Slashdot Mirror
Introducing Probability into Chip Design
prostoalex writes "The August issue of Intel Developer Update has an interview with Shekhar Borkar, Intel Fellow and Director of Circuit Research at Intel Corp. talking about the future of microprocessor design and what goes on inside Intel Labs. Borkar tells why we need even faster processors and how probability will make its way into future chip designs - "It's like the shift from Newtonian mechanics to quantum mechanics. We will shift from the deterministic designs of today to probabilistic and statistical designs of the future.""
"We will shift from the deterministic designs of today to probabilistic and statistical designs of the future"
Doesn't branch predictions in current processors use probabilities already?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Ummm, but .333 repeating + .333 repeating + .333 repeating does not equal 1. There was a remainder when you divided 1/3 that got thrown out. So your argument is bullshiat.
1 is the canonical representation of 0.9999... in the decimal system. incidentally, it is also the canonical representation of 1.00000...1. just to throw a spanner in the works, what's the largest real number smaller than 1? most folks want to say 0.99999... any mathheads out there who've done calculus or analysis more recently than i want to take a crack at it? (fwiw, i think the supremum of the set of all numbers less than 1 is 1, but the set itself doesn't contain a maximum)
Ummm, but .333 repeating + .333 repeating + .333 repeating does not equal 1
.333... + .333... + .333... = .999...
That's why .999... exactly equals 1. That was the argument. 1/3 * 3 in fraction equals 1, 1/3 * 3 in decimal form must also equal one.
There was a remainder when you divided 1/3 that got thrown out.
What in the name of Gauss are you talking about? Remainder thrown out? No remainders at all...decimals...0.333..., 3 repeats forever. If you kept doing the division, you keep getting 3. Trust me, pal 1/3 exactly equals .333...
It's incredible how much resistance there is by people whenever this is mentioned in a math class...it's a solid argument.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
The supremum of all reals less than one is one. The set itself, as you said, doesn't have a maximum element.
In a not-at-all-patronising way, I'm surprised that this is even up for discussion on
Didn't mean to post right away...
Anyway, the reason is that people have conceptual issues with infinities.
Except when y = infinite (more precisely aleph-0). Who said the sum is a finite sum?
My excellent high school math teacher had explained to me, when I had asked, exactly what is an irrational number?
Numbers like 1/3, such as 0.3333... are rational, because even though they repeat, such numbers are exactly representable by the ratio of two integers.
In fact, any decimal number that can be expressed as the ratio of two integers, is a rational number. Even a number such as...
0.939287357853918724781923498753298235789
is a rational number. It is just
939287357853918724781923498753298235789 divided by 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000.
Similarly, even a long decimal number, with some trailing set of digits repeating, can be expressed as the ratio of two integers.
An irrational number, such as PI, or the square root of 2, can NOT be expressed as the ratio of two integers.
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
I believe the kind of probabalistic computing Intel's talking about is analagous to error correction. On your average data CD about 15% of the bits are redundant and devoted to error correction. This reduces the probability of erroneously reading the CD, although the probability of error is still non-zero. Same deal with ECC memory. I'm guessing Intel is looking at ways to apply that kind of trick to the computational logic.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
No. 0.3333... with some finite number of 3's is going to be less than 1/3.
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
Listen to that guy. He just GETS it.
/. do, and contribute all their mind and skills and time to furthering open-source and other efforts, and that is very commendable.
:)
I am actually, to some extent, inspired by that article. Corporate BS policies aside, whatever you think of Intel or AMD or any other company as a company, as a political entity, or as a producer or consumer goods, you still have to feel good that there are people like that, people that just GET the overriding vision of advancing technology, and are actively working to advance it.
I don't have time advance technology much in my current job. I don't have the mind or the skills or the time for boundary-pushing endeavors. Some at
But as we often lament, it sometimes seems like the Big Boys don't have the same spark. Let's not forget that somewhere within the pudge of even the fattest multinational technology company, there are brilliant, passionate minds working to further everything we hold dear. These are people who aren't just brilliant scientists or passionate geeks -- they're both. And they're on our side.