Showing posts with label Benoit Mandelbrot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Benoit Mandelbrot. Show all posts

Monday, November 23, 2020

Solar Panel Revolution in the Wind?


           By AleSpa - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29290121

 

 I am encouraged by some research that is currently going on that is improving the efficiency of solar panels up and coming. This encouragement is based on designs I have seen in corollary manufacturing processes that could created a whole new industry.

It is a whole new research path that could greatly improve the energy retention otherwise seemingly at a standstill,  although these manufacturing processes for solar panels are currently inexpensive.

I have been pondering these ideas for sometime now and since the move to electrics for transportation is now more important then ever as I open the door to the studious and bright innovators who wonder about these potentials.


New solar panel design could increase efficiency by 125%

 Dr. Christian Schuster, researcher from the Department of Physics, told The Week news “We found a simple trick for boosting the absorption of slim solar cells. Our investigations show that our idea actually rivals the absorption enhancement of more sophisticated designs, while also absorbing more light deep in the plane and less light near the surface structure itself. Our design rule meets all relevant aspects of light trapping for solar cells, clearing the way for simple, practical, and yet outstanding diffractive structures, with a potential impact beyond photonic applications.” He added, “This design offers potential to further integrate solar cells into thinner, flexible materials and therefore create more opportunity to use solar power in more products.”

 

 

 See also: Frogs, Foam and Fuel: UC Researchers Convert Solar Energy to Sugars

 

Sunday, November 10, 2019

An Experience, with the Big Bang?


Suddenly it was completely clear. I could understand it! It was an unbelievably complex, yet self-explanatory evolution of concentric patterns growing out of concentric patterns; like self-generating, hyper-dimensional mandalas recursively blossoming, like flowers, out of the centers of previous hyper-dimensional mandalas, ad infinitum, but with a single point of origin from where it all emanated. This point of origin, this Source of it all, however, remained elusive: hidden behind the layers of wonders growing outwards from it. Somehow, the way new patterns unfolded and evolved was already entirely encoded in, and determined by, the very shapes, angles, and proportions entailed by previous patterns, so that no new primary information was ever added to the thing as it evolved. The entire story was already fully contained in it from the very beginning, and it was simply unpacking and manifesting itself in all its indescribable glory. It was a thing of startling power and beauty, yet put together with a level of sophistication and perfection that goes way beyond anything I could compare it to. ... This was the answer to the question that haunted me my entire life: ... One simply needed to “look” at it with the mind’s eye to know that this is how reality came to being; this is how nature was formed. ... All of reality seems to be the unfolding of a thought pattern in the imagination. Dreamed Up Reality by Bernardo Kastrup

See: The Symbolic Big Bang

See Also:Fractals and Antennas

Friday, December 05, 2014

Affective Field Theory of Emotion

 "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love. Albert Einstein"

While developing a philosophical understanding of emotion it has come to mind that research over the years has provided a model consideration for understanding the valence affect. This valence affect with regard to the Decision making process that from a cognitive standpoint is inclusive of logical and emotive forces. This process was a long one in which I thought to place ourselves,  in terms of a self evident point of expression,  so as to suggest,  the next question rests on a Inductive realization with which the history has thus far been explained.

So the totality of this entry is an examination with regard to emotion and its necessity in the logic analysis approach to such a question. To what is self evident. To what is decisive.

The next step is always important.  So I had to demonstrate the current historical examination for what has been done with regard to emotion so that I could reveal some of the work that I had done in the years past.

 This work then is a stepping point toward a new and entertaining thought about what the next technologies might reveal about our emotive and logical state of being as we make our decisions with all that we had gained with in experience. So the next step is a series of posts that will reflect this attempt by me to objectify what has thought to been totally subjective and without regard.

