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  Discussion about math, puzzles, games and fun.   Useful symbols: ÷ × ½ √ ∞ ≠ ≤ ≥ ≈ ⇒ ± ∈ Δ θ ∴ ∑ ∫ • π ƒ -¹ ² ³ °

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#151 Re: Euler Avenue » Number Giants » 2007-06-14 05:33:22

I dunno... 10^(10!!!!!!!!!!) iterations loosely similar to the ones used to obtain G has gotta yield a HUGE number.

Here's a number definitely larger than G: 100->100->100->100->100->100->100.

#152 Re: Introductions » Genius stuck in France » 2007-06-13 09:31:15

Like I said, it LIMITS my potential. Anyway, there's something new over on the other part. I gotta get to bed now... it's 11:30 PM and I've got class tomorrow from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM.

#153 Re: Dark Discussions at Cafe Infinity » Basic Quantum Physics » 2007-06-13 06:46:27

Well, actually, the exact phrasing would be " he could calculate stuff faster than people could enter it into a calculator at the time".

#154 Re: Dark Discussions at Cafe Infinity » Cyphers and Codes » 2007-06-13 06:45:01

Morse code isn't used much any more, so it's handy to know if you want to send a message to someone with relatively low chances of it being intercepted.

There is another form of cryptography that relies on single photons being sent, polarized in a specific direction.

I've gotta run now, so I'll explain (to myself, it seems) later.

#155 Re: Euler Avenue » Number Giants » 2007-06-13 06:00:48

I think we're all straying from the subject at hand: Number Giants. What we're discussing here would be better described as "Problems with the communication of people".

Here is a big number:

x1=10!!!!!!!!!!! (10 factorials)
x2=10!!!!!!!!!!! (x1! factorials)
x3=10!!!!!!!!!!! (x2! factorials)
...
x(10^x1)=10!!!!!!!!!! (x((10^x1)-1)! factorials)

The last step is probably larger than graham's number, being the number of iterations.

#156 Re: Maths Is Fun - Suggestions and Comments » Metric System » 2007-06-13 04:24:04

it's spelled that way in French, perhaps a few other languages, too.

#157 Re: Introductions » Genius stuck in France » 2007-06-12 22:18:07

Sure thing, or is it?

The upload speed of my connection over here is unbelievably slow, somewhere around 4 KB/s.  This pretty much limits my ability to share things via the Net.

#158 Re: Dark Discussions at Cafe Infinity » Global Warming- It's Happening! » 2007-06-12 22:14:01

Like you said, the problem is, unfortunately, US, HUMAN BEINGS. This may be rather upsetting, but I'm just stating the facts as best as I can.

#159 Re: Euler Avenue » Number Giants » 2007-06-12 17:53:07

Please, stop arguing. The point is that the number in question is very likely to be infinite

picoseconds??

No, something more like an attosecond which is 10^-18 seconds. To give you an idea, an attometer is roughly the size of a quark...

Here are the prefixes for (relatively small) numbers from 10^18 to 10^-18:

Exa, Peta, Tera, Giga, Mega, Kilo.
Milli, Micro, Nano, Pico, Femto, Atto.

Here are some other ways to compare these:

Comparing a meter to a nanometer is like comparing the circumference of the Earth to that of a marble.
An atom is roughly 10 to 80 nanometers in diameter.
A picosecond is roughly the time between you hitting a key on your keyboard (contact being made) and the computer receiving the signal.
An exameter is over 300000000 times the distance between the Earth and the moon.

#160 Re: Euler Avenue » Number Giants » 2007-06-12 05:45:50

The thing that allows us to say that the number of combined circumstances leading up to any point in time is the following:

CHAOS THEORY

Chaos theory states that a small change will, over time, create a very large one in any iterative system. It can be said that evolution, breeding, and quite a few other things that directly or indirectly affect us are iterative systems. Also, you can see that very distant things can have big impacts on these systems.

The observation of some particular phenomenon on the other side of the galaxy which saves the life of the person who observed it, thus creating a slight change in the gene pool. This alteration might seem very minor, but, after a few generations, there might be a few traits that appear that the astronomer, long since dead, had. These traits could have some repercussions, which would have more, and so on.

This whole discussion was probably a bit astray from the main subject.

#161 Re: Euler Avenue » Number Giants » 2007-06-12 05:32:06

Here's what you could say about the number in question, in order to calculate it:

If time is discrete, rather than continuous, which, as far as I know it isn't, then your fist factor is countable. If not, it isn't.

If the universe is infinite, or is continuous, or both, then your second factor is infinite. If the universe is both finite AND discrete, then that second factor is not infinite.

It's pretty obvious from this that the number in question is infinite.

#162 Re: Dark Discussions at Cafe Infinity » Global Warming- It's Happening! » 2007-06-11 03:55:10

At the rate it's rising, it will take, say, a hundredth of that estimate.

#163 Re: Euler Avenue » Number Giants » 2007-06-11 03:53:52

Actually, I gave that statement some thought today, and, well, it seems that there may be a point at which the division of time is so short that nothing actually happens during it -- like the time it take for one electron to do a complete revolution around its nucleus, though that's still something happening.

#164 Re: Introductions » Genius stuck in France » 2007-06-11 03:50:47

Not really.

I do have the songs that I wrote, which I can convert to mp3s pretty easily. I wrote everything from classical music (I don't think it sounds great) to scores for a MMORPG that "we" are working on. The latter are songs in which the most prominent instruments are the electric guitar, the piano, some synth strings, and a rather large percussion section.

