cynar @ cynar @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

Nukes and ICBMs are extremely complex devices. They also require extremely specialist servi e work to remain functional. Even worse, the only people who can actually check that work are the ones doing it.

Russia hasn't detonated a nuke in decades. I wouldn't be surprised if most of their arsenal are now duds. The money embezzled, while boxes were ticked. Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised if many of their ICBMs just wouldn't launch.

Russia's nuclear capabilities are likely a paper tiger, and Putin likely knows this. Until they try and use them, they are scary. If they try and they fail, they are in a VERY bad situation.

Putin is many things, but he's not stupid. It would take a LOT more pressure from nato for him to even consider using nukes.

You could detect decoherence in the system, that doesn't indicate a human observer, however.

That process is, however, used to protect cryptographic keys, transfered between banks. A hostile observer collapses the state early. The observer gets the key instead of the 2nd bank, which is extremely conspicuous to both banks.

I've still got about 100 or so of them. I was mass printing them as part of a coordinated project. We basically managed to saturate the local area with them. Once demand suddenly stopped, I was left with the next batch ready to go. I've still to find a good use for them.

We can observe the end result. E.g. observing the screen only, and you get wavelike behaviour. When you also observe the slit, the wavelike behaviour disappears, and it seems particle like.

Both end in an observation, 1 has an extra observation.

Depends on how you are observing it photons impart energy and momentum. The true, detailed explanation is a lot more convoluted, it's all wave interactions, in the complex plane. However, digesting that into something a layman can follow is difficult.

The main point I was trying to get across is that there is no such thing as an independent, external measurement. Your measurement systems minimum interaction is no longer negligible. How that is done varies, but it always changes the target and becomes part of the equations.

We know how it works, we just don't yet understand what is going on under the hood.

In short, quantum effects can be very obvious with small systems. The effects generally get averaged out over larger systems. A measurement inherently entangled your small system with a much larger system diluting the effect.

The blind spot is that we don't know what a quantum state IS. We know the maths behind it, but not the underlying physics model. It's likely to fall out when we unify quantum mechanics with general relativity, but we've been chipping at that for over 70 years now, with limited success.

Observer here doesn't mean the same as the layman meaning. It's anything that interacts with the system while it's developing.

Interestingly, it actually can be used for a presence detector, at least in a sense. You can use it to transfer cryptographic information. If no-one is listening in, about half your sent numbers are wrong, but you can agree on what ones. However, if someone is listening in, all your data gets randomised.

They actually now use this system to transfer information between banks. They send a random stream of 0s and 1s over a fibre optic cable. They then send (semi publicly) which bits made it properly. If someone spliced into the fibre, they would get the encryption data, but the target bank would not! They know instantly that something is wrong.

For those confused, it's worth noting the difference between observed as a layman concept and as a quantum mechanical one.

In QM, to observed is to couple the observer to the "system" being observed. Think of it like "observing" your neighbour, over a fence using a BB gun. When you hit flesh, you know where your neighbour is. Unfortunately, the system has now been fundamentally changed. In a classical system, you could turn down the power, until your neighbour doesn't notice the hits. Unfortunately, QM imposes fundamental limits on your measurements (heisenburg and his uncertainty principal). In order to observe your neighbour accurately, you need to hit them hard enough that the will also feel it and react differently.

QM behaves in a similar way. Initially, the system is just a single particle, and is not very restrained. This allows it to behave in a very wave like manner. When you observe it, the system now includes the whole observation system, as this coupling propagates, more and more atoms etc get linked. The various restraints cause an effect called decoherence. The system behaves ever more like a classical physical system.

In short, a quantum mechanical "observer" is less sneaky watching, and more hosing down with a machine gun and watching the ricochets.

Ear wounds bleed spectacularly. They are also quite easy to fix cleanly, with appropriate care. A small wound would create plenty of blood, but be effectively invisible after a bit of work from a plastic surgeon.

Let's face it, which is more likely? A shooter just missed, or Trump had the coordination to play act, without it looking like a 5 year old's "my first magic act", and then not brag about it?

Various events around the universe occur on human timescales. If time stopped for use, we would effectively skip ahead on the view of them.

I actually think we could reliably catch 1 second time stops. Scientists monitor various pulsars. They spin multiple times a second, throwing off radio wave pulses. If all of them suddenly went out of sync with our clocks, it would definitely be noticed. It might take several, however, to prove it wasn't a weird hardware glitch.

The UK conservatives have spent a decade trying to kill the NHS. Unfortunately for them, many of the staff of the NHS have other ideas!

America needs to deal with their for profit health care cancer. It keeps trying to spread.

Theories can be a stepping stone to other theories. Until we explore those chains, we don't know if there is anything useful at the end.

E.g. initially, lasers were a solution looking for a problem. An interesting quirk possible due to some interesting bit of physics.

Maths explores idea spaces. Much of that is purely of interest to other mathematicians. However, it sometimes intersects with areas of interest to other scientists, at which point it becomes extremely useful.

This also massively effects the risk/reward balance. Ultimately, a woman's ability to have children is limited by her biology. The limit on men is FAR higher.

For women, once they hit the resource requirements to support 2 dozen children, there was relatively little real gain. A successful man could (in theory) have hundreds of children. Genghis khan being the most egregious example. Taking large risks for large gains makes sense for men, in a way that just doesn't for women.

Women were functionally disabled by having children, spending a significant amount of time either pregnant, or breastfeeding. This makes them the natural parent to focus on raising children. Also, in nature, losing 1 parent has a relatively minor drop in survival chances compared to losing 2.

This ends up with men being more "disposable" than women. If 1 group needs to flee with the children, while the other holds off an attack, it's most sensible for the men to defend. The women would provide a final line of defence.

The message wouldn't be to Putin directly. It would be to those both in his power base, or capable of disrupting it.

The goal would be to push Russians to the point they deal with Putin internally, and/or put putin in a position where he needs to end the war to stabilise his own position. It's all about making the right people feel the effects.

Oh, and as a European, I think the risk is acceptable. If Putin struck at a NATO country, the results would likely be swift and short. The only unknown would be Russian nukes, and even those are far more of an unknown than most people think.

I flew on an a380 recently. They actually used zoned boarding! The number of people who didn't seem to get that they wouldn't be allowed to board till their zone came up was amusing.

It saved a huge amount of time.

The key is that it can be both. Pushing the "your kids are screwed" message doesn't seem to be working. If hyping up Americans with patriotic messages gets them moving, I don't see that as a bad thing.

Pay attention to how laye you generally are. I used to be chronically late. I began to notice I was generally about 20-30 minutes behind. I could often make up some of that, but it was rushed.

The fix was quite simple, I trained myself to add 30 minutes "faffing time" to any estimate or leave time. I have an "aim to leave" and "MUST leave" time. I generally leave about 10-15 minutes 'late', but due to the buffer, I have 15-20 minutes leeway still to deal with things like extra traffic.

I've found I like interpretating phrase "common sense" akin to this scene, from blazing saddles.

https://youtu.be/KHJbSvidohg

I prefer the version. "If you smell shit, check the floor. If you constantly smell shit, check your shoes."

It's a reminder that a 1 off problem is likely external to you. If the problem seems to follow you around, it's likely attached to you.

It doesn't deny that the problem could still be external, but not to externalise things unless you are sure you're not causing it.