The idea of computer systems based on pulses of light moving along fiber optic cables, rather than electrical pulses through conventional wiring, has been around for a number of years. I would like to add my input to it and also to describe my vision of a computer based on light moving beyond the usual binary encoding altogether. (Note-I will alternate the two global spellings of "fiber" and "fibre", and also "color" and "colour", to avoid continuous use of parenthesis).
Light has actually been gaining ground on traditional magnetic and electrical computation and communications for quite some time. The most obvious examples are fiber optic cables replacing copper wire in long distance telephone service and optical storage, first CDs then DVDs, being used to store data instead of magnetic media. In the newest generation of DVDs, blue lasers are being used because their shorter wavelength makes possible the storage of much more data in the same space, in comparision with that if a red laser were used.
The great advantage of fibre optic cable over electrical wires for communication is the lack of electrical interference. Metal telephone wires also act as antennae, picking up all kinds of electromagnetic waves, which results in random noise and static that degrades the quality of the signal. Fiber optic cable suffers no such interference. However, in the U.S. the "local loop" is still copper wire, fibre optic is used mainly in long distance service.
A great amount of effort goes into doing all that is possible to protect the flow of data from interference. Telephone wires are twisted together because it better protects against interference. Computer network cable like Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) is twisted for the same reason. Coaxial cable uses the outer shell as a shield against interference.
Communications cables often have grounded wires included that carry no data but help to absorb electrical interference. Parallel data cables, such as the printer cable, are limited in how long they can be because the signals on each wire will create electrical interference which may corrupt the signals on the other wires. Modems were designed to test the lines and adjust the baud rate accordingly.
Inside the computer, every electrical wire and circuit trace also acts as antennae picking up radiation given off by nearby wires. This degrades the quality of the signal and may make it unreliable. If we make the current carrying the signal stronger to better resist interference, then it will only produce more interference itself to corrupt the signals on other wires.
Designing a computer bus nowadays is a very delicate balancing act between making the signal in a given wire strong enough to resist interference, but not strong enough to interfere with the signals on other wires. The complexity of the computer bus only makes this dilemma worse.
As we know, computing is based on electrical pulses or magnetic bits which are either on or off, representing a 1 or a 0. This is called binary because it is a base-two number system. Each unit of magnetic storage because the possibility of being either a 1 or a 0 make it one bit of information.
Eight such bits are defined as a "byte". The two possibilities of a bit multiplied by itself eight times gives 256 different possibilities. This is used to encode the letters of the alphabet, numbers, punctuation and, unprinted control characters such as carriage return. Each of these is represented by one of the 256 possible numbers. This system is known as ASCII, you can read more about it on http://www.wikipedia.org/ if you like. The great thing about this binary system is that it is easily compatible with both boolean logic and the operation of transistors. This is what makes computers possible.
But, once again, so much of the design of computers and the use of signal bandwidth goes into making sure that the signal is reliable in that it has not been corrupted by electrical interference. The eighth bit in a byte is sometimes designated as a parity bit to guard against such interference. For example, if there is an even number of 1s in the other seven bits the parity bit would be set to 0. If there is an odd number of 1s in the seven bits, the parity bit would be set to 1. The parity bit technique takes up bandwidth that could otherwise be used for data transfer, but it provides some rudimentary error checking against electrical interference.
The TCP/IP packets that carry data across the internet can be requested to be resent if there is any possibility of data corruption along the way. A new development in computer buses is to create a negative copy of data, by inverting 1s and 0s, and send it along with the positive version in the theory that interference will affect the negative and positive copies equally.
The tremendous advantage of fiber optic is that we do not have to worry about any of this. With fibre optic cables carrying data as pulses of light, instead of electrical current, we can have hundreds of cables in close proximity to one another and there will not be the least interference between them. This is what makes the concept of computers based on light so promising.
If we could implement a data system using eleven fine lasers, each a different color, the computer could work with ordinary decimal numbers instead of binary. This would not only make computing far simpler, but would provide a five-fold increase in efficiency. We would use pulses of laser light representing 0 through 9 instead of electrical pulses representing 0s and 1s.
The eleventh colour would be a "filler" pulse to be used only when there were two or more consectutive pulses of the same color. This filler pulse would help to avoid confusion about how many pulses there are, in the event of attenuation or other distortion of the data. In addition, multiple filler pulses in a row could be used to indicate the end of one document and the beginning of another.
This new system need not change the existing ASCII coding, we could simply express a letter, number or, control code by it's number out of the 256 possibilities of a byte, rather than it's binary code of the eight bits in a byte. But this would make possible a new "extended ASCII" of 999 possibilities, instead of the current 256. It would also require only three bits, instead of the usual eight. The extra symbols could possibly be used to represent the most common words such as "the", "this", "that", "those", "we", etc.
There would be no 1s and 0s, as in binary. There would only be a stream of pulses of different colours with no modulation or encoding of information, such as the laser light carrying the sound of a voice in fibre optic non-digital telephone communication. All that would be necessary is to keep one color distinguishable from another and to keep them in the proper sequence. If we could do this, any attenuation in the length of the pulses would make no difference. As our technical capabilities increase, we could increase the data transfer rate by making the pulses shorter.
When you dial a telephone number, the sound pulses that you can hear have different frequencies to represent each number on the dialpad. This would be using exactly the same concept to handle the data in a computer using light.
It probably is not a good idea to try to use more than eleven colours at this point, because that would make it increasingly difficult to distinguish one pulse from another. This old binary and ASCII system is really antiquated and I think fiber optics gives us the opportunity to move beyond it. This is yet another example of how we make much technical progress while still using a system designed for past technology so that we end up technologically forward but system backward.
DATA STORAGE USING LIGHT
Computing is a very old idea, but it's progress is dependent on the technology available. Prehistoric people counted using piles of pebbles. Later, a skilled user of an abacus could quickly do arithmetical calculations. In the industrial era, Charles Babbage built the mechanical programmable computers that are considered as the beginning of computing as we know it. I have seen some of his work, and modern reconstructions of it, at the Science Museum in London.
The development of vacuum tubes opened the possibility of computing electronically. But since such tubes use a lot of power, generate a lot of heat, and have to be replaced on a regular basis, it was only when transistors and other semiconductors were developed that modern computers really became a possibility.
Thus, we can see that there has always been steady progress in the development, but this progress has been dependent on the materials and technology available at the time. This brings the question of what the next major step might be.
I think that there are some real possibilities for the future in the pairing of lasers and plastics. The structure of plastic is one of long polymers, based on carbon, which latch together to create a strong and flexible material that is highly resistant to erosion. Fuels are made of the same type of polymers, the main difference being that those in plastics are far longer so that they latch together to form a solid, rather than a liquid.
As we know, light consists of electromagnetic waves in space. Each color (colour) of light has it's specific wavelength. Red light has a long wavelength, and thus a low frequency, while blue light has a shorter wavelength and a higher frequency.
The difference between light from a laser and ordinary light is that the beam from a laser is of a sharply single wavelength and frequency (monochromatic) so that the peaks and troughs (high and low points) of the wave are "in step". This is not the case for non-laser light, which is invariably composed of a span of frequencies, which cannot be "in step" in the same way because their wavelengths vary.
This is why a laser can exert force on an object, the peaks and troughs of the light strike the object at the same instant. With ordinary light, this does not occur because the peaks and troughs are "out of step" due to the varying wavelengths of the light. Laser light can also cross vast distances of space without broadening, and dissipating, as does the ordinary light from a flashlight.
Now, back to plastics. Suppose that we could create a plastic of long, fine polymers aligned more in one direction than the perpendicular directions. You might be thinking that this would defeat the whole idea of plastics, since such a plastic could be more easily torn along the line of polymer alignment.
But what if the light from a laser could permanently imprint the wavelength of the light on the fine polymers of this plastic? If an ordinary beam of white light, which is a mix of all colours (colors), was then shone on the spot of plastic, it would have taken on the color (colour) of the laser and thus would relect this colour back.
We could refer to the plastic as a "photoplastic", because it's polymers would take on the color of whatever laser light was last applied to it. It would, of course, be required that the polymers of the plastic be considerably longer than the wavelengths of the laser light.
This photoplastic would not be useful for any type of photography, because the wide range of wavelengths of light falling on it would dissipate one another's influence on the polymers of the plastic. But it could be extremely useful for storing data.
In use of magnetic storage of data there are only two possibilities for each magnetic bit, either "off" and "on" or 1 and 0. Eight such bits are known as a "byte", and since 2 multiplied by itself eight times gives us 256 possible combinations, the ASCII coding which is the foundation of data storage is based on this.
But if we could use this photoplastic with lasers of eleven different colours, each bit would have eleven different possibilities rather than only two. Just as we can convey much more information with color images, rather than simple black and white, we can store far more data per density using this method instead of magnetic storage.
The processor of a computer processes data by using the so-called "opcodes" that are wired into it. A processor might have several hundred, or more, opcodes wired in. These opcodes are designated by using the base-sixteen hexadecimal number system, which uses the digits 0-9 and also the numbers A-F to make a total of sixteen characters.
These "hex" numbers as designators of the opcodes built into the processor are known as "machine code". Assembly Language is a step above machine code and uses simple instructions to combine these opcodes into still more operations. All of the other higher-level computer languages do the same thing, combine together the opcodes wired into the processor to accomplish the desired operations.
Until we can develop a "light processor" to work with the light storage and light transmission of data that I have described here, the actual processing will still have to be done with electrons. But it is clear to see that the use of light in computing would be the next step forward from what we have today.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Celestial Locator Grid
On thing that I have long been really interested in, and have not yet discussed on this blog system, is the possibility of extending the system of latitude and longitude, that we use to describe locations on the earth's surface, into outer space.
We have great difficulty in describing precise points in space. We make use of the background of constellations and distance from the sun, but it leaves a lot to be desired.
The standard system of degrees north and south of the celestial equator and declination are used to pinpoint astronomical objects. The expression of a remote location in terms of angular degrees has the advantage in that it is the way in which human beings look at things. The disadvantage is that it becomes less and less accurate the further away the remote location is.
Those who have read my book "The Patterns Of New Ideas" will recall that I presented a solution entitled "The Celestial Meridian", a straight line between the centers of the sun and the star Regulus, as the foundation of such a grid locator system in space. I chose Regulus because it is not only a bright star but is on the ecliptic, the line of the apparent movement of the sun across the background stars during the course of the year. The ecliptic is shaped like a sine wave due to the tilt of the earth's axis, which also produces the seasons.
Today, I would like to present another possible plan for a grid locator system in outer space which follows the same concept as the latitude/longitude system used on the earth's surface.
The trouble with trying to institute such a system is the lack of fixed reference points in space. In our Solar System, everything except the sun is in continuous relative motion. The planets are not even at fixed distances from the sun and do not orbit the sun in exactly the same lateral plane.
For example, there is a difference of about five degrees in the planes of the moon and the sun. If they were in the same plane, there would be both a lunar and a solar eclipse every month. Comets tend to orbit the sun far above and below the general plane of the planetary orbits.
Why not extend the earth's compass directions into space? North and south are already well-defined. The points in space directly above the north and south poles always remains the same. The earth's poles actually do shift, but only over the course of thousands of years.
The difficulty here is that the tilt of the earth's axis and the continuous variation in the overhead position of the sun on the earth's surface, from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn, producing the apparent sine wave in the ecliptic against the background stars, makes it impossible to define an obvious celestial east and west.
Compass directions on earth are fixed, making the latitude and longitude system possible. But these directions are tilted at 23 1/2 degrees relative to the earth's orbit around the sun. The tropics extend for 23 1/2 degrees either side of the equator. The tropics refers to the zone where the sun is directly overhead at some point during the year.
The axial tilt of 23 1/2 degrees is also reflected in the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, these define the zones on the earth's surface where the sun does not always rise and set once every 24 hours. Summer in either the northern or southern hemisphere is defined as the period where that hemisphere is pointing toward the sun due to the axial tilt and the opposite hemisphere is pointing away from the sun.
The angle between the earth's polar axis and the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun varies. It is at 23 1/2 degrees north of the equator on the first day of the northern hemisphere summer and 23 1/2 degrees south of the equator on the first day of the northern hemisphere winter. The first day of summer and winter are known as the solstices.
It is only on the first days of spring and autumn that the sun is directly overhead at the equator so that night and day are of equal length. For this reason, these two days are known as the equinoxes, meaning equal length of day and night. The equinoxes are also the only two days when the earth's polar axis is perpendicular to the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun.
Celestial north and south in our new space locator grid are very clearly defined by the points that are always overhead at the poles. Since the polar axis is perpendicular to the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun at the two equinoxes, let's define a line from the center of the sun to the center of the earth, and continuing on into space, at the vernal equinox (first day of northern hemisphere spring) as celestial east (for Easter), and an opposite line at the autumnal equinox as celestial west.
The earth's surface is two-dimensional, while space is three-dimensional. This means that we require another line to express a point in space. This can only be a line from the earth's center at summer solstice, through the center of the sun, to the earth's center at winter solstice from the point of view of either one of the hemispheres. Let's call this the solstice line, it is perpendicular to both the polar axis and the equinox line.
To avoid confusion and errors, let's refer to the two opposite directions on the solstice line simply as celestial june and celestial december, since this is when the solstices fall. Use of three coordinates in space can precisely define any point in neighborhood of the solar system. Maybe the Celestial Meridian can be used for deeper space.
The orbit of any body in the solar system can be easily described mathematically by use of such a grid system. we could easily plot relative positions of planets and other objects for any given time. The grid locator system can be centered on either the earth or the sun, or any point for that matter such as a spaceship, with a constantly varying conversion factor between the two. This system could also benefit from the 180 degree trigonometric function that I described in the posting "New Trigonometric Functions" on this blog.
We have great difficulty in describing precise points in space. We make use of the background of constellations and distance from the sun, but it leaves a lot to be desired.
The standard system of degrees north and south of the celestial equator and declination are used to pinpoint astronomical objects. The expression of a remote location in terms of angular degrees has the advantage in that it is the way in which human beings look at things. The disadvantage is that it becomes less and less accurate the further away the remote location is.
Those who have read my book "The Patterns Of New Ideas" will recall that I presented a solution entitled "The Celestial Meridian", a straight line between the centers of the sun and the star Regulus, as the foundation of such a grid locator system in space. I chose Regulus because it is not only a bright star but is on the ecliptic, the line of the apparent movement of the sun across the background stars during the course of the year. The ecliptic is shaped like a sine wave due to the tilt of the earth's axis, which also produces the seasons.
Today, I would like to present another possible plan for a grid locator system in outer space which follows the same concept as the latitude/longitude system used on the earth's surface.
The trouble with trying to institute such a system is the lack of fixed reference points in space. In our Solar System, everything except the sun is in continuous relative motion. The planets are not even at fixed distances from the sun and do not orbit the sun in exactly the same lateral plane.
For example, there is a difference of about five degrees in the planes of the moon and the sun. If they were in the same plane, there would be both a lunar and a solar eclipse every month. Comets tend to orbit the sun far above and below the general plane of the planetary orbits.
Why not extend the earth's compass directions into space? North and south are already well-defined. The points in space directly above the north and south poles always remains the same. The earth's poles actually do shift, but only over the course of thousands of years.
The difficulty here is that the tilt of the earth's axis and the continuous variation in the overhead position of the sun on the earth's surface, from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn, producing the apparent sine wave in the ecliptic against the background stars, makes it impossible to define an obvious celestial east and west.
Compass directions on earth are fixed, making the latitude and longitude system possible. But these directions are tilted at 23 1/2 degrees relative to the earth's orbit around the sun. The tropics extend for 23 1/2 degrees either side of the equator. The tropics refers to the zone where the sun is directly overhead at some point during the year.
The axial tilt of 23 1/2 degrees is also reflected in the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, these define the zones on the earth's surface where the sun does not always rise and set once every 24 hours. Summer in either the northern or southern hemisphere is defined as the period where that hemisphere is pointing toward the sun due to the axial tilt and the opposite hemisphere is pointing away from the sun.
The angle between the earth's polar axis and the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun varies. It is at 23 1/2 degrees north of the equator on the first day of the northern hemisphere summer and 23 1/2 degrees south of the equator on the first day of the northern hemisphere winter. The first day of summer and winter are known as the solstices.
It is only on the first days of spring and autumn that the sun is directly overhead at the equator so that night and day are of equal length. For this reason, these two days are known as the equinoxes, meaning equal length of day and night. The equinoxes are also the only two days when the earth's polar axis is perpendicular to the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun.
Celestial north and south in our new space locator grid are very clearly defined by the points that are always overhead at the poles. Since the polar axis is perpendicular to the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun at the two equinoxes, let's define a line from the center of the sun to the center of the earth, and continuing on into space, at the vernal equinox (first day of northern hemisphere spring) as celestial east (for Easter), and an opposite line at the autumnal equinox as celestial west.
The earth's surface is two-dimensional, while space is three-dimensional. This means that we require another line to express a point in space. This can only be a line from the earth's center at summer solstice, through the center of the sun, to the earth's center at winter solstice from the point of view of either one of the hemispheres. Let's call this the solstice line, it is perpendicular to both the polar axis and the equinox line.
To avoid confusion and errors, let's refer to the two opposite directions on the solstice line simply as celestial june and celestial december, since this is when the solstices fall. Use of three coordinates in space can precisely define any point in neighborhood of the solar system. Maybe the Celestial Meridian can be used for deeper space.
The orbit of any body in the solar system can be easily described mathematically by use of such a grid system. we could easily plot relative positions of planets and other objects for any given time. The grid locator system can be centered on either the earth or the sun, or any point for that matter such as a spaceship, with a constantly varying conversion factor between the two. This system could also benefit from the 180 degree trigonometric function that I described in the posting "New Trigonometric Functions" on this blog.
Human Language Compilation
I believe that computers should make translation of documents from one language to another simple, quick and, easy.
Computers do not actually work with our letters and words. All that they understand is the alignment of magnetic bits to represent either a 1 or a 0. But if we group such bits into groups of eight, known as a byte, we have 256 possible combinations because each os the eight bits can be magnetically set to represent either a 1 or a 0, two possible combinations, and two multiplied by itself eight times is 256.
In a code system known by it's acronym of ASCII, each letter of the alphabet, lower case and caps, as well as numbers, puncuation and, control characters, are each represented by one of the 256 possible combinations that make up a byte.
In the programming of computers, special languages are developed as a link between the tasks that humans want to computer to do and the opcodes (operational codes) that are wired into the processor of the computer. The processor in a typical computer might have several hundred opcodes, representing the tasks that are wired into it.
Opcodes are used in combination to create a vast number of possible language commands. They are distinguished by hexidecimal code. This is a numbering system based on sixteen, rather than ten. It uses the digits 0 through 9, followed by the letters a through f. This base is used because a unit of four bits (a nibble) can be made into sixteen possible combinations. This numbering system is used for such things as memory addresses in the computer, as well as opcodes.
Computer programming languages fall into two broad categories, those that are interpreted and those that are compiled. Simple web scripts such as Javascript and ActiveX controls are interpreted by the browser line by line and are not compiled. BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) was originally designed as an interpreted language so that programming students could write a program and watch it being run line by line.
In high-level languages that are compiled, such as C++, a special program must be written to link the language with each processor that enters the market. This is because each and every processor has it's own set of opcodes. This special program is called a compiler and it goes over the program and, in several steps, breaks it down into the opcodes of the particular processor on the computer on which it is being run.
In assembly language, which is a low-level computer language only a step above the computer's machine code, or opcodes, another type of compiler, an assembler, is used to translate the commands into the machine code that the processor can work with. Such a low-level language as assembly language is arduous to write, but it used when a very short program that can run very quickly is required.
There are computer languages which are neither compiled or interpreted. The popular Java uses a "virtual machine" on the computer to enable it to operate across all computer platforms. Java makes use of "Java Byte Code", which is a "p-code" for pre-compiled code.
What I want to ask is why can't we write a compiler for human languages? If compilers are special programs that break the commands of high level computer languages into the opcodes that are wired into the processor of the computer, then the next step should be a compiler for any written language. The compiler could scan each sentence and break it down into numeric code.
A compiler could be written to link each human language to this code so that a document in one human language could be easily translated into another, as long as a compiler had been written for both languages.
The roadblock to an accomplishment such as this is, as I pointed out in the posting "Numbered Sentences" on my progress blog, that the word is not the primary unit of human communication when we are concerned with translating one language into another. Working with letters and words is fine as long as we will remain within one language. But it is the sentence, not the word, which must be translated from one language to another. A word-for word translation usually produces little more than gibberish simply because grammar and syntax differ from one language to another.
Such a coding system does not yet exist. It would be similar in concept to ASCII, but would require us to break down every possible sentence and, after eliminating redundancies, assign each a numeric code that would be the same regardless of what human language it was in. It would be fairly simply to assign nouns and verbs a place in a language tree structure. Spell check and grammar checking software is already widely-used and this is the next logical step.
My vision for the next breakthrough in the progress of computers lies not in technology, but in how we approach language. I have written about this topic already on the progress blog. The great limitation is that we are still using the ASCII system of coding that has been in use since 1968, when available computer memory was maybe one-thousandth of what it is now.
Basically, computer storage revolves around magnetic bits. Each bit can be either a 1 or a 0, on or off, so that there are only two possible states for each bit. This means that eight such bits have 256 possible combinations, which is ideal to encode all of the alphabet, lower case and capitals, numbers, punctuation, as well as unprinted controls such as carriage return and space. This is the system that we use, reading computer memory in the groupings of eight bits that is referred to as a "byte".
Computers only deal with numbers, while we communicate mostly with words. This means that we have to create artificial languages to communicate with computers, and to instruct them what to do. There are several hundred opcodes, or basic instructions, wired into each computer processor. Machine code tells the computer what we want it to do by combining the instructions in these opcodes.
This machine code, which is expressed in a so-called hexidecimal number system consisting of the numbers 0-9 and the letters A-F, is actually the most fundamental level computer language. One step up from this is assembly language, this is expressed in simple letter instructions and works by combining machine code instructions to the processor.
We can build higher level computer languages from this, all of which work by combining the instructions of lower-level languages. Some languages, such as those for web scripting, are interpreted in that they are simply read by the browser line-by-line. Most must have a compiler written to link each computer language to each new processor that comes on the market. The great advantage of higher-level languages is that the programmer does not have to understand exactly how the processor works in order to write instructions.
I find this system to be inefficient in the extreme for modern computing, as described on the progress blog. This is another example of how we have a way of becoming technically forward, but system backward.
For one thing, with the spell-check technology available nowadays, there is no need to encode capital letters. We can shorten the bytes that will speed computers by encoding all letters in lower case and letting spellcheckers capitalize the appropriate letters at the receiving end.
For another thing, I had the idea that we could just consider all letters, numbers, punctuation and, controls as one big number. This would mean considering it as a base-256 number, instead of the base-ten system that we are used to. But this relatively simple change would greatly multiply both the storage space and the speed available by compressing any document, as described in "The Floating Base System" on this blog.
Today I would like to write more about what should definitely be the next frontier in computing, reforming the basic system of encoding.
There are three possible ways to encode written information in a computer, by letters, by words or, by sentences. The way it is done now is still by letters, which is by far the most primitive and inefficient of the three and is a reflection of the strict memory limitations of 1968. The real unit of communication is actually the sentence, as we have seen on the progress blog, in "Human Language Compilation" and "Numbered Sentences". Notice that languages must be translated from one to another by the sentence, not by the word. This is because grammar and syntax differ from language to language, and word for word translations usually produce little more than gibberish.
To encode by sentences, we could scan the dictionary for sensible combinations of words that make sentences and then eliminate redundancies, or sentences that mean the same thing. This would give us a few million sentences that are used in communication. There would also be special pointers to names, place names, and culturally specific words. This would not only make storage and transmission of information many times more efficient, but would also facilitate easy translation from one language to another because all sentences could already be pre-translated.
The user would type a sentence, and then pick the one that came up from the database that was most like the one that was typed. Each one of these would have a pre-assigned bit code, similar in concept to the present ASCII.
There is yet another approach to better integrating the ordinary language that we communicate with and computers that I have not written about yet. This approach involves words, rather than sentences, and is will be more complex and difficult than numbering sentences, but will be the ultimate in language-computer integration and is what I want to add today.
Words are actually codes, which is why we have dictionaries for words but not for numbers. A word serves to differentiate something that exists from everything else, this fits with that all-pervasive pattern that I termed "The One And The Many", as described in the posting by that name on the patterns blog.
Since we are more complex than our inanimate matter surroundings, there is not enough complexity for everything that we could conceive of to actually exist. So, words also define for us that which does exist from that which doesn't. This is why we require words, as well as numbers, only a fraction of what could exist, from our complexity perspective, actually does exist.
Words, as codes, are far more complex than numbers. Although it may not seem like it, there is a vast amount of complexity packed into each and every word. All of the complexity of the pre-agreed upon meaning is contained in a word. Words can be thought of a a kind of "higher-level" of numbers in a way similar to that of computer languages.
Numbers differ from words in that everything is basically numbers being manifested. They exist in the universe of inanimate space and matter, while words don't. Numbers are less complex than words, but are not required to differentiate that which exists from that which doesn't as words are.
We must completely understand something in order to describe it with numbers, although that is not the case with less-precise words. (In "The Progression Of Knowledge", on the progress blog, I explained how this can give us an idea of where we stand as far as how the volume of knowledge that we have now compares with all that we can possibly know).
We cannot determine the complexity of the words that we must fall back on because if we could, we could continue our description of reality with numbers and would not need the words. We know what words mean, or else they would not be useful, but we do not know how much actual complexity the word contains in it's meaning because if we did, we could express it's meaning with numbers and would no longer really need the word.
In "Outer Mathematics" on either this or the patterns and complexity blog, we saw how numbers are all that there really is. Everything is actually numbers being manifested. This means that there must be a formula for everything that exists. But because of our complexity level, we are unable to discern formulae about ourselves or things more complex than us.
We can only arrive at a formula for something that is less complex than our brains, which have to figure it out and completely understand it. To derive a formula about ourselves or things more complex than us, we would have to be "smarter than ourselves", which is impossible. We could take the communications systems of animals and break it down into numbers, but cannot do that with our own. So, we can only rely on words for such descriptions.
But if there must be a formula for everything, even if it is hidden from us by our complexity perspective, that must also include words. Out there somewhere, there must be a way to substitute a number or a formula for every word in our language. If only we could arrive at this, it would be possible to construct a very complex system of numbers and formulae that would parallel the words that we use to communicate.
If we could only accomplish this, we would have the numbers that computers can deal with. Computers could deal directly with ordinary words, at least the ones that we had incorporated into this matching structure of numbers and formulae, and these artificial computer languages would no longer be necessary. We cannot see this, at our complexity level, because we are up against our own complexity and we cannot be "smarter than ourselves".
In the universe of inanimate matter, there is only quantity. In other words, everything is really numbers but with inanimate matter these numbers and formulae that describe everything are only one-dimensional. When we deal with living things, particularly ourselves, we have to deal with quality as well as quantity.
We can differentiate between the two by describing quantity as one-dimensional and quality as multi-dimensional. Quality forms a peak, which is the intersection of at least two slopes, while quality forms a simple slope. Quality is not simply "the more, the better", but is a peak factor. This is why we are so much more complex than the surrounding inanimate reality.
I explained a simple version of structuring words like numbers in "The Root Word System" on this blog.
So, just as we did the Human Genome Project and the Sloan Sky Survey, let's get powerful supercomputers to work developing the structure that must exist to incorporate every word that we use so that each word that we use can be expressed as a number or formula in the overall structure. Computers will then be capable of dealing with ordinary human language. All that we would have to do is to tell the computer what we wanted it to do, and they would be unimaginably more useful and easy to use than they are now.
Computers do not actually work with our letters and words. All that they understand is the alignment of magnetic bits to represent either a 1 or a 0. But if we group such bits into groups of eight, known as a byte, we have 256 possible combinations because each os the eight bits can be magnetically set to represent either a 1 or a 0, two possible combinations, and two multiplied by itself eight times is 256.
In a code system known by it's acronym of ASCII, each letter of the alphabet, lower case and caps, as well as numbers, puncuation and, control characters, are each represented by one of the 256 possible combinations that make up a byte.
In the programming of computers, special languages are developed as a link between the tasks that humans want to computer to do and the opcodes (operational codes) that are wired into the processor of the computer. The processor in a typical computer might have several hundred opcodes, representing the tasks that are wired into it.
Opcodes are used in combination to create a vast number of possible language commands. They are distinguished by hexidecimal code. This is a numbering system based on sixteen, rather than ten. It uses the digits 0 through 9, followed by the letters a through f. This base is used because a unit of four bits (a nibble) can be made into sixteen possible combinations. This numbering system is used for such things as memory addresses in the computer, as well as opcodes.
Computer programming languages fall into two broad categories, those that are interpreted and those that are compiled. Simple web scripts such as Javascript and ActiveX controls are interpreted by the browser line by line and are not compiled. BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) was originally designed as an interpreted language so that programming students could write a program and watch it being run line by line.
In high-level languages that are compiled, such as C++, a special program must be written to link the language with each processor that enters the market. This is because each and every processor has it's own set of opcodes. This special program is called a compiler and it goes over the program and, in several steps, breaks it down into the opcodes of the particular processor on the computer on which it is being run.
In assembly language, which is a low-level computer language only a step above the computer's machine code, or opcodes, another type of compiler, an assembler, is used to translate the commands into the machine code that the processor can work with. Such a low-level language as assembly language is arduous to write, but it used when a very short program that can run very quickly is required.
There are computer languages which are neither compiled or interpreted. The popular Java uses a "virtual machine" on the computer to enable it to operate across all computer platforms. Java makes use of "Java Byte Code", which is a "p-code" for pre-compiled code.
What I want to ask is why can't we write a compiler for human languages? If compilers are special programs that break the commands of high level computer languages into the opcodes that are wired into the processor of the computer, then the next step should be a compiler for any written language. The compiler could scan each sentence and break it down into numeric code.
A compiler could be written to link each human language to this code so that a document in one human language could be easily translated into another, as long as a compiler had been written for both languages.
The roadblock to an accomplishment such as this is, as I pointed out in the posting "Numbered Sentences" on my progress blog, that the word is not the primary unit of human communication when we are concerned with translating one language into another. Working with letters and words is fine as long as we will remain within one language. But it is the sentence, not the word, which must be translated from one language to another. A word-for word translation usually produces little more than gibberish simply because grammar and syntax differ from one language to another.
