From: eugene@nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: World's most powerful computing
Apparently-To: comp-parallel@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 02:14:23 GMT


>In article <1993Jan20.163842.1167@hubcap.clemson.edu>,
solman@athena.mit.edu (Jason W Solinsky) writes:
>> That would make power inversely proportional to time used. Thus, imaginary
>> computers are MORE important than installed computers

I have to smile: This sounds like an MITism.  It reminds me of this quote from
Levy:
	Gosper realized that the ninth-floor hackers were in some sense
	deluding themselves, working on machines of relatively little power
	compared to the computers of the future--yet still trying to do it
	all, change the world right there in the lab.
Full context of the quote follows sig.

As George Michael says to me:
	If dreams could come true, then beggers would ride.

And I can imagine a treatment for AIDS,
and matter transporters ala Star Trek.

In article <1993Jan21.135931.4975@hubcap.clemson.edu>
pnm@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Paul Big-Ears Menon) writes:
>I say, this reminds me of the relativistic rule that the faster the body
>goes, the heavier it gets.

Lorentz transform.
Not only heaiver, but HOW MUCH heavier.

>Therefore, the fastest "thing" would naturally have no mass at all.
>This supports the importance given to imaginary computers, as,
>after all, they have no mass, thus can go as fast as theoretically possible.
>
>The only computer which could go faster would be one with negative mass.  I 
>suppose this would be possible in good economic times, but not when there's a 
>credit squeeze on.  Then again, with imaginary computers, we could be wandering
>into the complex plane - which could permit negative mass computers.  This
>would be better than zero mass computers, as they could not operate at any
>speed slower than c, only faster.  All those propagation time problems would
>be a thing of the past (get it??).

1988: "I hear the speed of light is constant every where except Armonk where
	I understand it goes a little bit faster."
		--Carl Conte, IBM

>back to work on his improbability drive...
>    Paul Menon,

I love it.


What was the name of the British physicist who effectively killed the
funding of AI in England?


--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Resident Cynic, Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers
  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene
Second Favorite email message: Returned mail: Cannot send message for 3 days
A Ref: Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, vol. 1, G. Polya

from Hackers by Steven Levy

  [Bill] Gosper himself got a glimpse of the limits of the tight circle
the hackers had drawn.  It happened in the man-maded daylight of the 1972
Apollo 17 moon shot.  He was a passenger on a special cruise to the
Caribbean, a "science cruise" timed for the launch, and the boat was
loaded with sci-fi writers, futurists, scientists of varying stripes,
cultural commentators, and, according to Gosper, "an unbelievable
quantity of just completely empty-headed cruise-niks."

. . .
  Apollo 17 was to be the first manned space shot initiated at night, and
the cruise boat was sitting three miles off Cape Kennedy for an
advantageous view of the launch.  Gosper heard all of the arguments
against going to the trouble of seeing a lift off -- why not see it on
television, since you'll be miles away from the actual launch pad?  But when
he saw the damn thing actually lift off, he appreciated the distance.
The night had been set ablaze, and the energy peak got to his very insides.
The shirt slapped on his chest, the change in his pocket jingled, and the
PA system speakers broke from their brackets on the viewing stand and
dangled by their power cords.  The rocket, which of course could never have
held to so true a course without computers, leapt into the sky, hell-bent
for the cosmos like some flaming avenger, a Spacewar nightmare; the
cruise-niks were stunned into trances by the power and glory of the sight.
The Indonesian crewmen went berserk.  Gosper later recalled them
running around in a panic and throwing their Ping-Pong equipment overboard,
"like some kind of sacrifice."
  The sight affected Gosper profoundly.  Before that night, Gosper had
disdained NASA's human-wave approach toward things.  He had been adamant
in defending the AI Lab's more individualistic form of hacker elegance in
programming, and in computing style in general.  But now he saw how the
Real World, when it hot its mind made up, could have an astounding effect.
NASA had not applied the Hacker Ethic, yet it had done something the lab,
for all its pioneering, never could have done.  Gosper realized that the
ninth-floor hackers were in some sense deluding themselves, working on
machines of relatively little power compared to the computers of the
future--yet still trying to do it all, change the world right there in
the lab.  And since the state of computing had not yet developed machines with
the power to change the world at large--certainly nothing to make your
chest rumble as did the NASA operation--all that the hackers wound up
doing was making Tools to Make Tools.  It was embarrassing.


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