Date disaster in 30 year's time? [UK Mac]

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From: Rowland McDonnell on 7 Mar 2010 16:05

J. J. Lodder <nospam(a)de-ster.demon.nl> wrote:

> Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote:
>
> > J. J. Lodder <nospam(a)de-ster.demon.nl> wrote:
> >
> > > whisky-dave <whisky-dave(a)final.front.ear> wrote:
> > >
> > > > "J. J. Lodder" <nospam(a)de-ster.demon.nl> wrote:
> > > > > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote:
> > [snip]
> >
> > > > >> No-one understands time, not yet.
> > > > >
> > > > > Because there is nothing to understand.
> > > >
> > > > yes there is, the idea that time only travels in one direction.
> > >
> > > Irreversibility is well understood.
> >
> > <howls of laughter as Rowland rolls around on the floor>
> >
> > Crazy Dutchman.
> >
> > Have another Grolsch.
>
> It's not my fault that you don't know what you are talking about.
>
> > Engineers worked out entropy maths in the 19th century. They /thought/
> > they had it understood.
>
> That's thermodynamics. And they -did- understand that.

But they applied it to the entire universe - which is not necessarily
valid, since it's not certain the universe is a thermodynamically closed
system.

That was one of their mistakes.

So are you still sure I know not what I speak of?

(I'm capable of worse grammatical atrocities)

> > Then the 20th century came along and taught
> > them differently - but the steam engines still work so the engineers can
> > still pretend that `Irreversibility is well understood'.
>
> Engineers had nothing to do with it.
> Boltzmann and Ehrenfest cleared up
> the statistical mechanics of irreversibility,
> around 1900.

<puzzled> Describing things on that level, yes.

But no-one's got a clue on how come time only goes one way, which is the
central mystery of irreversibility of the sort I'm talking about.

If that idea does not apply to that which you are considering when using
the word `irreversibility', stop pratting about and define your
terminology more precisely.

Rowland.

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From: J. J. Lodder on 7 Mar 2010 18:05

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote:

> Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > D.M. Procida <real-not-anti-spam-address(a)apple-juice.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > This is the kind of thing that makes me doubt that digital archives of
> > > photographs will last longer than physical ones.
> >
> > I think they will last in the hands of their current owners-
>
> I've seen that they often do not last in the hands of their current
> owners.
>
> I've known lots of people who have lost a lot of data from their
> computers - including their archive of family snap-shots, their complete
> audio collection, and so on.
>
> In fact, I know one person who's lost all that multiple times - although
> once past the first time, the data loss was less, obviously. Even after
> the second `theft of the laptop', this person didn't understand that it
> might not be a bad idea to *make backups*. And they weren't totally
> computer-ignorant, either.
>
> It's called `trusting the computer to be as reliable as a photo album or
> record collection' and it's what most people do. Even when it's bloody
> obvious that yer photo album at home in a drawer is at low risk of being
> nicked while the expensive laptop you're flashing around in public is
> highly likely to be stolen, the way you carry on with it. Oh look,
> mugged and ripped off again, what a surprise, I told you to not do that
> or you'd get mugged and ripped off AGAIN. Pfft. Oh, and a third time.
> (It won't happen again 'cos daddy got pissed off buying replacement
> laptops.)

The photos in the family album are almost completely gone.
Barely visible orange blots is all that remains.
Fortunately most negatives have survived.
(but I'll never find the time to scan them)

> Also: unless you put the time and money and effort into maintaining
> backups, keeping up to date with the software, and so on - in short, all
> the complicated technical details required to achieve data security -
> unless you do all that, your data is simply too fragile and generally at
> risk to be trusted at all.
>
> And most people don't even know that they need to put all that time and
> money and effort into maintaining data security if they want to keep
> their family snapshots. And so they lose the data.
>
> Even those who do know, don't usually do what's needful.
>
> What's *really* needful is `reliable home computing' - but we have a PC
> industry that for decades has been making deliberately unreliable home
> computing kit in part to drive future sales and in other part because
> `people buy the cheapest and reliable isn't cheapest'.

