministered in high-dose animal tests, the most villainous of the brown lash re as a result of decaying organic vegeta both natural and synthetic in origin, are porters, partly I believe because of East tion. Lakes in these acid forest soil envi fo und to be carcinogens; that of the ap erbrook's stature as an environme'ntal ronments returned to their prehistoric proximately 1,000 chemicals fo und in writer and the 1995 publication of his condition of acidity as proven by the roasted coffee, only 22 have thus far influential book A Moment on the Earth : presence of acid sensitive foss il biota been tested in animals, and 19 of these Th e Coming Age of Environmental Opti found in the lake sediment cores. 22 were fo und to be carcinogenic in an mism. This book is an exhaustive 745- In our studies at the u.s. Geological imals; that many beverages contain page review of much of environmental Survey, we fo und that one of the more large amounts of animal carcinogens; science and policy. The main points of important effects of acid rain was the such as hydrogen peroxide, methylgly Easterbrook's analysis are: that we have erosion of marble and limestone build oxal, formaldehyde, nitrosamines, and made great headway in improving our ing materials. The greenlashers had little ethyl alcohol; that we ingest at least environment, that we should acknowl to say about these findings and contin 10,000 times more of Mother Nature's edge this progress, and that the doom ued to harp on the impending demise of carcinogens than of man-made carcino saying orthodoxy of the green lashers is forests and lakes. Dr. Laurence Kulp, gens; and that naturally occurring chem greatly inflated. who headed the NAPAP program until ical carcinogens at concentrations of In contradiction, the Ehrlichs believe 1989, was replaced after publication of 50,000 parts per billion or greater are that our planet is still in a desperate the preliminary NAPAP report because found in such common foods as apples, condition; thus they find it necessary to of political pressure from the greenlash caul iflower, carrots, celery, cabbage, discredit Easterbrook's assessment. For ers, for they did not like the scientific bananas, potatoes, lettuce, broccoli, and example, they quote the fo llowing state conclusions that exposed their false pro mushrooms. ment made by Jack ·Schultz, an ento paganda. mologist at the Pennsylvania State Uni Lack of Understanding "If one is looking for 'science versity: A Moment on the Earth "con Equally appalling is the Ehrlichs' lack and reason,' there is little to tains some of the most egregious cases of understanding of modern molecular find in this book." of misunderstood, misstated, misinter cell biology and the newest ideas on the preted, and plainly incorrect 'science' origins of human cancer. Although the Despite human ingestion of many nat I've ever encountered" (in Natural His Ehrlichs accept one of the leaders in can urally occurring carcinogens, they have tory, Aug. 1995). Perhaps the Ehrlichs cer research, Dr. Bruce Ames, as among little effect on cancer induction except in did not make such a statement them the "legitimate scientists with appropri special classes of societies where ex selves for fear they could be sued for li ate credentials" (what an understate tremely large amounts of certain foods bel (Betrayal of Science and Reason was ment!), they ignore the monumental and beverages are consumed-for ex vetted by a lawyer specializing in libel studies coming from his laboratory. ample, fats, bracken fe rn, betel nuts, and law). The Ehrlichs go to great pains to dis alcoholic drinks. The studies of Sir Criticisms of Easterbrook are particu credit the studies of Ames and his col Richard Dole and Dr. Richard Peto show larly trivial and picky; for example, he league Lois Gold (pages 160-1 61 ). What that human cancers are largely due to placed an insect in the wrong family and the Ehrlichs did not tell us in their book smoking, diet, and bacterial and viral he violated the second law of thermody are the major points presented in scien- infections; exposure to man-made namics (that's a good trick for a journal- 94 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY BOOKS of the world around us, while at the "To know a fly ist to accomplish). To fu rther discredit same time sustaining our moral commit Easterbrook, the Ehrl ichs state that he ment to all humanity. is to love one." wrote "a for-hire biography of C. Everett With our technical accomplishments, -Paul R. Ehrlich and Koop," the former Surgeon General of the world is becoming a better place to Anne H. Ehrlich the United States. Imagine writing for live, both for huma[1s and for the fauna profit! and flora. This is amply demonstrated by Scientific Optimism comparing the relatively clean environ It is sad to say that in much of the It is difficult for me as a professional ments of the Western industrial nations greenlash literature there is expressed a . scientist to respond to the question pre to the terrible conditions in the poorly visceral hatred of humanity. The Ehrlichs sented at the beginning of this com men developed nations. However, the green make a pungent statement that exposes tpry, for the Ehrlichs' Betrayal is a politi lashers, including the Ehrl ichs, do not their anti-humanitarianism, "To know a cal and social polemic, masquerading as recognize the great benefits of modern fly is to love one" (page 