Science Group of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain
Newsletter – March 1998
This online version of the newsletter omits several items where special permission would be needed from individual authors for such republication.
Conversation with a Stone
Wislawa Szymborska (1962)
I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I want to enter your insides,
have a look round,
breathe my fill of you."
"Go away," says the stone.
"I'm shut tight.
Even if you break me to pieces,
we'll all still be closed.
You can grind us to sand,
we still won't let you in."
I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I've come out of pure curiosity.
Only life can quench it.
I mean to stroll through your palace,
then go calling on a leaf, a drop of water.
I don't have much time.
My mortality should touch you."
"I'm made of stone," says the stone,
"and must therefore keep a straight face.
Go away.
I don't have the muscles to laugh."
I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I hear you have great empty halls inside you,
unseen, their beauty in vain,
soundless, not echoing anyone's steps.
Admit you don't know them well yourself."
"Great and empty, true enough," says the stone,
"but there isn't any room.
Beautiful, perhaps, but not to the taste
of your poor senses.
You may get to know me, but you'll never know me through.
My whole surface is turned toward you,
all my insides turned away."
I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I don't seek refuge for eternity.
I'm not unhappy.
I'm not homeless.
My world is worth returning to.
I'll enter and exit empty-handed.
And my proof I was there
will be only words,
which no one will believe."
"You shall not enter," says the stone.
"You lack the sense of taking part.
No other sense can make up for your missing sense of taking part.
Even sight heightened to become all-seeing
will do you no good without a sense of taking part.
You shall not enter, you have only a sense of what that sense should be,
only its seed, imagination."
I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I haven't got two thousand centuries,
so let me come under your roof."
"If you don't believe me," says the stone,
"just ask the leaf, it will tell you the same.
Ask a drop of water, it will say what the leaf has said.
And, finally, ask a hair from your own head.
I am bursting with laughter, yes, laughter, vast laughter,
although I don't know how to laugh."
I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in."
"I don't have a door," says the stone. This poem was read in German translation from the original Polish by Ernst August-Müller at the Science Section Conference, C.G. Carus Institut, Öschelbronn 23-25th May 1997. This translation is by Stanislaw Baranczak & Clare Cavanagh and has been kindly made available by the moderator of the web site http://redfrog.norconnect.no/~poems/poets/szymborska.html where Szymborska’s poetry can be found in five languages.
Comment
Reports
Ifgene – International Forum for Genetic Engineering
Ifgene UK ran two public meetings in 1997. The first took place in March as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival. It comprised two public ethical analysis sessions on two case examples chosen from gene technology, transgenic maize and sheep. The latter session was well attended by scientists from the Roslin Institute of ‘Dolly’ fame and PPL Therapeutics, including Ron James whose company announced in February 1998 the successful cloning of a calf. A report on these sessions is available. The second meeting called by the Ilkeston Anthroposophical Group involved lectures on transgenic plant technology (Dr Peter Lund), the human genome project (Dr Peter Garrett) and ethical analysis in biotechnology (Dr Ben Mepham) followed by lively discussions.
In October 1997, Ifgene Switzerland arranged a Dialogue on risk assessment of transgenic plants at the Goetheanum attended by some 30 participants from Europe and the USA. Participants from Switzerland, where a referendum will take place on genetic engineering this summer, were particularly impressed by the quality of open dialogue achieved at this meeting between enthusiasts for genetic engineering, such as David Stark of Monsanto USA, and opponents, such as Barbara Weber, of Ökozentrum Freiburg, Germany. A 60 page report on this meeting is available to order (please see publications section below).
Also in October, David Heaf represented Ifgene at a public consultation on the European Biotechnology Patent directive set up by the UK government’s Standing Advisory Committee on Industrial Property and also made a written submission. One issue that concerns the members of dozens of non-governmental organisations opposing this directive, which is still making steady slow headway through the convolutions of EU lawmaking processes, is that they see it as obscuring or redefining the boundary between a discovery and an invention. Article 3.2 states: “Biological material which is isolated from its natural environment or processed by means of a technical process may be the subject of an invention even if it already occurred in nature.”
