Posts by William Rothamel

1) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Warp drive continues to be tested (Message 1369467)
Posted 1 day ago by

William Rothamel

the D-Wave Two processor appears to make use of an effect called quantum tunnelling.

That's the way any semiconductor works.

2) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Warp drive continues to be tested (Message 1367641)
Posted 6 days ago by

William Rothamel

Here's my take on Quantum Computers and what appears to be mistaken implications and hype. We all know that the speed of a computer is limited by the energy that it takes to switch states and the distance between logic gates which has been shrinking steadily somewhat in accord with Moire's law. It is thought that to go much faster we will have to eventually get down to the atomic level--hence the use of the term quantum computer. There are of course other considerations for computing speed with today's technology such as pipelining, parallel processing and use of implicit parallelism in computer programs.

Another boast is that a quantum computer can be in many states at once--really ? how do we know which state is the correct one ? For my money an electron is in a plus spin state or a minus. If you like the Schrodinger cat idea of neither state then maybe you have three states --but don't look.

It is stated that a digital computer can only be in one state at a time. While that is true 64 or 128 bits can be processed at once and this is only limited by word structure and packing in so many floating point representations.

So I say. Lets see the hardware, logic, and programs that can make use of the so called quantum computer.

3) Message boards : Politics : Climate Change, 'Greenhouse' effects: Solutions (Message 1367369)
Posted 7 days ago by

William Rothamel

I spent a year in Iran back in 1978. The city was 6 million then and "Benzene" (gasoline) was 12 cents per liter. The air was dirty and soot permeated everything in the city which was at 6000 feet above sea level.

The State of Tennessee a year or so ago converted to Natural gas for it's State-run vehicles. Cost was about $1.00 US per gallon of gas equivalent.

LNG is good but requires high pressure tanks and a different infra structure. CO-2 is still produced but it moves you away from foreign (Middle eastern) oil

4) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Warp drive continues to be tested (Message 1366977)
Posted 8 days ago by

William Rothamel

The brain is better at some tasks and the computer is far better at others. Today I taught graduate stats and used statcrunch on a computer to do in seconds what might take a person with pencil and paper half a day or longer. This evening I cooked a splendid dinner which I don't expect to see a machine do in my lifetime. Perhaps we should resurrect the old argument "can machines think"? In time the distinction will blur further.

I did research on artificial neurons a long time ago. Even took graduate courses from Ross Ashby (Design for a Brain) and Heinz Von Forster of early Cybernetic fame. Mostly, I wound up debunking those who thought what they were doing was different from Boolean Logic and circuitry. We think we know roughly how a neuron works and that there are perhaps 10^12 of them in the brain. But each of these may have a thousand synaptic connections. We worked on Threshold Logic but though we could build simple logic circuits you could do the same with a few flip-flops and counters. No one was able to take these structures and build anything like a brain nor develop a logic to assist in the design. Look at the "Perceptron" to see how far they got. Also, the Avian retina was reproduced functionally in logic (edge detectors, bug detectors etc)

I don't know how the brain works, nor does anyone else. It is processing electro-chemical waves,images and storms via slow, chemical reactions that may resemble single sideband frequency modulation for transport. Where is the screen upon which we play consciousness ? How does memory work and where? Most brain research is at a macro level we map electrical activity in different areas of the brain and attempt to associate it with certain moods and experiences.

My daughter is a recent Neuro-science graduate and there are neurologists but they are concerned with manifestations of macro brain functions and not how the hardware, logic and interconnections work. So I don't know how a quantum computer works and I don't know how the brain works and If I did I would likely be the first.

I do know how a digital computer works and how to build one and how to program it to do amazing things. The brain remains better at many things now--it will not always be--perhaps a quantum computer will speed up this process but first we have to have one that offers an advantage over todays vastly sophisticated computer architectures and programs.

I apologize for this discussion as I note that this thread was about warp drives. I don't know how those work either so I will await a working model with baited breath.

5) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Warp drive continues to be tested (Message 1366885)
Posted 8 days ago by

William Rothamel

The brain is not a quantum computer. It is an analog, highly parallel image processor.

It's not that I don't understand quantum computers, it's just that I have never heard an explanation of what one is and how it works. I venture that no one posting here has either. ALso, so how would you write a program for it.

6) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Has the lost city of Atlantis been found?? (Message 1366884)
Posted 8 days ago by

William Rothamel

Atlantis is right here in Georgia. Just 240 miles from Nashville.

7) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Warp drive continues to be tested (Message 1366510)
Posted 9 days ago by

William Rothamel

you can 'test' all possible solutions simultaneously.

That's implied by Feynman's interpretation in that all paths are traversed from A to B. I still don't see how that relates to logic or to a computer program that could make use of the stated fact.

Exactly how could all possible paths through a network be tested at once?

8) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Warp drive continues to be tested (Message 1366448)
Posted 9 days ago by

William Rothamel

maybe William would be better if he watched the doco too

You are probably right. But each time I try to dig into this subject i always come away with "Huh?".

I minored in Theoretical Physics for my master's degree but also had a disbelief about the Copenhagen folks and Schrodinger himself as well. I always got a queazy felling in my stomach when trying to swallow these ideas. Plus,

I am with Feynman who said "Anyone who thinks that they understand quantum mechanics--doesn't"

9) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Warp drive continues to be tested (Message 1366435)
Posted 9 days ago by

William Rothamel

A byte of eight binary bits now has 2 to the eighth power possible patterns (that is 256)

I understand that a Qubit has three states so a Qubit byte of 8 qubits would have 6561 possible patterns. So I say so what--how does that make it faster. Entanglement involves positive or negative spin --2 states. I don't see the qubit thing here.

There would have to be an explanation of how doing "Quantum Logic" is superior to doing Boolean Logic. And some explanation of how this could be done faster than todays logic circuits.

In the old days Neural Networks were supposed to be more powerful as well. I and others, I am sure, showed that this was no different from Boolean logic (for the neurons being proposed back 50 years ago)

10) Message boards : Politics : Climate Change, 'Greenhouse' effects: Solutions (Message 1366394)
Posted 9 days ago by

William Rothamel

Tesla earns first profit, Model S wins '99% perfect' rating

A real bargain . When are you ordering yours ??

A while ago I postulated what a successful electric would look like--I seem to remember remarking that maybe Tatra Motors or the Chinese could pull it off.

Capacity - 4 to 5 people
Warranty on Batteries -200 thousand miles
Electric range -100 miles
Storage -30 KWH or so
Recharge time at 240 volts--4-6 hours
Aux power 1000-1300 cc turbo Diesel of perhaps 140 horsepower (around 100 Kilowatts for youse commies)
Curb weight 2500 -2700lbs max
Cost bogey $2300 -$2500 US
performance--0-100Kph 8.5 sec or less
Top Speed 120 Miles per hour

This is a very tall order that may require significant breakthroughs and cheap but exotic materials. I still think it could be done within a decade.

A few offerings cover pieces of this. The Chevy volt meets some specs but is too heavy and way too expensive.

The smaller Prius meets the cost, performance and weight bogies but has no real electric range

I don't think a $60,000 to $120,000 car will gain wide acceptance and make a dent on oil consumption.

I don't really think that this will reduce CO-2 production unless we can get on with Nuclear Power production; but it is vital that we reduce drastically the use of foreign oil for transportation.

What do you all think ??

11) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Warp drive continues to be tested (Message 1366362)
Posted 9 days ago by

William Rothamel

The traveling salesman problem is "solved" by tree pruning algorithms that promise that no better solution is worth the extra computer time. The best known method for this involves the Karmarkar method for linear programming problems(Actually he wanders around inside of the pivot points).

Can anyone explain what a quantum computer is, how it works and why it would be more efficient in solving this type of problem. In what sense is it more efficient (speed, time, number of calculations ?)

12) Message boards : Politics : Climate Change, 'Greenhouse' effects: DENIAL (Message 1366060)
Posted 10 days ago by

William Rothamel

the last reason for the great barrier reef die ing is the crown of thorn's star fish which I believe is a introduced species

I am sure that Australia knows that brining in Tritons can vastly reduce the number of coral-munching starfish.

The reefs off of Cuba still thrive--mainly because they don't dump their waste stream into the ocean. They get the same atmosphere as the rest of the planet.

13) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Dark Energy? (Message 1366056)
Posted 10 days ago by

William Rothamel

Go past the North pole and you go South again

My point exactly. You are unbounded when you move in the same direction but since you are moving due to the curvature involved to existing territory at the "edge" of your 2-dimensional universe you realize that it is finite. Expand the balloon by blowing more air in and it is still finite.

14) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Dark Energy? (Message 1365572)
Posted 12 days ago by

William Rothamel

Chris,

Volume is a 3 dimensional concept. The surface of a balloon is 2 dimensional. There are only two dimensions on the surface of a sphere hence longitude and latitude. I asked you to visualize a 2-dimensional world so that you could see by analogy what I was talking about.

Perhaps you should read the book 'Flatlander" or watch some of the Flatlander -type videos on the Web.

If there were no space other than that created by the expansion of the universe then there is no space outside of the universe. By thinking about the balloon there is no surface other than that on the balloon and when it expands there is more space but still finite and unbounded in 2 dimensions.

Tough things to visualize but try to see the analogy.

The mobius strip has only one side. If the universe were shaped like it then you could tunnel thru and shorten your journey. Think of an ant crawling along the strip. If he ate a hole in the strip he could shorten his path along the surface.

15) Message boards : Politics : Climate Change, 'Greenhouse' effects: DENIAL (Message 1365444)
Posted 12 days ago by

William Rothamel

The Earth started out with an atmosphere of Methane most likely.

If we quit dumping garbage and sewage into the oceans and polluting our ground water with various sludges we would see the health of the coral reefs vastly improve.

16) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Dark Energy? (Message 1365431)
Posted 12 days ago by

William Rothamel

Try this. The surface of a balloon is finite and unbounded in two dimensions. If you head out on a geodesic (i.e. a "straight" line in two dimensions) line you come back around to where you started. Space is expanding but there is nothing outside of it. Since mass tells space how to bend (gravity for youse proles) then I surmise that space is curved back on itself perhaps in a sphere. In the future we may find this very slight curvature--Euclid my have been slightly off and that may be why our math causes confusion at the very small and by induction the very large arenas,

Blow up the balloon a little more and it is still finite and unbounded in 2 dimensions. Here the surface of the balloon represents all of the space in the Universe--it is getting larger but thats all the space that there is.

Are we expanding into another dimension ?? Can we go North of the North Pole ??

Hard to grasp perhaps; but, ask yourself what is North of the North Pole??

Another good, arrogant scientific ?? rant by Daddio

17) Message boards : SETI@home Science : UFO's exist - I've seen at least two (Message 1365426)
Posted 12 days ago by

William Rothamel

why do so many people WANT to belive in UFO's? That is the burning question.

Those who believe the bible already are convinced that we have been visited by people from the sky. With such delusional conditioning the current trend is fully understandable.

18) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Dark Energy? (Message 1365327)
Posted 13 days ago by

William Rothamel

The Universe is 56 billion light years across. It is finite but unbounded

19) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Dark Energy? (Message 1365268)
Posted 13 days ago by

William Rothamel

The speed of light is 186,000 miles per SECOND. This is roughly 3 x 10^10 cm per second. Parts of the Universe are moving away from us at faster than the speed of light due to the expansion of space. This is part of the confusing things about cosmology.

20) Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Dark Energy? (Message 1364917)
Posted 14 days ago by

William Rothamel

Some things to consider on the subject that are perhaps confusing. Einstein thought that the Universe was static--hence the mistake over the infamous constant. This was what became to be called the Hubble constant which was most recently established at 69.32 ± 0.80 (km/s)/Mpc (or 21.25 ± 0.25 (km/s)/Mega-lightyear).

I don't know if this adressess the question of dark energy which was suggested by the apparent fact that this expansion is speeding up. This is done by observing the Doppler red shift of the more distant galaxies.

Well, two things bother me. One is that I might expect light from the farthest galaxies to travel through more inter-stellar gas thereby causing it to lose energy and hence lower it's frequency.

Also the farthest galaxies are showing us what happened 13 billion years ago which was closer to the big bang than right now. These galaxies 13 billion years ago would be moving faster since the drag of gravity would not have had time to slow them down appreciably after the initial big bang and effects of inflation on the early universe.

I haven't had a formal course in astronomy or cosmology so someone out there may be able to shed some light. If not then I may have to join my son Johnney Guiness in his belief that there is no such thing as dark energy. As for dark mass, I say let's send a probe to bring some of it back.

Another good scientific ?? rant by Daddio.

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