Category Archives: politics

A new, higher efficiency propeller

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Elytron biplane, perhaps an inspiration.

Sharrow Marine introduced a new ship propeller design two years ago, at the Miami International Boat show. Unlike traditional propellers, there are no ends on the blades. Instead, each blade is a connecting ribbon with the outer edge behaving like a connecting winglet. The blade pairs provide low-speed lift-efficiency gains, as seen on a biplane, while the winglets provide high speed gains. The efficiency gain is 9-30% over a wide range of speeds, as shown below, a tremendous improvement. I suspect that this design will become standard over the next 10-20 years, as winglets have become standard on airplanes today.

A Sharrow propeller, MX-1

The high speed efficiency advantage of the closed ends of the blades, and of the curved up winglets on modern airplanes is based on avoiding losses from air (or water) going around the end from the high pressure bottom to the low-pressure top. Between the biplane advantage and the wingtip advantage, Sharrow propellers provide improved miles per gallon at every speed except the highest, 32+ mph, plus a drastic decrease in vibration and noise, see photo.

The propeller design was developed with paid research at the University of Michigan. It was clearly innovative and granted design patent protection in most of the developed world. To the extent that the patents are respected and protected by law, Sharrow should be able to recoup the cost of their research and development. They should make a profit too. As an inventor myself, I believe they deserve to recoup their costs and make a profit. Not all inventions lead to a great product. Besides, I don’t think they charge too much. The current price is $2000-$5000 per propeller for standard sizes, a price that seems reasonable, based on the price of a boat and the advantage of more speed, more range, plus less fuel use and less vibration. This year Sharrow formed an agreement with Yamaha to manufacture the propellers under license, so supply should not be an issue.

Vastly less turbulence follows the Sharrow propeller.

China tends to copy our best products, and often steals the technology to make them, employing engineers and academics as spys. Obama/Biden have typically allowed China to benefit for the sales of copies and the theft of intellectual property, allowing the import of fakes to the US with little or no interference. Would you like a fake Rolex or Fendi, you can buy on-line from China. Would you like fake Disney, ditto. So far, I have not seen Chinese copies of the Sharrow in the US, but I expect to see them soon. Perhaps Biden’s Justice Department will do something this time, but I doubt it. By our justice department turning a blind eye to copies, they rob our innovators, and rob American workers. His protectionism is one thing I liked about Donald Trump.

The Sharrow Propeller gives improved mpg values at every speed except the very highest.

Robert Buxbaum, September 30, 2022

A great modern artist, Duchamp becomes a great modern chess player, and returns to art.

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I’d written previously about Marcel Duchamp’s early work as a founder of the Dada school of modern art, a school that aims to say nothing about anything except about itself. Duchamp hung a urinal as art and called it “fountain.” It was comic, insulting, and engaging — an inspiration for many modern arts to follow , and much bad modern art, too — the collections of string and found objects and paintings of squares or squiggles. But the story of Duchamp is interesting. In 1925, M. Duchamp gave up on art, at least this type of art and became a chess player. As with art, he was very good at it, and became the French chess champion. Now that’s an unexpected turn.

What sort of chess did Marcel Duchamp play? Modern. Very modern. While tradition chess had focussed on the center. He developed at the sides, a strategy that was called an “Indian attack”, named (I assume) after American Indians attacking a stage-coach. Instead of attacking directly, the popular image of an Indian attack is attack from the sides, or behind trees. In chess, it involves typically a “fianchettoed bishop.” Other modern chess players of the time attacked from the side too (Réti, Alekhine) but they generally worked form one side or the other with some central presence. Duchamp worked from both, often with no center.

Position after white’s 13th move

Here is a dramatic example, a position from a game with an American great, GM George Koltanowski. It’s 13 moves in, with Duchamp, is black, generally considered the weaker side. He has fianchettoed both of his bishops, and given up the center to Koltanowski. It’s Duchamp’s turn to move/ He will win in three moves.

