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The Future of Optical Fibre
An anonymous reader writes "An Australian researcher has come up with a novel way of developing optical fibres. Steven Manos, a researcher at the Optical Fibre Technology Centre in Sydney, Australia has developed a method of using genetic algorithims for discovering optimal designs of optical fibres. An article on his work had this to say "The problem with designing optical fibres is starting with a specific set of criteria and then coming up with a design to fit this. The computer program developed by Manos, which is run on supercomputers, does this by mimicking the process of evolution. The computer program combines two patterns to create a third fibre 'offspring', which Manos described as "similar but a bit different". This process is repeated thousands of times with the 10 designs best suited for the particular application chosen to 'breed' again." Another case of "When in doubt, use brute force"?"
I'd rather not think of the method as brute force. Ok, its not like a design from first principles, but its still way to search the parameter space without having to test all coimbinations of parameters
..as they don't search the state space exhaustively. Going through all possible combinations of parameters would be brute force, but in this case, as the parameters are real-valued, this is even impossible (if ignoring the possibility of quantisation)
Evolutionary Algorithms provide informed search as they perform competition among the individuals (each representing one possible solution) in the population. Their performance is way above exhaustive search techniques (which _are_ brute force) but below classical search techniques. In this case, however, such classical techniques cannot be applied as the problem space is not well-defined.
Another case of "When in doubt, use brute force"?"
No, Taco, No.
From the 'brute force' entry in Wikipedia:
In computer science, Brute Force, sometimes called the Naive Method, is a term used to refer to the simplest, most intuitive, most spontaneous, and usually most inefficient methods of accomplishing a task.
This is exactly what a genetic algorhthem is not. If you have a million numbers brute force would be to go from the first to the last in order. Using a genetic algorhythem provides a shortcut though Design Space wherein you need to try far fewer combinations in order to come to a successful result.
C'mon Taco, of all people, you should know this!
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Well, actually lot's of algorithms exist for designing optical fiber, and they do it efficiently and very accurately. I use a number of in house proprietary programs for designing optical fibers all the time. And I can tell you we don't waste time messing around with GA's
So why don't you hear a great deal about such algorithms? Well, for one, they don't have cool names like "Genetic Algorithms". Also, they are highly prized and considered extremely valuable intellectual property for the companies that actually make optical fiber. We are not going to publicise all the details the most fundamental design tools of our business.
GA's are not the future of optical fiber. They are, however, excellent for generating academic papers, which in turn are highly useful for getting tenure.
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