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From Ken Mann

The article “In the Moog” (23/30 December 1995) concludes that because of the penetrating note it produces the Theremin must be “the world’s most unwelcome Christmas present”. As someone who was bought a Theremin as a Christmas present this year, I found it most welcome, and point out to the author of the article that as the Theremin is an electric instrument the amateur player can practise using headphones rather than a loudspeaker.

Great annoyance can however be produced by a cat sitting on the volume aerial and sniffing the pitch aerial. So always turn your Theremin off when you are not using it.

Correction: Observant readers of Inside Science 86 on the Earth’s atmosphere (9 December 1995) will have noticed that if the Earth was scaled dawn to the size of a grapefruit (with a diameter of 13 centimetres), its life zone or “thin green smear” would be O.2 millimetres and not 2 mm as stated.

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