282 Discussion 



but it is reduced by the presence of redundant information — not by irrelevant information as in 

 the first case. These two situations must be sharply distinguished. 



With atoms and molecules, the error-correcting mechanism can be a cage effect or some- 

 thing of the kind. This could be the situation where loss of function is caused by clusters of 

 events, i.e. passage of a particle of high linear energy transfer. It may be suspected that the 

 protective effect of redundancy of chemical structure extends only over regions of rather 

 limited sizes which would imply that the reduction of information density could be rather 

 substantial. 



