From: Koen Holtman (koen@hep.caltech.edu)
Date: Mon Sep 25 2000 - 23:58:28 PDT
On Mon, 25 Sep 2000, Wayne E Baisley wrote:
> > 8. Are there software particles more fundamental than objects?
Bugs are more fundamental than objects.
> > 12. Are 1's and 0's the optimum base digital data standard? For
> > example, why not four values, like DNA?
>
> Could be three (0, 1, and "maybe" which may or may not have "mass",
> i.e., data)
Actually, I recall reading somewhere that 3 *is* the optimal base.
The argument goes something like this: suppose you have a linearly scaling
manufacturing process, so that for any N, a storage cell with N states
will have a size s*N for some constant s. How large should you make your
cells to get optimum storage density when you pack lots of cells together?
Turns out that the optimum is N=e (2.718....) which you should round to 3
for practical purposes.
> So, nobody's discovered the Higgs Datum, that Holy Handgrenade of
> Objects. They may never, but they'll certainly warp this sector of the
> universe trying.
Current bets are for a Higgs discovery in 2006. And actually we are more
worried about this sector of the universe warping our accelerator.
http://bulletin.cern.ch/9809/art1/Text_E.html
Also, we hope that by that time there will be no Fortran code anymore in
the Higgs discovery software.
Koen.
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