Software patents are a good thing. The problem is that patents are granted for the lamest, most obvious ideas. It might be true that some company was the first to come up with an idea, but that might simply be because it was the first to encounter the problem.
What should be protected is the person or company who does a large amount of research and development on an algorithm that has a non-obvious solution, or the obvious solution to a non-obvious problem.
Henry Ford's assembly-line algorithm for the production of cars is, in my opinion, a patentable idea. Putting the radio controls on the steering wheel is as obvious as Amazon's one-click shopping.
A steam engine also needs something cool to work. Usually it's the environment. We can't extract energy directly from heat, only from the flow of heat from a hot place to a cold place. An analogy: we can't extract energy directly from water, only from the flow of water from a high place to a low place. That's how hydroelectric dams work. The problem with taking a bunch of hot stuff to earth to power steam engines is that eventually all that heat would start warming up the cold place, i.e., the environment. Global warming.
It seems to me that Gold's main argument is that radiation pressure won't affect a perfect mirror. I contend that he forgot about relativity.
Gold says that a photon striking a perfect mirror will be reflected in the opposite direction with exactly the same energy. Since a photon's momentum is linked to its energy, it will also have the same momentum. Thus, no momentum could have been imparted to the mirror.
I would argue that this is true, but only from the photon-mirror reference frame. From the reference frame of the sun, the photon will have been red-shifted: it will have lost a little energy and thus some momentum, and the mirror will have been accelerated.
Consider this thought experiment. Construct a huge mirror in the shape of a half sphere (shiny side in). Put it around the sun. Then, all radiation emitted in the direction of the mirror will be reflected the other way. Thus, all of the radiation from the sun will be moving in roughly one direction. Gold contends that neither the mirror nor the sun would move. But, photons have momentum. The net momentum imparted to the sun from radiated photons is normally zero because the photons are radiated equally in all directions. With the mirror in place, the photons would not be radiated equally in all directions. The net momentum would not be zero, and something in the Sun-mirror system would have to accelerate. I'll leave it to you to decide what would move.
Slashdot Mirror
> How about it has not effected me one bit. Just like how it has not effected 99.9% of Americans.
Obviously. You wouldn't be old enough to post on Slashdot if it had. Also, Acts don't have wombs. No, I'll wager that your parents effected you.
Software patents are a good thing. The problem is that patents are granted for the lamest, most obvious ideas. It might be true that some company was the first to come up with an idea, but that might simply be because it was the first to encounter the problem.
What should be protected is the person or company who does a large amount of research and development on an algorithm that has a non-obvious solution, or the obvious solution to a non-obvious problem.
Henry Ford's assembly-line algorithm for the production of cars is, in my opinion, a patentable idea. Putting the radio controls on the steering wheel is as obvious as Amazon's one-click shopping.
A steam engine also needs something cool to work. Usually it's the environment. We can't extract energy directly from heat, only from the flow of heat from a hot place to a cold place. An analogy: we can't extract energy directly from water, only from the flow of water from a high place to a low place. That's how hydroelectric dams work. The problem with taking a bunch of hot stuff to earth to power steam engines is that eventually all that heat would start warming up the cold place, i.e., the environment. Global warming.
It seems to me that Gold's main argument is that radiation pressure won't affect a perfect mirror. I contend that he forgot about relativity.
Gold says that a photon striking a perfect mirror will be reflected in the opposite direction with exactly the same energy. Since a photon's momentum is linked to its energy, it will also have the same momentum. Thus, no momentum could have been imparted to the mirror.
I would argue that this is true, but only from the photon-mirror reference frame. From the reference frame of the sun, the photon will have been red-shifted: it will have lost a little energy and thus some momentum, and the mirror will have been accelerated.
Consider this thought experiment. Construct a huge mirror in the shape of a half sphere (shiny side in). Put it around the sun. Then, all radiation emitted in the direction of the mirror will be reflected the other way. Thus, all of the radiation from the sun will be moving in roughly one direction. Gold contends that neither the mirror nor the sun would move. But, photons have momentum. The net momentum imparted to the sun from radiated photons is normally zero because the photons are radiated equally in all directions. With the mirror in place, the photons would not be radiated equally in all directions. The net momentum would not be zero, and something in the Sun-mirror system would have to accelerate. I'll leave it to you to decide what would move.
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