Key Fact Research Articles

The etale homotopy theory of a geometric fibration

A geometric fibration, f:X→Y, is a smooth map of schemes which locally on Y admits a smooth, relative compactification. The etale homotopy type of the geometric fibre when completed away from the residue characteristics of Y,\((X_y )_{\hat et} \), is shown to be weakly homotopy equivalent to the completion of the Hurewicz fibre of the etale homotopy type of f,F(fetr)^. This implies a homotopy sequence for f. A key topological fact is verified in the appendix: for any pointed Hurewicz fibre triple F→E→B, the action of πl(F) on the homotopy type of various covering spaces of F extends to an action of πl(E).

On Time

It is unfortunate that the dates on many scientific journals belong in the realm of science fiction, except that they refer to the past instead of the future. We do not know why publishing delays seem to be a chronic ailment of these journals. That this is not necessary is evident from the examples of the weekly magazines such as Science and Nature.We are proud of the record of our own journal: We have kept to a rigid time schedule for the twelve years of its existence. Every Thursday a ceremony takes place which we call "The Closing of the Book." Our editor George Trigg stands before a table on which the oversized typewritten pages, pasted on stiff paper, are displayed. He is surrounded by key members of our production staff. Each page is scrutinized to see if all corrections have been made, if all figures are properly placed, and whether anything has been overlooked. In the doorway the messenger of Palmer Oliver, Inc., our printer, is waiting, ready to transport the package as soon as the last page has been approved by the editor. The performance has the appearance of a ritual which might continue for centuries after the journal has ceased to exist. In any case we get the journal out on time. The printer's schedule is equally as rigid as ours and the mailing house, Datatron Processing, Inc., has the journals ready for dispatch every Friday before the Monday date printed on the cover. On that Friday copies are flown to Amsterdam by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines for further distribution in Europe, and the domestic copies are mailed from New York City. Thus every subscriber should be able to expect his copy to arrive on the cover date or very shortly after.Unfortunately, it is not always so. In addition to the vagaries of the mails, there is the fact that subscription handling is not under our control but is managed by the American Institute of Physics. Each week they supply printed address labels to the mailing house, and it sometimes happens that labels are missing. The reason for this is usually computer breakdown. We have not learned the right computer language to reprimand these machines when they are inefficient and incompetent. We understand, however, that these flaws can be and are being remedied.There are still other causes for delay of an individual subscription. A serious problem, we are told, is that subscription agencies, used by most libraries and institutions, occasionally delay or even fail to place the orders with the appropriate publishers, meanwhile collecting bank interest on the money they have received. We doubt that this happens deliberately. Nevertheless, we urge every subscriber who does not receive his copies on time to investigate the cause of the delay and to let us know, as we expend a large amount of money and effort to keep a rigid schedule.We sometimes wonder whether it is worth while. The average time between receipt and publication of a Letter is growing and has reached almost ten weeks. The reason is that the large rejection rate supposedly gives the published Letters prestige, so that many authors want their papers to appear in our journal regardless of how long it takes. When referees recommend submittal to another journal, our authors would rather fight than switch. We emphasize a statement we have made before: Many of the papers we turn down are just as deserving of speedy publication as many that we publish. The key fact is that those few papers that are obviously urgent can always be published in two to three weeks. That is enough to justify setting an express schedule and insisting that we be on time.

African music from the point of view of the record industry. From a Special Correspondent of The Star, Johannesburg

The key fact in the Bantu record industry is that there are no key facts such as enable experts on the European side to prepare something in accordance with proven formulae and predict its success with reasonable accuracy.Indeed, renowned musicologists after decades of studying Bantu music and customs have been invited to comment on various recordings and the box-office results have conflicted dramatically with their informed opinion. To set against the wealth of evidence that the Bantu record buyer is simply not interested in conventional Western numbers there were the hit sales of The Tennessee Waltz.

