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From: willner@cfa250.harvard.edu (Steve Willner P-316 x57123)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.astro,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: DNA for interstellar messages
Message-ID: <940@cfa183.cfa250.harvard.edu>
Date: 7 Jul 88 14:49:21 GMT
References: <2244@ur-tut.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Lines: 29

From article <2244@ur-tut.UUCP>, by powi@ur-tut (Peter Owings):

> I was fortunate enough to have several conversations with Sir Fred
> Hoyle when he visited the University of Rochester.  If there is
> anyone who has written about stuff like "Bacteria From Space", Sir
> Fred has.  You might try looking at a book called
> _Grains_to_Bacteria_.  The only problem with this book is that it
> is very technical, going into spectral observations of interstellar
> particles.

Sorry, but I doubt that's the only problem.  (Some might say it's not
a problem at all.)  Though I haven't read this particular book, I am
familiar with the Hoyle and Wickramasinghe papers published in
journals.  Although the observed interstellar spectra and the
polysacccharide or "bacteria" spectra look superficially very
similar, a closer look reveals that the disagreement is in the
_wavelength_ axis.  That is, the interstellar spectral features just
do not have the wavelengths predicted by the Hoyle/Wickramasinghe
model.  While I would not consider a disagreement in the strengths of
the various features a serious problem, the wavelengths are a
different matter.  Wavelengths ought to depend mainly on the kind of
material producing the features, and a discrepancy in wavelength
strongly suggests that the identification is wrong.  Moreover, there
are far more plausible identifications for most of the observed
spectral features.
-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123         Bitnet:   willner@cfa
60 Garden St.            FTS:      830-7123           UUCP:   willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu