Fine. You can re-read my post as well since I never suggested you made any comparisions of the Special and General theories, (I did that), or even that Einstein was unusual even among geniuses. Where I really disagree is that
"There was no work that it [the Special Theory] built upon. Einstein's theory of special relativity is completely original, without need of references."
That Einstein chose not to credit others in his 1905 paper may be a result of his inexperience at that time in publication of scientific work. I have before me his "Ideas and Opinions", (English translation), 7th printing Crown Publishers, Inc. and on page 230 I find:
The special theory of relativity, which was a simply systematic development of the electrodynamics of Maxwell and Lorentz, pointed beyond itself, however.
The reference here is, of course, to the General Theory.
Although Eintein's theories were never patented I think there is some relevence to patent issues here. I am suggesting that discoveries and inventions are to varying degree extentions of prior work by others, (who might not be credited), and tend to come along when the state of knowledge is ripe for them. Even an exceptional genius accelerates the process only marginally. It would be wrong, therefore, to think of patents as a useful reward for individual brilliance as opposed to simple rewarding of investment of time, money and effort by a series of contributors, (not all of whom will receive the economic benefit).
Aspects of special relativity were already recognized before publication of the 1905 paper. These include the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction formulas, the invariance of the speed of light in Maxwell's equations and various philosophical musings by Poincare. I am convinced that if Einstein had not developed the Special theory others soon would have, perhaps in another five to ten years. The more formidable acheivement is the General Theory and that too has a certain mathematical inevitability about it.
isn't that the point of an operating system, to be able to run applications on it?
Yes, but Windows is no longer an operating system if it ever was. Personally I have always thought of it as more of a cartoon show. MS has injected loads of application DNA into the OS kernal and associated libs making it a kind of transgenic monstrosity -- a new thing neither OS nor app, (or app suite). The legal prohibition in the license is a perfectly logical adjunct to the technical/engineering campaign to absorb all applications into the "operating system" thereby locking out anything not MS.
The really dumb AOLers will stick with AOL and its browser because they don't know how to use anything else. The somewhat smarter ones will fire up IE, (so conveniently bundled into Windows for them by MS), as needed, but stick with AOL as their ISP -- no real loss for AOL either way.
Re:Wrong "Two Types Of Invention"
on
Patent Nonsense
·
· Score: 1
Trying to identify separate categories of invention in this way is unquestionably a step in the right direction. What's missing is good data to quantify the analysis. As is so often the case, the basic problem is that history is not a controlled experiment. We must make do with such separate cases as arise by historical accident. This is what the Gardian article attempts to do.
As an additional factor which I have not seen mentioned here: not all invention is commercial, we must also take account of government, academic and philantropic R&D as sources of inventions that might not occur without patent protection.
Supposing that they had their own vision of what a browser should be, yes it would have been a big loss for them.
As for that "vast majority of computer users" argument, wouldn't that mean that MS should have stuck to it's knitting and let Netscape alone when that was the leading browser?
You must be relatively new to computing if you think MS created the industry. Do you also think Al Gore invented the Internet?
Hving been in this field for 31 years, I can confirm what MrIcee has to say.
The first IBM PC came with two floppy disk drives, no hard disk. and diskettes for three operating systems; PCDOS, UCSD Pascal and DRDOS. So how long did it take to boot a useable operating system from a 5.25" diskette on a machine with a 4.77 MHz 8088? I don't have a reference but my memory tells me it that it was on the order of half a minute. The bloat engineered by MS since then boggles my mind
Launch a probe out toward an especially empty region of space
with a long lasting nuclear power source, sensitve highly
directional receivers pointed toward Earth and powerful
transmitters, also pointed toward Earth. Begin transmitting
all data selected for long term preservation toward the probe
which will then simply echo it back. Send the echoed data
back to the probe along with new data. The further out the
probe goes the more data is stored in the signals in transit.
About the time Jobs was looking for financing to NeXT I was working in the fledging desktop computers division of Canon U.S.A., the American subsidiary of the Japanese camera and copier maker. The divison had emerged from a modestly successful programmable calculator business and was trying to become established in the IBM PC compatible business. I was the top programming specialist on board at the time. One day the Vice President in charge of the division asked me what I thought of the NeXT system. Partly on the strenght of good things I had read about the Carnegie-Mellon developed *nix micro-kernal, partly on account of my admiration for the Motorola chips available at that time, but mostly due to Job's reputation as an entraprenuer I predicted success for the product. About six months later I learned that Canon had become the largest single investor in NeXT. This was my first, (also the last), experience I had with the feeling of nerd power. Too bad it didn't work out.
Neither did Canon's PC ambitions. I told them before I left that they would fail due to being
insufficiently compatible with the IBM PC. That
was too bad too.