"No aspect of our mental life is more important to the quality and meaning of our existence than emotions. They are what make life worth living, or sometimes ending. So it is not surprising that most of the great classical philosophers—Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Descartes, Hobbes, Hume—had recognizable theories of emotion, conceived as responses to certain sorts of events of concern to a subject, triggering bodily changes and typically motivating characteristic behavior. What is surprising is that in much of the twentieth-century philosophers of mind and psychologists tended to neglect them—perhaps because the sheer variety of phenomena covered by the word “emotion” and its closest neighbors tends to discourage tidy theory. In recent years, however, emotions have once again become the focus of vigorous interest in philosophy, as well as in other branches of cognitive science. In view of the proliferation of increasingly fruitful exchanges between researchers of different stripes, it is no longer useful to speak of the philosophy of emotion in isolation from the approaches of other disciplines, particularly psychology, neurology, evolutionary biology, and even economics. While it is quite impossible to do justice to those approaches here, some sidelong glances in their direction will aim to suggest their philosophical importance. de Sousa, Ronald, "Emotion", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),"

"If the view that emotions are a kind of perception can be sustained, then the connection between emotion and cognition will have been secured. But there is yet another way of establishing this connection, compatible with the perceptual model. This is to draw attention to the role of emotions as providing the framework for cognitions of the more conventional kind. de Sousa (1987) and Amélie Rorty (1980) propose this sort of account, according to which emotions are not so much perceptions as they are ways of seeing—species of determinate patterns of salience among objects of attention, lines of inquiry, and inferential strategies (see also Roberts 2003).de Sousa, Ronald, "Emotion", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Emotion"
.
"Under the Heading of #6. Perceptual Theories-A crucial mandate of cognitivist theories is to avert the charge that emotions are merely “subjective.” But propositional attitudes are not the only cognitive states. A more basic feature of cognition is that is has a “mind-to-world direction of fit.” The expression is meant to sum up the contrast between cognition and the conative orientation, in which success is defined in terms of the opposite, world-to-mind, direction of fit (Searle 1983). We will or desire what does not yet exist, and deem ourselves successful if the world is brought into line with the mind's plan
The exploration of questions raised by these characteristics is a thriving ongoing collaborative project in the theory of emotions, in which philosophy will continue both to inform and to draw on a wide range of philosophical expertise as well as the parallel explorations of other branches of cognitive science. Conclusion: Adequacy Conditions on Philosophical Theories of Emotion -de Sousa, Ronald, "Emotion", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Emotion"
"Thus, secondary reflection is one important aspect of our access to the self. It is the properly philosophical mode of reflection because, in Marcel's view, philosophy must return to concrete situations if it is to merit the name “philosophy.” These difficult reflections are “properly philosophical” insofar as they lead to a more truthful, more intimate communication with both myself and with any other person whom these reflections include (Marcel 1951a, pp. 79–80). Secondary reflection, which recoups the unity of experience, points the way toward a fuller understanding of the participation alluded to in examples of the mysterious.Primary and Secondary Reflection-Treanor, Brian, "Gabriel (-Honoré) Marcel", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming Marcel Gabriele."
"Early decision theorists recognized the importance of emotion and discussed it in detail (e.g., Bentham, 1789; Jevons, 1871; Smith, 1759). Nevertheless, emotions did not make it into decision research because they were seen as intrinsically unstable and unpredictable, partly because they could not be measured objectively. Today, most problems with unpredictability and immeasurability of emotions have been solved. Emotions can be reliably measured in various verbal (e.g., via rating scales) and non-verbal ways (e.g., via FACS or facial EMG’s; Larsen & Fredrickson, 1999; Parrott, & Hertel, 1999). More- over, the impact of emotion on behavior is actually sim- pler and more systematic than previously thought. Emo- tions behave lawfully (Frijda, 1988, 2006), and their con- sequences are clear, stable and quite predictable. This has opened up opportunities for an integrative account of the different emotional influences on decision making. We present such an account in this article.On emotion specificity in decision making: Why feeling is for doing-(PDF) Marcel Zeelenberg∗1, Rob M. A. Nelissen1, Seger M. Breugelmans2, & Rik Pieters3 1 Department of Social Psychology and TIBER, Tilburg University 2 Department of Developmental, Clinical and Cross-cultural Psychology, Tilburg University 3 Department of Marketing and TIBER, Tilburg University"
 

