Yet another scientific story with big claims and little detail. 2nM accuracy sounds a little overstated.
Indeed. The news release misses the point of the paper somewhat.
The actual scientific paper appears to be this one:
Phillip W. Snyder, Matthew S. Johannes, Briana N. Vogen, Robert L. Clark, and Eric J. Toone, "Biocatalytic Microcontact Printing" J. Org. Chem., 72 (19), 7459 -7461, 2007 DOI: 10.1021/jo0711541
Second they are using fluorescence to see the pattern and this at the very best has resolution of about 300nM.
They use confocal fluorescence which is, as you note, diffraction limited. However for the high-resolution study of the line-edges, they use Atomic Force Microscopy which is of course much higher resolution. The AFM images they show, however, appear to have rather imperfect line-edges, with resolution of >200 nm. Actually, nowhere in the paper do they claim to have demonstrated 2 nm resolution. Rather, they point out in the introduction that their new technique, in principle, could allow higher-resolution printing that conventional soft lithography, because there is no diffusion of reagents in their technique. The news release focuses on this mention of a theoretical 2 nm resolution, rather than pointing out the actual accomplishment of the paper, which in the words of the authors is:
In conclusion, we have demonstrated the feasibility of biocatalytic lithography. Catalyst-mediated soft lithographic technique offers the advantage of lateral resolution controlled by the range of motion of the immobilized catalyst rather than by the diffusive properties of
molecular inks. This feature should facilitate the implementation of strategies for stamping nanoscale features. Further examination of stamping parameters and the application of this methodology to nanolithography are underway, and we will report our results in due course.
So, in short, it's an important advancement but the authors are not claiming to have achieved the intended ultra-high-resolution yet. And, even without that optimistic resolution, the technique is interesting in its own right because it is a new way to control the nanoscale chemical patterning of surfaces.
That being said, I wonder if this is some kind of strange social experiment to see if anyone actually puts more than $0 in the price box.
It's an interesting social experiment, to be sure... but not the first. Jamendo, offers Creative-Commons music for free download, and provides a link to "support the artist" if you want to. Evidently, people are willing to donate money for free music.
Magnatune also allows the buyer to set the price for an album purchase online: from $8 to $18. As far as I know, they've never released stats about how much people decide to pay.
So, this new model is not entirely unique.
I probably won't.
That's your choice. Many other people (myself included) certainly will pay some amount for the album. I guess the idea is that although lots of people will download it for free, those people would probably have downloaded it for free (via P2P) anyways. At least in this case, you allow those people who value easy downloading to conveniently "do the right thing" and directly support the artist.
since when does it matter what someone who submitted something to GPL intended their code to be used for. The license is explicitly and intentionally designed to allow open-source code to be used for any purpose by anyone, as long as it's credited and open-source.
You're quite right, of course. But I don't think the intention with that statement was for legal action against Novell for breaking the GPL, or a rewrite of the GPL itself.
Rather, I think the intention was a "call to action" more along the lines of publicly criticizing Novell/Microsoft, and thereby putting pressure on them.
You can agree with the GPL and the universal freedoms it provides, while simultaneously putting pressure on particular companies to not be jerks. The "when you contributed code" statement was, in my estimation, intended to imply that Novell is generating bad will among the very people it depends upon for continued software improvements. What Novell is doing may be legal, but that doesn't mean we have to like it, and sit by silently.
XP was slow for the computers of the time (when it was released). So is Vista. And, no doubt, hardware will catch up so that Vista's hardware requirements are not so ridiculous. But that's about where the analogy between XP and Vista ends.
One of the quotes you pulled was:
If you are building a new system, then by all means, install Windows XP. If you think that Windows XP is going to revolutionize the way you use a computer and surf the web, wake up and save your money.
The reaction to Vista now is actually worse than this. It's not "well if you're building a brand new computer, go ahead and get it." It's "avoid at all costs--if they try and force it on you in the sale of a new system, go somewhere else that will load XP for you!"
In short, I don't think it's really valid to compare to a past event, see some similarities, and automatically assume that this one will play out the same way. There are differences between XP and Vista (scaled for their release time-periods), and there are differences in general reaction to XP and to Vista.
I'm not so naive as to think that Vista will not, eventually, become the default OS on the majority of commodity desktops. However, it's clear to alot of people that Vista is not much of an upgrade over XP (and in some ways is actually a downgrade), and moreover the "upgrade" that is Vista is pathetic when you account for the time and money that was put into it. In terms of quality/$, Microsoft products are getting worse over time (even if they are getting slightly better in raw terms), which means that eventually there will be no compelling reason to upgrade to new MS operating systems. (Some would say we have reached that point.)
Assuming the competition (Mac, Linux, etc.) don't stagnate in a similar way, this could very well mean a change in the desktop marketshare landscape over the next 10 years.
The point is to reduce the overall cost of being capable of running the test, not in vastly increasing the efficiency of running a massive batch of tests this way. Certainly there's downstream potential for it...
Actually there is already research being done in that regard. Some research groups are experimenting with building microfluidic systems on compact-disks. The spinning of the disk generates a centrifugal force that acts as the 'pump' for the device, driving fluid through stages. You can even have special valves in your device, and by changing the rotation speed of the drive, you progressively move the fluid from stage to stage.
Then the CD laser can be used as a detection mechanism at different locations along the disk. Also you can obviously run multiple experiments at once, since as the disk spins the laser passes from one fluid channel to the next.
Horacio Kido, Miodrag Micic, David Smith, Jim Zoval, Jim Norton and Marc Madou "A novel, compact disk-like centrifugal microfluidics system for cell lysis and sample homogenization" Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces Volume 58, Issue 1, 1 July 2007, Pages 44-51 doi: doi:10.1016/j.colsurfb.2007.03.015
I'm not a patent expert, but isn't this already the case? Prior art is indeed a valid defense against patent claims.
The problem is that proving prior art is difficult. Even if you are in the right, and can provide evidence to that effect, it becomes a long and expensive court case, which many cannot afford (especially the small-time inventors that patent law ostensibly promotes).
