Letter from Thomas Gold to Professor Martin Harwit, Chairman, Department of Astronomy, Space Sciences Building, Campus Would be happy to co-operate in any useful area with a United Nations University. Though agrees that discussions as to its purpose are at the moment still too vague. While he is interested in any discussion of action that might establish contact with other civilizations, he is not in favour of making this a university study or teaching programme. There are already too many uiniversity disciplines that have sprung up in recent times on the grounds that it would be important but not on the grounds that there is knowledge and understanding to be taught. A lot of people debating things that are not understood doesn't help much. The so-called social sciences are of course the outstanding case of giving subjects prominence according to their importance irrespective of whether any useful knowledge exists. He is not in favour of contributing to this errroneous tendencey of their day. 15 February 1973