"We can now restate our opening questions. Is the special felt qualitative tendency in valence, as it is structurally represented in descriptive theories, an intrinsic feature of emotion experience as such; that is, something that exists prior to the self-reports that describe it? Or is it instead created and structured by features of second-order awareness, such as these self- reports? The argument here is that valence is created by attention in sec- ond-order awareness. There is nothing scientifically objective or precise that we can say about valence apart from its elaboration in second-order awareness. Second-order awareness does not create the underlying phenomenology of emotion experience, but it does shape and articulate what exactly it means to us. This conclusion would appear to threaten the scientific foundation of descriptive theories of affect, because it undermines the objectivity of the phenomenon they claim to study. It also contradicts the driving assumption of several dominant neuroscientific theories of valence, according to which valence is an intrinsic objective property of affective experience.Emotion Experience and the Indeterminacy of Valence by LOUIS C. CHARLAND"

 "Emotions are the key to the human decision making processes since decisions and actions are primary irrational and not cognitive-The Emotions in Emotions Analytics"
" The sort of mental processes described as cognitive are largely influenced by research which has successfully used this paradigm in the past, likely starting with Thomas Aquinas, who divided the study of behavior into two broad categories: cognitive (how we know the world), and affective (how we understand the world via feelings and emotions)[disputed ].[citation needed] Consequently, this description tends to apply to processes such as memory, association, concept formation, pattern recognition, language, attention, perception, action, problem solving and mental imagery.[14][15] Traditionally, emotion was not thought of as a cognitive process. This division is now regarded as largely artificial, and much research is currently being undertaken to examine the cognitive psychology of emotion; research also includes one's awareness of one's own strategies and methods of cognition called metacognition and includes metamemory. 
Research into cognition is usually scientific and quantitative, or involves creating models to describe or explain certain behaviors. Cognition"
***
 The part of the body in which the soul directly exercises its functions is not the heart at all, or the whole of the brain. It is rather the innermost part of the brain, which is a certain very small gland situated in the middle of the brain's substance and suspended above the passage through which the spirits in the brain's anterior cavities communicate with those in its posterior cavities. The slightest movements on the part of this gland may alter very greatly the course of these spirits, and conversely any change, however slight, taking place in the course of the spirits may do much to change the movements of the gland” (AT XI:351, CSM I:340). The Passions of the Soul "
 "The word endocrine derives from the Greek words ἐνδο- endo- "inside, within," and κρίνειν krinein "to separate, distinguish".Endocrine system -"

 "The thymus was known to the ancient Greeks, and its name comes from the Greek word θυμός (thumos), meaning "anger",[22] or "heart, soul, desire, life", possibly because of its location in the chest, near where emotions are subjectively felt; or else the name comes from the herb thyme (also in Greek θύμος or θυμάρι), which became the name for a "warty excrescence", possibly due to its resemblance to a bunch of thyme Thymus -"


"The James–Lange theory has remained influential. Its main contribution is the emphasis it places on the embodiment of emotions, especially the argument that changes in the bodily concomitants of emotions can alter their experienced intensity. Most contemporary neuroscientists would endorse a modified James–Lange view in which bodily feedback modulates the experience of emotion." (p. 583)James–Lange theory -"
"Phillip Bard contributed to the theory with his work on animals. Bard found that sensory, motor, and physiological information all had to pass through the diencephalon (particularly the thalamus), before being subjected to any further processing. Therefore, Cannon also argued that it was not anatomically possible for sensory events to trigger a physiological response prior to triggering conscious awareness and emotional stimuli had to trigger both physiological and experiential aspects of emotion simultaneously.[33]Cannon–Bard theory -"

