8 Scientific American, December 2019
LETTERS
[email protected]
ESTABLISHED 1845
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
HOW TO CONTACT US
Subscriptions
For new subscriptions, renewals, gifts,
payments, and changes of address:
U.S. and Canada, 800-333-1199;
outside North America, 515-248-7684 or
http://www.ScientificAmerican.com
Submissions
To submit article proposals, follow the
guidelines at http://www.ScientificAmerican.com.
Click on “Contact Us.”
We cannot return and are not responsible
for materials delivered to our office.
Reprints
To order bulk reprints of articles
(minimum of 1,000 copies):
Reprint Department,
Scientific American,
1 New York Plaza,
Suite 4600,
New York, NY
10004-1562;
212-451-8415.
For single copies of back issues: 800-333-1199.
Permissions
For permission to copy or reuse material:
Permissions Department, Scientific
American, 1 New York Plaza, Suite 4600,
New York, NY 10004-1562; [email protected];
http://www.ScientificAmerican.com/permissions.
Please allow three to six weeks for processing.
Advertising
http://www.ScientificAmerican.com has electronic
contact information for sales representatives
of Scientific American in all regions of
the U.S. and in other countries.
Scientific American, 1 New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004-1562 or [email protected]
Letters may be edited for length and clarity. We regret that we cannot answer each one.
Join the conversation online—visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter.
CORPORATE
HEAD, COMMUNICATIONS, USA Rachel Scheer
PRESS MANAGER Sarah Hausman
ANCILLARY PRODUCTS
CONSUMER MARKETING & PRODUCT
HEAD, MARKETING AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT Richard Zinken
DEVELOPMENT TEAM LEAD Raja Abdulhaq
MARKETING MANAGER Chris Monello
PRODUCT MANAGERS Ian Kelly, John Murren
SENIOR WEB PRODUCER Jessica Ramirez
SENIOR UX DESIGNER Denise McDermott
SENIOR COMMERCIAL OPERATIONS COORDINATOR Christine Kaelin
MARKETING & CUSTOMER SERVICE ASSISTANT Justin Camera
PRESIDENT
Dean Sanderson
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Michael Florek VICE PRESIDENT, COMMERCIAL Andrew Douglas
VICE PRESIDENT, MAGAZINES, EDITORIAL AND PUBLISHING Stephen Pincock PUBLISHER AND VICE PRESIDENT Jeremy A. Abbate
CLIENT MARKETING SOLUTIONS
MARKETING DIRECTOR, INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERSHIPS AND CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT Jessica Cole
PROGRAMMATIC PRODUCT MANAGER Zoya Lysak
DIRECTORS, INTEGRATED MEDIA Jay Berfas, Matt Bondlow
MANAGER, GLOBAL MEDIA ALLIANCES Brendan Grier
SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR, EXECUTIVE SERVICES May Jung
ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Diane McGarvey
CUSTOM PUBLISHING EDITOR Lisa Pallatroni
RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS MANAGER Felicia Ruocco
PRINT PRODUCTION
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN CUSTOM MEDIA
PRODUCTION CONTROLLER Madelyn Keyes-Milch ADVERTISING PRODUCTION CONTROLLER Dan Chen
EDITORIAL Gareth Cook, Katherine Harmon Courage, Lydia Denworth,
Ferris Jabr, Anna Kuchment, Robin Lloyd, Melinda Wenner Moyer,
George Musser, Ricki L. Rusting, Claudia Wallis
ART Edward Bell, Zoë Christie, Lawrence R. Gendron, Nick Higgins, Katie Peek, Beatrix Mahd Soltani
ACTING EDITOR IN CHIEF
Curtis Brainard
A R T
ART DIRECTOR Jason Mischka SENIOR GRAPHICS EDITOR Jen Christiansen
PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Monica Bradley ART DIRECTOR, ONLINE Ryan Reid
ASSOCIATE GRAPHICS EDITOR Amanda Montañez ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Liz Tormes