Notice that Koltanowsi’s bishops point outward, as a cowboys guns might point, or as from a British fighting square. Meanwhile, Duchamp’s bishops point inward, with his queen -bishop almost directly at the white king. The game proceeded as follows. 13…, Nxd5 14.Nxd7, Nxf4 15.Nxf8, Bd4, 0-1..

The full game, seen here,. It might prove instructive if you want to explore in Duchamp’s footsteps. While I play traditionally, I sometimes fianchetto, and do not find it racist that such side-attacks are called “Indian attacks.” Perhaps that’s because I’m old and used to such things, or because they very often work.

Please Touch. M. Duchamp 1947
Self-portrait, M. Duchamp, 1957 (torn paper on black velvet).

As M. Duchamp’s chess skills waned, he returned to the art world, going in the opposite direction of Dali. Duchamp’s last works are small, and simple. They are still arresting but more dream-like. Dali’s works grew bigger and busier as he got older.

That Duchamp could be both a great artist and a great chess-player suggests there is such a thing as general intelligence. It’s a touchy subject, I’ve pondered on here as intelligence appears to be inheritable.

Robert Buxbaum, September 23, 2022.

Religions unite to condemn “Life of Brian”, 1979

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Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” presents the fictional story of Brian, someone born in the stable next door on Christmas Day, who is repeatedly mistaken for the messiah by a crowd that never gets the message right. We follow Brain as he grows and preaches wisdom, like “Think for yourselves, work it out, you’re all individuals.” The crowd then answers, in unison, “Yes! We’re all individuals.” Eventually Brian joins the People’s Liberation Front of Judea and is crucified by the Romans. Brian’s thoughts aren’t bad, but the humor is how completely his followers mess them up. Another example, near the end of the film, happens with Brian on the cross. A band of fanatical followers comes to the rescue, his “suicide squad”. They proceed to commit suicide, See it here. Brian can only say, “You silly sots.” It’s comedy. It’s a funny/sad take on religious martyrs, and it provoked a united condemnation by the three great religions because the comedy is relevant, and thus dangerous.

The movie opened in the Us, and was called “blasphemous” by the Catholic Church, and “a crime against religion.” The Catholic film-monitoring office rated it “C” for Condemned. Among Jewish leaders, Rabbi Abraham Hecht of Chabad/Lubovich asked to have the movie banned as a danger to civic peace. Chabad/Lubovich was promoting their own leader as the messiah (he had not proclaimed himself) so the film must have touched a particularly sensitive nerve.

Brian, center top, is thought to be the messiah, and reluctantly accepts the role, only to have it screwed up.

Rabbi Hecht claimed, in The New York Times, Aug 28, 1979, “This film is so grievously insulting that we are genuinely concerned that its continued showing could result in serious violence.” He was joined by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis and the Rabbinical Council of Syrian and Near Eastern Sephardic Communities of America, asking to have the movie banned. They had not asked to have any other movies banned before or since.

The US protestant opposition was headed by Robert Lee of the Lutheran council, who called it “a profane parody” in a broadcast carried by 1,000 radio stations. The religions united to buy a 1 page protest in “Variety,” a rare show of unity. The movie was banned in Italy, Ireland, Chile, Norway, parts of Britain (as a health danger), and likely many other countries. Ireland waited 8 years for a showing; Italy waited twenty years; Aberystwyth, Wales waited thirty years. The ban hasn’t yet been lifted in any of these places, by the way, nor have the religious bans been lifted. It seems that all religions agree you should not think for yourself abut God, or imagine that the leaders might have got things wrong.

The bishop of Southwark, on TV, making the case that “Life of Brian” was an attack on Christianity. It was just an attack on leaders like him.

In Britain, the effort to ban the movie were spearheaded by the “Festival of Lights,” a Protestant group. A leader of that group, Malcolm Muggeridge, debated two of the Pythons on TV, joined by Mervyn Stockwood, bishop of Southwark. See the full Life of Brian 1979 Debate, here. Malcolm Muggeridge had been editor of Punch, Britain’s top humor magazine. He argued that the movie was unfunny. Bishop Stockwood was considered a liberal, known to favor homosexual marriage within the church. He would not tolerate religious deviance, though and argued that the movie was sacrilegious, especially the song at the end. Neither individual seems to listen to anything the Pythons say. Stockwood ended the debate by saying that the Pythons “would get their 20 pieces of silver, that’s for sure”.