And rightfully so.
Any computer will be hopelessly obsolete in five years time.
HDs even more so.

> >for
> > instance, I know that I will keep my own pictures and transfer them from
> > machine to machine as I progress, until I go phut. And reading the image
> > formats should be okay; I can see JPEGs being decipherable pretty well
> > indefinitely. Software will survive much longer than machinery, because
> > the machinery wears out and is expensive to replace, whereas that kind
> > of software doesn't and isn't.
>
> But the software depends on an operating system, and the operating
> systems become obsolete, stop being supported, and eventually you find
> that old application software has in effect `worn out' because one day,
> you'll find no platform to run it on, not even an emulator.
>
> That day will not be soon for (for example) Windoze 7.
>
> But...

A .jpeg will still be a .jpeg, and will be readable
with some app under some OS.

> > But it does require archives to transfer and safeguard their digital
> > data as carefully as they protect and maintain their physical stores.
>
> Much more care and time and money and effort is needed, because the
> digital storage media are so much more fragile. For example, there are
> almost *NO* drives available to read digital data that are not certain
> to become inoperable in long storage. All it takes is electrolytic
> capacitors, and you've got a guaranteed short-life bit of kit.
>
> Even semiconductors can wear out - electron erosion, can you credit it?
> And other strange stuff - atoms don't /always/ stay put jiggling on the
> spot in solids, especially when they get hot. Atoms can move around -
> which can cause doping to change and so on.
>
> `Short life' means it certainly won't be working a century from now.
>
> Whatever you do, if you're running a digital archive, you have to factor
> in expensive rolling programme of continually transferring the data to
> new media and continually maintaining software to read your old data.

On the contrary, it is economically unsound
to keep those old HDs (with their much too high CO2 emission/bit)
turning.
Replacing them is good economics.

> It's bloody expensive and hard work compared to looking after a
> warehouse full of paper.

Keeping the US declaration of independence in liquid nitrogen
costs money too.

> [snip]
>
> > I don't think we *know* yet how we will use 'casual' digital archives.
>
> *WE* won't use them. We will be dead when interesting things start to
> happen with that sort of thing. I'm expecting maybe another 45 years
> living for myself (hopefully not much longer, not unless they've got a
> lot better at dealing with dementia).
>
> >I
> > believe that they are potentially longer lived than physical ones. We'll
> > see.
>
> There are no modern digital data formats with the longevity of clay
> tablets. And there are very few modern digital data formats with even
> the longevity of paper-in-books.

Digital data so far survives much better than clay tablets.
(for which you have to burn down a palace to get them conserved well)
Almost all of them have been lost.

Jan

PS And how many -original- Greek and Latin manuscripts
do you suppose to have survived?
The huge effort to digitise the content of the world's libraries
is undertaken also for the purpose of conservation
of things which will be lost if left on paper only.

From: J. J. Lodder on 7 Mar 2010 18:05

From: Rowland McDonnell on 8 Mar 2010 00:10

J. J. Lodder <nospam(a)de-ster.demon.nl> wrote:

> Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > J. J. Lodder <nospam(a)de-ster.demon.nl> wrote:
> >
> > > > Not at all. Entaglement is *not* standard quantum mechanics. That's the
> > > > whole problem.
> > >
> > > But it is.
> >
> > Only in a very limited way; the greatest problem with it is the
> > simultaneity of the effect- the breaking of the lightspeed limit.
>
> Entanglement is a consequence of standard quantum mechanics.
> And no, it doesn't violate causality,

`doesn't violate causality' is pretty meaningless.

The situation is this:

Entanglement results in instantaneous action at a distance, but *also*
theory predicts (confirmed by experiment) that no effect of this action
can be measured before a speed of light delay between the entangled
particles has passed.

Very straightforward - and bloody odd, bloody odd indeed. Spooky action
at a distance - Albert didn't like it, and I get spooked by it too.

