With continuance of processors doubling in speed and Terabyte petabytes hard drives soon coming to the market, it will not be long before someone will be able to achieve such as task.

Surprisingly writing the code to “draw” a photo is so simple, it is unreal, less than 50 lines.

<geek mode>

Starting with a blank canvas in black, you increment the value in point(0,0) on the screen counting from 0 to 16777215 (0xFFFFFF).

When you hit, 16777215, you reset it to zero and increment the value in the next pixel along and if that happens to be also 16777215 you reset that and increment the next pixel along. It is a recursive procedure.

Basically you are setting every pixel on screen in a logical order in every permutations possible until all pixels go through from black to white.

</geek mode>

This will take many, many years, probably beyond my life time to process with today’s computers, but one day with the advancement of nantotechnology we may get there sooner.

For those that haven’t cottoned on by now this program has drawn every image since time itself began even countless garbage.

That means it will have produced an image from the day you are born to the day you die in every possible angle and every possible range. In places you have never visited with people who you’ve never met along side you. There will be one of you with three or more eyes. Your imagination is unlimited. Aliens, creatures, ideas, objects, dreams, that man have never seen will have been produced.

The down side of this program means naked people will have been produced of all ages. Also, who owns the copyright to these photos / images / icons / in some cases a page of written work? What will happen to the artists?

You heard it here first… now back to reality!

there's a prize for the person who works out how long that would take.

is it something like (assuming 255 colours used - v basic pics): (255^16777215^16777215 operations)/operations per second.

That surely is longer than the universe is going to exist.

is it something like (assuming 255 colours used - v basic pics): (255^16777215^16777215 operations)/operations per second.

The dimension of the image needs to be included into your equation.

There are tricks you can do like counting up in step of 16 and fine tune it when something looks interesting.

For a 32x32 icon using the incremential 16 step trick it would be: (16777215 / 16) ^ (32 x 32)

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Interesting, but I think giving a monkey a typewriter and waiting for it to come up with a Shakespeare play would be quicker!

With continuance of processors doubling in speed and Terabyte hard drives soon coming to the market

Processors haven't "doubled in speed" for ages - multiple cores are now today's thing. And terabyte drives have been out for quite a while. Just don't buy a Seagate!

Just don't buy a Seagate!

Why not? I swear by Seagate (only make that I haven't ever had a problem with)

You not seen this about the 500Gb and 1Tb Barracudas?

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2009/01/21/seagate_firmware_fix_breaks_barracudas/

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2009/01/16/barracuda_failure_plague/

well to be honest, why are people putting a firmware update for 1TB drives on 500GB drives... its thier own fault tbfh.

Processors haven't "doubled in speed" for ages - multiple cores are now today's thing. And terabyte drives have been out for quite a while. Just don't buy a Seagate!

Sorry, I meant petabytes.

With continuance of processors doubling in speed and Terabyte hard drives soon coming to the market, it will not be long before someone will be able to achieve such as task.

Surprisingly writing the code to “draw” a photo is so simple, it is unreal, less than 50 lines.

<geek mode>

Starting with a blank canvas in black, you increment the value in point(0,0) on the screen counting from 0 to 16777215 (0xFFFFFF).

When you hit, 16777215, you reset it to zero and increment the value in the next pixel along and if that happens to be also 16777215 you reset that and increment the next pixel along. It is a recursive procedure.

Basically you are setting every pixel on screen in a logical order in every permutations possible until all pixels go through from black to white.

</geek mode>

This will take many, many years, probably beyond my life time to process with today’s computers, but one day with the advancement of nantotechnology we may get there sooner.

For those that haven’t cottoned on by now this program has drawn every image since time itself began even countless garbage.

That means it will have produced an image from the day you are born to the day you die in every possible angle and every possible range. In places you have never visited with people who you’ve never met along side you. There will be one of you with three or more eyes. Your imagination is unlimited. Aliens, creatures, ideas, objects, dreams, that man have never seen will have been produced.

The down side of this program means naked people will have been produced of all ages. Also, who owns the copyright to these photos / images / icons / in some cases a page of written work? What will happen to the artists?

You heard it here first… now back to reality!

generating the images is easy - it's finding them that takes eternity.

Or how about this idea for the ultimate in lossless compression - you just need to provide hashes for your desired file; perhaps both MD5 and SHA1 plus the filesize, to minimise the risk of collisions. Then write a program that "just" constructs every single possible file of the same size, changing 1 bit at a time, until you have a file with matching hashes! The universe may have imploded back in on itself by the time it's finished, but you'll never have to worry about download caps again ;)

well to be honest, why are people putting a firmware update for 1TB drives on 500GB drives... its thier own fault tbfh.

Maybe you should read the comments, a couple of people made the same mistake as you.

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931

The 500GB models with firmware SD15 was recommended for update to SD1A.

Maybe you should read the comments, a couple of people made the same mistake as you.

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931

The 500GB models with firmware SD15 was recommended for update to SD1A.

Whether it's a whole or a half terabyte drive makes no odds, it's still far, far, far too small for this project.

Bear in mind that the number of permutations of a 10 megapixel image with 16 million colours per pixel goes beyond astronomical and even cosmic. Your puny hard drives are not sufficient!

Whether it's a whole or a half terabyte drive makes no odds, it's still far, far, far too small for this project.

Bear in mind that the number of permutations of a 10 megapixel image with 16 million colours per pixel goes beyond astronomical and even cosmic. Your puny hard drives are not sufficient!

Sorry, this is my fault for putting the wrong name in the first place as to why alchresearch picked up the terabyte reference which got side tracked.

Anyway, I've just corrected it in my post.

I think 10 megapixel is a bit OTT for this project.

generating the images is easy - it's finding them that takes eternity.

Yes, you've spotted the weakest link!

Sorry, this is my fault for putting the wrong name in the first place as to why alchresearch picked up the terabyte reference which got side tracked.
Some people just like to talk about hard drives, it's their thing.
I think 10 megapixel is a bit OTT for this project.
OK, lets do it with monochrome forum avatars -
an avatar is 50x50 pixels = 2500 pixels
assume the images all use the same 2 colour palette.

That gives you about 2^2500 or 375,828,023,454,801,203,683,362,418,972,386,504,86 7,736,551,759,258,677,056,523,839,782,231,681,498, 337,708,535,732,725,752,658,844,333,702,457,749,52 6,057,760,309,227,891,351,617,765,651,907,310,968, 780,236,464,694,043,316,236,562,146,724,416,478,59 1,131,832,593,729,111,221,580,180,531,749,232,777, 515,579,969,899,075,142,213,969,117,994,877,343,80 2,049,421,624,954,402,214,529,390,781,647,563,339, 535,024,772,584,901,607,666,862,982,567,918,622,84 9,636,160,208,877,365,834,950,163,790,188,523,026, 247,440,507,390,382,032,188,892,386,109,905,869,70 6,753,143,243,921,198,482,212,075,444,022,433,366, 554,786,856,559,389,689,585,638,126,582,377,224,03 7,721,702,239,991,441,466,026,185,752,651,502,936, 472,280,911,018,500,320,375,496,336,749,951,569,52 1,541,850,441,747,925,844,066,295,279,671,872,605, 285,792,552,660,130,702,047,998,218,334,749,356,32 1,677,469,529,682,551,765,858,267,502,715,894,007, 887,727,250,070,780,350,262,952,377,214,028,842,29 7,486,263,597,879,792,176,338,220,932,619,489,509, 376 permutations - which is quite a lot.

