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The Year in Technology
bedessen writes "It's that time again, when we look back on the year in summary. New Scientist has an article "2002, The Year in Technology", as well as "The Year in Medicine and Biology." Popular Science brings us "The 15th Annual Best of What's New.""
That might be #1 for this decade, yes?
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
This didn't make mention of the huge (and renewed) debate as to whether 1 or 0 is a prime number or not.
At the conference for applied and new mathematics in Melbourne last year there was a huge fervor over this as new evidence came to light.
Basically, from I gather, it's like this:
Technically, neither 1 nor zero is a prime number. It is easiest to see why zero isn't: since a prime number is only divisible by one and itself,
let's find all the divisors of zero.
Well, since 0 x 1 = 0, and 0 x 2 = 0, and 0 x 3 = 0, and so on, all these numbers divide zero, i.e. zero is divisible by every positive integer. So
it isn't a prime number.
As for 1, you might want to call it a prime number, since it really _is_ divisible by only one and itself. But then you run into some problems.
For instance, you may know that every positive integer can be factored into the product of prime numbers, and that there's only one way to do
it for every number. For instance, 280 = 2x2x2x5x7, and there's only one way to factor 280 into prime numbers. But if you let 1 be a prime,
then you can get the following factorizations: 1x1x1x2x2x2x5x7, 1x2x2x2x5x7, and so on. The factorization is no longer unique.
Furthermore, there are a whole bunch of theorems in Number Theory that tell you something about prime numbers. But most of these theorems just flat out ain't true for the number 1. So in light of these facts, we just declare the number 1 to not be a prime.
So that's why we don't WANT 1 to be a prime. Mathematicians have summarized this in a nice neat definition: a prime number is a positive integer which has exactly 2 different positive integers that divide it evenly - no more and no fewer.
I found it kind of funny that this ad (mirror) was displayed at the top of this page when I reloaded it to refresh the comments.
..The vast majority of the world doesn't really give a fsck. ..The final solution of whether one is prime or not will probably lead to a technological revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since the Rennaisance. :p
;)
Physicists? Biogeneticists? Cloning? Those don't scare me.
Mathematicians scare me.
It hasn't been confirmed, so it wouldn't be responsible to put it on the list. The claim is rather dubious. Anyway, there was no technological hurdle which was crossed. Other mammals have been cloned.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
"The endlessly versatile carbon nanotube was then shown also to have an explosive side in April. A laboratory accident revealed that a bundle of carbon nanotubes will explode when exposed to an ordinary camera flash." Just in time for New Years!
Visit here to find out when/how this could be possibly predicted.
"functioning replacement penises were grown from cells in the lab, albeit for mice."
[insert joke here]
They switched the face link with the penis link in the article, not my fault, really! Try this one.
I taught computers to learn nouns and verbs based on visual perception this year. See here for more info.
They can never have too much coffee (caffeine is only good in some professions), and if they run Windows you have an easy-to-win malpractice suit that benifits yourself as well as the open source community!
True, I didn't RTFA but that's what posts are for!
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Purely from computing's perspective, for me it's the arrival of Hperthreading on desktops. Next year, hyperthreading and increase in FSB (800 Mhz!) plus memory bandwidth will truly obsolete a lot of computers.
What do you people do, mod anything up that's over N lines long because you figure it must be true? There is no debate over 1 or 0 as a prime. There was no fervor at a non-existant conference in Melbourne. Stop smoking crack.
Anyone else caught this from the new scientist article?
My word! They make bikinis that size?
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
A prime number is a number that can only be divided by one and itself, one can not "fix" this. I was merely pointing out why 0 and 1 are so special, 11 is not, and therefore can not be "fixed" as you say.
Did you just hear something? That was the sound of the 747 flying over your head, with big letters on it reading "joke". I was making fun of the point that it doesn't matter what we WANT a number to be, it just is what it is. The only difference it would make if the number is officially prime would be that most mathematical proofs that reference prime numbers would have to have a little disclaimer in them saying "all prime numbers (with the exception of 1)..."
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
Same as in the convent.
KFG
a mouse, not a man. . . .
KFG
Sadly, the article on technology describes nothing that can really be described as a breakthrough. There were some more little steps towards quantum computing, but this journey did not start in 2002 and certainly did not reach fruition in 2002.
...
An honest title for the article would have been "No technology breakthroughs in 2002", but that wouldn't have sold any magazines
Oh, give me a clone,
Of my own flesh and bone,
With its Y-chromosome changed to X.
And when it is grown,
Then my own little clone,
Will be of the opposite sex.
KFG
The Slashdot troll of the year is none other than CmdrTaco himsel.
By constantly posting pure troll- and flamebait articles about Microsoft on the front page he has been very successful at getting insane amounts of hits on the web ads.
The charge isn't prosecutable if the arresting officer actually performs the act.
Where you're going to find a nun/cop/prostitute is left as an exercise for the student.
KFG
Wow, (-1, Funny)! Now THAT's a troll!
The author's name linked to this, which was a redirect to goatse.
Buy a couple nun outfits, hire a couple hookers, and get your nun on.
This really never occurred to you?
Look, if my lady doesn't like hockey, I don't expect her to watch it with me. Different people have different interests. It's highly unlikely that you'll marry someone who wants the same things you do in bed.
If I want to get it on with a nun or Wonder Woman or whatever and she's not into that, I can take off and do it with someone else. If she wants to do something I won't do in bed, she's free to do whatever she wants with someone else.
Anything else just leads to resentment.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Heh, just seems like the usual happened. Things were improved, more ideas were thought up, transistors got smaller, Microsoft got dumber, and linux got better. It doesn't seem like anything really remarkable happened this year that would count as a breakthrough. Next year, maybe?
...instead of these articles Salsadot waited and ran a single "year in summary" summary article? You know, like a meta-summary? It would keep my eyes from glazing. :)
--I agree with the editors at popular science, the ibm product is COOL. The modular computing system-at work, it's a desktop, cruising around the core stays with you as a PDA or wearable rig, once home slide it into the laptop. This is a GREAT idea, although the price is medium sucky. I hope the concept catches on and more companies provide similar "modular computing" platforms. Reminds me-same concept-as what I got for Christmas from my girlfriend, a black and decker 12 volt cordless multitool, quite a nifty gadget, has a common battery and electric motor, but you can replace the head for a drill/driver, a jig saw or a sander. Slickness.
how is this a troll?
You forgot the Stephen King is dead troll. Found in this story here: Stephen King is Dead
Youve got to be kidding me. This comment should not have been modded up in the first place.
m l
The message text is at:
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/58723.ht
I remember having a distinctly similar conversation with my third grade teacher when we learned about things like long division and prime numbers.
Red blood flows like a river of ink!!!
Dude. Only dirty GNU hippies ever need hookers to get laid. Hookers carry almost as many diseases as gay people.
i love gay porno, my name is david disque, my email is krisnotes1@aol.com. please email me with as much gay porno as you can, i really cant get enough!
Amazing. The news is, first of all, that a number of ethical cretins are trying to clone a human baby, and next that proposed treatments for serious diseases have failed disastrously, next that a couple of nasty diseases turn out to be more dangerous than expected, and finally that research continues in areas that can not be expected to produce anything to ease suffering for years, if not decades. Where is the good news?
/. posters. Ye gods....!! If this is an indication of how the public reacts to questions of health and science, we are in for a rough century.
Next look at the smartass, off-topic, smutty reactions of lots of
It seems IMHO time to question seriously the basic approach the scientific community is taking toward biomedical research. What, exactly, is the cost/benefit ratio these days?
Further, how sensible is it to buy into the article of faith that all we have to do is continue to pour billions into basic research, expecting that sooner or later we will all lead longer and better lives as a result? It could be that we are wasting tons of money. It would be an excellent idea to re-examine how we allocate scarce resources in the pursuit of knowledge. I'm not a Luddite, but I am very disappointed that our progress has been so slow. Consider, for example, when you last saw any statistics showing how much money has been spent researching cancer (both on basic research and in the development of clinical tools), and how the suvival rates for the disease have changed over the last half-century. I think you don't see these figures because they are grim, indeed.
Maybe thirty years ago a physician told me that childhood leukemia was "almost not fatal any more." Where is it today? "Not fatal?" Are we chasing a will-o'-the-wisp, or have we really got a grip on where we want to go, and how to get there? How uncoordinated and goofy are our efforts? Should we not be further along by now??
My argument is not against science, basic research, or knowledge. It is simply that it would be better--more efficient--if we spent our money more wisely, that is, according to rational plans that consider results and costs when deciding where to put our efforts. Are we in this to learn things, or to save human life? Can we do both? Sometimes it appears that there IS a very real difference between two camps: one pushing for more labs and money for whatever it wants to pursue, the other genuinely concerned with saving lives. Consider:
Long ago the Nixon administration tried to shift funds to the implementation of widespread early detection programs, in the sure knowledge that certain cancers (not all) can be cured if detected when small. The scientific community howled like a stuck pig. Sure, Nixon was a jerk, but his priority was the saving of lives, now. As a result of intensive lobbying, the early detection approach was scrapped, and who knows how many lives have been lost because of that? I could not criticize this if it could be shown that pressing on with expensive basic research had saved even an equivalent number of lives, but I am sure no such result was obtained. Those who argued against Nixon's approach were willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of human beings in order to be able to carry on programs whose results could only be speculated about. I do not call that ethical--it seems more like selfishness, and inhumane selfishness at that.
We ought to have another look, ask some hard questions, and consider whether the scientific establishment has taken the bit in its teeth. Poor results for 2001 are a hint that I might be right.
The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums.
It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish.
You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages.
-- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul
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