A man claims to store multiple movies on 64kb

[ripper64]

Hi,

just watched some TV here in the Netherlands, and I'm absolutely surprised.

In 1999, someone named "Jan Sloot" claimed to have stored a number of ten complete movies on 64 kilobyte. In this documantary they said that Philips and some other companys invested millions in this "Sloot Coding System". Some days after he showed his invention he died all at once. There is even a book written about this mystery.

Myself, I don't believe in this "Sloot Coding System".

If you want more information, I do have links, but they're all in Dutch.

[stef24]

hah you beat me to it. i was about to post this:

i just saw a most intresting program on Dutch TV about the "sloot Digital Coding System". Electronics expert Jan Sloot spend 20 years developing a coding system that compresses video to mind boggling extent.

SDCD is a new alphabet for storing digital information which no longer uses the binary system of 1 and 0, but a much more efficient method. Just like with text, movies are composed of a finite number of colors and sounds. All those finite elements were encoded in 5 different algorithms of 74MB resulting in a total of 370MB - this is the core of the invention. The only thing needed to complete the system would be a fitting key which takes up just 1KB. Like this, dozens of keys can be stored on a simple chip.

So after making a payment, somebody could download the keys to a dozen movies via cellphone to then watch the movies at home on a player containing the basic algorithm. Should this ever reach the commercial market all CD, DVD, tapes and diskettes would cease to exist, aswell as fiber optics. The coper wire and the cell phone would be worth more than gold. Everything would change

Jan Sloot presented his Digital Coding System to a bunch of investitors who eventually took him to the Philips headquarters, where he showed his invention to Philip's CEO Roel Pieper. The demonstration on the top floor of the Philips headquartes involved playing 16 movies at the same time from a box containing a 64KB chip, attached to his laptop - no hard drive.

Roel Pieper took Jan Sloot to the headquarters of Computer Associates in the States where he was told "you are going to be the richest man on earth"

But two days before the source code was to be handed over he was mysteriously found dead in his garden. The source code has never been found by the security agencies assigned to try and recover it, but the box was apparently previously opened by Philips without Jan Sloot's permission ... stolen?

The story has been written in a book ("De Broncode" transl The Source code) by a journalist who was present during much of the demonstrations and followed everything closely.

several online links document the story and the technology in detail but unfortunatly there is no english information!

the final part of the TV program is on Sept 12

i hope the dutch readers of this forum can start a discussion about this. here are some links. alternatively, google for "sloot digital coding system". very much looking forward to discussions about this

article in the press: http://www.nrc.nl/W2/Nieuws/2001/01/23/Vp/07.html
website of the tv program: http://www.netwerk.tv/index.jsp?p=items&r=netwerk&a=131206
detailed story from Quote Media: http://www.gids.nl/techno/jan-sloot.html
article by a non believer: http://www.exp-math.uni-essen.de/~immink/interviews/ed2001.htm
another article: http://www.uitgeverijpodium.nl/index.html

and technical discussions can be found on usenet in nl.comp.programmeren

[ripper64]

Yes, just the links I meant.

Stef24, I must say your post is much better than mine ;)

But, if this invention of Jan Sloot is real, then it's certainly stolen, however I can't believe Philips commiting "a murder with robbery".

But, throwing the binary system of 0's and 1's away, how is this possible, since all processors and what else uses 0's and 1's. A whole new machine is required, while he showed his invention on a regular laptop.

[stef24]

hey i just translated parts of text i found in those links. the program didnt really go into much detail about the technology

speaking of the technology, most of it goes way beyond what's in my head. i guess if he used a system other than the binary one, it must have been coming out of this box. thats what he reluctantly gave to Philips and he got very pissed after he found out it had been opened.

if you think of the implications this technology could have im sure alot of CEO's would put some money into a kitty to "bust a cap in his ass". would not be the first time ey

[Wilbert]

Yeah, I also saw it. It's a strange story. Apperently it happened several years ago (July 1999).

Anyone knows about any investigations, police reports? Is he murdered (I guess there's no evidence for it), signs of burglary (I assume all the stuff was in his house)?

[stef24]

one of the above links says they suspect him having a safe somewhere that stashed the source code. they didnt find anything at home and obviously it wasnt all in his memory

very strange almost disturbing story indeed

[DigitAl56K]

65536 bytes to play with
Divided by 10 movies = 6553 bytes per movie

It takes 3.625 bytes to address 387973120 (370MB) bytes of "magic video data"

There are 129600 frames for a 90 minute movie @ 24fps

Which means if you only needed to address one single piece of video data per frame (which is completely rediculous), for a complete movie you would need:
129600 * 3.625 bytes = 469800 bytes

If you then wanted this to fit into the aforementioned 6553 bytes per movie you would need some further kind of arithmetic compression of (469800/6553) = 71 times - and what you would be compressing would essentially resemble a bunch of random numbers (indicies into the magic video data), which we all know doesn't compress well losslessly even with the best known algorithms.

This story is a complete non-starter. The only disturbing element is that anyone would actually believe it is possible, let alone make a TV show on it...

[Wilbert]

The only disturbing element is that anyone would actually believe it is possible, let alone make a TV show on it...
Not only that. It was demonstrated to several people (also IT compagnies). Investors invested millions in it (Pieper from philips for example).

Second part starts how, so I have to watch TV ...

[theReal]

Sounds like this works similarily to MIDI??? Addressing existing samples??

However even if it does work you'd loose all the things like color finesse or certain types of grain in a movie - they'd all basically look the same...
I don't think film makers would approve...

[ripper64]

This compression of Jan Sloot doesn't only conern to video or audio, to all sort of data, is what I make up of the story.

But, if you haven't seen the TV programme, you wouldn't believe the whole story anyhow.

I'm really amazed of all the investments. Philips invested millions, so did ABN Amro (Dutch Bank), even Computer Associates invested in it. Unbelieveable, you wouldn't just invest millions if someone says that he invented a compression factor million, so I'm curious what it makes so reliable.Originally posted by Wilbert
Anyone knows about any investigations, police reports? Is he murdered (I guess there's no evidence for it), signs of burglary (I assume all the stuff was in his house)? According to the TV Program he had a truckload of paper in his room and this is all disappeared after his death. He claimed that he had his invention stored in a safe, not found yet. There wasn't an autopsy performed, so his immideate heart-attack isn't cleared up.

**Thinking to myself: Why can't I just go talking Dutch here if this discussion is bound by almost only Dutch people. :D

[Wilbert]

Incredible story. It was on tv again, because someone published it in a book:

Eric Smit, adjunct-director at the business magazine Quote. (ISBN 90 5759 156 1). The book is called 'the sourcecode'.

It turns out that after he gave a demonstration to Roel Pieper (who was at that time in the board of directors of Philips (vice-president), and he would be the next president of Philips when Cor Boonstra would leave), Roel Pieper flew him several times to USA to all the big IT-guys and investors. But, not in the name of Philips, but for himself (at least that's what the book claims the evidence points to).

Moreover Pieper established a compagny (I think it's duch) called 'the Fifth Force Inc.', which still exists today, and already started on a business plan.

That time there were also some dutch investors that were willing to invest (50 million dollar by ABN-AMRO bank as a startfund, and others).

Two days before he would give his system to Pieper and Co, he died because of a heart attague (it is known he had heart problems, but strange no section was done). Strange thing is that his room is cleaned, and all the paperwork is gone (no idea whether the were traces of burglary). Btw, this sourcecode was not in a house, but somewhere in a safe (which nobody can find). In 2001, he doesn't work at Philips anymore, but I can't find the date when he left.

some other links (dutch):
http://www.parool.nl/nieuws/2004/SEP/06/eco2.html
http://www.gids.nl/techno/jan-sloot.html

[gircobain]

Has anyone heard of the product (http://www.theproduct.de)?

To anyone who doubts that such amazing compression technique could ever be developed, well that's amazing too...

[DigitAl56K]

That's completely different.

It's one thing to have some code that can generate a movie, it's another thing entirely to be able to encode an arbitrary source.

The Produkt isn't compression at all. Ok, so it does probably contain many compression routines and is probably coded extremely efficiently, but all it is really doing is generating graphics/sound based on some code somebody has written to do just that. The amazing compression factor that was derived was based on the fact that "This movie is w minutes long and has x,y,z funky things going on, so if you worked out how much space it would take to store that instead of our 64kb of code that generates it, that's pretty awesome compression."

