Frontiers Of Our World

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28559, 12 April 1958, Page 3

Frontiers Of Our World

Man Unlimited. By Heinz GarV mann. Jonathan Cape. 215 PP.

This important account of the challenge of technology to human endurance has interest for everyone. Its purpose is to describe some of the experiments which have taken place to try to de<teimine the limits of human endurance. While not many of us have experiences which reach extremes, modern living introduces i)ew conceptions and new adjustments ana with thun have tome new hazards. For example, the quest for speed takes a yearly toll far in excess of that taken by the majjr epidemics of the past. Human reactions in relation to speed are discussed briefly in this connexion.

By far the greatest speeds have been achieved in flight. A short while ago the United States Air Force announced that Captain Apt reached ths amazing speed of 2263 miles an hour before he was killed in the Bell X2 rocket plane. This is nearly four times the muzzle velocity of a .45 calibre pistol bullet. Fast movement in itself does not upset us, in fact we are unaware of it, otherwise we would know that we are spinning through space at the amazing sneed of 120.000 miles an hour. It is the rapid change of movement which does the damage. Dr. Gartmann describes some classical experiments which were designed to explore the limits of human endurance in relation to acceleration and deacceleration, to rapid change of direction and to centrifugal force. Another effe-t of fast movement is the upset caused to the time clock mechanism inside all of us. This is discussed in some detail. Many of us have recognised this unpleasant experience when travelling long distances by air. To end the section devoted to flight. Dr Gartmann describes some remarkable penetrations made into the stratosphere as well as the effect of weightlessness and of pressure fluctuations on the human body. Dr. Gartmann then goes on to introduce the atomic age and discusses some aspects of nuclear fission in particular in relation to radiation. He 4hen turns to computers and discusses them in relation to the possibly effect thev may have »n the human brain. He ends with a short chanter on the new human being. jj, s took contains unique photo^rao b s and it can b° well recommended It will be absorbing reading for those who take an interest in the frontiers of the world we live in.