8.1 A Brief History of Weapons
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reliability is unattainable. If a system has a million elements and each element will
malfunction only one time out of a million, a breakdown is certain. The bodies of
animals and plants consist of trillions of functioning parts, yet life copes with the
phenomenon of inevitable failure.
In what way? The experts call it the construction of reliable systems out of unreliable components. Natural evolution uses various tactics to counteract the fallibility of organisms. Let us cite at least some of them: the capacity for self -repair or
regeneration; surplus organs (this is why we have two kidneys instead of one, why
a half -destroyed liver can still function as the body’s central chemical-processing
plant, and why the circulatory system has so many alternate veins and arteries); and
the separation of control centers for the somatic and psychic processes. This last
phenomenon gave brain researchers much trouble: they could not understand why a
seriously injured brain still functioned but a slightly damaged computer refused to
obey its programs.
Merely doubling control centers and parts used in twentieth-century engineering
led to the absurd in actual construction. If an automated spaceship going to a distant
planet were built according to the directive of multiplying pilot computers, as in the
shuttles, then it would have to contain—in view of the duration of the flight—not four
or five but possibly fifty such computers. They would operate not by “linear logic”
but by “voting”. Once the individual computers ceased functioning identically and
thus diverged in their results, one would have to accept, as the right result, what was
reached by the majority. But this kind of engineering parliamentarianism led to the
production of giants burdened with the woes typical of democracies: contradictory
views, plans, and actions.
Meanwhile, in the late-twentieth-century phase of the arms race, the role of unpredictable chance increased. When hours (or days) and miles (or hundreds of miles)
separate defeat from victory, and therefore an error of command can be remedied by
throwing in reserves, or retreating, or counterattacking, then there is room to reduce
the element of chance.
Here is what philosopher and writer Lem concludes in this regard: But when
micromillimeters and nanoseconds determine the outcome, then chance enters like
a god of war, deciding victory or defeat; it is magnified and lifted out of the microscopic scale of atomic physics. The fastest, best weapons system comes up against
the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which nothing can overcome, because that
principle is a basic property of matter in the Universe. It need not be a computer
breakdown in satellite reconnaissance or in missiles whose warheads parry defenses
with laser beams. If a series of electronic defensive impulses is even a billionth of a
second slow in meeting a similar series of offensive impulses, that is enough for a
toss of the dice to decide the outcome of the Final Encounter.
How does the engineer minimize error in a very large, very complex system? He
does trial runs to test it; he looks for weak spots, weak links. But there was no way of
testing a system designed to wage global nuclear war, a system made up of surface,
submarine, air-launched, and satellite missiles, antimissiles, and multiple centers of
command and communications, ready to loose gigantic destructive forces in wave on
751
reliability is unattainable. If a system has a million elements and each element will
malfunction only one time out of a million, a breakdown is certain. The bodies of
animals and plants consist of trillions of functioning parts, yet life copes with the
phenomenon of inevitable failure.
In what way? The experts call it the construction of reliable systems out of unreliable components. Natural evolution uses various tactics to counteract the fallibility of organisms. Let us cite at least some of them: the capacity for self -repair or
regeneration; surplus organs (this is why we have two kidneys instead of one, why
a half -destroyed liver can still function as the body’s central chemical-processing
plant, and why the circulatory system has so many alternate veins and arteries); and
the separation of control centers for the somatic and psychic processes. This last
phenomenon gave brain researchers much trouble: they could not understand why a
seriously injured brain still functioned but a slightly damaged computer refused to
obey its programs.
Merely doubling control centers and parts used in twentieth-century engineering
led to the absurd in actual construction. If an automated spaceship going to a distant
planet were built according to the directive of multiplying pilot computers, as in the
shuttles, then it would have to contain—in view of the duration of the flight—not four
or five but possibly fifty such computers. They would operate not by “linear logic”
but by “voting”. Once the individual computers ceased functioning identically and
thus diverged in their results, one would have to accept, as the right result, what was
reached by the majority. But this kind of engineering parliamentarianism led to the
production of giants burdened with the woes typical of democracies: contradictory
views, plans, and actions.
Meanwhile, in the late-twentieth-century phase of the arms race, the role of unpredictable chance increased. When hours (or days) and miles (or hundreds of miles)
separate defeat from victory, and therefore an error of command can be remedied by
throwing in reserves, or retreating, or counterattacking, then there is room to reduce
the element of chance.
Here is what philosopher and writer Lem concludes in this regard: But when
micromillimeters and nanoseconds determine the outcome, then chance enters like
a god of war, deciding victory or defeat; it is magnified and lifted out of the microscopic scale of atomic physics. The fastest, best weapons system comes up against
the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which nothing can overcome, because that
principle is a basic property of matter in the Universe. It need not be a computer
breakdown in satellite reconnaissance or in missiles whose warheads parry defenses
with laser beams. If a series of electronic defensive impulses is even a billionth of a
second slow in meeting a similar series of offensive impulses, that is enough for a
toss of the dice to decide the outcome of the Final Encounter.
How does the engineer minimize error in a very large, very complex system? He
does trial runs to test it; he looks for weak spots, weak links. But there was no way of
testing a system designed to wage global nuclear war, a system made up of surface,
submarine, air-launched, and satellite missiles, antimissiles, and multiple centers of
command and communications, ready to loose gigantic destructive forces in wave on