Online Solutions
As a Stanford grad of almost five decades' standing and an enthusiastic participant in the MOOC experiment, I believe that this approach to globally distributed education is an important part of finding solutions to the many challenges that face mankind in this century ("Stanford for All," September/October). In his Coursera class Model Thinking, Scott E. Page promotes using diversity in thought and action to find better solutions more quickly. This trumps focus on optimization or like-mindedness—and being able to engage challenges with a diversity of models trumps all.
Diversity of perspectives and models, bottom-up innovation, rapid prototyping and local action foster the successful adaptation and ongoing progress of mankind as we try to manage our growing "big party on a small boat (planet)." Providing education at one-hundredth the cost (per student) of typical on-campus classes to a hundred times as many successful students has to be one of the diversity catalysts we need to cultivate in order to avoid the potential social and economic collapse that has undone civilizations in the past. Recall Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Let's choose to continue to encourage success through the pervasive educational power of MOOCs.
Michael L. Olson, Engr. '68, PhD '71
Alamo, California
Stanford is certainly asking the right questions concerning online technologies in the classroom. I've never understood the point of a lecture where there is no interaction with the lecturer. The word lecture comes from the Latin word for reading, and many of the lectures I endured seemed to have been read from ancient notes. I can read faster than a lecturer can speak, and many brilliant professors are not necessarily good speakers. Why not replace the lecture with online reading or a delivered speech if the lecturer is a highly competent speaker, thus freeing up the professor to meet with students in an interactive environment?
Ed Morsman, '60
Wayzata, Minnesota
The article seems to be pussyfooting around the fundamental issue. If the University owns course content, as asserted, will it record and use lectures online without the consent of the preparing professor? Or is the University at risk of paying for course content repeatedly?
Anthonie Voogd, '59
Ojai, California
Affecting Echo
The article on the acoustic modeling of Istanbul's Hagia Sophia ("Excavating an Echo," September/October) was quite interesting. I have to wonder, though, if the resulting model truly approximated the experience that cathedral- and mosque-goers would have had. As far as I can tell from the article, the researchers modeled a completely empty space. However, as anyone who has had to readjust a sound system at the beginning of a performance after setting it "perfectly" during the sound check knows, filling the floor of the space with bodies changes its acoustics. Those thousands of sound absorbers in Hagia Sophia should've had a noticeable effect on the space's sound. I myself experienced this on a much smaller scale in my youth while chanting psalms in the Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox cathedral in San Francisco. There was a marked difference in what I heard coming back to me in that space when empty as compared to even half full.
Andrew Daniels, '81
Menlo Park, California
Thank you very much for the most interesting article on sound in Hagia Sophia.
Have the researchers considered that, during a service, the floor of the building would have been crowded with standing worshippers? I should think this would alter the sound considerably.
Charles M. Brand, '53
Boulder, Colorado
The article about attempting to recreate the sound of the original basilica of Hagia Sophia was fascinating, but the author or certainly the editors should know that the Bosporus is a strait (and a very narrow one), not a sea.
Thomas Calhoun, MA '64
Bethesda, Maryland
Uses and Abuses of Cash
When I saw the article "Time to Cash Out?" (September/October), I thought this might signal the start of something that I long thought made sense. Too bad that its focus seemed to be a criticism that the people with access to digital money are taking advantage of those "poor" who continue to exclusively use cash. Is this perhaps just another opportunity to bash Wall Street and the banks?
I don't know if it was the editors or the author who chose as a highlight the quote "the privileged don't need its bother and the poor can't avoid it," but I just don't see the logic of this statement. I believe that many people use cash as a means of hiding income and profits from the tax authorities, despite the so-called bother. Just look at the wads of $100 bills used to make large purchases at Costco! Getting rid of cash would effectively put an end to the underground economy and do more to assure everyone pays their "fair share" than any change in tax rates or elimination of loopholes. The author missed this point completely.
Walter Knoepfel, MBA '71
San Francisco, California
If the Mona Lisa were digitized and then the painting destroyed, would the copy have the same appeal and be as sought after as the original?
According to a U.S. Treasury website, "The production of this currency is not an easy or simple task, but one that involves highly trained and skilled craftspeople, specialized equipment, and a combination of traditional old world printing techniques merged with sophisticated, cutting edge technology. Overall, there are numerous, distinctive steps required in the production process."
David Wolman, MA '00, did not take into consideration many facts about money when writing his book. Just in the United States, there are in excess of 1 million people who are employed in the transporting of currency and coin. If securities (currency, coin, money orders and cashier's checks) were digitized they [the originals] would end up worthless and thrown in the landfill. More than $3.6 billion are printed annually by the United States and shipped overseas. Another $7.3 billion are printed and delivered within the United States to many federal reserves so that banks can do business with retailers and then consumers. If "securities" were nothing more than 1's and 0's within a hand-held computer, many people would become unemployed.