If you up that to 256 colours (web safe palette for all images), you end up with <takes a deep breath> something like 39802768403379665923543072061912024537047727804924 25938713426865652386359749300570426760097499755955 10836461137504912702831400376935319143621753470415 82702598121528242689349822482661597770759553946696 10195886997267722797319413151981827872640348528212 00164566127930390710398182979935327718016873784821 34951640611498291669186736187537002454587214079382 72774825628241924392378015886978141685203386500909 09697535966525032757049430286459482977357373598020 45058992731836566307671913693413259312676190669600 37703853052845703311196910015265843477220123863818 81779425549210851696458253943578557699072154639655 63079388394196137897184684111380418873025890383910 36696260869744681506557104808415924656552118052578 63007811676888839555017536731758113448656752514158 60144405164515466551438843161904239610671675576233 87281834613698546489239729044275561588218237787291 93111453445844216979095435045778144571378954652122 39606161514764254025074585722889399987549162501494 60138393408913260609339010362499992386378275777746 66644809734033861619420363936465178730919233673114 24456391505843899662583411213296799849557624932046 28717477770121655438871562558583587848523350605748 81876552025685704823768078710818951860741379429242 11085564497397742041381037351458450400689639267585 49978668708185642072390838743249538712763757161015 06575153205747363963740749867514682619756775534507 00687148588781240292773822757663528417424698854078 59752400204812668530761271722280243305615501201820 08777598230542033702463408316671120886169260934006 80579986459863631117978777673860899234606306309965 96482796638781740747871792371697529570464045845253 01384153358344055908219695854852185210739761460551 59665821101315991540956614542680973755041757822846 58358308902944975354631120815376726640568916243457 79311524560019984315456142126282898486728345004767 87349975268347140958736745059330239230790800459064 47540125371133204936016821337093182226474890805316 44015321391157387178232154126828007760313716872242 20961420096752218047571619997368946771401040467396 14541464660458552322171966876651431476121991519212 77432309700460321430381533385245877431330533479476 15233936450343632291966563104232874046361256584256 04119470201740065078933962761038344362331409150253 91014386119201176462659556388343058600326710618903 68374651657702121427693328917902105995692594971795 60408579791659141709700562128699335935892686261519 96676594370800885093048230687152803213254735594741 79907603945305727231988432234188324103638261759840 18894391303018769754986817361742157112870534470137 11596004574803562701388246822510391522419061320663 74092132175434416674489958816064929182353598338602 59049420407245810176159684295770158080903609685440 59204594200069304612417366398776831532265596224715 75030179220772560793253454369375877226201038736043 55676352327183434206796930573600040736794930089458 13961012439574397373178636054628207647520675194420 24427103634372931885843087146197886696477236205729 05773260806644631296575902498597485441013338420927 13653096656066266827446079145590196644643417403723 22008569620271932153323302716959973492897158885034 84150000700340270252981831041483439802976631489715 86607903771717880683175436445585810610546882073571 55616232465935131032656080444897422934974342563716 48342427999914271450508994695119548347748471723606 93568437689147399455672090773686782511054291185172 38191700888995764531133995099304477978360714059376 65080179359925813578583065253037832317524252420083 47844867988333025417249944092118578113687403158162 70707515400605341637407576516266853312707860531656 28263371936062425352906832244236604622224086803004 98714149607265550441220738075941633988435051594487 25680287418226481442592311119318828063201312780289 78896053387830895327408772023041224981936254547683 43775535498872821099981620497070810489137457106892 57324849873424371718480082295633446941566681885807 32186539779543090231828517232465220427924014613820 01601920501284439325214084210736400630884929942272 98294361370812301135526091554583104316024352359937 20062261502896649821139448988866107108249550967246 26895416484521819026132177640598691658035986285376 35503371909456808312221934572206361360977915833808 43753314312765275484825662100713477445412928718761 34764249704859840950276227627328897424208932988115 10890718764769849181437563961431317809252867800737 00458717482184217863961972842132090226237627346308 36006864192414605237248983289006905268988475197599 78152415891358370132519909035227425260834297130390 76693630456562321839787558530640040108950308349219 88601355201181158877254807798058635127708445592064 51956311509474927660669755952933280722141402102490 52417889749177550347005104320398901973936917229111 26889174394312127254793141624975830429097997705531 78190824208392206876902735512921261724413064028999 47774130266240131573299483335863779551031958448171 63822484232700763859290253400376515701986753596890 07581854448547578578003184357906575409509997094050 46402128508099970511289765638808863924107663214499 87529690463262182894272302749154535447233331028841 21521553360239828110705069601750782760276154781632 47432979381772041837658211178188699597950318482013 22436053103778993541384779857262311465895754085538 37196904092242093691507665350031017500618857201901 73583009790569921619582868825759843318581708573033 61269891312794369244896540323192451678830668180455 05928974358064073607623356193588810952584580312591 23889655241668198559770613990434992298435179301691 18036812460794615667808961600389778306540324849286 50151529279939130451099729812822825800615601738987 80862727899933214163492059216356969637035589713911 23174877353757536774013315034956942784403824181551 74162918065841408190565033367263898341678638809502 61694966051997496915957988359471897778227651987679 49699778106683862989103096006505865271003566346191 38240601167395840400919485211001691522243345964178 71709178721403678710235964640516479473885805707744 62304347896201676197195521428782313608583714399238 09220836293321130294280648017558940238797653108043 69068568343773441376981807895626459743741554004977 54843905032231188252125802180353577510519869570675 234892321663406309376 total permutations.

Within those permutations will be every single forum avatar past, present and future, all animated of course (although each frame will be discontinuous).

I would imagine that a hardwired dedicated computer would be the best bet for speed to generate all those images. A computer running the job in software would lag far behind.

I am aware of the number of permutations and the kind of processing power required here.

It was meant to be thought provoking in the sense of what it would achieve.

Noticed the "now back to reality!" the end? ;)



Since the patterns are repeated, a dedicated manufacturing process might be a better bet which simply “stamps" the electrons in place.

Whether that is possible is another matter.

I can't see that achieves anything at all! It's just filling a chunk of memory with every possible combination of data. In an ideal world, you'd need some software to run, on each generated frame, that can say if the frame in question, constitutes a 'photo' or not.

Now, there's a challenge; what's the algorithm to determine if your data is a photo or not?

This is threading into AI, where brute processing power is replaced by intelligence and efficiency - allowing you to extract something meaningful rather than just every combination possible. It is a good challenge, i have been doing research into this for years - still no definitive answer.

I can't see that achieves anything at all! It's just filling a chunk of memory with every possible combination of data.

The data aspect is just part of the whole exercise.

In an ideal world, you'd need some software to run, on each generated frame, that can say if the frame in question, constitutes a 'photo' or not.

Sadly, in an ideal world, that never going to happen.

This is more down to processing time than down to AI.

Now, there's a challenge; what's the algorithm to determine if your data is a photo or not?

Your eyes.

Play it like a video only Fast forward the data in massive steps is a possible solution. I can see this as not being that efficient.

But if you can't use the computer to tell when an interesting 'photo' crops up ...

You will need a person to look at the screen, they'd probably have to spend their entire life, 24-7 looking at the screen, assuming one image is displayed every 50th of a second or so, they'd spend their entire life just sat looking, and not see anything interesting ...

... or maybe if they did see something that was photo-like, they'd blink, and miss it.

This thread is ace.

I'm voting for some sort of AI with regards to the image recognition. Why have a machine do all that processing just for a human to have to make it meaningful. AI is the big one.

Or maybe I've just gone and horribly misunderstood this thread.