I mean, where the hell does the delay come from given that we've got
this instantaneous link? Or, for that matter, the instantaneous
action-at-a-distance. It's just - bloody odd.

I've never gone through all the maths of this one, but it wouldn't have
helped if I had.

Rowland.

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From: J. J. Lodder on 8 Mar 2010 04:39

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote:

> J. J. Lodder <nospam(a)de-ster.demon.nl> wrote:
>
> > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote:
> >
> > > J. J. Lodder <nospam(a)de-ster.demon.nl> wrote:
> > >
> > > > wRowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > R <me32(a)privacy.net> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Well, checking Palm desktop running (very nicely) under
> > > > > > > > OS10.4.11, in mid-Feb 2040 it wraps round to 1904.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > That's true of real time, too. Physicists haven't noticed.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > They probably have- or they've seen it but not understood the
> > > > > > significance...
> > > > >
> > > > > No-one understands time, not yet.
> > > >
> > > > Because there is nothing to understand.
> > >
> > > You know so much, you are god, perhaps? Because only a god could know
> > > that.
>
> ...
>
> [snip]
>
> > > > > Once upon a time, Richard Feynmann's point that anyone who thinks they
> > > > > understand quantum mechanics, doesn't - that was true.
> > > >
> > > > A much abuse quote.
> > > > Feynman's idea was not to provide an excuse
> > > > for all kids of obscurantism.
> > >
> > > <puzzled> What, and you're a necromancer and/or mind-reader now?
> >
> > Just reading Feyman.
>
> Well, I've done that too - what did I do wrong with *MY* reference to
> that point.
>
> > > Or did you write that just to provide a wee bit of a put-down for
> > > Rowland so you could annoy him?
> > >
> > > I really don't see that you're getting at anything here, except
> > > attacking the messenger.
> > >
> > > But: Feynmann's idea was that the Copenhagen interpretation (approx:
> > > shut up and calculate) was the best available. All the words didn't
> > > work. Only the maths worked.
> >
> > The Copenhagen interpretation is not 'shut up and calculate'.
>
> <sigh> So you put it in better words, then. `Shut up and calculate' is
> a `probably missing the point a bit but close enough' approximation to
> the Copenhagen interpretation - except a lot of people seem to think
> that actually, this Danish capital business is just a cop-out and it
> really doesn't mean anything other than `shut up and do the maths'.
>
> > > The idea is to blow away all the obscurities of human language when
> > > applied to QM, because the only language that worked was maths. And, of
> > > course, the Feynamnn diagrams for which Dickie boy got himself a gong.
> >
> > That's quantum electro dynamics, not quantum mechanics.
>
> <shrug> You want to divide things up that finely just to prove me
> wrong, you go ahead.

When you want to discuss fundamentals you should stick to fundamentals.

> > > > > But since I left
> > > > > university in 1990, an awful lot of new thinking has turned up and I
> > > > > have an idea that the old cop-out Copenhagen interpretation (grossly
> > > > > simplified: `Stop talking and do the maths') isn't going to last much
> > > > > longer.
> > > >
> > > > That's not Bohr, it's also Feynman.
> > >
> > > What? What Bohr said was rather long-winded and frankly a bit hard to
> > > understand. Feynmann and others tried to precise it and came up with
> > > things such as the quote above.
> > >
> > > - Bohr wasn't a great communicator as was Feynmann.
> >
> > They adressed a different audience.
>
> What, world-leading physicists and students at universities - the
> audience both spoke to?
>
> Do you allude to the fact that one mostly worked in Denmark and the
> other mostly worked in the USA? It was the fact that Dickie had Yanks
> around him while poor old Nils was crippled by Danes, or something like
> that?

Huh again. Crippled? The Copenhagen interpretation
was hammered out by the world's best physicist
at a time when physics in the US was provincial.
Americans who wanted to learn some up to date physics
(like Oppenheimer for example) had to come to Europe.

OTOH the 'shut up and calculate' attitude
is that of people who don't want to think about QM.