Such a coding system does not yet exist. It would be similar in concept to ASCII, but would require us to break down every possible sentence and, after eliminating redundancies, assign each a numeric code that would be the same regardless of what human language it was in. It would be fairly simply to assign nouns and verbs a place in a language tree structure. Spell check and grammar checking software is already widely-used and this is the next logical step.
My vision for the next breakthrough in the progress of computers lies not in technology, but in how we approach language. I have written about this topic already on the progress blog. The great limitation is that we are still using the ASCII system of coding that has been in use since 1968, when available computer memory was maybe one-thousandth of what it is now.
Basically, computer storage revolves around magnetic bits. Each bit can be either a 1 or a 0, on or off, so that there are only two possible states for each bit. This means that eight such bits have 256 possible combinations, which is ideal to encode all of the alphabet, lower case and capitals, numbers, punctuation, as well as unprinted controls such as carriage return and space. This is the system that we use, reading computer memory in the groupings of eight bits that is referred to as a "byte".
Computers only deal with numbers, while we communicate mostly with words. This means that we have to create artificial languages to communicate with computers, and to instruct them what to do. There are several hundred opcodes, or basic instructions, wired into each computer processor. Machine code tells the computer what we want it to do by combining the instructions in these opcodes.
This machine code, which is expressed in a so-called hexidecimal number system consisting of the numbers 0-9 and the letters A-F, is actually the most fundamental level computer language. One step up from this is assembly language, this is expressed in simple letter instructions and works by combining machine code instructions to the processor.
We can build higher level computer languages from this, all of which work by combining the instructions of lower-level languages. Some languages, such as those for web scripting, are interpreted in that they are simply read by the browser line-by-line. Most must have a compiler written to link each computer language to each new processor that comes on the market. The great advantage of higher-level languages is that the programmer does not have to understand exactly how the processor works in order to write instructions.
I find this system to be inefficient in the extreme for modern computing, as described on the progress blog. This is another example of how we have a way of becoming technically forward, but system backward.
For one thing, with the spell-check technology available nowadays, there is no need to encode capital letters. We can shorten the bytes that will speed computers by encoding all letters in lower case and letting spellcheckers capitalize the appropriate letters at the receiving end.
For another thing, I had the idea that we could just consider all letters, numbers, punctuation and, controls as one big number. This would mean considering it as a base-256 number, instead of the base-ten system that we are used to. But this relatively simple change would greatly multiply both the storage space and the speed available by compressing any document, as described in "The Floating Base System" on this blog.
Today I would like to write more about what should definitely be the next frontier in computing, reforming the basic system of encoding.
There are three possible ways to encode written information in a computer, by letters, by words or, by sentences. The way it is done now is still by letters, which is by far the most primitive and inefficient of the three and is a reflection of the strict memory limitations of 1968. The real unit of communication is actually the sentence, as we have seen on the progress blog, in "Human Language Compilation" and "Numbered Sentences". Notice that languages must be translated from one to another by the sentence, not by the word. This is because grammar and syntax differ from language to language, and word for word translations usually produce little more than gibberish.
To encode by sentences, we could scan the dictionary for sensible combinations of words that make sentences and then eliminate redundancies, or sentences that mean the same thing. This would give us a few million sentences that are used in communication. There would also be special pointers to names, place names, and culturally specific words. This would not only make storage and transmission of information many times more efficient, but would also facilitate easy translation from one language to another because all sentences could already be pre-translated.
The user would type a sentence, and then pick the one that came up from the database that was most like the one that was typed. Each one of these would have a pre-assigned bit code, similar in concept to the present ASCII.
There is yet another approach to better integrating the ordinary language that we communicate with and computers that I have not written about yet. This approach involves words, rather than sentences, and is will be more complex and difficult than numbering sentences, but will be the ultimate in language-computer integration and is what I want to add today.
Words are actually codes, which is why we have dictionaries for words but not for numbers. A word serves to differentiate something that exists from everything else, this fits with that all-pervasive pattern that I termed "The One And The Many", as described in the posting by that name on the patterns blog.
Since we are more complex than our inanimate matter surroundings, there is not enough complexity for everything that we could conceive of to actually exist. So, words also define for us that which does exist from that which doesn't. This is why we require words, as well as numbers, only a fraction of what could exist, from our complexity perspective, actually does exist.
Words, as codes, are far more complex than numbers. Although it may not seem like it, there is a vast amount of complexity packed into each and every word. All of the complexity of the pre-agreed upon meaning is contained in a word. Words can be thought of a a kind of "higher-level" of numbers in a way similar to that of computer languages.
Numbers differ from words in that everything is basically numbers being manifested. They exist in the universe of inanimate space and matter, while words don't. Numbers are less complex than words, but are not required to differentiate that which exists from that which doesn't as words are.
We must completely understand something in order to describe it with numbers, although that is not the case with less-precise words. (In "The Progression Of Knowledge", on the progress blog, I explained how this can give us an idea of where we stand as far as how the volume of knowledge that we have now compares with all that we can possibly know).
We cannot determine the complexity of the words that we must fall back on because if we could, we could continue our description of reality with numbers and would not need the words. We know what words mean, or else they would not be useful, but we do not know how much actual complexity the word contains in it's meaning because if we did, we could express it's meaning with numbers and would no longer really need the word.
In "Outer Mathematics" on either this or the patterns and complexity blog, we saw how numbers are all that there really is. Everything is actually numbers being manifested. This means that there must be a formula for everything that exists. But because of our complexity level, we are unable to discern formulae about ourselves or things more complex than us.
We can only arrive at a formula for something that is less complex than our brains, which have to figure it out and completely understand it. To derive a formula about ourselves or things more complex than us, we would have to be "smarter than ourselves", which is impossible. We could take the communications systems of animals and break it down into numbers, but cannot do that with our own. So, we can only rely on words for such descriptions.
But if there must be a formula for everything, even if it is hidden from us by our complexity perspective, that must also include words. Out there somewhere, there must be a way to substitute a number or a formula for every word in our language. If only we could arrive at this, it would be possible to construct a very complex system of numbers and formulae that would parallel the words that we use to communicate.
If we could only accomplish this, we would have the numbers that computers can deal with. Computers could deal directly with ordinary words, at least the ones that we had incorporated into this matching structure of numbers and formulae, and these artificial computer languages would no longer be necessary. We cannot see this, at our complexity level, because we are up against our own complexity and we cannot be "smarter than ourselves".
In the universe of inanimate matter, there is only quantity. In other words, everything is really numbers but with inanimate matter these numbers and formulae that describe everything are only one-dimensional. When we deal with living things, particularly ourselves, we have to deal with quality as well as quantity.
We can differentiate between the two by describing quantity as one-dimensional and quality as multi-dimensional. Quality forms a peak, which is the intersection of at least two slopes, while quality forms a simple slope. Quality is not simply "the more, the better", but is a peak factor. This is why we are so much more complex than the surrounding inanimate reality.
I explained a simple version of structuring words like numbers in "The Root Word System" on this blog.
So, just as we did the Human Genome Project and the Sloan Sky Survey, let's get powerful supercomputers to work developing the structure that must exist to incorporate every word that we use so that each word that we use can be expressed as a number or formula in the overall structure. Computers will then be capable of dealing with ordinary human language. All that we would have to do is to tell the computer what we wanted it to do, and they would be unimaginably more useful and easy to use than they are now.
The Root Word System
I was looking up a word in the dictionary when a thought came into my mind. A dictionary is actually a symptom of how inefficient our language is.
A perfect language, if it could exist, would actually resemble the number system that we use. Our number system is far more efficient than our word system. Numbers are self-explanatory, while words are not.
You do not need a dictionary to tell you the meaning of a number, because there is really no way to define a number better than the number itself. But suppose we used a different system and the symbol for the number 357 was completely different from the number 358. You would then need to carry a number dictionary around.
Of course, such a system would be highly illogical. But, this is the way words operate. Two closely similar words can mean completely different things in the same way that two similar things may be described by totally different words. In contrast we know that two similar numbers, such as the 357 and 358, must mean close to the same thing.
Unlike numbers, words were thrown together haphazardly over the centuries. Words are organized as verbs, nouns, pronouns, adverbs and, adjectives. But reality is fundamentally numbers and is ordered like our numbering system. We could have taken great advantage of this, except that the words were already in existence.
Words are different from numbers in that only a tiny fraction of the things that could potentially exist actually do exist and need to be assigned a word. In contrast, every number is known to exist whether it is manifested or not. It would make no sense to imagine things that do not exist and assign words to them.
Humans used symbols to represent words long before the idea of alphabets came along. Letters of the alphabet were used to represent spoken sounds and, written words were grafted onto spoken words.
Then I got to wondering, what if letters had come first so that they could have been used from the beginning to represent words, using an alphabet? We could have structured words like numbers and they would be just about as self-explanatory as numbers. Words could have successive roots and, building words would be like building molecules from atoms.
For example, the word "atom" could be such a root word so that anything associated with atoms, such as the component electrons, neutrons and, protons, would be assigned words with the root "atom-". Another such root word could be "house-", and anything associated with a house would be assigned words built on this root word. Root words could be combined together, if necessary, with the most fundamental one coming first.
We could even make the system still more efficient by assigning root words by which letter of the alphabet they begin with, so that related or similar things would be assigned similar words. We would start with dividing all words into the parts of speech: verbs, nouns, etc.
The incredible efficiency that would have been possible with such a word system can be extended to sentences. The fundamantal unit of communication is really the sentence, rather than the word. But we are forced to revolve communication around the word, due to this great inefficiency. It would often be possible to crunch sentences together into a single word. This would be extremely useful digitally.
Such a root word system to make words operate in the same way as the number system would bring us almost unfathomable advantages. For one thing, it would make learning immeasurably easier. Students would need to learn only a relatively few root words. Also the more fundamantal the word was, and thus the more frequently it is likely to be used, the shorter the word would be.
Not only would the Root Word System be incredibly efficient, it would make it a simple matter to translate between languages. It would be so easy for any document to be analyzed by computer because it would essentially be a program in itself and the compiler would only have to parse the root words.
Even if you do not think that the Root Word System is a practical idea at this point, because it would involve creating a whole new human language, it could start off as a computer language.
A perfect language, if it could exist, would actually resemble the number system that we use. Our number system is far more efficient than our word system. Numbers are self-explanatory, while words are not.
You do not need a dictionary to tell you the meaning of a number, because there is really no way to define a number better than the number itself. But suppose we used a different system and the symbol for the number 357 was completely different from the number 358. You would then need to carry a number dictionary around.
Of course, such a system would be highly illogical. But, this is the way words operate. Two closely similar words can mean completely different things in the same way that two similar things may be described by totally different words. In contrast we know that two similar numbers, such as the 357 and 358, must mean close to the same thing.
Unlike numbers, words were thrown together haphazardly over the centuries. Words are organized as verbs, nouns, pronouns, adverbs and, adjectives. But reality is fundamentally numbers and is ordered like our numbering system. We could have taken great advantage of this, except that the words were already in existence.
Words are different from numbers in that only a tiny fraction of the things that could potentially exist actually do exist and need to be assigned a word. In contrast, every number is known to exist whether it is manifested or not. It would make no sense to imagine things that do not exist and assign words to them.
Humans used symbols to represent words long before the idea of alphabets came along. Letters of the alphabet were used to represent spoken sounds and, written words were grafted onto spoken words.
Then I got to wondering, what if letters had come first so that they could have been used from the beginning to represent words, using an alphabet? We could have structured words like numbers and they would be just about as self-explanatory as numbers. Words could have successive roots and, building words would be like building molecules from atoms.
For example, the word "atom" could be such a root word so that anything associated with atoms, such as the component electrons, neutrons and, protons, would be assigned words with the root "atom-". Another such root word could be "house-", and anything associated with a house would be assigned words built on this root word. Root words could be combined together, if necessary, with the most fundamental one coming first.
We could even make the system still more efficient by assigning root words by which letter of the alphabet they begin with, so that related or similar things would be assigned similar words. We would start with dividing all words into the parts of speech: verbs, nouns, etc.
The incredible efficiency that would have been possible with such a word system can be extended to sentences. The fundamantal unit of communication is really the sentence, rather than the word. But we are forced to revolve communication around the word, due to this great inefficiency. It would often be possible to crunch sentences together into a single word. This would be extremely useful digitally.
Such a root word system to make words operate in the same way as the number system would bring us almost unfathomable advantages. For one thing, it would make learning immeasurably easier. Students would need to learn only a relatively few root words. Also the more fundamantal the word was, and thus the more frequently it is likely to be used, the shorter the word would be.
Not only would the Root Word System be incredibly efficient, it would make it a simple matter to translate between languages. It would be so easy for any document to be analyzed by computer because it would essentially be a program in itself and the compiler would only have to parse the root words.
Even if you do not think that the Root Word System is a practical idea at this point, because it would involve creating a whole new human language, it could start off as a computer language.
Human Formulae
Euclidean geometry is based on an axiom that cannot be mathematically proven. On a plane with a line and a point outside the line, there is one and only one line which can be drawn through the point that will be parallel to the line.
However, this axiom is considered to be so self-evident that it really does not need to be proven. Just the fact that this system of geometry has served satisfactorily for nearly 3,000 years can be considered as proof enough of it's truth.
Today, I would like to introduce an axiom. Although the axiom cannot actually be proven, I consider it to be self-evident in it's truth. It is that any given system can be described by a mathematical formula, as long as the system is of less than infinite complexity. A formula exists to describe any system, either in it's present state or how it was formed, whichever is more compact.
Since there is a finite amount of space and matter in the universe, it must be of less than infinite complexity and thus there is a formula out there somewhere that describes the entire universe.
There is a clear rule that I can see regarding the derivation of formulae (the plural of formula is formulae). To discern a formula in some process, the observer must necessarily have more complexity in their mental processes than is present in the process being observed. In other words, the formula governing the process will only be apparent to the observer if the observer is "smarter" than the process being observed.
Another obvious requirement regarding the derivation of formulae is that the process be completely understood. It is not possible to attach a precise mathematical formula to a process unless that process is thoroughly understood. In the posting "The Progression Of Knowledge" on this blog, I explained how the difference between science and mathematics is that science concerns that which we partially understand while the realm of mathematics is that which is completely understood.
We do just fine at deriving formulae for scientific processes and the behavior (behaviour) of inanimate matter. But what about our understanding of human beings?
Humans are extremely complex. But while we are extremely complex, we are not infinitely complex. Somewhere out there is a formula that accurately describes anything to do with humans, not in the general terms of philosophy but in a precise mathematical equation.
But if we try to derive it, we run into the roadblock of the fact that we cannot be smarter than ourselves and we would have to be to derive such a formula. So while the formula must exist, because we are of less than infinite complexity, not only can we not be smarter than ourselves, we certainly cannot be smarter than everyone else combined. So, the formula remains out of reach.
But what about supercomputers, or networks of supercomputers? Or grid computing, harnessing the processors of thousands of desktop computers? What if we had such computing power working for weeks or months on deriving formulae that might be out of the reach of ordinary human minds?
This would be particularly useful in languages. The bottleneck of computer processing is the information that we have to give the computer to work with. But that would not be a factor with language analysis. I have written previously about possible ways to translate between languages on this blog and in my book "The Patterns Of New Ideas" but previous concepts all involve pre-translation of sentences.
