Russia's War Against Ukraine

[MengJiao]

Re Schroedinger's cat and quantum indeterminacy: another way that works, is that quantum states are always being omnisciently and omnipresently observed.  ^-^

Most of it though is just a quirk in calculated detectability: the formula to specify the position of an election, to give a basic example, excludes knowing the angular velocity of an electron (or something like that, I've forgotten the high school physics formula in detail but it made sense at the time), and vice versa. But that's just an inherent limitation in human descriptions (even mathematical ones) of the reality of what's happening, due to how energy functions at that level of reality: the electron fields aren't actually indeterminately real in position and velocity.

As a very rough analogy, it's like how we can only see, at most, three sides of a six-sided rectangular prism at a time, such as a military history book -- or the fluid of a cat in a box! (There's a famous award-winning paper from a few years ago, humorously using cats to illustrate the properties of a fluid.) But the other sides are still there, 'doing' their structural functions and interactions with other reality, even though we can only detect those sides indirectly by extended inferences -- unless we shift our method of perception around to directly detect those sides, whereupon we lose direct perception of the prior sides!

Or as another rough analogy, it's like how it's impossible to illustrate 3-D objects in a 2-D way without either smearing the distinct shapes into one shape, or else distinguishing them into what looks like completely separate shapes. Trying to calculate the position and velocity of an electron simultaneously ends up being a "2-D" method of describing a "3-D" reality, so to speak.

Once we get down to the atomic level, and its interactions upward at the molecular level and downward at the fundamental particle level, "rough analogies" are the best we can do for descriptions, even for math in a way. Math can be more particular at the Newtonian level (only-2 apples added to only-2 apples will always total only-4 applies, other things being equal), but our language for description still won't be. (And even the Newtonian level, including Newton himself, recognizes limits to mathematic description of things like curves. That's why calculus is really that super-annoying "limit theory" taught first before going to the easier cheat methods for resolving calculus equations.)

As Lewis used to say, we can make our language drier, but we can't make it less metaphorical. We can only surround the reality, so to speak, with analogies and try to trim off the false parts of the analogies for more accurate descriptions. But even that description of the process is necessarily metaphorical. 


(Note: I say "most of it" near the beginning, because once we get down to zero-point energy things get a lot weirder and more... suggestive, let's say.)

  Hmmm...I don't know.  The wave character of things like the position and momentum of the electron means there really is a physical reason you can't pin down the position at the same time
as the momentum and vis-versa.  After all the Born interpretation of the Schoedinger eq. as specifying a probability density means there is something inherently chancy about where that electron is.
As Wikipedia notes:
The dispersive character of solutions of the Schrödinger equation has played an important role in rejecting Schrödinger's original interpretation, and accepting the Born rule.

And see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_packet

[GDS_Starfury]

hey Pratt, can you remotely try to stay roughly within the context of the thread?

[Windigo]

I think the Ruskies are into a new phase of the war I call, "real trouble"; now that the UAF has HARM missiles.

[Gusington]

Phase II: Heavier Russian Losses

[MengJiao]

I think the Ruskies are into a new phase of the war I call, "real trouble"; now that the UAF has HARM missiles.

  Yep.  And judging from what Star has brought in, all of the scenarios for what happened at the airport in Crimea are really disturbing for the Russians since it looks like the
HARMS either paved the way for a missile or special forces or distracted from partizans.  Moreover it looks like three big blasts occurred -- one maybe 5 minutes before the other
two and closer to the sea.

[GDS_Starfury]

do you like post strike imagery?  I know I do!

[Jarhead0331]

Mig-23s or Mig-27s?

[SirAndrewD]

That strike in Crimea comes on the heels of a few great articles I read on the growing insurgency behind Russian occupied lines.

Partisans are providing extremely accurate coordinates for strikes to regular military units with HIMARS.

The Orcs have their hands full now with enemies in front and behind.

[GDS_Starfury]

by my count thats 14 confirmed destroyed aircraft.
6 su-30 flankers
8 su-24 fencers

[JasonPratt]

hey Pratt, can you remotely try to stay on roughly within the context of the thread?

Just waiting for more info to come in; like your damage photo! 

So.... three apparent impact craters (or maybe not 'impact' but close enough to the ground to punch hard dirt down in a ripple with some directionality), probably a fourth one at the repair(?) shed upper right, though I don't see ground deformation per se, yet (detonation yes, deformation not yet).

The detonation in the middle of the upper line didn't hit anything directly, but the blast wave appears to have seriously wrecked the aircraft in the revetments photo-south of it. Did the six on the go-line (bottom of photo) scramble? -- doesn't seem to be wreckage from them down there. The crater photo-nw of the go-line hit a fuel line maybe? If that's what wrecked the two jets north of it, I'm surprised the jets on the tarmac south of it didn't get whacked, too -- but I think we're looking at the low-light version of the usual oil and jet-engine marks on the tarmac along that line, not wreckage.

I count 7 definitely wrecked, plus another one maybe damaged enough (shifted a little on the photo, looks tilted off its wheels) to count as wrecked. Plus two repair(?) facilities. (Or would those be ammo sheds?) Bottom line shows no wreckage, but maybe they cleared those wrecks out super-fast? -- but the crafts on the right of the line wouldn't seem likely damaged from any of the four strikes I can see, and I don't see clear debris left over anywhere on that line. (The two tarmac slots next to the photo-sw detonation had nothing in them in the daylight shot.) So I wouldn't regard any of that line destroyed or even significantly damaged yet.

[GDS_Starfury]

everything on the bottom row was destroyed.
what limited footage from the ground post strike is from that area and everything is plastered.

[GDS_Starfury]

the most likely system that was used:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/does-ukraine-have-a-stash-of-domestically-developed-ballistic-missiles

[FarAway Sooner]

This is certainly a publicity win for the Ukrainians.  Do we know whether it had any material impact on the war, or just whether it's giving the Russians one more thing to worry about?

My understanding is that the Ukrainians were hoping to launch a counteroffensive in the direction of Kherson.  I gather not hearing much about that lately means either they haven't had much success or they haven't achieved anything worth bragging about?

[Sir Slash]

Wait... You mean it wasn't really caused by careless smoking?  ???

[GDS_Starfury]

let me put this spin on it.

a US combat aviation squadron is somewhere between 16 and 24 aircraft.  last I checked 3 squadrons make up a wing.
this attack rendered 4/5ths of whatever numbered naval aviation regiment a total loss.  1.  a russian regiment is equal to our wing and 2. a russian regiment is slightly larger then one of our baseline squadrons.  this strike has a serious impact on the air war in the south.
a very important subplot to the whole thing was the use of HARM missiles to take out S-300 air defense systems before the missile strike.
its.................  like an American plan  :dreamer: