Ivan Dixon is probably best known for playing the character a James Knichloe on the 60's tv series "Hogan's Heroes' which was one of the first series to have a black actor as a major regular character. However, his efforts to integrate television began before "Hogan's Heroes". His first tv role was in a 1957 episode of "Armstrong Circle Theater". He appeared in numerous other tv shows prior to "Hogan's Heroes" including the pilot episodes of "I Spy" and "Man From U.N.C.L.E.".

Dixon's role on "Hogan's Heroes" was significant in part because it would have been unlikely that a black soldier would have been given the assignment of participating in a spy operation stationed at a German POW compound. During WWII black soldiers were seldom given anything more than assignments in mess halls or graves registration. Exceptions included the Tuskegee Airmen and the truck drivers assigned to the Red Ball Express. It would have been unlikely that a black sergeant would have been the top sergeant in an otherwise white unit.

The color of the character Sgt. Kinchloe was rarely even mentioned in the show. In contrast to black actors in movies from an earlier era, Kinchloe was a serious character. The dumb comic type roles such as Sgt. Schultz and Sgt. Carter were assigned to white actors.


Dixon later became a director. His credits include 7 episodes of "The Walton's", 9 episodes of "The Rockford Files" and 13 episodes of "Magnum, P.I."

His honors included four NAACP Image Awards, the National Black Theatre Award and the Paul Robeson Pioneer Award from the Black American Cinema Society.

Dixon had been suffering from complications due to kidney failure and died of a hemorrhage Sunday at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, N.C. according to his daughter Doris Nomathande Dixon.

Born in 1931 in New York, Dixon graduated in 1954 from North Carolina Central University in Durham.

In addition to his daughter, survivors include his wife of 53 years, Berlie Dixon of Charlotte, and a son, Alan Kimara Dixon of Oakland. At Dixon's request, no memorial or funeral is planned, the family said.

Hungarian scientist Ferenc Miskolczi has discovered the greenhouse gas equation Arthur Milne developed in 1922 contains a serious flaw. Milne mistakenly solved the differential equation involved by assuming an infinitely thick atmosphere. Miskolczi was working for NASA at the time and NASA suppressed his report which contradicted NASA's claims.

Miskolczi resigned in protest, stating in his resignation letter, "Unfortunately my working relationship with my NASA supervisors eroded to a level that I am not able to tolerate. My idea of the freedom of science cannot coexist with the recent NASA practice of handling new climate change related scientific results."

Miskolczi rewrote the equations and the modified equations don't indicate a runaway greenhouse effect. His equations indicate a limit to any greenhouse effect. Thus even if there is a greenhouse effect it cannot do what the Rev. Al Gore of the Church of Global Warming claims it will do.

Research by Stephen Schwartz also challenges claims of a runaway greenhouse effect.

I haven't studied differential equations for a few decades, but I do remember that guessing at values for variables is sometimes used to solve differential equations because of their complexity. However, there are two values that should never be used, infinity and zero. These two numbers have special mathematical properties that make them unsuitable for this purpose. For example, you may remember learning that division by zero is impossible. However, there is one special case in which division by zero is possible, zero divided by zero. The test to determine if division is correct is multiplication. Zero multiplied by any other number is zero so zero divided by zero can be any number.

In the real world it might be possible to a zero amount of any commodity, but not an infinite amount. An infinitely thick atmosphere would also be infinitely massive, i.e. a super black hole. In an infinitely thick atmosphere it wouldn't make any difference what the gases were because the gravitational attraction would be so high that radiation could not escape.

In fairness to Milne, his research dealt with stellar atmospheres rather than planetary atmospheres. Milne unsuccessfully attempted to develop a competing theory to Einstein's Theory of Relativity.