Providing a word-for-word translation between two languages is fairly simple. But that is only the beginning of actual translation because grammar and syntax is different from one language to another. Chances are that a word-for-word translation would produce little but gibberish.
Word usage is different. In a simple example, if we wanted to know how a machine operated in English, we would ask "How does it work?". But in French, we would have to ask the equivalent of "How does it walk?".
But if computer compression software routinely examine text and graphics, looking for patterns in the data so that it can be compressed for more efficient storage and faster download, then why not examine entire languages and break down all the rules of grammar and syntax into formulae? Combine this with a simple word-for-word dictionary and it should be simple for computers to provide translation from one language to another.
Even with all that computers are doing now, there is certainly much more that they could be doing but which has not yet been thought of and derivation of human formulae is certainly among them.
There is a general agreement among physicists that all that exists is really numbers and mathematics. Everything is numbers being manifested in some way, there are no exceptions. An obvious example is the chemical elements. An element is defined by the number of protons in it's nucleus, as displayed on the periodic table.
There is a simple, yet far-reaching implication of everything really being numbers. This must mean that every system and every process in the universe could potentially be expressed as a mathematical formula. There can never be anything that does not have a formula describing it.
My thought is that the next major frontier in science is how we fit into the universe. Remember how I have described in the cosmology blog that we see and experience the universe the way we do not just because of what it is, but also because of what we are. The next step is to get a look at the universe from "outside ourselves".
The way to go about this is with the knowledge that everything that exists can be broken down into a formula. The trouble is that we are of a certain level of complexity, and we can only analyze things enough to break them down into formulae if they are less complex than we are. We are not able to understand those things that may be more complex than we are, at least not enough to derive a formula. Just as the average cat does not understand the processes of planetary formation, there must be some things about the universe that are simply beyond us.
If everything that exists can be broken down into a formula, that must mean that somewhere out there there is a formula that precisely describes and predicts our behavior (behaviour). We cannot arrive at this formula because to do this, we would have to be "smarter than ourselves", which is impossible.
We saw in "The Progression Of Knowledge", on this blog, that to describe something with mathematics it is necessary to completely understand it. Mathematics is the realm of that which we completely understand, while science is the realm of that which we partially understand. We get still more subjective, and further away from mathematics, when we describe something as "it's an art, not an exact science".
But what is mathematics, what is science, and what is an art, depends on what we could call our "complexity perspective". We have a certain level of complexity, which is much higher than that of our surrounding environment of inanimate matter but is still limited. There are actually formulae for everything, but many of these particularly for those concerning ourselves and our nature, are beyond our reach due to our complexity perspective. I have written about this previously, in "Human Formulae" on this blog, but today I want to add more to it.
These unreachable formulae, which can describe everything that there is, are what I call "outer mathematics". The inner formulae are the ones that are within our reach by observation and reasoning. Once in a while, someone has a leap of insight that takes us beyond our usual limits and leads us to a new formula such as Einstein's E = MC squared, describing the apparent amount of energy contained in matter.
Complexity is a related topic. On the patterns and complexity blog, I have described what a tremendous advantage it would be to us if we could begin quantifying complexity. This means putting an actual number on the complexity of something, not just expressing it in subjective terms such as "less complex than" or "much more complex than".
But, once again, complexity is a matter of our perspective resulting from our own complexity. Complexity is not something that we can measure with a ruler or a meter, I explained how it will require novel ways of measurement.
For example, we know that the more complex something is the more there is that can potentially go wrong with it. Thus, we could measure the complexity of the human body by going through medical journals and counting all of the things that can possibly go wrong with the body. This would not, however, give us the absolute complexity of the body but only the complexity level relative to that of the surrounding inanimate matter.
As another example, we could put a number on the relative complexity of a society in the year 1900, in comparison with today, by counting the total number of job descriptions in the society. The more complex the society, the more different jobs there would be.
What about time? Since we can now see that the passage of time is something within ourselves and our nature, as described in detail on the cosmology blog, http://www.markmeekcosmology.blogspot.com/ , there must be a formula somewhere describing how our consciousness moves along the strings of matter composing our bodies and brains at what we perceive as the speed of light. If we could just obtain this formula, we might be able to do all kinds of things with time.
It has been said that, with regard to science, the Nineteenth Century was the century of chemistry, the Twentieth Century was the century of physics and the Twenty-First Century will be the century of biology.
The processes of living things have not yet been broken down into formulae in anything like the same way as chemical processes or the forces of nature. This is simply because of the limitations of our complexity perspective, we are living things ourselves and we cannot be "smarter than ourselves" so that we can derive the formulae that define and describe us.
It seems clear to me that the next frontier in science is to put the ever-more powerful supercomputers to work to give us a view of the universe, and how we are a part of it, that we cannot see because of our complexity perspective in the same way that the powerful telescopes of the Twentieth Century gave us a view of the physical universe that we could not see with our eyes alone. Just as there was a universe of galaxies that we cannot see on our own, there is a realm of "outer mathematics" that we cannot access on our own but can only access from outside ourselves.
However, this axiom is considered to be so self-evident that it really does not need to be proven. Just the fact that this system of geometry has served satisfactorily for nearly 3,000 years can be considered as proof enough of it's truth.
Today, I would like to introduce an axiom. Although the axiom cannot actually be proven, I consider it to be self-evident in it's truth. It is that any given system can be described by a mathematical formula, as long as the system is of less than infinite complexity. A formula exists to describe any system, either in it's present state or how it was formed, whichever is more compact.
Since there is a finite amount of space and matter in the universe, it must be of less than infinite complexity and thus there is a formula out there somewhere that describes the entire universe.
There is a clear rule that I can see regarding the derivation of formulae (the plural of formula is formulae). To discern a formula in some process, the observer must necessarily have more complexity in their mental processes than is present in the process being observed. In other words, the formula governing the process will only be apparent to the observer if the observer is "smarter" than the process being observed.
Another obvious requirement regarding the derivation of formulae is that the process be completely understood. It is not possible to attach a precise mathematical formula to a process unless that process is thoroughly understood. In the posting "The Progression Of Knowledge" on this blog, I explained how the difference between science and mathematics is that science concerns that which we partially understand while the realm of mathematics is that which is completely understood.
We do just fine at deriving formulae for scientific processes and the behavior (behaviour) of inanimate matter. But what about our understanding of human beings?
Humans are extremely complex. But while we are extremely complex, we are not infinitely complex. Somewhere out there is a formula that accurately describes anything to do with humans, not in the general terms of philosophy but in a precise mathematical equation.
But if we try to derive it, we run into the roadblock of the fact that we cannot be smarter than ourselves and we would have to be to derive such a formula. So while the formula must exist, because we are of less than infinite complexity, not only can we not be smarter than ourselves, we certainly cannot be smarter than everyone else combined. So, the formula remains out of reach.
But what about supercomputers, or networks of supercomputers? Or grid computing, harnessing the processors of thousands of desktop computers? What if we had such computing power working for weeks or months on deriving formulae that might be out of the reach of ordinary human minds?
This would be particularly useful in languages. The bottleneck of computer processing is the information that we have to give the computer to work with. But that would not be a factor with language analysis. I have written previously about possible ways to translate between languages on this blog and in my book "The Patterns Of New Ideas" but previous concepts all involve pre-translation of sentences.
Providing a word-for-word translation between two languages is fairly simple. But that is only the beginning of actual translation because grammar and syntax is different from one language to another. Chances are that a word-for-word translation would produce little but gibberish.
Word usage is different. In a simple example, if we wanted to know how a machine operated in English, we would ask "How does it work?". But in French, we would have to ask the equivalent of "How does it walk?".
But if computer compression software routinely examine text and graphics, looking for patterns in the data so that it can be compressed for more efficient storage and faster download, then why not examine entire languages and break down all the rules of grammar and syntax into formulae? Combine this with a simple word-for-word dictionary and it should be simple for computers to provide translation from one language to another.
Even with all that computers are doing now, there is certainly much more that they could be doing but which has not yet been thought of and derivation of human formulae is certainly among them.
There is a general agreement among physicists that all that exists is really numbers and mathematics. Everything is numbers being manifested in some way, there are no exceptions. An obvious example is the chemical elements. An element is defined by the number of protons in it's nucleus, as displayed on the periodic table.
There is a simple, yet far-reaching implication of everything really being numbers. This must mean that every system and every process in the universe could potentially be expressed as a mathematical formula. There can never be anything that does not have a formula describing it.
My thought is that the next major frontier in science is how we fit into the universe. Remember how I have described in the cosmology blog that we see and experience the universe the way we do not just because of what it is, but also because of what we are. The next step is to get a look at the universe from "outside ourselves".
The way to go about this is with the knowledge that everything that exists can be broken down into a formula. The trouble is that we are of a certain level of complexity, and we can only analyze things enough to break them down into formulae if they are less complex than we are. We are not able to understand those things that may be more complex than we are, at least not enough to derive a formula. Just as the average cat does not understand the processes of planetary formation, there must be some things about the universe that are simply beyond us.
If everything that exists can be broken down into a formula, that must mean that somewhere out there there is a formula that precisely describes and predicts our behavior (behaviour). We cannot arrive at this formula because to do this, we would have to be "smarter than ourselves", which is impossible.
We saw in "The Progression Of Knowledge", on this blog, that to describe something with mathematics it is necessary to completely understand it. Mathematics is the realm of that which we completely understand, while science is the realm of that which we partially understand. We get still more subjective, and further away from mathematics, when we describe something as "it's an art, not an exact science".
But what is mathematics, what is science, and what is an art, depends on what we could call our "complexity perspective". We have a certain level of complexity, which is much higher than that of our surrounding environment of inanimate matter but is still limited. There are actually formulae for everything, but many of these particularly for those concerning ourselves and our nature, are beyond our reach due to our complexity perspective. I have written about this previously, in "Human Formulae" on this blog, but today I want to add more to it.
These unreachable formulae, which can describe everything that there is, are what I call "outer mathematics". The inner formulae are the ones that are within our reach by observation and reasoning. Once in a while, someone has a leap of insight that takes us beyond our usual limits and leads us to a new formula such as Einstein's E = MC squared, describing the apparent amount of energy contained in matter.
Complexity is a related topic. On the patterns and complexity blog, I have described what a tremendous advantage it would be to us if we could begin quantifying complexity. This means putting an actual number on the complexity of something, not just expressing it in subjective terms such as "less complex than" or "much more complex than".
But, once again, complexity is a matter of our perspective resulting from our own complexity. Complexity is not something that we can measure with a ruler or a meter, I explained how it will require novel ways of measurement.
For example, we know that the more complex something is the more there is that can potentially go wrong with it. Thus, we could measure the complexity of the human body by going through medical journals and counting all of the things that can possibly go wrong with the body. This would not, however, give us the absolute complexity of the body but only the complexity level relative to that of the surrounding inanimate matter.
As another example, we could put a number on the relative complexity of a society in the year 1900, in comparison with today, by counting the total number of job descriptions in the society. The more complex the society, the more different jobs there would be.
What about time? Since we can now see that the passage of time is something within ourselves and our nature, as described in detail on the cosmology blog, http://www.markmeekcosmology.blogspot.com/ , there must be a formula somewhere describing how our consciousness moves along the strings of matter composing our bodies and brains at what we perceive as the speed of light. If we could just obtain this formula, we might be able to do all kinds of things with time.
It has been said that, with regard to science, the Nineteenth Century was the century of chemistry, the Twentieth Century was the century of physics and the Twenty-First Century will be the century of biology.
The processes of living things have not yet been broken down into formulae in anything like the same way as chemical processes or the forces of nature. This is simply because of the limitations of our complexity perspective, we are living things ourselves and we cannot be "smarter than ourselves" so that we can derive the formulae that define and describe us.
It seems clear to me that the next frontier in science is to put the ever-more powerful supercomputers to work to give us a view of the universe, and how we are a part of it, that we cannot see because of our complexity perspective in the same way that the powerful telescopes of the Twentieth Century gave us a view of the physical universe that we could not see with our eyes alone. Just as there was a universe of galaxies that we cannot see on our own, there is a realm of "outer mathematics" that we cannot access on our own but can only access from outside ourselves.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Progression Of Knowledge
I have developed a way of thinking about how society progresses in the quest for scientific knowledge. Have you ever wondered about why mathematics and science are two separate subjects in school? Here is my version of the progression of knowledge.
Mathematics is for the things that we fully understand and science is for the things that we only partially understand. It is only when we fully understand the way something operates, such as a process in nature, that we describe it in terms of mathematics. Of course, science and mathematics fit closely together, the backbone of any of the physical sciences is mathematics. I define science as that which we cannot yet describe completely with mathematics because we do not have a complete understanding of it.
The difference between mathematics and science is the same as the difference between words and numbers. Words are science and numbers, of course, are mathematics. Words are less precise than numbers but have much greater flexibility and subjectivity that is necessary to describe that which is not completely understood. To make possible a description of something in terms of mathematics, all relevant factors must be thoroughly understood. When this is not the case, when it is only partially understood, it is the realm of science and words rather than mathematics.
Everything is really mathematics at it's most fundamental level, it is when we do not thoroughly understand it's workings that we classify it as science. The word "science" means "knowledge" but I think it could better be defined as "in the process of being understood". It is when we can apply definite numbers to a process that we really understand it.
Here is my definition of the knowledge progression: Information moves from the unknown or from superstition to the realm of science as it becomes understood and from there to the realm of mathematics as it becomes completely understood. Unknown - Science - Mathematics.
The chemical elements, for example, can be easily described in terms of mathematics because the very definition of a particular element is the number of protons in the nucleus. The calendar, the course of a year as the earth moves around the sun, was once the realm of science but is now that of mathematics because it is thoroughly understood. The measurement of the height of a tower by the length of it's shadow would also be considered as mathematics because there is no mystery to the process, it is well understood. We do not yet thoroughly understand why like electric charges repel and unlike charges attract so although this seems like it could be described easily mathematically, it is still considered as science.
All we have to do to tell how far along we are in understanding the nature of reality is to look inside a school. As long as science and mathematics are considered as separate subjects, it goes to show that we do not fully understand the operation of reality. When we do fully understand the operation of reality, it will be described primarily in mathematical terms and science will become one with mathematics.
Suppose there was a math book illustrating all mathematical processes and all relevant examples of each process and also a science book describing the sum of scientific knowledge. As knowledge advanced, the science book would decrease while the math book increased but the science book would decrease faster than the math book increased.
This also goes to validate my Theory of Primes, that all of reality consists of fundamental patterns. The way I see it, the categorization of the physical sciences into chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc. is also evidence of our incomplete knowledge. If we did have complete knowledge, these fields would merge together and into mathematics. When we get closer to complete understanding, specialization of topic will give way to categorization by pattern as is done in mathematics books. There will be no more chemistry, physics and, astronomy but only mathematical patterns.
On my patterns and complexity blog, http://www.markmeekpatterns.blogspot.com/ , I pointed out how coincidences that we observe can be a powerful tool to measure complexity in certain circumstances. The complexity section of that blog is about the tremendous benefits that we would gain if we could only quantify complexity. That is, put an actual numerical measurement on it instead of describing it in vague and subjective terms.
My definition of coincidence is a random reduction in apparent complexity, as seen by the observer. A reverse coincidence is a random increase in apparent complexity. Each coincidence must be balanced by a reverse coincidence that is equal in magnitude.
