I think it's ridiculous that you're all doing all this research on a company who has *told* you they've developed a PMM. Move along people, there is nothing to see here...
The US has for a long time been trying to export their patent laws overseas. In many african and asian countries it is a mandatory requirement for aid, trade, etc. By systematically patenting every obvious idea under the sun the US can continue it's "Perpetual Economic Expansion" by bringing patent serfdom to the rest of the world.
Once the US has a hold on the patent system and has established laws worldwide to protect the interests of US patent holders, it will be possible to sit back, let the developing countries do the work, and reap the profits. It's a brilliant strategy.
People living in developing countries (including me) must do everything in their power to lobby their governments to reject US patent laws. They could well be a noose around our neck and keep us in serfdom forever.
I did computer science about 12 years ago too and have been working since. In that time I've had occassion to use vast quantities of mathematics. I find it utterly bizarre that you think programming isn't mathematics. However, accepting that point for the moment. Mathematics being the foundation of computer science is not the only reason to thoroughly know and understand mathematics.
So many programming paradigms are borrowed from mathematics. The definition of functions, relational databases, virtually all data structures and algorithms. Mathematics is the master of abstraction. Overloaded functions? What about vector spaces defined over a field? What about abstract algebra? These are abstractions that put computer science to shame.
Understanding and applying mathematics builds excellent problem solving skills. While it might not be so in the United States (I simply don't know so I can't comment), recreational mathematics is very popular in Europe and often seen as both a worthwhile pastime and a means to sharpen the mind.
Not to be rude, but if you really believe that mathematics is irrelevant to programming then you're the type of programmer who chooses a data structure on ease-of-use rather than applicability to the problem. And god knows I have to deal with enough of those...
Of course you don't. God forbid some commie scientist comes along and proves that your perpetual expansion and pillaging of the resources of the planet is ruining the future for us all. Lost profits!!! Who gives a damn about the future when my stocks just lost $0.10.
Sure. It is, of course, pseudo-science. However a great deal of modern chemistry stems from the experiments of alchemists and what we see today as quaint, silly ideas were probably fairly serious in the day.
In any case, I don't think one can laugh at Newton unless one has developed a whole branch of mathematics single-handedly. Anyone???
Pity he neglected to mention Graph-based databases (as in DAG). A substantial problem lies in the dynamic nature of information. Relational databases are lousy at storing relationships between data that were thought to be unrelated. Having to change the database structure all the time is a nightmare anyone can do without. Graph databases are able to model knowledge much more accurately with the added benefit of being able to store relationships between nodes without changing the design. Bioinformatics has been a good example of an application area for graph-based databases. Here the masses of information (ontologies, pathways, RNA sequences) need to be related in many different ways. Graph-based databases allow quering information in novel ways that relational databases simply aren't capable of handling. From that aspect, the requirements today are really very different from 20 years ago.
Yes, you're obviously right. And to prove your point, you can find my online poker game at a 10 digit sequence of numbers taken from the decimal expansion of Pi...
The square root of 2 isn't transcendental, but the occurance of digits in it's decimal expansion is more evenly distributed than in Pi. In fact, e and the square root of 2 are known to be more random than Pi in terms of their decimal expansion. There is no correlation between whether or not a number is transcendental and how random it's decimal expansion is. I was obviously not referring to rational numbers. Irrational numbers are good random number sequence generators. The article merely pointed out that Pi was not as good as commercial tools. However, Pi, the square root of 2 and e are perfectly fine choices of random numbers. Some are just better than others.
Maybe I'm being stupid but the randomness of Pi is the inability to predict the decimal expansion of Pi and has nothing to do with being able to calculate it. Pi is a transcendental number and therefore cannot be exactly determined. For most purposes, chosing sequences of numbers from Pi will be an acceptable random number choice. I expect e and the square root of 2 to be better choices of random sequences of numbers but for the most part, you can treat the decimal expansion of Pi as a series of random numbers.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's ridiculous that you're all doing all this research on a company who has *told* you they've developed a PMM. Move along people, there is nothing to see here...
