Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1730

Typed letter from Howard O. Stearns, 80 Prospect Street, Wellesley Hills 82, Mass., to Heath, The Science of Society Foundation, Roadsend Gardens, Elkridge, Maryland, with pencil annotations by Heath

September 3, 1956

 

 

Dear Mr. Heath:

 

      It was pleasant meeting you at New Boston and I would enjoy a chance to talk more extensively about your ideas. I have read the pamphlet on Real Estate and the Prefatory Brief which you sent.

      I too, have a pet theory of taxation, but not knowing much in the area I have simply talked about it. It is simply that the only taxes should be income taxes. On my scheme no property which is not earning income for anybody would be taxed. If a profit results from the sale of property of any sort the profit would be taxed as part of the person’s earnings. Wages, dividends, salaries, would be income and should be taxed as income.

      The other paper you sent raises some questions which are per­haps semantic, Carl Darrow once made the statement that physics has grown because someone at some time became curious about something and started to take some readings. If these showed some consistency they might be express­ed as a generalization which we somewhat mistakenly called a “law.”

SH: Wherein is it a mistake?

      By that method someone has observed that in all physical equa­tions the dimensions of the quantities on each side are the same. With M = mass, L = length or distance, T = time; acceleration has the dimensions of L.T-², force = M.L.T-², energy = M.L²..T-² and so on. Now in physics energy is M.L².T^-2, and action is M.L².T^-1, so just what are the dimensions of “energy-in-action?”

 

      On page xvi you state, “The elements of events as energy-in­-action are separately conceived as (l) mass, (2) motion, and (3)time..” Combining these we have M.L.T^-1.T which equals M.L, a nameless quantity in physics.

      On page xvi you state, “…(or force inherent in mass).” Mass

multiplied by the velocity of light, squared, is equivalent to energy,

 

SH: Dogma. A quantity or a rate? Which?

 

but not to force. You then equate motion and length, i.e. you state

that L/T = L which is obviously not so!

 

      Farther on you state “.. .rate of energy or energy-in-action.” If this is so energy in action is simply power in a physical sense, so why invent a new word for it?

 

SH: Motion, like force or inertia, is a property inherent in mass, and by which it (mass) is identified. No length (distance — space — of motion) no motion.

      Rate of energy = energy/time or M.L².T-²/T = M.L².T^-3

     Power = M.L².T^-3

SH: This is intelligible only to initiates — (brain washed?)

      On page xiii is the expression “in a like quantitative and rational way.” I doubt if the two terms are synonymous. I can “prove” quantitatively that 2=1 but the result is not rational; on the other hand I can state “It is hot” which is rational,

                       SH: What ratio?

(at least today) but not quantitative.

Is not the statement on page xvi that, “Nature is not only
dynamic but she is also rational,” a contradiction of the second law of thermodynamics?

 

                                Sh: Yes, it is.

 

This law states that any system left to itself tends to become more and more chaotic. For example you plant some trees in rows that is, in order, but in a natural forest there is complete chaos

                                    SH: Nonsense!

 

in the arrangement of the trees.       

Your statement that there are three primary colors I think might be questioned. A spectrum can be constructed

                              SH: But is not

out of the proper choice of 2, 3, 4, 10, or an almost infinite number of primary colors.

Your paper has many excellent ideas but I fear that for a scientist the degree to which you communicate them to him is not great because the terms

                   SH: I have tried to employ

               terms most easily

               intelligible to uninstructed

               intelligence.     

are not used in senses familiar to him.

  SH: Just so.

                              

Sincerely yours,

(Signed) Howard 0. Stearns

 

SH: Trees in even rows are in a predetermined order — determined by human purpose, design, will, desire. Random order also is predetermined by its antecedents, either by or independent of human will or intent.