Mars's gravity well helps you land... an asteroid is a much harder target to land on. Mar's graivty makes it more difficult to leave Mars, but it's been shown that propellant can be made on Mars for a return trip, so it still costs less to do a round trip to and from Mars.
As far as near Earth asteroids that are easier to get to than Mars, name one. Asteroids take more fuel and take longer flight times.
Besides, asteroids are small enough to explore fully with robotic craft. Mars is a whole big planet so it makes sense to establish a base there to explore it. Landing on an asteroid is just a flag-planting mission.
Sorry, finite != countable, rather finite == bounded, and somthing can be bounded and not countable... either way finite != discrete.
Anyway, I'm not a physicist, and I'm not a mathematician so I don't understand your bijective set stuff...
From Webster,
Finite \Fi"nite\, a. [L. finitus, p. p. of finire. See Finish, and cf. Fine, a.]
Having a limit; limited in quantity, degree, or capacity; bounded; -- opposed to infinite; as, finite number; finite existence; a finite being; a finite mind; finite duration.
But shouldn't a discrete number of states of the universe (!= entropy, 'cos there should be states with the same entropy) imply discrete space and time ? Why should time and space be discrete ?
finite means 'countable', discrete means 'in distinct parts' Something can be finite but not discrete, such as the distance between two points in classical physics. Saying that entropy is finite at a given time says nothing about space and time being discrete.... however, it does imply that space is finite.
Of course, calling states 'quantum states' specifies that they are discrete. In modern thermodynamics molecules can only be in certain discrete quantum states and entropy is a measure of the number of quatum states. This theory manages to explain phase changes in matter by new sets of quantum states becoming available... neat stuff.
A closed system's entropy cannot decrease because the random motion of large numbers of molecules will quickly fill newly available states and these states cannot be removed if there are molecules in them. If Wolfram has some new insight into randomness he may have found a way for a system to abandon these quantum states and decrease its entropy... which would be neat if true.
sorry... I'm a little bitter as I'm working on a paper now... or rather I should be instead of reading slashdot.
Peer-review has its uses, especially in filtering out crack-pots with perpetual motion machines. That said, its not the only way or the best way to publish, especially if you have something that is as new and revolutionary as Wolfram claims. He's got enough information for people to reproduce his results, so he's not a crank... he just might be wrong.
I've gone through peer-review several times and it's mostly an exercise of massaging the egos of people in the field who are 'respected' just for being in the field for so long and who haven't really produced anything new in their lauded carreers. You go through a ton of busywork making sure you have the right damn font and you have all of the right people referenced (whehter or not you actually used their papers) and you get paid nothing, the journal takes your copyright and charges you $10 to make fair use copies of your own damn paper.
In academia, if you have a good idea someone will steal it, if you have a great idea they will dismiss you without listening to it. If you don't believe me, look into whether or not Watson and Crick _really_ discovered the structure of DNA or if it was a grad student who's ideas they orginally dismissed.
In academia there's this absurd notion that if someone understands your explanation of a new idea that they somehow helped you come up with it.
So Bravo to Wolfram for thumbing his nose at academia! I just hope he can back it up.
the number of quantum states are finite
on
A New Kind of Science
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
We were discussing this at work yesterday. As some of my collegues were quick to point out, this is all most likely toss. For cellular automata to be relevant you'd have to assume the universe has a finite number of 'states'. Quantum physics currently is pretty certain it is not.
From the review, wolfram claims to have addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division... with these he can generate all rational numbers... plus he claims to be able to generate trancendental numbers like pi, that seems to imply that he can make all real numbers. I haven't read the book, but I see nothing in the review that would preclude these methods from describing an infinite number of quantum states or even a continuum of states.
By the way, saying that the universe has an infinite number of quantum states is basically just saying that there is no maximum entropy for the universe. (the entropy of a system is a measure of the number of quantum states in a system). However some cosmologies have a 'big crunch' ending the universe which would imply some maximum entropy and therefore a finite number of quantum states in the universe.
What is clear (from the Big Bang theory) is that there currently is a finite number of quantum states in the universe that is increasing with time. That is, the universe currently has some finite entropy that we can assign a number to and that entropy is increasing with time. The entropy is finite because the universe had a set beginning where the entropy was zero (if the universe didn't exist, it didn't have any quantum states).