In the same vein, I could say that my favorite WinAMP VIS plugin has uber-better-than-anything-on-earth compression because it's been generating video for years yet the download was only 3MB!

I think if this "Jan Sloot" did ever really exist, then this whole "conspiracy" theory is completely wrong. My guess would be that if this story is true, then Jan Sloot is one of the best con artists in history - walking away with many millions of dollars after convincing some of the biggest businessmen in the industry that he had stumbled upon the impossible. And hey! With that kind of cash in his pocket, I bet he could have faked his own death and disappeared real easy...

[gircobain]

Well, I didn't say it was the same thing nor was I even referring to video compression specifically
I meant that it is amazing what could be done with so few bytes - let's reckon, better than many games which take 1, 2 or more full cds
Imagination and creativity have no limits - there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, already said Shakespeare :)

[DigitAl56K]

Yes, it is very impressive - I've seen some pretty neat stuff done with 256 bytes also. Or this one (http://www.scene.org/file_dl.php?url=ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2004/0a000h/256b/blobdistort201.zip&id=205275), which is only 201 bytes! (probably shorter than this post).

[Phoenyx]

Originally posted by gircobain
Well, I didn't say it was the same thing nor was I even referring to video compression specifically
I meant that it is amazing what could be done with so few bytes - let's reckon, better than many games which take 1, 2 or more full cds
Imagination and creativity have no limits - there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, already said Shakespeare :)

Shakespeare should have said "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than *can* be dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio." (extra word is mine and I accept the consequences ;) )

[dani82]

al capone's vault, the holy grail, the cure for AIDS (maybe), and now "sloot's code" all said to exist, but never proven or otherwise

[Mug Funky]

lol! you forgot about the Higg's boson behind the grassy knoll...

it's a nice story, and would make a good movie itself (though they should trim back the fantastic elements a bit if they want a market outside of Hollywood).

...but i don't think there's much in it apart from "wouldn't that be cool" factors.

perhaps it's an attempt by 3 1/2" diskette manufacturers to get back into the market :)

[Doom9]

I've heard this before.. I guess it's the urban legend of the video encoding biz. My memory is extremely hazy already, but what I recall from college is that given a certain amount of information, there's a theoretical limit to how much this can be compressed losslessly. Existing coding systems are obviously less efficient, but by that theorem, it's simply impossible to compress a movie to 64k (assuming you expect presentable quality).

[unmei]

you forget the 64Kb are only the "key", the data is in the 370Mb.

How about a chaotic function with 370MB parameter data that takes let's say a few descriptors as initial contidion, maybe 16K position, 16K velocity, 16K acceleration, 16K a' (whats that called, curbation?).
The "video frame" at time t would then correspond to the position calculated for that time.
Anyway, construction for the parameter data as well as finding the start values to use to get a certain movie, i think, can be said to be impossible :)

[Mug Funky]

doom9 - i think the theory is that there is a limit to the amount of predictible data in a set of data, and the rest is entropy. as entropy can't be predicted, it must be stored as is. the more entropy, the less coding efficiency.

of course, given a Grand Theory of Everything, we'll find a lot of stuff that looked like entropy and chaos, but was in fact perfectly predictible, but the only problem here is setting the initial conditions. just think of how you'd use a theory of everything to determine the orientation of silver halides in film grain... you'd need a data set approaching the complexity of the entire universe to derive so much from a set of laws.

still, it's all food for thought. i wouldn't think something like this was possible, and if that guy was murdered, i'm willing to bet it was a pissed off venture capitalist who talked to a computer scientist and realized he'd been duped bad.

but i can't see how big companies could have invested in this - it's high risk, and didn't pay off. shareholders simply wouldn't allow that kind of irresponsible use of their money - R&D is not fashionable in investment circles even when it has solid science on it's side. why else would sony and philips have to get together to make CD and SACD, rather than just one of the two companies doing it off their own bat?

[ripper64]

Originally posted by DigitAl56K
The only disturbing element is that anyone would actually believe it is possibleThat is one disturbing thing.
That the man died all at once is disturbing.
That millions were invested in it is also disturbing.

[LordRPI]

There were a few posts back like this in 2001 at the DivX.com forum. It basically boiled down to the fact that they were not actually movies, but DirectX sequences that were generated from a very small amount of data. You can find these movies, generally starting at 64Kb here (http://www.theprodukkt.com/demoscene.html).

