SCIENTIFIC SELF-DECEPTION?

I remember discussing cold fusion (regarding your review of Gary Taubes’ “Bad Science” by James Gleick, Book Review, Aug. 22) with my colleagues shortly after the initial press announcements. We all were highly skeptical for many reasons. For one, if successful, the investigators should have died from neutron irradiation.

The story was given credence only because it was put forward by reputable scientists, Fleischmann and Pons. The “If True” aspect cannot be as easily dismissed. The portent of practical cold fusion is so great, that even a 1% probability of achieving cold fusion is worth following up. Without economic and scientific significance, no one would have paid much attention until much more evidence was presented. It is safe to say that any discovery of an extremely valuable process is likely to be very cagey when revealing detail.

It is hard for me to believe that cold fusion was a hoax. Self-deception as outlined by Denis L. Rousseau in an article “Case Studies in Pathological Science,” published in the American Scientist (January, 1992) is much more likely. The proposed process was so important and iconoclastic that it was sure to receive careful peer review. To be taken seriously, the report depended upon the reputation of the scientists.

For cold fusion, the chemical energies of a few electron volts would have to be manipulated to do the things that require the tens of thousands of electron volts necessary for fusion. The history of technology, however, is full of anecdotes of inventors finding a way around “impossibilities.” For example, long-distance short wave communication was impossible because of the curvature of the earth--at least until the ionosphere was considered.

Science, in contrast to other fields of endeavor such as theology or economics, is self-correcting. If an experiment cannot be reproduced, the work gets thrown upon the trash heap. Although fraud does exist in science, cold fusion is of such high profile, that the fraud is certain to be quickly exposed.

WILLIAM BUCHMAN, LOS ANGELES

AN AKST TO GRIND

Daniel Akst’s short piece on “remaindered” books (Book Review, July 18) noted Trillin’s comment, “the average shelf life of a trade book is somewhere between milk and yogurt.” My wayward eye (and surely that of many of your readers) delivered up “and plenty of good books are somewhere between milk and yogurt.” One wonders, Akst/Trillins, would not Brie and Cheddar have produced a far more telling figure?

R. I. HIRSCHBERG, ESCONDIDO

VERDI’S EVIL TWIN?

The fellow in the picture accompanying Roger Welsch’s review of “Verdi at the Golden Gate” by Geoge Martin (Oct. 10) sure looks like Ulysses S. Grant! Could the Book Review editors have made an error? Or were Grant and Giuseppe Verdi identical twins separated at birth?

DEBORAH O’KEEFFE, LOS ANGELES

MINCING WORDS

Reviewer Michael Dorris’ comment on Ivan Doig’s “Heart Earth” (Book Review, Aug. 29): “Doig . . . refuses to idealize the hard-scrapple struggle of his parents’ existence.”

Scrapple (dim of scraps) is considered by some “as an article of food consisting of minced meats, usually scraps of pork and herbs stewed with flour or corn meal, pressed into cakes, sliced and fried.”

Scrabble (from Dutch “schrabbchen”) means to scrape or to struggle. An example: They had a hard-scrabble farm.

I’m for edible scrapple and no-scrabble farms.

PATRICIA G. WRIGHT, LOS ANGELES

THE DIFFERENT DRUMMERS

In response to “Don’t Isolate the Artist” (Letters, Oct. 13).

I don’t feel the life depicted in “Goldie the Dollmaker” discourages emulation because for the little artist in the tale it wasn’t a matter of emulation, her vocation was something she was born to.

Inherent creativity is not merely “A child’s joyful prerogative,” it is an individual, compulsive, perspective . For the artist this perspective carries with it both the joys and the turmoil of a highly personal, sometimes isolating process.

Children who know this perspective are often extraordinarily sensitive and imaginative; not much of a “blessing” when they are processed through an educational system which encourages mental “discipline” and comformity. The pressure to think alike and fit into group behavior is very strong among children. It fuels a capacity for bigotry, intolerance and self-doubt that can follow them into adulthood.