The next international meeting of Ifgene will be in Paris in June. This meeting is at the request of and partly funded by Carrefour, a French supermarket chain, which has recognised Ifgene’s effectiveness in deepening the debate on genetic engineering and promoting non-confrontational dialogue. Ifgene Netherlands has also won generous financial support this year from the Dutch government for putting on the first public national debate in the Netherlands on xenotransplantation. As part of its aim of developing viewpoints and public awareness, Ifgene continues to offer to provide the content of conferences on various aspects of genetic engineering to local groups which can find a venue and make all the other necessary local arrangements.
We have received notification from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics of their new inquiry which began on 26th January 1988 into The genetic modification of plants. The Council has already investigated genetic screening and xenotransplantation and produced extensive reports on its findings. The working party on the current topic is expected to report in 1999 and seeks the public’s views. For further information and to make a written submission contact Sandy Thomas, Nuffield Council on Bioethics, 28 Bedford Sq. London WC1 3EG. Tel: 0171 631 0566. Fax: 0171 323 4877.
Ifgene web site is currently in the process of being moved from USA to UK following a change in responsibilities of our USA co-ordinator, John Armstrong. The new address will be on the anthroposophical news and articles agency server managed by Stuart Brown at Reading. The new address will be http://www.ifgene.org and the new Ifgene site editor is David Heaf.
Ifgene is an initiative of the Science Section of the School of Spiritual Science. The working groups in different countries continue research on genetic engineering and its social and ethical implications. Ifgene Holland, in consultation with Waldorf teachers in the Netherlands and Germany, is producing a textbook to assist teachers in dealing with the subject of genetic engineering at high school level (Class 11/12). The co-ordinators continue to field questions from the general public. Many of the enquiries come in via the web site from students faced with dissertations on the ethics of genetic engineering.
For more information, please contact David Heaf, Hafan, Cae Llwyd, Llanystumdwy, Cricieth, Gwynedd, LL52 0SG, UK. Tel/Fax 01766 523181.
Email: 101622.2773 (at) Compuserve.Com.
Future meetings
Science Section in UK
The next meeting, at which Johannes Kühl is expected to be present, will take place on the weekend of 17/18th October 1998. The venue will probably be Elmfield School, Stourbridge. Contributions are being received which relate to the theme of the 9th Lesson. For full details and to offer contributions, please contact: Robert Rose, 1 Sunny Terrace, Vicarage Street, Painswick, Glos GL6 6XS. Tel: 01452 812959.
Science Group
The theme of the next Science Group Conference will be “The Human Heart”. Philip Kilner, Nick Thomas and Graham Kennish will bring prepared contributions and form the focus for group participation and discussion. How valid is the current popular and medical perception of the heart as a pump? What sustains this model and how much is lost in maintaining it? Wynstones will again host the meeting from 7.30 pm Friday 6th to 1 pm Sunday 8th November 1998.
Details will be available in September from Graham Kennish, Birch Cottage, Haresfield Lane, Brookthorpe, Glos GL4 OUP. Email: graham@grahamk.demon.co.uk.
(Stephen Talbott’s article on the heart will appear in the September 1998 Articles Supplement. A paper by Ralph Marinelli et al. on the same subject appeared in the SES Newsletter, Winter 1997 – see ‘Publications’ section below. Ed.)
Future Courses
The New Hibernian Way
Second session, May 1998, Ireland. For full details contact Richard Swann at Orchard Leigh Camphill, Bath Road, Eastington, Stonehouse, Glos GL10 3AY. Tel/Fax: 01453 823811. Email: RichardSwann@Compuserve.Com.
The Web of Life
with Fritjof Capra, Brian Goodwin, Stephen Harding and Andy Goldsworthy on 31st May to 26th June 1998 at Schumacher College, The Old Postern, Dartington, Devon TQ9 6EA. Tel: 01803 865934. Fax: 01803 866899. Email: schumcoll@gn.apc.org. Cost: £1,600.
This course offers a new conceptual framework for the scientific understanding of life. During the past three decades a new language for understanding the complexity of living systems – organisms, social systems, and ecosystems – has been developed at the forefront of science. Based on his new best-selling book, The Web of Life, Fritjof Capra presents a synthesis of the new discoveries, an outline of an emerging theory of living systems which offers for the first time a unified view of mind, matter and life.