Currency and coin are just another form of rocks and other goods and work used for trading property. The reason currency and coin are the way they are is to foil counterfeiters. Yes, anything we print can have any value we give it. In order to have some form of control as to what is used as "legal tender for all debts, public and private," Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service to fight counterfeiters during the Civil War, when many people were printing their own money at home. If I could print my own $20 notes here at home, I could stop working and never worry about collecting enough cash to live and support my family.
In one of the movie versions of The Time Machine, future humans sit around, not talking and not knowing about their past because electricity and computer memory have failed. Whether you like it or not, currency is the nails that hold up this house called the United States. Also, currency in hand protects our privacy: What we buy and spend money on does not need to be recorded or monitored. Commercials, freeway billboards and "junk mail" are tailored to a particular demographic based on what is purchased and by whom. Keeping your money at home lessens the amount of information one can gather about you.
Bryan Kramer
Hemet, California
Freedom vs. Equality
The conclusion that "equality doesn't come for free" is by no means new ("Puzzling Over the Kibbutz Conundrum," Farm Report, September/October). Historians Will and Ariel Durant noted that freedom and equality are implacably opposed, and that the more a society had of one, the less it had of the other.
More recently, in Why Nations Fail, a review of societies going back to medieval Venice, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson found that respect for private ownership and freedom of contract were essential to national survival. As an example, Matt Ridley in The Rational Optimist pointed out that Botswana, in the 30 years after its independence, had the fastest GDP growth of any nation in the world because it respected private ownership.
"Equality" might sound nice to economists or theoreticians, but anyone interested in having nations endure can see that the data proclaim: "Give me liberty or give me death."
David Altschul, MA '76
Nashville, Tennessee
Marina Krakovsky's opening sentence is manifestly untrue. She states that in the 1930s a young woman moved from Poland to Israel. In fact the woman in question moved to Palestine.
Tarif Abboushi, MS '80
Houston, Texas
Radio Days
It brought back pleasant memories to read the article about W6YX, the campus amateur radio station ("Members Make Waves," Farm Report, September/October). [In the '50s] the "shack" (its name then as now) was on the hill east of Stanford Avenue above where the Lucille Nixon elementary school now stands. Also on the hill at that time was the Ryan High Voltage Lab, a huge corrugated metal building used for research into the transmission of high-voltage power.
I got my current amateur radio license (W6TPZ) in 1952 while at Stanford and a member of the Delta Chi fraternity, where we also operated an amateur radio station, W6UNI, in the basement with a very large antenna on the roof. The equipment in those days was big and bulky; transistors had barely been invented (1947) and were not yet used in amateur radio equipment. Vacuum tubes and other bulky components were the sources of the radio energy, along with similar large and heat-producing components to supply the power. Attached to the W6YX shack was the "dog house," which housed the power supply for the station. One of the first amateurs I "worked" (amateur-speak for "contacted") was Herbert "Pete" Hoover III, '51, grandson of Herbert Hoover, Class of 1895.
Learning Morse code at a speed of 13 words per minute (65 letters) was a requirement at that time, and that was a bit like fast typing—the code had to go from one's ear to pencil and paper, because you couldn't attain that speed by pausing to think about each letter. About five years ago that proficiency requirement was eliminated.
A common greeting from one mobile amateur radio antenna-equipped vehicle to another—easy to spot because the antennas were about 8 feet high—was four dits (....), two dits (..), which spelled out Hi! (The "dots" of the code were called "dits" and the dashes called "dahs," thus the dah-di-di-dah sounds of the old movies using Morse code.)
O. G. "Mike" Villard, Engr. '43, PhD '49, was the licensee in those days, and I later worked on one of his over-the-horizon radar projects at the Stanford Electronics Lab while earning my MBA degree, and after completing four years of required service in the Air Force as an electronics officer. A major part of my military training and assignments stemmed from my amateur radio connections at Stanford.
George Burtness, '53, MBA '60
Santa Barbara, California
Happy Trails
I couldn't help but reply to your cover story on The Dish ("The Golden Path," July/August). After huffing and puffing up the hill towards The Dish, I wondered what other trails might be available to explore. My husband ('77) and I started a hiking group, spawning an e-book specifically targeted to locals wanting to get a brief respite from the pressures of high-tech life: 101 Great Hikes Above Silicon Valley: Pre-planned trail adventures for all ability levels of hikers, runners, bikers, horses . . . and even dogs. All are welcome to join our free hiking group any Saturday morning to explore the surrounding hillsides by contacting me at MNuney@aol.com.
