Math whiz fights terror with smarts

[greyl]

"The man who keeps the hit TV show "Numb3rs" mathematically honest is also using a rarified math theory to correct a flaw in standard counterterrorism thinking. A recent visiting professor of mathematics at MIT and a Hollywood math consultant, Dr. Jonathan D. Farley realized that experts could make potentially grave errors by overestimating their effectiveness at breaking up terrorist cells. "They're asking the wrong question and getting the wrong answer," Farley explains.

It's an easy mistake to make, since most government operatives don't use lattice theory to analyze social networks. Lattice theory, which includes Boolean algebra, is Farley's favorite conceptual realm, and his talent at it has earned him great acclaim. (In 2003, he solved a problem posed by MIT's Richard Stanley in 1981.)

He used to joke that it has no practical purpose whatsoever, but after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Farley wondered if pure math actually could save lives. He remembered the opening line in the movie "A Beautiful Mind" about John Nash: "Mathematicians won the war." And, he remembered Palestinian leader George Habash's words: "Terrorism is a thinking man's game."

Being a thinking man, Farley says, "it's better to fight smarter, not harder," and fighting Al Qaeda with abstract theory could more accurately assess our vulnerability to future attacks than current methods. As a bonus, it could also prevent financial resources from being wasted on phantom fears at the expense of real dangers."

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/math-terrorism-0406.html

[annabanana]

1. two more nominations and lots more people will see this!..eom

[XanaDUer]

2. Agreed. Done.

nt.

[wli]

3. it'd be nice to see something technical here

I know some lattice theory (it's also used in some forms for modelling type systems of programming languages) and so I'm left hanging by all this.

[greyl]

4. Here's a bit

"Our view is that modeling terrorist networks as graphs does not give us enough information to deal with the threat," Farley wrote in a recent issue of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. "Modeling terrorist cells as graphs ignores an important aspect of their structure, namely their hierarchy, and the fact that they are composed of leaders and followers."

It's not enough to disconnect terrorist networks, Farley argues. A remnant may yet contain a leader and enough followers to mount a serious attack.

Farley has proposed an alternative approach that better reflects an organization's hierarchy. "My method uses order theory to quantify the degree to which a terrorist network is still able to function," he says.

In this case, the relationship of one individual to another in a cell becomes important. Leaders are represented by the topmost nodes in a diagram of the ordered set representing a cell and foot soldiers are nodes at the bottom. Disrupting the organization would be equivalent to disrupting the chain of command, which allows orders to pass from leaders to foot soldiers.
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040110/mathtrek.asp

More on Farley: http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/PEEPS/farley_jonathan.html

[bobbieinok]

5. a truly impressive person....his family also

thanks for the link about him

http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/PEEPS/farley_jonathan.h...

[BamaBecky]

8. That link doesn't want to work Bobbi!

:hi:

[Angry Girl]

6. Don't think Washington doesn't have their own "Farleys"

George Washington University, with some of the top folks in game theory, Bayesian modeling, and pattern recognition, gets a big chunk of money from the DOD. Poindexter's Total Information Awareness program is not dead, it's merely changed names.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office

[Wizard777]

7. All conflicts are a battle of numbers.

This is a military concept that predates biblical times. Ot was Alexander the Great that calculated the battle formuli "DIVIDE and Conquor" Even the rebellion and resulting war in Heaven was a battle of numbers. 2/3 of the Angles the were not decieved were triumphant over the 1/3 of the Angles that were decieved.

In debating police officers in police shooting. I have tried to no avail to explain to them how one unarmed suspect can literally out number and prevail over three armed officers. They seem to have found comfort in exspousing "You have been watching too many Nija movies." Call these biological math coprocessors what you will. But they are as real as the Wizard writting this. One of my Adeptus Majors can do computations faster than a caculator and with greater accuracy.

The terrorist will seek the superior vantage point outside the box in the unknown and unperceivable. From that vantage point all their attack will by sirprize in one format or another. Our greatest handicap is the Bush administration who does not even know the box exists. Nor will they allow anyone to try to show them the box. They have a business plan to stick to. If the box even come close to revealing it's self to them. They try to redefine the box as a square deal....just for them. They won't even let outsiders into their lil square (Circles???? I guess as always Condi didn't know. Fortunately for America their lil square is easily triangulated. ROTFLMAO)O' this takes me back to battling daemons at King Solomon's Temple. Oh sorry, Wrong book. That was My Pet Goetia. LMAO. This old goat is no mans pet!

[EVDebs]

9. But aren't wars over before the first shot is fired ?

JFK knew Vietnam was a loser and Berlin was more valuable real estate. But LBJ let things go so 'you can have your war' (to JCS Dec '63).

Bush should have relied upon the Powell Doctrine. Instead he shitcanned it.

[Ian David]

10. Is this that thing we did in algebra that had numbers in grids...

and there were some sort of rules where different numbers changed other numbers in various directions?

Even my algebra teacher couldn't tell me what it was actually used for.