> > > > He jokingly paraphrased Mussolini as;
> > > > 'BELIEVE! OBEY!! COMPUTE!!!'
> > > >
> > > > > The thing is, anyone who's thinks they're barking up the right
> > > > > tree in interpreting "what `reality' `really' `is'" sounds like a
> > > > > lunatic who's been at the LSD - when heard by normal people.
> > > > > Certainly, the ideas expressed by modern physicists does result in
> > > > > them meeting most of the tick-boxes for a diagnosis of psychotic.
> > > >
> > > > You are projecting?
> > >
> > > You are a clinical psychologist, perhaps? Or is it that you're just
> > > making a baseless pejorative remark to undermine the perfectly
> > > sensible points I'm making by attacking me personally?
> >
> > YOU were attacking (almost) all modern physicists,
>
> No I wasn't.

You were.

> > putting them away as psychotics.
>
> Total bloody nonsense. I know you can read English - read again, with
> care this time.
>
> Try to engage your brain this time.

Well, perhaps YOU do't mind people saying about YOU
that 'you meet most of the tick-boxes for a diagnosis of psychotic',
but let me assure you that almost all working physicists,
string theorist incuded, would mind very much.

> > So don't complain about replies.
>
> I'm complaining about you making insulting remarks about me.

You started it, so don't complain.

> > > Oh yes, that'd be it.
> > >
> > > > > I can't follow the detail, but I do find the battles fascinating
> > > > > to read about. Einsteinian relativity is due to be shot down in
> > > > > flames any day now - but I'd not bet on what'll replace it.
> > > > > There's the string theorists and the Modified Newtonian Dynamics
> > > > > crowd both with a case that's looking more and more testable every
> > > > > day.
> > > >
> > > > That's what they have been saying for 50 years now.
> > >
> > > No, that's just the false claim made by those who wish to attack the
> > > people doing the work. It's the sort of thing that gets said about
> > > those who like to knock all new efforts, and do down anyone trying
> > > anything a bit out of the ordinary.
> >
> > Then let them show a physical result.
>
> <puzzled> But they haven't been saying they've got a practically
> testable anything at all - well, not until very recently. Nor have they
> been saying that they've had such a thing for five decades.

There has been a lot of rewriting of history going on.

> You are simply wrong to make such claims.

They were wrong (eh, read far to optimistic) in their claims
when the subject got started.

> > > Actually, the truth is that both groups have been saying that they've
> > > got nothing testable until very recently - I've no idea why you claim
> > > otherwise.
> >
> > I agree. Hence my comment that string theory has been a failure so far.
>
> But as I've explained, you cannot measure the success or failure of a
> theory on the basis of whether or not it has achieved its original aim -
> especially not over such a short time scale as a few decades.

It is a typical example of a degenerating research program,
in the sense of Lakatos.

> I do not understand why you continue to claim that string theory has
> resulted in `no progress' when it's bloody obvious that despite the
> paucity of testable results (somewhere between `maybe this one, or still
> nothing yet'), there has been *HUGE* progress in the field of
> mathematics.

The progress is restricted to self-generated problems.
(which is typical for a degenerating research program)

> Or do you think that progress in mathematics can be disregarded?

Again, mathmatics /= physics.

> > > And from what I recall, MOND hasn't been in existence for 50 years.
> > > Didn't it come from Hoyle's starting point? Turned up quite recently,
> > > IIRC.
> > >
> > > > In fact the opposite is true:
> > > > string theory has been a miserable failure.
> > >
> > > That's an absurd idea that could only have come from a person who
> > > doesn't understand either string theory or how physics and maths make
> > > progress.
> >
> > There is no progress, and no result.
>
> Many hugely exciting new mathematical techiques have been developed due
> to string theory research: that is progress: progress you cannot deny
> with any honesty. Of course I don't understand any of them, but I have
> read stuff by people who *do* and they're terrifically excited.

The atmosphere I see in that camp is mostly one of gloom.

> Moreover, last thing I recall reading, the string theorists had come up
> with a prediction that could in principle be tested.
>
> And that does tend to indicate that your assertion of `no progress' is
> wildly wrong - huge progress has been made in mathematics, which is
> hugely useful for physics (even if the physicists don't find out for
> another century or so); and I've read that they've recently got a
> testable prediction out of the door, which surprised me.

They do keep up the output of popular works though,
which tell the world how great and exciting it all is.

> > > String theory is *still* intellectual masturbation because it's not yet
> > > produced testable anything that I've heard of.
> >
> > I've even heard a notable physics nobelist call it a pseudo-science.
>
> Yes, that is the sort of thing that scientists say about rival work that
> they have contempt for.

He knows a pseudo-science when he sees one.
Feynman might have agreed, I guess.

> > > But the last thing I heard, the state of play was now `Not produced any
> > > /practically/ testable results yet' - they've got the point where there
> > > are tests that could in principle be done, if only it weren't so bloody
> > > difficult.
> >
> > They are not even capable of retrodicting what we know already.
> >
> > > They've got there, very nearly. It can take a very long time before the
> > > start of this sort of process and something useful. The fact that it's
> > > taken decades already doesn't mean a thing.
> >
> > In their misery they are falling back on anthropic principles.
>
> <sigh> Whatever you say, Jan.

No, what Leonard Susskind says. (and many of his collegues)

> Look, I know how science works. Some of these nutters get despondant
> because they've failed to come up with practically testable predictions.

Or even retrodictions.
They were going to explain all those free parameters, remember?

> But I've read recently that there is a chance that practically testable
> predictions really are just around the corner - they've got something
> that's testable in princple now, so I recall reading recently.
>
> And if it was Physics World I read it in rather than New Scientist, it's
> a reliable report. Right now, I'm winding down after bolting a cupboard
> to a wall and I'm not going to try to find out (especially since a
> consequence of clearing space to enable the cupboard mounting is that
> lots of books and magazines are double-racked and otherwise inaccessible
> and there are still four cupboards and one set of bloody shelves to put
> up before we start on the next room and I think I might have a wee dram
> of something amber coloured from Islay, yes, that's a good idea).

That's the kind of thing that occupies me too these days.
Throwing away things is harder than collecting them.
(just re-found a dual head IIfx,
too nostalgic to throw away, too big to keep)
The kind of thing I should have had when doing TeX.

> > > Even if no tests of string theory ever get made, it's not been a
> > > `failure' because in the last N decades, they've developed a huge range
> > > of new mathematical tools and new ways of addressing mathematical
> > > problems.
> >
> > Mathematics /= physcs.
>
> Physics is applied maths; and progress in mathematics is not no progress
> at all regardless.
>
> > > So string theory can be both a complete wash-out in terms of describing
> > > the world while /also/ being damned interesting to mathematicians. Who
> > > will probably eventually come up with a way of applying it to the real
> > > world - and then totally lose interest in what will have become mere
> > > applied mathemtics...
> >
> > Zero results so far.
>
> See above - you are factually incorrect.

Then show us a -physical- result.

> > > > > ... which means it'll be something else that turns up and takes over,
> > > > > I'll bet.
> > > >
> > > > One may hope so, and enough OT for now,
> > >
> > > Jan, you really should learn how to stick to the topic rather than
> > > getting personal.
> >
> > Huh?
>
> You do seem to put too many pejorative needling bits into your replies.

"The writer is responsible for his text,
the reader for his interpretations." (WFH)

> > > There was almost nothing in your reply that wasn't a groundless abusive
> > > remark in some fashion - either directed at me, or nameless researchers.
> >
> > I do have some string theorists in mind,
> > but naming would be even more off-topic.
>
> If I could be bothered, I could dig up the name of the notable physicist
> who described string theory as intellectual masturbation - although I
> think he coined that phrase mostly to sell his book...

See? You are not as blind to reality as you pretend to be.

Jan

--
"Ugly theories are good!" (Susskind)

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