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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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rshow55 - 04:11pm Apr 20, 2002 EST (#1571 of 1584)

Computational difficulties have been extreme in modelling -- and people have pushed computer capacities far beyond what anybody imagined could be done a few decades ago.

Many "invisible colleges" and large teams, all over the world, have deep committements to existing procedures - - enough that finding a mistake that is 350 years old in arithmetical modeling procedure is difficult -- and convincing people to acknowledge and look at the error is also difficult.

It has to be done step by step - and there are difficulties at many steps. Some of the steps have to be done "at once."

I was very interested in

Japanese Computer Is World's Fastest, as U.S. Falls Back By JOHN MARKOFF http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/20/technology/20COMP.html

" A Japanese laboratory has built the world's fastest computer, a machine that matches the raw processing power of the 20 fastest American computers combined."

That computer will be perfect for some things - - and is likely to produce gross errors in other calculations -- unless algorithms are corrected.

The difficultes in explaining what needs to be explained, and getting the persuasive force to actually get changes made, are much less than they were before, mostly because of the guidance I've gotten from lchic about persuasion and paradigm conflict.

But those difficulties are still challenging.

Part of the problem is logic -- and part of the problem involves force, as well.

The key human and organizational problems involved are similar to problems involved in dealing with the missile defense boondoggle. When a big group of people have made a deeply embedded mistake - for whatever reason -- how do you change it?

To figure out the complexity of the job, you'd almost have to do the things it takes to make a movie about getting the job done.

For many of the problems that stump people now -- for many of the things where we say "if only we could do the obvious" - and then do much worse -- there are problems of simultenaity, complexity, and human nature of similar forms. MD1231 rshow55 4/10/02 11:28am

I've seen some documentation in the last few days that highlights the difficulties of the problem in missile defense -- and I'll be posting some of it shortly.

rshow55 - 04:18pm Apr 20, 2002 EST (#1572 of 1584)

There was a deletion of a number in rshow55 4/20/02 4:07pm -- set out in bold here:

"(the ratio of di/dt to dv/dx) more than 10^12 (1,000,000,000,000) times greater than electromagnetic inductance . . ."

lchic - 05:19pm Apr 20, 2002 EST (#1573 of 1584)
USA - Jenin - Transparency --- really?!!

... 'noticed the ommission, was going to comment ... 10^12 (1,000,000,000,000) ... a big step towards greater accuracy ... impressive!

^{As is the belated move by the NYT to begin publishing improved truths wrt to 'Jenin' - at last ... as they also move out of 'DENIAL'. If the five planets are to align and be seen by the naked eye, then USA Satellite pics of Jenin (hour by hour) should be given to the media for us to see.}

lchic - 05:37pm Apr 20, 2002 EST (#1574 of 1584)
USA - Jenin - Transparency --- really?!!

Resolution 1405 was adopted unanimously by the 15-nation body - The Security Council (UN)
^{http://www.abc.net.au/news/indepth/featureitems/s536264.htm}

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