Noise: Picking Out Today's Necessary Signals from Deafening, Crackling Amplifications

More than fifty years ago, I wrote a chapter in my doctoral thesis that bore a remarkably simple title:

"Noise."

At the time, I was a young OAS Research Fellow of a physicist immersed in the world of instrumentation, oscillometry, and the difficult art of measurement. Three years of research eventually yielded three peer-reviewed papers in J Phys E and contributed to the development of inductive oscillometry. Yet, of all the chapters in that work, the one that has remained most vividly in my memory is the chapter I diligently wrote on noise in inherently analogue (not digital) systems.

That may seem odd.

Most people think of noise as an annoyance: something unwanted, something to be filtered out. Scientists know better.

Noise is often--but not always--the greatest obstacle standing between observation and understanding.

An instrument may be exquisitely designed. A phenomenon may be real and measurable. Yet the signal carrying the truth can be weak, while the surrounding noise is powerful. The challenge is not merely to collect more data. The challenge is to distinguish what matters from what distracts.

Half a century later, I find myself returning to that lesson with increasing urgency.

The challenge facing Jamaica is not merely to collect more information.

We are drenched and nigh unto drowning in information from which we discern little.

We have reports, commissions, studies, conferences, consultants, experts, social media commentators, podcasts, talk shows, press releases, strategic plans, ministerial sectoral debate presentations, webinars, billioneerers, captured Cabinets, influencers, and endless streams of digital commentary.

Yet despite possessing more information than any previous generation of Jamaicans, we often seem less capable of identifying the signals that truly matter.

The problem is not ignorance.

The problem is noise.

Consider education.

Every year we debate examination results, school rankings, pass rates, prestige, Quiz, and institutional reputations. The arguments are loud and emotionally charged.

But are these the signals?

Or are they merely amplifications?

The signal may lie elsewhere: in literacy.

A child who cannot read fluently by the age of nine is already being placed at a severe disadvantage in mathematics, science, history, geography, engineering, and technology.

The signal may lie in access to books.

The signal may lie in functioning school and community libraries.

The signal may lie in attendance rates, teacher quality, parental engagement, and CARICOM-wide reading culture.

Yet these deeper signals are often overwhelmed by the noise generated by examination statistics and what are essentially red-herring, tom-fool institutional competitions.

The same pattern appears in higher education.

Universities proudly advertise programmes, campuses, rankings, "international centers" and partnerships.

But the signal is much simpler.

What can graduates actually do?

Can they solve problems?

Can they think critically?

Can they communicate clearly?

Can they innovate?

Can they build productive enterprises?

Can they create jobs?

Can they improve society?

Those are signals.

Picking out signals : 'The future of Jamaica may depend upon recovering precisely this discipline.' Credit: DAM-Commissioned AI Image

Everything else is amplification.

The same principle applies to energy policy.

Announcements are made.

Ceremonies are held.

Overviews, high and low, are featured.

Press releases are distributed.

Grand visions are unveiled.

Yet the signal remains stubbornly practical.

Are households receiving reliable electricity?

Can businesses compete internationally?

Is the system resilient against storms, cyberattacks, earthquakes, and equipment failures?

Let's face it: Are the prescriptions "RIOC FOAK SMRs"(Risky-In-Our-Context First-Of-A-Kind Small Modular Reactors),

What to do with wretched forever dangerously ionizing nuclear wastes?

Are costs declining or accelerating frightfully according to the IEEFA?

What does the Levelized Cost of Energy (or Levelized Cost of Electricity) mean?

Since the publication of David Schlissel's February 2022 IEEFA report warning that NuScale's Small Modular Reactor programme was "too late, too expensive, too risky and too uncertain," and given the subsequent cancellation of the company's flagship U.S. deployment project after its projected capital cost had escalated from approximately US$3.6 billion to US$9.3 billion before cancellation, what new evidence has emerged to persuade Jamaican policymakers that SMRs are now suitable for a small-island developing state?

What analyses have been conducted comparing the full lifecycle costs, operational risks, insurance requirements, waste-management obligations, foreign-dependency implications, grid-integration challenges, decommissioning liabilities, and long-term energy-security implications of SMRs against Jamaica's indigenous renewable-energy resources, energy-efficiency opportunities, battery-storage technologies, demand-management strategies, and potential regional interconnection options?

Absent such evidence, on what basis are public institutions continuing to devote noisy attention, tax-payers' good money, and institutional credibility to a technology whose commercial viability remains unproven and whose most prominent North American deployment effort failed despite years of promotion, regulatory support, and escalating investment?

A view of a model of a NuScale Small Modular Reactor before cancellation. (Credit: Environmental Working Group - https://shorturl.at/960RQ)

Has government yet picked up the signal that :

NuScale received substantial US federal support through DOE (Department of Energy) cost-share programmes for SMR design, licensing and commercialization, plus up to US$1.4 billion for its first Idaho deployment project, with municipal utilities sharing risks that private investors largely avoided before long foreseen cancellation?

Will the following rigorously fact-checked US Government summary figures signal a time to step on the brakes and bring the sad SMR episode to a permanent STOP and park on Jamaica's little road-side before we have to call upon many wreckers?