Abraham Hecht before the man he claimed was the messiah-king; He called “Life of Brian” a grave danger, and called for Israeli assassinations.

Despite being banned in many countries and by all major religions, the movie was financial success, in part because of the controversy. Its enemies too, in part for their controversy. The Festival of Lights gained notoriety for the protests of sex and violence in the movies. The Catholic Church banned more movies: Shaft, Rambo, Friday the 13th, and all the Borat movies. Rabbi Hecht protested the Israeli rabbinate for making conversion too easy, then pushed the idea that gentiles have to live by a Lubovich interpretation of “The Laws of Noach.” And finally, in June 1995, Hecht pressed for the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres: “Such people should be killed before they can perform the deed.” [the Oslo accords]. Rabin was assassinated five months later — after the accords were signed. Hecht was presented with a 6 month leave from his pulpit. There were no general condemnations of the banners within their sects, though. All seem to agree that religion is about loving your neighbor, and banning or assassinating those who are not loving enough.

The most contentious part of the movie is the song at the end. It has become popular at funerals and with the terminally ill: “Always look on the bright side of life.” It’s comforting without being preachy: “When you’re chewing on life’s gristle, don’t grumble, give a whistle, and this will help things turn out for the best. And always look on the bright side of life….” Bishop Stockton found this song the most offensive part, and my sense of why is that, as a bishop, he feels he must be seen to stand between you and God. No one like that wants a terminally ill person to look at him and “give a whistle.”

Robert Buxbaum, September 2, 2022. I’ve previous written about the use of miracles in religion, and that total loyalty does not serve the follower, and doesn’t even help the leader.

Arctic Ice has shrunk 1.5% since ’99 and Gore’s inconvenient truth. Is this bad?

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At the 1999 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, Al Gore announced an inconvenient truth: “There is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.” It was a bold prediction, part of a campaign that got Mr Gore a Nobel Prize and motivated the US to devote billions to stopping global warming. Supposedly 98% of scientists agreed with Mr. Gore and his remedies. Prince Charles and Bill Gates too. Twenty three years later there is still arctic ice, 98.5% as much as in 1999. Two questions arise: 1. Is the ice loss bad? and 2. Why were those 98% of scientists so wrong?

Arctic sea ice extent 1999-2021
Arctic sea ice extent when Al Gore spoke (1999) and since. Not much change, nor clearly for the worse

The second question is far easier than the first: the 98% number was bogus, a lie, like many other climate lies that followed. it was effective at stopping argument, and could not be checked immediately. It bullied scientists who argued that global warming wasn’t bad, or wasn’t man-made, and it gave do-gooders the ability to label their opponents “liars” and “science deniers”. The claim of 98% was used to silence scientists with long, prominent careers. Deniers lost their funding and were no longer published. Other scientists learned to keep quiet. Twenty years later, when the arctic ice wasn’t gone and antarctic ice hit a record extent, the deniers’ careers largely were gone.

Scientists are not stupid, nor independently rich, for the most part. They are dependent on government funding and their employers, the universities are too. As a group they (we) are incapable of stemming the tide of public opinion. This week Biden signed a nearly 1 trillion dollar bill to stop climate change. Every scientist with a chance to get the money will go for it. Whether or not they think a colder earth is good, they will claim it is in their proposals, and imply that their work can stop the natural chaos that is climate. They will ask for their share of the $1T to study the appropriate things: solar cells, corn-based power, and wind turbines. The proposals will not mention the huge costs in mining or land use. Scientists already know they can not get funded for nuclear power, though it works and produces no CO2, nor should can scientists benefit by criticizing China, as the largest source of CO2. That is seen as undermine the green effort at home. When we stop manufacturing at home, BTW, we end up buying the same materials manufactured in China, where they really generate lots of pollution. When asked about this, Biden’s climate chief said not to worry about it, we had to do our part, and Biden would speak to the Chinese. The result is the biggest buildup in coal-fired power plants in the world, with more coming on line.

