It quickly became apparent that most of the BB denizens were students of various kinds. Many were high-school or middle- school students asking for hints about science projects or seeking answers to their homework problems. A few appeared to be graduate students interested in discussing quantum theory, relativity, or esoteric philosophical topics, such free will vs. determinism.

What surprised me (although it should not have) was the number of individuals interested in expounding on their own grandiose theories of the universe. The grandiosity of the theories appeared to be inversely proportional to the amount of knowledge possessed. Many were determined to show how Einstein was wrong; others were bent on demonstrating the falsity of quantum theory. Since relativity and quantum theory violate common sense, they must be wrong and all the scientists in the world are mistaken.

A number of correspondents were interested in time travel of various sorts. The tachyon was seriously bandied about as a way of accomplishing faster-than-light travel. When I objected that tachyons don’t really exist, I was informed that "Star Trek” uses them regularly. Silly me, I've been out of touch.

It soon became evident that many of these students can’t tell the difference between real science and the kind of science used in science fiction. They think that faster-than-light travel and time travel are serious possibilities. When I started to become alarmed over this confusion in the world of education, I reminded myself of my own ignorance when, at the age of 12, I entered high school. At that time my mind had been totally besotted by science fiction, and my favorite writer was one whose first novel involved a space ship that could accelerate at a rate of one light year per second per second [sic], but nobody was hurt by the g-forces because the floor of the cabin was mounted on springs! (The author of this epic was a chemist, not a physicist.) Later in my career I became more sophisticated and derived much satisfaction by pointing out scientific errors in the stories, attaining a great reputation as a tedious bore.

I do hope that the denizens of the computer bulletin board will in time learn to separate fact from fantasy. If not, they will undoubtedly end up as subjects of this column.

Just this morning, for example, there arrived an E-mail message requesting some or all information known about antimatter. The writer wanted to incorporate this knowledge into his theory about time travel. I responded, saying

1. it would take several textbooks to transmit all known information about antimatter, and
2. I didn’t quite see what antimatter had to do with time travel.

I must confess that I get rather testy when people ask me for information that they can get from any good book or encyclopedia. (Right within Prodigy they have an encyclopedia that can answer many of their questions. I don’t mind giving references (especially to my own books) and don’t mind clarifying fuzzy ideas that the correspondents may have acquired, but I do not care to spend the hours it would take to give detailed answers to some of the questions. I have tastier fish to fry.

What is most disturbing is the impression I get that many of the students on the Prodigy BB have never acquired the habit of looking things up in a book (gasp!) when they have questions. Within the computer culture it is more common to log on and ask somebody out there. Of course, not everybody has the wall of books that stands behind my desk, and it is an inconvenience to go to the library, even if there is one within a reasonable distance. But anybody interested in physics should have one good basic textbook (which would answer most of the questions), and access to an encyclopedia is right at the fingertips of Prodigy subscribers.

One of the perpetual philosophical discussions that swirls around the physics bulletin board has to do with a famous old chestnut: “Nothing exists until it is observed.” This statement is supposed to be true because in quantum theory the observation of a particle is accomplished by an interaction between the particle and the observer, and further, the state of the particle depends on the nature of that interaction. But why the very existence of the particle depends on the observation was never clear to me.

The quotation above about existence was subscribed to by many famous scientists (Bohr, Heisenberg, et al.) so that a whole school of thought has grown up believing it to be true. But a little detailed logic shows that certain paradoxical results spring from that statement, making it very hard for me to believe. For example, suppose you are observing the moon. Of course you don’t directly observe the moon; what you actually observe are photons coming from the moon and entering your eye. Each photon is detected when it reaches the retina of your eye. That is where it disappears and an electrical impulse is started that travels down the optic nerve to the brain. In the brain, the impulse is processed, and there you become aware of the moon. If you say that the photon from the moon did not exist until you became aware of it, then that means your retina detected something that did not exist until a few milliseconds later. Or, saying the same thing differently, the existence of the photon depends on events happening in the future.

Well all right, you say. You really mean that the photon does not exist until it is detected in the retina. If so, then where did that photon come from? It came from the sun, and was reflected by the moon. Do you mean the sun did not emit that photon until it was detected by your retina? You see that if you go step by step and trace the course of events in detail, the idealistic statement that “Nothing exists until it is observed” simply becomes nonsense.

The giants who invented quantum theory in the early part of the century learned their philosophy in the nineteenth century and knew nothing about modern neuroscience. Note: Nothing I have said about this philosophical controversy invalidates the success of quantum theory. We are merely arguing about an interpretation. The flap proves once more the truth of Conservation of Ideas: Once an idea is created, it never disappears, no matter how often it is disproved.

Last month, for example, Frank Tipler, a professor of physics at Tulane University, published a book with the fascinating title The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God, and the Resurrection of the Dead (Doubleday, 1994). Normally a sane and sober scientist, Tipler, who is a reviewer for Nature and co-author (with astrophysicist John Barrow) of the respected 1986 book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, in this latest work seems to have lost his bearing. Tipler, of course, demurs and insists that his mathematical model of the end of the universe proves irrefutably not only the existence of God but also the fact that every human being who has ever lived will be resurrected from the dead in the far distant future. According to Tipler, there is no other possibility. Then, asked to reduce his “Omega Point” theory to one sentence, Tipler replied: “God, who is a personal being who created the universe out of nothing, exists, loves us, and will one day resurrect us all to live in heaven forever.” If this sounds to you more like theology than science then you are in good company. Needless to say, it will come as no surprise to learn that Tipler is also a Roman Catholic as well as a physicist. Most reviewers of Tipler’s book claim he is daft and deluded or like a wily fox, out to sell theology in a new way. If you have the stamina, training, expertise, and patience to follow Tipler’s arguments point by painful point you may be persuaded that some of his arguments are sound. Nevertheless, you will really need God’s wisdom and the help of many of his angels merely to follow Tipler’s arguments and conclude that everything that has ever lived will be resurrected as it formerly was.