“Goldie the Dollmaker” offers children a way to understand and identify with someone who marches to their own drum. For those who recognize Goldie’s motivations within themselves, it assures them that they are not alone, and should not be intimidated into ignoring their own heart.

TERI KARSHNER, LOS ANGELES

THE MISSING PETER PAN

In your review of Bruce K. Hanson’s “The Peter Pan Chronicles” (Book Review, Sept. 12), you list the various people who have played Peter Pan. However, Eva Le Galliene, who played that role in New York City in the 1930s, was omitted.

I was a youngster and saw her performance several times. I am now 76 years of age and have never forgotten it.

BARBARA H. KAPLAN, LOS ANGELES

THE NUMBERS GAME

About halfway through Laura Kalpakian’s review of Michael Drinkard’s novel, “Disobedience” (Book Review, Aug. 29), I became so distracted by Kalpakian’s phrasing that I could not finish reading the review. For a reason I do not understand, she uses mathematical terminology that she obviously does not understand.

I know what a hyperbola is. What does it mean, however, to call a family “hyperbolically dysfunctional”? Is this significantly different from triangularly or quadratically dysfunctional?

I really cannot imagine anyone who “lusts only after a five-figure salary escalating logarithmically.” Anything that increases logarithmically increases by a smaller amount--both relatively and absolutely--each year. A salary that increases only linearly would be far better; it would increase by the same amount each year, the increase being the same percentage of the original salary. However, most of us experience salaries that increase exponentially, increasing each year’s salary). If someone started with a salary of $50,000 per year and then got a 5 percent increase at the end of the first year, a logarithmic pattern of increases would raise that salary to $58,305 in 10 years. A linear pattern of increases would raise the salary to $72,500 in 10 years, while an exponential pattern of increase of raise that salary to $77,566.

As with those who would use “parameter” when they mean “perimeter” or would use “meld” (a card-playing term) to mean “combine,” Kalpakian is trying to impress her readers with her learning. However, her misuse of words whose definitions she fails to understand conveys the exact opposite impression.

DAVID E. ROSS, AGOURA

LATIN HORRIBILIS

The British may be stuffy but they do know their Latin better than the headline writers at the Los Angeles Times Book Review. Margo Kaufman’s article on books unveiling the British royals (Aug. 8) should have been entitled, “Liber horribilis” or perhaps you intended to use the plural, “Libri horribilies.”

SUSAN SHIELDS, SANTA BARBARA

RECONSIDERING JEFFERSON

In the review of the U.S. revolution and the role of Thomas Jefferson (“The Age of Federalism,” September 26) nothing was said about his appointment of Benjamin Banneker, a black architect to head the rebuilding of Washington,D.C., after it was destroyed by the British redcoats in 1812.

It remains questionable that Jefferson believed black people were subhuman, rather than reconsidering that slavery itself forced inhuman conditions on people causing them to exist in subhuman status.

MOLLY SIEGEL, MANHATTAN BEACH

INFORMATION SOUGHT

Burbank Aviation Museum is collecting information on companies that contracted with prime aircraft corporations in the east San Fernando Valley during the years 1938 through 1948.

The information is for research and education purposes only. The museum is dedicated to the men and women who performed the work and wishes to recognize them.

If you have any information on individuals or companies, large or small, who contributed to the aircraft industry during these years, please contact: Burbank Aviation Museum, P.O. Box 1215, Burbank, Calif. 91507-1215.

LES COPELAND, BURBANK

For a book on the Russian pianist and jazz impresario, Leopold Teplitsky, I am looking for any memorabilia, stories or hearsay, particularly regarding his time in America (1926-27). I would especially like to hear from family members.

MATTHEW STONE, 425 S. Cochran Ave. 201, Los Angeles, 90036. (213) 932-0368