Patent-happy companies will continue to throw as many patents at the system as they can. Whatever sticks is ammunition, regardless of whether or not the patent is valid. Even patents that may be invalidated can be used as threats.
We really need to decrease the number of patents granted, so we need "early detection" of prior art. Frankly, I think patent applicants should be liable in some way if their application is shown to be invalid due to prior art or obviousness. It should be treated as a very serious offense, akin to perjury. We need to make it so that there is an incentive to scour the literature for prior art, and a penalty for making false claims.
Wouldn't discovery expose a shell company like that? RICO covers that sort of thing, doesn't it?
But in many cases the main reselling company and the base manufacturer might not even be in collusion.
The problem is that if it's always the base manufacturer that is liable, then being such a manufacturer is not very attractive. Investors may specifically keep such companies small to limit their own potential losses. The end result is the same: damages to resellers and companies "higher in the food chain" are minimized in favor of "throw-away" companies. (And all without collusion.)
To say nothing of the possibility that the base manufacturers will all simply relocate to foreign countries...
I don't doubt that you're right: PHBs may indeed get scared by "if you use GPL code you could end up in court" worries (or FUD, as the case may be).
But I find that rather amusing. I mean, it's not like the liability or damages would be less if you somehow ('accidentally' ?) shipped proprietary software (binary or source) with your product. In fact, I imagine a proprietary software vendor would be even less forgiving than the FOSS community. It's not like FOSS is demanding greater vigilance than proprietary equivalents: just read the license before you distribute it!
I guess it's hard for some people to understand the concept of free software licensing. They think that if they can see the code (and download it gratis from a web server), then they can do whatever they want with it. Really, it shows that many people who are in the business of making money off of copyright law (and copyright law applied to software in particular) don't pay much attention to how it works.
you sell sophisticated information to joe blow in the only way possible: straightforward. no watering down, no soft pedaling. then watch as what you deem ungraspable (that's the elitism in you) getting grasped notheless
Agreed. I think science journalism often overly simplifies things in the name of some ethereal "joe average" when in reality people can get quite a bit out of technical descriptions, even if they don't understand every detail. It's more important, in my opinion, for the presented information to be correct, so that the interested reader can really think about it (and maybe read it multiple times, and go check other sources)... rather than sacrificing correctness in the name of "making it easier to understand."
not everything has to be explained. communication is not about impressing upon someone else's mind every little delicate detail. nor is it necessary to do that for joe blow to grasp important pieces of information
There is no doubt that scientists need to spend more time crafting their delivery before speaking with journalists. A well-respected scientist that I've collaborated with had a rule: "If you can't explain what you did in three sentences, then you have not thought about it enough."
I think that good science journalism is possible, but it requires some extra effort from both the journalist and the scientist. Ideally, the journalist should be checking with the scientists that his simplified explanations are correct, and changing them if they are not (rather than printing something that the scientist will read and then shake his head). The scientist, meanwhile, should think long and hard about what the essence of their work is.
In comparing to the Amazon offering, note that the Amazon downloading utility doesn't work on Linux. For some reason, you need the utility to download full albums, but not individual mp3s. From the Amazon MP3 FAQ:
If you currently make purchases from Amazon on your computer system, you can make purchases from the Amazon MP3 store. The MP3 files you purchase will download directly to your computer and are compatible with any system that can read the MP3 music format. The Amazon MP3 Downloader application is required for purchasing and downloading an entire album and is currently available for Mac and Windows operating systems. A Linux version is in development, so you can't currently buy full albums using Linux, but you can buy individual tracks. For more information, please visit the Amazon MP3 Downloader Help page.
(emphasis added)
It's a shame that they require you to use a silly downloader app for the full albums. On the other hand, it's nice to see that they at least acknowledge Linux and claim that they are working on a solution (the service is in Beta, after all). Hopefully they will provide full Linux support soon enough.
If we can accept that there are many universes, with new ones sprouting all the time, is there some constraint on how those universes are? That there might be an infinite set within a certain limit?
Short answer: there are constraints and limits.
Long answer:
First off, some of the discussion here is getting confused because people are equating the "many universes" of the Many-Worlds Interpretation with the "parallel realities" espoused by other theories (but, most prominently displayed in sci-fi), where "anything goes" or any possible arrangement of atoms (or even laws of physics) is possible, or even exists.
I'm talking about Many-Worlds, which is an untested prediction of modern quantum theory. I'm not talking about parallel realities (for which there is currently no proof and which no mainstream theory predict). In Many-Worlds, the branches evolve deterministically from the current state (according to the equations of quantum mechanics). This means that along each branch (each "universe" if you prefer), the laws of physics are invariant, and are exactly what we are used to (quantum mechanics + relativity). Moreover, because the universe is evolving from a specific initial state, there are constraints on what the branches will look like. You won't get "every wild thing you can imagine": only those branches which can evolve from a current state will be represented in the global superposition.
So the various branches of Many-Worlds look pretty much exactly like the universe you are comfortable with (planets, stars, galaxies). Along one branch an atom might decay and along the other branch it might not decay (yet)... In principle some branches may have quantum choices such that normally improbably things occur, but that's balanced out by the vast majority of branches which are, basically, boring.
In various talks I've heard, Eben Moglen (legal counsel for the FSF) repeatedly states that it should be the policy of the free software community to give ample opportunities for infringers to "do the right thing."
He emphasizes that the objective is for the software to end up free, not to extract revenge, or get extra money. As such, the message we must send is "do the right thing," and not "pay for your crime." He says that this strategy has worked remarkably well: most GPL infringements never make it anywhere near a courtroom: a couple of friendly phone calls and the situation is resolved.
Frankly I think this "don't be a jerk" tactic is something we should encourage everywhere, not just in the FOSS community. In any case, the somewhat more even-handed approach to infringements helps to not scare away potential users of GPL software and code (e.g. corporations). The message they get is: "play by the rules... but if you make a mistake, don't worry: we'll send you a friendly reminder before taking any harsh action."