This second question is at least as important as the first one: is less arctic ice bad? Or, asking more generally, is a warm earth bad? It’s an opinion question; it’s in no way science, impossible to answer definitively. Cold weather is bad for food production, and that’s bad for people, in general. Most people prefer to live where it’s warm, I find. Supposedly polar bears prefer it cold, but I don’t know for sure. I’m not keen to go back to the climate of the ice ages, 10,000- 100,000 years ago when ice covered Canada and you could walk from France to England. I’m not convinced that life was better when the world was 1°C colder. The sea was lower in 1900, but had been higher in the year zero. Less arctic ice means easier shipping. For all I know we may want to make a Northwest Passage. More food and a easier shipping are the convenient truths about global warming.

Robert Buxbaum, August 19, 2022. If you believe any of what I said about Gore/Biden’s green energy, you may like a movie by Michael Moore, Planet of the Humans, see it here. The political greens are not saving energy or cooling the planet, and they know it. It’s a money maker.

Girls are doing better, Boys are doing far worse.

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When I began college in 1972, the majority of engineering students and business students were male. They from the top of their high school classes, and from stable homes mostly; they went on to high paying jobs. Boys also dominated at the bottom of society. They were the majority of the criminals, drug addicts, and high-school dropouts. Many went off to Vietnam. Some, those who were handy, went to trade schools and a reasonable life, productive life. Society did not seem bothered by the destruction of boys in prison, or Vietnam, or by drugs, but there was an outcry that so few women achieved high academic levels. A famous presentation of the problem was called “for every 100 girls.” An updated version appears below showing the status as of October, 2021. A more detailed version appears further down.

From the table above, you can see that women are now the majority of those in college, the majority of those with a bachelors degree or higher, and a majority of those with advanced degrees. Colleges added special tutoring, special grants, and special programs. Each college had a Society of Women Engineers office, and similar programs in law and math. All of these explicitly excluded men or highly discouraged their presence. The curriculum was changed too; made more female-friendly. Dirty, and physical experiments were removed, replaced with group analysis of the social interactions — important aspects of engineers that boys were far-less adept at doing well. Perhaps society and engineering is better off now, but boys (men) are far worse off. This is particularly seem by the following chart, looking at the bottom. Boys/men provide the vast majority of the prison population, of those diagnosed as learning disabled, of those expelled, or overdosed, and among the war dead.

I’ve previously noted that a majority of boys in school are considered disruptive, and that these boys are routinely diagnosed as ADHD and drugged. It is not at all clear that this is a good thing, or that the drugs help anyone but the teacher. I’ve also noted that artwork and attitudes that were considered normal for boys are now considered disturbing and criminal like saying I wish the school was blown up. The cure here, perhaps is worse than the disease. I’m not saying that we should encourage boys to say such things, but that we should acknowledge a difference between an active and a passive wish. And we should find a way to educate boys/men so they don’t end up unemployed, addicted, or dead. Currently boy, particularly those at the bottom are on the scrap-heap of society.

Here is some source material for the above:

Robert Buxbaum, May 28, 2022

Biden stops fracking and gas prices go up 300% — Surprise!

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Natural gas prices for June 2022 as of May 6, 2022.

Natural gas prices have quadrupled in the last 17 months. It’s gone from $2.07 per million BTU in mid January 2021 when Joe Biden took office, to nearly $9 today. It’s a huge increase in the cost to heat your home, and adds to the cost of any manufactured product you buy. Gasoline prices have risen too, going from $2/gallon when Biden took office to about $4.40 today. Biden blames the war with Russia, but the rise began almost as soon as he took office, and it far outstrips the rise in the price of wheat shown below (wheat is grown in Ukraine — it’s their major export). The likely cause is Biden’s moratorium on fracking, including his decision to stop permitting oil exploration and drilling on federal land. In recent weeks Biden has walked back some of this, to the consternation of the environmentalists. On April 15, 2022, the Interior Department announced this significant change including its first onshore lease sale since the moratorium.