Gaia theory – understanding the Earth as a living system – will be used as the principal illustration of the systems view of life in joint sessions with ecologist Stephan Harding, an associate of James Lovelock and member of the College core faculty. Brian Goodwin, biologist and resident member of faculty at Schumacher College, will discuss applications of the new understanding of complexity to ecological concepts such as rain forest dynamics and measures of health in ecosystems, within the Gaian framework. The three instructors, led by Brian Goodwin, will discuss their visions of a participative science of qualities of the type suggested by Goethe and others, and the implications of such a new scientific approach for an ethics consistent with the values of deep ecology.
Earth artist Andy Goldsworthy will join the course for a couple of days to discuss and demonstrate how his ways of working artistically with the natural world relate to systemic thinking and modern understandings of the role of art.
In the last part of the course, systems thinking will be applied to various practical problems and issues. The specific fields of application will depend on the students’ interests. Students will be expected to take an active role in shaping this part of the course.
Book Reviews
Entscheidungskampf im Ätherischen (A decisive battle in the etheric) by Nick Thomas. 64 pp, Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach, 1994. ISBN 3-7235-0729-8, sFr. 17.-/DM 19.-. Reviewed by Georg Maier in Elemente der Naturwissenschaft 61/2 1994.
My colleague told me ‘It can be read in 20 minutes.’ The 45 succinct sides of text contain reports of interviews between the publisher and Nick Thomas in 1991 and 1992.
The book is not to be recommended to those who would have to rely on the closely typed appendix for the things which are not self explanatory such as the anthroposophical technical terms or the context, each time to be guessed, of a particular lecture of Rudolf Steiner. However, we encounter, albeit between the lines, the somewhat different views of a man who is in a position to say something original. (This does not mean that each time he has developed his point of view comprehensibly.) These interviews can set the reader’s own mind in motion:
Right at the start the etheric is referred to explicitly as the spiritual atmosphere in the realm of Man, thereby creating a starting point for subsequent ideas.
Paradoxically we then read that this atmosphere will fade away, especially during this century (in which it should enliven itself after the terribly dead last century), and rigidify in empty phrase-mongering. I came up against the following question: In comparison with the narrow bourgeois circumstances in which the founding of anthroposophy occurred, haven’t we since then reached a paradisal state in mutual independence?
I was touched by the idea that the century would have been a lot worse without the anthroposophical work going on in the background: ‘Through understanding, through meditation this advance was made, the general human consciousness grows step by step. Without these concerns from the anthroposophical side the environmental destruction would have been far worse.’
And the media, usually dubbed as evil in such a context, are considered in relation to their effectiveness without the slightest criticism. Even when the reports from crisis regions are inappropriate in detail, they nevertheless arouse an involvement with the matter, which goes beyond the fleeting portrayal to a night-time learning process through the angel. With what takes place in the individual, a sense can arise for what really happened.
The following themes are announced on the cover: Ahrimanic attacks on the life force – the spiritual events in the etheric world – truth and lies – the effects of the physical world in the etheric and the etheric in the physical – true and false paths to an etheric technology, the Strader machine – Rupert Sheldrake – radioactivity & atomic energy – contemporary events in the light of the apocalypse – Questions on crossing the threshold.
Translated by David J. Heaf
The Heart of the Matter
by Olive Whicher. Temple Lodge, 92pp, £7.95 (p/b), ISBN 0-904693-91-0, p/b. Reviewed by David Heaf.
This is quite unlike Graham Greene’s novel of the same name but no less imaginative for that. Picture yourself standing inside a hollow sphere. It begins to expand. The curvature of the walls becomes flatter as they recede, until eventually after infinite expansion all curvature has gone and you are left standing on the plane at infinity. Now, contract your sphere, stepping outside it when it gets too cramped, and watch it in your minds eye as it shrinks, its curvature ever increasing until it is infinite. Your sphere is invisible, or visible only in thought, infinitely small. It has reached the infinity within. It is the world between this infinite inwardness and the here and now that this book opens up as it takes the reader on a short voyage of Discovering the Laws of Living Organisms. Infinities within, so we’re told, are at every growing point on a plant like a focus for the working in of ‘etheric formative forces’ from the periphery.
