 What would Dr. Niemand think was the real benefit of visiting Henry Middletown?
This, be it understood, is fiction—nothing but fiction—and not, under any circumstances, to be considered as having any truth whatever to it. An interview with Dr. I. M. Niemand, Director of the Psychophysical Institute of Solar and Terrestrial Relations, Camarillo, California. In the closing days of December, 1957, at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in New York, Dr. Niemand delivered a paper entitled simply, "On the Nature of the Solar S-Regions." These implications are discussed here in an exclusive interview with Dr. Niemand by Philip Latham. I suppose you might say my main job today is to find out all I can between activity on the Sun and various forms of activity on the Earth. What do you mean by activity on the Sun? NIEMAND. Well, a sunspot is a form of solar activity. I'm afraid I can't say just what a sunspot is. It means you can only approximately predict the future course of sunspot activity. There is unquestionably a correlation between sunspots and disturbances of the Earth's magnetic field ... Now, Dr. Niemand, I understand that you have been investigating solar and terrestrial relationships along rather unorthodox lines. I think our biggest advance was the discovery that sunspots themselves are not the direct cause of the disturbances we have been studying on the Earth. Whereas the real cause is an invisible filterable virus. It is extremely doubtful, however, if the radiation we detect is the actual cause of the disturbing effects observed. In the Sun? NIEMAND. Philosophers have wrestled with it ever since the days of Job. Generally they have concluded that man is inherently wicked and sinful and that is the end of it. Man at last seemed to be making progress toward some higher goal. Well, disputes over boundaries ... economic rivalry ... border incidents.... NIEMAND. Such a syndrome is characteristic of menopausal women and some men during the climacteric, but these people failed to fit into this picture. In my opinion one of the most valuable contributions anthropologists have made in recent years is the discovery that primitive man is afflicted with essentially the same neurotic conditions as those of us who live a so-called civilized life. They have found savages displaying every symptom of a nervous breakdown among the mountain tribes of the Elgonyi and the Aruntas of Australia. No, Mr. Latham, it's time the stress-and-strain theory was relegated to the junk pile along with demoniac possession and blood letting. I want to emphasize, however, that I do not believe in prescribing shotgun remedies for a patient.
 To provide a perspective from another field
 Access to specialized graph paper to make sense of their data  Access to calendar records to find a pattern with  To establish the randomness of the solar flares  To provide a perspective from another field