Ooops, been posted in this thread before.

[virus]

Originally posted by Mug Funky
doom9 - i think the theory is that there is a limit to the amount of predictible data in a set of data, and the rest is entropy. as entropy can't be predicted, it must be stored as is. the more entropy, the less coding efficiency.
ehm, *cough*, no... :)
There's a statistical measure called "entropy rate" of a source ("source" = a set of generic data = a sequence of numbers, to put it simply), which is the lower bound for the average code length you can spend to represent that source with a compression algorithm. You cannot do lossless compression at a bitrate lower than the entropy rate, exactly in the same way you cannot make your car travel faster than light ;)

Entropy is a measure of the amount of information delivered by a source. The more the source outcome is unpredictable (= "random"), the more information it will deliver, the higher the entropy rate and the less you can compress it (and vice versa for highly predictable sources, which are insanely compressible).

The unit of measure of the entropy is "bits/symbol" (that is!... in the world of image/video compression, generally 1 symbol represents 1 pixel, so you can read it as "bits/pixel" if you want - well, I'm oversimplyfing things a bit too much here... but you get the idea ;))

[Neo Neko]

Has anyone heard of analog computing? An analog computer should be capable of storring a rather large number of discrete values without needing to transcribe them to some less efficient digital representation. For that matter what about computing with numerical bases other than 2? Either one would require much more complex hardware than what is in a traditional system. But would be capable of representing more with much less. Binary encoding is not the height of efficiency especially when your data is not generally binary in nature. And heck not much is truly binary in nature. :p Perhaps this box was an analog computer capable of storring and computing with a set of 256 or more discrete values.

And in the future what will happen with quantum computing? Where each quantum bit is capable of describing 5 unique states simultaneously? Or where actual hardware network latency is zero and the transport incurrs all overhead. With quantum networks it would be possible to send data from one end of the universe to the other simultaneously! Interesting stuff. Interesting stuff that is on the horizon and will change the way we think about computing drastically.

[avih]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
Has anyone heard of analog computing? An analog computer should be capable of storring a rather large number of discrete values without needing to transcribe them to some less efficient digital representation. For that matter what about computing with numerical bases other than 2? Either one would require much more complex hardware than what is in a traditional system. But would be capable of representing more with much less. Binary encoding is not the height of efficiency especially when your data is not generally binary in nature. And heck not much is truly binary in nature. :p Perhaps this box was an analog computer capable of storring and computing with a set of 256 or more discrete values.
.
.
.


analog calculations might have something, but analog value can be represented pretty good with few bits ("few" depends on the resolution you actually need, and the problem domain. typically though, 64 bits would be enough for most range-limited analog values. without getting into account errors that sum-up due to quantization of the values, but also not taking into account the naturall inaccuracy of analog values)

regarding elementary memory elements that are not binary (i.e. each basic element represents 4/5/8/16/whatever descrete values), not much to gain, as all it would save is the space that the momory consumes (whether it be silicon or ano other matter). so u get 1/8 the size for the same memory. "big deal" (at least in our context).

the issue was rather if at all such algorithm could exist (well, it depends on the input imo, for some inputs it might, for others, not. as someone mentioned, it depends on the inherent entropy of the input). using more states/cell will only make it compute better (=faster or on smaller base die).


appart from kkrieger, nothing comes close ;) (well, there was also this raytracer in 256 bytes ;) )


well, if we could only write down the parameters of the universe right after the big bang, we could have done it though. we would only need then a large and fast enough memory and a fast enough computer to calculate the state of the universe at any given time. then we could have calculated (by prediction) the demonstration that took place, its content (= the films), and hey, we could have even predicted the actual 64K that he used to compress the data :)

[Doobie]

Originally posted by DigitAl56K
There are 129600 frames for a 90 minute movie @ 24fps

Which means if you only needed to address one single piece of video data per frame (which is completely rediculous), for a complete movie you would need:
129600 * 3.625 bytes = 469800 bytes

You wouldn't need a single bit encoded to address each frame. The decoder knows that the next frame starts where the last one ends.

[DigitAl56K]

Originally posted by Doobie
You wouldn't need a single bit encoded to address each frame. The decoder knows that the next frame starts where the last one ends.

That's not what I said :) I said for each frame, you would have to dig into your magic 370mb store of video data at least once (or you have nothing at all to decode), and in order to address 370mb of data you need 3.650 bytes. In reality, you would probably have to dip into it several thousand times, so multiply the unliklihood of this story by a facter of 1000x at least :)

With regards to number systems other than two, it doesn't matter what your number base is. When you describe a number of bits you are describing the representation in base 2. For comparitive evaluation (ok he said 64KB not 64Kb), the value would also have to be described in terms of conventional wisdom, i.e. base 2, for it to be meaningful.

[Doobie]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
Has anyone heard of analog computing? An analog computer should be capable of storring a rather large number of discrete values without needing to transcribe them to some less efficient digital representation.

That would be video tape. Using technology several decades old, six hours of movies can be put on one ultra-cheap tape at near broadcast quality. Using modern technology, a high quality analogue VHS-size tape might be able to hold a thousand hours at near DVD quality. But, analogue cannot be used to store computer data because of imprecision.

There is no such thing as digital in the natural world. Transisters that are used to build computer chips are analogue devices. They're digital only like your water faucet is digital. With no water, or only a little water (a small or even a big leak), you have a zero. With some high level of water flow, you have a one (you can't even know for sure what that high level will be. Water pressure varies, even if you open the faucet up all the way). There is no need for a precise water flow to have a precise one or zero. This is why computers are base-2 and why they can't practically be anything else.

With analogue bits, two bits could represent each pixel vs. 24- or 32-bits as it is with binary computers. And, these analogue bits could be packed much more densely and without the overhead of error-correcting onto megnetic media.

And in the future what will happen with quantum computing?

Quantum computing is cool. :cool:

[LordRPI]

Originally posted by Doobie
That would be video tape. Using technology several decades old, six hours of movies can be put on one ultra-cheap tape at near broadcast quality. Using modern technology, a high quality analogue VHS-size tape might be able to hold a thousand hours at near DVD quality. But, analogue cannot be used to store computer data because of imprecision.



If I remember correctly, the general rule of thumb is that a $2 CD player at Walmart is equivalent to a $2K record player.


There is no such thing as digital in the natural world. Transisters that are used to build computer chips are analogue devices. They're digital only like your water faucet is digital. With no water, or only a little water (a small or even a big leak), you have a zero. With some high level of water flow, you have a one (you can't even know for sure what that high level will be. Water pressure varies, even if you open the faucet up all the way). There is no need for a precise water flow to have a precise one or zero. This is why computers are base-2 and why they can't practically be anything else.

With analogue bits, two bits could represent each pixel vs. 24- or 32-bits as it is with binary computers. And, these analogue bits could be packed much more densely and without the overhead of error-correcting onto megnetic media.



Everything can be experessed in binary. If one bit isn't enough, you string many of them together. Lets say I want to dedicate one bit to say if the water on my faucet is on, and 7 bits represent the water pressure... and another 10 bits represent the chemical impurity of the water coming out of the faucet.I don't recall exactly who proposed this, but this idea is approaching 100 years of age, predating computers. It's funny though, the math behind algorithm analysis has been around much longer than the computer itself.

I've never been familiar with the term analog bits, but old designs have suggested going beyond binary numbers to decimal and octal. These designs, however proved extremely inefficient. But getting back on track, the analog greatness focuses on that everything be ideal: A storage medium that can store infinite values with signals of infinite lowness and infinite highness: that the playback head of a record player has zero mass, and your speaker produces no air resistance while moving even though it relies on making air move for your own feeble analog ears to hear it. We live in the real world though and have to accept that to some extent, we will be limited by physics, at least in the near future. As some of you might have realized, the non digitalness of computer microprocessors have caused Intel and IBM to fall behind Moore's law on grounds of excessive wire delay caused by slowing speeds due to the resistivity of modern interconnects.

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by avih
analog calculations might have something, but analog value can be represented pretty good with few bits ("few" depends on the resolution you actually need, and the problem domain. typically though, 64 bits would be enough for most range-limited analog values. without getting into account errors that sum-up due to quantization of the values, but also not taking into account the naturall inaccuracy of analog values)

You make it sound as if analog is somehow less accurate than digital. It isn't. The only thing Digital has over Analog is it's error resilliance. Other than that Digital quantization tends to be innacurate and innefficient in comparison. For a limited example of how analog can improve transmission/storrage etc look at modems. Part of the use of analog is out of necessity because of the medium. But rather than just sticking with trying to make the analog signal mimic the digital signal as close as it can, techniques like QAM have become common. QAM takes advantage of analogs nature. Using several discrete voltages to represent up to 256 different values. My digital cable box and cable modem both use 256 QAM. That's lossless compression of about 4:1. 4 digital values represented by 1 analog value. Which in and of itself is nothing to sneeze at. If this were further extended from the realm of transmission and storrage to psychovisual/acoustic compression algorythms and general computation who is to say we would not see a similar efficiency increase?

Originally posted by avih
regarding elementary memory elements that are not binary (i.e. each basic element represents 4/5/8/16/whatever descrete values), not much to gain, as all it would save is the space that the momory consumes (whether it be silicon or ano other matter). so u get 1/8 the size for the same memory. "big deal" (at least in our context).

Actually that seems like a rather big deal to me. The best lossless codecs etc generally don't do better than halving the bitrate required to represent the original stream. And at the cost of sometimes demanding computations. Here we are talking about a reduction in size that is 4 times greater while still being lossless. And at the same time being far less computationally taxing etc. That would be a huge boon! If you were then able to craft a lossless codec that were able to losslessly describe the original with half the bitrate using our new coding system that already reduces the size by to 1/8. Why you would have a lossless compression to 1/16th the original size! That is massive! That is about the equivalent of what MP2 and MP3 provide in a lossy way. Only losslessly. In my context that is downright monumental. :p

Originally posted by avih
the issue was rather if at all such algorithm could exist (well, it depends on the input imo, for some inputs it might, for others, not. as someone mentioned, it depends on the inherent entropy of the input). using more states/cell will only make it compute better (=faster or on smaller base die).

Actually computing with more base states to me looks to have the same advantage no matter what the entropy. At least in the base sense. Then there is the possibility that it would further benefit everything else. Including entropy based encoding etc. ;)

[int 21h]

Originally posted by LordRPI
...As some of you might have realized, the non digitalness of computer microprocessors have caused Intel and IBM to fall behind Moore's law on grounds of excessive wire delay caused by slowing speeds due to the resistivity of modern interconnects...

You posted the same thing on the DivX forums a few months ago, and I am inclined to disagree.

The reason Intel and IBM are falling behind on Moore's law is due to heat dissipation problems. Limits due to the resitivity of modern interconnects will not happen for another decade or so...

[Phoenyx]

Could I point out one thing? Think of a program that can create an infinitely complex picture using a single equation. Fractal compressors are even now being worked on. There was a mathemetician (sp?) (and I don't remember his name) that said that an image of photographic quality could be encoded using about 10k of equations and 500k of base data. As I remember (could be wrong) that was supposed to be a 1200dpi equivalent 16 million color picture.

[RadicalEd]

Originally posted by avih
well, if we could only write down the parameters of the universe right after the big bang, we could have done it though. we would only need then a large and fast enough memory and a fast enough computer to calculate the state of the universe at any given time. then we could have calculated (by prediction) the demonstration that took place, its content (= the films), and hey, we could have even predicted the actual 64K that he used to compress the data :)

Only if the universe is deterministic, of course, which is currently up in the air according to quantum physics :D

[Neo Neko]

Aaaaah yes. The old cat in the box trick. Yor task is to determine whether the cat is alive or dead. A quantum theorist would postulate that there is a 50/50 chance at any one time that the cat is dead. An average person would just go over and look inside the box. At which point the quantum theoris would go off on a rant about how they ruined the result by observing it. :p

[RadicalEd]

Real determinism would make the universe so much simpler IMO. Unfortunately, you get people like Heisenburg ruining it with their uncertainty principles. All in all, it comes down to whether or not quantum systems are just too complex for us to currently predict or if there truly are random factors involved (or the more boring possibility that some things are just physically impossible for us to ever predict -- enter Heisenburg). A good TOE should solve this problem, and of course we're still waiting on that one...

[Mug Funky]

i'm kinda glad there's no determinism to speak of.

means we get some kind of free will...

