[107930] in Cypherpunks
Factoring by Blowing Up the Earth
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tim May)
Fri Jan 29 02:23:36 1999
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990128212316.0099f100@idiom.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 22:54:59 -0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Reply-To: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
At 9:23 PM -0800 1/28/99, Bill Stewart wrote:
>I'm not convinced, though it's at least attractive, but this instantiation
>of me in this universe never did much quantum beyond Schr"odinger equations.
>Basically, you need to use a *lot* of universes to get an answer.
>There was one suggestion that, if Many Worlds is true,
>you can pick an arbitrary solution, blow up the universe if it's wrong,
>and know that any remaining universes have the right answer.
Small world, Bill. That was my April Fool's Day spoof, I think in 1994. It
involved a press release in Moscow from the researchers at the Kolmogoroff
Institute in the hidden, secret Soviet city of "Kryptogorodok."
My spoof was distributed to the CP list and, as I recall, to sci.crypt. It
may be beyond the reach of DejaNews (which has, surprisingly, not pushed
its reach back in time as most of us expected it would).
A friend of mine relayed to me that Stephen Wolfram had enjoyed this spoof.
Meant a lot to me.
Anyway, I have no idea if quantum computers are feasible, or if in fact the
Many Worlds hypothesis is a confirmable ontology, but I remain interested.
And I know that Jim Choate's slippery hand waving is Not Very Interesting.
--Tim May
Y2K -- Where were you when the lights went out?
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments.
