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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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lchic - 09:17am Jan 22, 2003 EST (# 7901 of 7907)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Film 'Thirteen Days' - Cuban Missile Crisis cost $80m to make ... earned this from one review site:

Report Card

Script: B-

Acting: A

Cinematography\Lighting: C

Special Effects\Make Up: A

Music: C

Final Grade: B

http://www.filethirteen.com/reviews/13days/13days.htm from a review that has troubles with KNOW-now.

Had Thirteen days been made in SILENT movie vein, how would it have been simplistically depicted ?

________________________

If current diplomatic crisis were reduced to simple report cards - what would be the essential categories ... and how would they be scored?

lchic - 10:34am Jan 22, 2003 EST (# 7902 of 7907)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Backtracked to read Showalter's interesting series of postings beginning starting here : - 08:26am Jan 22, 2003 EST (# 7895 of 7901)

Here's a DEMO - Non linear control systems (with variables) -- wait for it to load -- http://www.mathworks.com/products/ncd/demos.jsp#

rshow55 - 11:09am Jan 22, 2003 EST (# 7903 of 7907)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

http://www.mathworks.com/products/ncd/demos.jsp is wonderful - and illustrates a nonlinear control problem solved for a carefully defined set of inputs - according to some simple criteria on fit - and speed - that would disqualify the solution for many other criteria. It is beautiful - and I'll spend a little time relating it to diplomatic interactions - where stability and fit to purpose matter.

A key thing to see, if you follow the simulation - is how tuned the thing has to be - for a very simple nonlinear system. For more complicated systems, you need a lot more tuning - problems increase with N! where N is an index of complexity in principle - but if you know what you're doing - VERY good solutions are possible. The best of them not at all obvious. Until you see them, matched to what they are supposed to do. Then these solutions are "obvious." Thomas Edison searched for obvious solutions in that sense.

Back in a bit.

Both Iraq and N. Korea are trillions of times more complex, and have fancier nonliearities, than the problem in the demo of http://www.mathworks.com/products/ncd/demos.jsp#

But with information flows carefully handled, and taking time - very good solutions for every reasonable criterion are possible.

The chance of disater if you "just wing it" on a problem like this is essentially 100%. Unless you like extermination, or some other asymptotic solution, as a "solution."

Usually, for people, such solutions are gutwrenchingly ugly. Though linear programming has wonderful applications for linear problems.

Back in a bit. Wonderful simulation.

I'll try to handle some thing in detail - and say some things about switching - while keeping my promise to gisterme , who asked for a simple definition of an oscillatory solution.

Problem is, after the problem gets complicated, some things about the definition get complicated, too. Though the basics stay simple.

rshow55 - 11:20am Jan 22, 2003 EST (# 7904 of 7907)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

<a href="/webin/WebX?14@93.BmRoa1pS1V7.0@.f28e622/9428">rshow55 1/22/03 11:09am</a>

This is a test. Did "the powers that be" give me back the ability to cite from this thread - when they made my life much harder by wiping out the search facility.

If you keep adding constraints - or eliminating options - you do make things much harder.

Couldn't somebody have a little mercy?

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