Harry the big shot hunter
QUESTION Prince Harry shot a water buffalo in Argentina in 2004. Is this species native to South America?
THE Asian water buffalo, Bubalus
bubalis, used as a draught and food animal across Asia, was introduced into South America and Australia in the late 19th century to be farmed for meat.
Wild herds have spread along tropical rivers and in flood plains. Argentina has 70,000 Asiatic water buffalo.
Weighing up to a ton, it is the third largest species in the Bovidae family after gaur, a type of wild cattle found in South Asia, and American bison.
Water buffalo have horns that curve upwards and backwards. The bulls are dangerous and Argentines consider them to be a nuisance.
Argentina is a mecca for hunters. Private game reserves rear water buffalo, red stag, blackbuck, wild boar, Asian water buffalo, mouflon sheep, axis deer and fallow deer as game.
The country is also famous for its dove and pigeon shoots — hunters are encouraged to take aim at the millions of birds that descend on the grain fields surrounding the city of Cordoba.
In November 2004, Prince Harry spent five weeks improving his polo skills on the El Remanso ranch near Buenos Aires. During the trip, he took part in a hunt and shot a water buffalo at the 170,000acre estate in the Entre Rios province owned by Count Claudio Zichy-Thyssen.
Paula Smith, York.
QUESTION Why are officers piped aboard ships?
THE Admiralty Manual Of Seamanship (1964 version) states: ‘Piping the side is a mark of respect which, in the Royal Navy, is reserved for the sovereign, a member of the Royal Family of the rank of captain and above when in naval uniform, the Board of Admiralty and Commonwealth Naval Boards, officers of flag rank and commodores, commanding officers of HM sea-going ships and tenders in commission, other naval officers while carrying out certain specified duties and for all foreign naval officers in uniform. A corpse when being brought on board or sent out of a ship is also piped.’
This mark of respect owes its origin to the days when captains used to visit other ships when at sea.
The visiting officer was hoisted aboard in a chair slung on a whip (a long piece of rope) rove (tied around or threaded) from the lower yardarm, to the accompaniment of the pipe of the boatswain giving orders to the men.
Chris Pate, Worcester.
QUESTION Could quantum entanglement be used to provide instantaneous communication across vast distances?
PHYSICIST Richard Feynman said: ‘If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand it.’
The consequences of quantum theory are contrary to everyday experience. Relativity describes what happens in gravitational fields and at velocities approaching the speed of light: quantum mechanics describes how matter and energy interact at the sub-atomic scale.
No accepted theory combines relativity and quantum mechanics.
No practical device incorporates what Albert Einstein called ‘spooky action at a distance’, which refers to the prediction made by quantum theory that two or more sub-atomic particles can be ‘entangled’ and separated, and then a measurement of the properties of one causes the other to crystallise instantaneously into complementary properties.
The effect has been demonstrated by entangling two photons (light particles) and sending them separately over a 50km length of fibreoptic cable. Though the quantum collapse occurs instantaneously, you will note that first the photons in the pair have to be sent to each end of the communications link.
If each end has a supply of entangled particles, then instantaneous communication could take place by crystallising their quantum states. But you first have to transport the particles to their respective locations, which is not instantaneous, and entanglement cannot be maintained indefinitely.
These effects are the subject of research by IBM and Google with a view to creating quantum computers. They use the concept of superposition, where every possible value is encoded in the quantum state and manipulated in parallel.
This opens the possibility of solving problems that were previously intractable or time-consuming.
There is extensive research into unbreakable cryptography because existing systems are potentially breakable by quantum computing.
Entanglement offers the prospect of distributing keys in such a way that the cipher can’t be broken without knowledge of the key even by a quantum computer and the key can’t be intercepted without the eavesdropper revealing himself.
China is investing in a 2,000 km quantum key distribution system between financial centres. A satellite system for key distribution around the world has also been mooted.
Ken Wood, Newport, South Wales.
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