Some Perspectives of Petroleum Engineering

Abstract This discussion views petroleum engineering from the viewpoint of its historical development, its relation to other disciplines in the engineering spectrum, its relation to science and management, and its activity as systems engineering. The petroleum engineer participates in a team effort for producing petroleum. Many other types of engineers are also used in the effort. The recognition of petroleum engineering suffers because the team effort and the particular part played by the petroleum engineer have not been properly portrayed. As a systems-engineering effort, petroleum engineering is a high order of engineering and an activity of which the profession should be proud. A recognition of this role, and its relationship to other professional activities, should be of tremendous assistance in promoting growth of the profession. The perspectives discussed lead to an enunciation of four areas where effort is needed:the acceptance of responsibilities by petroleum engineering outside the petroleum industry;the launching of basic and fundamental inquiry into the crust of the earth, the system within which petroleum engineering is practiced;a better recording and analysis of successes and failures; andan increased effort to interpret the role and potential of petroleum engineering to managers and to the public. Introduction Petroleum engineers are showing an attitude of pessimism these days and are questioning their basic qualifications as engineers. There is a feeling of uncertainty about the future for the profession. College departments of petroleum engineering are definitely not drawing their share of students. A key fact is that the profession does not know itself well enough. The profession needs to establish a better self-identity and to demonstrate a pride in petroleum engineering. A better self-knowledge will be the springboard from which growth and recognition can proceed. Need for Identity The petroleum engineer has been gaining recognition steadily for some years, but it is easy to overlook this steady advance in the face of the rapid transitions imposed upon the entire engineering profession. Within the industry, the petroleum engineer gained recognition by finding his place in field operations, although he was not accepted by operating personnel with open arms. Within his professional society, the petroleum engineer also gained recognition slowly. This has culminated in the inclusion of "petroleum" in the name of AIME and in the establishment of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. A third advance in recognition took place within the framework of the Engineer's Council for Professional Development. That agency, through its accreditation activities of engineering curricula in the early 1950's, sought definitions for the various branches of engineering. There was serious questioning by ECPD as to whether petroleum engineering was an identifiable, separate branch of engineering. ECPD actually catalogued petroleum engineering as a fringe curriculum. Petroleum engineering has overcome this fringe label, principally in the period since 1953.Even with these advances in recognition, there is still a general lack of understanding of petroleum engineering. The layman may recognize the uniqueness of electrical engineering or mechanical engineering, but he has practically no knowledge at all of petroleum engineering. This lay public includes the high school and college students who are prospective engineers. It also includes industrialists, legislators, lawyers and public relations men working directly with the industry. But more significantly, this public includes even many within the petroleum-producing industry and many within the engineering profession. The situation is not helped by the lack of unanimity within the profession concerning its role and its characteristics. If the profession does not recognize itself, it cannot expect full recognition from others. So, it is desirable to talk about some things that will help in the process of self-identification for petroleum engineers. Petroleum engineering, when placed in perspective, actually is seen as an advanced type of engineering. The following discussion of perspectives outline the nature of petroleum engineering, demonstrates its relation to other engineering branches, to society and to industry, and points up some required areas for growth. Historical Development Petroleum engineering is relatively new and young among the branches of engineering. It is older than nuclear engineering but younger than chemical engineering. JPT P. 129^

Recent Developments in Turkey

T tHE key fact in the modern history of Turkey is that in May I950 a really free and fair election was held which resulted in an overwhelming victory for the Opposition. After twenty-seven years of uninterrupted rule by the Ciimhuriyet Halk Partisi (C.H.P.), the Republican People's Party, founded by Kemal Atatiirk-most of the time without any opposition party to challenge it-the C.H.P. Government presided over a free and peaceful election which resulted in its own defeat and replacement by the Democrat Party founded in I946. This momentous event bears remarkable testimony to the constructive work of Kemalism and to the political maturing of the Turkish people under its aegis. At the risk of a paradox I would say that the electoral defeat of the C.H.P. was its greatest achievement. How did it happen? Turkey under Atatuirk was a dictatorship-but it must be borne in mind that it was very different from the regimes to which the same term is applied in recent and contemporary Europe. It was a dictatorship without the uneasy over-the-shoulder glance, the terror of the door-bell, the menace of the concentration camp. Force and repression were no doubt used to establish it, but once it was established, it offered no great danger to life or personal liberty except, perhaps, in a few specific instances. Political activity against the regime was banned, but talk and even books-though not newspapers-were comparatively free. Critics of the regime and its policies, with few exceptions, were punished with remote official jobs in eastern Anatolia or with diplomatic appointments in distant and unimportant capitals. Violence was rare, and was usually in answer to violent opposition. After the death of Atatuirk there was some deterioration. In the hands of lesser men than himself, his authoritarian and paternalist mode of government degenerated into something nearer to dictatorship as the word is commonly understood. The disappearance of *Atatiirk's own dominating personality and the rise of a new generation influenced by Western constitutional ideas undermined the popular acceptance of authoritarian government that had its roots deep in the Islamic past, and forced the regime to rely more and more on simple repression. The strains and stresses of the war years, the burden of mobilization, the universal threat of foreign espionage and infiltration, all reinforced the need for strong government, and lent some colour of justification to the repressive measures adopted. Martial law was imposed, the press and publications were more strictly controlled than ever, police surveillance became