But if you can't use the computer to tell when an interesting 'photo' crops up ...

You will need a person to look at the screen, they'd probably have to spend their entire life, 24-7 looking at the screen

Not just their life, but the lifetime of the universe, many times over.

edit ---
This thread is ace.

I'm voting for some sort of AI with regards to the image recognition. Why have a machine do all that processing just for a human to have to make it meaningful. AI is the big one.

Or maybe I've just gone and horribly misunderstood this thread.
just look how many images you'd need to check - there isn't enough time. Our sun engulfs us in about 4 billion years, the universe may carry on for thousands of billions of years. No matter - there isn't enough time. Even if you computed at a speed of one operation per indivisible moment of time.

Maybe a quantum computer would speed things up a bit - any takers?


edit ---
I am aware of the number of permutations and the kind of processing power required here.

It was meant to be thought provoking in the sense of what it would achieve.
Sorry, was so chuffed I had managed to churn out the actual figures, I thought I'd share them.

4x10^7000, not quite a googolplex, but many squillions of googols of images. my brain hurts.

One operation per indivisible moment of time ... wouldn't that have the job done in a jiffy?

:D

Seeing as time is not made of anything, you can divide it infinite times which wont help you with anything.

Seeing as time is not made of anything, you can divide it infinite times which wont help you with anything.

Though no one goes smaller than Planck time.

In physics, the Planck time (tP), is the unit of time in the system of natural units known as Planck units. It is the time required for light to travel, in a vacuum, a distance of 1 Planck length.[1] The unit is named after Max Planck, who was the first to propose it.

Seeing as time is not made of anything, you can divide it infinite times which wont help you with anything.

There's the (postulated) chronon - the indivisible time quanta which lasts for about 7×10^-24 seconds.

There's the (postulated) chronon - the indivisible time quanta which lasts for about 7×10^-24 seconds.

7x10^-24 / 2 = 3.5 × 10^-24 - I here by coin this breakthrough time unit as chronik*

http://xkcd.com/505/

Ahh but ... how many seconds in half a chronon?

Ahh but ... how many seconds in half a chronon?
3.5x10^-24 seconds

But seriously (as serious as we can, give the nature of the thread) why is it indivisible?

That doesn't seem right, time isn't like you get in a physics simulation on a comupter or stones in the sand (http://xkcd.com/505/) where everything is moved in 'steps'.

Or is it?

Ahh but ... how many seconds in half a chronon?

Thats approximately equal to one jiffy.

one jiffy does an entire stack of pancakes for me

But seriously (as serious as we can, give the nature of the thread) why is it indivisible?

That doesn't seem right, time isn't like you get in a physics simulation on a comupter or stones in the sand (http://xkcd.com/505/) where everything is moved in 'steps'.

Or is it?
planck time ?

Thats approximately equal to one jiffy.

So, to compute the entire batch of images, in indivisible moments of time (per image), the whole lot would be done in a single jiffy?

Jobs a good un! :hihi:

So in a vacuum, the amount of time it takes for light to travel 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000016 meters equates to 1 planck time?

That's the smallest meaningful (to humans) measure of time? How many seconds is that?

I guess you divide the distance (in meters) that light travels in one second, by 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000016 ...

Any ideas?

So, say if we computed each image, as per the OP's proposal, in that amount of time per image. How long to do the whole lot?

So, how far does light (in a vacuum) travel in one second?

The speed of light in the vacuum of free space is an important physical constant usually denoted by the symbol c0 or simply c. The metre is defined such that the speed of light in free space is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second (m/s).

So 299792458 / 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000016?

Just digging out my calculator ...

EDIT: Windows (XP) calc can't handle it ...

EDIT: Oooops! It's mulitpy, not divide.

So 299792458 x 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000016?

EDIT: Oooops Again! I got it wrong.

So 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000016 / 299792458?

Would a 10 megapixel image (3872x2592) at 24-bit colour depth yield (2^24)^(3872*2592) combinations? I tried using GNU bc to calculate how big that number really is, but my processor cores just shot up to 100% and started crying.

$ echo '(2^24)^(3872*2592)' | bc > answer

EDIT: Might be less work for it to calculate to say 20 d.p., I'll leave this one running:

$ echo 'range=20;(2^24)^(3872*2592)' | bc > answer

So 299792458 / 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000016?

Just digging out my calculator ...

EDIT: Windows (XP) calc can't handle it ...

bc can ;-)

187370286250000000000000000000000000000000000

planck time ?

Its 5.391 24(27) × 10−44, yet again it can be divided into two to give ~2.7 × 10-44 - its pointless we can continue dividing this forever, what we need is a computer that works smart instead of just working fast.
In theory if enough information about the present is known - you could predict the future, more info = more accuracy in prediction. To this effect, if a computer knew about every particle in the universe - it could calculate the state universe at any point in time, past or present. You cant do that (i dont think) without having a computer at least as big as the universe itself - so this is pointless. In essence thats what intelligence is, learning whats going on and then applying that knowledge to change whats going and reach a desired goal.
These are only theories and dont really get us anywhere, like i say what we need is a smart computer. Applied to the photo drawing challenge a smart computer would ask you what you want to draw (your goal), lets say for example a portrait of a person. It would then reconstruct a person from knowledge that they have 2 eyes, a nose, mouth, ears and so on. This would be waaaay more usable than a computer to brute-force every photo possible. It could also interpolate its current knowledge to create new things, like maybe we could ask it to draw a portrait but the person would have 4 eyes - it would produce the most likely outcome, so you dont just end up with eyes scattered randomly on someones head, brute-force method will go through alot of iterations before getting to the same result.