Even though the approach is based on projective geometry, no special mathematical skill is needed, only a vivid imagination. George Adams, inspired by conversations he had with Rudolf Steiner, was the first person in the UK to apply projective geometry to understanding the natural world, physical and etheric. Whicher assisted Adams in his researches for nearly three decades and since his death has worked untiringly to make the results accessible to the public. As it is clearly meant as an introductory work beginners will probably not be troubled by the innumerable repetitions. In any case, statements like ‘it is only in thinking that a human being is and can be free’ stand a hearing many times.
The book is rich in variety. In a single leaf it touches on cosmos, Xàos, embryology, juvenile crime, anthroposophical medicine, botany and philosophy. And throughout there are pointers to the Christening of science, especially in the two appendices. Historical and biographical aspects are enlivened by the author’s personal reminiscences. Of two of Steiner’s twelve points of view, materialism is roundly criticised while mathematism, which is surely the point of view taken by the author, is identified as a way to knowledge. A certain lack of epistemological rigour in the book regarding the use of mathematics is understandable. Even non-scientists would take it for granted nowadays that science is utterly dependent on mathematics for its progress.
To anyone contemplating delving into the approach Olive Whicher describes, my word of advice would be that they invest their time on her more thorough work co-authored with George Adams entitled The Plant Between Sun and Earth and if possible read it with a copy of her Projective Geometry to hand.
The Marriage of Sense & Thought
by Stephen Edelglass, Georg Maier, Hans Gebert & John Davy, Lindisfarne Books, 1997, 146pp, ISBN 0-940262-82-7, $16.95 (£9.99). Reviewed by David Heaf.
This book is a revised edition with additions of Matter and Mind (1992) by the same authors. By referring to everyday examples and simple experiments, it takes the reader through to a phenomena based approach to science, mainly in physics – especially optics -, with an absolute minimum of epistemology and quotations. It should thus be very accessible to the layman as well as the practical scientist who is beginning to look for an alternative to materialistic reductionism but who does not want to get bogged down in philosophy. Throughout it seeks an integrative approach to doing science which is conscious of the knowing process and the activity of the knower. This necessitates attention to the part played by the psychology of sense perception in the process. It leads to the conclusion that when the famous tree falls in the forest there is no sound without an observer present.
In working through to the epistemological lessons that can be learned from quantum mechanics the history of physics is painted in broad brush strokes mainly to illustrate what can be learned from it for the development of scientific thinking. The authors point out that modern science risks taking its models as reality. For instance, the seeming wave/particle duality of light is an artefact of the respective models. A truly scientific description need never rely on hypothetical entities.
‘Could it not be’, they ask, ‘that explanations in terms of underlying mechanisms are not really required anywhere in physics?’ And later the authors assert: ‘The paradox of the wave-particle duality results from a conceptual failure in which the two now independent realms of imaging and chemical action at a distance have been inappropriately bound together through the artifice of imagining light to be object-like and thus concrete and familiar. (…) The failure of thinking suggested by quantum mechanical paradoxes lies in the misplaced attempt to understand phenomena in terms of pseudo-phenomenal things imagined to actually bring about effects.’