There are theories other than the big bang (like steady state cosmology) that have no fixed beginning to the universe. However, these all have a finite value for entropy in the universe (at least locally) for other reasons (see the "Heat death of the universe")
Are Microsoft's product really so vital that national security would be impacted if their security were compromised? This sounds like the Y2K hoopla all over again. There are alternatives to any microsoft product. Even if a microsoft app were so compromised that Microsoft couldn't release a bug fix -- it would only take a week or two for any orginization to migrate to new software. Sure it would be expensive, but not a threat to national security.
That is like saying "If the forest remains standing after the fleet of bulldozers goes through"...
If the bulldozers all take the road, the forest will remain standing.
...as far as government protecting small businesses from competition by large companies being a bad idea...
Well, what if all of the small businesses in a market are doing a bad job and a new small business starts up and does a much better job... this small business grows and grows and becomes a large business. Now the other businesses in a market that are doing a crappy job go to the government for protection and the one business that does a good job is prevented from growing by the government so it is forced to do a crappy job like all of the other businesses in a market.
Now if thie market is something like steel or the airlines then many other businesses throughout the economy will be hurt by the inability to get quality products and the whole economy will slow down and start to decay.
Protecting one segment of a market from competition is the same as blocking free trade via tariffs and subsidies... this will have the same negative effect on the economy.
Now, you might say it's worth slowing down the economy to protect small town show repair stores... fine... but protecting these stores from competition will slow down the economy in the long run.
My parent's AOL horror story
on
Disconnecting
·
· Score: 2
My parent's signed up for AOL dialup a few years back (when AOL sent out floppies instead of CDs).
The AOL sign up program dialed a 1-800 number that signed them up and set up a local dial-up number for them to use. Well they never were able to use AOL _once_. Every time that they called the local dial-up it was busy. After a week of this, they decided to cancel.
They called AOL customer service who told them that they had to cancel their service online. Customer service wouldn't budge when my parents told them that they couldn't get online to cancel. My parents called several times, and every time were told that they couldn't cancel by any means other than getting on-line.... And they were never able to get online.
Finally, after trying to cancel their service for three days I had to call for them and literally yell at the AOL person and threaten to place a fraud complaint with their credit card company, and that finally got them canceled.
If a large company enters a market and "takes over" thus preventing other companies from entering a market -- then the market is no longer free. If the market remains free after the 800 lb gorilla enters, small companies can jump back in if the large company ever slacks off (which it will eventually as all human orginization structures decay and fail given enough time).
If there are no barriers to entry and exit companies can enter a market when they can out compete the companies in a market and they can jump out without getting hurt when they are out-competed by another company.
Government should not be in the job of protecting small companies from competition by large companies -- this will only hurt the economy in the long run. It is best in the long run, if government seeks the protect the market itself and to keep the market free from control of large companies or large groups of small companies.
Your old customers are demanding you spend all your resources on your old technology (eg. 5 1/4 inch disk drives) But there are new potential customers who want to buy new technology you haven't developed yet (eg. 3 1/2 inch disk drives) There are more potential new customers than old customers, and thus more profits in devoting your resources to new technology. But you already have your old customers, and you're supposed to *listen to your customers* So there's the dilemma.
Sounds like Jobs must read Christensen, since he's all about dumping old technology for the new (e.g. floppy disk drives). He must just do s/distruptive new market/Next Big Thing/g... it does seem like Apple has become pretty good at keeping its existing markets safe while disrupting its competitors.
If you have a lot of expensive inventory and equipment you might not be able to exit a market without going out of business. If a market is easy to exit you can pull out when demand goes down without losing your shirt.
Wouldn't it be great if when demand went up for an item you could jump into a market and make a bunch of money and then pull out when demand went down without losing money. There tends to be a lot more competition in a market when there are few barriers to entry and exit of a market.
Software should be a very easy market to enter and exit since you don't need big factories and what not, so it should be a very competitive market. Microsoft has put up barriers to entry in its markets to make the markets less competitive.
