Letters archive

In his article on the multiverse, Robert Adler repeats the old trope that there is a universe in which I have just won the Olympic 100-metre race (26 November, p 42) . That's nice, but I find it hard to believe that a bowl of soup, an oboe, or even a short-legged human with mediocre …

In Feedback, John Hastings suggested we need an International Committee on Standard Dimensions for Comparative Units (12 November) . This is certainly required after the absurdity Feedback mentioned the previous week of the conversion of calories to distance via French fries stacked end to end between the Earth and the moon (5 November) . Can …

So NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the rover Curiosity, will not be looking for life on Mars (12 November, p 42) . I've heard it said by many US space scientists interested in this fundamental question that some of their engineers like the idea of repeated missions to the Red Planet and don't …

I found your articles on nothing interesting but dismaying ( 13 November, p 40 ). Strictly speaking, none of them was about nothing. They surveyed the mathematical zero, empty sets, electronics, the quantum vacuum and the noble gases. Nothing, I believe, is when we are unconscious. Say I have an operation under general anaesthetic, I …

The discussion of a possible increase in legal action connected with the consequences of climate change (12 November, p 6) got me thinking. It is a very common human failing to think that if you can find someone to blame, or make a scapegoat, attacking them will solve the underlying problem. In the case of …

James Whalley (19 November, p 37) is content to accept Robert Trivers's description of religion as a possible "exercise in self-deception" (8 October, p 32) . But describing substantially more than half the human race as self-deceiving does rather lead one to wonder which side of the debate is the one deceiving itself. Whalley adds …

May I clarify some points in your article about sea levels, island erosion and flooding in the Chagos islands (26 November, p 4) . It was reported that I dismiss new findings referring to the 2.2-millimetre rise per year in sea level indicated by satellite altimetry. I don't. We have known about this for years …

When talking about meat consumption, Sujata Gupta makes the classic mistake of translating an issue inherently about values and relationships into one of efficiency (19 November, p 12) . This approach is characteristic of many technocratic natural-science framings of climate-change mitigation which ignore historical, social and economic forces behind the emergence of unsustainable practices. Western …

• In our multiverse feature, we should have said that the radius, not the diameter, of the observable universe is 42 billion light years (26 November, p 42) .