"Maranon found that most of these patients felt something but in the absence of an actual emotion-evoking stimulus, the patients were unable to interpret their physiological arousal as an experienced emotion. Schachter did agree that physiological reactions played a big role in emotions. He suggested that physiological reactions contributed to emotional experience by facilitating a focused cognitive appraisal of a given physiologically arousing event and that this appraisal was what defined the subjective emotional experience. Emotions were thus a result of two-stage process: general physiological arousal, and experience of emotion.Two-factor theory -"

 ***

TEDxSF - Roz Picard - Emotion Technology -http://youtu.be/ujxriwApPP4

Empatica is an affective computing company, focused on human data analytics. We develop groundbreaking wearable devices with medical quality sensing.-
Skin conductance response in regular subjects differs when given fair and unfair offers, respectively. However, psychopaths have been shown to have no difference in skin conductance between fair and unfair offers.[2] This may indicate that the use of lie detectors relying on skin conductivity gives psychopaths an advantage that non-psychopaths do not have in criminal investigations.-"
 "Whether scientific method is at all suited for the study of the subjective aspect of emotion, feelings, is a question for philosophy of science and epistemology. In practise, the use of self-report (i.e. questionnaires) has been widely adopted by researchers. Additionally, web-based research is being used to conduct large-scale studies on the components of happiness for example. Alongside this researchers also use fMRI, EEG and physiological measures of skin conductance, muscle tension and hormone secretion. This hybrid approach should allow researchers to gradually pinpoint the affective phenomenon. There are also a few commercial systems available that claim to measure emotions, for instance using automated video analysis (nViso) or skin conductance (Affectiva).Affective Science -"






" Founded in 2011, Nymi is a spinoff from the University of Toronto, focused on delivering unique and usable digital identity solutions. The company's first product is the Nymi Band, a wearable technology device that delivers Persistent Identity experiences by using the wearer's unique electric cardiac signature as a biometric. Nymi is proudly based in Toronto and is privately-funded by Ignition Partners, Relay Ventures, MasterCard and Salesforce Ventures. http://www.nymi.com/news/now-nymi/"
"Affective computing is the study and development of systems and devices that can recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning computer science, psychology, and cognitive science.[1] While the origins of the field may be traced as far back as to early philosophical enquiries into emotion,[2] the more modern branch of computer science originated with Rosalind Picard's 1995 paper[3] on affective computing.[4][5] A motivation for the research is the ability to simulate empathy. The machine should interpret the emotional state of humans and adapt its behaviour to them, giving an appropriate response for those emotions.Affective Computing -"

The advances made and put forth here paint a different picture then the one assumed here in regard to the development of emotions that work toward identifying innate characteristics of the person? As well, as factors that are now discernible physiologically with regard to the economics of barter and trade. This observation goes back to principle inherent in wireless communication(as fractal antennas) and the work of Benoit Mandelbrot who brought forward through recognition, its utilization of fractals and development by Seth Cohen.
 ***

" In view of the proliferation of increasingly fruitful exchanges between researchers of different stripes, it is no longer useful to speak of the philosophy of emotion in isolation from the approaches of other disciplines, particularly psychology, neurology, evolutionary biology, and even economics.
 Twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy and psychology tended to incorporate emotions into other, better understood mental categories. Under the influence of a “tough-minded” ideology committed to behaviorism, it seemed easier to look for adequate theories of action or will, as well as theories of belief or knowledge, than to construct adequate theories of emotion. Economic models of rational decision and agency inspired by Bayesian theory are essentially assimilative models, viewing emotion either as a species of belief, or as a species of desire.

That enviably resilient Bayesian model has been cracked, in the eyes of many philosophers, by such refractory phenomena as akrasia or “weakness of will.” In cases of akrasia, traditional descriptive rationality seems to be violated, insofar as the “strongest” desire does not win, even when paired with the appropriate belief (Davidson 1980). Emotion is ready to pick up the slack. Recent work, often drawing support from the burgeoning study of the emotional brain, has recognised that while emotions typically involve both cognitive and conative states, they are distinct from both, if only in being significantly more complex. Emotion-
de Sousa, Ronald, "Emotion", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)"

 "The subjective theory of value is a theory of value which advances the idea that the value of a good is not determined by any inherent property of the good, nor by the amount of labor required to produce the good, but instead value is determined by the importance an acting individual places on a good for the achievement of their desired ends-
In the philosophy of decision theory, Bayesian inference is closely related to discussions of subjective probability, often called "Bayesian probability". Bayesian probability provides a rational method for updating beliefs.

