The Wall Street Journal-20080124-The Informed Reader - Insights and Items of Interest From Other Sources
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The Informed Reader / Insights and Items of Interest From Other Sources
Global Affairs:
Vietnam Offers Economic Lessons for Iraq
Vietnam offers guidance for the challenges facing Iraq, but the lessons are economic, not military, says historian Stephen Kotkin in the New Republic.
In a review of a new Ho Chi Minh biography, Mr. Kotkin credits Vietnam's entrepreneurialism, falling poverty and rapid economic growth to its trading ties with China and South Korea. In the long aftermath of the war and U.S. withdrawal, both countries provided capital for businesses and a large market for Vietnamese products.
There are of course vast differences between Vietnam in the 1970s and Iraq in 2008. But Vietnam's postwar experience suggests that regional economic shifts might have more impact on Iraq than anything the U.S. does there now. Mr. Kotkin says there are some countries that might serve as Iraq's China and South Korea. Turkey is growing fast and is close enough to fill the bill. As India's economic influence broadens, it might become a key trading partner with Iraq. And China itself could be an important player in Iraq's future.
Mr. Kotkin, a professor of history at Princeton University, makes no guarantees that these countries will serve that role. But, he notes, the U.S. has become Vietnam's biggest trading partner, which has the political side effect of encouraging reconciliation between the two nations. "Who foresaw such a turn of events during the apocalyptic 1970s, or the 1980s," says Mr. Kotkin of Vietnam. "Impossible as it now seems, such a future may one day await Iraq."
-- The New Republic -- Jan. 30
Science:
Faster Than Speeding Atom,
Physicists Plan New Smasher
Even before the world's largest particle accelerator starts smashing subatomic matter this summer, scientists have hatched plans for a more powerful machine that could slam together even smaller particles.
The nearly $4 billion Large Hadron Collider that is set to come on line near Geneva later this year will smash protons, a building block of the atom, in the hope that still-unknown particles that make up protons will emerge. Now some physicists, surely mindful that the road to launching accelerator projects can be long, rocky and expensive, have developed an outline for an apparatus that could take advantage of discoveries from the Hadron project.
The proposed "International Linear Collider" would use two seven- mile-long tunnels to smash together electrons and positrons, much smaller particles than the protons studied in the Hadron Collider. Results from the ILC's collisions then could be used to take more precise measurements at the older accelerator. The location and funding of the future ILC is still up in the air. The authors say it would cost at least $6 billion -- perhaps not such a huge sum by the time it is finished in the 2020s.
-- Scientific American -- February
Transportation:
Wait for the Bus or Walk?
Study Says to Sit Tight
One of the worst aspects of a long wait at a bus stop is confronting the nagging question: Would it be quicker to start walking, or to stay put?
According to a mathematical formula devised by students at the California Institute of Technology and Harvard University, it is nearly always better to cool one's heels at the first stop than to walk and hope to catch the bus when it reaches a stop further down the line. In most cases, it doesn't make much difference how many stops there are on the journey or how long the wait is between buses.
Another insight is that if the traveler is contemplating walking, it is best to start walking immediately. Any time spent at the stop deliberating over whether it is better to walk, or to wait for the bus, is only time wasted. "It certainly has changed the way I travel," says Scott Kominers, one of the authors of the paper.
-- New Scientist -- Jan. 26
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