From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #389 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Saturday, 19 August 1995 Volume 05 : Number 389 In this issue: Uranium in Vietnam??? VJ-Day Faster Than Light Travel See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the skunk-works or skunk-works-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 10:30:29 EST Subject: Uranium in Vietnam??? : 2 CAMBODIANS NABBED ON URANIUM PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Two Cambodian men have been arrested and accused of trying to smuggle 19.8 pounds of uranium from Vietnam to Thailand, police said Thursday. Hok Lundy, director-general of the national police, could not say if the uranium was weapons-grade, but put its value at about $100,000. A representative of Interpol, the international law enforcement agency, said he believed the uranium once belonged to the U.S. Army in Vietnam. The representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the letters "USA" were seen on the boxes. ------------------------------ From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 17:03:07 EST Subject: VJ-Day :CHRONOLOGY OF LIBERATION DAY ACROSS ASIA AFTER WAR HONG KONG, Aug 13 - Many countries across Asia plan to officially ignore the 50th anniversary of the end of World War Two on August 15, 1945. After this date, some countries were still occupied by troops from the Japanese Imperial Army while others declared independence. In Malaysia, the Japanese formally surrendered on August 14. Korea was liberated from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule on August 15. China also considers this date as the anniversary of its victory of resistance. Thailand agreed to allow Japanese forces right of passage through Thailand during the war in return for Japanese assurances of respect for Thailand's independence. On December 12, 1941, the Thai government agreed a military alliance with Japan and on January 25, 1942, the Thai government declared war on the United States and Britain. With Japan's surrender on August 15 the then regent, Pridi Phanomyong, termed the declaration of war illegal and null and void and repudiated all agreements made with Japan. August 15 means one thing in India -- freedom at midnight. It is the anniversary of India's independence and a national holiday devoted to celebrating freedom from the British raj. Indonesia declared independence, following some 400 years of Dutch colonial rule, on August 17. In the Philippines, Japanese General Yamashita surrendered on September 2. Also on September 2, Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam's independence from French colonial rule. In Singapore, the Japanese occupation lasted into September, 1945. British troops did not arrive until September 5 and the formal surrender was not signed until September 12. In Hong Kong, the British flag was raised on August 18 but the formal Japanese surrender ceremony was not until September 16. Taiwan was a Japanese colony for 50 years until October 25, 1945. The most important day for Burma is March 27, 1945, when the Burmese nationalists, previously allied with the Japanese, turned against them. March 27 is now Burma's Armed Forces Day. The dispute, only two days before the 50th anniversary of Japan's World War Two surrender, flared when the Japanese leader said on Saturday the letter he sent to Major was not meant as an apology as described by British government officials. The comment set off anger and confusion among British war veterans who already had been dismissive of reports about the letter's expression of remorse and regret for the treatment of prisoners of war. While debate raged in Britain about what Murayama's letter meant, the issue passed with little controversy in Japan. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the letter to Major was sent in Japanese, accompanied by an English translation. "The translation included the word "apology" to express Japan's feelings," the spokesman told Reuters. ------------------------------ From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 17:14:38 EST Subject: Faster Than Light Travel [From "The Sunday Times" (UK) 13th August 1995] ASTRONOMERS PREDICT FASTER THAN LIGHT SPACE TRAVEL It is boldly going where no reputable scientific body has gone before. Contradicting Einstein, the normally conservative Royal Astronomical Society is about to publish a report predicting that mankind will be able to travel faster than the speed of light. The breakthrough means that Star Trek fantasies of interstellar civilisations and voyages powered by warp drive are now no longer the exclusive domain of science fiction writers. The report was written by Ian Crawford, an astronomer at University College London, who believes not only that man will one day see stars at close quarters, but that we had better start preparing ourselves for the consequences, including contact with aliens. His paper, Some Thoughts On The Implications Of Faster-Than-Light Travel, has been validated by independent referees in the scientific community and will be published next month. Its publication coincides with the formation by British and American scientists of the Interstellar Propulsion Society (IPS) which is dedicated to finding a means of taking astronauts to the stars. Crawford argues that modern physics may allow two possible ways around Einstein's theory, which says that because bodies have infinite mass at the speed of light, no amount of energy can make them go faster. The first is to pass through "wormholes", rifts in the fabric of space caused by intense gravitational fields such as those found around the collapsed stars known as black holes. Crawford says that such fields may allow the traveller to enter a wormhole from one point and then to leave it at another, possibly thousands of light years away. Previously, scientists have assumed that any astronaut who was caught in such a powerful gravitational field would be pulled into something resembling a piece of spaghetti. However, Crawford said last week that recent research had suggested wormholes could be stabilised and manipulated to create short cuts between any two points in space. "The proofs are complex and mathematical, but more and more astrophysicists are satisfied that in theory it is possible," he said. Should wormholes fail, however, Crawford proposes a second possible route to the stars. He draws on a recent paper by Miguel Alcubierre, of the University of Wales, in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity to suggest the possibility of propulsion systems which distort space by compressing it in front of a spaceship while expanding it behind. Such a system would effectively bend space, creating a form of "warp drive" reminiscent of the Starship Enterprise of Captain James T Kirk in Star Trek. The theories will boost growing interest among scientists in the possibility of travelling faster than light. The IPS, whose members include several NASA engineers, starts its first conference shortly in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Patrick Moore, the astronomer and presenter of The Sky At Night, said he believed interstellar travel would one day be achieved. "Television would have seemed impossible 200 years ago and faster than light travel is no more outrageous than that," he said. Arthur C Clarke, the science fiction writer and futurologist, was equally enthusiastic. His first novel, Against The Fall Of Night, published in 1932, presumed that man would be able to travel faster than light. Speaking from his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka, he said: "That was just a dramatic device which all science fiction writers have to use in space travel, but I have always believed it may one day be possible." Sir Martin Rees, the astronomer royal and professor of astronomy at Cambridge University, was more cautious, however, saying the proofs were purely theoretical. ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #389 ********************************* To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@mail.orst.edu". 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