The High-Tech World of Usama bin Laden
We haven't heard much from the media recently about Usama bin Laden. So where is old Usama these days? The military, of course, is constantly checking his mailbox for change-of-address cards for his subscriptions to Jihad News and Shahid Death to the Satanic Infidels Report, Suicide Bomberweek, and other magazines. But so far, this strategy has been unsuccessful. I suspect the true situation is more complex: Usama, master of disguise that he is, is in Afghanistan. And Pakistan. Also Kashmir, Bhutan, Nepal, Tajikistan, and China.
Perhaps even the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea as well.
Most of him, of course, including his left arm, which has been the subject of much speculation, is still in Afghanistan. But it seems likely that the remaining chunks, many of which could have been airborne for many weeks, have landed in the sparsely-populated northwest corner of Pakistan and could have been carried to neighboring countries. It is even possible that some of the smaller pieces could have made it to China. Indications from unnamed sources on the ground suggest that little chunks of UBL burger may have been raining down on Pakistan for months.
Let us assume for the sake of calculation that approximately 50 kg of high explosives landed on him. It is easy to calculate, if we assume that the resulting 282,350,000 joules of kinetic and thermal energy were dispersed uniformly in a spherical pattern, and treating UBL as an incompressible sphere, that Usama's center of gravity would have been raised to an altitude of approximately 1,244 meters above his starting point. The well-known Hugoniot equation predicts that compressional forces at the wavefront of the shock wave would also have converted him into a sizable number of fragments that are significantly smaller than the original. Assuming that these UBL chunks are spherical in shape and that their sizes follow a Poisson distribution, with a median size being a sphere 0.1 cm in diameter with a density of 1.2 grams per cubic centimeter, the UBL chunks would have the following spatial distribution:
Fig. 1. Contour probability map showing particle
distributions of UBL chunks. Contours represent 75, 90, and 95% probabilities
of finding a fragment of the terrorist Usama bin Laden after the bombing of
the Tora Bora cave complex. This map was created using a modified version of
the same software used by climatologists to predict global warming. The computer
predicted that the area within the smallest circle experienced a highly
significant but transient warming effect, while the outer regions experienced
cooling because of significant numbers of airborne particles.
Note the extended tail of smaller pieces (designated by the dotted red line) extending far downwind through Nepal and Bhutan. This tail is markedly similar to the distribution observed for other biological material precipitating out of the atmosphere, such as the distribution of anthrax spores following the catastrophic 1979 accident in Sverdlovsk in the USSR. As time progressed, smaller and smaller pieces would gradually precipitate to the ground, displaying an even more pronounced ellipsoidal distribution.
However, there is a much more frightening prospect that must be considered. Yesterday it was revealed that, hoping against hope that someday scientists will find a cure for the very common and uniformly fatal medical condition known as ``death'', the son of the late baseball hitter Ted Williams has had his dearly departed dad stored in a vat of liquid nitrogen.
Indeed, scientists in laboratories across the globe have been working frantically on finding a cure for death, a chronic, debilitating, and fatal disease that tragically afflicts millions of people. Often this research is carried out with the aid of highly skilled assistants from former Iron Curtain countries, who have considerable biological expertise, but who, all too frequently, suffer from crippling physical deformities because of the poor laboratory conditions in their homelands. The research is usually carried out at night, when it is easier to channel the atmospheric electrical discharges essential for the reanimation process through their equipment without causing problems with the computer network that the people in Marketing need in order to surf the Web during the daylight hours.
Pentagon officials have acknowledged, however, that they cannot dismiss the possibility that surviving members of al-Qaeda may have also been secretly squirreling away little chunks of their leader in a similar hope that, as technology progresses, he too might be brought back to life. Thus, it may be premature to expect Usama to make guest appearances on the John Edward show.
Scientists, of course, say that the terrorists simply don't appreciate the tremendous technical challenges in such an enterprise. But the al-Qaeda terrorists have shown they do not observe such niceties and are undaunted by obstacles such as utter pointlessness and physical impossibility. Lest anyone forget, one of their best and brightest tried to detonate his shoes, which were packed with a high explosive called Semtex, with a match. Explosives experts warn that, because of the high degree of brisance in the chemicals found in match heads, this novel detonation technique may find wide application. It is even rumoured that the U.S. military is considering switching to matches to detonate the explosive warheads on their cruise missiles. Other terrorists, scouring the Internet for novel technologies that could be used against the sinful decadent polytheistic infidels or kafir from the West, have downloaded plans for a thermonuclear bomb.
These facts are all widely known and have been widely reported in the press. Most people have been told that the nuclear bomb plans on the Web page were a satire, written as a joke. But foreigners do not necessarily understand the distinction. A Chinese newspaper, for instance, recently reported as fact a report from the Onion Web page that Washington lawmakers were seriously considering moving the capital to Omaha, Nebraska. To this day, the newspaper stands by the story, citing the satirical Website, which refers to itself as ``America's Finest News Source'', as an unassailable source of accurate information that a new design of the Capitol building is being planned that has a rotating dome with anti-aircraft missile batteries hidden inside.
What has not been revealed until now, however, is that on the very same Web page as the ``fake'' thermonuclear bomb plans were plans for a fully functional time machine.
The implications are mind-boggling. What if the terrorists should get their hands on America's most advanced interdimensional time-travel technology? Not only would this make them almost impossible to track down, they could strike anywhere, at any time.
Oh, this is getting silly. I will stop here.
Last updated July 6, 2002