Long after the reader has settled into a book which is obviously a modern approach to physics in its broadest sense, almost at the end biology is sprung on the reader. Unfortunately, with only a dozen pages to go, this subject gets nowhere near the thorough epistemological treatment that is delivered in the previous nine tenths of the book. Approaches by Brian Goodwin, Lawrence Edwards and Jochen Bockemühl are briefly described and the key to the authors’ position with respect to the transition from physics to biology might be summed up in the following quote: ‘It is our conviction that any endeavour resting exclusively on mathematical formalism will not be entirely adequate to grasp the intrinsic nature of biological forming entities.’ This follows a juxtaposition of brief descriptions of both Goodwin’s and Edward’s mathematical approaches with the distinction that ‘measurables appear, in Edwards’ work, only with the finished organic form. They do not regulate it.’ Whether this, in the phenomena based approach of Edelglass et al., makes Edwards’ approach more epistemologically acceptable than Goodwin’s is not entirely clear. However, what is clear is that both their approaches involve fitting data obtained from ‘measurables’ to mathematical models with the aid of computers. What is certainly not done in the book is throwing out the baby of mathematical rigour of thinking with the bath water of mathematical formalism. Indeed, when speaking of the ‘flexible picturing’, the ‘precise imagination’ and the ‘intuitive thinking’ needed in the Bockemühlian approach to experiencing the ‘inner gesture’ of an organism, the authors are clearly mindful of Goethe when he says:
‘Such an experience, which is made up of several others, is clearly of a higher kind. It represents the formula by which countless individual calculations are expressed… We have to learn from the mathematician the careful cautiousness with which he proceeds step by step, deducing each step from the proceeding one, and even where we employ no calculation, we must always proceed as if we were accountable to the strictest geometrician…’
At the very end, the book touches on the ethical activity of the scientist. Since we create the reality in which we live and science itself is not value neutral, but depends on the particular world view of the scientist, the conclusion that should be drawn is that the scope for moral action is not just confined to how the results of science are used by the technologist. Molecular biologists, genetic engineers and cloners take note!
Publications
Newsletter Articles Supplement
The September 1998 issue (Number 4) of the Supplement is already full. It will contain articles by P. P. Veugelers, Johannes Wirz, Stephen Talbott and correspondence on Norman Grant’s articles in the 1996 issue. Order forms will be sent out in September.
In view of the cumbersome nature of the journal’s title, “Articles Supplement to the Newsletter of the Science Group of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain”, unless valid and strong reasons against come to my attention, such as there already exists an English language journal with that name, I propose to give our relatively young journal a shorter name. After much deliberation and some discussion with others, the name ‘Archetype’ has been selected. The intention is to use it concurrently with the original as a subtitle for a couple of years. Readers’ comments on this proposal will be most welcome.
Water, Electricity and Health – Protecting yourself from electrostress at home and work. Alan Hall. Hawthorn Press, 192pp, ISBN 1 860 890, £12.95, p/b.
Electricity is basic to modern life. Electric appliances such as TVs, mobile phones and computers proliferate. Webs of electric wiring surround us at home, whilst pylons, power lines and transformers form a national grid. These electric webs and appliances generate electromagnetic fields which can harm health and life through electrostress.
Electrostress is now pervasive. Symptoms range from fatigue, tension and poor resilience, to insomnia, low immunities and serious illness depending on the person. Houses near pylons and transformers are hard to sell and get loans for. But whilst scientists accept electrostress, nobody has yet discovered just how electromagnetic fields cause ill health.
When physicist Alan Hall found that underground streams linked a stricken home to nearby power cables, the family moved to recover their health. He then asked how water transmits electostress. Here, he invites you to accompany him on his fascinating journey of discovery into the nature of water as the bearer of life, and as the carrier of death. His major discovery of biodynamic fields is applied to countering the harmful effects of electromagnetic fields. (Taken from the publisher’s flyer.)
Comment in connection with the above: Sevak Gulbenkian sent in an article which gave him cause for concern entitled The military use of electromagnetic, microwave and mind control technology by Armen Victorian (Lobster 34, pp2-7, Winter 1998). Sevak Gulbenkian asked ‘Is it something for the Science Section?’ It is also worth asking also whether it is something for the Science Group. If you would like to receive a copy of the article please send a SAE to David Heaf at the address at the end of the newsletter.
“Schiller-Mappe”
The so-called “Schiller-Mappe”, a compilation of indications by Rudolf Steiner collected by Paul Eugen Schiller based on a number of conversations between Steiner and other scientists which has so far been available only in typescript form from the Science Section of the School of Spiritual Science, is expected to be published in autumn 1998 by the R. Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung in the series “Beiträge zur Gesamtausgabe” with S. Clerc as the principal editor.
(Source: Newsletter of the Arbeitsgruppe “Geisteswissenschaft, Technik, Ätherkräfte” No.4, 4th October 1997, edited by Christoph Podak, Hardrain 12, CH 4082 Basel, Switzerland.
