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THE SEXES
the “old-boy net” system of hiring, in
which
department
heads
(invariably
inale) ask other department heads for
recommendations. A study by a man-
agement consultant firm, commissioned
by the administration, found major dis-
crimination
against women (70%
of
those with salaries below the minimum
set for their category by the consultant
firm were women), and recommended
pay
increases
that
would amount
to
$350,000,
if and when
implemented,
(“Soon,” promises the university.)
Myths. Trouble
is, say the women
at U. of M., even those innovations are
often sidestepped by a recalcitrant ad-
ministration. Grievance procedures are
slow and cumbersome, and women find
it extremely
difficult
to get
the neces-
sary data (such as salary figures) to sup-
port their cases. Despite promises to do
so, the university has granted back pay
because of discrimination
in only one
case. Although the school will make an
effort
to determine whether some fac-
ulty women arc still underpaid for their
present rank,
it still refuses to consider
whether they are underranked because
of their sex.
The
biggest
stumbling
block,
the
women contend,
is the sometimes un-
conscious
discrimination
evident
in
male
attitudes. Now, when they
think
they find that kind of discrimination, the
U. of M. women immediately challenge
it. Part-Time Student Claire Jeannette,
appointed
to
the
university
staff
as
“women’s advocate,” was in a classroom
when
a professor,
in speaking of “the
face
that launched
a thousand
ships,”
commented,
“Personally,
five
never
seen
a
piece of stuff
that looked
that
good." Jeannette objected to the remark
and
the
professor
conceded,
“You’re
right. I'm sorry, dear.”
(“I should have
answered,
‘Thanks,
darling,’ ”
says
Jeannette.) When an economics profes-
sor said, “Men work overtime because
women
make
them,”
she
demanded
documentation, adding: “I suggest that
you don’t perpetuate myths unless you
have the facts to back them up.”
*
The battle has even been carried to
the pages of the University Record , the
official news organ
of
the
university,
which recently printed a poem submit-
ted by James Crump Jr. of the Far East-
ern Languages department:
/ think that l prefer to see
A chairperson who is womanly
And, if the choice were up to me,
A fresh person who’s a comely she.
Replied Mdfyl Johnson,
a female
re-
search
curator
at
Michigan's
Kelsey
Museum:
Indeed we share
Your appetite for golden hair
A nd shapely figures slim and trim
A nd do admire a comely him,
But keep our minds upon our work
And tolerate each shapeless jerk
Outranking us in pay and powers
Who would demand we all he
flowers.
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The Magician
|
And fhe Think Tank
j
Sprawling over 70 acres of Menlo
Park, Calif., the Stanford Research In-
stitute
is one of America's largest and
i
best-known
think
tanks.
Its
staff
of
]
2,600 highly
trained
specialists solves
;
problems and docs research
in nearly
<
every field of human endeavor for both
Government and
private industry. SRI
I
also does highly classified research for
i
the military, and has worked on coun-
terinsurgency
programs
in
Southeast
<
Asia,
explosives
technology, chemical
i
and
bacteriological warfare and
anti-
i
ballistic-missile
systems.
For
its
ser-
ROSEN BLUM.—STAftPHOT
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s
ABBA E5AN & GELLER
Under a cloud.
vices, SRI last year earned revenues of
$70 million. Last week
it became ap-
parent that in addition to its other proj-
ects, the institute has been seriously in-
vestigating the so-called psychic powers
of a questionable nightclub magician.
SRI
is not alone in investigating psy-
chic
phenomena.
Indeed,
the
persis-
tence and growth of that search in an
age of science
is testimony
to
the
vi-
tality of the concept. But until psychic
researchers
produce
something
more
than
nebulous
evidence,
skeptics
will
continue to scoff.
That is precisely what they did when
rumors began
to emanate from Menlo
Park last December. Two men,
it seems,
had
been
demonstrating
strange
and
wondrous powers
for SRI
researchers.
One of the men,
a 25-year-old
Israeli
named Uri Gcllcr, was apparently able
to communicate
by
telepathy,
detect
and describe objects completely hidden
from
view,
and
distort
metal
imple-
ments
with
his
psychic
energy. The
word among staff members was that SRI
President Charles Anderson, who at first
had opposed
the
project, changed
his
mind
after witnessing demonstrations
by Geller.
Later in December, an SRI physicist,
Russell
Targ,
sent
a
letter
to one
of
the
foremost
U.S.
scientific
journals
proposing
an
article on
the work
of
an
SRI
team
engaged
in
psychic
re-
search. Targ said that the subjects with
whom
he had been working had
ef-
fected
physical changes
in
laboratory
instruments
without
touching
them.