[Didée]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
Aaaaah yes. The old cat in the box trick. Yor task is to determine whether the cat is alive or dead. A quantum theorist would postulate that there is a 50/50 chance at any one time that the cat is dead.
No, that's not what the quantum theorist would postulate.
There is not a 50/50 chance that the cat is dead. According to quantum mechanics, the cat is 50% dead, and 50% alive.

Another one:
Assume a tree is falling in a forest, but miles and miles around there is no living being present that could hear something.
Does the tree make some noise when it falls, or does it fall in perfect silence?

And Mug ... your fate is determined for every single moment. But nonetheless, you do have a free will. In fact this is not a contradiction in terms.

[stephanV]

Originally posted by Didée
No, that's not what the quantum theorist would postulate.
There is not a 50/50 chance that the cat is dead. According to quantum mechanics, the cat is 50% dead, and 50% alive.

That's not completely correct either, there is no such thing as 50% dead or 50% alive. The cat is just both dead and alive untill its state is made an observation, after which it turns out to be either one. :)

[Didée]

Ah, an expert :cool:

Yep, correct - seems I was caught in a rush of 50's while typing ...

So, what about the tree?

[Cyberman]

How is this "dead and alive at the same time" supposed to fit into the real world?

Obviously, the cat can be either dead or alive - it can´t be both at the same time, these terms contradict each other.

Once I look into the box and see the cat´s alive, I KNOW it´s been alive all the time - because it´s next to impossible it´s been resurrected.

--

As for the tree - why shouldn´t it make a noise? It doesn´t make noises for us, so it won´t care if someone´s listening or not.

[virus]

Originally posted by Cyberman
How is this "dead and alive at the same time" supposed to fit into the real world?
probably it's more funny if you apply it to bits, instead of cats (can't use a cat to run XviD, anyway :D). Example: a couple of quantum bits can be at the same moment into a combination of four different "states", indicated with <00>, <01>, <10> and <11>, that is, all the combinations at the same time. If you perform a logic operation on those quantum bits (e.g. a NOT) you'll get all the four results at once. You only need to extract the result you want (I still haven't understood how you're supposed to extract only the result you want from a quantum register with all the states merged, but hey, I'm not a physicist :))

This huge, intrinsic level of parallelism should be the main point behind quantum computers. So huge that with them you'll be able to break whatever cryptographic system is currently used, no matter how long the key you choose. I've heard that some of these experimental quantum machines are already working (with registers just 4 or 5 bits wide and very simple algebraic operations). There's still a long, long way to come before the MPAA can use them to prevent our backups ;)

[Didée]

Originally posted by Cyberman

As for the tree - why shouldn´t it make a noise? It doesn´t make noises for us, so it won´t care if someone´s listening or not.
Are you sure of that. How _can_ you be sure of that.

One just cannot port those quantum behaviours into the "real world". That would be the same as saying "an electron can appear either as a wave or as a particle. Therefore, my pencil possibly can appear as a wave as well." - It makes no sense to look at it this way.

To shorten a long story: guys, don't raise sciences to a religeous state. Natural sciences are good and all, but they will never lead to the truth behind. The're just a tool, and nothing more. And each tool has its specific scope of usage, but is pretty worthless outside that scope ("a screwdriver comes handy for screwing screws, but one should not try to saw any wood with it").
The problem is that their basic set is not complete. If the basic set is not complete, one cannot extrapolate those other parts of reality that are dependendant on the missing elements of the basic set - especially if it is falsly assumed that the incomplete basic set was complete. And the mathematical way of abstraction won't help anything, either. It is griping much too short. Mathematical abstraction only enables exrapolations within the span of its given premisses. One can endlessly find "new" relations by doing math - but only those that are describeable by math at all. Describing "Love" through math has little prospect of being successful. Very little.
Also, Physics in last instance is based on man's expectancy. But again, man's expectancy has little to do with the true nature of things. In the expectation of a "smallest particle" being present, the hunt will go on forever, and whatever the physicians will find, will be dividable once more (here, the "string theorem" was an astonishingly good approach - however, it has become pretty silent in that area). Within physics, time is nothing more than a vector. But a vector always can be reversed, and in fact physics has little problems with reversing time. However, in practice it doesn't work all that well. Or gravity. It's one of the most basical things around us, each baby has to learn it is there, and how to deal with it. But physic is rather clueless. Any theory of particles transmitting a "tearing" force can't work out for several reasons. The new theory of omnipresent particles transmitting a pushing force, and gravity being the result of materia shielding these particles, doesn't work out on large magnitude. And Albert's explanation of gravity not being a property of materia but of bowed space, gives some nice visualizeable models - but it doesn't offer any explanation where the force emerges from. And actually, what is "force" after all? There are so much models, so much formulas to describe everything. But there are very little explanations. Take two magnets, bring them so close to each other that you feel the force, and then look at it and try to describe whats *really* going on there. We have no explanations. Last instance of the double gap experiment - miracle. The experiment of amplifying an electromagnetic impulse by transmitting it through inert gas - miracle. Virtual particles - miracle. Latest modification of the doubled photone experiment - miracle.

