22 | New Scientist | 4 July 2020
Editor’s pick
On the trail of the perfect
contact-tracing app
6 June, p 7
From Charlie Wartnaby,
Cambridge, UK
Given the difficulties with finding
an effective phone app to help with
coronavirus contact tracing in the
UK, I have an idea that may help.
A difficulty is obtaining a reliable
range measurement between two
people using the Bluetooth signals
of their phones. But, in 2016, you
reported on ultrasonic data transfer
using cellphones.
My simple suggestion is that
once rough proximity is established
via Bluetooth, one phone should
send an ultrasonic “ping” from
its speaker, picked up by the mic
of the other, which then replies
with an accurately defined delay.
The round-trip time then gives a
very good distance measurement
simply based on the speed of sound.
Also, it wouldn’t misleadingly flag
a nearby person who is actually on
the other side of a wall or screen,
which Bluetooth alone might.
I just need to get this idea within
2 metres of the app developers.What happens when we
move to 1-metre spacing?
30 May, p 10
From Peter Borrows, Amersham,
Buckinghamshire, UK
As a scientist, I tend to see inverse
laws all over the place, and am
wondering how they feature when
it comes to the transmission risk
of the coronavirus.
As a first approximation, does
the risk of virus transmission with
social distance follow an inverse,
an inverse square or an inverse
cube relationship? If we double
the distance, does the risk halve,
quarter or become one-eighth?
It would be good to know, as my
observation in supermarkets is
that most people’s idea of 2-metre
social distancing falls short of
that, so if we reduce it to 1 metre
(as we are about to in England)
will it become even less than that?The long, long wait
for nuclear fusion
13 June, p 30
From James Edmondson,
Ilchester, Somerset, UK
Your coverage of developments
that could bring us closer to
controllable, sustainable fusion
power reminded me that our
attempt to develop this energy
source is undoubtedly the best
example of Hofstadter’s law. This
states: “It always takes longer than
you expect, even when you take
into account Hofstadter’s law.”From Brian Pollard,
North Hill, Cornwall, UK
The problem with fusion power
is that both major designs now in
operation – laser confinement and
toroidal plasma containment – are
far from ideal for a practical power
plant. In order to generate fusion
power continually and remove
the heat generated, a third, and
completely different, design, yet
to be envisaged, will be required.
I would say that if this were akin
to trying to build a Boeing 747,
fusion power is at the stage of
a hot-air balloon still tethered
to the ground. Fusion power
is a very long way indeed from
being a useful source of power.Reasons why our reality
probably isn’t simulated
6 June, p 46
From Guy Cox, Sydney, Australia
Nick Bostrom’s reprinted article,
which discussed the idea that
our reality may be a simulation,
doesn’t begin promisingly when
he says “we are made of the same
stuff as mud”. Well, not so much –
the essential components of mud
are alumino-silicate clay minerals
and these play no part in the
mammalian body.
I take it that the article waswritten, if not as a joke, then at
least as a jeu d’esprit to provoke
discussion, so I won’t go through
all the logical inconsistencies. But
I will point to the pachyderm on
the premises. No civilisation living
on a planet in a solar system (and
we don’t know of anywhere else
a civilisation could live) could
obtain enough energy to run such
a simulation, at least not without
destroying their solar system.
So we can be pretty confident
we aren’t living in a simulation.From Toby Pereira,
Rayne, Essex, UK
It would be impossible to
simulate a reality as detailed as
the one we are in (at least in real
time) because to do so would
require all the resources that
the universe contains.
It is still possible to have a
simulation of sorts requiring less
resources by concentrating more
of its power on the simulated
beings themselves and less on the
rest of the detail of the simulated
universe. But it is likely that this
would give these beings a rather
impoverished existence without
much of a detailed outside world,
and there is no reason to suggest
that we are in such a simulation.Maybe AI will help us
control the weather
Letters, 6 June
From Michael Assuras,
London, Ontario, Canada
I was intrigued by the idea from
Dwight Hines that artificial
intelligence could be used to
develop a better lie detector based
on analysis of speech. A more
far-fetched idea came to me:
would it be possible to train an
AI on satellite images and other
meteorological data to predict
hurricanes before they happen
or before they get out of control?I am no expert on hurricanes,
but would it be conceivable to
stop a potential hurricane at a
very early stage, perhaps with
an injection of cool air from an
aircraft? The possibilities with
AI are endless and exciting, but
maybe this application is too
unrealistic to reach fruition.Are we born good or are
we made that way?
13 June, p 26
From Peter Slessenger,
Reading, Berkshire, UK
Simon Ings is right to tell readers
that Rutger Bregman’s examples
in his book Humankind: A hopeful
history are cherry-picked to back
the hypothesis that our species
is innately good rather than bad.
In particular, the enviable
record of low reoffending among
those released from high-security
Halden prison in Norway might
have something to do with
prisoners being returned to
Norwegian society, rather than
a society with high levels of
inequality, deprivation and
racism, for example the US.Consciousness could
be another aether
Letters, 6 June
From Ólafur Jónsson,
Mendrisio, Switzerland
I do enjoy the frequent letters and
occasional articles on the subject
of consciousness. I am, however,
bewildered by how the concept
is defined. It seems to me that
no two people can agree on what
it is they are trying to describe.
Maybe because I have learned a
spattering of languages in my life,
I’m used to trying to guess a word’s
meaning from its context, and
the context seems to me to vary
significantly in writing on the
matter of consciousness. I wonder
if the search for it is like that for
the luminiferous aether, the
proposed medium that would
allow light waves to move through
space. What reason do we have
to assume consciousness exists,
however much we “feel” it must? ❚Views You r le t te r s
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