Presumably, Targ was referring to such
changes as increases
in magnetometer
readings and
the disturbance of
elec-
tronic
systems—all
reported
to Time
by a team member. The research sub-
r
jects had also demonstrated remark-
able perceptual
skills, including
te-
j
lepalhy. Working further with these
I
men, Targ suggested, would enable
|
SRI to understand psychical phenom-
I
ena. Written on
SRI
stationery,
the
j
letter
also bore
the names
of
the
j
other members of the investigating
|
team: SRI Physicist Harold Puthoff,
*
Kent State University
Physics Pro-
fessor William Franklin and former
i
Astronaut Edgar Mitchell.
Mitchell, who has
retired from
:
the
astronaut corps and
set up
his
j
own foundation
to investigate psy-
i
chic phenomena, eagerly confirmed
some of the rumors during an ihter-
;
view last month with Time. “I cajtas-
;
sure
you,”
he
said,
“that
from
[Charles] Anderson down, SRI views
Uri Geller as legitimate. They find
the
results
valid and
are
ready
to
.
stand on them.” Said President An-
derson last week: “Mr. Mitchell docs
I
not speak
for
SRI, and
indeed
the
statement
is misleading. Mr. Geller
was
provided
to
us
as
a
subject
for experimentation. Measurements
were made in our laboratories, and the
work will stand on its merits.”
News
of
the
unusual
activity
at
Menlo Park reached the Department of
Defense, and investigators were soon on
the scene. One of them was Ray Hy-
man,
a psychology professor from the
University of Oregon who
is used
fre-
quently by DOD as a consultant. Anoth-
er was George Lawrence, dod projects
manager
for
the Advanced
Research
Projects Agency (AREA). He was accom-
panied to SR! by Robert Van de Castle,
a
University
of
Virginia
psychologist
and
longtime
researcher
in
parapsy-
chology. Van
de
Castle decided
that
Gcllcr was “an
interesting subject for
further study,”
but
neither Lawrence
nor Hyman was impressed. After spend-
ing
a day with
Gcllcr and
Physicists
Targ and Puthoff, Hyman was, in fact,
incredulous.
As
Geller
demonstrated
ESP
and
psychokinesis (ability to move or bend
objects without touching them)
to
the
delight
and
excitement
of Targ
and
TIME, MARCH 12, 1973
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SCIENCE
Puthoff, Hyman said
that he was able
to spot the “loopholes and inconclusive-
ncss” of each feat. He also caught Cel-
lar
in some
outright
deceptions
that
Targ and
Puthoff
apparently
did
not
discern.
In one case, Geller asked Lawrence
to think of a number between one and
ten and to write it down, as large as pos-
sible, on a pad. While Lawrence wrote,
Geller made a show of concentrating
and covering
his eyes with
his hands.
But Hyman, carefully observing Geller,
noticed that the Israeli’s open eyes were
visible through his fingers. Thus Geller
was probably able to see the motion of
Lawrence’s arm as he wrote, and to cor-
rectly identify the number, ten. Know-
ing
how
to
read
arm
movements,
Hyman
notes,
is
important
to
every
magician.
Later, Geller caused a nearby com-
pass needle to turn about five degrees.
Lawrence,
noting
that
Geller
had
moved his body and vibrated the floor,
did the same, causing the needle to de-
flect even more. Geller, startled, accused
Lawrence of using trickery, and Targ in-
sisted on examining the DOD man to see
if he had magnets hidden in his cloth-
ing. (He
did
not.) Hyman
notes
that
Targ did not feel that
it was necessary
to search Geller. Hyman’s impressions
were admittedly based on observations
made on a day when normal testing rou-
tine was
not
in
effect.
Nevertheless,
Hyman wrote
in
a
letter
to a
friend,
SRl’s
tests
of
Geller were
performed
with
“incredible
sloppiness”;
the
rec-
ords from previous
days, which Targ
and Puthoff offered as proof of Geller’s
powers,
were
“the
most
uncontrolled
and poorly recorded data
I have ever
encountered.”
Sensation, SRI continued to study
Geller seriously for another three weeks
(for a total of six), filming his feats, pay-
ing him
a S lOO-a-day honorarium and
providing him with an automobile and
all expenses.
After
leaving
SRI,*
Geller
volun-
teered
to
demonstrate
his
powers
to
Time’s editors. Last month he appeared
at the Time-Life Building in Manhattan
and
projected
thoughts
and
images,
claimed to read minds and caused a fork
to bend—supposedly by using psychic
energy. After Geller
left, Professional
Magician James Randi, who had been
present, duplicated each of his feats, ex-
plaining that any magician could
per-
form
them.
The
fork
bending,
said
Randi, was accomplished by sleight of
hand;
after
distracting
his
audience,
Geller h%d simply bent
it with his two
hands.
SRI claims
that
it was aware
that
Geller had “detractors" before he
ar-
rived in California. Presumably the Cal-
ifornia scientists knew that he had been
something of
a sensation
in
Israel.
