X-Message-Number: 3656 Date: 10 Jan 95 15:01:14 EST From: yvan Bozzonetti <> Subject: CRYONICS : U.K. ghost. Sorry to come back once more on the ghost subject, the following letter will tell how the same subjects seen here with disdain (at to say the least) may be perceived in another way elswhere. My first idea on the subject came from a David Jones' Daedalus column in Nature. I have written to him about may idea, without reference to cryonics, here is its answer: Start of quote: << Dear Mr. Bozzonetti, Many thanks for your letter of 21st November 1994, which the Editor of Nature has passed on to me. Thank you for the flattering remarks you make about my Daedalus column. You refer to the column for 17th November, which muses on the temperature of the spirit world. You comment that if that world has a greater number of dimensions than the material world, then anything entering it would gain in degrees of freedom, and would therefore cool down. That is a very clever idea, and I wish I had thought of it myself! You remark that any additional degrees of freedom must give rise to cooling, including degrees of freedom associated with the onset of nonlinear quantum effects. You point out that if an object the size of a bacterium crept a few microns per year, it would acquire quantum properties -- in effect its de Broglie wavelength would become comparable to its length. You observe that rock-salt creeps at about this rate, and invite me to consider the possibility of a salt-particle laser which should operate with noticeable cooling. Again, this is a highly cunning piece of physical reasoning, and I thank you very much for drawing my attention to it. I will gladly add it to the strange mental soup from wich the Daedalus column is weekly distilled. Thank you again for a very perceptive and stimulating letter. It is always good to receive creative scientific discussions from knowledgeable readers! Sincerely yours, David Jones >> End of quote. Yes I know, good scientists at a high level tend to be very polite and support anybody they perceive as honest. On the other hand even in polite form it is always posible to say no, that is not the case here. I muse why my "science is seen as absolute zero on cryonet and as not too bad at Nature office. Yes, I have not send to that publication a scientific paper on the subject and will not try. It would not be even half backed. It seem neverthless than the basic ideas are not seen as strange for a professional scientist. Is it because of the exceptional creativity of Pr. Jones? may be... Is it because physicists are more open minded than the mean homo cryonicus? I fear the cryonists from the 23th century will find in their fridge a 20 th century population sample far from what they could hope for. If a special effort must be undertaken towards a particular category of citizens, it must not be targetted to the gays, durg users and other "special" people. Physicists, mathematicians and high level teachers seem far more worthwile. Y.B. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3656