Biden also cancelled the Keystone XL oil pipeline that would have brought tar-sands oil from Canada and North Dakota to Texas for refining. Blocking the pipeline helped increase gas prices here and helped cause a recession in Alberta and North Dakota. The protesters who claimed to speak for the natives are not affected.

Another issue fueling price increases is that Biden is printing money. Bidenflation is running at 8%/year. It’s not hyperinflation, but it’s getting close. It’s money taken from your pocket and from your savings. Much of the money is given to friends: to groups that Biden thinks will use it virtuously, but inflation is money taken from us, from our pockets and savings. Another beneficiary are those who are rich enough to take no salary, but live by borrowing against their real estate and corporate equity. The richest people in the US do this, earning $1 per year or less, (here’s a list compiled by Bloomberg, it’s basically every rich person). They pay no taxes, as they have no income. The only way to tax them is by tariffs, taxing what they import, but the government is against tariffs.

What you can do, personally about energy-cost inflation is not much. I would recommend insulating your home. I plan to repaint the roof white, and put in a layer of roof insulation. I also have fruit trees: an apple tree and a peach tree, grapes and a juneberry. They provide summer shade, and you get a lot of fruit with minimal work. Curtains are a good investment. Another thought is to buy solar cells. A vegetable garden is fun too, but it’s unlikely to pay you back.

Winter wheat prices are up by about 40%, likely due to the loss of supply from Ukraine and Russia

Speaking of wheat prices, they are up. They increased 40% when Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and have held steady at that level since. This is far less increase than for natural gas. Corn and rice prices are up too, but nowhere near as much. Fertilizer prices are up 300%, though, and Biden has indicated he’d like to push for a sustainable alternative; is that poop? There is a baby formula shortage too. We can handle it, I think, unless Biden get involved, or starts a hot war with Russia.

Robert Buxbaum May 10, 2022. As a fun sidelight, here is Biden answering questions about Pakistan when someone in a Bunny costume grabs him and walks him away from the reporters. Who is that masked handler? What’s going on in Pakistan?

Ukraine looks like Vietnam or the beginnings of WWI

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The press and our Russian experts claim we’re helping in Ukraine, protecting it from a Russian invasion. I suspect they are wrong, and that our help and protection will prove to be as deadly to all as in the Vietnam war. I’m also uncomfortable with their presentation their framing of Putin as an out of touch autocrat. Putin has popular support, and acts with a strong sense of history, as I see it, just not our version of history. In the Russian version, it was Russia that stopped the Nazis — of Germany and Ukraine. We are not the heroes of WWII in their telling; I doubt we’ll be the heroes of this conflict either.

We have a habit of seeing ourselves as saving heroes as we enter other people’s conflicts. It is how we got into Vietnam, to save the South from the North. It’s also how Europe got into WWI: Russia was saving Serbia, Germany was saving Austria, etc (see cartoon below). We meddle our way, and leave much later than we planned. The result, as in Vietnam and Afghanistan is far more death and destruction than if we’d minded our own business. And US war-dead too. In Vietnam 58,000 US deaths. In Afghanistan 2,400 US dead. and no obvious accomplishment. As Henry Kissinger famously commented: “It’s dangerous to be America’s enemy, but deadly to be America’s friend.”

European aggression in WWII started with the good intention of preventing aggression. It got out of hand, as I fear our good intentions will in Ukraine.

The US troops we’ve sent to Ukraine are not called soldiers. They are “fighting advisors” sent to help the Ukrainians use our weapons. In WWI and Vietnam, fighting advisors are called invaders; it’s how we got drawn into Vietnam. The Russians claimed to send advisors when they entered the Crimea and later the Dundas. We called it an invasion. We can’t be that blind to our own words. Sooner or later, the advisors will start killing each other– something we’ll call an unprovoked attack. Our high tech aid including anti-tank missiles are reported to have killed some 10,000 Russians so far. We don’t seem to think the Russians will mind, or that they’ll give up as the body count mounts. In Vietnam, the more we killed with our high-tech weapons, the more the Vietnamese on both sides called us the villains, and the more Vietnamese joined the fight against us. That’s the future I fear for Ukraine, or worse. The conflict in WWI spiraled quickly beyond the borders of Serbia to include the whole world, and continued through WWII.