I heard the same conundrum with books.

You have a library of books each 200 pages long. Each book is 1 letter different from the previous book, so the first book contains only a and the second only b and the last book contains all Zs.

This library contains every single book ever written, any book that ever will be written and the answer to every question ever posed. (Along with zillions of books with only a single spelling mistake).

Somewhere in the library is the answer to the meaning of life.

I worked out how big the library was once, it was something like a cube 3 light years to a side (27 cubic light years?)

The original thought experiment was posed by Borges in his short story the Library of Babel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel

Two schools of thought are discussed in that article, the first is that a single source book and all the books with exactly 4 misprints would fill the known universe.

The second school of thought is that it can be created quite easily by writing a 0 on 1 piece of paper and a 1 on the other and by randomly flashing the papers you can build your library of photos. (Although not in chronological order)

It reminds me of 2 things.

In computing we use the GUID. The global unique identifier in databases, in the old days we would call our first record #1 and our second #2 etc and continue to number sequentially, this wasn't very good because when you had to merge 2 tables you had repeating numbers, so someone came up with the idea of the GUID. The idea is that no matter how many records you make or new guids you come up with there are so many of them that you will never ever get the same guid twice. Looks like this
(b63887ce-f124-46c3-9c4f-0a5888544b24)

The second thing it reminded me of was a book I read (forgot the book, forgot the author) it was a guy writing on evolution, he posited an evolution space and wrote a program that showed him 6 permutations of a connected lines. He selected the most asthetically pleasing and his computer program mutated the choice 6 times and once more he chose the most asthetically pleasing. THis way he was able to randomly explore the domain without having to look at an infinite number of critters.

Maybe your photo idea could do something similar. Throw up 6 pictures of random coloured pixels, you select the one which looks most ordered, the computer slightly changes it 6 times and through an iterative process we end up with a photo of The Minogue sisters posing provocatively.

Finally, after my longish and probably boring post you should look at ....

http://electricsheep.org/ This is a screensaver that works on the same idea with people all over the world rating "sheep" for their asthetic value. It produces some stunning visuals by mutating successful "sheep" The name comes from Blade Runner. Because once a run is finished the sheep are deleted (the most beautiful images created) they are gone like "tears in the rain".

I agree with alchresearch, I have had 2 Seagate Barracudas go on me, I will never buy another one in the future.

But seriously (as serious as we can, give the nature of the thread) why is it indivisible?

That doesn't seem right, time isn't like you get in a physics simulation on a comupter or stones in the sand (http://xkcd.com/505/) where everything is moved in 'steps'.

Or is it?

it is - probably. There seems to be a granular aspect to space time.

Indeed, we may all be a holographic projection. - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true

it is - probably. There seems to be a granular aspect to space time.

Indeed, we may all be a holographic projection. - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true
Everything is clearly made of separate particles, the theoretical 'dark matter' could be the mass of particles that populated space before the big bang. Cue in an evolution of this dark matter particle into a new one, made from the smaller dark matte ones. This then releases energy like nuclear fusion, except on a smaller level, energy released is absorbed by the surrounding dark matter starting a chain reaction - the big bang. This is my theory anyway and it makes sense to me, our space is an evolution of space before it and one day a new particle will off another wave of evolution. This explains the sub-particles, they way we came about (as particles joined into more and more complex patterns). In essence our planet is a giant particle, as is the universe - its all just layers of complexity built upon the previous effort. How would a holographic projection achieve all this?
Scientist suck really, could have progressed way further by now if they accepted reality as it is and built upon it instead of making up such silly things as everything being a hologram - its uncalled for, maybe i should be a scientist but who will believe me without a piece of paper to say i am one?

Everything is clearly made of separate particles,
Particles which aren't there until you look at them, particles which are 99.9999999999999999% empty space, particles that exist and don't exist simultaneously.
...This explains the sub-particles, they way we came about (as particles joined into more and more complex patterns). In essence our planet is a giant particle, as is the universe - its all just layers of complexity built upon the previous effort. How would a holographic projection achieve all this?
Scientist suck really, could have progressed way further by now if they accepted reality as it is If they had done that, we'd still be living in a pre-copernican world of cycles and epicyclesand built upon it instead of making up such silly things as everything being a hologram - its uncalled for

You didn't read the article did you? :)

This could be Bell Labs all over again -> which is how the Big Bang theory was confirmed, earning the scientists a Nobel Prize each for their trouble (cleaning all the guano off the antenna)

Particles which aren't there until you look at them, particles which are 99.9999999999999999% empty space, particles that exist and don't exist simultaneously.