Communism is based on the idea of a centrally controlled economy. This centrally controlled economy is much more sensitive to ill effects of mismanagement. Free markets are not centrally controlled and much less sensitive to mismanagement.
If a communist state had very good managers it's economy might out preform a free market system... but good management only last so long... orginizations decay and eventually corrupt and idiotic management takes over an runs the whole economy into the ground.
Capitalism is not necissarily the same thing as a free market. A capitalist system can be controlled by a few wealthy orginizations that can also run the economy into the ground.
There is not yet a fool-proof way to set up societies. Idiologs who argue that they have the one true way are idiots.
Forgive my ignorance, but could you name a few established markets here in the U.S. that don't require a silo full of money or backing by a person or company of high prestige?
real estate, restaurants, textiles, farming, retail, software markets that microsoft doesn't yet control
I could go on... the less barriers to entry and exit, the freer the market.
Some of the less free markets: automobiles, aircraft manufacture, breakfast cereals, phone, cable, the operating system and/or word processor business
A monopolized market is not a free market. A truely free market has few (if any) barriers to entry or exit of the market and little (if any) regulation of how one conducts business in that market.
A market controlled by a monopoly or a cartel is essentially the same as a government regulated market. If the government controls your market or if a monopoly controls your market its going to have the same effect: high prices and crappy service -- because new businesses are not free to innovate and compete.
If you think about it, there's little difference between the Microsoft controlled software market and the state controlled markets in a communist country.
With a goal of one computer per classroom of 20 students, a $1000 computer costs $50 per student if the school buys a new computer every year. Add in $500 a year for software and support and that's $75 a student. This is comprable to the costs for books per student.
Schools in my area (Pasadena, CA - by no means a rich school district) spend $5500 per student. If the school allocates 70% of this towards teachers that gives $77,000 per year per classroom of 20 students for teachers, and leaves $33,000 per classroom for buildings, administration, sports, supplies and computers. Spending $1000 per classroom a year on computers is only 3% of this.
These are only rough numbers, but they show that it is very possible for schools to put a computer in every classroom.
If OS X learns to play nice with Linux a school could deploy a network of Linux boxes and eMacs and use a lot of the same software on both... an eMac with XDarwin should be able to run all of the software on the Linux boxen (after a recompile).
That way a school could use cheap linux boxes in labs and use eMacs for the school paper and art classes and other places where proprietary software is needed.
It would be a good idea for Apple to team up with Red Hat and come up with a plan for a Linux/Mac system that would allow schools to keep using thier old intel hardware.
my sources say that matlab for OS X will run under XDarwin and not under aqua... hey, at least this gives us a chance to write something better and brand gnu:) and there's always orboros X to give XDarwin the same look and feel as aqua
You always see stuff like this in leaked microsoft emails / memos, whatever...
This makes me wonder if there's anything else out there that they've successfully managed to keep off of the airwaves... I mean, since they keep saying to keep things hush hush it must be working or else they wouldn't even bother to send an email out and trust people to keep it quiet... So far everything that's been leaked is about things that are already know like FUD...
I just have to wonder what other secrets are lurking in Mordor...
Will the new Matlab run under Quartz or under XDarwin? I wonder.... And what's with the mention of Java in the press release, will matlab use Java so that it can run even slower still?
The law I propose would make it possible to generate serial numbers automatically for some arbitrary data set and retain the initial copyright on the data set. Even if the serial number is generated by software that the user runs, that serial number would be protected by the copyright of the original work.
With the existing law, if I copyright my memoirs and I append a serial number to the memoirs as they are downloaded, it's not at all clear if that serial number is part of the copyrighted work... the user clicked the button that generated the serial number so couldn't it be argued that the user generated the serial number and it isn't part of the copyrighted work....
I think a good law should state that an identifying number attached to a copyrighted work by the owner of that copyrighted work cannot be removed without the permission of the owner of said copyrighted work.
This would be an addition to the existing protections of a copyright, but not out of line of laws forbidding the removal of serial numbers on guns and cars.
Slashdot Mirror
Mars's gravity well helps you land... an asteroid is a much harder target to land on.