The ideal example of coincidence could be a call center. Suppose the call center has one hundred operators, but that you get the same few operators every time you call. This would be a coincidence that causes you to perceive the center as being less complex than it actually is. But if you called a hundred times and got a different operator every time, this would be a reverse coincidence that might make you think that the center was actually much more complex than it actually is.
There is actually no such thing as either a coincidence or a reverse coincidence. Both are only a matter of our perspective of incomplete understanding. Coincidences are somewhat like a mirage, the shimmering water mirage seen ahead in the distance on a hot day on flat ground. There appears to be water but when you arrive at where the water appears to be, it has moved further back.
Likewise, the more understanding we have of whatever system we are observing, the fewer coincidences and reverse coincidences we will observe. Neither actually exist and once we understand everything about a system of some kind, we will observe no more of either coincidences or reverse coincidences.
There is no such thing as a coincidence because any coincidence must be balanced by a reverse coincidence somewhere else in the system. If we do not see this balance, then we do not completely understand the system. Coincidences and reverse coincidences are perspective illusions which indicate that we have less than complete understanding of the system being observed.
A coincidence exists only when we do not fully understand it. Suppose we had four people walk in the same direction with equal space between them. Now suppose that someone happened to be walking by on the opposite side of the road. They might think "What a coincidence, those people walking just happen to have equal space between them".
If we could really develop an eye for coincidences, they would also be a powerful measurement tool in the progression of knowledge. We know what we know, but usually do not know what we don't know. When observing a system of some type, such as a galaxy or a bee hive, suppose we could keep a close count of every coincidence and reverse coincidence that we see and, if possible, put some value on it. When we got to the point where we saw none of either coincidences or reverse coincidences, we would know that we then knew about all that we could practically know about that system.
This concept makes partial values useful. If, when observing a system of some kind, we observed a certain value of coincidences and a certain value of reverse coincidences. First, we would know that we could assume the higher value of the two for both because coincidences and reverse coincidences must balance out.
Then, if we learned more about the system and then made another observation and this time logged only half the previous value for coincidences and reverse coincidences, we would know that we had progressed halfway in the progression of knowledge.
PART TWO
Since the universe is not infinite, the body of knowledge that we can possibly have cannot be infinite either. There must be a day in our future when, at least theoretically, we will reach the point where we know all that we can practically know. The question is: where do we, with our present accumulation of knowledge, stand with regard to that point?
In Part One, there are two possible methods described for answering this question. One, that more and more of our knowledge will be expressed as mathematics rather than as words and two, the use of apparent coincidences as a measurement of where we stand with regard to knowledge.
Today, I would like to describe another possible way to measure our progression of knowledge.
Humans began to learn and record knowledge. At first, every new fact would be something completely new. But as time went on, there would be an increasing proportion of newly-learned facts that are not totally new, but are a previously-unseen connection between facts that are already known. The more facts that we have already, the higher the likelyhood that a new fact will be a connection between two already-known facts, rather than something totally new.
We could call this first- and second-tier learning. But this is only an illusion of our perspective. There are no such tiers of facts in absolute reality.
As an example, the discovery of electrons was a totally new fact even though we already knew about the atoms of which electrons are a part. Their discovery was not a connection between previously-known facts, this was first-tier learning. Now, suppose that it was discovered that zebras like pumpkins. This would be second-tier learning, since it would be a connection between two entities that we already know about.
If we could get used to dividing newly-discovered facts into these two categories, this should give us a good idea about where we stand in the progression of knowledge. As we move along, an increasing proportion of newly-discovered facts should be second-tier, a connection between two previously-known facts. As we near the maximum potential of our practical knowledge, virtually every new fact should be a connection between two previously-known facts rather than a fact that is totally new to us.
Thus, this can be used as a measurement tool.
Mathematics is for the things that we fully understand and science is for the things that we only partially understand. It is only when we fully understand the way something operates, such as a process in nature, that we describe it in terms of mathematics. Of course, science and mathematics fit closely together, the backbone of any of the physical sciences is mathematics. I define science as that which we cannot yet describe completely with mathematics because we do not have a complete understanding of it.
The difference between mathematics and science is the same as the difference between words and numbers. Words are science and numbers, of course, are mathematics. Words are less precise than numbers but have much greater flexibility and subjectivity that is necessary to describe that which is not completely understood. To make possible a description of something in terms of mathematics, all relevant factors must be thoroughly understood. When this is not the case, when it is only partially understood, it is the realm of science and words rather than mathematics.
Everything is really mathematics at it's most fundamental level, it is when we do not thoroughly understand it's workings that we classify it as science. The word "science" means "knowledge" but I think it could better be defined as "in the process of being understood". It is when we can apply definite numbers to a process that we really understand it.
Here is my definition of the knowledge progression: Information moves from the unknown or from superstition to the realm of science as it becomes understood and from there to the realm of mathematics as it becomes completely understood. Unknown - Science - Mathematics.
The chemical elements, for example, can be easily described in terms of mathematics because the very definition of a particular element is the number of protons in the nucleus. The calendar, the course of a year as the earth moves around the sun, was once the realm of science but is now that of mathematics because it is thoroughly understood. The measurement of the height of a tower by the length of it's shadow would also be considered as mathematics because there is no mystery to the process, it is well understood. We do not yet thoroughly understand why like electric charges repel and unlike charges attract so although this seems like it could be described easily mathematically, it is still considered as science.
All we have to do to tell how far along we are in understanding the nature of reality is to look inside a school. As long as science and mathematics are considered as separate subjects, it goes to show that we do not fully understand the operation of reality. When we do fully understand the operation of reality, it will be described primarily in mathematical terms and science will become one with mathematics.
Suppose there was a math book illustrating all mathematical processes and all relevant examples of each process and also a science book describing the sum of scientific knowledge. As knowledge advanced, the science book would decrease while the math book increased but the science book would decrease faster than the math book increased.
This also goes to validate my Theory of Primes, that all of reality consists of fundamental patterns. The way I see it, the categorization of the physical sciences into chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc. is also evidence of our incomplete knowledge. If we did have complete knowledge, these fields would merge together and into mathematics. When we get closer to complete understanding, specialization of topic will give way to categorization by pattern as is done in mathematics books. There will be no more chemistry, physics and, astronomy but only mathematical patterns.
On my patterns and complexity blog, http://www.markmeekpatterns.blogspot.com/ , I pointed out how coincidences that we observe can be a powerful tool to measure complexity in certain circumstances. The complexity section of that blog is about the tremendous benefits that we would gain if we could only quantify complexity. That is, put an actual numerical measurement on it instead of describing it in vague and subjective terms.
My definition of coincidence is a random reduction in apparent complexity, as seen by the observer. A reverse coincidence is a random increase in apparent complexity. Each coincidence must be balanced by a reverse coincidence that is equal in magnitude.
The ideal example of coincidence could be a call center. Suppose the call center has one hundred operators, but that you get the same few operators every time you call. This would be a coincidence that causes you to perceive the center as being less complex than it actually is. But if you called a hundred times and got a different operator every time, this would be a reverse coincidence that might make you think that the center was actually much more complex than it actually is.
There is actually no such thing as either a coincidence or a reverse coincidence. Both are only a matter of our perspective of incomplete understanding. Coincidences are somewhat like a mirage, the shimmering water mirage seen ahead in the distance on a hot day on flat ground. There appears to be water but when you arrive at where the water appears to be, it has moved further back.
Likewise, the more understanding we have of whatever system we are observing, the fewer coincidences and reverse coincidences we will observe. Neither actually exist and once we understand everything about a system of some kind, we will observe no more of either coincidences or reverse coincidences.
There is no such thing as a coincidence because any coincidence must be balanced by a reverse coincidence somewhere else in the system. If we do not see this balance, then we do not completely understand the system. Coincidences and reverse coincidences are perspective illusions which indicate that we have less than complete understanding of the system being observed.
A coincidence exists only when we do not fully understand it. Suppose we had four people walk in the same direction with equal space between them. Now suppose that someone happened to be walking by on the opposite side of the road. They might think "What a coincidence, those people walking just happen to have equal space between them".
If we could really develop an eye for coincidences, they would also be a powerful measurement tool in the progression of knowledge. We know what we know, but usually do not know what we don't know. When observing a system of some type, such as a galaxy or a bee hive, suppose we could keep a close count of every coincidence and reverse coincidence that we see and, if possible, put some value on it. When we got to the point where we saw none of either coincidences or reverse coincidences, we would know that we then knew about all that we could practically know about that system.
This concept makes partial values useful. If, when observing a system of some kind, we observed a certain value of coincidences and a certain value of reverse coincidences. First, we would know that we could assume the higher value of the two for both because coincidences and reverse coincidences must balance out.
Then, if we learned more about the system and then made another observation and this time logged only half the previous value for coincidences and reverse coincidences, we would know that we had progressed halfway in the progression of knowledge.
PART TWO
Since the universe is not infinite, the body of knowledge that we can possibly have cannot be infinite either. There must be a day in our future when, at least theoretically, we will reach the point where we know all that we can practically know. The question is: where do we, with our present accumulation of knowledge, stand with regard to that point?
In Part One, there are two possible methods described for answering this question. One, that more and more of our knowledge will be expressed as mathematics rather than as words and two, the use of apparent coincidences as a measurement of where we stand with regard to knowledge.
Today, I would like to describe another possible way to measure our progression of knowledge.
Humans began to learn and record knowledge. At first, every new fact would be something completely new. But as time went on, there would be an increasing proportion of newly-learned facts that are not totally new, but are a previously-unseen connection between facts that are already known. The more facts that we have already, the higher the likelyhood that a new fact will be a connection between two already-known facts, rather than something totally new.
We could call this first- and second-tier learning. But this is only an illusion of our perspective. There are no such tiers of facts in absolute reality.
As an example, the discovery of electrons was a totally new fact even though we already knew about the atoms of which electrons are a part. Their discovery was not a connection between previously-known facts, this was first-tier learning. Now, suppose that it was discovered that zebras like pumpkins. This would be second-tier learning, since it would be a connection between two entities that we already know about.
If we could get used to dividing newly-discovered facts into these two categories, this should give us a good idea about where we stand in the progression of knowledge. As we move along, an increasing proportion of newly-discovered facts should be second-tier, a connection between two previously-known facts. As we near the maximum potential of our practical knowledge, virtually every new fact should be a connection between two previously-known facts rather than a fact that is totally new to us.
Thus, this can be used as a measurement tool.
The Floating Base System
Have you ever thought about how we are continually improving the performance of computers in such ways as processor speeds and hard drive capacity while we are still using the basic coding structure that has been in place since the beginning of the modern computer era and that it would be very beneficial if we would bring that into the Twenty-First Century?
The incredible progress in other areas of computing is overshadowed by our continued use of the primitive ASCII coding system for the characters of the alphabet, numbers and, punctuation. We now have the chance to make just as much progress in computer capacity and efficiency with simple arithmetic as we can with the usual chip and storage technology.
The way we have been making continuous upgrades in applications and operating systems while still using the old ASCII coding system is like developing entirely new ways of printing documents with the latest version of Microsoft Office but then delivering the documents to their destination by Pony Express. You can see an ASCII table at http://www.asciitable.com/ or read all about it on http://www.wikipedia.com/
If we could make the storage and transmission of data more efficient, it would have the same effect as improving processor and transmission speeds and hard drive capacity. I prefer the idea of Numbering Sentences that I described in the posting below but that will require some work and time to break all sentences down into numbers. There are other ways that I have noticed that could be implemented in the next generation of software.
TRIMMING BYTES
Suppose we could reduce the size of the byte used in ASCII from eight bits to six? That would immediately make storage and transmission of data more efficient because it would require only 75% of today's capacity for the same amount of data. It is true that six bits gives us only 64 possible combinations, as opposed to the 256 of eight-bit bytes. But those eight-bit bytes were implemented in the days before spellcheck technology in word processing. Why not eliminate capital letters from the coding for the purposes of storage and transmission and then have spellcheckers capitalize the proper letters later?
I believe that we could also eliminate quite a few of the other characters presently used in ASCII coding. We could even eliminate the number characters; 1234567890 by having numbers automatically spelled out for storage and transmission and then being reduced to numbers later on, if required. It is true that the word "five" takes up more space than "5" but it would reduce the number of different characters that must be encoded.
THE BASE SYSTEM
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Now, let's move on. Suppose we could use a flexible, or floating, number base for each block of data that we store or transmit? It would make it even more efficient. This is done by automatically scanning the data, detecting how many different characters along with invisible control keys it contains and using that number as the number base to encode the data as a single large number. This would be incredibly efficient.
How many documents or blocks of text contain characters such as ! # ^ & * +=( )? The answer is only a relative few. So, why is it necessary to have space to encode characters that are not there on each block of text? Also, a document may not contain letters such as q, x or, z, making it unnecessary to include space in the coding for them. The goal should be to make the number base for encoding the text as low as possible.
Back in my music days there was a song I liked, a line of which is "It don't come easy, you know it don't come easy." To encode this, the program would count the number of different characters, including spaces, punctuation and, control characters and use that number as the base by which it would be encoded. This is the type of calculation at which computers excel. If a block of text were too large for the computer processor to calculate the number representing the text, it would simply break it up into two or more blocks.
The incredible progress in other areas of computing is overshadowed by our continued use of the primitive ASCII coding system for the characters of the alphabet, numbers and, punctuation. We now have the chance to make just as much progress in computer capacity and efficiency with simple arithmetic as we can with the usual chip and storage technology.
The way we have been making continuous upgrades in applications and operating systems while still using the old ASCII coding system is like developing entirely new ways of printing documents with the latest version of Microsoft Office but then delivering the documents to their destination by Pony Express. You can see an ASCII table at http://www.asciitable.com/ or read all about it on http://www.wikipedia.com/
If we could make the storage and transmission of data more efficient, it would have the same effect as improving processor and transmission speeds and hard drive capacity. I prefer the idea of Numbering Sentences that I described in the posting below but that will require some work and time to break all sentences down into numbers. There are other ways that I have noticed that could be implemented in the next generation of software.
TRIMMING BYTES
Suppose we could reduce the size of the byte used in ASCII from eight bits to six? That would immediately make storage and transmission of data more efficient because it would require only 75% of today's capacity for the same amount of data. It is true that six bits gives us only 64 possible combinations, as opposed to the 256 of eight-bit bytes. But those eight-bit bytes were implemented in the days before spellcheck technology in word processing. Why not eliminate capital letters from the coding for the purposes of storage and transmission and then have spellcheckers capitalize the proper letters later?
I believe that we could also eliminate quite a few of the other characters presently used in ASCII coding. We could even eliminate the number characters; 1234567890 by having numbers automatically spelled out for storage and transmission and then being reduced to numbers later on, if required. It is true that the word "five" takes up more space than "5" but it would reduce the number of different characters that must be encoded.
THE BASE SYSTEM
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Now, on to another idea for increasing computer efficiency by reforming ASCII. I have a way to not only store and transmit computer data with fewer bits but to speed up processing by freeing the processor from deciphering the eight-bit bytes of ASCII. As you know, a number system can be of any base. Ours happens to be base-ten because ancient people counted things on their ten fingers. Computers are coded in binary, or base-two and the computer world also uses hexidecimal, or base-sixteen.
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Suppose we could consider any text that had to be stored or transmitted not as text, but as a number. If we could eliminate capital letters and numbers, our alphabet could be considered a base-twenty seven number system because there are twenty-six letters and a space between words.
