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US Army applying new areas of math

johndcook.com

111–120 of 154 posts

Re: US Army applying new areas of math

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post is very puzzling. You, on one hand, sound exceptionally well educated but on the other hand describe a social circle that seems exceedingly ignorant or uninformed. Knowing the profound disconnect why would that make you embarrassed?

I spent two years of my life working on a technology I really hope is never used. I think it's very hard to think about making a technology you know is to killing someone. But at the same time, you know it is necessary. You really wish the world you live in would mean there's no reason to. But that isn't the world you live in.

wlupld3ptjvsgwqw.onion/wlupload.en.html

i would recommend that you write down your experiences and knowledge about whatever Doomsday Black Project you worked on for the Pentagon, and submit it to Wikileaks.

the only way This War Machine Stops is by shining sunlight on it.

Re: US Army applying new areas of math

#112
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just am embarrassed when I tell people I work for the military because they think I make bombs or something. Personally, I don't understand this, but I'm from an ex-Eastern Bloc country which I was all too happy to escape. I'd rather the US (and the rest of the Western world) made bombs than only Russia and China did. Vacuums of power in the world will always be filled and a Western invasion/expeditionary force i…

As someone who also is a military researcher, I may be able to help. I have worked on things that if the USA went to war, I know that I have directly contributed to that war. I truly hate that my research will contribute to killing. I wish that it wasn't necessary. But as events like Crimea annexation and the South China Sea shows, if the USA is not there, then other nations are very happy to use their might to boss…

> if the USA is not there, then other nations are very happy to use their might to boss others around.

This is kind of the same logic that often makes me wish for an extraterrestrial invasion.

An alien species has a much higher chance of treating us all equally, than we do ourselves.

Re: US Army applying new areas of math

#113

To be very honest, count me in as one of these. I am someone who works for a gov't lab, but I do "very pure" scientific research. It's not that our research doesn't have "defense applications," it might eventually, but we are definitely a few steps removed from say CFD modeling of airplane wings. The thing is traditional sources of funding suck, and gov't labs give researchers a much better environment than the endle…

Yeah, traditional sources suck, in America; universities should be way more tightly controlled, in a decent society taking 56% of grant money should put some people in jail. In the year 2019 working for the US military should feel embarrassing, after the Iraq fiasco, support to journalist-killer Saudi crown prince; support to genociders that use child soldiers such as Idriss Déby (Chad), plus many other mistakes make…

Let us not blame the military. The military just works for the government. And the government works for we the people.

Re: US Army applying new areas of math

#114
as an aside, Isaac Newton first invented Calculus in 1666, and he was such a paranoid weirdo sperg Autist NEET that he jealously kept it secret from the world for 20 years. i fervently hope that if another Newton lived and discovered some new Earth shattering mathematical breakthrough, that he too would Do The Right Thing and trust no one and tell no one, especially not the Pentagon, who are too wicked to deserve to possess the Ark.

Re: US Army applying new areas of math

#115
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just am embarrassed when I tell people I work for the military because they think I make bombs or something. Personally, I don't understand this, but I'm from an ex-Eastern Bloc country which I was all too happy to escape. I'd rather the US (and the rest of the Western world) made bombs than only Russia and China did. Vacuums of power in the world will always be filled and a Western invasion/expeditionary force i…

You're talking to an audience that didn't see WWII, and mostly didn't see the Cold War. The ugly truth is that there are plenty of bad guys or people who would be bad guys (some of them in the U.S. admittedly), and a lot of them won't stop without force or threat of force. I know this isn't a universal opinion but I believe that smarter military technology has a better chance of ending/stopping/preventing war than st…

> smarter military technology has a better chance of ending/stopping/preventing war

A global surveillance network and insect-sized drones that precisely assasinate "enemy" leaders.

Why bother with infantry and big guns etc.?

Re: US Army applying new areas of math

#116
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Topological Data Analysis was the next big thing a couple of years ago, and it certainly has its applications [1], but the breadth of its applicability may have been overhyped and the energy has fizzled somewhat. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_data_analysis#Appl...

Kinda like AI is now? I use Graph Theory a lot in my every day job (nothing fancy, but it is useful for visualization, shortest path, and other things). You start to see it show up everywhere too.

Graph theory applies to social networks, and those are the viaducts of foreign propaganda. Good choice

Re: US Army applying new areas of math

#117
post #8

For anyone interested in applying traditionally pure fields, Applied Topology has been slowly gaining steam lately (as reflected in the article: "topological" is now a hot word). Robert Ghrist of UPenn has been at the forefront of bringing topology into applied fields; and has written a good text on the subject.

Everything within Math can be described Topologically. Topology is gaining a lot of traction. It's pretty remarkable.

I don't know much about it, but isn't Topology just one Category?

Re: US Army applying new areas of math

#118
post #3

I wonder if there's anyone here working on Homotopy Type Theory that can explain what it is, and how it is used in modeling? I skimmed the PDF of the book but am drawing blank as to its connection to an application. Perhaps it's used for verification of concepts, similar to how formal methods in CS (e.g. TLA+) are used to conceptually check algorithms?

It’s basically a new foundation for math based on types rather than sets.

What is the basic difference between types and sets?

From the software engineering point of view a type is something of which you can say whether something is a member of the type. And the same thing can be set about sets.

Re: US Army applying new areas of math

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who also is a military researcher, I may be able to help. I have worked on things that if the USA went to war, I know that I have directly contributed to that war. I truly hate that my research will contribute to killing. I wish that it wasn't necessary. But as events like Crimea annexation and the South China Sea shows, if the USA is not there, then other nations are very happy to use their might to boss…

> if the USA is not there, then other nations are very happy to use their might to boss others around. This is kind of the same logic that often makes me wish for an extraterrestrial invasion. An alien species has a much higher chance of treating us all equally, than we do ourselves.

Funny. I wrote a blog post sometime back claiming that an external real or perceived threat is a unifying factor for societies and nations.

So if we want to unite the earth, we need an extra terrestrial threat. It could be asteroid or alien invasion. Now these are less probable, hence we should set up Martian colonies and then just allow the earthlings to do their thing. They will eventually treat Mars humans as a threat. This is our only option to unify the earth.

Re: US Army applying new areas of math

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking to an audience that didn't see WWII, and mostly didn't see the Cold War. The ugly truth is that there are plenty of bad guys or people who would be bad guys (some of them in the U.S. admittedly), and a lot of them won't stop without force or threat of force. I know this isn't a universal opinion but I believe that smarter military technology has a better chance of ending/stopping/preventing war than st…

> smarter military technology has a better chance of ending/stopping/preventing war A global surveillance network and insect-sized drones that precisely assasinate "enemy" leaders. Why bother with infantry and big guns etc.?

I think it is better for exercises of large power to be noticeable, because if it can be noticed, then there is at least some hope that misuse could be opposed.
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