COPY AND PRODUCTION
SENIOR COPY EDITORS Daniel C. Schlenoff, Aaron Shattuck, Angelique Rondeau
MANAGING PRODUCTION EDITOR Richard Hunt PREPRESS AND QUALITY MANAGER Silvia De Santis
CONTRIBUTORS
COPY DIRECTOR Maria-Christina Keller CREATIVE DIRECTOR Michael Mrak
E D I T O R I A L
CHIEF FEATURES EDITOR Seth Fletcher CHIEF NEWS EDITOR Dean Visser CHIEF OPINION EDITOR Michael D. Lemonick
FEATURES
SENIOR EDITOR, SUSTAINABILITY Mark Fischetti
SENIOR EDITOR, CHEMISTRY / POLICY / BIOLOGY Josh Fischman
SENIOR EDITOR, SPACE / PHYSICS Clara Moskowitz
SENIOR EDITOR, SCIENCE AND SOCIETY Madhusree Mukerjee
SENIOR EDITOR, TECHNOLOGY / MIND Jen Schwartz
SENIOR EDITOR, EVOLUTION / ECOLOGY Kate Wong
NEWS
SENIOR EDITOR, MIND / BRAIN Gary Stix
SENIOR EDITOR, SPACE / PHYSICS Lee Billings
ASSOCIATE EDITOR, TECHNOLOGY Sophie Bushwick
ASSOCIATE EDITOR, SUSTAINABILITY Andrea Thompson
ASSOCIATE EDITOR, HEALTH AND MEDICINE Tanya Lewis
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR Sarah Lewin Frasier
MULTIMEDIA
SENIOR EDITOR, MULTIMEDIA Jeffery DelViscio
ENGAGEMENT EDITOR Sunya Bhutta
SENIOR EDITOR, MULTIMEDIA Steve Mirsky
SENIOR EDITOR, COLLECTIONS Andrea Gawrylewski
EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR Ericka Skirpan EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT SUPERVISOR Maya Harty
EDITORS EMERITI Mariette DiChristina, John Rennie
MANAGING EDITOR Cliff Ransom CREATIVE DIRECTOR Wojtek Urbanek
MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Kris Fatsy MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Ben Gershman
ENGAGEMENT EDITOR Dharmesh Patel
nate all gun show events and mailorder
purchase of weaponry and related materi
als. And fourth, eliminate shipment of
weapons and related materials by com
mon carrier across state lines.
All these steps are much cheaper than
the proposed $50 million, which would just
be used to study the matter ad infinitum.
Jim Wright via e-mail
POETRY IN NUMBERS
Steve Mirsky concludes “Do the Math”
[Anti Gravity], his piece about the relation
between physics and mathematics, by
quoting Robert Frost’s poem asserting that
“the Secret sits in the middle and knows.”
When I get to the next world, I expect to
see Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton sit
ting in the middle of a grove of apple trees,
arguing about whether the mathematics
of physics is primarily geometric or analyt
ic. If anyone knows, they should. (My wife
and I agree, for once: it is geometric.)
David J. Miller Emeritus professor of
physics, University College London
The universe doesn’t just speak “to us in
numbers,” as Mirsky quotes from physics
historian Graham Farmelo’s similarly en
titled book. It speaks to us in mathematics
quite removed from numbers.
Further, the article cites a New York
Times obituary describing British mathe
matician Michael Atiyah as having “united
mathematics and physics ... in a way not
seen since the days of Isaac Newton.” But
he simply understood both. The obituary
ignored such people as German mathema
tician David Hilbert and French mathema
tician Henri Poincaré, who were at home
in both camps long after Newton.
Seymour J. Metz via e-mail
CLARIFICATION
“Eye of the Flycatcher,” by Jim Daley [Ad
vances], describes a novel retinal structure
that researchers found in the eye of the
Acadian flycatcher. The same study had
found the structure in the eye of the least
flycatcher as well.
ERRATUM
“Divide or Conquer,” by Mark Fischetti,
should have defined a coastline’s foot of
slope as the maximum change in gradient
rather than the maximum steepness.
© 2019 Scientific American