Friday, December 10, 2004

Keep a Critical Eye Open

U.S. to Test Its Missile Defense System- so far previous tests have been far short of satisfactory. I wonder how this one will go. Based on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal I'm betting on something less than a good result. Of course the principal only applies to Quantum Mechanics so I could be completely wrong. The principal, “… in its most common form, states that it is not possible to simultaneously determine the position and momentum of a particle. Moreover, the better position is known, the less well the momentum is known (and vice versa).” ( Eric Weisstein’s World of Physics) In this case it means if you know where the incoming missile is at a particular time than you then it is impossible to know how fast it is moving and vice versa. Makes it very hard to predict where it will be and hit it with another missile.

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