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In fact ASCII is, in effect, a base-two hundred fifty six number system. If we could see any text as actually a number, all we would have to do is store and transmit that number in binary. Not only would it require far less space but would also be much easier on the computer processor because it would be just one long number and not composed of bytes.
Let's consider something simple like my name, Mark Meek. If encoded into ASCII it would require nine bytes, including the space. In other words, 72 bits. But if we devised a base-fifty number system, let the space = zero, a = 1, b = 2, z = 26 and so on, so that my name was considered by the computer to be a number, it would require only 49 bits, according to my calculations. Using a base-fifty number system should allow us to incorporate all the required punctuation and control keys since capital letters and possibly numerical characters can be eliminated until later.
Let's consider something simple like my name, Mark Meek. If encoded into ASCII it would require nine bytes, including the space. In other words, 72 bits. But if we devised a base-fifty number system, let the space = zero, a = 1, b = 2, z = 26 and so on, so that my name was considered by the computer to be a number, it would require only 49 bits, according to my calculations. Using a base-fifty number system should allow us to incorporate all the required punctuation and control keys since capital letters and possibly numerical characters can be eliminated until later.
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THE FLOATING BASE SYSTEM
Now, let's move on. Suppose we could use a flexible, or floating, number base for each block of data that we store or transmit? It would make it even more efficient. This is done by automatically scanning the data, detecting how many different characters along with invisible control keys it contains and using that number as the number base to encode the data as a single large number. This would be incredibly efficient.
How many documents or blocks of text contain characters such as ! # ^ & * +=( )? The answer is only a relative few. So, why is it necessary to have space to encode characters that are not there on each block of text? Also, a document may not contain letters such as q, x or, z, making it unnecessary to include space in the coding for them. The goal should be to make the number base for encoding the text as low as possible.
Back in my music days there was a song I liked, a line of which is "It don't come easy, you know it don't come easy." To encode this, the program would count the number of different characters, including spaces, punctuation and, control characters and use that number as the base by which it would be encoded. This is the type of calculation at which computers excel. If a block of text were too large for the computer processor to calculate the number representing the text, it would simply break it up into two or more blocks.
Numbered Sentences
It is really amazing how much rapid progress has been made in improving computer processor speeds as well as hard drive capacity. But while this progress is being made, our basic system of digital coding remains so inefficient. I find this to be yet another example of how we can be technically forward but system backward at the same time.
The best-known system of digital coding is ASCII. It uses eight digital bits, known as a byte, to encode information. In digital form, a byte would look like this: 01101001 since each bit can be either on or off, represented by a 1 or 0.
Each magnetic particle on a hard drive stores a bit. Eight bits of two possibilities each mean that a byte has 256 different possibilities. ASCII uses each bit to store a text character such a letter, number or, punctuation mark. Some of the 256 ASCII cominations in a byte are unprintable control codes. Besides ASCII, there are other systems such as EBCDIC, used in mainframe computers, and Unicode.
The problem with a coding system such as ASCII is that it's coding represents characters, such as numbers and the letters of the alphabet. No matter how we improve processor speeds and hard drive capacity, this simple coding system remains inefficient in the extreme and thus limits the potential of computers.
I find that our digital communications and data storage would be multiplied many times in efficiency if our primary unit of communication was not the character, not the word, but the sentence. If we can categorize DNA in the Genome Project, then why can't we categorize all things that all people say and write to each other while communicating?
People all across the world say pretty much the same things to each other. The sentences could be arranged in a logical order and each one assigned a number. This would greatly simplify and increase in efficiency all digital storage and communications. This should have been done long ago, actually in the early days of computing.
Microsoft Office has standardized and categorized office documents into word processing, spreadsheets, databases and, presentations. Why not categorize every sentence that is used in communications and assign it a number? Then we would only need to communicate and store that number instead of the sentence written out in characters. This would be immeasurably more efficient. Dictionary writers take great care to categorize words, we can expend the idea to entire sentences. The sentences could be arranged into a hundred or so logical categories and then selected from there.
It is all right, in most cases, if the sentences are somewhat generic. In most human communications, flowery prose is unnecessary. Several words may have the same meaning many sentences can be phrased in different ways, but for our purposes of efficient data storage and communications, only one choice of sentence would be necessary.
This concept of using sentences, rather than characters or words, as our main unit of digital communication and storage has another tremendous advantage besides the great increase in efficiency. Grammar and alphabet or character is not the same from one language to another so literal translation word by word from one language to another usually produces little more than gibberish. It is the sentence, not just the words, that must be translated.
This system of sentence numbering would also make quick and easy translation of data from one language to another possible. The entire world uses the same numbering system. Data could be stored and transmitted as numbers and each number would represent a sentence. The data numbers could be easily displayed in any language. If, for example, all communication was broken down into a million sentences, sentence 130461 might be "I went to the store today." All we would need to do would be to transfer and store the number.
In data transfers, computer systems make extensive use of codecs, compression and decompression so why not take the same approach to the basic coding of data? Numbering sentences would be far more efficient than today's coding of characters, which was developed long before the easy and widespread global communication of the internet. This sentence transmission and display could readily be included in future operating systems.
Next, let's move on to make this concept even more efficient with what I will call the "sentence package". Each sentence will be assigned a number, my guess is that we can expect to have a million or so sentences which will then be arranged into a logical sequence before being assigned numbers. The way to make this process more efficient is to use direct binary to encode each sentence, instead of the ASCII characters for the numbers assigned to the sentences.
A string of 20 of the digital bits that computers use to store and transmit data will give us 1,048,576 possible combinations. I believe that this will be enough to assign a number to all necessary sentence combinations, along with any control characters that will be needed. We will call this 20-bit string a "sentence package".
It will operate in the same way as the 8-bit bytes used to encode each character and number in ASCII. It might be more effective to enclose this 20-bit sentence package within a string of 24 bits because that would comprise 3 of the bytes that the computer world is accustomed to dealing with. This would also provide plenty of room for any specialized sub-sets of sentences that may be necessary such as one each for doctors, physicists, astronomers, etc. to include the sentences only used by these particular groups in communication. Names could still be spelled out in ASCII when necessary.
The thing that makes this great increase in efficiency possible is vast gaps in our written communication of potential words that are not used as words. We could call them non-words. For example, "Ncbda" could be a word but it isn't. The existence of such non-words means that our alphabetic system has much built-in spatial inefficiency. Quite a bit of this inefficiency is because the words we use revolve around positioning of vowels and consonants.
Our wording system, if printed as a graph would look something like a map of the South Pacific or the West Indies. The words we use would be islands but there would be vast gaps, represented by sea, of potential but non-words. The way to cut out this inefficiency is to use this idea of sentence packaging, it is the ultimate codec.
In ASCII coding, a simple sentence like "I went to the store today", requires 25 bytes, one for each character, including spaces. Since a byte consists of 8 bits, that means a total of 200 bits of data. In this new system of sentence packaging, it will require only the 20 bits of one sentence package. This is an increase in efficiency by a factor of 10. Even if we use 24 bits, 3 bytes, per sentence, it brings an increase in efficiency by more than a factor of 8. Plus the fact that text encoded in this way can be easily displayed in any language.
The best-known system of digital coding is ASCII. It uses eight digital bits, known as a byte, to encode information. In digital form, a byte would look like this: 01101001 since each bit can be either on or off, represented by a 1 or 0.
Each magnetic particle on a hard drive stores a bit. Eight bits of two possibilities each mean that a byte has 256 different possibilities. ASCII uses each bit to store a text character such a letter, number or, punctuation mark. Some of the 256 ASCII cominations in a byte are unprintable control codes. Besides ASCII, there are other systems such as EBCDIC, used in mainframe computers, and Unicode.
The problem with a coding system such as ASCII is that it's coding represents characters, such as numbers and the letters of the alphabet. No matter how we improve processor speeds and hard drive capacity, this simple coding system remains inefficient in the extreme and thus limits the potential of computers.
I find that our digital communications and data storage would be multiplied many times in efficiency if our primary unit of communication was not the character, not the word, but the sentence. If we can categorize DNA in the Genome Project, then why can't we categorize all things that all people say and write to each other while communicating?
People all across the world say pretty much the same things to each other. The sentences could be arranged in a logical order and each one assigned a number. This would greatly simplify and increase in efficiency all digital storage and communications. This should have been done long ago, actually in the early days of computing.
Microsoft Office has standardized and categorized office documents into word processing, spreadsheets, databases and, presentations. Why not categorize every sentence that is used in communications and assign it a number? Then we would only need to communicate and store that number instead of the sentence written out in characters. This would be immeasurably more efficient. Dictionary writers take great care to categorize words, we can expend the idea to entire sentences. The sentences could be arranged into a hundred or so logical categories and then selected from there.
It is all right, in most cases, if the sentences are somewhat generic. In most human communications, flowery prose is unnecessary. Several words may have the same meaning many sentences can be phrased in different ways, but for our purposes of efficient data storage and communications, only one choice of sentence would be necessary.
This concept of using sentences, rather than characters or words, as our main unit of digital communication and storage has another tremendous advantage besides the great increase in efficiency. Grammar and alphabet or character is not the same from one language to another so literal translation word by word from one language to another usually produces little more than gibberish. It is the sentence, not just the words, that must be translated.
This system of sentence numbering would also make quick and easy translation of data from one language to another possible. The entire world uses the same numbering system. Data could be stored and transmitted as numbers and each number would represent a sentence. The data numbers could be easily displayed in any language. If, for example, all communication was broken down into a million sentences, sentence 130461 might be "I went to the store today." All we would need to do would be to transfer and store the number.
In data transfers, computer systems make extensive use of codecs, compression and decompression so why not take the same approach to the basic coding of data? Numbering sentences would be far more efficient than today's coding of characters, which was developed long before the easy and widespread global communication of the internet. This sentence transmission and display could readily be included in future operating systems.
Next, let's move on to make this concept even more efficient with what I will call the "sentence package". Each sentence will be assigned a number, my guess is that we can expect to have a million or so sentences which will then be arranged into a logical sequence before being assigned numbers. The way to make this process more efficient is to use direct binary to encode each sentence, instead of the ASCII characters for the numbers assigned to the sentences.
A string of 20 of the digital bits that computers use to store and transmit data will give us 1,048,576 possible combinations. I believe that this will be enough to assign a number to all necessary sentence combinations, along with any control characters that will be needed. We will call this 20-bit string a "sentence package".
It will operate in the same way as the 8-bit bytes used to encode each character and number in ASCII. It might be more effective to enclose this 20-bit sentence package within a string of 24 bits because that would comprise 3 of the bytes that the computer world is accustomed to dealing with. This would also provide plenty of room for any specialized sub-sets of sentences that may be necessary such as one each for doctors, physicists, astronomers, etc. to include the sentences only used by these particular groups in communication. Names could still be spelled out in ASCII when necessary.
The thing that makes this great increase in efficiency possible is vast gaps in our written communication of potential words that are not used as words. We could call them non-words. For example, "Ncbda" could be a word but it isn't. The existence of such non-words means that our alphabetic system has much built-in spatial inefficiency. Quite a bit of this inefficiency is because the words we use revolve around positioning of vowels and consonants.
Our wording system, if printed as a graph would look something like a map of the South Pacific or the West Indies. The words we use would be islands but there would be vast gaps, represented by sea, of potential but non-words. The way to cut out this inefficiency is to use this idea of sentence packaging, it is the ultimate codec.
In ASCII coding, a simple sentence like "I went to the store today", requires 25 bytes, one for each character, including spaces. Since a byte consists of 8 bits, that means a total of 200 bits of data. In this new system of sentence packaging, it will require only the 20 bits of one sentence package. This is an increase in efficiency by a factor of 10. Even if we use 24 bits, 3 bytes, per sentence, it brings an increase in efficiency by more than a factor of 8. Plus the fact that text encoded in this way can be easily displayed in any language.
Next Generation Technology
Have you ever thought about how primitive we really are? Let's take a look at the kinds of technology we could have.
The human brain emits and uses electrical waves. So why do we need to use cell phones (mobiles) and other electronic devices in the same way that cave men used pieces of flint as manual tools? There should be no need for buttons or switches on electronic devices nor should there be computer monitors, displays or, television screens.
All a person needs is to wear a plastic band on their head. That band will decipher what the person wants by their brain waves and will then access the information or image and put it into their brain by the same kind of waves. The person will thus see a web site like a dream or mirage with no screen needed. We will need a little practice at using our thoughts to turn things on and off but no more than is necessary for using the functions on an iphone.
We are able to put together the history of our solar system just by carefully observing it. We know that each atom is actually a solar system also with electrons revolving around the central nucleus. We should be able to do the same thing with each atom by carefully studying the placement of it's orbital electrons.
Hidden in the paths of the electrons in orbit is a history of everywhere the atom has ever been and ever done. This is simply because everything that has ever happened to an atom has had some effect on it's electron orbitals. We just need to learn to decipher that.
For example, light that hits atoms should leave some imprint in slight adjustment of the electron orbits. This means that when we become proficient enough, anything can act as a camera. We could place a scanner against the side of a pyramid to carefully measure the orbitals in each atom in the stone. Then we could glean an actual video of ancient Egyptians building the pyramid.
Why can we not make anything from anything else? We could scan the arrangements of atoms in a blueberry pie onto a computer disk. We could then place the equivalent atoms in a special chamber and have the atoms arrange themselves into an identical blueberry pie. If we got really proficient, we could scan the sub-atomic particles of the blueberry pie and so would not even need to have the same kind of atoms to make the pie.
Such copy technology would also enable people to travel between stations at the speed of light. You would step into a transportation chamber and a scan would be made of your body. The information would travel by internet or radio waves to a distant station where your body would be recreated from a different set of atoms. Your "essence", your spirit, memory and, intellect, would then be placed in the your new body.
If you are wondering if you would really be "you" if you had an identical body made of different atoms, the answer is yes. The atoms in your body are continually in transition and you may contain few, if any, of the atoms that you had a year ago. Your "old" body would be recycled for it's atoms to be used by a traveller in the opposite direction. It is true that something might go wrong when you go to be transported but the same is true when you board a plane to be transported.
Energy should not even be an issue. It should be as available as air. There is energy in everything unless it is at a temperature of absolute zero and perfectly at rest. We should be able to draw all the energy we need out of anything, anywhere. It is just that we are still on the same thought track that we were on as cavemen.
The most important physical fact in the universe is that there are two electric charges, which we term negative and positive. Like charges mutually repel, while opposite charges attract. This is the foundation of the universe, and all other facts are mere details in comparison with this one.
In my cosmological theory, everything is composed of infinitesimal electric charges. When we have a pattern of alternating charges, negative and positive forming a multi-dimensional checkerboard, we have space. Any other arrangement of the electrical charges gives us matter, instead of space.
Movement of the electrical charges in matter affect those in the adjoining space, setting up an electromagnetic wave. It is not that the wave itself is electromagnetic, it is just that the wave reveals the underlying electromagnetism of space by disturbing the prefect arrangement of alternating charges.
It appears that there is no net electrical charge to the universe, the total number of negative and positive charges ends up as exactly equal. There also seems to be no variation whatsoever between one like charge and another, no internal structure or factors whatsoever. The charges must always balance out, they will induce new charges into being if they don't. This makes it seem as if the charges that compose both the space and matter of the universe originated as a part of some pre-universe structure that has since been "trying" to reassemble itself.