On the other hand, the fact that no GPL dispute has ever gone to court says something very powerful: It says that no company who has ever been discovered to be violating the GPL honestly thought that they could win in court.
So, the (unofficial) conclusion from a wide variety of lawyers working for different, unrelated, companies is: "Don't go to court against the GPL." It's not a legally-binding test, but it sends a clear message to other would-be infringers.
I mean, practically speaking, we are unlikely to ever go to some other distant galaxy and to verify physics there. But there is nothing in the laws of science that prevent us from doing that. It is "practically" impossible to falsify the axiom, but not theoretically impossible.
According to our current understanding of physics, it is impossible, even in principle, to travel to some parts of the universe. Given that the universe is expanding and will expand forever (exponentially, according to most recent measurements), and that you cannot travel faster than the speed of light, there are regions of the universe sufficiently distant that a local observer cannot ever reach them. Thus our observation volume is finite, even if the universe is infinite. Yet no one objects to statements about the laws of physics being the same beyond that observational barrier (or about galaxies existing there, etc.).
Another example (that I mentioned in another post) is using relativity to make statements about the internals of black holes, which are (according to our current understanding) inaccessible even in principle.
The many universes theory, is, on the other hand, impossible to falsify in every way (theoretically and practically).
Many worlds isn't a theory. It is a prediction of quantum theory. I agree that many-worlds is unfalsifiable in principle, which certainly bothers me. But the theory of quantum theory is falsifiable. So if a falsifiable theory is tested rigorously, and all of its falsifiable predictions remain robust (no contradiction with reality is ever encountered), then what do you do about the one single remaining prediction? Do you throw it away, just because you don't like it? Do you ignore it, because it doesn't have any effect on your life? Or do you say "amazingly, this is probably a true statement about the universe--even though we can't test it."
Honestly I don't know what we are supposed to do when faced with such situations. It's not at all obvious.
Don't take that the wrong way - your post was informative and interesting. But people who really believe in stuff like multiple universes and time travel and think it's all very scientific just really make me laugh out loud.
No offense taken. To be honest I find many-worlds incredible, too. For many years I found it unnervingly uncomfortable or downright ludicrous. But after looking at the fundamentals of quantum mechanics for long enough, it became sort of "unavoidable."
It's also interesting that the proportion of physicists who take MWI seriously is increasing year by year. Not because we have direct evidence of it--but because if you accept unitary quantum mechanics, it's difficult to refute MWI.
(I should also point out that the label "multiple universes" is really unfortunate, since it detracts from what's really going on. It conjures images of alternate realities, like a Quantum Leap or Sliders, rather than describing what is really going on: a single global wavefunction whose 'branches' will be interpreted as disjoint classical realities by local observers.)
Let me put it this way. We have two theories before us:
A. Unitary quantum mechanics. B. Unitary quantum, plus an ad-hoc assumption about 'wavefunction collapse.'
Both "A" and "B" are able to predict experimental results properly. However, B is unsatisfying to many physicists because there are no clearly-defined rules about how to apply the 'wavefunction collapse' rule.
Modern experiments are putting bounds on this 'wavefunction collapse' and it seems like arbitrarily large objects can exist in superpositions. (Maybe even as large as the universe?) Thus there is no reason to discount A. Moreover A is a simpler theory than B, and it gets the right answer just as frequently, so it would seem preferable.
Now, theory A, if taken literally, implies MWI.
You can view this as a conceptual difference if you like (i.e.: we are picking A instead of B just because it is simpler). But the point is that MWI is a prediction, not an interpretation. (The confusion arises because it is called an "interpretation" and was originally presented as such--but that is no longer how MWI fits in with quantum theory.)
First, why the fact that the universe is in a superposition means there are many-worlds? It seems to me as if it means there is one world, but it's not classic. Is one superpositioned universe the same as many classical "universes"?
Bingo. The theory is that there is a single wavefunction. Just one. A local observer will only experience one branch, and may call that "the universe." But really there is just one quantum universe, which has many branches, each one of which looks like a classical universe.
In a way, the provocative name "Many Worlds" is unfortunate--because it muddies the waters with images of "alternate realities" instead of focusing on what the theory is predicting: a single wavefunction.
If we can't interact with them in any way, they don't exist
That is a deep philosophical question. I agree that axiomatic statements that cannot be verified dont' exist. If I say "there is an invisible, intagible, unmeasurable faerie on your desk" that is meaningless. But Many-Worlds are a prediction (not an axiom) of unitary quantum mechanics. So even if we can't directly measure the other branches, it doesn't mean they don't exist. Put otherwise: if 99.99999% of the predictions of a theory are found to be true, what do you do with a final, untestable prediction?
Last, even if there are many worlds, I think the article is misleading as to the difference.
I think many people get misled into thinking of "many worlds" as being parallel realities where any crazy thing you can imagine is "out there somewhere." This isn't the case. Each branch evolves deterministically. Given that the universe had a single set of initial conditions, this puts a constraint on what types of classical realities will be represented in the global wavefunction. The number of branches is indeed staggering--but then again, each branch will be a pseudo-classical universe much like the one you experience.
So if I'm understanding you correctly, this means that MWI takes the indeterminism out of the universe at large and instead puts it to the measurement of each separate individual (be it instrument or conscious observer) as to what aspect of the multiverse is being experienced at any given time.
Well, the point would be that (loosely speaking) you experience one outcome, and an alternate version of you experiences the other outcome. Really you are both part of the same global wavefunction, but in different "parts" of the wavefunction there are different states for the memories of the different "versions of you." Each branch of MWI represents one "classically-consistent" history.
I'm sorry but I don't see how this is an improvement.
It's not an improvement. It's a prediction of a theory, plain and simple. Quantum mechanics wasn't a conceptual "improvement" either: many people hated it, compared to the predictable determinism that was previously assumed. But, it turns out that quantum mechanics was right, so we're stuck with it.
The debate right now is about whether MWI is right or not. Whether or not it is an improvement in conceptual terms is irrelevant. As a prediction of a rigorously verified theory, it's hard to ignore.
