/sci/ - Science & Math

>is x science a science?

Think about what you just said for a minute.

>>4817609
no, it doesnt fucking work like that!

>is unicorn science a science?
>is christian science a science?
>is ghost science a science?

jackass

>>4817609

>hey guys is social engineering really engineering?

>>4817609
Think about what YOU just said for a minute.
You can add the word "science" to anything but that doesn't change what it is.

>>4817612

fuck off EK

>>4817599
Define "science"

>>4817620
huh, didnt know that was an EK specific picture
well spotted, hun

Well, if nobody else wants to start this thread off properly...

>mfw a general doesn't flank the enemy

a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.

OP here. Used dictionary.com for you.

>>4817599
> is military science a science? in other words... could this subject be discussed on this board perhaps?

Yes, also interesting subject.

I was speculating a bit earlier. With the Turkey and Syria situation. Suppose they go to war.

I found some numbers that seemed relevant:

Man power, measured in population size. (Or male population size, or male population size in a useful age)

Economic power, measured in GDP per capita.

Turkey:
Man power: 2011 estimate, 74,724,269
Economic power: $10,522

Syria:
Man power: July 2012 estimate, 22,530,746
Economic power: $2,802

Shudn't be be obvious that Turkey will win?

Has anyone collected a list of wars fought between countries and ran a simple regression analysis with population size and GDP per capita as independent variables and outcome of the war (lose, win, draw, perhaps in %) as the dependent variable?

>>4817625
I miss you, hun ;_;

>>4817685
Turkey is also a powerful member of NATO, with tons of very modern western military equipment. Heck, it has one of the largest air-combat fleets in NATO. Syria has... a lot of old, crappy soviet shit.

>>4817685

Ive got SAS on my desktop. Would be interesting to see, I'm not sure where to get all that data though...

There would probably be a lot of problems with it.

>>4817694
>Turkey is also a powerful member of NATO, with tons of very modern western military equipment. Heck, it has one of the largest air-combat fleets in NATO. Syria has... a lot of old, crappy soviet shit.

Sure thing. I was just wondering how much of the variance one can predict with two such simple predictors. Can one predict the outcome of wars 55% of the time? (5 better than chance) 60%? 80%? I'm just curious. :)

It's more of an art.

Hence, Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

>>4817697
>Ive got SAS on my desktop. Would be interesting to see, I'm not sure where to get all that data though...

Current GDP per capita and population data is easy to get. it is more difficult to get data from the past.

I suppose one cud limit the study to 20th century wars. There shud be enuf to pick from. I wud think that one can find population and GDP per capita estimates for pretty much all countries in the 20th century. Perhaps this sample is enuf to test the idea.

I think it will be difficult to analyze wars from, say, the 17th century becus there is no reliable GDP data. There might be reliable population size data.

>>4817685
there has hardly been a war in the 20th and 21st century where it was that simple.

World war 2, germany were to be massivle outnumbered etc. yet they did very very well

>>4817705
>>4817705
Damn I can't spell for shit. Guess you got my point

>>4817705
Sure. Check out some of the wars with various smaller countries, say, this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War

>>4817707
Or, for example, all the "unconventional" wars we've had, like the Vietnam war. The insurgency basically won in the Vietnam war, even though the USA was vastly more powerful.

There's also other factors that can favor one side over the other. For example, in the Korean war, the USA was trying to fight on the other side of the planet, whereas the China was right next door.