Re:does this break the theory of relativity?
on
Stop, Light.
·
· Score: 1
if you were IN the same media, you still wouldn't be able to go faster than light.
While you are entirely correct about Maxwell's equations, I believe you are mistaken on that final point. Particles can, indeed, exceed the speed of light in mediums other than vacuum. When charged particles do this they emit Cherenkov radiation.
Here is a link:
http://rd11.web.cern.ch/RD11/rkb/PH14pp/node26.htm l
Re:Acceleration and Special Relativity...
on
E=MC
·
· Score: 1
Thank you for clearing this up. Without benefit of a text
explaining how it could be done I had suspected that
SR, as presented in simplified form, could be generalized
to handle acceleration. A statement you make, however,
addresses a matter that still has me scratching my head.
gravity is not a force (in the GR picture it results from
an extremum path in spacetime)
On several "ask the expert" type physics boards I posted
a query saying almost exactly that, (did I err in using
"geodesic" rather than "extremum path"), and went on to
wonder if there could really be a quantum theory of a
pseudo-force. I know that the search is on for a quantum
theory of gravity, but is it possible that there is actually
no such thing? So far, nobody has had a reply for me.
I would rather see Ender's game done as animation rather than not at all. When I read this novel I immediately realized it would make a wonderful movie if the problem of needing around 30 or so very young child stars could be worked out. The training scenes make for great special effects opportunities. I do NOT see that much of the story is in Ender's head.
I have only had time for a quick skim, but one impression that
that I get immediately is that most of the facts presented as
evidence in defense of software patents are actually double edged
and can easily be interpreted as documenting the flaws and failures
of software patents.
Opponents of software patents alledge that
instead of protecting actual innovators the system benefits large
corporations with the will and resources to use patent suits for
legal extortion. Those corporations with large patent portfolios
and legal staff will readily pay royalties to one another as there
is little net loss to any of them and these settlements provide
evidence in support of the validity of their patents. This then
can be used when suing smaller entities which can more easily be
intimidated. How then are are we to consider the following as a
defence
of software patents:
5. Where similar-size companies had a dispute, they settled differences quickly without litigation.
The only patent dispute between similar sized companies (XyQuest) was settled readily.
No small entities were faced with a lawsuit brought by a large
entity without the advantage of the patentholder having settled earlier with a large infringer.
That is but one of many examples of the double edged quality
of the arguments made in the cited article.
It is my conjecture that the US patent office, and every other
national patent office, will pretend that obvious is nonobvious
and old is new out of fear that if they don't grant an unworthy
patent first somebody in another country will get an international
patent on the same absurdly obvious non-novel idea. If anybody,
therefore, is going to collect undeserved royalties better us
than them.
I actually think that the pharmaceutical industry is one area
where the patent system actually works. We can see this by the
phenominal successses that it has seen in the last century
We do not have a controlled experiment for this. there is no
patent exempt, but otherwise similar, pharmaceutical industry
to compare against.
The drug wouldn't exist at all if the companies hadn't developed
it. Which means that we would all be in a much worse situation, yes?
You have no way to know if the drug would not exist in the absence of
patents. we
can
verify from history that some drugs have been discovered
and marketed before patents existed.
Considering the
advances we have made this century, and that are being made every day, it doesn't seem to be doing to badly, does it?
There are reasons to believe that the recent functioning of the patent system is much more damaging than it had been for most of the century.
We now have "software patents" and "business methods patents" while most older patents applied to physically realizable mechanisms or materials.
Also it seems that the patent office is now willing to accept that an idea is "novel" if one of the janitors working in the building hasn't heard of it before.
An inventor too poor in capital to exploit his invention directly
is free to approach potential partners under terms of non-disclosure.
This is protection of the inventor's interest via a private contract,
not a patent.
If the idea truly requires much development and assembling of
resources to exploit then the originator will have the natural
advantage of a significant head start and perhaps deserves no
more than that.
If the idea is so easy to copy that others can very quickly bring
a competitive idea to market after the inventor's version becomes
public then maybe it was not such a brilliant idea after all and
does not deserve the benefit of a legal monopoly.
The basic question which needs to be addressed, not begged, is:
How do we know when the natural commercial advantages that accrue
to an originator, however large or small, are insufficient and
must therefore be supplemented by a legal device such as a patent?
As for Thomas Jefferson, he was approaching the issue of IP from
the standpoint of moral philosophy, not economics -- and even if
he was agruing economics what does his personal finances have to
do with it? Would you have us believe that Bill Gates is a better
economist that Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson and all the other
Nobel Prize winning economists put together because he is wealthier
than they?
Re:Hope no one here will be next NASA admin
on
Going Up?