#165 Re: Euler Avenue » Number Giants » 2007-06-10 17:39:13

Basically, that number is pretty much infinite, being that time can be divided into infinitely small units.

#166 Re: Euler Avenue » Number Giants » 2007-06-06 00:01:35

Even Moser's number is pretty huge (I'm not sure exactly what it is). It obviously involves Moser's polygon notation, and I think it's something like this: a million inside a million-sided polygon, which is inside that number of that number-sided polygons.

If you don't quite get this, please tell me...

I feel like Euler Avenue is a deserted wasteland... nobody's posted for almost a month here.

#167 Re: Jokes » Lateral Thoughts » 2007-06-05 23:52:23

Sorry I haven't posted recently over here... I lost my books, and my other supplier, my uncle, is in the hospital. I'll send out some new stuff as soon as one of these sources is available.

#168 Re: Dark Discussions at Cafe Infinity » Basic Quantum Physics » 2007-06-05 23:50:48

I think I should have named the thread something like "Debates about stuff nobody really understands"...

I think what he means is that, if everything is predictable, it doesn't really change in the sense that your predictions are based upon something that doesn't change and you know this, otherwise, there's always a chance that your predictions might be off.

Sorry if this made things any more complicated than before, which is pretty hard.

#169 Re: Dark Discussions at Cafe Infinity » Global Warming- It's Happening! » 2007-06-05 04:15:24

Here's an interesting and scary movie to watch (everything in it is true): "Who killed the electric car?" There was also some documentary made with (and by) Al Gore (I think) of which I can't remember the name.

#170 Re: Dark Discussions at Cafe Infinity » Basic Quantum Physics » 2007-06-05 04:01:54

Sorry, that's not really quantum physics, but it's not the clearest thing to see either. If I'm not mistaken, that's Chaos Theory, which is loosely related to the quantum world, though slightly easier to understand.

#171 Re: Dark Discussions at Cafe Infinity » Basic Quantum Physics » 2007-06-05 03:39:45

The main thing you've gotta understand is that we can't be absolutely sure of anything.

Here's something to think about: how many variables lead to any given instant in history?

The answer: the number of particles in the universe multiplied by the time of existence of the universe before that instant. Assuming that time can be divided into infinitely small increments, and that particles may have that same characteristic (it probably doesn't, as far as we can tell), then there are an infinite amount of variables. This may seem exaggerated, but look at it this way: if 10000 years before our observed point, there was some tiny abnormality in one of the testicles of the ancestor of the person who is now observed, the descendant of that ancestor may not be exactly the same as without this tiny change, thus causing this person's descendants to be slightly more different each generation, the end result being that the person who does the event that we're observing doesn't do it quite the same, if at all.

#172 Re: Introductions » Genius stuck in France » 2007-06-05 03:28:22

I've only been playing for a year or so. I can't really say I'm great, but I've heard worse...

#173 Re: Dark Discussions at Cafe Infinity » Basic Quantum Physics » 2007-06-05 03:27:09

Like you said, Ricky, no-one really gets this, not even those who claim to be specialists in the matter. (no pun intended)

#174 Re: Dark Discussions at Cafe Infinity » Basic Quantum Physics » 2007-06-04 07:06:28

I'm not sure as to the details of this part, but I think it's something like this:

If you do the experiment while using equipment to record the behavior of the particles, you don't even actually see the same pattern, while if you record the information and delete it immediately, you do see the pattern. If you try to record the wave behavior of light, you get a different pattern, and if you delete that information instantly, you get the venetian blind pattern.

The conclusion that scientists have made is the following: Information in the present can influence perception in the past.

This is why most people struggle with the subject of quantum physics... It doesn't follow the rules that we can observe at the non-quantum level (the visible level).

#175 Dark Discussions at Cafe Infinity » Basic Quantum Physics » 2007-06-04 06:59:45

Laterally Speaking
Replies: 23

I told somebody (I can't remember who) that I'd post some stuff on quantum physics here.

An odd example of the odd world of quantum physics is the follow:

If you take a lamp, a piece of thick cardboard with TWO parallel slits cut in it, and a screen, and put them in that order, lined up, you would expect to see TWO lines on the screen corresponding to the slits in the shader, right? WRONG. What you get is a venetian blind pattern, with strips of light, shadow, and medium lighting alternating. Why?

The explanation lies with the wavelike characteristics of light. The light waves going through the two slits interfere with each other, creating the pattern.

This is where it gets weird:
If you use a light source that emits one photon at a time, one photon per minute (that's incredibly dim), you would expect that you wouldn't get the same pattern, because there's nothing to interfere with the one photon per minute, right? WRONG. You get the same pattern. Why?

Some may know the Uncertainty Principle. The most common example is this: if you put a cat and a fragile vial of cyanide in a box, close the box do not observe the inside in ANY WAY, you will have no way of knowing whether the cat is dead or alive. The way the physicists explain what happens is that the cat is, until you observe the actual state of it, BOTH DEAD AND ALIVE at the same time, or that the cat enters two parallel universes, one in which it's dead, the other alive. (Note that this example wasn't originally supposed to be one, apparently).

Back to the double-slit experiment.
The theory proposed is that the one photon per minute, since it's going UNOBSERVABLY
fast (the speed of light), it's going through BOTH slits at the same time, thus interfering with itself, creating the interference pattern. This is just the start of the weirdness of quantum physics.

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