Bayesian epistemology is an epistemological movement that uses techniques of Bayesian inference as a means of justifying the rules of inductive logic.Bayesian Inference"

 "Decision theory in economics, psychology, philosophy, mathematics, and statistics is concerned with identifying the values, uncertainties and other issues relevant in a given decision, its rationality, and the resulting optimal decision. It is closely related to the field of game theory as to interactions of agents with at least partially conflicting interests whose decisions affect each other. Decision  Theory -"
"In economics, the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, emotions are analyzed in some sub-fields of microeconomics, in order to assess the role of emotions on purchase decision-making and risk perception Disciplinary approaches -"
 

"Broadly speaking, there are two views on Bayesian probability that interpret the 'probability' concept in different ways. For objectivists, probability objectively measures the plausibility of propositions, i.e. the probability of a proposition corresponds to a reasonable belief everyone (even a "robot") sharing the same knowledge should share in accordance with the rules of Bayesian statistics, which can be justified by requirements of rationality and consistency.[2][5] Requirements of rationality and consistency are also important for subjectivists, for which the probability corresponds to a 'personal belief'.[6] For subjectivists however, rationality and consistency constrain the probabilities a subject may have, but allow for substantial variation within those constraints. The objective and subjective variants of Bayesian probability differ mainly in their interpretation and construction of the prior probability.Objective and subjective Bayesian probabilities -"
***

"Contemporary analytic philosophers of mind generally use the term “belief” to refer to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true. To believe something, in this sense, needn't involve actively reflecting on it: Of the vast number of things ordinary adults believe, only a few can be at the fore of the mind at any single time. Nor does the term “belief”, in standard philosophical usage, imply any uncertainty or any extended reflection about the matter in question (as it sometimes does in ordinary English usage). Many of the things we believe, in the relevant sense, are quite mundane: that we have heads, that it's the 21st century, that a coffee mug is on the desk. Forming beliefs is thus one of the most basic and important features of the mind, and the concept of belief plays a crucial role in both philosophy of mind and epistemology.Belief -"

 Forming beliefs is thus one of the most basic and important features of the mind, and the concept of belief plays a crucial role in both philosophy of mind and epistemology. The “mind-body problem”, for example, so central to philosophy of mind, is in part the question of whether and how a purely physical organism can have beliefs. Much of epistemology revolves around questions about when and how our beliefs are justified or qualify as knowledge. Belief -

 Nevertheless, many contemporary philosophers of science and analytic philosophers are strongly critical of Popper's philosophy of science.[14] Popper's mistrust of inductive reasoning has led to claims that he misrepresents scientific practice. Among the professional philosophers of science, the Popperian view has never been seriously preferred to probabilistic induction, which is the mainstream account of scientific reasoning.Falsifiability -
See also: The Logic of Scientific Discovery (PDF)

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Information Technology



Who are we? And what is our role in the universe? Information technology is radically changing not only how we deal with the world and make sense of it, or interact with each other, but also how we look at ourselves and understand our own existence and responsibilities. Philosophy Professor Floridi ( @Floridi ) will discuss such impact of information technology on our lives and on our self-understanding; he will take us along the Copernican revolution, the Darwinian revolution, the Freudian revolution right up to speed with the Turing revolution: a world of inforgs in a global environment ultimately made of information. Floridi will talk about expanding our ecological and ethical approach to both natural and man-made realities, in order to cope successfully with the new moral challenges posed by information technology. Ready for some philosophy? You bet!

