Goldberger, Marvin L.

Caltech Authors - Main

497 Am. J. Phys. 68 ~6!, June 2000Some of these CAMSs threatened to cancel
their subscriptions, a somewhat hollow
threat since none of them seemed to be sub-
scribers, and one suggested that I would no
doubt henceforth automatically reject any
manuscripts, on any subject, submitted by
known SI advocates. I offered to print any
further ~reasonable! letters on the subject
that I might receive, but their response was
disappointingly nonexistent.
After that digression, herewith Professor
Goldberger’s letter.
1Robert H. Romer, ‘‘Units—SI-Only, or Multi-
cultural Diversity?,’’ Am. J. Phys. 67 ~1!,
13–16 ~1999!.
2Robert H. Romer, ‘‘ ‘You’ve got mail!’—The
SI Jelly Donut,’’ Am. J. Phys. 67 ~6!, 470
~1999!.
3Harold W. Lewis, ‘‘Ball Lightning,’’ Sci. Am.
208 ~3!, 106–116 ~1963!.
Robert H. Romer, Editor
Dear Dr. Romer,
I am indeed the person Hal Lewis re-
ferred to in his Ball Lightning article. I can-
not, of course, make any claim as to being
the originator of the profound observation
that the energy content of a large jelly do-
nut is, in fact, one megajoule. I can say
that, regardless of whoever preceded me, I
made the discovery independently.
Hal Lewis and I were members of a
group called Jason that had summer studies
beginning in 1960 ~and in fact continues,
the fortieth consecutive one going on right
now!. It was our custom to provide donuts
along with morning coffee. On one occa-
sion, deploring the caloric content of a
large jelly donut which I took to be about
250 kilocalories, I made the deep observa-
tion (;432503103 joules51 megajoule!.
In either 1961 or 1962, this became a joke
between Hal and me.
I enjoyed your editorial. I should add
that I enjoy the American Journal of Phys-
ics. I am sorry the donut story is not more
exciting, but now you know everything I
do.
With regard to SI units—I first encoun-
tered them in my introductory physics
course at Carnegie Tech and have not used
them since. The greatest concession I have© 2000 Ameriever made in deviating from cgs is to re-
move some ugly 4p’s from Maxwell’s
equations by using so-called Heaviside
units. Good luck in your crusade. May the
force ~in dynes! be with you.
Marvin L. Goldberger
621 Mira Monte Street
La Jolla, California 92037
10 July 1999
SI AND OTHER UNITS
In the July–August issue of Metric To-
day I read that the editorial1 you wrote in
the January issue of your Journal gives the
impression that you are a proponent of
‘‘moving back in time,’’ favouring a mix-
ture of units. You stated ‘‘clear thinking
can be presented equally well in miles or
meters.’’ That certainly would depend on
the language ~pertaining to measurements!
we are speaking; if you tell me A and B lie
five miles apart, and I only know what
meters are, it wouldn’t be clear at all. You
seem to forget that the metric system and
the inch–pound system are not the only
ones that existed. Japan had a totally differ-
ent system, so did Russia, the Sudan, Tai-
wan, Cuba, and hundreds of other countries
before they converted to the metric system.
Even in the Netherlands, small as it is, the
ell, the voet, the roede each had ten to
twenty different measurements when com-
pared to the meter. Please see ‘‘The World
Measurement Guide’’ issues by the Econo-
mist. Let’s go back to trading in rocks and
shells, or even the obsolete units. As for
writing sec i.s.o. s, that is like always writ-
ing dollar i.s.o. $. The simpler it is, the
more people will understand the system. If
you paid with a $100.00 bill you would not
like to get change with francs, lire, guil-
ders, and marken, right? For the reader2
who thought metric was ‘‘bad’’ because it
has a base-10 instead of the base-12 of the
old system; the answer to that is that only
the inch–foot has a base of 12, nothing
else. At 83 I have used both systems, each
for about 40 years so I can say ‘‘Metric SI
is the simplest system anyone can think of
and everybody can learn in a few hours.’’LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters are selected for their expected interest for our readers. Some letters are sent to reviewers for
advice; some are accepted or declined by the editor without review. Letters must be brief and may be
edited, subject to the author’s approval of significant changes. Although some comments on published
articles and notes may be appropriate as letters, most such comments are reviewed according to a
special procedure and appear, if accepted, in the Notes and Discussions section. ~See the ‘‘Statement
of Editorial Policy’’ in the January issue.! Running controversies among letter writers will not be
published.THE SAGA OF THE SI JELLY
DONUT CONTINUED
Editor’s note-
In my January 1999 editorial,1 I asked if
any readers knew of the origin of the Jelly
Donut as a unit of energy (1 JD[106 J).
After several readers wrote to tell me that
the Jelly Donut unit had its origins in Philip
Morrison’s TV series ~‘‘The Ring of
Truth’’! and the companion book from the
1980s, I returned to the subject in the June
issue,2 where I observed that I had used the
JD in my own 1976 book, and that neither
Morrison nor I could recall where we had
first heard of it.
Some further correspondence with Mor-
rison finally led me to a Scientific Ameri-
can article3 on ‘‘Ball Lightning’’ ~sic! by
Harold Lewis, who wrote ~in part!: ‘‘An
average lightning ball 25 centimeters ~10
inches! in diameter and singly ionized at
normal atmospheric density would contain
about one megajoule ~million joules! of en-
ergy. I am indebted to M. L. Goldberger of
Princeton University for pointing out to me
that a megajoule can be visualized as the
amount of energy that would be released by
the chemical combustion of a large jelly
doughnut.’’
I of course then wrote to Goldberger
whose reply is printed below. In the mean-
time, I found myself for a week or so the
target of a listserv discussion group of Cer-
tified Advanced Metrication Specialists ~a
humorless crew if ever there was one!, who
had belatedly found my January editorial
and who proceeded to exchange messages
labeling me as a ‘‘pseudo-physicist’’
~among other terms, such as ‘‘holdout,’’
‘‘unprofessional,’’ and ‘‘renegade’’! and
suggesting that since the preponderance of
the letters I published in the June 1999 AJP
were sympathetic to unit diversity, I must
have dishonestly selected the ones I agreed
with and discarded many that endorsed the
‘‘SI-Only’’ position. Not so. The June issue
contained all the letters and emails I had
received on the subject. ~Well, I did get
several messages commenting on the ex-
cessive length, up to 17 meters, of the igua-
nas I had referred to in my editorial, and I
printed only one of those iguana letters.!497can Association of Physics Teachers
1Robert H. Romer, ‘‘Units—SI-Only, or Multi-
cultural Diversity?,’’ Am. J. Phys. 67 ~1!,
13–16 ~1999!.
2E. T. David, ‘‘SI Units—Misdirected Zealotry.
First Change the Number System!,’’ Am. J.
Phys. 67 ~6!, 470 ~1999!.
E. Roelofsen
1870 Neil Street
Victoria, British Columbia
V8R 3C7 Canada
13 September 1999
REPENT!
Repent! Repent! Surely you now see the
error of your ways!1 Were it not for the
continued use in some quarters of English498 Am. J. Phys., Vol. 68, No. 6, June 2000units, encouraged by those such as yourself
who make flabby arguments for ‘‘diver-
sity,’’ the Mars Climate Orbiter would still
be on course. The work of a talented and
dedicated group of space engineers has
gone down the drain, all because you and
others of your ilk perversely enjoy using
both feet and meters. If our engineers and
scientists were all committed to the SI-
Only philosophy, and protected from the
nonsensical use of other unit systems, our
space program would never have suffered
that disaster.
1Robert H. Romer, ‘‘Units—SI-Only, or Multi-
cultural Diversity?,’’ Am. J. Phys. 67 ~1!,
13–16 ~1999!.Samuel Ibbetson
1729 Hiway 128
Calistoga, California 94515
3 October 1999
And a note from the editor:
Sure. And a bunch of engineers or sci-
entists dumb enough or careless enough not
to know or care about their units could be
relied on with total confidence to get their
decimal points right, to include g in going
from kilograms to newtons, never to con-
fuse, say, cubic meters with cubic centime-
ters, to know what time zone they are in,
and to get their signs right so as to make
sure that their rockets will go up and not
down.
Robert H. Romer, EditorPUBLISH EARLY AND OFTEN
We used to be able to say things once; if the message was reasonable, it had a good chance of
becoming a permanent part of the structure of the field. Today, a single publication is lost; if we
say it only once, it will be presumed that we have changed our mind, and we therefore must
publish repeatedly.
Rolf Landauer, ‘‘Fashions in Science and Technology,’’ Phys. Today 50 ~12!, 61–62 ~1997!.498Letters to the Editor


The saga of the SI Jelly Donut (continued)

https://authors.library.caltech.edu/28287/1/GOLajp00.pdf

The saga of the SI Jelly Donut (continued)

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Caltech Authors - Main