No, I would not put much hope in sciences to explain the world. They may explain that world that arises out of their rules. But they will not explain the world that IS. We need completely new sciences for that - and brains that are not bounded to the expectations of what seems to lie obviously before the eyes.

The nature of things is not of that kind we use to think it would be. Not at all. It is completely different.

In other words:

The tree falls quietly. Not noiseless, but quietly.

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by Didée
No, that's not what the quantum theorist would postulate.
There is not a 50/50 chance that the cat is dead. According to quantum mechanics, the cat is 50% dead, and 50% alive.

You can't be 50% dead and 50% alive. Just like you can't be 50% here and 50% there at the same time. ;) A particle can only be in one place at one time. But untill we observe or measure the position the particle has the potential to be in more than one place. Just as the cat has the potential to be either alive or dead but not both. This is a basic principle for quantum mechanics and explains how light can be composed of particles that wave. :D

Originally posted by Didée
Another one:
Assume a tree is falling in a forest, but miles and miles around there is no living being present that could hear something.
Does the tree make some noise when it falls, or does it fall in perfect silence?

No one can say they have personal knowledge of such situations. But we know for a fact the laws of physics do not caese to exist when no one is observing. And since the phenomina of a tree making a sound when falling is easily explainable using physics. We can indeed be sure that a falling tree does indeed make a sound regardless if anyone is there to observe it or not. :p

[Soulhunter]

Assume a tree is falling in a forest, but miles and miles around there is no living being present that could hear something.
Does the tree make some noise when it falls, or does it fall in perfect silence?

Same opinion as Neo Neko here...

If you would know all the variables, you could even calculate the exact dB of the tree impact !!!


Bye

[stephanV]

Didee is right, although he explained it wrong. Quantum mechanics suggests that by an equal chance of possibilities (life and death), both are true until the observation is made. Of course, the only way too confirm this is to *not* make the observation/measurement, which is also a nice paradox in itself. :)

About the tree:

Every assertion about something we do not observe, is just pure speculation. We only *assume* it makes sound, because trees falling make sound when we are around. But of course, pure assumption is not enough to be sure that the tree actually makes sound. At least, according to Bohr. :) (there are quantum scientists who disagree with this view BTW)


But - of course this is all just theory anyway. :rolleyes:

[theReal]

Assume a tree is falling in a forest, but miles and miles around there is no living being present that could hear something.
Does the tree make some noise when it falls, or does it fall in perfect silence?I think this philosophical question was asked in a time where there wasn't physical certainty about moving objects causing sound waves. The question is still asked today in philosophy seminars at university but I think it's a bad example. Although there might be the slightest possibility that one tree in one case won't make any sounds, but, as said before, we know that the laws of physics don't cease to exist when no human is around (or do we? ... I still think it's a nonsense question, there are better philosophical questions than this...)

[eb]

Tree falls in a perfect silence when it falls in a pure vacum.

eb

[b0b0b0b]

This reminds me of the informal ongoing contest at comp.compression (I think) where the moderator offers some nominal prize if you can compress to any extent, some amount of random data.

So this one guy offers a solution where he splits the random data into a number of files and encodes some of the data into the file names and tries to claim the prize.

Hi-larious.

[Soulhunter]

Originally posted by eb

Tree falls in a perfect silence when it falls in a pure vacuum.

But the tree is in a forest, and it produces oxygen, no...


Bye