[107838] in Cypherpunks
Re: CDR: A digital way to filter... (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Choate)
Mon Jan 25 09:40:02 1999
From: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
To: cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 08:24:34 -0600 (CST)
Reply-To: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
----- Forwarded message from Bill Stewart -----
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 01:05:03 -0800
From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Subject: Re: CDR: A digital way to filter... (fwd)
how big big numbers are - let's look at a few more.
Atoms in Universe excluding dark matter - 10**77 (2**265)
so assuming one atom per bit, you're about 230 orders of magnitude short,
and even if you get a bit denser, say one bit per quark,
you're still way off.
Now, you *might* consider it doable if you accept the
many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics,
so if you can convince enough other universes to buy in to the deal,
maybe you could pull it off :-)
----- End of forwarded message from Bill Stewart -----
Which is why I said it would need to be done in optical way back at the
beginning of the entire track. I believe you asked me how I'd build it in
hardware and somehow that's extrapolated into me stating that was the
way to go so you could drop off-hand hints as to how stupid I am. Just for
the record, I don't support the proposed software methodology either.
I will give you credit for the nice strawman in which you exchange a
discussion of technical merits into one of economics.
There is no equivalent Baryon Number limit on the number of photons, there's
no limit on the number of effective photons in the universe at any point, only
the total energy locked into them as a whole.
I happen to be a supporter of David Bohm's Many Worlds hypothesis for about
the last 30 years.
But all in all I agree, a QM methodology is the most productive. So what is
needed is a QM counter of modulo n. Pump it n times and have it output a
zero if any of the sub-counts are zero, indicating a non-Prime n. At that
point you move on to n+1. So the question becomes how does one build a QM
counter such that it's modulo's correspond to all known primes less than n?
Even more generaly what are the ways to build modulo counters via QM?
Another aspect that is interesting is that given that we don't know the
individual primes less than 1B, yet there are only 50.9M of them. So it could
find all the primes in only 1B cycles. at 1GHz clock frequencies that's pretty
impressive. This would be doable under this hardware architecture, so it has
some practical utility. I suspect the economics of this approach at this level,
even in hardware, are feasible.
Opticaly we need a representation of large n that is ameniable to
being built as a tuned trap. Then take a tunable source (ie tunable dye
laser) and tune it for each of the known primes less than n. If a standing
wave forms then n is a multiple of i and n isn't prime.
One could also take two large n and determine if they shared any commen
factors. Set the tank circuit to one n and then pump it with the other n.
If any standing waves form then there is a shared factor.
____________________________________________________________________
What raises the standard of living may well diminish the
quality of life.
The Club of Rome
The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate
Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com
www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087
-====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
--------------------------------------------------------------------