Of course, the designation of negative and positive that we have given these electrical charges is entirely arbitrary. they could just as easily have been designated as the night and day charges. They tend to pair up and do not usually operate independently for long.
In trying to learn all that we can about the universe, we come up against these charges as the most basic of building blocks. Everything that we are and everything that we know are composed of these electrical charges. We cannot see anything that is not composed of these charges, and this puts strict limitations on us understanding what the charges really are. Gaining such an understanding, beyond merely seeing how the charges behave, would truly be the ultimate in science.
The ultimate in technology would be to gain the ability to manipulate and exchange these charges. If we could do that, we could make anything out of anything else, or out of empty space for that matter. We could also make any matter disappear into empty space. We could divide a pile of garbage in half, turn one side into antimatter by reversing the charges, then reap a fantastic amount of energy as the two halves mutually annihilated when brought into contact.
But we are limited by what we are and what we have. Any equipment that we can construct must necessarily be made of these electrical charges, and that puts a limit on us building anything that can manipulate the charges. We cannot look further into the two electrical charges because they are already as fundamental as we can get. An electron, for example, appears to be a mere point of negative charge with no internal structure whatsoever and so cannot be dissected further.
As it turns out, it is not entirely impossible to manipulate and exchange electrical charges. Black holes in the universe are concentrations of matter, bound together by gravity, that are so dense that not even light can escape the gravity. Hence, we can detect black hole not by direct observation but only by observation of it's gravitational effects on the surrounding area.
But it is known that black holes actually do give off radiation and gradually decay. This seems to be mystifying but, as I explained in "Black Holes And Antimatter" on the cosmology blog www.markmeekcosmology.blogspot.com , this is easily explained by my cosmological theory.
If super extreme pressure is put on electrical charges, forcing like charges together and pushing unlike charges apart, the charges will actually begin to migrate so that negative becomes positive and vice versa. But when this happens, we have matter turning into antimatter. We know that when matter and antimatter are brought into contact that they mutually destruct and give off a burst of energy.
Antimatter is the same thing as ordinary matter, except that the charges are reversed. Instead of electrons, antimatter has positively charged particles, called positrons, in orbitals around a negatively-charged nucleus that is the opposite of matter. There is now far more matter than antimatter in the universe. If you saw a galaxy in space composed of antimatter, you probably could not tell the difference just by observation.
In my theory, the negative and positive charges that composed the matter and antimatter literally rearrange themselves into the alternating checkerboard pattern of empty space. The burst of energy released is a redirection of the energy in the Big Bang that put the matter and antimatter together in the first place. This ideally explains why black holes both give off radiation and gradually decay, because matter is being turned into antimatter by charge migration brought about by the extreme pressure inside and then the two are mutually annihilating each other.
The trouble is that the pressure inside these black holes in space is far beyond anything that we know on earth. Even the tremendous pressure in the center of the sun, which is enough to crunch smaller atoms together into larger ones, is nowhere near what it would take to make charges migrate so that we could exchange and work with them.
BRAIN WAVES
The human brain emits and uses electrical waves. So why do we need to use cell phones (mobiles) and other electronic devices in the same way that cave men used pieces of flint as manual tools? There should be no need for buttons or switches on electronic devices nor should there be computer monitors, displays or, television screens.
All a person needs is to wear a plastic band on their head. That band will decipher what the person wants by their brain waves and will then access the information or image and put it into their brain by the same kind of waves. The person will thus see a web site like a dream or mirage with no screen needed. We will need a little practice at using our thoughts to turn things on and off but no more than is necessary for using the functions on an iphone.
ATOMS
We are able to put together the history of our solar system just by carefully observing it. We know that each atom is actually a solar system also with electrons revolving around the central nucleus. We should be able to do the same thing with each atom by carefully studying the placement of it's orbital electrons.
Hidden in the paths of the electrons in orbit is a history of everywhere the atom has ever been and ever done. This is simply because everything that has ever happened to an atom has had some effect on it's electron orbitals. We just need to learn to decipher that.
For example, light that hits atoms should leave some imprint in slight adjustment of the electron orbits. This means that when we become proficient enough, anything can act as a camera. We could place a scanner against the side of a pyramid to carefully measure the orbitals in each atom in the stone. Then we could glean an actual video of ancient Egyptians building the pyramid.
COPY TECHNOLOGY
Why can we not make anything from anything else? We could scan the arrangements of atoms in a blueberry pie onto a computer disk. We could then place the equivalent atoms in a special chamber and have the atoms arrange themselves into an identical blueberry pie. If we got really proficient, we could scan the sub-atomic particles of the blueberry pie and so would not even need to have the same kind of atoms to make the pie.
Such copy technology would also enable people to travel between stations at the speed of light. You would step into a transportation chamber and a scan would be made of your body. The information would travel by internet or radio waves to a distant station where your body would be recreated from a different set of atoms. Your "essence", your spirit, memory and, intellect, would then be placed in the your new body.
If you are wondering if you would really be "you" if you had an identical body made of different atoms, the answer is yes. The atoms in your body are continually in transition and you may contain few, if any, of the atoms that you had a year ago. Your "old" body would be recycled for it's atoms to be used by a traveller in the opposite direction. It is true that something might go wrong when you go to be transported but the same is true when you board a plane to be transported.
ENERGY
Energy should not even be an issue. It should be as available as air. There is energy in everything unless it is at a temperature of absolute zero and perfectly at rest. We should be able to draw all the energy we need out of anything, anywhere. It is just that we are still on the same thought track that we were on as cavemen.
ELECTRICAL CHARGES
The most important physical fact in the universe is that there are two electric charges, which we term negative and positive. Like charges mutually repel, while opposite charges attract. This is the foundation of the universe, and all other facts are mere details in comparison with this one.
In my cosmological theory, everything is composed of infinitesimal electric charges. When we have a pattern of alternating charges, negative and positive forming a multi-dimensional checkerboard, we have space. Any other arrangement of the electrical charges gives us matter, instead of space.
Movement of the electrical charges in matter affect those in the adjoining space, setting up an electromagnetic wave. It is not that the wave itself is electromagnetic, it is just that the wave reveals the underlying electromagnetism of space by disturbing the prefect arrangement of alternating charges.
It appears that there is no net electrical charge to the universe, the total number of negative and positive charges ends up as exactly equal. There also seems to be no variation whatsoever between one like charge and another, no internal structure or factors whatsoever. The charges must always balance out, they will induce new charges into being if they don't. This makes it seem as if the charges that compose both the space and matter of the universe originated as a part of some pre-universe structure that has since been "trying" to reassemble itself.
Of course, the designation of negative and positive that we have given these electrical charges is entirely arbitrary. they could just as easily have been designated as the night and day charges. They tend to pair up and do not usually operate independently for long.
In trying to learn all that we can about the universe, we come up against these charges as the most basic of building blocks. Everything that we are and everything that we know are composed of these electrical charges. We cannot see anything that is not composed of these charges, and this puts strict limitations on us understanding what the charges really are. Gaining such an understanding, beyond merely seeing how the charges behave, would truly be the ultimate in science.
The ultimate in technology would be to gain the ability to manipulate and exchange these charges. If we could do that, we could make anything out of anything else, or out of empty space for that matter. We could also make any matter disappear into empty space. We could divide a pile of garbage in half, turn one side into antimatter by reversing the charges, then reap a fantastic amount of energy as the two halves mutually annihilated when brought into contact.
But we are limited by what we are and what we have. Any equipment that we can construct must necessarily be made of these electrical charges, and that puts a limit on us building anything that can manipulate the charges. We cannot look further into the two electrical charges because they are already as fundamental as we can get. An electron, for example, appears to be a mere point of negative charge with no internal structure whatsoever and so cannot be dissected further.
As it turns out, it is not entirely impossible to manipulate and exchange electrical charges. Black holes in the universe are concentrations of matter, bound together by gravity, that are so dense that not even light can escape the gravity. Hence, we can detect black hole not by direct observation but only by observation of it's gravitational effects on the surrounding area.
But it is known that black holes actually do give off radiation and gradually decay. This seems to be mystifying but, as I explained in "Black Holes And Antimatter" on the cosmology blog www.markmeekcosmology.blogspot.com , this is easily explained by my cosmological theory.
If super extreme pressure is put on electrical charges, forcing like charges together and pushing unlike charges apart, the charges will actually begin to migrate so that negative becomes positive and vice versa. But when this happens, we have matter turning into antimatter. We know that when matter and antimatter are brought into contact that they mutually destruct and give off a burst of energy.
Antimatter is the same thing as ordinary matter, except that the charges are reversed. Instead of electrons, antimatter has positively charged particles, called positrons, in orbitals around a negatively-charged nucleus that is the opposite of matter. There is now far more matter than antimatter in the universe. If you saw a galaxy in space composed of antimatter, you probably could not tell the difference just by observation.
In my theory, the negative and positive charges that composed the matter and antimatter literally rearrange themselves into the alternating checkerboard pattern of empty space. The burst of energy released is a redirection of the energy in the Big Bang that put the matter and antimatter together in the first place. This ideally explains why black holes both give off radiation and gradually decay, because matter is being turned into antimatter by charge migration brought about by the extreme pressure inside and then the two are mutually annihilating each other.
The trouble is that the pressure inside these black holes in space is far beyond anything that we know on earth. Even the tremendous pressure in the center of the sun, which is enough to crunch smaller atoms together into larger ones, is nowhere near what it would take to make charges migrate so that we could exchange and work with them.
Our Antiquated Phone System
I find that there is no better example of how we can be technologically forward but system backward than out telephone network. Telephone numbers in North America have ten digits and look like this: 123-456-7890.
The first three digits, the 123, is the area code. This tells the telephone network the general area where the call is going. For example, in the far western part of New York State, the area code is 716. The next three digits, the 456, is known as the exchange. This is a kind of sub-area code. After the area code has been established, this tells the telephone network where in the area code the call is going. The final four digits, the 7890, is the body of the phone number.
Each exchange can have up to ten thousand numbers, from 0000 to 9999. Area codes typically contain about a hundred exchanges. For example the most common exchanges in the City of Niagara Falls, NY seem to be 283, 284 and, 297.
My point here is that the use of exchanges is inefficiency in the extreme. These exchanges are a relic of the days of mechanical switching systems to connect two callers. The early days of telephone featured operators manually plugging in a cord to join two callers. Then the mechanical relay switching systems became available in which a call was routed first to the destination area code and then to an exchange within the area code and finally to the number within the exchange. The area code is in itself an exchange.
In these days of computerized equipment with vast bandwidth and data storage capacity, why do we still use a system that was designed for the mechanical equipment available fifty years ago? There is probably no better example of how we can have space age technology operating under a virtually stone age system of organization.
Today, there is a dire need for ever-more phone numbers. Not only do most people have both land lines and cell phones (mobiles), but other devices such as alarm systems, credit card machines and, ATMs all require dedicated phone lines. Many areas are finding it necessary to create new area codes to increase the supply of available phone numbers. This causes considerable disruption and expense since everything that has a phone number written or recorded has to be changed.
With today's data processing capabilities, we need only one exchange and not two. If the exchange was eliminated and the seven digits following the area code were condidered as the body of the phone number, we would have ten million numbers available per area code instead of ten thousand per exchange. If the typical area code contains a hundred exchanges, this would give us ten times as many available phone numbers.
Countries outside North America often use city codes that can be eliminated in the same way. In fact, with ever more sophisticated equipment available, why not look forward to a day when even area codes are eliminated and the entire number is the body. This is the way the IP addresses on the internet operate, why can't telephones operate in the same way?
The first three digits, the 123, is the area code. This tells the telephone network the general area where the call is going. For example, in the far western part of New York State, the area code is 716. The next three digits, the 456, is known as the exchange. This is a kind of sub-area code. After the area code has been established, this tells the telephone network where in the area code the call is going. The final four digits, the 7890, is the body of the phone number.
Each exchange can have up to ten thousand numbers, from 0000 to 9999. Area codes typically contain about a hundred exchanges. For example the most common exchanges in the City of Niagara Falls, NY seem to be 283, 284 and, 297.
My point here is that the use of exchanges is inefficiency in the extreme. These exchanges are a relic of the days of mechanical switching systems to connect two callers. The early days of telephone featured operators manually plugging in a cord to join two callers. Then the mechanical relay switching systems became available in which a call was routed first to the destination area code and then to an exchange within the area code and finally to the number within the exchange. The area code is in itself an exchange.
In these days of computerized equipment with vast bandwidth and data storage capacity, why do we still use a system that was designed for the mechanical equipment available fifty years ago? There is probably no better example of how we can have space age technology operating under a virtually stone age system of organization.
Today, there is a dire need for ever-more phone numbers. Not only do most people have both land lines and cell phones (mobiles), but other devices such as alarm systems, credit card machines and, ATMs all require dedicated phone lines. Many areas are finding it necessary to create new area codes to increase the supply of available phone numbers. This causes considerable disruption and expense since everything that has a phone number written or recorded has to be changed.
With today's data processing capabilities, we need only one exchange and not two. If the exchange was eliminated and the seven digits following the area code were condidered as the body of the phone number, we would have ten million numbers available per area code instead of ten thousand per exchange. If the typical area code contains a hundred exchanges, this would give us ten times as many available phone numbers.
Countries outside North America often use city codes that can be eliminated in the same way. In fact, with ever more sophisticated equipment available, why not look forward to a day when even area codes are eliminated and the entire number is the body. This is the way the IP addresses on the internet operate, why can't telephones operate in the same way?
Cell Phone Projection
As far as I am concerned, the next big steps in the communications revolution are clear and obvious and relatively simple and involve cell phones rather than computers. One such step is what I will call "Cell Phone Projection".
Cell phones (mobiles) are sweeping the world even faster than computers. Why cannot cell phones simply replace most computers? The answer is the size of the display. Cell phones do not have the capacity to visually display a lot of information at once like a computer desktop, not even the two-piece flip phones that have a larger display. If cell phones could only display as much information as a computer desktop, it would certainly be a revolution in communications. Everyone could carry a full-capacity internet-connected computer with them everywhere, as well as a phone.
Why not use projection? A cell phone could have two display screens, one for direct reading as phones have now, and the other for projection. The projection screen would use liquid crystal technology to embody a working computer desktop on a lens.
To use the phone as a full-fledged computer, the user would hold the phone about 18 inches from a wall or other flat surface with the projection screen pointing toward the wall. It would project a computer desktop on the wall like a slide projector and a small laser pointer would act as a mouse. A virtual keyboard at the bottom of the screen would make typing easy. Naturally, the projection screen would require a stronger source of light than the direct-read display screen as well as reliable batteries.
That is not all. We can make "The Navigation Revolution" a part of the communications revolution. What if all cell phones were equipped with GPS receivers and maps.google.com was furnished with GPS coordinates. Anyone anywhere in the world could quickly and easily look at maps and satellite imagery of their location.
Cell phones (mobiles) are sweeping the world even faster than computers. Why cannot cell phones simply replace most computers? The answer is the size of the display. Cell phones do not have the capacity to visually display a lot of information at once like a computer desktop, not even the two-piece flip phones that have a larger display. If cell phones could only display as much information as a computer desktop, it would certainly be a revolution in communications. Everyone could carry a full-capacity internet-connected computer with them everywhere, as well as a phone.
Why not use projection? A cell phone could have two display screens, one for direct reading as phones have now, and the other for projection. The projection screen would use liquid crystal technology to embody a working computer desktop on a lens.
