Funny Thoughts While Riding

Sometimes I get the most peculiar thoughts while bicycle riding.

I seldom carry an mp3 player with me due not only to safety concerns but also to my need to think things out.

Rudy Kalman, of Kalman Filter fame, one of the cornerstones of systems theory, stated that if a thing can be observed, it can be controlled.

OK, I've just lost you, so let me back up.

Where was I 40 years ago? When Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, my liberal arts dorm roommates were picking on me because I was studying. NASA had been using all kinds of neat technical tools. The Kalman Filter was used in the Apollo computer for orbital insertions then, and I use it now for proper positioning of any vehicle. The Kalman is nothing but a simulation running onboard the rocket's computer, telling the rocket where it should be (giving observability), which comes in handy if the sensors briefly black out for any reason, like noise and vibration. Sensors being either optical or radar seekers, GPS, gyroscopes and the like. Us humans do this all the time, like when driving through fog at night, we know to keep slow and straight... unless we're at a curve on the road.

The key word is "briefly." The rocket and its sensors have to be designed for observability, and there are some things that just cannot be observed. Yeah, yeah... like teenagers out for the night. And, yes, sometimes we don't want to observe them even if we could.

Behavioral political psychologists or theorists also use this if-a-thing-can-be-observed rule in their logic, except that, to them, everything can be observed and thus everything can be controlled, even in this noisy economy. Not only do they forget their Kalman systems theory, but also, it seems, they forget their sensors altogether. Or is it their senses? The economy is shaking itself to death due to the meddling... can't these theorists observe that? Obviously not.

And, yes, it was a beauuutiful bike ride anyway! It was a relatively cool day and light traffic on an early Sunday for a solo ride at my own pace. I've never had a bad solo ride.

- © 2009 by Willy