Our approach to diplomacy is counterproductive too, in my opinion, and similar to Vietnam too. We call Putin a terrorist, a madman and a narcissist, and then we begin talks with him to end the war. Biden has asked to have Putin removed by assassination.Does he think this will help, or if Putin is removed his successor will be a friend of the US? We demonized Ho Chi Minh, and propped up our favored, corrupt leaders. Minh was popular, as is Putin, and both have valid reasons for opposing us. Putin worries about the expansion of NATO. It’s not an illegitimate worry given Russian history of repeated invasions from the west.

Our desire to remove Russian leadership is a long-standing mistake. It does not lead to peace, or good negotiation, nor even peaceful co-existence.

Russia has been invaded many times. US schools mention Napoleon’s invasion in 1812 and the German’s in 1941, but there are more. They were invaded by the Germans in WWI too, and by the Ukrainian Cossacks in the days of Khmelnytsky, 1646-57. Before that the Polish Lithuanians, 1609-1618, the Swedes, 1701-1709, and in the early days, it was Tartars, Mongols, who invaded and ruled Russia from about 1225 til they joined with the Russian Tzars about 1650. Add to that, our help in the war of the Whites vs the Reds (1917-23) that produced Ukrainian independence — I talk about the relevance here. With a history like that, Russia has every reason to worry about NATO expansion. We should be cognizant of this and stop calling Putin a madman. Let’s accept the Russian version of history, and the sitting ruler of Russia.

Some cite the Budapest memorandum that lead to the removal of “Ukrainian” nuclear weapons –– read it here. It’s short, only 1 page, and deliberately vague. it was signed by Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, for the Russian Federation, along with representatives for Ukraine, The US, and The UK. The missiles were not Ukrainian, they were Soviet, and pointed at us. As a result of that agreement, they were dismantled and moved into Russia. There is no sense that this is an invitation for us to protect Ukraine against Russia. The co-signers sort-of agree to protect Ukraine from outsiders (Germany, Turkey,..?), but that’s not clear. We commit ourselves to peace in the region, and can claim that Russia violated the peace first, but there’s no invitation for us to violate it second. Until recently, the UK provided no military aid. China and most of the EU still trades with Russia; if they see a villainy, it’s not enough to stop trade.

Robert McNamara was Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson, and a key “Whiz Kid” pushing for war in Vietnam. Years later, he decided Vietnam was a mistake. A sad cartoon: the veterans are walking past the grave monument for the 58,000 US dead. I worry we’ll have a similar cartoon after this war.

In my opinion, our best course is to reduce our military aid to providing only basics: bullets, blankets, food… We should reopen discussions with Putin, not demonize him, or try to remove him. Ukraine will likely fight on even without our high-tech weapons. Perhaps they’ll buy from Europe, or from independent dealers. The death rate on both sides will be lower and peace will come quicker without us. Crimea might remain Ukrainian or Russian, but that will not be our decision. We’ve done enough damage for now. It took many years after the end of the Vietnam war for the instigators admit is was a mistake.

Robert Buxbaum April 3, 2022. Much of my thinking about Vietnam comes from Francis Fitzgerald’s wonderful book “Fire in the Lake”. I see it all happening again here. Also worth reading is this 2014 letter by Henry Kissinger about how to negotiate a peace: “Damning Putin is not a foreign policy; it’s an alibi for the lack of one.” It’s a nice insight. He seems to understand diplomacy about as well as anyone.

A Nuclear-blast resistant paint: Starlite and co.

