A Robot Shadoof
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NEW WATERBIRD FOR EGYPT A ROBOT SHADOOF HEN the present United States Ambassador to Egypt, Richard W Nolte, left his Connecticut home to take up his new diplomatic post in Cairo a few weeks ago, he had in his possession a toy bird with a red head, a pot belly, a green tail, yellow legs, big red boots, and a one-track mind. Once set within appropriate distance of an adequately filled glass, this mechanical creature occupies its time exclusively in wetting its beak, leaning back, wet ting its beak, leaning back, and wetting its beak again. The Ambassador told me he would put the bird on top of his desk in the Embassy and attach a one-word label; shadoof. He said everybody in Egypt would get the message immediately upon see ing the bird's head dip into the water. Those who are unfamiliar with the shadoof, the most ancient and primitive water-lifting device in Egypt (shown in action in the drawing at the left), may read the meaning of the "drinking bird" toy in a following RESEARCH FRONTIER report. Rather than anticipate that in terpretation, I shall use this introductory space to explain why I gave the only model of the bird that I had to Ambas sador Nolte. Certainly I acted under no illusion about the State Department's eagerness to take science seriously as a force in foreign policy. Science Attaches are scattered in U.S. Embassies around the globe (among them is one in Cairo), but Secretary of State Dean Rusk has pointedly left unfilled the science affairs directorship of the department in Wash ington, the one place in American diplo macy where global effectiveness can be RESEARCH IN AMERICA: NEW WATERBIRD FOR EGYPT: A ROBOT SHADOOF By John Lear 49 THE RESEARCH FRONTIER By Richard B. Murrow 51 AioRE PROBLEMS OF INSTANT MEDICINE By Joseph D. Cooper 56 49 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED focused. \() single Ambassador can couraged his oldest boy, Charles, to Jr., a member of the Japanese bar in move \'cr\ Fast or \ cry far against this travel the earth and learn b\' experience. Tokyo. Francis Herron is U. S. Consul drep-seaterl inertia at the center. Charles discovered in himself an ex Ceneral in \'enezuela, Phillips Talbot is W'itliotit expecting tlie impossible of traordinary ability to grub beneath the U. S. Ambassador to Greece. Granville Dick Nolte, it is reasonable to estimate surface of places far and strange. He Austin, John B. George, and Hoyvard liis potential b\' measuring his past per developed a remarkably broad peispec- Weidemann are State Department offi formance. He is a man of rare integrity. tive, from which he could see how poorh· cers. Carl Marc)' is chief of the profes The lock-like sense of justice in him lies most Americans were informed about sional staff, U. S. Senate Committee on unobtiHsi\"ely behind a silken screen of affairs abroad. Foreign Policy. Geoffrey Oldham, at the humor. He can be thoroughly pragma AVith his son John and Walter Rogers, University' of Sussex in England, is open tic, \ et I have never known anyone more a trusted agent of the family, Charles ing a yvhole neyv area of study timed to genuineh' willing to aigue a fair trial for Crane at the close of World War I began tlie next centui-y: science as a tool in na a new idea. to improvise methods of conveying tional development. David Judd, at the /. international understanding in depth. Arctic Institute of North America in λ^fH O else would have serioush' tried Their first invention, the Mutual News Montreal, girdles the earth yvith his as to establish a fellowship for on-the-spot Exchange in Prague, enabled prominent signment: the Middle North. John Spen- study of the moon? European journalists to write about cei' advises the Ford Foundation, David Nolte offered to provide a grant for Europe in American newspapers while Hapgood the Peace Corps. Peter Martin such a fellowship while he was director prominent American journalists could yvrites for Time, David Reed for Read of the Institute for Current World Af write about America in European pa- er's Digest, Takashi Oka for the Chris fairs. Only the short-sightedness of the peis. When the Exchange collapsed of tian Science Monitor, David Binder for National Aeronautics and Space Ad its own weight, the Cranes and Rogers the Netc York Times, Warren Unna for ministration stopped him. together created another organism which the Washington Post. Dick Nolte is a Yale man. Phi Beta thev callecl the Institute of Current Richard Nolte (son of the late Dean Kappa, a Rhodes scholar, former fellow World Affairs. J. M. Nolte of the University of Minne of the American Universit)' Field Staff, sota) became an Institute fellow in 1947. present