Yes our perception of the world is relative so we may not see everything, but we do see (or sense in general) and by that we confirm that there is something there, if nothing really existed - there would be nothing to sense. I guess this proves stuff does exist, if that wasn't obvious already.
We then go onto looking at any object and its clear that its made of smaller parts, which in turn are made of even smaller parts. In reverse all the stuff that we buld is a complication of that which already exists, we take separate parts and join them in a network of functionality - that becomes a new unit, a sum of its parts. Or indeed just a bigger particle. If there were no seperation into different units, everything would be the same - everywhere, at the same time. Yet its not.

If they had done that, we'd still be living in a pre-copernican world of cycles and epicycles

How did you calculate that outcome of history?

You didn't read the article did you? :)

I have skimmed over it to get the jist, but suggesting we are a hologram based on the fact that light bounces of a holographic image on a bank card is silly. Yes if you send a photon toward another particle it will lose energy (maybe split) and bounce off and hit something else and give that some energy. An yes if you threw yourself at a wall, you would give the wall some energy and bounce off (maybe split) but i think we are made of stuff that is abit heavy to be projected now. If everything was a projection, there would be nothing to project onto.

This could be Bell Labs all over again -> which is how the Big Bang theory was confirmed, earning the scientists a Nobel Prize each for their trouble (cleaning all the guano off the antenna)
An evolution of particles that set off a chain reaction does suggest a "big bang" originating at one point and spreading in all directions simultaneously.

How did you calculate that outcome of history?


Well if Copernicus had ...accepted reality as it [was] (the reality, at the time was that the sun moved around the earth) then he wouldn't have come up with the heliocentric model from which all modern astronomy developed - Tyco Brahe, Kepler etc.

I have skimmed over it to get the jist, but suggesting we are a hologram based on the fact that light bounces of a holographic image on a bank card is silly.

That's not what the idea is based on - that's the analagous process using light - but they are static, monochrome passively illuminated holograms. These guys are talking about something quite different - energy and matter as a projection of another phenomenon in process 'elsewhere'.

You've got half the jist (I don't pretend to fully understand it), but the other crucial semi-jist is missing!
:)

Well if Copernicus had ...accepted reality as it [was] (the reality, at the time was that the sun moved around the earth) then he wouldn't have come up with the heliocentric model from which all modern astronomy developed - Tyco Brahe, Kepler etc.

That is if he accepted reality as other people told him, not how he perceived reality himself.

That's not what the idea is based on - that's the analagous process using light - but they are static, monochrome passively illuminated holograms. These guys are talking about something quite different - energy and matter as a projection of another phenomenon in process 'elsewhere'.

You've got half the jist (I don't pretend to fully understand it), but the other crucial semi-jist is missing!
:)
I guess you could say we are (and everything around us) is kind of a projection of the first evolution, as it spread through space and affected other particles, starting other reactions that eventually lead to our creation.

Somewhere in the library is the answer to the meaning of life.


Thats very much assuming there is one.

Do we see reality as IT is? Or we see reality as WE are?

it is - probably. There seems to be a granular aspect to space time.

Indeed, we may all be a holographic projection. - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true

as I understood the article, it has a couple of principles the first being the holographic principle - the idea that if you have a volume of space and you observe it from outside then there is no way for you to tell if the volume is real or if it is in fact a hologram on the surface of the volume projecting an image of the interior

such a hologram would not be restricted to the interference of photons but would cover every type of particle, the surface would not be restricted to 3 dimensions and finally the hologram need not be static

the second principle deals with information and is that for such a hologram, the information needed to encode the image of the volume has to fit on the surface of the volume and the minimum size of a single bit of this information is a unit 1 Planck length on a side

but this single bit restriction also applies to the interior of the volume which is physically larger than the surface and requires more bits to encode

so as the surface has less information carrying potential than the volume then the information of the volume which is projected from a holographic surface is blurred

this is only detectable for an observer inside the volume i.e. an observer who is themselves a hologram projected from the surface, and would manifest itself as unexpected quantum noise when measuring distances much larger than the planck length, an observer outside the volume can't get close enough to detect this noise

because as you try to look closer at what should be the theoretical limit you will find that you can't physically get near it because there is a lack of information to describe that tiny volume of space on the surface of the volume containing the universe

the scientists in the article think they may have found this noise

*sits back and awaits being told I got it wrong*

as I understood the article...

*sits back and awaits being told I got it wrong*
Not by me - I read your post and then the article again, and it all knitted together a lot better. Most illuminating precis, I thank you.