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About 20 years ago, an itinerate inventor named Maurice Ward demonstrated a super insulating paint that he claimed would protect most anything from intense heat. He called it Starlite, and at first no one believed the claims. Then he demonstrated it on TV, see below, by painting a paper-thin layer on a raw egg. He then blasting the egg with a blow torch for a minute till the outside glowed yellow-red. He then lifted the egg with his hand; it was barely warm! And then, on TV, he broke the shell to show that the insides were totally raw, not only uncooked but completely unchanged, a completely raw egg. The documentary below shows the demonstration and describes what happened next (as of 10 years ago) including an even more impressive series of tests.

Intrigued, but skeptical, researchers at the US White Sands National Laboratory, our nuclear bomb test lab, asked for samples. Ward provided pieces of wood painted as before with a “paper thin” layer of Starlite. They subjected these to burning with an oxyacetylene torch, and to a simulated nuclear bomb blast. The nuclear fireball radiation was simulated by an intense laser at the site. Amazing as it sounds, the paint and the wood beneath emerging barely scorched. The painted wood was not damaged by the laser, nor by an oxyacetylene torch that could burn through 8 inches of steel in seconds.

The famous egg, blow torch experiment.

The inventor wouldn’t say what the paint was made of, or what mechanism allowed it to do this, but clearly it had military and civilian uses. It seems it would have prevented the twin towers from collapsing, or would have greatly extended the time they stayed standing. Similarly, it would protect almost anything from a flame-thrower.

As for the ingredients, Ward said it was non-toxic, and that it contained mostly organic materials, plus borax and some silica or ceramic. According to his daughter, it was “edible”; they’d fed it to dogs and horses without adverse effects.

Starlite coasted wood. The simulated nuclear blast made the char mark at left.

The White sands engineers speculate that the paint worked by combination of ablation and intumescence, controlled swelling. The surface, they surmised, formed a foam of char, pure carbon, that swelled to make tiny chambers. If these chambers are small enough, ≤10 nm or so, the mean free path of gas molecules will be severely reduced, reducing the potential for heat transfer. Even more insulting would be if the foam chambers were about 1 nm. Such chambers will be, essentially air free, and thus very insulating. For a more technical view of how molecule motion affects heat transfer rates, see my essay, here.

Sorry to say we don’t know how big the char chambers are, or if this is how the material works. Ward retained the samples and the formula, and didn’t allow close examination. Clearly, if it works by a char, the char layer is very thin, a few microns at most.

Because Maurice Ward never sold the formula or any of the paint in his lifetime, he made no money on the product. He kept closed muted about it, as he knew that, as soon as he patented, or sold, or let anyone know what was in the paint, there would be copycats, and patent violations, and leaks of any secret formula. Even in the US, many people and companies ignore patent rights, daring you to challenge them in court. And it’s worse in foreign countries where the government actively encourages violation. There are also legal ways around a patent: A copycat inventor looks for ways to get the same behavior from materials that are not covered in the patent. Ward could not get around these issues, so he never patented the formula or sold the rights. He revealed the formula only to some close family members, but that was it till May, 2020, when a US company, Thermashield, LLC, bought Ward’s lab equipment and notes. They now claim to make the original Starlite. Maybe they do. The product doesn’t seem quite as good. I’ve yet to see an item scorched as little as the sample above.

Many companies today are now selling versions of Starlite. The formulas are widely different, but all the paints are intumescent, and all the formulas are based on materials Ward would have had on hand, and on the recollections of the TV people and those at White Sands. I’ve bought one of these copycat products, not Thermashield, and tested it. It’s not half bad: thicker in consistency than the original, or as resistive.

There are home-made products too, with formulas on the internet and on YouTube. They are applied more like a spackle or a clay. Still, these products insulate remarkably well: a lot better than any normal insulator I’d seen.

If you’d like to try this as a science fair project, among the formulas you can try; a mix of glue, baking soda, borax, and sugar, with some water. Some versions use sodium silicate too. The Thermoshield folks say that this isn’t the formula, that there is no PVA glue or baking soda in their product. Still it works.

Robert Buxbaum, March 13, 2022. Despite my complaints about the US patent system, it’s far better than in any other country I’ve explored. In most countries, patents are granted only as an income stream for the government, and inventors are considered villains: folks who withhold the fruits of their brains for unearned money. Horrible.