Miriam (Brueggemann) Nuney, '80
San Jose, California
The Lyman Years
I am writing to question the validity of some statements made in the article on the contributions of the late President Lyman to Stanford ("Man in the Middle," July/August). In describing Stanford at the time of President Lyman's arrival on campus in 1958, the author states, "By most accounts, it had earned its reputation as a conservative bastion for affluent students less than fully engaged in the pursuit of academic excellence." He follows this with a quote from President Lyman, who stated that an unnamed professor at Stanford told him on his arrival that Stanford students had low interest in academics—to find committed students, one had to go to Berkeley. I suspect that very few American universities and colleges have published such a scathing denunciation of a large fraction of their alumni in their alumni magazine. The author presents no facts or specific observations to justify his "hatchet job."
Although I am irritated by the accusations, I believe any response ought to be at a higher level than this paragraph was. In an effort to avoid a rant, I offer the following specific observations.
1. Since President Lyman, Professor X and the author appear to feel that Cal was the gold standard for academic excellence during this time, why is it that so many graduates of Stanford during this period (I refer to those who were at Stanford during the late '50s and early '60s) were admitted to Cal as graduate students? A number of my fellow students have ended up on the UC faculty. What is it that the selection committees at Cal knew that President Lyman, Professor X and the author of this article did not know? Others in my class and other classes of this period were admitted to programs at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Chicago and similar schools. Does it seem likely that these institutions were seeking "less than fully committed students"?
2. I also remember that at least two students during the early '60s were awarded Rhodes Scholarships. At least one of the members of my class and at least one of the members of the preceding class have been named to the National Academy of Science, an extremely elite group. I would hope that the author of this article, as a Stanford graduate, would have heard of Rhodes Scholarships and the National Academy of Science. He must be unique among the college-educated population in his apparent disdain for these exceptional recognitions. Again, I would suggest that these recognitions do not come to "less than fully committed students."
3. When I was a high school senior, Stanford sent a member of the admissions staff to visit my high school. The representative had graduated from Princeton three or four years earlier. This was interesting to me, because I was considering Princeton and Stanford as college choices. The representative was put in an awkward position by my questions asking for a comparison of the two institutions. He summarized the relative competitiveness of the two by pointing out that Princeton had been much more selective after World War II, but that Stanford had been increasing its selectivity at a faster rate than Princeton and that the two (as of the fall of 1958 when I was a senior) were almost equivalent. The point is not that Stanford did not improve during President Lyman's early years on campus, but that the situation was far from what the author described when President Lyman arrived on campus. If the situation had actually been as dismal as the author suggests, would President Lyman have taken a job at Stanford at that time? Many elite schools saw substantial increases in competitiveness during this period, but I suspect that most had alumni magazines whose staff had the civility to focus on how wonderful the new students were without slamming the students of the previous decade!
Those of us with Stanford degrees dated before 1970 are disappointed to learn what the editorial staff and writers at Stanford think of us. I suppose that we should be grateful that the Office of Development will still cash our checks.
Steven M. Grimes, '63
Athens, Ohio
As a grad student in East Asian studies, I was asked to help interpret for a group of Japanese business executives that was touring Stanford in 1974. The tour concluded with a reception at Hoover House. In talking with Jing Lyman at the reception, I mentioned that the Children's Center relocation negotiations between parents of the children, of which I was one, and Stanford administrators had recently ended in agreement. The negotiation session, which lasted into the wee hours, was conducted at what we parents called the "Kids' Place" with everyone, including several top Stanford administrators, sitting in a large circle on the little chairs used by our 2- to 5-year-olds who attended the Children's Center.
The agreement was that the "Kids' Place" would be relocated to a new facility that would be erected on Pampas Lane rather than the administration's initial proposal, a small, unused building that had been part of Hansen Physics Labs. (That building, by the way, was radioactive.) Obviously relieved at hearing the issue had been settled, Jing Lyman politely raised her voice calling out "Dick! Dick! Mr. Jones here says agreement has been reached with the Children's Center parents for relocating to Pampas Lane!" Hearing this, President Lyman excused himself from a conversation with Japanese businessmen who were in the process of donating a million dollars to Stanford. He walked over to us with a wide smile on his face, saying, "I am very happy to hear this."
No need to go into the details of the confrontation that had developed between Children's Center parents and the administration over the relocation, but this vignette provides insight into why and how President Lyman and his spouse were able to contribute so much to Stanford. Not only were they deeply committed to boosting the University academically, raising millions of dollars amidst tumultuous times and dealing with other weighty issues, they also knew that all members of the Stanford community, including the young children of students, faculty and staff, were important.