Do we see reality as IT is? Or we see reality as WE are?
We just see reality. We don't see all of it, but what we see works for us - thats all that matters.

as I understood the article, it has a couple of principles the first being the holographic principle - the idea that if you have a volume of space and you observe it from outside then there is no way for you to tell if the volume is real or if it is in fact a hologram on the surface of the volume projecting an image of the interior

such a hologram would not be restricted to the interference of photons but would cover every type of particle, the surface would not be restricted to 3 dimensions and finally the hologram need not be static

the second principle deals with information and is that for such a hologram, the information needed to encode the image of the volume has to fit on the surface of the volume and the minimum size of a single bit of this information is a unit 1 Planck length on a side

but this single bit restriction also applies to the interior of the volume which is physically larger than the surface and requires more bits to encode

so as the surface has less information carrying potential than the volume then the information of the volume which is projected from a holographic surface is blurred

this is only detectable for an observer inside the volume i.e. an observer who is themselves a hologram projected from the surface, and would manifest itself as unexpected quantum noise when measuring distances much larger than the planck length, an observer outside the volume can't get close enough to detect this noise

because as you try to look closer at what should be the theoretical limit you will find that you can't physically get near it because there is a lack of information to describe that tiny volume of space on the surface of the volume containing the universe

the scientists in the article think they may have found this noise

*sits back and awaits being told I got it wrong*

So wait a minute, they were looking for gravity waves, instead they detected gravity granules (particles) so now that must be the noise of a projection from a far away 2D surface onto .... (fill me in on this, i still have not read the article). Did it not occur to anyone that they may have discovered the theorized graviton particles instead?

We just see reality. We don't see all of it, but what we see works for us - thats all that matters.

So we are outside of, or seperate from, 'reality'?

So we are outside of, or seperate from, 'reality'?

No we are part of it surely, our actions affect reality as much as reality affects us.

Would a 10 megapixel image (3872x2592) at 24-bit colour depth yield (2^24)^(3872*2592) combinations? I tried using GNU bc to calculate how big that number really is, but my processor cores just shot up to 100% and started crying.


We thought long and hard on this and we think roughly speaking the numbers will be....

Its 16,000,000^10,000,000 = 1.6*10^3,000,000

1.6 with 3 million 0s after it.

The universe has a guesstimated 4x10^79 atoms in it.

Assuming it takes 1 atom to store 1 bit you would need the matter from 2,999,921 universes to store all the combinations of a single 10 megapixel 24 bit image.

Someone please tell me where my rough maths is flawed :)

No we are part of it surely, our actions affect reality as much as reality affects us.

Yes, I agree. We are intergral, stuff of the universe, we are the universe.

Yet, human minds, often indulge the fantasy that they are somehow seperate from that which they percieve.

:suspect:

So wait a minute, they were looking for gravity waves, instead they detected gravity granules (particles) so now that must be the noise of a projection from a far away 2D surface onto .... (fill me in on this, i still have not read the article). Did it not occur to anyone that they may have discovered the theorized graviton particles instead?

they were looking for gravity waves by making very very accurate measurements of very very small distances

if they had found gravity waves they would get a very specific change in these distances over time

theory predicts what this would look like and from my reading, a gravity wave passing through a say bar of metal would alternately compress and stretch the bar so measuring this distortion you should get something looking roughly sinusoidal or some other sort of smooth curve

again from my reading of the theory you can even make a prediction about the size of this distortion so you know how sensitive to make your detector to detect say a black hole swallowing a sun sized object at a distance of so many light years

now if you get any signals you'll get lots, so they shove the signals through a fourier transform and see what sort of a frequency spectrum they get out and if it agrees with the theory it should have a very specific pattern

what they are finding is that instead of the patterns that say "we've got a gravity wave", they are getting patterns that say "we are getting noise from somewhere" presumably it looks something like white noise evenly spread over the entire spectrum

now this noise could be a result of an error in the system so they are trying to eliminate possible sources, a bit like scraping the pigeon poo out of the horn antenna before announcing the discovery of the cosmic microwave background

so it's not confirmed by a long shot yet but the noise is of the right spectrum and the right size to be evidence for the holographic theory

and you wouldn't find the graviton particle this way, you need a particle accellerator like the ones a CERN where you smash things together and look at what particles get thrown out

it's like the difference between detecting an ocean wave and detecting a molecule of water, a wave detector couldn't be used to spot molecules of water as it's too fine a measurement for the detector to register

*sits back and waits for a correction*

they were looking for gravity waves by making very very accurate measurements of very very small distances

if they had found gravity waves they would get a very specific change in these distances over time

theory predicts what this would look like and from my reading, a gravity wave passing through a say bar of metal would alternately compress and stretch the bar so measuring this distortion you should get something looking roughly sinusoidal or some other sort of smooth curve

again from my reading of the theory you can even make a prediction about the size of this distortion so you know how sensitive to make your detector to detect say a black hole swallowing a sun sized object at a distance of so many light years

now if you get any signals you'll get lots, so they shove the signals through a fourier transform and see what sort of a frequency spectrum they get out and if it agrees with the theory it should have a very specific pattern

what they are finding is that instead of the patterns that say "we've got a gravity wave", they are getting patterns that say "we are getting noise from somewhere" presumably it looks something like white noise evenly spread over the entire spectrum

now this noise could be a result of an error in the system so they are trying to eliminate possible sources, a bit like scraping the pigeon poo out of the horn antenna before announcing the discovery of the cosmic microwave background

so it's not confirmed by a long shot yet but the noise is of the right spectrum and the right size to be evidence for the holographic theory

and you wouldn't find the graviton particle this way, you need a particle accellerator like the ones a CERN where you smash things together and look at what particles get thrown out

it's like the difference between detecting an ocean wave and detecting a molecule of water, a wave detector couldn't be used to spot molecules of water as it's too fine a measurement for the detector to register

