Friday, April 23, 2010
In spite of unsubstantiated reports that cell phone radiation increases
the risk of brain cancer, sales soared in the first decade of the 3rd
Millennium. Cell phones became a $1 trillion business. There was no
corresponding increase in brain cancer, but perhaps there is a long
latency period. Cancer victims have no way of knowing what caused their
cancer, but the media had made their cell phones the suspect. The clear
scientific conclusion that cell phone radiation could not be the cause,
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/93/3/166
, went largely unreported. In short, microwave photons do not have enough energy to
create a mutant strand of DNA. That cant happen until you get to the
blue limit of the visible spectrum. In the interest of full disclosure,
let me state that although I own a cell phone I dont normally carry it,
and cant even remember my number. I find cell phones to be rude and
intrusive. My wife insists I carry it when I travel so I can dial 911 in
an emergency. Thats OK.
Yesterday, the cell-phone controversy was taken to a new and substantially
lower level. The Cohort Study on Mobile Communications (COSMOS) was
launched in the UK to determine whether microwave radiation from wireless
devices can induce cancer. It will track 250,000 users for 30 years to
catch any slow growing cancers. Note the built-in job protection. The
study will look for neurological diseases such as Parkinsons and
Alzheimers as well. Participants aged 18-69 are being recruited in
Britain, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. In Britain, COSMOS
is inviting 2.4 million cell phone users to take part, and hoping 100,000
or so will accept. If they do the study really well, it will confirm
Albert Einsteins 1905 explanation of the photoelectric effect, for which
he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize. Of course, the photoelectric effect
is confirmed thousands of times annually by students in elementary physics
lab courses. If it is done badly, this tedious and expensive study could
perpetuate the publics unfounded fear of radiation below the ultraviolet
threshold. This must be stopped.
Derivative trading bankrupted one of the richest counties in the nation,
it destroyed the oldest bank in England and some think it could bring down
the world banking system. Whos responsible for this mess? Physicists,
according to 60-Minutes on CBS. "When Wall Street fell in love with
computers 15 years ago it hired a lot of very smart people with PhDs in
physics and mathematics, but not much background in finance," the reporter
explains. "They sit around their computers concocting complex formulas no
one can understand." A 60 Minutes financial expert picks up the
theme: "Physicists do well with billiard balls, they do well with atoms.
They do passably well with protons and electrons, but they dont do well
with people they dont understand." The fund managers, bankers and
investors, presumably, were powerless. (This is a verbatim copy
from March 10, 1995.)
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