http://www.tedxmaastricht.com

Saturday, April 06, 2013

AEREO's Antenna




The Antenna- We're sorry but you are not currently located within Aereo's market area. Aereo is available exclusively in the New York City metropolitan area. Please come back and try again when you're in the area

Some of you who have been following my blog entries might have seen some correspondence with regard to Fractals and Antennas and The Economy

 Consumers have the right to access broadcast television for free via an antenna because the public owns the airwaves.  Use of that valuable spectrum is licensed by the public to the broadcasters with the obligation that broadcasters must operate in the “public interest, convenience, and necessity.” See: Innovation, Progress and Consumer Choice

By studying some of the back ground information here you might have seen and understood what AEREO has done.



See: SECOND CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS UPHOLDS DISTRICT COURT DECISION IN FAVOR OF AEREO




Aereo is a technology company based in New York City that allows subscribers to view live as well as time-shifted streams of over-the-air television on Internet-connected devices.[1] The service launched in February 2012[2] and is backed by Barry Diller's IAC.[3] Immediately following Aereo's launch in New York City the company was sued by a consortium of major broadcasters, including CBS, NBCUniversal, Disney's ABC and Newscorp's Fox for copyright infringement.

 

Contents

 

Service


An array of Aereo antennas. Each antenna is about the size of a coin.

Aereo's technology allows subscribers to view live broadcast content and to record it for later viewing.[4] As of October 2012, Aereo can be installed on Mac & PC [5] using a compatible browser, and iOS devices including the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or Apple TV (2nd & 3rd Gen) via AirPlay.[1] A Roku video player can be used when one of the Apple mobile devices is also present.[5]

As of June 2012, the service offers 28 channels, including all major broadcast channels. In August 2012, the company announced new monthly and yearly pricing options, $1 a day and 'Aereo Try for Free.' Monthly plans start at $8 for 20 hours of DVR storage and $12 for 40 hours of storage. A yearly subscription is $80.[6]
The service is only available to customers in New York City. During times when customers venture out of the normal broadcasting range for network television in New York City, they will not be able to access the service.[4]

Aereo is able to provide this service by leasing to each user an individual remote antenna. Thousands of them are stored in a data center in Brooklyn where it also houses its data servers.[4][7][8] This distinguishes Aereo from purely internet-based streaming services.[9]

 

Coverage


On January 8, 2013, Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia announced Spring 2013 plans to expand to the following US cities:[10]

 

Legal controversy


On March 1, 2012, Aereo was sued by a consortium of network broadcasters who argued that Aereo infringed their copyrighted material because Aereo's streams constituted public performances. They sought a preliminary injunction against the company.[11][12] On July 11, Federal Judge Alison Nathan denied this injunction, citing as precedent the 2008 Cablevision case, which established the legality of cloud-based streaming and DVR services.[13] In response to the decision, Aereo Founder and CEO Chet Kanojia said “Today’s decision shows that when you are on the right side of the law, you can stand up, fight the Goliath and win.”[14] In a subsequent interview with CNET, Kanojia asserted, “With one step, we changed the entire TV industry. The television industry and its evolution are now starting towards the Internet and that was stopped until Aereo came along...And I think as consumers start migrating to the Internet, new programming and new content are going to come in.” [15] The plaintiffs appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Several other players in the industry, such as cable provider Cablevision, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Consumer Electronics Association filed amicus briefs.[16]

Broadcasters argue that Aereo is a threat both to their business model, specifically the re-transmission fees that cable companies pay broadcasters for their content, and to their audience.[17] Because the fees cable companies pay for broadcast content can comprise up to 10% of a broadcaster's revenue,[18] broadcasters object to Aereo's re-distribution of this content without paying any fees. Broadcasters have also identified Aereo as part of the cord-cutting trend among TV audiences, and diminishing or aging audiences pose a threat to broadcasters' advertising revenue.[19]

On April 1, 2013, the federal appeals court upheld the lower court's ruling, finding that Aereo’s streams to subscribers were not "public performances", and thus did not constitute copyright infringement. The appeals court also affirmed the earlier district court decision that denied the broadcasters a preliminary injunction against Aereo.[20]

 

Reception


Reviews of Aereo have been positive,[21][22][23][24] including one by The Wall Street Journal’s Katherine Boehret, who commented on Aereo’s “clean user interface that works well on iPad...and its video quality [that] is startlingly good,” [1]

PC Magazine gave the service a middling review. It complained of the limited channel options, limited availability, and high cost.[25] It did, however, praise the interoperability the service offered.

