Letters archive

Emanuel Derman's discussion of the perils of economic modelling was splendid and timely (22 October, p 32) . But a "dark love of inappropriate scientific elegance and scientism" is not just a worm at the heart of economics; it has chewed away the brains of the gullible politicians and lazy journalists who blithely accept the …

I was delighted to discover an authoritative analysis of exactly who the "markets" are that we are all so beholden to (22 October, p 8) . However, as someone who has been involved in many gatherings of so-called anti-capitalists, it was a shame the story resorted to clichéd caricature by suggesting such protesters believe in …

Steven Pinker is correct in his assessment that violence has reduced through the ages (15 October, p 30) . He is also correct in regarding the human toll of the second world war as a historical "outlier". A major reason why so many were killed was the introduction of technology that made it possible. Does …

A recent model of how wolves might hunt is misleading, and adds little to what is known (22 October, p 11) . It suggests that cooperation is not needed for successful hunting, but is based on faulty assumptions: that wolves hunt with other wolves at some set distance from prey; and that they don't communicate …

Michael Le Page's report on climate change ( 22 October, p 36 ) was informative. However, like many such synopses and books on the subject, little was said about cloud formation, intensity and feedback effects with respect to temperature. It has always seemed reasonable to me that if average temperatures increase, so too does ocean …

So climate-change modellers have realised the pre-industrial atmosphere was cleaner (22 October, p 16) . In modern parlance: Duh!

It used to be that teleportation meant transferring an object from one place to another: Star Trek 's Captain Kirk, for example. Now, it seems it is copying information describing one object onto a similar object in another place. Marcus Chown, in his look at time travel, writes that: "For years now, quantum physicists have …

Time doesn't exist, according to a letter from Bill Summers (22 October, p 34) because the present is infinitesimal. If that were so, then much of modern mathematics would have to go. Newton had to bypass that proposal to create the infinitesimal calculus. An infinite number of infinitesimals has existence, even if one of them …

I was interested to read Saranya Srinivasan's findings about accidental shootings of children in the US (22 October, p 6) . It has long intrigued me that such facts do not change the American electorate's blind love of guns. There have been considerably more firearm suicides than firearm homicides in the US every year for …

I was surprised that none of Feedback's correspondents realised the meaning of "bigger than Ben-Hur" (29 October) . It does not refer to the size of the production or the budget, but to the poster for the film, in which the letters BEN-HUR are formed into a mountain-sized block of stone: see bit.ly/ben-hur .

I was struck by the similarities between the pasta shapes shown in Richard Webb's article on their mathematical interpretation (15 October, p 48) and some shells of foraminifera, a type of single-celled marine planktonic animal. It has always seemed that the latter are constrained not only by environmental conditions but also by mathematical equations. Foraminifera …

Jeff Hecht correctly says the $4000 cellphone used by Gordon Gekko dates the movie Wall Street – it now looks so unwieldy (15 October, p 39) . I am curious to know how much the entire truckload of components you list for a "1980s iPhone" would have cost.

Is a "fat tax" and government regulation of food corporations enough to combat global obesity (22 October, p 30) ? Neither attacks the heart of the problem – the attitude of the consumer. People need to be educated if we are to prevent the alarming levels of obesity forecast. For example, in the UK 60 …

If people with intentions unrelated to science would like to attend a scientific conference then they should be allowed, as should new-Earth creationists at American Geological Society conferences (8 October, p 30) . If, however, those same people intend to speak about science and are not properly scrutinised then it will negatively affect the reputation …

• When we referred to "environmental lobbyists... based in Ottawa, Canadia" (8 October, p 7) we should really have used the country's real name, which is Canada. • We inexplicably wrote "100 miles per gallon (85 kilometres per litre)" ( 15 October, p 23 ). A hundred miles per imperial gallon is best expressed as …