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12 October 2001
From the Forum
The Government's Terrorist "Experts"
I have heard several SAS members opine that the US intelligence community's experts have already thought of any scenario that the amateur scientistcommunity is likely to come up with. With that in mind, I offer the following article that originally ran in Variety and was picked up by MSNBC:
Headline: U.S. Army seeks Hollywood theories Directors, writers asked for their ideas on terrorist scenarios
HOLLYWOOD (Variety), Oct. 8 – In a reversal of roles, government intelligence specialists have been secretly soliciting terrorist scenarios from topHollywood filmmakers and writers. An ad hoc working group convened at the University of Southern California at the behest of the U.S. Army. The goal wasto brainstorm about possible terrorist targets and schemes in America and to offer solutions to those threats, in light of the aerial assaults on the Pentagon andthe World Trade Center.
AMONG THOSE who convened just last week in the working group based at USC’s Institute for Creative Technology (ICT) are filmmakers and writers withobvious connections to the terrorist-movie milieu, such as "Die Hard" screenwriter Steven E. De Souza, TV writer David Engelbach ("MacGyver") anddirector Joseph Zito, who directed the features "Delta Force One," "Missing in Action" and "The Abduction." But the list also includes more mainstreamsuspense directors such as David Fincher ("Fight Club"), Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich"), Randal Kleiser ("Grease") and Mary Lambert ("The InCrowd"), as well as feature screenwriters Paul De Meo and Danny Bilson ("The Rocketeer"). In August 1999, the Army awarded USC a five-year contract tocreate the Institute for Creative Technologies with a mandate to enlist the resources and talents of the entertainment industry, videogame-makers andcomputer scientists to advance the state of "immersive," or virtual reality, training simulation for soldiers.
CREATIVE EXPERTISE
But one USC insider describes the ad hoc group as focused "on the short-term threats against the country" and said that Army Brig.Gen. Kenneth Bergquist had been heading the effort, which has met twice already via teleconference with the Pentagon. ICT creative director James Korrisconfirmed that the filmmaker meetings were ongoing with the Army but declined to elaborate as to what specific recommendations had been made to thePentagon. A call to the Army’s office of public affairs seeking comment from Gen. Bergquist was not returned.Now, if the Army thinks that a bunch of Hollywood hacks with almost no comprehension of technology can come up with useful intelligence scenarios,surely our community can do as much and probably more. I note with some bemusement that Hollywood's Finest are also being asked to suggest solutions totheir own terrorist scenarios.
I think our admiration of our country's intelligence apparatus tends to blind us to the fact that they exist in very carefully circumscribed groups where certainlevels of "group think" are inevitable despite their efforts to avoid it. This can't help but impede their ability to think in new directions. Amateur scientists arevery good at thinking unconventionally. In any case, I believe that our contributions to the national pool of ideas via the ATN will be welcome, whether ourideas have been duplicated or not.
Sheldon Greaves
Jet Vapor Trails as Atmospheric Probes
On July 18, 2001 my son Ben pointed out that a jet vapor trail out the kitchen window looked like ³a clothesline with clothespins.² Did it ever! I wasted some time trying to think what might cause this effect and some more time when I realized I had to load my camera because it had no film in it but I finally got outside and took some pictures. By then the ³clothespin² shapes had dissipated quite a bit and were much less distinct. Still, you can see vaguely where they were and their approximate size from the photo below. (You can click on the image to get a larger version.)
(click image to enlarge)
Below is a magnified version of the area of interest. The black arrows point to the clothespin shaped clouds or the remnants thereof.
(click image to enlarge)
I do not know what caused this effect. It might have been something to do with the jet itself or it might be strictly an atmospheric phenomenon. If the latter, it made me think that perhaps vapor trails could be thought of as atmospheric test probes. It would be nice to be able to identify airplane height and location. I have, of course, seen funny shaped sequential cloud patterns but I always thought that they derived from some kind of oscillations connected to the air going over terrain. If this pattern is evidence that such oscillations occur from strictly atmospheric mechanisms, then I donıt understand the mechanism.
Peter Baum
Physicists continue to work with ever smaller quantities, like attaseconds, which are often calculated as the very small difference between two relatively large valued functions as in interferometry, etc. These physical functions are derived using calculus and are generally assumed to be "exact". Thus, when working with theory we find no problem in subtracting two big things and accepting the accuracy and significance of the resulting little thing.
What bothers me somewhat is the underlying calculus. Take the chain rule. A graphical demonstration is taking the derivative of an area A which is the product of two orthogonal lengths X and Y. Where X1 and Y1 are the adjacent sides of the rectangle and area A1 = X1 times Y1. Similarly, the area of the larger rectangle A2 = X2 times Y2. We can also say that deltaX = X2 - X1 and deltaY = Y2 - Y1 and deltaA = A2 - A1. Graphically we can inscribe A1 inside A2 with a common corner at the origin. We will now have a figure with 4 rectangles. They are X1 by Y1 at the origin, deltaY by X1 above, deltaX by Y1 to the far right, and deltaX by deltaY in the far upper corner. We then see that A2 is equal to the sum of the areas of these four rectangles or A2 = X1 times Y1 plus X1 times deltaY plus Y1 times deltaX plus deltaX times deltaY. Subtracting we get deltaA = X1 times deltaY plus Y1 times deltaX plus deltaX times deltaY. In the limit this becomes dA = X times dY plus Y times dX. We have thrown away the little corner area dX times dY. This is how we get the calculus rule d(XY) = XdY + YdX which is used in manipulating and deriving the equations of physics.
The classical explanation I recall is that dXdY in the limit case is 1/infinity^2. When integrated over an infinite number of little slices it is still 1/infinity which is still zero, so we can throw it away. Now I wonder, Why should I accept something as an exact solution when I had to throw a little bit away to get to it? How can I relax and just assume that the little bit I threw away in getting the first function exactly equals the little bit I threw away in getting the second function so that when I subtract the two functions the difference I get is significant and is due only to the physics and not to differences in what I threw out?
While I have used calculus for 35 years, I can not help but remember that old saw, the Devil is in the details. Can anyone kick the devil out of this little detail?
Lee White
Note: The opinions expressed in the SAS forum are those of the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of SAS or its staff.