In
1970, Time’s Jerusalem Correspondent
Marlin Levin reports, Geller began ap-
pearing before soldiers’ groups,
in
pri-
*The other psychic, a New York
artist named
ingo Swann, js still being studied.
112
vate homes and on the stage, perform-
ing
his repertory of
tricks and claim-
ing
to have psychokinetic powers. At
first he was widely acclaimed; he came
under suspicion when a group of psy-
chologists and computer experts from
Hebrew
University
duplicated
all
of
his feats and called him a fraud. Even-
tually,
Geller
left
the
country
in
disgrace.
Even so, SRI insists that its research-
ers were not duped. “Whether the sub-
ject be a saint or a sinner,” said an SRI
spokesman, “has nothing to do with our
measurements concerning the so-called
psychical
awareness
of
individuals.”
How
objective
those
measurements
were may
well become apparent
this
week
at a Columbia University collo-
quium
in
Manhattan, where Targ
is
scheduled
to report on his studies and
show a film of Geller in action.
r„
MARVIN UCHTNER
V/,
JOSEPHSON AT CAMBRIDGE
Supercooled Computers
The
essential
characteristic
of
all
modern computers
is speed. Their pro-
digious memories can be probed with
split-second
precision;
they can
race
through
reams
of complex
equations
with astonishing agility. Their swift skill
is made possible by a battery of
rela-
tively
simple
devices,
transistors
that
can turn an electric current off and on
in as little as a billionth of a second.
In
effect, those switches speak
the
“yes-no” binary language of computer
technology. Their simple answers can
be combined
to
solve
intricate
prob-
lems. But fast as such combinations can
be made, computer speed
is often
not
fast enough. The
big machines
strain
to their limit to handle the demands of
space travel; they arc also too slow
to
process in time the vast amount of me-
teorological data necessary to make the
detailed and accurate five-day weather
forecasts
the
U.S.
Weather
Service
would like to achieve.
Now help may be
at hand. After
five years of effort, IBM’s research labs
have developed an electronic switching
device that can be turned on and off in
less
than
ten
trillionths
of
a second
—more than 100 times faster than the
fastest
transistor
used
in
computers.
What
is more, IBM’s development re-
quires only about one
ten-thousandth
of the power necessary to run these tran-
sistors;
it gives off only a tiny fraction
of the heat they radiate. And
it
is tran-
sistor heat
as much
as switching time
that limits a computer’s skills. For when
transistors
arc packed
closer together
in order to speed up the flow of signals
between them, the
risk of overheating
is sharply increased.
IBM's switch
is based on a phenom-
enon
first predicted in 1962 by a Brit-
ish
scientist named
Brian
Joscphson,
who was only 22
at
the
time. While
studying superconductivity,* the Cam-
bridge
graduate
student
determined
mathematically that pairs of electrons
would “tunnel” through
material
that
is normally an electrical insulator
if
it
is
thin
enough
and
sand-
wiched between two super-
conductors.
If
the
flow
of
electrons through the insula-
tor were kept below
a
cer-
tain critical value, he found,
there would be no difference
in voltage from one side of
the
insulator
to
the
other.
(At normal temperatures, an
electric current
never flows
unless there
is a voltage dif-
ferential.)
Joscphson
also
predicted that
if an external
magnetic
field were applied
to
the
junction,
a
voltage
drop would appear.
Later
verified by exper-
iment,
the so-called Joseph-
son
effect
has been
widely
used
to construct extremely
sensitive laboratory measur-
ing devices, including a mag-
netometer
that can detect fluctuations
in
a
magnetic
field only one
fivc-bil-
iiontli as strong as the earth’s. But IBM
scientists found
a more
practical
use.
They knew that they could produce a
voltage drop across a Joscphson junc-
tion by applying a weak magnetic field;
generating that field would require only
a
fraction
of
the
energy
required
to
switch
a
transistor.
Furthermore,
the
presence
or
absence
of
that
voltage
across
a Joscphson junction could
be
used to represent the same “yes” or “no"
information conveyed by a transistor.
For competitive reasons, IBM
will
not reveal the precise chemistry of the
lead alloys used in its junctions. In fact,
the company
is
cautiously
refraining
from predicting when they will be used
in
practical
computers; many
design
problems
must
be
overcome
before
computers can be built to operate at su-
perconducting temperatures. Nonethe-
less, IBM’s laboratory triumph and con-
tinuing research by the world’s largest
computer manufacturer
suggests
that
high-speed, supercooled electronic
brains are not far in the future.
The disappearance of electrical resistance in cer-
tain materials when they are cooled
to within a
few degrees of absolute zero ( --459.7° R).
TIME, MARCH 12, 1973
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