Trash Talk, 30 x40″, oil on canvas.

(Click to enlarge)

A nostalgia piece,  inspired by a time when littering, not global warming or mass shootings, was a matter  of concern. That such a time existed is, of course, imaginary.

For puzzlers: A media logo, perhaps the most beautiful, is hidden in the painting.

Larry, you can call me any time.

(CNN) Officials and lawmakers push for more government transparency on UFOs.

All three witnesses provided testimony of unprecedented credibility. Their participation in a quasi-judicial process demands respect. It demands regard of David Grush as an honest broker of facts, until proven otherwise.

Carl Sagan said, “Extraordinary claims require  extraordinary proof.” The testimony does not by itself reach that standard. In the case of David Grush, it contradicts my understanding. I wonder if participants in relevant SAPs have themselves been deceived by excessive classification, robbing them of understanding their own activities. The U.S. has been collecting adversary aircraft since 1942,  in the same time frame as claims about alien spacecraft.

Similarly, one could  pick apart the gimbal camera in the F-18 targeting pod, or the alleged sloppiness in analyzing recovered materials.  But for the first time, these issues do not subjectively diminish human testimony to the point of disregard. For the first time, we are faced by the inescapable question: What if it is all true?

The media tend to mix up the relevance of areas of knowledge. UFOs are not a question for aerospace engineering, which relies on Newton’s laws of motion — classical mechanics.  Only in a few  esoteric areas does aerospace touch on modern physics:

• GPS could not work without the Theory of Relativity.
• Radio communication with planetary space probes requires relativistic correction.
• Ion propulsion requires quantum mechanics.
• Modern electronics, where design of semiconductors requires quantum mechanics.

For practically everything else, aerospace relies on fields with mostly classical master equations:

• Navier–Stokes equations for aerodynamics.
• Lagrangian mechanics for structural analysis of airframes.
• Thermodynamic cycles  for propulsion.
• Materials science, where most analysis is classical, with exceptions like carbon fiber.

This means that if you gave flying saucer parts to Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, or Northrup-Grumman, their engineers wouldn’t know what to do with them. It is a problem of modern physics. They could hire outside physicists, but there is a  catch.

Contract physicists work with existing theories. No valid existing theory offers a hint at how a  flying saucer might work. There have been many attempts; the floor is littered with broken theories that that fail to predict what is already experimentally verified.

You have to be smart to be any kind of physicist. The hierarchy of achievement is a cruel reminder to those blessed with extreme intellects, of the rarity of extreme achievement. Ignoring the hundreds of years of patient mathematical advance that enabled, there is a hierarchy:

• At the top,  Newton and Einstein.
• Other 18th and 19th century giants.
• The small group of  the Thirty Years that Shook Physics, and less celebrated heroes.
• Developers of Second Quantization — QED,  the Standard Model, and the Particle Zoo.
• Mere Nobel Prize winners, from astrophysics to condensed matter physics.
• People who have managed to Do Something.
• People with doubtful theories that cannot be fully dismissed.
• Those who teach, managing to pass on the knowledge, which is no small feat.
• Industrial physics.
• Popularization of physics.

In this cruel-to-the-ego list, building the Bomb counts for little. These days, it’s considered an undergraduate subject.

So Boeing can’t just hire the brains to crack the UFO  problem. Their custody of crashed UFOs is pointless. Nevertheless, propelled by that which cannot be dismissed, the next article will speculate on:

***How do UFOs work?***

and why we are unlikely to find the answer on our own terms.

To be continued shortly.

(CNN) What are the cluster munitions the US is expected to supply Ukraine and why are they so controversial? Quoting,

The United States is expected to announce a new military aid package for Ukraine on Friday that will include cluster munitions for the first time, defense officials have told CNN.

In January, in Tanks for Ukraine, NFG? I wrote,

The Marines have turned in their tanks, mandated by their new littoral mission. A general principle can be distilled: Stealth multiplies lethality. Is it impossible to employ armored spearheads in Ukraine? If the abysmal performance of the Russian army continues, it is conceivable, though such assumption receives warning from von Clausewitz. Paraphrasing, the  enemy does not do what you want him to do; he does what he wants to do, which could be competence with the 9M133 Kornet.  Cluster munitions would be far more useful to Ukraine.

With little change, the argument of Tanks for Ukraine, NFG? , which is based on the characteristics of the modern ATGM, can be extended to tank vulnerability to air power when air superiority is lacking. It does not extend to artillery,  or cluster munitions delivered by artillery, which has greater possibilities of dispersal and camouflage.

Cluster munitions will be an effective force multiplier for Ukraine.

Sloppy CNN: Scientists find new clue in what led to megalodon’s demise. Quoting,

Through an analysis of fossilized megalodon teeth, scientists have discovered the extinct shark was partially warm-blooded, with a body temperature around 7 degrees Celsius (44 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than estimated seawater temperatures at the time, according to a study published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This is wrong; 44 should be 12.6. It seems someone mistakenly  used the formula for Celsius to Fahrenheit temperature conversion:

Temp_F  = Temp_C *9÷5 + 32

To be converted is the relationship of the Celsius unit of measure to the Fahrenheit unit of measure, which is:

Fahrenheit degrees  per Celsius degree = 9÷5

The number 32 must not be added.

This is sloppy journalism.