To Trump or not to Trump

I was involved in the analysis of mechanical and seismic effects of underground nuclear tests - from small to 150 kt. It helps me now to be more effective in monitoring the non-testing regime. Thirty five years ago, we developed a mechanical model with a sleeping hierarchical structure of inhomogeneities in various rock types. An underground nuclear explosion creates an extremely high-amplitude shock wave damaging the surrounding rocks. The sleeping hierarchical structure, i.e. a system of healed cracks and discontinuities,  is excited by the shock wave, emits (induced) elastic waves, and we measure these waves by seismometers. The features of these seismic waves allow recovering the features of the sleeping hierarchical structure.

Trump is an extremely powerful source of energy damaging the internal structure of the US political and governmental systems. He is definitely not a part of this system and his actions were so high-amplitude that the system was excited and started to send signals to the outer world. We even do not need to measure them with precise equipment (but we have to) – they are visible and striking. It is not for me to judge is it for better or worse for the USA.

I have just academic interest in the active impact on physical and social systems. The COVOD-19 pandemic, for example, is high stress for the economic system and the response of the US economy has to be studied in tiny details in order to understand the real structure and processes underlying economic activity. This also helps to distinguish between quantitatively accurate and quantitatively worthless economic models. In this blog, I have presented some findings associated with the pandemic.

The experience with active impact on various systems and the study of their reaction gives me some confidence that we have to Trump (in the sense we have to beat and hit). When we do not Trump, we are missing important information on the vital system features. In social sciences, Gorbachev and Yeltsin were two Trumps in the Soviet Union and Russia. We have learned a lot about the governing system and people. Not all findings were pleasant. But now we have no illusions about friendship and cooperation - no such things between businesses and countries.