The claim that Ukrainians are Nazis is also Ukraine’s claim to statehood.

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Recently Putin claimed he was going into Ukraine to fight Nazis. Twitter makes fun of this, but also shows many pictures of these Nazis. Under the hashtag #AzovBattalion, you’ll see many pictures of white boys with swastikas and Ukraine flags (see below). Perhaps these pictures are just Russian propaganda: According to our media there are no Nazis to speak of, and besides, the president of Ukraine is a Jew. Still, the pictures look real, and based on Ukraine history, there is quite a bit reason to think they are not an aberration. Still, to the extent that they represent Ukraine, these individuals are a major basis of Ukraine’s claim for independence. They are also a good reason to leave Ukraine out of NATO, IMHO.

Let’s go back to the late days of the Tartars and the early days of the Cossacks, about 1600. There is a painting, below depicting Cossacks of those days writing a letter to The Sultan (original in the Kharkov museum). They do not seem the most savory of people, but they do seem independent and egalitarian. The letter is not written by a noble, but by a committee of pirates, and not everyone is happy about it.

Zaporozhian Cossacks write a letter to the sultan. These are the people who Putin claims should be loyal to Russia, but they have a long history of behaving otherwise. I like the scribe. A couple of people at left seem unhappy.

From 1250 to the mid 1700s, Southern Ukraine was ruled, to a greater or lesser extent, by the Crimean Tartars, a group of horse-riding Mongols who nominally served the great Khan. Moscow paid dues to them, and in 1571 the Tartar ruler,  Devlet I Giray burnt Moscow to collect his dues. The early Cossacks were Black-sea pirates, and enemies of the Tartars. Around 1600, the Cossacks and Tartars realized they had a lot in common (alcoholism, pederasty…) and formed an alliance. Mainly this was against the Poles and Jews. A famous result of this alliance was the Khmelnytsky Uprising (about 1650). Khmelnytsky was the “Hetman” (Head man?), the elected, temporary ruler for the uprising. He has become a symbol of Ukrainian independence, but he was also a brutal murderer of virtually all the Jews and Catholics. Today, he graces Ukraine’s $5 bill, and sits atop a statue in Kyiv’s central square. This elevation of Khmelnytsky is no small insult to Jews, Catholics, and civilization.

Ukrainian Republic passport, 1919.

 In 1654, via the Pereyaslav Agreement, Khmelnytsky’s Tartar-Cossacks formed an allegiance with the Tsar while retaining autonomy in Ukraine. This autonomy eroded over the years, and ended with Bolshevik rule in the early 20th century. After WWI, Ukrainians briefly tried for independence, forming the Ukraine Peoples Republic and the Ukraine Democratic republic, from 1917 to 1921. The head of the Republic was called hetman, an elected leader but also a throwback to a mass-murderer.

Stalin punished the Cossack remnant before WWIi, and when the Germans invaded in 1939, many of the remaining Ukrainians supported the Nazi invasion, and provided some of the most brutal murders of Jews; the murderers of Baba Year, for example. Putin recalls this collaboration when he calls the Ukrainians Nazis, and I suspect that he’s more right than our press will admit. These #azovbattalion pictures don’t look faked. On the other hand, the autonomy of the Ukrainians and Cossacks, and their attempts at independence provide historical backing for Ukraine’s claim to independence. Putting this another way, the more you accept that Ukraine is full of Nazi sympathizers, the more you should accept them as a distinct society from Russia.

Ukrainians of the Azov Battalion with a statue of Khmelnytsky, or some other murderer.

As an idea of how the war might go, I should mention another group of Tartar-Cossacks. These were Moslems who operated between the Don and Volga Rivers in what is known as Chechnya. Chechnya fought Russia in a long, bloody, unsuccessful struggle, that is only recently ended. Russia may win in Ukraine, but it is not likely to win easily or cheaply if Chechnya is any model.

Robert Buxbaum, Mar. 2, 2022