Hi Arthur, Now here's something else even more amazing for you to chew over. I know you are somewhat interested in this, but I'll write this to the list in case there are some FWers who might also be interested.
You will know that I'm deeply interested in the ideas of David Bohm (who died recently), formerly an associate of Einstein, who (with a few more eminent physicists) considered that there is un underlying a Quantum Field which guides the apparent unforecastable pathways of sub-atomic particles (as per orthodox Quantum Theory). It is more like a deep information field, which is how I tend to regard it. I will try to describe a BBC radio science programme of this afternoon. A couple of mathemeticians were talking of experiments in which students had to guess the continuation of runs of numbers. Now these runs of numbers were either purely random numbers or apparent random numbers derived from formula containing what are called hidden attractors. Given these sets of numbers, there would be no possible way for anybody to know which was which, and indeed a super-computer running for a very long time, and given immensely more data, would be necessary to find out. Yet some students were able to guess sequences far more than by chance alone. The experiments were totally blind and telepathy (as we usually consider it) was thus totally ruled out. I repeat, the scientists concerned were Oxbridge mathematicians of repute -- they weren't parapsychologists of any sort. Yet somehow some students were tapping into a knowledge of the way the numbers were originally generated. That's as far as I can go -- most of it was way way above my head and I'm sure I haven't explained it very well. But the mathematicians concerned also expressed amazement and confessed that they were totally mystified. (I'm sure that this will be published more widely in popular form in due course, so I'm looking forward to this.) Keith __________________________________________________________ �Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