You've clearly read this in detail:
t w=wn_tophead_6
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70124-0.html?
The US has for a long time been trying to export their patent laws overseas. In many african and asian countries it is a mandatory requirement for aid, trade, etc. By systematically patenting every obvious idea under the sun the US can continue it's "Perpetual Economic Expansion" by bringing patent serfdom to the rest of the world.
Once the US has a hold on the patent system and has established laws worldwide to protect the interests of US patent holders, it will be possible to sit back, let the developing countries do the work, and reap the profits. It's a brilliant strategy.
People living in developing countries (including me) must do everything in their power to lobby their governments to reject US patent laws. They could well be a noose around our neck and keep us in serfdom forever.
Hey, at least nothing is changing...
I'm sure, it's certainly obvious to me that the water must weigh more on the crust than the ice does... wft???
I did computer science about 12 years ago too and have been working since. In that time I've had occassion to use vast quantities of mathematics. I find it utterly bizarre that you think programming isn't mathematics. However, accepting that point for the moment. Mathematics being the foundation of computer science is not the only reason to thoroughly know and understand mathematics. So many programming paradigms are borrowed from mathematics. The definition of functions, relational databases, virtually all data structures and algorithms. Mathematics is the master of abstraction. Overloaded functions? What about vector spaces defined over a field? What about abstract algebra? These are abstractions that put computer science to shame. Understanding and applying mathematics builds excellent problem solving skills. While it might not be so in the United States (I simply don't know so I can't comment), recreational mathematics is very popular in Europe and often seen as both a worthwhile pastime and a means to sharpen the mind. Not to be rude, but if you really believe that mathematics is irrelevant to programming then you're the type of programmer who chooses a data structure on ease-of-use rather than applicability to the problem. And god knows I have to deal with enough of those...
Of course you don't. God forbid some commie scientist comes along and proves that your perpetual expansion and pillaging of the resources of the planet is ruining the future for us all. Lost profits!!! Who gives a damn about the future when my stocks just lost $0.10.
Sure. It is, of course, pseudo-science. However a great deal of modern chemistry stems from the experiments of alchemists and what we see today as quaint, silly ideas were probably fairly serious in the day. In any case, I don't think one can laugh at Newton unless one has developed a whole branch of mathematics single-handedly. Anyone???
All that's missing is a pair of floppy ears on the side and a startup sound going "Mesa booting massar..."
Pity he neglected to mention Graph-based databases (as in DAG). A substantial problem lies in the dynamic nature of information. Relational databases are lousy at storing relationships between data that were thought to be unrelated. Having to change the database structure all the time is a nightmare anyone can do without. Graph databases are able to model knowledge much more accurately with the added benefit of being able to store relationships between nodes without changing the design. Bioinformatics has been a good example of an application area for graph-based databases. Here the masses of information (ontologies, pathways, RNA sequences) need to be related in many different ways. Graph-based databases allow quering information in novel ways that relational databases simply aren't capable of handling. From that aspect, the requirements today are really very different from 20 years ago.
Yes, you're obviously right. And to prove your point, you can find my online poker game at a 10 digit sequence of numbers taken from the decimal expansion of Pi...
The square root of 2 isn't transcendental, but the occurance of digits in it's decimal expansion is more evenly distributed than in Pi. In fact, e and the square root of 2 are known to be more random than Pi in terms of their decimal expansion. There is no correlation between whether or not a number is transcendental and how random it's decimal expansion is. I was obviously not referring to rational numbers. Irrational numbers are good random number sequence generators. The article merely pointed out that Pi was not as good as commercial tools. However, Pi, the square root of 2 and e are perfectly fine choices of random numbers. Some are just better than others.
Maybe I'm being stupid but the randomness of Pi is the inability to predict the decimal expansion of Pi and has nothing to do with being able to calculate it. Pi is a transcendental number and therefore cannot be exactly determined. For most purposes, chosing sequences of numbers from Pi will be an acceptable random number choice. I expect e and the square root of 2 to be better choices of random sequences of numbers but for the most part, you can treat the decimal expansion of Pi as a series of random numbers.