The Genius of Louis Pasteur

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Sagan's Alien World Contact by Carl Sagan New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985 432 pages, $18.95 Anyone who has had the misfortune to watch one of Carl Sagan's television performances, can imagine the ambience of this dull, dull book: gnostic mysticism and pseudoscience. A radio telescope picks up a message from space, which leads to a brief contact with an advanced space civilization. They have made contact in order to give a message to Earth: Cod is gone from the universe but He was its creator. Cod embedded hidden messages in the creation, which can only be revealed through the methods of information theory and the use of advanced large computers. One such message is found after a several-kilometers-long expansion of the numbern. When this expansion is arrayed in a grid, the numbers are found to form a circle. Not only is the philosophy "creepy" and the story banal, but there is a pauc Just Published! ity of detail about radio telescopy. What little there is about how an observatory functions is, of course, interesting. Sagan is a well-publicized proponent of the Soviet position on the nuclear freeze. His book, which parodies religion as fundamentalism, is only a slightly more subtle attack upon Western values. This being the case, we can almost welcome his off-the-wall slander on the Fusion Energy Foundation, since it clearly establishes the distance between Sagan and the FEF. Nevertheless, we must take exception to his vicious characterization of the FEF as terrorists. The context of the slander is as follows: The pressure of the alien contact has led to a global detente, and all of the nations of the world have collaborated to build a spaceship to the specifications radioed to Earth by the space aliens. The fundamentalists oppose this and blow up the first spaceship. Sagan writes: "It was never determined who did it. Organizations publicly claiming responsibility included An exciting overview of where the next 50 years in space may take us PIONEERING THE SPACE FRONTIER The official report of the National Commission on Space. Large format • Lavishly illustrated $14.95 Send to: Bantam Books Dept. DR-PSF 666 Fifth Avenue New York, N.Y. 10103 the Earth-Firsters, the Red Army Faction, the Islamic jihad, and the now underground Fusion Energy Foundation, the Sikh Separatists. . . ." Ironically, the leftist organizations he cites, such as the Red Army Faction and the Sikh Separatists, are political allies of both Carl Sagan and the Soviet KGB. —Carol White Looking for a high technology market? Advertise in Fusion. Call Joseph Cohen, (703) 771-7000 Underground storage cellars equipped with blast doors, blast valves, ventilators, filters, generators Marcel N. Barbier, Inc. P.O. Box 2905 Reston, VA 22090 58 September-October 1986 FUSION Books
On Volcanoes, Sunspots, and the Jupiter Effect The Jupiter Effect Reconsidered by John R. Gribben and Stephen H. Plagemann New York: Vintage Books, 1982 182 pages, $3.95 (paperback) In the field of natural science today there are two schools of thought: there are those who believe that it is ultimately small, random events that determine the details of the evolution of our planet. And there are those who hold that there must be a higher ordering principle involved in the evolution of the universe that, when better understood, will show us the lawfulness of events like volcanoes and earthquakes. The Jupiter Effect Reconsidered contains a number of well-presented thoughts in the tradition of the latter school. Although on the surface the authors of the book, two editors from Nature magazine, appear to be panicmongering the population of California into thinking that an earthquake can be expected every time the planets of our solar system align in certain configurations, some of the data they present is very interesting. In fact, judging from the insistent way in which they present their case, one would think they are using earthquake prediction in the same fashion that an ancient Islamic astronomer, whom they reference, was using the determination of the direction of the great circle from Ghizani to Mecca to make some of the best measurements of the length of day at that time. In the authors' words, "scientists involved in fundamental research . . . must find some mundane justification for their work before it receives the approval of the committees which disburse the money." While this may be an unfortunate axiom in today's world of National Science Foundation grants and the Gramm-Rudman act, it can lead to overstretching a good idea. Starting from a basic discussion of the geophysics involved in earthquakes, particularly in the San Andreas fault region, the authors point out that the crucial piece of information missing in order to predict an earthquake is how the tension, which builds up gradually along a fault between two tectonic plates, is triggered for release. By a number of steps involving presentation of a good deal of interesting statistical evidence, they trace this trigger back to the alignment of the planets in our solar system. Sound a bit like astrology? Not by a long shot. The Jupiter Hypothesis The authors hypothesize that: The changing configuration of the planets, particularly the inner planets and Jupiter, creates both direct tidal forces on the surface of the Sun and internal solar turbulence caused by the change in the position of the center of mass of the entire solar system. This center of mass moving in and out of the Sun, leads to sizable perturbations in the Sun as it tries to revolve around this point. These disturbances trigger sunspots and other electromagnetic disturbances on the Sun's surface. The change in solar wind resulting from these disturbances interacts with the Earth's magnetic field, which in turn influences our atmospheric circulation. The authors reference statistical evidence showing in particular a relation between the strength of the aurora borealis and the depth of the Aleutian low pressure system. It is well known in meteorological circles that the position and depth of this particular low pressure system is important in determining the weather in the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. The authors conclude that this change in atmospheric circulation will influence the rate of rotation or, inversely, the length of day of the Earth. This acceleration of the Earth (positive or negative) will be enough of a jolt to trigger the release of tension along a fault and cause earthquakes. In their first book on this subject, published in 1975, the authors noted that between 1979 and 1982 all nine planets would be located on the same side of the Sun for the first time in 179 years. They predicted that this would produce a major earthquake along the San Andreas fault sometime around 1982. In this second book, they attempt to prove that Mt. St. Helens eruption (1980) was actually the event they were expecting. Although the evidence presented for the interaction between the planets, the Sun, and the Earth is very convincing, I am not sure we understand these effects well enough to say that there will be a major seismic event once every 179 years because of planetary alignment. There are two aspects of this hypothesis, however, that I find very interesting. The first is that the authors have tried to explain the patterns observed in weather and seismic activity by the natural cycles observed in the gravitational and magnetic fields in our solar system. The second point is the connection they have found between the Earth's magnetic field and atmospheric circulation. Back to Humboldt The influence of the terrestrial electric and magnetic fields on weather has to be one of the most neglected facets in the fields of meteorology and climatology today. Continued on page 67 Books FUSION September-October 1986 59
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The Genius of Louis Pasteur His Dis
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FUSION SCIENCE • TECHNOLOGY • E
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Letters Put Fusion in Every School!
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strong, stable, homogenous magnetic
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Page 31 and 32: Figure 8 HUYGENS'S PRINCIPLE AND CI
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Page 37 and 38: Illustration by Robert McCall, cour
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Page 47 and 48: Beam Technology Report Teller Confi
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Page 51 and 52: ing electrons. A free-electron lase
Page 53 and 54: Figure 1 THE NUCLEAR FISSION PROCES
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