"Anon."  wrote in message
news:bodsm0$u64$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> Brett Aubrey wrote:
> > "Anon."  wrote
> > in message news:bobfte$6fl$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> >>Brett Aubrey wrote:
> >>>In the context of Churchill's statement ("The size of
the sea is so
> >>>so vast..."), Frank's initial point (agreement with
Churchill) was
> >>>correct, and his analogy was a basically valid, simple and useful
> >>>illustration.  Churchill was suggesting that the difference between
> >>>ship and convoy sizes is *effectively irrelevant* when compared
> >>>to the (very roughly) 6 to 8 million square mile area in
which they ,
> >>>sailed (of a total ~12M sq. mi.).  Yes there's a difference, but it
> >>>"shinks in comparison almost to insignificance".
> >>No it doesn't, just because the ocean is large, the relative sizes of
> >>the one- and many- ship fleets don't change.  A 200m long boat
> >>is still twice as long as a 100m long boat no matter if it's in the
> >>Atlantic Ocean or the Kensington Round Pond.
> >>Indeed, the fact that the ocean is large makes the whole thing
> >>clearer, because if you try to hit a big boat in a small pond,
> >>too easy.
> > Ahhh!  Finally!  Thanks for the explanation...  Now I can see your
> > source of confusion.  Churchill was not discussing
"hitting" anything
> > at all!  Nor was I and nor (I doubt) was Frank, except in his analogy.
> > The discussion, rather, was around visual acquisition, not targeting
> > once acquisition had been made.  Anything relating to Churchill's
> > vastness of the sea becomes completely irrelevant once contact
> > has been made, unless it is subsequently lost again visually, which
> > happened far too often for the Germans not to complain about it.
>
> Visual acquisition is still the same problem - at the simplest
> level, you run around until you see a boat.  The larger the
> boat, the more likely you are to see it.  It still doesn't matter
> if you're running around in a pond or an ocean - you're still
> more likely to see several boats together than to see one.

Well *of course you're still more likely to see this*... Churchill said
nothing to the contrary (and nor did I).  In fact, he unambiguously implied
this difference and I specifically mentioned this difference.  But now
you're implying that this was *your* idea, and that it diverged from
Churchill's...  Did you see Churchill as somehow stating:
"The difference between the size of a convoy and the size of a single ship
makes absolutely no difference whatsoever." or "There was in fact just as
good a chance of a convoy of forty ships slipping unperceived between the
patrolling U-boats as there was for a single ship."

Similarly, did you miss my statement that "Yes, there's a difference"?

The point, once again, is that the difference "shinks in comparison almost
to insignificance" - Hey, we may not be that far away from agreement!  Lemme
try another scenario, hopefully closer to the topic than the dartboard
analogy, though I still like that one even more than mine...

*** Take a box of 24 ping-pong balls connected in a matrix by 2 inch
strings, paint them blueish/green, and drop said matrix arbitrarily
somewhere into the Pacific; then take another similarly camoflaged single
ball and drop it arbitrarily somewhere into the Pacific.  Hire 10 yachts to
look for the balls/matrices.  Repeat the ball drops up to several times a
year for 4 years if so desired, to provide a bettter sample size for the
"experiment".  ...  Now it would be my contention (or forecast in
this case)
that "the difference between the size of a matrix of  balls and the size of
the single ball is of such insignificance that the chance of the single ball
being spotted is nearly as good as the chance of the matrix being spotted,
before either reach landfall. ***

Is there any agreement with this anology?  Yes, there's a difference between
the matrix and the ball, but that very small difference is effectively
irrelevant given the sizes and numbers being discussed.  And I will
absolutely grant to you that the same experiment in different contexts would
not yield the same results - for example a single ball vs. the matrix in the
(smallish) lake by our cottege with 1,000 craft searching!  (BTW, this also
points to the criticality of the "vastness of the sea", which neither you
nor Phillip mention much.)  Could it be that this is a simple discussion of
symantics?  One would hope so.  I'm still comfortable that Churchill's
statement is valid, and that was the starting point.  Comments?  Best
regards, Brett.

> Bob
> -- 
> Bob O'Hara
>
> Rolf Nevanlinna Institute
> P.O. Box 4 (Yliopistonkatu 5)
> FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
> Finland
> Telephone: +358-9-191 23743
> Mobile: +358 50 599 0540
> Fax:  +358-9-191 22 779
> WWW:  http://www.RNI.Helsinki.FI/~boh/
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