English: Washington, D.C. (Jan. 16, 2007) – Susan Ford Bales, daughter of President Gerald R. Ford, speaks to an audience of 300 during the official naming ceremony of the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), the first aircraft carrier in the Ford class of carriers. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Shawn P. Eklund (RELEASED) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
From Wikipedia
Leviathan:Mythical creatureLeviathan is a sea monster referenced in the Tanakh, or the Old Testament. The word has become synonymous with any large sea monster or creature.
From Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan
Sometimes a man desires to know the event of an action; and then he thinketh of some like action past, and the events thereof one after another, supposing like events will follow like actions. As he that foresees what will become of a criminal re-cons what he has seen follow on the like crime before, having this order of thoughts; the crime, the officer, the prison, the judge, and the gallows. Which kind of thoughts is called foresight, and prudence, or providence, and sometimes wisdom; though such conjecture, through the difficulty of observing all circumstances, be very fallacious. But this is certain: by how much one man has more experience of things past than another; by so much also he is more prudent, and his expectations the seldomer fail him. The present only has a being in nature; things past have a being in the memory only; but things to come have no being at all, the future being but a fiction of the mind, applying the sequels of actions past to the actions that are present; which with most certainty is done by him that has most experience, but not with certainty enough. And though it be called prudence when the event answereth our expectation; yet in its own nature it is but presumption. For the foresight of things to come, which is providence, belongs only to him by whose will they are to come. From him only, and supernaturally, proceeds prophecy. The best prophet naturally is the best guesser; and the best guesser, he that is most versed and studied in the matters he guesses at, for he hath most signs to guess by.
A sign is the event antecedent of the consequent; and contrarily, the consequent of the antecedent, when the like consequences have been observed before: and the oftener they have been observed, the less uncertain is the sign. And therefore he that has most experience in any kind of business has most signs whereby to guess at the future time, and consequently is the most prudent: and so much more prudent than he that is new in that kind of business, as not to be equalled by any advantage of natural and extemporary wit, though perhaps many young men think the contrary.
Two things, one a simple mythical creature, one a group of complex thoughts about experience, with no relation:
One word.
Or are they completely separate?
Or do they intersect?
Here maybe.
On 9 November 3013 the United States Navy will launch and christen CVN 78, The USS Gerald R. Ford.
This will mark the beginning of a new class of aircraft carriers that will be in service for the next 94 years. With exception of the hull, virtually everything has been redesigned to make the Ford class more capable and more powerful than in the Nimitz class. This new class of carrier will build on the legendary performance of the Nimitz class carriers and will provide 25 percent more combat capability, increased service life margins throughout the ship to handle the aircraft and weapon systems of the future including unmanned aircraft and futuristic directed energy weapons, as well as driving down the total ownership cost of the ship by $4 billion over its 50 year service.
The ship’s island is smaller and moved farther aft than on the Nimitz class and that there are no rotating antennas on atop the island. This is because CVN 78 will be the first ship to get the new dual-band radar that operates with phased array radars similar to AEGIS.
The smaller island and its location farther aft also provides for more flight deck space that combined with new weapons elevators and a NASCAR pit stop refueling concept will allow us to rearm and refuel aircraft faster to turn them around for the next mission. The net result is a 25 percent increase in sortie generation rate as compared to a Nimitz class carrier.
Continue reading CVN 78
I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast;
for I intend to go in harm’s way.
Captain John Paul Jones, USN
Related articles
- A Brief History: USS Nimitz (navalforce.wordpress.com)
- Time capsule welded into Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier (wtkr.com)
