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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 - 03:40pm Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 8007 of 8009)
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.

White House Warns Iraq That 'Time Is Running Out' By JOEL BRINKLEY http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/24/international/24CND_IRAQ.html

Lots of negotiations can't ever close until the people involved are under enough pressure that they actually think straight.

rshow55 - 08:20am Jan 1, 2003 EST (# 7177 contains this:

I think this is a year where some lessons are going to have to be learned about stability and function of international systems, in terms of basic requirements of order , symmetry , and harmony - at the levels that make sense - and learned clearly and explicitly enough to produce systems that have these properties by design, not by chance.

The lessons are fairly easy, I believe, though not difficult to screw up. A problem is that perfect stability - and complete instability - are mirror images - and issues of balance and correct signs can be, in a plain sense, matters of life and death. And cost. For individuals, and whole systems.

In both comedies and tragedies, the ending is in doubt at the most interesting times. How a Story is Shaped. http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/ducksoup/555/storyshape.html

If we could actually learn enough about the shared spaces we have to have to have to make stable agreements, we'd have happy endings. A Communication Model http://www.worldtrans.org/TP/TP1/TP1-17.HTML

The most fundamental presumptions of honor are different in the Christian and Islamic cultural traditions - and we have to find solutions that are honorable for both parties.

gisterme - 05:14pm Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 8008 of 8009)

rshow55 - 02:38pm Jan 23, 2003 EST (# 7946...)

"...A digital instrument (say a volt meter). Always muddled about the last digit. Might be muddled between

- 6.3275 volts and - 6.3274 volts

- - - an oscillatory approximation..."

Nope. Nobody pays any attention to the least significant digit because it is not stable; but, it is not oscillating. Oscillation requires periodicity by definition. The least significant digit on a DVM is measuring an integration of noise at the limit of the instrument's resolution. Noise is chaotic, not periodic.

The DVM won't be muddled on the more significant digits if it is reading a stable AC or DC voltage and is working right.

"...But the answer at a lower level of resolution is stable - the oscillation is small - and of reasonably well know size and stable..."

Presuming a well-calibrated instrument (yes, calibration does apply in this case) the result is more than "reasonably well known", Robert. The result is exacly known to the resolution of the instrument. That's what the instrument is for.

At any rate, it's the stable part of the measurement that's important, Robert, not the unstable. If one wants to reliably measure a millivolt signal, they need to purchse an instrument that has at least 10x that resolution. 100x is better.

Thanks for making my point. You really don't know what you're talking about, do you?

0th solution??? Give me a break!

gisterme - 05:30pm Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 8009 of 8009)

rshow55 - 06:53pm Jan 23, 2003 EST (# 7952...)

Why We Know Iraq Is Lying By CONDOLEEZZA RICE http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/23/opinion/23RICE.html

"...Instead of implementing national initiatives to disarm, Iraq maintains institutions whose sole purpose is to thwart the work of the inspectors..."

Showalter replies:

"...Is that the purpose of these institutions? Or are these institutions, clumsy and ugly as they may be - set up to defend primary interests of Islamic culture - as it now is in Iraq, with the compromises in place?...

You mean compromises like chem-bio weapons and nukes? If so you're right. Saddam cares less about Islam than he does the fish in the sea.

"...The issue is important - central, I think, to the problems we face with Iraq - ..."

Right. That's why the US is doing what it's doing. The more time Saddam has to prepare, the worse the attacks within the US and Europe will be.

...and have had over a decade where a nation that shows some bureaucratic competence has been firing off air-air missiles without turning on guidance radars..."

The answer to that, Robert, is the same as the answer to "why won't the Iraqi scientists agree to real private interviews?" The answer for the scientists is that if they give an interview, even if they don't spill the beans, they and their families will die. The answer for the Iraqi missileers is that if they light off their radars and fire a missile they will die and if they don't fire the missiles they will also die. So they just launch the missiles with no guidance. They just want to stay alive.

Oh, by the way, those aren't air-to-air missiles that are being fired, Robert; they are surface-to-air missiles.

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