That the laws of physics are invariant (first explicitly stated in geology as uniformitarianism [wikipedia.org]) is not a prediction, but rather an axiom of science.
Agreed. It is an axiom of science as we do it.
With this understanding the status of many worlds and the absurdly large number of parallel universes it entails is quite different from uniformity of natural laws. One (spatiotemporally uniform natural laws) is an assumption necessary for the scientific enterprise to function at all. The other (laughably large numbers of entire freakin' universes) is a clear and moreover, literal violation of occams razor
Here I think you've misunderstood me. The point is that Many-Worlds is not an assumption: it is a prediction of certain theories (namely, modern unitary quantum mechanics).
So, given two axioms:
1. Laws of physics are invariant
2. Unitary quantum mechanics describes the universe
We obtain a wide variety of predictions, from transistors to molecules, and so on. One of the predictions is "the universe exists in a global superposition." The proliferation of branches is consequence of the theory, not an axiom.
We may find the prediction uncomfortable, but without a logical (or empirical) reason to discard it (but retain all the other predictions, which we like better), how can we ignore it? (Honest question... I'm not an expert in philosophy so perhaps I'm committing a fallacy.)
Positing even a single additional universe constitutes multiplying a nearly uncountable number of entities.
To emphasize, nothing is being posited (beyond the axioms mentioned; I'm assuming no one is disputing that science and quantum mechanics can say something meaningful about the universe).
Besides, the point is that unitary quantum mechanics is actually reductionist. It does away with a (superfluous?) ad-hoc assumption (about 'collapse of the wavefunction'). The resulting theory predicts a single object: a global wavefunction. That you or I call its various branches 'universes' doesn't mean anything is actually proliferating.
We now return you to parallel universes' proper place in our culture as the home of a bearded, agonizer wielding Commander Spock.
It's important to emphasize that the "Many Worlds" predicted by modern unitary quantum mechanics are not really the "wacky possibilities" seen on shows like Sliders. They represent the branches of superpositions of a global wavefunction. If you branch from a current position, the possibilities are deterministic and mostly uninteresting (e.g. an atom decays a moment later in one branch than another).
Yes, the global wavefunction would include many variations (maybe even variants where historical events played out differently because millions of quantum branches biased events a certain way instead of another way), but all of these variations are ruled by the same deterministic physics. And, importantly, it's not a matter of "whatever universe you can imagine is out there somewhere!"--the possibilities are strictly limited by deterministic evolution of the wavefunction and the initial conditions of the universe.
I'm not sure if you were already aware, but there is indeed a concept called "Quantum Darwinism" which helps explain (using the results from quantum decoherence) why we observe things "classically" (single outcomes of experiments, non-entangled macroscopic states, etc.) despite the universe being fundamentally quantum.
Briefly, the theory shows (rigorously) how pseudo-classical states are the only ones that are robust against decoherence. Hence, those are the states that tend to persists for measurable periods of time. And those pseudo-classical states are the ones that give rise to other pseudo-classical states.
Moreover the main developer of these ideas (Wojciech Zurek) describes in his papers how what we typically term "memories" are inherently classical states (it's either "a" or "b"--not a superposition of both). He explains how macroscopic states will tend to be pseudo-classical, so of course any biological (macroscopic) creature will evolve to assume that reality is classical (it's an adaptive advantage and a good approximation of reality).
The point is that these larger-scale superpositions do indeed exist, but that local observers (e.g. instruments, or ants, or humans) can inherently only record/remember classical states, not quantum ones. So, our perception of reality (and memory of reality) is inherently a classical one.
For anyone interested, this argument was made much more clearly than I am able to in a recent Nature review article:
Max Tegmark. "Many lives in many worlds" Nature 448, 23-24 (5 July 2007) | doi:10.1038/448023a; Published online 4 July 2007.
The blurb is:
Accepting quantum physics to be universally true, argues Max Tegmark, means that you should also believe in parallel universes.
The article is only available to subscribers, but here are some quotes from the article:
The key point is that parallel universes are not a theory in themselves, but a prediction of certain theories. For a theory to be falsifiable, we need not observe and test all its predictions -- one will do.
Because Einstein's general theory of relativity has successfully predicted many things we can observe, we also take seriously its predictions for things we cannot, such as the internal structure of black holes. Analogously, successful predictions by unitary quantum mechanics have made scientists take more seriously its other predictions, including parallel universes.
This is a fairly subtle point, so I'm not sure that I'm going to explain myself properly... but here's my best shot:
The Many-Worlds concept of quantum mechanics was originally presented as an interpretation of the theory. It was viewed by many as being ridiculous, or "non-economical with universes" as the joke goes. Work in fields like quantum decoherence has, over the last few decades, helped to explain how "normal" (classical) states emerge from quantum superpositions. Decoherence, briefly, explains how a superposition of quantum states evolves deterministically (no randomness!) into a discrete set of pseudo-classical states (due to entanglement with the many degrees of freedom available in the "environment"--i.e. the universe at large). This extension to quantum mechanics has been tested experimentally and verified.
The remaining issue in a theory of quantum + decoherence is that the classical states have the right probabilities, but there is still nothing to explain why we observe a particular classical state (photon measured spin-up instead of spin-down). However the (ad-hoc) postulate of wavefunction collapse, no longer being necessary to explain how the probabilities arise, can in fact be entirely removed if we allow that the global superposition never collapses.
Thus, a local observer (e.g. an instrument or a human) perceives a single outcome only because they are a participant in this "global superposition" (the superposition of the entire universe). The wavefunction of the universe as a whole evolves deterministically.
Okay, that was a long-winded preamble, and I still have not answered your question. The answer is that the existence of multiple universes cannot be falsified per se. But, then again, in this formalism Many-Worlds is not an axiom: it is a prediction. Given that it is a prediction of a thoroughly successful theory, we should be compelled to accept the prediction as correct even if we cannot directly test it. We can, at least, test other predictions of the theory. In principle, we can test for superpositions as big as we like (superpositions of entire galaxies, etc.), but we cannot ever test that final prediction: that the universe as a whole is also in a superposition. But, if we've tested the theory in every other way, can we really "throw away" the final prediction about the global superposition?