Email: Institout@Compuserve.Com.)
Il Divano Morfologico – magazine of morphology
Six-monthly magazine of scientific knowledge, in English and Italian. First issue expected in January 1998.
- The discovery of non-Euclidean geometries and its consequences: Observations on the history of consciousness in the 19th Century. Ziegler R. (Switzerland) The discovery of non-Euclidean geometry releases geometrical intuition from tangible perception, opening up new possibilities for knowledge, towards a form of pure thought, capable to grasp ideal relationship.
- A hypothesis free science of inorganic nature. Maier G. (Switzerland) A cognitive approach, free from hypothetical-theoretical preconceptions, can establish a new type of relationship between “ideal” and “phenomenal” contents in Physics.
- The metamorphosis of plants as expression of juvenilisation in the evolutionary process. Suchantke A. (Germany) The leaf as “ideal” plant organ, in the sense of Goethean morphology, as observed through the evolutionary process, in a search for the morphodynamics of the plant.
- Symbolical dynamics in the evolution of vertebrates. Nani D. (Italy). Orientative notes on the dynamics of the form in vertebrates, in the light of comparative anatomy and teratology.
- A comment on J.W. Goethe’s elegy “The Metamorphosis of Plants”. Nicolato S. (Italy) The principle of metamorphosis as evolutionary factor in Goethe’s entire work.
- Reductionism, holism and levels of organisation in biology knowledge. Mondella F. (Italy) A critical analysis of the two basic methodologies involved in contemporary biological research: their differences and complementarity.
- An interview: The holistic conception of reality. Lazlo E. (Hungary)
- Sensibility and reason, art and science in Steiner’s pedagogy. Alberti S. (Italy)
Editor: Sandro Curti (Casa Editrice “Il Capitello del Sole”, via Cartoleria 20/b, I-40124 Bologna). Scientific board: Emilio Ferrario, Daniele Nani, Silvia Nicolato (Associazione Scientifica Goetheanistica Italiana, Viale Monza 6, I-20127 Milano). For subscriptions (2 numbers): Italian Lire 44,000 for EU countries (60,000 for non-Eu countries)
Orders must be sent directly to: Il Capitello del Sole srl, via Cartoleria 20/b, I – 40124 Bologna, Italy. Payment must be made to account 48440/5, CA.RIS.BO Bank (Sede Centrale, via Farini 22, I – 40124 Bologna, Italy) under the name of “Il Capitello del Sole srl”. Bank code numbers: ABI 6385, CAB 2417.
See also http://space.tin.it/scienza/emiferra
Über die lemniscatischen Planetenbewegungen
Herman Bauer, 1988, 146pp, Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart. ISBN 3-7725-0885-5. (Notified by N. Willby)
Dialogue on risk assessment of transgenic plants -Scientific, technological and societal perspectives
Proceedings of the 3rd Ifgene Workshop in Dornach, Switzerland, 28th October 1997. Contents:
- Risk Assessment: The Evolution of a Viral Population – Pia Malnoe, Gabor Jakab, Eric Droz & Fabian Vaistij (Station Federale de Recherches en Production Vegetale de Changins, Nyon)
- Pollen Dispersion of Transgenic Plants: Remarks and Conclusions – Klaus Ammann (Bern University Botanical Garden)
- Risk Assessment and Criteria for Commercial Launch of Transgenic Plants – David M. Stark (NatureMark, Monsanto, USA)
- How can we feel sure about the safety of transgenic plants? – Barbara Weber (Öko-Institut, Freiburg)
- Evaluation of Both Products and Technologies – Johannes Wirz (Forschungsinstitut am Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland) – plus transcripts of discussions of each paper. (56pp.)
Please send your order with a cheque payable to ‘Ifgene’ for £5 (includes UK postage, overseas add £1) to: Dr David J. Heaf, Ifgene UK, Hafan, Cae Llwyd, Llanystumdwy, Cricieth, Gwynedd, LL52 0SG, UK.
Elemente der Naturwissenschaft
Articles mostly in German, abstracts in English.