Philip A. Jones, MA '74
Kamakura, Japan
Reading Richard Lyman's obituary of May 31, 2012, in the New York Times, I wept with admiration for someone who stood steadfastly to his convictions of the highest ideals imaginable, apparently never wavering. "Any time it becomes necessary for a university to summon the police, a defeat has taken place. The victory we seek at Stanford is not like a military victory. It is a victory of reason and the examined life over unreason and the tyranny of coercion."
Coincidentally, a fellow grad was visiting me, so I read it to her aloud. She agreed with me that, essentially, he was a god among men (forgive me the sexist overtones). Not many are minted like him anymore.
Richard Lyman makes me proud to be a Stanford graduate.
Jeff Hamilton, '83
New Hope, Pennsylvania
More on Olympians
I am amazed at the magazine's failure to include rower Dan Ayrault, '56, as a gold medalist both at Melbourne in 1956 and Rome in 1960 ("Rising to the Challenge," July/August). I believe the medals Dan won were in pairs.
Lou Eckart Moody, '56
San Diego, California
Here is some information that you may wish to keep in the alumni database and also pass on to athletic records at Stanford.
Lynn Silliman Reed, '81, was a coxswain for the U.S. Women's Rowing Team. She was a silver medalist in the women's eight at the World Championships in Nottingham, England, in 1975 and a bronze medalist in the women's eight at the 1976 Montreal Olympics—while she was in high school. She was also the coxswain for the women's four at the 1979 World Championships in Bled, Yugoslavia, and was selected for the 1980 Olympic team that boycotted the Olympics. She coxed for the men's rowing team at Stanford in 1978 to 1980.
Cathy Thaxton-Tippett, '79, was on three Olympic women's crew teams: 1976, 1980 and 1984.
Susan Cramer, '74, MA '75
San Diego, California
Editor's note: Our story was not intended to be a comprehensive survey of Stanford's Olympians but rather a collection of representative vignettes. We do appreciate learning about others for future reference.
Explanations Needed
I am proud of my Stanford degree and appreciate your need to root for the home team. But there is a limit to rah-rah and any claim to "eliminate the need for fossil fuels in 20 to 40 years" ("How to Solve the Energy Problem," Farm Report, July/August) deserves some modicum of an explanation of how this revolution can be implemented. Energy is second only to agriculture in annual capital expended, and to reallocate such a large part of the global economy has significant consequences from social to technical to political.
Thus it is the journalist's responsibility to question how to overcome such impediments as the environmental footprint (where, type of imprint, area), cost to build, training of skilled people, addressing the social impact, etc. After all, lots of very smart, well-funded studies have shown numerous fatal flaws associated with wind and solar. Couldn't you explain how at least one of them has been overcome?
I make no judgment about the quality of this work, but I am quite familiar with the many difficulties of implementing alternative energies. Both scientist and journalist owe their readers "the whole truth" and transparency in making such claims. Without some explanation, such far-reaching claims become just that, claims without credibility and an embarrassment to both.
As for the reporter, how would he or she feel if the claim were true and their report was inadequate to recognize it?
Richard S. Bishop, PhD '77
Houston, Texas
The article by Marguerite Rigoglioso on the research by Professor Jacobson was timely and interesting. Perhaps he has considered coupling geothermal with the use of hydrogen. Liquefied natural gas is routinely transported by tanker; it could also be transported from distant sources. The Pacific "ring of fire" seems to be a very large energy source that could be used to produce hydrogen. Wind and solar have varying reliability. Geothermal seems to be more reliable.
Lawrence H. Daniels, '47
Novato, California
Learning About Learning
"Faculty Senate prescribes 11 courses to impart methods and approaches rather than disciplines" is a sub-headline from the July/August Farm Report ("What Does It Take to Become a Stanford-Educated Student?"). Someone needs to explain to me what this headline means. I've spent a career as a researcher, editor and proofreader. I majored in English at Stanford. I don't get it. Oh, and what are "social inquiry" and "engaging difference" courses all about? This sounds like learning about learning, not learning itself.
Caroline (Linnie Hughes) Blattner, '59
Ferndale, California
Correction
Song Toh, '05, was the student designer of the chair illustrating the September/October table of contents. We regret the omission.
Underground Money
Ed Morsman, ’60
Wayzata, Minnesota
A Gymnast to Remember
In the article “Rising to the Challenge” (July/August) where you profile different Stanford Olympians, I believe you left off Amy Chow, ’02, MD ’07. She was a member of the 1996 (with Kerri Strug, ’01) and 2000 Olympic gymnastics teams and received three medals (gold and silver in 1996 and bronze in 2000, retroactively after China was disqualified). This omission might also affect the total medal count listed, though we would still be behind UCLA.
George Sya, MS ’98
Fremont, California