*sits back and waits for a correction*
I guess we will have to wait until they came to a definitive conclusion on their finding.
As for smashing particles at CERN, they only smash 2 particles - we know from experience that force of gravity is proportional to objects mass (aka particle content) so 2 particles may not be enough to produce a noticeable effect of gravity in the bubble chamber, saying that is an assumption that gravitons are a part of a particle in the first place - not a separate particle that influences the other. Do photons exist as a part of a particle? I have not done particle physics for a few years, please remind me :)

PS i cant really correct you, this is just a debate about life, the universe and such lol

I guess we will have to wait until they came to a definitive conclusion on their finding.
As for smashing particles at CERN, they only smash 2 particles - we know from experience that force of gravity is proportional to objects mass (aka particle content) so 2 particles may not be enough to produce a noticeable effect of gravity in the bubble chamber, saying that is an assumption that gravitons are a part of a particle in the first place - not a separate particle that influences the other. Do photons exist as a part of a particle? I have not done particle physics for a few years, please remind me :)

PS i cant really correct you, this is just a debate about life, the universe and such lol
the particles that come out of a collision like the ones at CERN depend on the energy of the collision as well as the type of particles

I believe they are using protons and antiprotons travelling close to the speed of light in opposite directions around the ring, the ring is so large because the faster they make these particles the harder it is to deflect them around the ring and the magnets can only be made so strong before they start to deform under the strength of their own fields

the idea is if you smack them together hard enough you might find a graviton or higgs boson in the debris along with a whole host of other bits n bobs, you get lots of particles out for a couple of high enough energy particles in

gravity is theorised to be due to the exchange of particles , imagine two skaters, facing each other, standing on ice, throwing a medecine ball back and forth every time one throws or catches a ball they move back a little, this is an example of a repulsive force, an attractive force like gravity works the same way only when the skaters catch or throw the ball they would move together

everything is particles matter, magnetism, gravity, even light

if you are really interested I can recommend these http://www.vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8 Richard Feynman explains light a lot better than I ever could

what happens in a bubble chamber is the particles that come out of a collision like this occasionally collide with electrons in the chamber knock them off their atoms, these ionised atoms act as point of condensation and eventually grow big enough to see, there's usually a magnetic field through the chamber so any charged particles follow a curved path

they have much more sophisticated detectors at CERN than cloud chambers for detecting particles though

Nice, i will brush up on it once i have solved the artificial intelligence puzzle and want to step up the challenge, for now my mind is finite in capacity :)
If gravity is exchanged between particles - then whatever detectors they have will be full of it, seeing as there particles everywhere anyway exchanging gravity already. I guess they wont be detecting gravitons any time soon at this rate, unless the hologram people already did.

yep the detectors will be full of particles but there shouldn't be any higgs bosons floating around

think of something like a magnetic sculpture, made of lots of little magnets of different sizes and shapes

now take two of these and smash them together

some of the little bits will fly away, some will stick together in new and interesting shapes

the new and interesting shapes is what they look for at CERN

I've just done a bit more reading and they aren't going to find a graviton at CERN even assuming the model is correct and gravitons exist but a higgs boson could be on the cards my apologies I was confusing the two

got this off wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton maybe not the best source but it's accessible
Unambiguous detection of individual gravitons, though not prohibited by any fundamental law, is impossible with any physically reasonable detector. The reason is simply the extremely low cross section for the interaction of gravitons with matter. For example, a detector the mass of Jupiter with 100% efficiency, placed in close orbit around a neutron star, would only be expected to observe one graviton every 10 years, even under the most favorable conditions. It would be impossible to discriminate these events from the background of neutrinos, and it would be impossible to shield the neutrinos without the shielding material collapsing into a black hole.

However, experiments to detect gravitational waves, which may be viewed as coherent states of many gravitons, are already underway (e.g. LIGO and VIRGO). Although these experiments cannot detect individual gravitons, they might provide information about certain properties of the graviton. For example, if gravitational waves were observed to propagate slower than c (the speed of light in a vacuum), that would imply that the graviton has mass
so we'll never see an individual graviton but we might see a gravity wave if the theory is correct

if the theory is correct then I'm a little surprised we haven't spotted gravity waves yet, I think there's probably a lot we don't know about gravity and we are just starting to realise that

wikipedia have some info in the higgs boson too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson bit of a hard read but useful info I reckon

artificial intelligence now there's a topic :D

Yes lets leave particle physics alone for abit (until SF science lab is up and running).
For now computers are everywhere, so there is nothing stopping us from experimentation with ai ;)

ai will be a cool topic to talk about, there was a program on tv about robots (last week I think) and it gave an interesting insight into ai. fascinating.

I cant really discuss AI in too much detail as im implementing my theory at the moment. If anyone is interested try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-free_network