By Keith Devlin @KeithDevlin@fediscience.org, @profkeithdevlin.bsky.social  Artistic interpretation of Archimedes' mirror used to burn Roman ships. Painting by  Giulio Parigi , c. 1599 [J]ust recently, people were saying that today’s warfare was a confrontation of technologies. Today, I have already heard our participants in combat operations saying that today’s warfare is a “war of mathematicians.” Who said that? The answer is given towards the end of my post. In my previous post , I discussed the ethical issues I grappled with, starting back in 2001, when, shortly after the September 11 airplane terrorist attack on New York City’s World Trade Center (the “Twin Towers”) and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., I was invited to join a multi-year research project funded by the US National Security Agency. The goal was to find ways to improve defense intelligence analysis. That goal was a laudable one, and I had no problem signing up.…