No. 67(2) 1997 Über die Bildung von Viscum Album L. Peter Goedings. “Salz, Merkur und Sulfur” bei Rudolf Steiner – Welche fundamentalen Prozesse lassen sich beschreiben? Michael Kalisch. Thinking about thinking: Rudolf Steiner and modern science. Hedley Gange.
Editor: Dr. Johannes Wirz, Forschungslaboratorium am Goetheanum, Hügelweg 59, CH-4143 Dornach, Switzerland. Email:100716.1756@Compuserve.Com. Distributor: Verlag der Kooperative Dürnau, Im Winkel 11, D-88422 Dürnau, Germany Tel: +49 7582 93000, Fax +49 7582 930020. Subscription 28.- DM/year for 2 issues, 16.- per single issue, inclusive of p&p.
Mathematisch-Physikalisch Korrespondenz
Articles mostly in German.
Nr. 189 (St John’s 1997) Lösung der Gleichung xy = yx , Christopher Weihmann. Optimierung (Zusammenfassung), Wilhelm Frank. Zur Schwenkschen Tropfenbildmethode, Georg Unger [see p.2 of the Sep. 1997 issue of the Science Group Newsletter for an English translation of this report].
Nr. 190 (Michaelmas 1997) Wo steht die physikalische Erkenntnis? Georg Unger. Zur Wäremeausdehnung, H.-J Stoß. Über die “Ausdehnung der Wärme”, Friedrich Wilhelm Dustmann. [The last two articles are provoked by P. P . Veugelers’ “Thermal Expansion in Counterspace” a version of which appeared in the Articles Supplement to this newsletter, September 1997)
Nr. 191 (Christmas 1997) Die Liniengeometrie der Raum-Zeit: ein Ansatz zur Überwindung der Welle-Teilchen Dualismus in der Quantenphysik – Erster Teil: Twistorgeometrie und Quadriquaternionenalgebra, Hans Thiel. Zum Hingang des Mitarbeiteres Karl Groeger, Georg Unger.
Subscriptions are Sfr40/DM45 per year. Available from Dr. G. Unger, Mathematisch-Physicalisches Institut, Dorneckstr. 15, CH-4143 Dornach, Switzerland.
Newsletter of the Society for the Evolution of Science
Contents of volume 13 (1) Winter 1997: The heart is not a pump: A refutation of the pressure propulsion premise of heart function. Ralph Marinelli, Branko Fürst, Hoyte van der Zee, Andrew McGinn & William Marinelli.
Newsletter editor: Mark Riegner, Prescott College, 220 Grove Avenue, Prescott, Arizona 86301, USA. Tel:(520) 776-5219 Fax:(520) 776 5137 Email: riegner@aztec.asu.edu. Membership (including twice-yearly newsletter) $15.00 per year. Payments to SES Treasurer, Jim Kotz, 3234 Laurel Canyon Road, Santa Barbara, California 93105. Tel:(805) 898-0412 Email:jjk@vitsemi.com
Membership
The Science Group is open to members of the Anthroposophical Society. Others may join as associate members. Nick Thomas is Chairman of the Science Group. David Heaf is its acting Treasurer.
Annual membership subscriptions are as follows: £5 (UK), £6 (EU) & £7 (elsewhere). It would help enormously with the administration if subscriptions are paid by banker’s order where possible. If you notice that newsletters have stopped coming, the most likely explanation will be that you have not sent a subscription for more than a year, despite having been sent a reminder.
The group has 81 members. Newsletters are also sent to the Goetheanum and Rudolf Steiner House libraries, Section leaders and to editors of other anthroposophical science periodicals by reciprocal arrangement.
The Group’s bank account as of 30th January 1998 was £520 in credit. Treasurer
Next issue
The September 1998 issue of the newsletter will go out near the beginning of the month. The closing date for copy for that issue is 20th August 1998. Copy should ideally be either typed/printed in black (not grey) or on MS-DOS diskette in a format accessible to Wordperfect 5.1 or MS Word 6.0 or sent by email.
Copy should be sent to: Dr David J. Heaf, Hafan, Cae Llwyd, Llanystumdwy, Cricieth, Gwynedd, LL52 0SG, UK.
Tel/Fax: +44 (0)1766 523181.
Email: 101622.2773 (at) Compuserve.Com.