Now, I know many of you will counter-argue that non-falsifiable predictions are not science, and should be ignored as metaphysics, or even "meaningless." Perhaps. But allow me to draw an analogy: One of the fundamental assumptions of science is that there is such a thing as "physical law." That is, we can extrapolate from one measurement to others. Put otherwise, we accept that the laws of physics are the same here as they are in a distant galaxy. Note that, because of the expansion of the universe and the speed-of-light-limit, there are some regions of the universe that we cannot ever explore (even in principle, assuming our current physics is correct). Thus, the prediction that "the laws of physics are invariant across the universe" is itself unfalsifiable, yet we generally accept it to be true.
Similarly, we need but extend this logic into quantum mechanics, where if assume that the laws of physics are the same everywhere in the universe (and everywhere within the wavefunction of the universe), then we should accept that the global superposition is probably correct: i.e.: Many Worlds "exist" (but are inaccessible to us). I agree that this conclusion is uncomfortable, but it appears inescapable given our current understanding of physics. (Note: As a scientist I'm of course allowing for the possibility of future measurements disproving some part of this logic--this is entirely based on our current understanding.)
As I said, the point I'm trying to make is not obvious. Hopefully I've not muddled it beyond understanding.
Firefox does indeed crash sometimes. On my system, it can run for weeks without problem, but certain types of content (e.g. YouTube) can crash it if it's been open that long. There's no good excuse for crashing: these problems absolutely should be fixed.
It should be noted, however, that the "session restore" feature in Firefox 2.x reduces the impact of these crashes considerably. If there's an unexpected crash, when you reopen it, you get a dialog that says "Do you want to restore your previous session?" So, you actually don't lose any of your tabs. (Even session-dependent things, like being logged in to Gmail or entering something into a text field are restored, if memory serves.) So a crash is functionally identical to a 2-second freeze.
Again, I emphasize that the crashing should be fixed. I'm not excusing the bugs. However, it's nice to see that they have at least coded it such that when it fails, it fails somewhat "gracefully."
Most of the "things" you do in programming are tradeoffs, often between complexity of implementation, speed and memory requirements.
As an aside, it's worth noting that the traditional assumption of a tradeoff between speed and memory usage has been challenged in modern computing. In an interview with Jim Gettys, regarding the software challenges of coding for the OLPC, he says:
Application slimming: There seems to be a common fallacy among programmers that using memory is good: on current hardware it is often much faster to recompute values than to have to reference memory to get a precomputed value. A full cache miss can be hundreds of cycles, and hundreds of times the power consumption of an instruction that hits in the first level cache. Making things smaller almost always makes them faster (and lower power). Similarly, it can be much faster to redraw an area of the screen than to copy a saved image from RAM to a screen buffer. Many programmer's presumptions are now completely incorrect and we need to reeducate ourselves.
No doubt this isn't universally true: sometimes you will speed up a program considerably by caching difficult-to-compute values, lookup tables, etc. But he is correct in pointing out that many programmers will assume that pre-calculating and storing values is always faster than re-computing them as needed. On modern hardware, this isn't necessarily the case.
The take-home message is fairly obvious, though sometimes forgotten: reducing memory usage will often yield speed boosts also.
One of the machines will be given to a child in a developing nation, and the other one will be shipped to the purchaser by Christmas. The donated computer is a tax-deductible charitable contribution.
Someone was asked to translate "Newer version" for the Gmail UI. Big deal. This truly is the bottom of the barrel.
It's even worse than that. At no point does TFA provide evidence that the text "New Version" is related to Gmail, and not some other Google product. It could be a new version of Google Calendar or a new version of Google Scholar. (It could even be outdated text referring to a "New Version" of a product that has already been released.)
Or... it could just be one of thousands of random snippets of text that appear on various Google documents, and requires translation into other languages. There is no evidence here... only wild speculation. The author of TFA is either an idiot, holding back information, or is trying to create some kind of joke.
Slashdot Mirror
The actual scientific paper appears to be this one:
Phillip W. Snyder, Matthew S. Johannes, Briana N. Vogen, Robert L. Clark, and Eric J. Toone, "Biocatalytic Microcontact Printing" J. Org. Chem., 72 (19), 7459 -7461, 2007 DOI: 10.1021/jo0711541
They use confocal fluorescence which is, as you note, diffraction limited. However for the high-resolution study of the line-edges, they use Atomic Force Microscopy which is of course much higher resolution. The AFM images they show, however, appear to have rather imperfect line-edges, with resolution of >200 nm. Actually, nowhere in the paper do they claim to have demonstrated 2 nm resolution. Rather, they point out in the introduction that their new technique, in principle, could allow higher-resolution printing that conventional soft lithography, because there is no diffusion of reagents in their technique. The news release focuses on this mention of a theoretical 2 nm resolution, rather than pointing out the actual accomplishment of the paper, which in the words of the authors is: So, in short, it's an important advancement but the authors are not claiming to have achieved the intended ultra-high-resolution yet. And, even without that optimistic resolution, the technique is interesting in its own right because it is a new way to control the nanoscale chemical patterning of surfaces.
Magnatune also allows the buyer to set the price for an album purchase online: from $8 to $18. As far as I know, they've never released stats about how much people decide to pay.
So, this new model is not entirely unique. That's your choice. Many other people (myself included) certainly will pay some amount for the album. I guess the idea is that although lots of people will download it for free, those people would probably have downloaded it for free (via P2P) anyways. At least in this case, you allow those people who value easy downloading to conveniently "do the right thing" and directly support the artist.
Rather, I think the intention was a "call to action" more along the lines of publicly criticizing Novell/Microsoft, and thereby putting pressure on them.
You can agree with the GPL and the universal freedoms it provides, while simultaneously putting pressure on particular companies to not be jerks. The "when you contributed code" statement was, in my estimation, intended to imply that Novell is generating bad will among the very people it depends upon for continued software improvements. What Novell is doing may be legal, but that doesn't mean we have to like it, and sit by silently.
