BRASS TRACKS

BY RICHARD E. GEIS

Dear John:

In Ratcherson's article Tomorrow It's Turbulence, the following sentence appears: "The average granule itself turned out to be around one thousand miles in diameter ... to fix the idea in mind you can think of a granule as the size of the British Isles ..."

Now Ratcherson must be letting the loose rocks in his head rattle around too much, for the British Isles from the river Blunk to the Kindle-Candly Isles off Lands End, is but six hundred miles.

Of course, if Ratcherson was thinking about circumference, then. its area becomes eighty thousand, which is a little under the combined land area of England, Wales, and Scotland.

I trust Mr. Ratcherson will make no more blunders of this nature.

----Roger Courtncle, West Upandowningham, England.

Since no one can comprehend an area that size anyway, let's just say they're BIG granules!

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Dear Mr. Cambell;

While running through my old copies of United States Scientist, I found an article by G. E. Halpgingm, of Yale University, in the issue for October 1853. In it he reviews a paper--Willie Lay, "Generalized Sausage Stuffing". Brit. J. Psych., Monogr. Suppl. 24: 1-95, "52"----which he retitles "It's a Sin Without a Skin" which will, no doubt, be of interest to you and perhaps to the other three readers of Brass Tracks. Mr. Lay attempts to treat the relationship of potentially belligerent sausages in terms of deductive mathematical theory. The simplest expression for this common attitude is the following pair of differential equations:

This situation is obviously unstable, with the rate of consumption of each sausage depending on the others thickness and rate of particle emmision. In addition, psychological stimuli, or grievances, are also postulated and. considered to be constants, represented by G and h. The final equations are then:

which is unstable unless y is kept equal to zero by outside control. The point representing equilibrium corespondes to the historic concept of a balance of power.

This is indeed a grim thing to face in this advanced day and age. A grim reconing, sir!

----James A. Barley, La Jolla, Calif.

The conclusion is not correct. There is another unstable state: when n equals 0, a permenent condition of implosion results. This can be achieved by adequate application of NaCl - common salt.

# # #

Dear Cover-Format Stealer;

I believe I am the best science fiction editor in the world today. I also believe I edit the best science fiction magazine in the world.

----H. .L. Gold, Galaxy Science Fiction, New York, N.Y.

Palmer holds those same beliefs - and for that matter so do I!

Text entry and page scans provided by Judy Bemis

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