New York Times on the Web Forums Science

Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

lchic - 04:09am Aug 17, 2002 EST (# 3763 of 3766)

UK Maths-HighSchExamFailures cpSnow

Here's a conversation-stopper you might want to try out at a party. When asked what you do, say: "Actually I'm a mathematician." Anywhere in Britain, this confession would be met with stunned silence. Here being a mathematician imprisons you in a language that most other people just don't speak. So we should not be surprised to discover that 20 per cent fewer students took A-level maths this year. But we ought to be deeply worried.

The proximate cause of the problem was last year's AS-level paper in maths. In this first guinea-pig year, someone miscalculated and made the exam too hard. As a result, twice as many students failed maths as any other subject, and many of them decided not to go on to A-level. The problem will be repeated next year, as the AS syllabus can't be altered until September 2004.

But the problem goes much deeper. The number of students doing well at maths has fallen in recent decades. That reflects the fact that the number of qualified maths teachers has halved over the past 20 years, leaving many students to be taught by teachers for whom maths is a second subject. Fewer students then go on to become maths teachers and the vicious circle continues.

In part the reason is cultural. Ours is a society where inability in maths is often an occasion for sniggering pride, while illiteracy would be a cause for secret shame. This situation has its roots in the old arts/science "two cultures" divide, as well as in the deep-seated British admiration for the pragmatic and suspicion of the abstract or the intellectual. Education is viewed instrumentally. Confronted by algebra, for example, we ask "what's the use of it?" rather than embracing the joy of learning for its own sake. ....
http://argument.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/story.jsp?story=324743
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Estelle+Morris+task+force+maths+&btnG=Google+Search

lchic - 04:15am Aug 17, 2002 EST (# 3764 of 3766)

Air traffic control - Private company - problems UK

The air travel industry's financial regulator has accused the Government of exerting improper pressure on him in its attempt to avoid financial meltdown at Britain's part-privatised air traffic control service.

Doug Andrew, director of economic regulation for the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), has warned the Department for Transport that he will resign unless it stops trying to undermine his independence, industry sources said.

Mr Andrew has refused to bow to demands from the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) for permission to introduce a £200m increase in the fees it charges to airlines, to offset the slump in revenue after 11 September. Under the terms of the regulatory framework devised at the time of the part- privatisation, Nats should be reducing charges each year.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transport/story.jsp?story=325107

lchic - 07:39am Aug 17, 2002 EST (# 3765 of 3766)

That's RICH - on an unimpressive GWB

"" ... the preordained hollowness of the Waco show is not news. This is how this administration always governs. Mr. Bush has two inviolate, one-size-fits-all policies (if obsessions can be called policies): the tax cut (for domestic affairs) and "regime change" in Iraq (foreign affairs). Everything else is a great show designed to provide the illusion of administration activity when it has no plan.

....... Though the president's harshest critics think he's stupid, I've always maintained that the real problem is that he thinks we are stupid.

....... At the F.B.I., a Los Angeles Times investigation revealed, the prehistoric computer system remains in disarray even as the agency's top executives are either pushed out or flee for private employment (as the counterterrorism chief abruptly did on Thursday). The Wall Street Journal discovered that when the federal government issued a terrorist warning to shopping centers four months ago, the Mall of America learned about it only by watching CNN. Not only are our airlines collapsing but, according to Thursday's USA Today, so is the undercover air marshal program that was supposed to be strengthened

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/17/opinion/17RICH.html

[ Date---the week after 9/11 memorial has been bandied in Europe ]

(1 following message)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense