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04.07
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... On "Backscatter: Math...
What Good is It?" (October
2006)
An interesting and timely
article. Just last year I assisted my niece and
nephew with their algebra and geometry homework,
respectively. The axiom "practice makes perfect"
is never better proven true than in learning
math. I can recall my sheer enjoyment with math
homework the more problems assigned, the
better. Motivation and practice have always been
fundamental to learning math. Discipline and
patience are the characteristic strengths the
student must possess to solve math problems, but
I theorize that our fast-paced society prevents
or stymies their proper development. Does the
plethora of distractions (Internet, cable TV,
video games) available to kids today play a
distracting role or does every generation of
children have such new age distractions? In
either case, they cannot serve as an excuse.
John J.
McGowen
IEEE Member
***
... On "Backscatter: The
Unfathomable Internet" (December
2006)
Thanks for publishing on this
topic. The article appeared to downplay the
Internet as a resource for information, or as a
publishing vehicle per se. Some very good and
accurate information is out there that simply
couldn't/didn't make it past the "peer" reviewed
journals set due to bias. The Internet truly
does provide a wide open arena for publishing,
agreed, and with that comes the good and the
bad, but also the ability to get much more
information available without hitting against a
bias that may be present. I believe all
information we get (even with peer reviewed
journals) should come with caveat emptor, or
rather caveat lector (let the reader beware)!
Time and time again, I have worked through a
"fabulously new, accurate and general numerical
algorithm" paper only to find the authors and
reviewers alike have overlooked or simply didn't
mention the caveats or even researched the
failure modes of the new techniques.
Having a peer review is no
guarantee of the information's utility to the
reader's task at hand -- even more so when the
reviews are anonymous. One area of improvement
(for both peer reviewed documents and Internet
resources) would be to require all reviewers to
identify themselves along with their
affiliations, and also publish their comments.
This would create a market of respected
reviewers who would be willing to spend the time
and effort to accurately review material and
keep their comments targeted and appropriate.
One of the problems in the past
was the price of physical publications. But with
the Internet growing rapidly as a primary
resource/research vehicle, its lower cost is
less an obstacle to getting information out,
reviewed, and, most important, utilized.
However, both peer reviewed journals and the
Internet have a long way to go.
Paul Robert
Hayes
IEEE Senior Member
***
... On "Alternative Energy
Real or Hype?" (December
2006)
Thank you for your article on
Alternative Energy.
I fully support and encourage
the development and use of alternative energy as
well as energy conservation. However, I am
concerned that a couple of aspects of most
alternative energy sources are usually not
discussed; namely the nonrecurring cost of
manufacturing the energy source (and resulting
economic return on investment) and the energy
required to create the renewable energy.
At a recent energy conference, I
asked the manufacturers of Photovoltaic (PV) arrays
and of Biomass fuel generators how much energy
it takes to create their energy. I was told that
it requires two thirds as much energy to
manufacture a PV array as that array will
generate during its useable life time (PV seems
to only be cost effective today due to
government subsidies). I got essentially the
same answer for biomass in that the production
of biomass fuels requires about two thirds as
much energy as you get out of each quantity of
fuel. Although there is a net gain in energy, it
is misleading to put faith in these sources of
energy as being able to replace fossil fuels.
There are similar issues for
producing hydrogen for fuel cells and even for
wind energy (what is the cost and energy
consumption required to manufacture a wind
mill?). Compare the energy in to energy out for
these alternative energies to the fact that it
takes only one barrel of oil to product 30
barrels of oil.
My concern is that the public is
being misled into a feeling that these
alternative energy sources will save us when the
world runs out of oil or the price of oil
becomes prohibitive for current uses.
I recently received a quote for
a grid connected PV system for my house. The
quote after subtracting subsidies was about
$20,000. This came out to a 40 year return on
investment clearly not practical.
I would like to see you address
these issues in a future article.
Bill Souder
IEEE Member
Yucca Valley, Calif.
***
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