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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?

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

rshow55 - 07:21am Aug 18, 2002 EST (# 3790 of 3793)

almarst-2001 - 05:14pm Sep 13, 2001 EST (#8964

"Gisterme,

"I am impressed by your buttle-plan;)

"I wish you also know what those forces will do? Occupy the Iraq? The Afganistan? The Pakistan? The Iran? The Sudan? The Libia? The Siria? And what next? Install the "democracy" and teach the tolerance and admiration toward the shiny West?

"In my oppinion, it would be good enough if US would stop at least create the next generation of those monsters in places like Kosovo and Chechnia.

"It also would be nice if the US would seriously denounce all types of terrorism (by my definition) and start acting accordingly.

"As for this tragic event, let's just hope the West does not turn this into catastrophy. The best it can do is to improve the internal security and start the process of reducing the number of its enemies. Starting from some honest assessement of its own behavier. It will not help to fight the terrorism while practicing it at the same time.

A better than random body of concerns and insights from almarst !

rshow55 - 07:27am Aug 18, 2002 EST (# 3791 of 3793)

About looking at a case, looking at a pattern, figuring The Odds of That http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/11/magazine/11COINCIDENCE.html and making a judgement about whether the pattern is real, or coincidental.

Facts about the number of combinations of possibilities are crucial. The factorial series is THE most basic of these facts.

A sense of how big the factorial series is - and how it grows is basic - - both practically and morally, too, because results have moral consequences. It is absolutely central to understanding how human reasoning can possibly work - and how closure, by reasonable standards, is actually possible.

To know how necessary it is to eliminate possibilites - and check. To know how easy it is to be wrong. But also, to know how real and reassuring our chances are, quite often, of being right. (Chances, not certainties.)

When we ask, in a defined case, what truth is, what are our chances of finding it?

Numbers matter. Some numbers matter so much, it seems to me, that everybody, including politicians and clergymen, should have a sense of them.

rshow55 - 07:56am Aug 18, 2002 EST (# 3792 of 3793)

When we ask, in a defined case, what truth is, what are our chances of finding it? That depends on a lot, for any particular case. But chance plays a part, and often a big part.

Here's a simpler question, basic to evaluations of the hard question bolded just above.

. When we're "looking for a needle in a haystack" "How big is that haystack?"

If you're looking at random combinations, and only one possibility is right, how big is the search? How much does it help to eliminate possibilities, in this random case?

Let's compare N! , N!/(N/2)! , and N!/(N/5!)
Here they are for three values of N . . . 10, 20, and 40

10! = 3,628,800 . . . . . . . 5! = 120 . . . . . . . . . . . .2! = 2
20! = 2.433 x 10e18 . . . 10! = 3,628,800 . . . . . . . 4! = 24
40!= 8.16 x 10e47 . . . . 20! = 2.433 x 10e18 .....12! = 4.79 x 10e8

For N= 10 . . N!/(N/2)! =3.024 x 10e4 . . . N!/(N/5)! = 1.814 x 10e6
For N= 20 . . N!/(N/2)! = 6.704 x 10e11 . . N!/(N/5)! = 2.027 x 10e16
For N= 40 . . N!/(N/2)! = 3.358 x 10e29 . . N!/(N/5)! = 1.703 x 10e39

or, looking at reciprocals

2!/10! = 5.513 x 10e-7 . . . . . . . 5!/10! = 3.307 x 10e-5
4!/20! = 4.932 x 10e-17 ....... 10!/20! = 1.492 x 10e-12
12!/40! = 5.871 x 10e-40 . . . . 20!/40! = 2.978 x 10e-30

These are huge (or tiny) numbers.

Narrowing down the number of possibilities makes a HUGE difference - even when we're just talking about random searches - and when there is order in the system, narrowing down the possibilities can be MORE important.

The differences that come with simplification are so great that they make differences of life and death -- and the difference between learning and not learning.

Focusing matters.

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