·
· Score: 1
at Cornell they taught me that if you move an electrically-conductive
material through a magnetic field, an electric current is induced in the
material.
I learned that in high school, but standards have probably slipped
since then. Unless I miss my guess, the Earth's magnetic field rotates
along with the Earth. If it did not, then why wait for a beanstalk? --
just use any old metal tower right here on the surface to get all those
megawatts of free power.
Perhaps some fluctuations in the magnetic field, as would be caused
by variations in the Solar wind, may supply some power around the
upper end of the beanstalk, but it would not be steady and might not
amount to much.
Even if the power thing doesn't pan out, though, I agree that the
beanstalk/sky-hook/tether idea is worth the research.
The parts of the cable at all the elevations below the
geosynchronus level would not be in "orbit" at all. If
they were they would not have weight and tensile strenght
would not be a problem. The weight of the cable is a
problem precisely because all the lower lenght of it is
not in orbit and has weight.
The cable would not have to cope with sideways shear
except that cause by wind. The surface of the Earth
is far above its gravitational center, is there a shear
at the surface or at the top of tall buildings? No,
of course not. The cable would hang vertically - no
gimp.
My situation is similar to yours. Comcast FINALLY called to offer me a comcast@home connection, but it was one way, (download), only. I would still have to use my phone line for the uplink. They wanted me to pay the same montly fee as for the two way service being offered elsewhere. I told them to forget it. I'll get by with my (nominally), 56K modem connection until the REAL service arrives.
That you and your friends have discussed this subject at lenght shows. Your post deserves to be moded up.
You should also consider that at the time that the EC was invented there were no states like California with 54, (yes 54 is correct), EC votes to throw around. The "extra" two votes and the advantage they confered on small states meant more then. I think that thanks to the winner-take-all rule now used by all states except Nebraska and Maine the advantage has swung back to the big states. Consider the current election as proof.
The popular vote is, in percentage terms, practically 50/50. Gore won mostly big states. With the notable exception of his home state of Texas, Bush won mainly small states. Would you guess from the foregoing that Bush would have an electoral vote lead thanks to the small state electoral vote advantage? Uh-huh: with Florida, (a big state), still not in the count Gore leads Bush 255 to 246 EC votes. This shows how powerfully the winner-take-all rule works to the advantage of big states.
The color "Bleen" is not a color between blue and green, (that would be blue-green). Bleen was invented as a partner to "Grue" as part of a logical conundrum. As I recall, (this may not be exact), an object is bleen if it is blue until some arbitrary future date, say Jan 1 2001, and green thereafter. An object is Grue if it is green until that date and blue thereafter.
Slashdot Mirror
The reference here is, of course, to the General Theory.
Although Eintein's theories were never patented I think there is some relevence to patent issues here. I am suggesting that discoveries and inventions are to varying degree extentions of prior work by others, (who might not be credited), and tend to come along when the state of knowledge is ripe for them. Even an exceptional genius accelerates the process only marginally. It would be wrong, therefore, to think of patents as a useful reward for individual brilliance as opposed to simple rewarding of investment of time, money and effort by a series of contributors, (not all of whom will receive the economic benefit).
Aspects of special relativity were already recognized before publication of the 1905 paper. These include the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction formulas, the invariance of the speed of light in Maxwell's equations and various philosophical musings by Poincare. I am convinced that if Einstein had not developed the Special theory others soon would have, perhaps in another five to ten years. The more formidable acheivement is the General Theory and that too has a certain mathematical inevitability about it.
http://mb.sparknotes.com/mb.epl?b=991&m=260827&
Yes, but Windows is no longer an operating system if it ever was. Personally I have always thought of it as more of a cartoon show. MS has injected loads of application DNA into the OS kernal and associated libs making it a kind of transgenic monstrosity -- a new thing neither OS nor app, (or app suite). The legal prohibition in the license is a perfectly logical adjunct to the technical/engineering campaign to absorb all applications into the "operating system" thereby locking out anything not MS.
The really dumb AOLers will stick with AOL and its browser because they don't know how to use anything else. The somewhat smarter ones will fire up IE, (so conveniently bundled into Windows for them by MS), as needed, but stick with AOL as their ISP -- no real loss for AOL either way.
Trying to identify separate categories of invention in this way is unquestionably a step in the right direction. What's missing is good data to quantify the analysis. As is so often the case, the basic problem is that history is not a controlled experiment. We must make do with such separate cases as arise by historical accident. This is what the Gardian article attempts to do.
As an additional factor which I have not seen mentioned here: not all invention is commercial, we must also take account of government, academic and philantropic R&D as sources of inventions that might not occur without patent protection.