XP was slow for the computers of the time (when it was released). So is Vista. And, no doubt, hardware will catch up so that Vista's hardware requirements are not so ridiculous. But that's about where the analogy between XP and Vista ends.
One of the quotes you pulled was: The reaction to Vista now is actually worse than this. It's not "well if you're building a brand new computer, go ahead and get it." It's "avoid at all costs--if they try and force it on you in the sale of a new system, go somewhere else that will load XP for you!"
In short, I don't think it's really valid to compare to a past event, see some similarities, and automatically assume that this one will play out the same way. There are differences between XP and Vista (scaled for their release time-periods), and there are differences in general reaction to XP and to Vista.
I'm not so naive as to think that Vista will not, eventually, become the default OS on the majority of commodity desktops. However, it's clear to alot of people that Vista is not much of an upgrade over XP (and in some ways is actually a downgrade), and moreover the "upgrade" that is Vista is pathetic when you account for the time and money that was put into it. In terms of quality/$, Microsoft products are getting worse over time (even if they are getting slightly better in raw terms), which means that eventually there will be no compelling reason to upgrade to new MS operating systems. (Some would say we have reached that point.)
Assuming the competition (Mac, Linux, etc.) don't stagnate in a similar way, this could very well mean a change in the desktop marketshare landscape over the next 10 years.
Then the CD laser can be used as a detection mechanism at different locations along the disk. Also you can obviously run multiple experiments at once, since as the disk spins the laser passes from one fluid channel to the next.
It's a rather cool idea to use commodity CD-drives for these high-tech assays. I'm not aware of a good review of these experiments, but here are two papers on this subject:
Siyi Lai, Shengnian Wang, Jun Luo, L. James Lee, Shang-Tian Yang, and Marc J. Madou "Design of a Compact Disk-like Microfluidic Platform for Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay" Analytical Chemistry, 76 (7), 1832 -1837, 2004. doi 10.1021/ac0348322
Horacio Kido, Miodrag Micic, David Smith, Jim Zoval, Jim Norton and Marc Madou "A novel, compact disk-like centrifugal microfluidics system for cell lysis and sample homogenization" Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces Volume 58, Issue 1, 1 July 2007, Pages 44-51 doi: doi:10.1016/j.colsurfb.2007.03.015
I'm not a patent expert, but isn't this already the case? Prior art is indeed a valid defense against patent claims.
The problem is that proving prior art is difficult. Even if you are in the right, and can provide evidence to that effect, it becomes a long and expensive court case, which many cannot afford (especially the small-time inventors that patent law ostensibly promotes).
Patent-happy companies will continue to throw as many patents at the system as they can. Whatever sticks is ammunition, regardless of whether or not the patent is valid. Even patents that may be invalidated can be used as threats.
We really need to decrease the number of patents granted, so we need "early detection" of prior art. Frankly, I think patent applicants should be liable in some way if their application is shown to be invalid due to prior art or obviousness. It should be treated as a very serious offense, akin to perjury. We need to make it so that there is an incentive to scour the literature for prior art, and a penalty for making false claims.
The problem is that if it's always the base manufacturer that is liable, then being such a manufacturer is not very attractive. Investors may specifically keep such companies small to limit their own potential losses. The end result is the same: damages to resellers and companies "higher in the food chain" are minimized in favor of "throw-away" companies. (And all without collusion.)
To say nothing of the possibility that the base manufacturers will all simply relocate to foreign countries...
I don't doubt that you're right: PHBs may indeed get scared by "if you use GPL code you could end up in court" worries (or FUD, as the case may be).
But I find that rather amusing. I mean, it's not like the liability or damages would be less if you somehow ('accidentally' ?) shipped proprietary software (binary or source) with your product. In fact, I imagine a proprietary software vendor would be even less forgiving than the FOSS community. It's not like FOSS is demanding greater vigilance than proprietary equivalents: just read the license before you distribute it!
I guess it's hard for some people to understand the concept of free software licensing. They think that if they can see the code (and download it gratis from a web server), then they can do whatever they want with it. Really, it shows that many people who are in the business of making money off of copyright law (and copyright law applied to software in particular) don't pay much attention to how it works.
I mostly agree with what you've said. Agreed. I think science journalism often overly simplifies things in the name of some ethereal "joe average" when in reality people can get quite a bit out of technical descriptions, even if they don't understand every detail. It's more important, in my opinion, for the presented information to be correct, so that the interested reader can really think about it (and maybe read it multiple times, and go check other sources)... rather than sacrificing correctness in the name of "making it easier to understand." There is no doubt that scientists need to spend more time crafting their delivery before speaking with journalists. A well-respected scientist that I've collaborated with had a rule: "If you can't explain what you did in three sentences, then you have not thought about it enough."
I think that good science journalism is possible, but it requires some extra effort from both the journalist and the scientist. Ideally, the journalist should be checking with the scientists that his simplified explanations are correct, and changing them if they are not (rather than printing something that the scientist will read and then shake his head). The scientist, meanwhile, should think long and hard about what the essence of their work is.
It's a shame that they require you to use a silly downloader app for the full albums. On the other hand, it's nice to see that they at least acknowledge Linux and claim that they are working on a solution (the service is in Beta, after all). Hopefully they will provide full Linux support soon enough.
Long answer:
First off, some of the discussion here is getting confused because people are equating the "many universes" of the Many-Worlds Interpretation with the "parallel realities" espoused by other theories (but, most prominently displayed in sci-fi), where "anything goes" or any possible arrangement of atoms (or even laws of physics) is possible, or even exists.
I'm talking about Many-Worlds, which is an untested prediction of modern quantum theory. I'm not talking about parallel realities (for which there is currently no proof and which no mainstream theory predict). In Many-Worlds, the branches evolve deterministically from the current state (according to the equations of quantum mechanics). This means that along each branch (each "universe" if you prefer), the laws of physics are invariant, and are exactly what we are used to (quantum mechanics + relativity). Moreover, because the universe is evolving from a specific initial state, there are constraints on what the branches will look like. You won't get "every wild thing you can imagine": only those branches which can evolve from a current state will be represented in the global superposition.