Mar's graivty makes it more difficult to leave Mars, but it's been shown that propellant can be made on Mars for a return trip, so it still costs less to do a round trip to and from Mars.
As far as near Earth asteroids that are easier to get to than Mars, name one. Asteroids take more fuel and take longer flight times.
Besides, asteroids are small enough to explore fully with robotic craft. Mars is a whole big planet so it makes sense to establish a base there to explore it. Landing on an asteroid is just a flag-planting mission.
So when apple comes out with it's RAID system will it be XRAID? (as in "ex-rayed")
Sorry, finite != countable, rather finite == bounded, and somthing can be bounded and not countable... either way finite != discrete.
Anyway, I'm not a physicist, and I'm not a mathematician so I don't understand your bijective set stuff...
From Webster,
Finite \Fi"nite\, a. [L. finitus, p. p. of finire. See Finish, and cf. Fine, a.]
Having a limit; limited in quantity, degree, or capacity; bounded; -- opposed to infinite; as, finite number; finite existence; a finite being; a finite mind; finite duration.
But shouldn't a discrete number of states of the universe (!= entropy, 'cos there should be states with the same entropy) imply discrete space and time ? Why should time and space be discrete ?
finite means 'countable', discrete means 'in distinct parts' Something can be finite but not discrete, such as the distance between two points in classical physics. Saying that entropy is finite at a given time says nothing about space and time being discrete.... however, it does imply that space is finite.
Of course, calling states 'quantum states' specifies that they are discrete. In modern thermodynamics molecules can only be in certain discrete quantum states and entropy is a measure of the number of quatum states. This theory manages to explain phase changes in matter by new sets of quantum states becoming available... neat stuff.
A closed system's entropy cannot decrease because the random motion of large numbers of molecules will quickly fill newly available states and these states cannot be removed if there are molecules in them. If Wolfram has some new insight into randomness he may have found a way for a system to abandon these quantum states and decrease its entropy... which would be neat if true.
sorry... I'm a little bitter as I'm working on a paper now... or rather I should be instead of reading slashdot.
Peer-review has its uses, especially in filtering out crack-pots with perpetual motion machines. That said, its not the only way or the best way to publish, especially if you have something that is as new and revolutionary as Wolfram claims. He's got enough information for people to reproduce his results, so he's not a crank... he just might be wrong.
I've gone through peer-review several times and it's mostly an exercise of massaging the egos of people in the field who are 'respected' just for being in the field for so long and who haven't really produced anything new in their lauded carreers. You go through a ton of busywork making sure you have the right damn font and you have all of the right people referenced (whehter or not you actually used their papers) and you get paid nothing, the journal takes your copyright and charges you $10 to make fair use copies of your own damn paper.
In academia, if you have a good idea someone will steal it, if you have a great idea they will dismiss you without listening to it. If you don't believe me, look into whether or not Watson and Crick _really_ discovered the structure of DNA or if it was a grad student who's ideas they orginally dismissed.
In academia there's this absurd notion that if someone understands your explanation of a new idea that they somehow helped you come up with it.
So Bravo to Wolfram for thumbing his nose at academia! I just hope he can back it up.
We were discussing this at work yesterday. As some of my collegues were quick to point out, this is all most likely toss. For cellular automata to be relevant you'd have to assume the universe has a finite number of 'states'. Quantum physics currently is pretty certain it is not.
From the review, wolfram claims to have addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division... with these he can generate all rational numbers... plus he claims to be able to generate trancendental numbers like pi, that seems to imply that he can make all real numbers. I haven't read the book, but I see nothing in the review that would preclude these methods from describing an infinite number of quantum states or even a continuum of states.
By the way, saying that the universe has an infinite number of quantum states is basically just saying that there is no maximum entropy for the universe. (the entropy of a system is a measure of the number of quantum states in a system). However some cosmologies have a 'big crunch' ending the universe which would imply some maximum entropy and therefore a finite number of quantum states in the universe.
What is clear (from the Big Bang theory) is that there currently is a finite number of quantum states in the universe that is increasing with time. That is, the universe currently has some finite entropy that we can assign a number to and that entropy is increasing with time. The entropy is finite because the universe had a set beginning where the entropy was zero (if the universe didn't exist, it didn't have any quantum states).