I believe the sequence is Embrace .. Extend .. Extinguish.
Supposing that they had their own vision of what a browser should be, yes it would have been a big loss for them.
As for that "vast majority of computer users" argument, wouldn't that mean that MS should have stuck to it's knitting and let Netscape alone when that was the leading browser?
You must be relatively new to computing if you think MS created the industry. Do you also think Al Gore invented the Internet?
Hving been in this field for 31 years, I can confirm what MrIcee has to say.
The first IBM PC came with two floppy disk drives, no hard disk. and diskettes for three operating systems; PCDOS, UCSD Pascal and DRDOS. So how long did it take to boot a useable operating system from a 5.25" diskette on a machine with a 4.77 MHz 8088? I don't have a reference but my memory tells me it that it was on the order of half a minute. The bloat engineered by MS since then boggles my mind
Neither did Canon's PC ambitions. I told them before I left that they would fail due to being insufficiently compatible with the IBM PC. That was too bad too.
Here is a link:
http://rd11.web.cern.ch/RD11/rkb/PH14pp/node26.htm l
url: http://www.msnbc.com/news/default.asp
I would rather see Ender's game done as animation rather than not at all. When I read this novel I immediately realized it would make a wonderful movie if the problem of needing around 30 or so very young child stars could be worked out. The training scenes make for great special effects opportunities. I do NOT see that much of the story is in Ender's head.
Opponents of software patents alledge that instead of protecting actual innovators the system benefits large corporations with the will and resources to use patent suits for legal extortion. Those corporations with large patent portfolios and legal staff will readily pay royalties to one another as there is little net loss to any of them and these settlements provide evidence in support of the validity of their patents. This then can be used when suing smaller entities which can more easily be intimidated. How then are are we to consider the following as a defence of software patents:
That is but one of many examples of the double edged quality of the arguments made in the cited article.
Does anyone have a better explanation?
We do not have a controlled experiment for this. there is no patent exempt, but otherwise similar, pharmaceutical industry to compare against. You have no way to know if the drug would not exist in the absence of patents. we can verify from history that some drugs have been discovered and marketed before patents existed.
If the idea truly requires much development and assembling of resources to exploit then the originator will have the natural advantage of a significant head start and perhaps deserves no more than that.
If the idea is so easy to copy that others can very quickly bring a competitive idea to market after the inventor's version becomes public then maybe it was not such a brilliant idea after all and does not deserve the benefit of a legal monopoly.
The basic question which needs to be addressed, not begged, is: How do we know when the natural commercial advantages that accrue to an originator, however large or small, are insufficient and must therefore be supplemented by a legal device such as a patent?
As for Thomas Jefferson, he was approaching the issue of IP from the standpoint of moral philosophy, not economics -- and even if he was agruing economics what does his personal finances have to do with it? Would you have us believe that Bill Gates is a better economist that Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson and all the other Nobel Prize winning economists put together because he is wealthier than they?
The parts of the cable at all the elevations below the geosynchronus level would not be in "orbit" at all. If they were they would not have weight and tensile strenght would not be a problem. The weight of the cable is a problem precisely because all the lower lenght of it is not in orbit and has weight. The cable would not have to cope with sideways shear except that cause by wind. The surface of the Earth is far above its gravitational center, is there a shear at the surface or at the top of tall buildings? No, of course not. The cable would hang vertically - no gimp.
My situation is similar to yours. Comcast FINALLY called to offer me a comcast@home connection, but it was one way, (download), only. I would still have to use my phone line for the uplink. They wanted me to pay the same montly fee as for the two way service being offered elsewhere. I told them to forget it. I'll get by with my (nominally), 56K modem connection until the REAL service arrives.
You should also consider that at the time that the EC was invented there were no states like California with 54, (yes 54 is correct), EC votes to throw around. The "extra" two votes and the advantage they confered on small states meant more then. I think that thanks to the winner-take-all rule now used by all states except Nebraska and Maine the advantage has swung back to the big states. Consider the current election as proof. The popular vote is, in percentage terms, practically 50/50. Gore won mostly big states. With the notable exception of his home state of Texas, Bush won mainly small states. Would you guess from the foregoing that Bush would have an electoral vote lead thanks to the small state electoral vote advantage? Uh-huh: with Florida, (a big state), still not in the count Gore leads Bush 255 to 246 EC votes. This shows how powerfully the winner-take-all rule works to the advantage of big states.
The color "Bleen" is not a color between blue and green, (that would be blue-green). Bleen was invented as a partner to "Grue" as part of a logical conundrum. As I recall, (this may not be exact), an object is bleen if it is blue until some arbitrary future date, say Jan 1 2001, and green thereafter. An object is Grue if it is green until that date and blue thereafter.