So the various branches of Many-Worlds look pretty much exactly like the universe you are comfortable with (planets, stars, galaxies). Along one branch an atom might decay and along the other branch it might not decay (yet)... In principle some branches may have quantum choices such that normally improbably things occur, but that's balanced out by the vast majority of branches which are, basically, boring.
He emphasizes that the objective is for the software to end up free, not to extract revenge, or get extra money. As such, the message we must send is "do the right thing," and not "pay for your crime." He says that this strategy has worked remarkably well: most GPL infringements never make it anywhere near a courtroom: a couple of friendly phone calls and the situation is resolved.
Frankly I think this "don't be a jerk" tactic is something we should encourage everywhere, not just in the FOSS community. In any case, the somewhat more even-handed approach to infringements helps to not scare away potential users of GPL software and code (e.g. corporations). The message they get is: "play by the rules... but if you make a mistake, don't worry: we'll send you a friendly reminder before taking any harsh action."
On the other hand, the fact that no GPL dispute has ever gone to court says something very powerful: It says that no company who has ever been discovered to be violating the GPL honestly thought that they could win in court.
So, the (unofficial) conclusion from a wide variety of lawyers working for different, unrelated, companies is: "Don't go to court against the GPL." It's not a legally-binding test, but it sends a clear message to other would-be infringers.
Another example (that I mentioned in another post) is using relativity to make statements about the internals of black holes, which are (according to our current understanding) inaccessible even in principle. Many worlds isn't a theory. It is a prediction of quantum theory. I agree that many-worlds is unfalsifiable in principle, which certainly bothers me. But the theory of quantum theory is falsifiable. So if a falsifiable theory is tested rigorously, and all of its falsifiable predictions remain robust (no contradiction with reality is ever encountered), then what do you do about the one single remaining prediction? Do you throw it away, just because you don't like it? Do you ignore it, because it doesn't have any effect on your life? Or do you say "amazingly, this is probably a true statement about the universe--even though we can't test it."
Honestly I don't know what we are supposed to do when faced with such situations. It's not at all obvious. No offense taken. To be honest I find many-worlds incredible, too. For many years I found it unnervingly uncomfortable or downright ludicrous. But after looking at the fundamentals of quantum mechanics for long enough, it became sort of "unavoidable."
It's also interesting that the proportion of physicists who take MWI seriously is increasing year by year. Not because we have direct evidence of it--but because if you accept unitary quantum mechanics, it's difficult to refute MWI.
(I should also point out that the label "multiple universes" is really unfortunate, since it detracts from what's really going on. It conjures images of alternate realities, like a Quantum Leap or Sliders, rather than describing what is really going on: a single global wavefunction whose 'branches' will be interpreted as disjoint classical realities by local observers.)
Let me put it this way. We have two theories before us:
A. Unitary quantum mechanics.
B. Unitary quantum, plus an ad-hoc assumption about 'wavefunction collapse.'
Both "A" and "B" are able to predict experimental results properly. However, B is unsatisfying to many physicists because there are no clearly-defined rules about how to apply the 'wavefunction collapse' rule.
Modern experiments are putting bounds on this 'wavefunction collapse' and it seems like arbitrarily large objects can exist in superpositions. (Maybe even as large as the universe?) Thus there is no reason to discount A. Moreover A is a simpler theory than B, and it gets the right answer just as frequently, so it would seem preferable.
Now, theory A, if taken literally, implies MWI.
You can view this as a conceptual difference if you like (i.e.: we are picking A instead of B just because it is simpler). But the point is that MWI is a prediction, not an interpretation. (The confusion arises because it is called an "interpretation" and was originally presented as such--but that is no longer how MWI fits in with quantum theory.)
In a way, the provocative name "Many Worlds" is unfortunate--because it muddies the waters with images of "alternate realities" instead of focusing on what the theory is predicting: a single wavefunction. That is a deep philosophical question. I agree that axiomatic statements that cannot be verified dont' exist. If I say "there is an invisible, intagible, unmeasurable faerie on your desk" that is meaningless. But Many-Worlds are a prediction (not an axiom) of unitary quantum mechanics. So even if we can't directly measure the other branches, it doesn't mean they don't exist. Put otherwise: if 99.99999% of the predictions of a theory are found to be true, what do you do with a final, untestable prediction? I think many people get misled into thinking of "many worlds" as being parallel realities where any crazy thing you can imagine is "out there somewhere." This isn't the case. Each branch evolves deterministically. Given that the universe had a single set of initial conditions, this puts a constraint on what types of classical realities will be represented in the global wavefunction. The number of branches is indeed staggering--but then again, each branch will be a pseudo-classical universe much like the one you experience.
The debate right now is about whether MWI is right or not. Whether or not it is an improvement in conceptual terms is irrelevant. As a prediction of a rigorously verified theory, it's hard to ignore.
So, given two axioms:
1. Laws of physics are invariant
2. Unitary quantum mechanics describes the universe
We obtain a wide variety of predictions, from transistors to molecules, and so on. One of the predictions is "the universe exists in a global superposition." The proliferation of branches is consequence of the theory, not an axiom.
We may find the prediction uncomfortable, but without a logical (or empirical) reason to discard it (but retain all the other predictions, which we like better), how can we ignore it? (Honest question... I'm not an expert in philosophy so perhaps I'm committing a fallacy.) To emphasize, nothing is being posited (beyond the axioms mentioned; I'm assuming no one is disputing that science and quantum mechanics can say something meaningful about the universe).
Besides, the point is that unitary quantum mechanics is actually reductionist. It does away with a (superfluous?) ad-hoc assumption (about 'collapse of the wavefunction'). The resulting theory predicts a single object: a global wavefunction. That you or I call its various branches 'universes' doesn't mean anything is actually proliferating. It's important to emphasize that the "Many Worlds" predicted by modern unitary quantum mechanics are not really the "wacky possibilities" seen on shows like Sliders. They represent the branches of superpositions of a global wavefunction. If you branch from a current position, the possibilities are deterministic and mostly uninteresting (e.g. an atom decays a moment later in one branch than another).
