New York Times Forums
The New York Times

Home
Job Market
Real Estate
Automobiles
News
International
National
Washington
Business
Technology
Science
Health
Sports
New York Region
Education
Weather
Obituaries
NYT Front Page
Corrections
Opinion
Editorials/Op-Ed
Readers' Opinions


Features
Arts
Books
Movies
Travel
Dining & Wine
Home & Garden
Fashion & Style
Crossword/Games
Cartoons
Magazine
Week in Review
Multimedia
College
Learning Network
Services
Archive
Classifieds
Book a Trip
Personals
Theater Tickets
Premium Products
NYT Store
NYT Mobile
E-Cards & More
About NYTDigital
Jobs at NYTDigital
Online Media Kit
Our Advertisers
Member_Center
Your Profile
E-Mail Preferences
News Tracker
Premium Account
Site Help
Privacy Policy
Newspaper
Home Delivery
Customer Service
Electronic Edition
Media Kit
Community Affairs
Text Version
TipsGo to Advanced Search
Search Options divide
go to Member Center Log Out
  

 [F] New York Times on the Web Forums  / Science  /

    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?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.


Earliest Messages Previous Messages Recent Messages Outline (13958 previous messages)

rshow55 - 11:15am Sep 25, 2003 EST (# 13959 of 13963)
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.

I'm quoting things I wrote in " Black Holes and the Universe " now set out at http://www.mrshowalter.net/bhmath/

References to "loop tests" or "Bridgman" occur from 602-610 and 636-649 of http://www.mrshowalter.net/bhmath/ .

Here are passages, from 602-608 that I think are of interest - involve science - and help provide a referent to answer the question - What have lchic and I accomplished on the MD board and related boards?

_ - - - - - - -

"To fit the solution into a useful context, I think it is useful to consider some of the thoughts and difficulties of P.W. Bridgman , Nobelist in physics, arch- realist, experimentalist extraordinaire, and a central figure in the definition of the "engineering" view of "modeling rigor" - the notion that right understanding of a model IS an understanding of how to measure the quantities discussed in the model, neither more nor less. This is a very different notion of rigor from the one the pure mathematicians have. Both when I think Bridgman had it right, and when I think he didn't, it seems to me that his ideas throw an interesting light on the questions:

How do you go from a measurable model (territory) to a representation (map) in abstract mathematics, and wind up with a map that represents the territory well?

and

When you do that, how do you explain how you did it?

Our society has never been clear, or felt clear, about exactly how mathematical theory and experiment fit together. Thinkers who've tried to get clear have shown that they were not. We've used the connection between mathematized theory and the measurable world as a magic that somehow works. There's no hope of avoiding some philosophically unclear or arbitrary elements in the math- reality connection. But we CAN hope to get the grammar, the procedural steps, in the connection between the measurable world and the mathematical abstraction more clear than they are.

We need to get some nuts and bolts relations right.

People and institutions are conflicted about math and experiment. Most folks seem pretty comfortable about experiments, except that experiments are so expensive and difficult to do.

Math is different. Everybody I know, when you push them, is uncomfortable and conflicted about math.

. . .

There's no hope of avoiding some philosophically unclear or arbitrary elements in the math-reality connection. There's no hope of avoiding all fear. But we CAN . . . hope to get the grammar, the procedural steps, in the connection between the measurable world and the mathematical abstraction more clear than they are.

. . .

There are practical reasons we ought to know. Maxwell needed to know. Engineers trying to deal with COUPLED circumstances where the couplings really matter need to know.

  • ********************

    P.W. Bridgman was a fascinating figure, because he thought intensely about the math-reality connection, and got to the point where he didn't see that there was a conceptual problem of any kind. ( see http://hackensackhigh.org/~nelsonb/bridgman.html - which lchic found today) Even so, he couldn't do a lot of problems, and knew it. It's interesting what he saw, and what he missed. There was a place he walked all over, that had deeper problems than he suspected. Everybody else missed it too.

    When we measure many of the quantities that we use, the results of our measurements aren't just numbers. They are more complicated than that, dimensionally and in other ways.

    Accomplished old men, who know they are going to die, sometimes write books. P.W. Bridgman wrote an exceedingly interesting one two years before he died of cancer. Whether he

    More Messages Recent Messages (4 following messages)

     Read Subscriptions  Subscribe  Search  Post Message
     Your Preferences

     [F] New York Times on the Web Forums  / Science  / Missile Defense