109). Nowhere a scientific treatise. I also consider my technology. They believe humans are in their book did I read "to know a hu self a humanitarian, believing that hu destroying the Earth, thus human popu man being is to love one." man progress is accomplished through lations must be greatly reduced; by what Malcolm Ross is a Scientist Emeritus at better and better application of our tech means they do not say. By slow-motion the u.s. Geological Survey in Reston, nical expertise to improving the quality holocaust? Virginia. � r------����------_, BEN FRANKLIN Booksellers &..Record Shop o A Source Book in Mathematics, 1200-1800, edited by Dirk J. Struik. Has some of Leibniz's writings on the calculus. Princeton Univ. Press, paperback, 427 pages, $27.50 o A Source Book in Mathematics, edited by David E. Smith. Has writings of Fermat, Desargues, Legendre, Bernoulli, Leibniz, Gauss, Riemann, and others. Dover, r------� ------� $15.95 Ben Franklin Booksellers o On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Prin 107 South King Street cipia Mathematica and Related Systems, by Kurt Leesburg, Virginia 20175 Type of credit card (circle one): GOdel. Dover, $5.95 Phone (703) 777-3661 MasterCard Visa Discover AmEx Kepler, by Max Caspar. Defmitive biography. Dover, Toll o free(800) 453-4108 Cre BOOKS 21st CENTURY Fall 1997 95 Treat Yourself to a Dose of Optimism IMAX camera for "Mission to Mir," pro Mutual Respect Mission to Mir Produced by IMAX Corp., Lockheed Martin vide a context within which to think There is a justifiable pride each nation Corp., 1997 about the difficulty the Mir crew will en feels in its space achievements. An his Video, 40 minutes, $12.00 counter in trying to fu lly recover from torical sketch at the beginning of the the Progress accident. The modules are movie recaps how the two space pro he photograph on the cover of this is crammed with equipment, wires, pack grams were separate, and rivals, until Tsue of 27st Century is a still picture, ages, and supplies that collected there 1994. Now, each nation has tied its fu taken from the newest IMAX ture space exploration to the space film, "Mission to Mir." other. The tie that binds is the As beautiful as it is, no pho mutual respect, and affecti.on, tograph could capture the that has developed between thrill of a launch into space, the astronauts and cosmonauts the majestic view of the who are the quintessential ex Earth from orbit, or the ex pression of space exploration. citement of the crew mem And this relationship is re bers who make these daring vealed to the public in "Mis journeys beyond their home sion to Mir." planet. "Mission to Mir" To make this fi lm, seven as captures these dramatic tronauts, and cosmonaut Vladi views in film, shot by the as mir Titov, were trained to use tronauts themselves, of Space the 85-pound hand-held IMAX Shuttle and Soyuz launches, camera. A second, larger, the linking up of the Shuttle camera was in the payload and the Mir in Earth orbit, bay of Atlantis. The inflight and the activities of the cos- . fi lm footage was taken during monauts and astronauts on three docking missions, and board both spacecraft. the fi rst rendezvous mission. One striking diffe rence be The IMAX team also made tween "Mission to Mir" and three trips to Russia to film the all the space movies made Soyuz launch, crew training, before it, is its first-time the cosmonauts with their fam footage of the Russian space ilies and entertaining astro program-a space program nauts, and one of the factories that had been cloaked in se where Russian rockets are crecy by · the Soviets for manufactured. nearly four decades. The film The audience watching the opens with the preparation film shares the triumph of and launch of a Soyuz rocket, both crews at the success of with cosmonauts, military the first docking of the Shuttle personnel, and space agency orbiter Atlantis with the Mir, engineers readying the and the sadness when the launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome over the 1 O-year lifetime of the space hatch between the two giant spacecraft in Kazakhstan. station because, until the Shuttle started is closed and friends depart, as the Shut Since the premier of "Mission to Mir" visiting the Mir two years ago, the Rus tle heads back to Earth. at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum sians had little capability to bring cargo "Mission to Mir" is now showing in in Washington, D.C., on May 21, the back to Earth. more than a dozen IMAX theaters situation onboard the Mir space station The Shuttle/Mir program, with Shuttle throughout the United States and in has changed dramatically. The June 25 astronauts visiting and living aboard the Canada and Austral ia. Additional the collision of an unmanned Progress sup Russian station, is more than a collabo aters will start to show it throughout the ply ship with the station, makes the in ration in space. fall. side look at the space station even more Film footage of the teams training to Give yourself a treat. Spend 40 min immediate than what the fi lm-makers gether, and getting to know each other utes with the astronauts and cosmonauts had in mind initially. and their families as friends, provides an who open up the world of space explo The tours through the Mir by cosmo insight into why the program has gone ration for us all. nauts and astronauts, fil med with an so well. -Marsha Freeman 96 Fall 1997 21st CENTURY BOOKS