There are theories other than the big bang (like steady state cosmology) that have no fixed beginning to the universe. However, these all have a finite value for entropy in the universe (at least locally) for other reasons (see the "Heat death of the universe")
I accidentally hit sumbit insted od preveiw. I was hoping someone would cetch mi mistakek and fix the spelling.
Are Microsoft's product really so vital that national security would be impacted if their security were compromised? This sounds like the Y2K hoopla all over again. There are alternatives to any microsoft product. Even if a microsoft app were so compromised that Microsoft couldn't release a bug fix -- it would only take a week or two for any orginization to migrate to new software. Sure it would be expensive, but not a threat to national security.
That is like saying "If the forest remains standing after the fleet of bulldozers goes through"...
If the bulldozers all take the road, the forest will remain standing.
...as far as government protecting small businesses from competition by large companies being a bad idea...
Well, what if all of the small businesses in a market are doing a bad job and a new small business starts up and does a much better job... this small business grows and grows and becomes a large business. Now the other businesses in a market that are doing a crappy job go to the government for protection and the one business that does a good job is prevented from growing by the government so it is forced to do a crappy job like all of the other businesses in a market.
Now if thie market is something like steel or the airlines then many other businesses throughout the economy will be hurt by the inability to get quality products and the whole economy will slow down and start to decay.
Protecting one segment of a market from competition is the same as blocking free trade via tariffs and subsidies... this will have the same negative effect on the economy.
Now, you might say it's worth slowing down the economy to protect small town show repair stores... fine... but protecting these stores from competition will slow down the economy in the long run.
My parent's signed up for AOL dialup a few years back (when AOL sent out floppies instead of CDs).
The AOL sign up program dialed a 1-800 number that signed them up and set up a local dial-up number for them to use. Well they never were able to use AOL _once_. Every time that they called the local dial-up it was busy. After a week of this, they decided to cancel.
They called AOL customer service who told them that they had to cancel their service online. Customer service wouldn't budge when my parents told them that they couldn't get online to cancel. My parents called several times, and every time were told that they couldn't cancel by any means other than getting on-line.... And they were never able to get online.
Finally, after trying to cancel their service for three days I had to call for them and literally yell at the AOL person and threaten to place a fraud complaint with their credit card company, and that finally got them canceled.
If a large company enters a market and "takes over" thus preventing other companies from entering a market -- then the market is no longer free. If the market remains free after the 800 lb gorilla enters, small companies can jump back in if the large company ever slacks off (which it will eventually as all human orginization structures decay and fail given enough time).
If there are no barriers to entry and exit companies can enter a market when they can out compete the companies in a market and they can jump out without getting hurt when they are out-competed by another company.
Government should not be in the job of protecting small companies from competition by large companies -- this will only hurt the economy in the long run. It is best in the long run, if government seeks the protect the market itself and to keep the market free from control of large companies or large groups of small companies.
Your old customers are demanding you spend all your resources on your old technology (eg. 5 1/4 inch disk drives) But there are new potential customers who want to buy new technology you haven't developed yet (eg. 3 1/2 inch disk drives) There are more potential new customers than old customers, and thus more profits in devoting your resources to new technology. But you already have your old customers, and you're supposed to *listen to your customers* So there's the dilemma.
Sounds like Jobs must read Christensen, since he's all about dumping old technology for the new (e.g. floppy disk drives). He must just do s/distruptive new market/Next Big Thing/g... it does seem like Apple has become pretty good at keeping its existing markets safe while disrupting its competitors.
If you have a lot of expensive inventory and equipment you might not be able to exit a market without going out of business. If a market is easy to exit you can pull out when demand goes down without losing your shirt.
Wouldn't it be great if when demand went up for an item you could jump into a market and make a bunch of money and then pull out when demand went down without losing money. There tends to be a lot more competition in a market when there are few barriers to entry and exit of a market.
Software should be a very easy market to enter and exit since you don't need big factories and what not, so it should be a very competitive market. Microsoft has put up barriers to entry in its markets to make the markets less competitive.
