THE MAYAS AND NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS

Perhaps the greatest mystery of the New World is the downfall and eventual disappearance of the Maya civilization in (probably) the 7^th century A.D. Their culture and science were highly ad- vanced, outshining not only anything the Old Word had to offer at the time (which wasn't much), but in some cases even transcending the brilliant science of the ancient world. Such was the case with their numerical notation, which was positional and included a sym- bol for zero¾a trick that the Europeans started using only some five centuries later, when the Arabs brought it to them from China and India. Various theories have been advanced to explain their sudden demise, but none have stood up to scrutiny. [Could it have been disease? W. H. McNeill's fundamental treatise Plagues and Peoples (Doubleday 1976) deals with the Indians of Central America only after the numerically very much weaker Spaniards defeated them by smallpox.]

Perhaps; perhaps not. For an answer, turn to the next article. "A private group has set up seismometers in the USSR that could pro- vide foolproof verification of nuclear blasts. The next move belongs to the politicians." The private group is the Ntl. Resource Defense Council (NRDC), well known to readers over the years as a full- time antinuclear, anti-energy, anti-free enterprise lobby that specializes in copious and well financed litigation to stop any type of energy or other industrial project. No wonder Gorbachev chose it to "verify" his moratorium with seismographs while he was not testing¾but did not allow them to monitor when he started again. [I can beat the high jump world record by 2 feet, and anybody is invited to verify it with his own eyes¾but only when I am not jumping.]