Concise US Department of Energy (DOE) Summary

Funding Source	Approximate Value	Purpose
DOE SMR Licensing Support Programme	Up to US$217–226 million	Design certification, licensing, engineering, commercialization of NuScale SMRs
Broader DOE SMR support	Hundreds of millions of dollars	Advanced reactor development and commercialization activities
DOE CFPP Cost-Share Award	Up to US$1.35–1.4 billion	Reduce first-of-a-kind deployment risk for NuScale’s Idaho project
Municipal Utility Participation (UAMPS)	Ratepayer-backed commitments	Project development and power purchase commitments

Is Jamaica's productivity, workforce discipline, and industrial safety record signalling profound improvement?

An electrical grid—let alone a nuclear power plant—does not respond to speeches, press releases, ministerial optimism, or political aspirations.

It responds to engineering excellence, rigorous operational discipline, and the continuous availability of highly trained technicians and engineers capable of identifying, diagnosing, and correcting problems on the spot, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

It also depends upon a robust and exceptionally reliable external electricity supply for critical auxiliary systems, instrumentation, controls, communications, cooling, maintenance, and emergency operations.

Power systems are indifferent to rhetoric. They respond only to competence, redundancy, maintenance, safety culture, and measurable operational performance.

Before Jamaica contemplates the extraordinary technical and institutional demands of nuclear power, a legitimate question must first be asked:

Do our current productivity, workforce reliability, industrial safety, maintenance, and operational performance indicators demonstrate sustained excellence at the level required for such a technology?

If we cannot consistently achieve world-class performance in the operation and maintenance of the systems we already possess, on what evidence should Jamaicans conclude that we are prepared to operate one of the most demanding technologies ever developed by modern civilisation?

What about healthcare?

Billions may be spent.

Projects may be launched.

Buildings may be renovated.

Yet patients ask only a few essential questions.

Can I obtain timely treatment?

Can I access competent care?

Will the medicines be available?

Will crucial scanning equipment be in the public hospital and functional?

Will my loved ones be treated with dignity?

Those are the signals.

Everything else is noise.

Signal vs noise: building a better Jamaica (Credit: DAM-Commissioned AI Image)

Governance itself is increasingly vulnerable to the same confusion.

Modern societies have become extraordinarily skilled at indiscriminate amplification.

Political systems amplify narratives.

Social media amplifies outrage.

Public relations amplifies appearances.

Bureaucracies amplify procedures.

Partisans amplify loyalties.

Interest groups amplify slogans.

News organisations amplify controversy.

Yet none of these necessarily amplifies truth.

In fact, amplification often obscures truth.

A vanishingly weak and transient signal may contain immense significance.

A loud noise may contain almost none.

Physicists learn this lesson early.

 A physicist spending years studying noise in the dead of night in an instrumentation laboratory of his own OAS-funded design.

A detector does not become more intelligent simply because it receives more input from the Walton-Morant licensee..

Understanding emerges only when meaningful signals can be distinguished from irrelevant interference.

Nations face the same challenge.

This observation carries an important lesson for Jamaican young people.

Many of our brightest students have been trained to become excellent consumers of information.

Far fewer have been trained to become discoverers of signal.

The future belongs to those who can distinguish between the two.

When confronted by a social problem, ask:

What is the signal?

When evaluating a public policy, ask:

What is the signal?

When examining a claim made by a politician, a commentator, a corporation, a university, or even an artificial intelligence system, ask:

What is the signal?

Where is the evidence?

What outcomes can be measured?

What realities can be verified?

What assumptions are being amplified?

What facts are being obscured?

These questions are not merely intellectual exercises.

They are tools of citizenship.

Indeed, they are tools of civilisation.

Every major advance in human progress has depended upon our ability to separate signal from noise.

Science advances when researchers identify genuine patterns hidden within confusion.

Photo 51 and the discovery of DNA's structure via X-ray diffraction work at King’s College London (Credit: Dr Rosalind Franklin, King's College London) https://www.kcl.ac.uk/photo-51-and-the-discovery-of-dna

Engineering advances when measurements become reliable.

Medicine advances when evidence triumphs over superstition.

Surgery solves by studying and perfecting more than suturing and resection dexterity.

Democracy advances when facts overcome propaganda.

Education advances when learning overcomes credentialism.

Economic growth advances when productivity overcomes rhetoric.

The future of Jamaica may depend upon recovering precisely this discipline.

Not more information.

Not more commentary.

Not more amplification.

Better discernment.

Fifty years ago, a physicist in his early twenties spent years studying noise in the dead of night in an instrumentation laboratory of his own OAS-funded design.

T&TEC power-line bacchanal and random ionic excitements couldn't get near mi clean-clean meter responses.

Today, an older Jamaican observes a nation confronting a remarkably similar challenge.

The instruments have changed.

The principle has not.

The signals are still there.

The question is whether we possess the wisdom, courage, and discipline to recognise them.

And having recognised them, whether we possess the character to act.

by Dennis A. Minott, PhD.

June 6, 2026

Dennis Minott, PhD, is the CEO of A-QuEST-FAIR. He is a multilingual green resources specialist, a research physicist, and a modest mathematician who worked in the oil and energy sector. Send feedback to: a_quest57@yahoo.com