If you are sincerely interested in such weighty and wild speculations you will be much better off and more comforted with David Lindley’s more modest and humble little book The End of Physics: The Myth of a Unified Theory (Basic Books, 1993). Lindley does a superb job of deflating all such vast and half-vast claims recently set forth by speculative physicists that we are now on the verge of a Theory of Everything that will explain everything and end human questioning. Incredibly, the same claims were made around the turn of this century, just before Einstein and Planck and relativity and quantum theory. Tipler, however, is not alone. Professors from one end of the nation to the other (and even overseas) are becoming more and more willing to crawl out on the end of some very thin and shaky limbs. At the University of California in Berkeley, for example, a professor of environmental psychology has started a $100 per hour House Counseling Service. The Professor has his clients “role play” with their homes. The owner or owners speak to their houses airing all of their feelings about what they like and do not like about them. Once all their feelings have been aired, they shift roles and play the house—talking back to the owners, telling them what is wrong with their behavior. According to the prof, “Just as some people perpetuate destructive relationships—some people keep finding themselves in unsuitable houses.” Eventually, if a divorce is the only solution because of irreconcilable differences between house and owner, a realtor is reached and the two parties part. If disagreements are small then renovation or behavior changes can patch up the quarrel. One can only assume that the professor also has a share of the realtor’s profits and a hand in the decorator’s business.

In case you have ever been concerned about human and animal rights, you now have, according to the British botany professor Malcolm Wilkins, a third area of concern: the rights of plants. Plants, like other living things, have feelings and are sensitive to injury and pain. How does the good professor know this? Well it seems that plants make inaudible crackling noises when they want water. Just how Wilkins knows they make noises that are inaudible is an entirely unrelated question. Perhaps Wilkins has been consulting with Cleve Backster, the scientist who a few years back was attaching electrodes to stems and leaves and getting feedback he interpreted as emotions. If plants do have feelings and emotions, we are in deep trouble. What, pray tell, will we eat if we can neither be herbivorous nor carnivorous?

Next, we were recently made aware of the work of Felicitas Goodman, a professor of English and folklore at Indiana University. In her 1990 book Where the Spirits Ride the Winds: Trance Journeys and Other Ecstatic Experiences (Indiana University Press, Bloomington) Goodman tells of her discovery of special trance states that lead to all sorts of supernatural powers and contact with spirits both living and dead. The secret lies, Goodman tells us, in following native shamanic techniques, which seem to consist of placing the human body on a slanted board tilted at exactly 37° from the vertical. Once you are tilted you then have to be rhythmically stimulated. This can be done with a tape recording of a drum or a rattle or preferably both. The beat, however, must be even and rather fast: 200 to 210 beats per minute for a 15-minute session will suffice when accompanied by proper breathing exercises. During one’s time on the board, the right arm should be bent at the elbow with the left arm straight and the left hand pointed toward the body. What are the rewards for time on the board? Why, goodies galore! If one keeps at these spirit-journeys one can contact the spirits, access the chakras, learn divination, acquire the gift of healing, learn to shape change, acquire paranormal skills, and attain life everlasting! It is also important that all beginners have a companion, preferably Goodman, who understands the process. In fact, she has been at the slant-board business since 1977. So far, she has held more than 80 workshops and has had a total of 890 participants—592 women and 298 men, with repeat attendances of 159 women and 68 men. Goodman’s posturing is specifically designed to take the believers to the world in the sky, the middle world where other humans live, to the lower world, or out to sea. One can’t help but wonder what would happen if Goodman tilted her board to, say, 38° or maybe even 50?

Then there is the anthropology professor Grover Krantz, of Washington State University in Pullman, who collects Bigfoot-prints and has just published the fascinating book Big Foot-prints: A Scientific Inquiry into the Reality of Sasquatch (Johnson Books, Boulder, Col.). Krantz apparently believes in Bigfoot and will not accept no for an answer. Although most anthropologists flatly reject the idea that a primate (as big as Bigfoot is supposed to be) could live undetected in North America, Krantz attempts to prove the creature’s existence with neither a corpse nor a live specimen. Not only is Krantz easily fooled (see “Bigfoot Evidence: Are These Tracks Real?” in SI, Fall 1994, by Michael R. Dennett) but he goes so far as to claim there are literally millions of Bigfoot tracks. Of course there are not. Krantz also argues that logging companies are paying people to spread wild tales about Bigfoot to discredit the search. According to Krantz, if Sasquatches are found they will be declared endangered and logging will be restricted.

We must also mention three other noted academics who have some deep and very unusual convictions with regard to people being abducted by little gray aliens. Both John Mack, the Harvard professor of psychiatry, and David Jacobs, the Temple professor of history, have become somewhat famous, along with Leo Sprinkle of the University of Wyoming, because of their continuing insistence that UFOs are real and that thousands— even millions—of our citizens are being taken by extraterrestrials for various and nefarious purposes. Maybe, just maybe, there is something psychedelic seeping into the academic offices; something that the union of ivy and brick exudes into the campus air that affects the cerebral vortices of older intellectuals. Mm, maybe this should be looked into. To parody Mike Royko, brains that work like those mentioned above should be thoroughly examined by scientists. On the other hand, perhaps wild speculation among the professorial class is now de rigueur! As all good scientists know and say, “Further research is needed.”