To use the phone as a full-fledged computer, the user would hold the phone about 18 inches from a wall or other flat surface with the projection screen pointing toward the wall. It would project a computer desktop on the wall like a slide projector and a small laser pointer would act as a mouse. A virtual keyboard at the bottom of the screen would make typing easy. Naturally, the projection screen would require a stronger source of light than the direct-read display screen as well as reliable batteries.
That is not all. We can make "The Navigation Revolution" a part of the communications revolution. What if all cell phones were equipped with GPS receivers and maps.google.com was furnished with GPS coordinates. Anyone anywhere in the world could quickly and easily look at maps and satellite imagery of their location.
International Translation Code
I have an idea that would really simplify travel to foreign countries. I am surprised that, as far as I know, no one else has thought of it. Today, most travellers have cell phones. Why not use this as a translation tool?
Many languages have well over 100,000 words. But only about 10,000 words are in common everyday use. Let's give each of these words a four-digit code from 0000 to 9999.
Numbers are the same throughout the world. Suppose you were in a building in a foreign country and you saw an incomprehensible word on a sign with a four-digit code above it such as 6347. You would simply click your cell phone (mobile) into translation mode and punch in the code. Your phone would display that the word translated as "elevators".
Suppose you were in the building and looking for the elevators. You would just click the phone into reverse translation mode and enter in the word "elevators" in your own language. Your phone would display that the International Translation Code for elevators was 6347. You would then proceed to look for that number on a sign in the building.
If you were trying to ask for information or directions and the person you were asking had no idea what you were saying, you would simply display the code for whatever it was you were asking for. The foreign person would look up the code and give you what you were requesting or point you in the right direction.
It is not important that the phone have coverage in the foreign country because the data would be stored in a memory chip in the phone. Each user would naturally have his phone programmed in his or her own language. Code numbers could be easily imprinted onto labels or placed on signs all over the world using the stick-on letters used on mail boxes.
Of course, such a simple system could not provide a genuine translation of a foreign language since grammar and syntax vary from one language to another. But for everyday travel, it would be very helpful.
Many languages have well over 100,000 words. But only about 10,000 words are in common everyday use. Let's give each of these words a four-digit code from 0000 to 9999.
Numbers are the same throughout the world. Suppose you were in a building in a foreign country and you saw an incomprehensible word on a sign with a four-digit code above it such as 6347. You would simply click your cell phone (mobile) into translation mode and punch in the code. Your phone would display that the word translated as "elevators".
Suppose you were in the building and looking for the elevators. You would just click the phone into reverse translation mode and enter in the word "elevators" in your own language. Your phone would display that the International Translation Code for elevators was 6347. You would then proceed to look for that number on a sign in the building.
If you were trying to ask for information or directions and the person you were asking had no idea what you were saying, you would simply display the code for whatever it was you were asking for. The foreign person would look up the code and give you what you were requesting or point you in the right direction.
It is not important that the phone have coverage in the foreign country because the data would be stored in a memory chip in the phone. Each user would naturally have his phone programmed in his or her own language. Code numbers could be easily imprinted onto labels or placed on signs all over the world using the stick-on letters used on mail boxes.
Of course, such a simple system could not provide a genuine translation of a foreign language since grammar and syntax vary from one language to another. But for everyday travel, it would be very helpful.
The Symbol Of Globalization
Do you remember that simple childhood game called tic-tac-toe? I believe that the square in which that game was played, a square divided into thirds on each side so that there are nine smaller squares within the large square, is the perfect symbol for globalization. Here is why.
I am convinced that cell phones (mobiles), which are taking over the world even faster than computers, are a potentially very powerful tool for translating one language into another.
In my book "The Patterns of New Ideas", I introduced what I called "The Base Language" in which everything that people say to each other is broken down into numbers according to the parts of speech and this provides a simple way of translating written communications, using computers, from one language into another.
Now let's move on to a more thorough system. The tic-tac-toe square resembles the keypad of a cell phone (mobile). Suppose we placed the tic-tac-toe square on a sign and filled each of the smaller squares with a number from 1 to 9. That would give us 362,880 possible combinations of squares. That is more than enough combinations to give each word in a language as well as basic sentences their own combinations. These combinations would be agreed upon throughout the world.
When a traveller who did not understand the local language saw such a "Global Square" sign as we will call it, the traveller would simply click his phone onto translation mode, enter in the combination of numbered squares in order and, press zero for enter. The phone would display the meaning of the word or sentence in the traveller's own language. The translation of each combination of squares would be stored on a chip in the phone. The combinations, each of which would be assigned to a word or basic sentence, could also be expressed as numbers according to which ones of the nine squares were darkened, such as 134682957.
This square, divided into nine smaller squares, would also be the perfect symbol for globalization with the various people of the world not only being brought into closer contact but also gaining more understanding of each other. In my posting below "Parallel Revolutions", I described how the communications revolution is far outpacing the transportation revolution because it is still stuck on dependence on gasoline and other fossil fuels.
However, the communications revolution has a roadblock of it's own. No matter how easy we can make global communications, the fact remains that the people of the world speak about a thousand different languages.
The next step in the transportation revolution should definitely be to get away from reliance on gasoline and other fossil fuels. The next step in the communications revolution should be the utilizing the power of cell phones and computers to get beyond the language barrier.
I am convinced that cell phones (mobiles), which are taking over the world even faster than computers, are a potentially very powerful tool for translating one language into another.
In my book "The Patterns of New Ideas", I introduced what I called "The Base Language" in which everything that people say to each other is broken down into numbers according to the parts of speech and this provides a simple way of translating written communications, using computers, from one language into another.
Now let's move on to a more thorough system. The tic-tac-toe square resembles the keypad of a cell phone (mobile). Suppose we placed the tic-tac-toe square on a sign and filled each of the smaller squares with a number from 1 to 9. That would give us 362,880 possible combinations of squares. That is more than enough combinations to give each word in a language as well as basic sentences their own combinations. These combinations would be agreed upon throughout the world.
When a traveller who did not understand the local language saw such a "Global Square" sign as we will call it, the traveller would simply click his phone onto translation mode, enter in the combination of numbered squares in order and, press zero for enter. The phone would display the meaning of the word or sentence in the traveller's own language. The translation of each combination of squares would be stored on a chip in the phone. The combinations, each of which would be assigned to a word or basic sentence, could also be expressed as numbers according to which ones of the nine squares were darkened, such as 134682957.
This square, divided into nine smaller squares, would also be the perfect symbol for globalization with the various people of the world not only being brought into closer contact but also gaining more understanding of each other. In my posting below "Parallel Revolutions", I described how the communications revolution is far outpacing the transportation revolution because it is still stuck on dependence on gasoline and other fossil fuels.
However, the communications revolution has a roadblock of it's own. No matter how easy we can make global communications, the fact remains that the people of the world speak about a thousand different languages.
The next step in the transportation revolution should definitely be to get away from reliance on gasoline and other fossil fuels. The next step in the communications revolution should be the utilizing the power of cell phones and computers to get beyond the language barrier.
Underwater Communications
There is one thing that I simply do not understand about communications with submarines and other underwater devices. Such communication has always been difficult. The radio waves that are used for communication on land do not travel well through water. For details look up "Submarine Communications" at http://www.wikipedia.com/
Efforts have been made to develop blue lasers for underwater communication because blue light is the color (colour) that can travel furthest through water without being absorbed. But this method cannot really be considered as satisfactory because the exact position of the sub must be known. Sound waves travel well through water and this has made sonar the undersea version of radar. The disadavantage of sonar, of course, is that in wartime the sub risks giving away it's position by using it.
I simply do not understand why we do not use the same principle that operates a microwave oven for underwater communications. This just seems so obvious to me. A molecule of water consists of an oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. However, this arrangement is not symmetrical and means that there will be a different charge each side of the molecule. In other words, the water molecule is polar.
Yet, a quantity of water is electrically neutral and manifests no electric charge. This can only mean that the water molecules align themselves negative to positive and this is why water molecules cling together in drops.
I believe that water should be our ally, instead of our enemy, in underwater communications. The trouble is that we have approached such communications with a terrestrial mindset, trying to adapt land-based methods of communication to the sea. Now, let's try a different approach.
Polar water molecules line up negative to positive into an equilibrium which the presence of an electric charge will disturb. This means that an alternating electric charge will create electrical waves in the water which can be used for communication. A microwave oven is a development rooted in the so-called "travelling wave tube" used in early radar sets.
In the microwave oven, alternating negative and positive charges are produced by electrons moving along a circular track. This causes water molecules in the food to flip over many times a second, producing the heat that cooks the food from within. The microwave cooking process is based on the electrical polarity of water molecules.
It should be simple to use this microwave principle for communications or range-finding under the water. All we have to do is broadcast the electric waves in the water outward instead of inward onto food.
If a portion of the hull of a submarine or an antenna were given alternating electric charges, waves in the position of the polar water molecules would emanate outward. No heat would be produced because each molecule would shift only once in each wave. The energy would thus go not into heat but into waves moving outward from the source.
Keep in mind that these are not electromagnetic waves that we would produce. They would be waves in the alignment of water molecules based on their electric polarity. This is something that we cannot relate to on land because air is not polar as water is.
Neither is it an electric current through the water. The transmitting antenna would not have electrons travelling from top to bottom and back as would a radio antenna. Rather, it would be an object which would bounce from having a negative charge to positive and back again. This would change the directional alignment of nearby water molecules, which would change the alignment of the molecules further out, and so on, thus creating a wave that can readily be used for communications.
Efforts have been made to develop blue lasers for underwater communication because blue light is the color (colour) that can travel furthest through water without being absorbed. But this method cannot really be considered as satisfactory because the exact position of the sub must be known. Sound waves travel well through water and this has made sonar the undersea version of radar. The disadavantage of sonar, of course, is that in wartime the sub risks giving away it's position by using it.
I simply do not understand why we do not use the same principle that operates a microwave oven for underwater communications. This just seems so obvious to me. A molecule of water consists of an oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. However, this arrangement is not symmetrical and means that there will be a different charge each side of the molecule. In other words, the water molecule is polar.
Yet, a quantity of water is electrically neutral and manifests no electric charge. This can only mean that the water molecules align themselves negative to positive and this is why water molecules cling together in drops.
I believe that water should be our ally, instead of our enemy, in underwater communications. The trouble is that we have approached such communications with a terrestrial mindset, trying to adapt land-based methods of communication to the sea. Now, let's try a different approach.
Polar water molecules line up negative to positive into an equilibrium which the presence of an electric charge will disturb. This means that an alternating electric charge will create electrical waves in the water which can be used for communication. A microwave oven is a development rooted in the so-called "travelling wave tube" used in early radar sets.
In the microwave oven, alternating negative and positive charges are produced by electrons moving along a circular track. This causes water molecules in the food to flip over many times a second, producing the heat that cooks the food from within. The microwave cooking process is based on the electrical polarity of water molecules.
It should be simple to use this microwave principle for communications or range-finding under the water. All we have to do is broadcast the electric waves in the water outward instead of inward onto food.
If a portion of the hull of a submarine or an antenna were given alternating electric charges, waves in the position of the polar water molecules would emanate outward. No heat would be produced because each molecule would shift only once in each wave. The energy would thus go not into heat but into waves moving outward from the source.
Keep in mind that these are not electromagnetic waves that we would produce. They would be waves in the alignment of water molecules based on their electric polarity. This is something that we cannot relate to on land because air is not polar as water is.
Neither is it an electric current through the water. The transmitting antenna would not have electrons travelling from top to bottom and back as would a radio antenna. Rather, it would be an object which would bounce from having a negative charge to positive and back again. This would change the directional alignment of nearby water molecules, which would change the alignment of the molecules further out, and so on, thus creating a wave that can readily be used for communications.
The Alphabet As Symbols
We have many terms that we use to describe the shapes or patterns in the world around us. Of course, there are the basic geometric shapes like circle, square and, triangle. Some things may be described as existing in layers or loops or, concentric circles. Others as egg-shaped or elliptical.
Commonly used terms to describe layout plans or patterns are star or tree. A highway interchange is referred to as a cloverleaf because of the similarity in shape. We also make use of the letters of the alphabet and the number 8 to describe the shapes of things. You may have heard terms such as; V-formation, S-curve. A-frame, I-beam or, Y-intersection. The letters D, C, L and, T are also used often to describe shapes or forms that would otherwise be more difficult to describe.
Our alphabet originated from earlier hieroglyphics. The first people to use an alphabet was probably the Phoenicians, an ancient nation around what is now Lebanon that was best-known for it's seafaring.
I got to thinking; now that we are in modern times, wouldn't it be a good idea to get the most use out of the alphabet by having all of the letters resembling some pattern or form that is in everyday use? Being able to simply refer to a letter to describe a common shape would make our language more efficient. The letters of the alphabet other than the ones I have listed above seem to have little or no form-symbol value.
It would make it easier to communicate efficiently if there was a letter like an upside down T, since this is the form of antennae, towers and, signposts supported on a horizontal base. A canyon-shape would be useful, like a V but three sides of a square. The division symbol used in arithmetic would also be useful, a line with a dot on each side of the line.
Another common form seen in roads with ramps is the joining of two perpendicular lines but with a partial loop instead of a right angle. Yet another practical modern symbol would be a circle like an O but with a dot in the middle, this form appears often with coaxial cables and also represents the radius a given distance from a central point. A crescent within a rectangle is a form frequently seen on street maps of cities and would make a useful letter.
A straight line meeting a curving line would be similarly useful. A straight line with two or three perpendicular lines meeting it would represent a common form in both street patterns and electrical wiring. Then, when we wanted to describe any such shapes or forms we could simply refer to the letter.
Commonly used terms to describe layout plans or patterns are star or tree. A highway interchange is referred to as a cloverleaf because of the similarity in shape. We also make use of the letters of the alphabet and the number 8 to describe the shapes of things. You may have heard terms such as; V-formation, S-curve. A-frame, I-beam or, Y-intersection. The letters D, C, L and, T are also used often to describe shapes or forms that would otherwise be more difficult to describe.
Our alphabet originated from earlier hieroglyphics. The first people to use an alphabet was probably the Phoenicians, an ancient nation around what is now Lebanon that was best-known for it's seafaring.
I got to thinking; now that we are in modern times, wouldn't it be a good idea to get the most use out of the alphabet by having all of the letters resembling some pattern or form that is in everyday use? Being able to simply refer to a letter to describe a common shape would make our language more efficient. The letters of the alphabet other than the ones I have listed above seem to have little or no form-symbol value.
It would make it easier to communicate efficiently if there was a letter like an upside down T, since this is the form of antennae, towers and, signposts supported on a horizontal base. A canyon-shape would be useful, like a V but three sides of a square. The division symbol used in arithmetic would also be useful, a line with a dot on each side of the line.
Another common form seen in roads with ramps is the joining of two perpendicular lines but with a partial loop instead of a right angle. Yet another practical modern symbol would be a circle like an O but with a dot in the middle, this form appears often with coaxial cables and also represents the radius a given distance from a central point. A crescent within a rectangle is a form frequently seen on street maps of cities and would make a useful letter.
A straight line meeting a curving line would be similarly useful. A straight line with two or three perpendicular lines meeting it would represent a common form in both street patterns and electrical wiring. Then, when we wanted to describe any such shapes or forms we could simply refer to the letter.
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