member of the Council on For XHE original design of the Institute After studying at Oxford, he lived in the eign Relations and of the Middle East called for a permanent corps of observ Middle East imder Institute aegis until Institute, author of a 1965 .study of Pan- ers, all Americans, each free to choose 1954, yvhen he became Middle East As Arabism. His qualifications to serve as his own avenue of influencing public sociate of another Crane-Rogers inven Ambassador to Egypt could hardly be enlightenment. But that arrangement tion: the American Universities Field more impressive by any academic yard proved too expensive to survive for long Staff. In 1958 he shifted to the Rocke stick. But his finest qualification—schol- on the initial million dollars Crane gave feller Foundation, as assistant director arsliip in Muslim law and customs—he it. And the Institute finally settled down of humanities. In the folloyving year he owes to the generosity- of a man who with more Crane monex' under Walter succeeded Rogers as director of the In scoffed at all university degrees. Rogers's elliptical guidance, to finance stitute of Current World Affairs. He left Richard Teller Crane, of Chicago, groups of a dozen fellows for periods of that post in May 1967 to assume the who made millions b\· building better two to twenty vears at a mean rate of Ambassadorship to the United Arab bathtubs, carried on a rinining feud with $1.5,000 a year and a top of 830.000. Republic. steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie over the Rogers picked feyv "smart alecks." I noyv call attention to the page oppo value of formal education. "Never hire a One of the earliest Institute felloyvs yvas site this one. Richard Murroyv's RE smart aleck!" was the sole working pre Ceorge Antonius, yvho yvrote The Arab SEARCH FROXTIER report deserves the cept of Crane's employment practice, Awakening. Then came Eyler Simpson, clo.sest perusal. It was during the editing and he observed that many college grad yvho yvrote The Ejido: Mexico's Way of it that I decided it yvould be in the uates fit that category·. Of his se\ en chil Out. C. Walter Young's understanding public interest for Ambassador Nolte to dren, only the youngest son was per of Manchm-ia yvas yvidel)' acknoyvledged. have a "drinking bird" toy for the Cairo mitted to study beyond high school. A. Doak Barnett became an e.xpert on Embassy·. But Richard Crane was not a stingy China. John Hazard the ^Vest's top spe —JOHX LEAR, man. In lieu of formal schooling, he en cialist in Soviet layv. Thomas Blakemore, Science Editor. -Pholos by Cfjurtt-y of Thf Institute of Current World Affair The late Charles Crane The late Walter Rogers Ambassador Richard Nolle SR/June 3, 1967 SO PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED THE RESEARCH FRONTIER lA/HFPP ις ςπΡΜΓΡ TAk'iKir IIQ-J '^'"«'^""^ "''"^ appwaches to resolution of WHERE IS SCIENCE TAKING US? ^,„„^,·^,^ p„, ^^ample, the recurrent ten sion between Arab and Jew in the Middle East cannot be lifted until the Arab living standard rises to equal that of Israel. After visiting Egypt as a touri.st βυα years ago an engineer on the staff on The RAND Corporation at Santa Monica, California, Richard B. Murrow undertook some experiments in his home icork- shop to determine whether an old toy might solve the seemingly intractable problem of Nile river valley irrigation. The popularized report below is based on a scientific paper he published in August 1966 under a RAND copyright and the title: "A Simple Heat Engine of Possible Utility in Primitive Environments." SR readers will find further background and magnificent photographs in the Na tional Geographic Society's new book, "The River Nile," by Bruce Brander. —Jim Beavers for RAND. BY RICHARD B. MURROW The RAND Corporation URING four days in Egypt as an ordinary tourist in is intense; two-man teams must alternate in carrying the load. 1962, I was awed by the grandeur of the archaeologi The waste in manpower is not only enormous, but it occurs D cal discoveries and intrigued by the local culture and among the most robust young men, the ones with enough customs. Most of the brief time was spent in the vicinities of strength and stamina to do the job. Furthermore, the need to Alexandria and Cairo; but air travel permitted one full day stand knee-deep in water throughout the day makes the in and around Luxor, some 350 miles up the Nile from Cairo. fellaheen prey to river-borne tropical parasites notoriously Of course the severe time restraint precluded any detailed vicious in sapping the vitality of the human body. observation of and inquiry into Egypt's cultural and economic After I had left Egypt, I could not forget what I had seen.