Yes, the global wavefunction would include many variations (maybe even variants where historical events played out differently because millions of quantum branches biased events a certain way instead of another way), but all of these variations are ruled by the same deterministic physics. And, importantly, it's not a matter of "whatever universe you can imagine is out there somewhere!"--the possibilities are strictly limited by deterministic evolution of the wavefunction and the initial conditions of the universe.
I'm not sure if you were already aware, but there is indeed a concept called "Quantum Darwinism" which helps explain (using the results from quantum decoherence) why we observe things "classically" (single outcomes of experiments, non-entangled macroscopic states, etc.) despite the universe being fundamentally quantum.
Briefly, the theory shows (rigorously) how pseudo-classical states are the only ones that are robust against decoherence. Hence, those are the states that tend to persists for measurable periods of time. And those pseudo-classical states are the ones that give rise to other pseudo-classical states.
Moreover the main developer of these ideas (Wojciech Zurek) describes in his papers how what we typically term "memories" are inherently classical states (it's either "a" or "b"--not a superposition of both). He explains how macroscopic states will tend to be pseudo-classical, so of course any biological (macroscopic) creature will evolve to assume that reality is classical (it's an adaptive advantage and a good approximation of reality).
The point is that these larger-scale superpositions do indeed exist, but that local observers (e.g. instruments, or ants, or humans) can inherently only record/remember classical states, not quantum ones. So, our perception of reality (and memory of reality) is inherently a classical one.
For anyone interested, this argument was made much more clearly than I am able to in a recent Nature review article:
Max Tegmark. "Many lives in many worlds" Nature 448, 23-24 (5 July 2007) | doi:10.1038/448023a; Published online 4 July 2007.
The blurb is: The article is only available to subscribers, but here are some quotes from the article:
This is a fairly subtle point, so I'm not sure that I'm going to explain myself properly... but here's my best shot:
The Many-Worlds concept of quantum mechanics was originally presented as an interpretation of the theory. It was viewed by many as being ridiculous, or "non-economical with universes" as the joke goes. Work in fields like quantum decoherence has, over the last few decades, helped to explain how "normal" (classical) states emerge from quantum superpositions. Decoherence, briefly, explains how a superposition of quantum states evolves deterministically (no randomness!) into a discrete set of pseudo-classical states (due to entanglement with the many degrees of freedom available in the "environment"--i.e. the universe at large). This extension to quantum mechanics has been tested experimentally and verified.
The remaining issue in a theory of quantum + decoherence is that the classical states have the right probabilities, but there is still nothing to explain why we observe a particular classical state (photon measured spin-up instead of spin-down). However the (ad-hoc) postulate of wavefunction collapse, no longer being necessary to explain how the probabilities arise, can in fact be entirely removed if we allow that the global superposition never collapses.
Thus, a local observer (e.g. an instrument or a human) perceives a single outcome only because they are a participant in this "global superposition" (the superposition of the entire universe). The wavefunction of the universe as a whole evolves deterministically.
Okay, that was a long-winded preamble, and I still have not answered your question. The answer is that the existence of multiple universes cannot be falsified per se. But, then again, in this formalism Many-Worlds is not an axiom: it is a prediction. Given that it is a prediction of a thoroughly successful theory, we should be compelled to accept the prediction as correct even if we cannot directly test it. We can, at least, test other predictions of the theory. In principle, we can test for superpositions as big as we like (superpositions of entire galaxies, etc.), but we cannot ever test that final prediction: that the universe as a whole is also in a superposition. But, if we've tested the theory in every other way, can we really "throw away" the final prediction about the global superposition?
Now, I know many of you will counter-argue that non-falsifiable predictions are not science, and should be ignored as metaphysics, or even "meaningless." Perhaps. But allow me to draw an analogy: One of the fundamental assumptions of science is that there is such a thing as "physical law." That is, we can extrapolate from one measurement to others. Put otherwise, we accept that the laws of physics are the same here as they are in a distant galaxy. Note that, because of the expansion of the universe and the speed-of-light-limit, there are some regions of the universe that we cannot ever explore (even in principle, assuming our current physics is correct). Thus, the prediction that "the laws of physics are invariant across the universe" is itself unfalsifiable, yet we generally accept it to be true.
Similarly, we need but extend this logic into quantum mechanics, where if assume that the laws of physics are the same everywhere in the universe (and everywhere within the wavefunction of the universe), then we should accept that the global superposition is probably correct: i.e.: Many Worlds "exist" (but are inaccessible to us). I agree that this conclusion is uncomfortable, but it appears inescapable given our current understanding of physics. (Note: As a scientist I'm of course allowing for the possibility of future measurements disproving some part of this logic--this is entirely based on our current understanding.)
As I said, the point I'm trying to make is not obvious. Hopefully I've not muddled it beyond understanding.
Firefox does indeed crash sometimes. On my system, it can run for weeks without problem, but certain types of content (e.g. YouTube) can crash it if it's been open that long. There's no good excuse for crashing: these problems absolutely should be fixed.
It should be noted, however, that the "session restore" feature in Firefox 2.x reduces the impact of these crashes considerably. If there's an unexpected crash, when you reopen it, you get a dialog that says "Do you want to restore your previous session?" So, you actually don't lose any of your tabs. (Even session-dependent things, like being logged in to Gmail or entering something into a text field are restored, if memory serves.) So a crash is functionally identical to a 2-second freeze.
Again, I emphasize that the crashing should be fixed. I'm not excusing the bugs. However, it's nice to see that they have at least coded it such that when it fails, it fails somewhat "gracefully."
The take-home message is fairly obvious, though sometimes forgotten: reducing memory usage will often yield speed boosts also.
Or... it could just be one of thousands of random snippets of text that appear on various Google documents, and requires translation into other languages. There is no evidence here... only wild speculation. The author of TFA is either an idiot, holding back information, or is trying to create some kind of joke.