Communism is based on the idea of a centrally controlled economy. This centrally controlled economy is much more sensitive to ill effects of mismanagement. Free markets are not centrally controlled and much less sensitive to mismanagement.
If a communist state had very good managers it's economy might out preform a free market system... but good management only last so long... orginizations decay and eventually corrupt and idiotic management takes over an runs the whole economy into the ground.
Capitalism is not necissarily the same thing as a free market. A capitalist system can be controlled by a few wealthy orginizations that can also run the economy into the ground.
There is not yet a fool-proof way to set up societies. Idiologs who argue that they have the one true way are idiots.
Forgive my ignorance, but could you name a few established markets here in the U.S. that don't require a silo full of money or backing by a person or company of high prestige?
real estate, restaurants, textiles, farming, retail, software markets that microsoft doesn't yet control
I could go on... the less barriers to entry and exit, the freer the market.
Some of the less free markets: automobiles, aircraft manufacture, breakfast cereals, phone, cable, the operating system and/or word processor business
A monopolized market is not a free market. A truely free market has few (if any) barriers to entry or exit of the market and little (if any) regulation of how one conducts business in that market.
A market controlled by a monopoly or a cartel is essentially the same as a government regulated market. If the government controls your market or if a monopoly controls your market its going to have the same effect: high prices and crappy service -- because new businesses are not free to innovate and compete.
If you think about it, there's little difference between the Microsoft controlled software market and the state controlled markets in a communist country.
The Planetary Society is working with the Russians. Both solar sail projects listed in the article are really the same project.
With a goal of one computer per classroom of 20 students, a $1000 computer costs $50 per student if the school buys a new computer every year. Add in $500 a year for software and support and that's $75 a student. This is comprable to the costs for books per student.
Schools in my area (Pasadena, CA - by no means a rich school district) spend $5500 per student. If the school allocates 70% of this towards teachers that gives $77,000 per year per classroom of 20 students for teachers, and leaves $33,000 per classroom for buildings, administration, sports, supplies and computers. Spending $1000 per classroom a year on computers is only 3% of this.
These are only rough numbers, but they show that it is very possible for schools to put a computer in every classroom.
If OS X learns to play nice with Linux a school could deploy a network of Linux boxes and eMacs and use a lot of the same software on both... an eMac with XDarwin should be able to run all of the software on the Linux boxen (after a recompile).
That way a school could use cheap linux boxes in labs and use eMacs for the school paper and art classes and other places where proprietary software is needed.
It would be a good idea for Apple to team up with Red Hat and come up with a plan for a Linux/Mac system that would allow schools to keep using thier old intel hardware.
Maybe apple could bundle open office and xDarwin with its eMacs.... $999 a computer isn't that expensive.
my sources say that matlab for OS X will run under XDarwin and not under aqua... hey, at least this gives us a chance to write something better and brand gnu :) and there's always orboros X to give XDarwin the same look and feel as aqua
"We need to keep all of this off the airwaves."
You always see stuff like this in leaked microsoft emails / memos, whatever...
This makes me wonder if there's anything else out there that they've successfully managed to keep off of the airwaves... I mean, since they keep saying to keep things hush hush it must be working or else they wouldn't even bother to send an email out and trust people to keep it quiet... So far everything that's been leaked is about things that are already know like FUD...
I just have to wonder what other secrets are lurking in Mordor...
Will the new Matlab run under Quartz or under XDarwin? I wonder.... And what's with the mention of Java in the press release, will matlab use Java so that it can run even slower still?
The law I propose would make it possible to generate serial numbers automatically for some arbitrary data set and retain the initial copyright on the data set. Even if the serial number is generated by software that the user runs, that serial number would be protected by the copyright of the original work.
With the existing law, if I copyright my memoirs and I append a serial number to the memoirs as they are downloaded, it's not at all clear if that serial number is part of the copyrighted work... the user clicked the button that generated the serial number so couldn't it be argued that the user generated the serial number and it isn't part of the copyrighted work....
I think a good law should state that an identifying number attached to a copyrighted work by the owner of that copyrighted work cannot be removed without the permission of the owner of said copyrighted work.
This would be an addition to the existing protections of a copyright, but not out of line of laws forbidding the removal of serial numbers on guns and cars.