Sid Loved Nancy

From today's Letters of Note:

The tale of the Sex Pistol's Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen have become the tragic love story of our generation.  In October of 1978, Nancy was found dead in a hotel room that she had shared with Vicious.  She had a single stab wound to the abdomen.  Sid Vicious was presumed to be the murderer, as it was his knife that was used as the murder weapon.  He was arrested on 2nd degree murder charges.  He died of a heroin overdose four months later while awaiting trial.

The following is a hand written love letter of sorts, from Sid to Nancy, written just a couple of months before her death.  It's brutally honest, affectionate, and sweet.  At the time this was written, Sid was only 20 years old.

Transcript

What Makes Nancy So Great By Sidney

1 Beautiful
2 Sexy
3 Beautiful figure
4 Great sense of humour
5 Makes extremely interesting conversation
6 Witty
7 Has beautiful eyes
8 Has fab taste in clothes
9 Has the most beautiful wet pussy in the world
10 Even has sexy feet
11 Is extremely smart
12 A great Hustler

Memos Regarding The Challenger Disaster

As I've related in previous postings, I follow a blog called Letters of Note. At times, the letters that they come across and post literally give me chills and make me ill. Yesterday's letter was a perfect example.

It was an internal memo from an engineer at a company called Morton Thiokol, to their Vice President. Morton Thiokol was the company that made the O rings for the space shuttles at NASA. This memo, dated July 31st, 1985, stated that there were known erosion issues with the primary and secondary O rings Morton Thiokol were supplying to NASA, and, until the issue could be resolved, all future flights should be suspended because there was a risk of "catastrophe of the highest order - loss of human life".

The memo was, in essence, ignored. Less than six months later, on January 28th, 1986, seven astronauts lost their lives when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded over Cape Canaveral, Florida, one minute and 18 seconds into its flight. The investigation into the accident concluded that O ring failure on one of the shuttles rocket boosters caused the explosion, which could have easily been prevented if this memo was taken to heart. Below is a photo of the memo itself followed by the transcript:




Transcript

Morton Thiokol, Inc
Wasatch Division

Interoffice Memo

31 July 1985
2870:FY86:073

TO: R. K. Lund
Vice President, Engineering

CC: B. C. Brinton, A. J. McDonald, L. H. Sayer, J. R. Kapp

FROM: R. M. Boisjoly
Applied Mechanics - Ext. 3525

SUBJECT: SRM O-Ring Erosion/Potential Failure Criticality

This letter is written to insure that management is fully aware of the seriousness of the current O-ring erosion problem in the SRM joints from an engineering standpoint.

The mistakenly accepted position on the joint problem was to fly without fear of failure and to run a series of design evaluations which would ultimately lead to a solution or at least a significant reduction of the erosion problem. This position is now drastically changed as a result of the SRM 16A nozzle joint erosion which eroded a secondary O-ring with the primary O-ring never sealing.

If the same scenario should occur in a field joint (and it could), then it is a jump ball as to the success or failure of the joint because the secondary O-ring cannot respond to the clevis opening rate and may not be capable of pressurization. The result would be a catastrophe of the highest order - loss of human life.

An unofficial team (a memo defining the team and its purpose was never published) with leader was formed on 19 July 1985 and was tasked with solving the problem for both the short and long term. This unofficial team is essentially nonexistent at this time. In my opinion, the team must be officially given the responsibility and the authority to execute the work that needs to be done on a non-interference basis (full time assignment until completed.)

It is my honest and very real fear that if we do not take immediate action to dedicate a team to solve the problem with the field joint having the number one priority, then we stand in jeopardy of losing a flight along with all the launch pad facilities.

(Signed)

R. M. Boisjoly

Concurred by:

(Signed)

J. R. Kapp, Manager
Applied Mechanics

Einstein: God Is Nothing More Than Human Weakness

I've heard people say that Einstein was a religious man. Many people say that it is possible to be a man of faith and a man of science. If Einstein was capable of being a man of faith, and perhaps the greatest mind the world has ever seen, there may be truth to it.

I have been following a blog calledLetters of Note in recent weeks. It features primarily historical letters from historical figures. The letters are mostly entertaining, thought provoking, or historically noteworthy. The following is from their posting from October 7th. It is a letter from Albert Einstein to philosopher Erik Gutkind after reading his book, 'Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt'. The feature that makes this website interesting is that they have a photocopy of the letter itself, followed by the transcript. The transcript reads as follows:

"Princeton, 3. 1. 1954

Dear Mr Gutkind,

Inspired by Brouwer’s repeated suggestion, I read a great deal in your book, and thank you very much for lending it to me ... With regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common. Your personal ideal with its striving for freedom from ego-oriented desires, for making life beautiful and noble, with an emphasis on the purely human element ... unites us as having an “American Attitude.”

Still, without Brouwer’s suggestion I would never have gotten myself to engage intensively with your book because it is written in a language inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. ... For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong ... have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything “chosen” about them.

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision...

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e. in our evaluation of human behavior ... I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.

With friendly thanks and best wishes,

Yours,

A. Einstein"

Apparently, Einstein did see some value in the Bible, but no more than one would see in, say, Aesop's Fables. So, can a man of faith be a man of science? Do science and religion mix? Einstein didn't think so.