 

References

 

  1. ^ a b c Boehret, Katherine. "Aereo Shines With Live TV on the Go". Wall Street Journal.
  2. ^ "Aereo Announces $20.5M Series A Financing Led by IAC; New Technology Platform Allows Consumers Access to Live TV Over the Internet".
  3. ^ Stelter, Brian. "New Service Will Stream Local TV Stations in New York". New York Times.
  4. ^ a b c http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/05/21/aereo/
  5. ^ a b Aereo Browser Viewing
  6. ^ Warren, Christina. "Aereo Makes Cutting the Cord Even Easier, And Cheaper". Mashable. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
  7. ^ Moskovciak, Matthew. "Aereo brings over-the-air TV to the cloud". CNET. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
  8. ^ Stewart, Christopher. "High Noon for Diller's Aereo". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 24 May 2012.
  9. ^ Fung, Amanda. "Tech startup wheels into ex-tire plant". Crains New York. Retrieved 10 April 2012.
  10. ^ http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/08/aereo-raises-38-million-series-b-plans-to-bring-its-streaming-tv-service-to-22-new-markets/
  11. ^ King, Cecilia. "Broadcasters sue to stop Diller’s Aereo streaming TV service". Washington Post. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  12. ^ Stewart, Christopher. "Networks Sue Aereo Streaming Start-Up". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  13. ^ Kramer, Staci. "Diller and Aereo win first round: injunction denied". PaidContent. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  14. ^ "AEREO PREVAILS IN PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION PROCEEDING".
  15. ^ Sandoval, Greg. "Aereo's founder has broadcast TV in a headlock--now what? (Q&A)". CNET.
  16. ^ Grotticelli, Michael. "Aereo gets support in legal case against broadcasters". BroadcastEngineering. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  17. ^ Kang, Cecelia. "As users flock to iTunes, Hulu and Netflix, TV stations struggle to survive". Washington Post. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  18. ^ http://seekingalpha.com/article/902241-cbs-keeps-broadcast-profitable-atop-retransmission-syndication-fees-for-now
  19. ^ Sandoval, Greg (3 June 2012). "A bet that Diller-backed Aereo TV startup wins its day in court". CNET. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
  20. ^ Brian Stelter, "Aereo Wins Appeal; Trial Likely for Streaming TV", New York Times, April 1, 2013. Accessed April 1, 2013.
  21. ^ Wice, Nathaniel. "A Cord Cutter's Dream Come True". Barrons. Retrieved 24 March 2012.
  22. ^ Deleon, Nicholas. "MIXED SIGNALS Streaming TV startup Aereo, bane of broadcast networks, gets it mostly right". The Daily. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
  23. ^ Aguilar, Mario. "Aereo Hands-On: Watch Broadcast TV Wherever and Whenever You Want". Gizmodo. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
  24. ^ Warren, Christina. "Aereo Gives New Yorkers Online Access to Live TV [HANDS ON]". Mashable. Retrieved 28 February 2012.
  25. ^ http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2401512,00.asp

 

External links

 

Monday, March 04, 2013

Plinko and the Galton(quincunx) Board

See Plinko Probability 2.02 A working replica of the machine  (following a slightly modified design.)

There is this randomness that seems to take hold over my thoughts regarding probability. The thoughts question how we can even know with certainty when something is going end in a result.  To know this before hand.

In a way this is what drew me to outcomes  seen and expressed as scenarios given in context of Game theory in terms of negotiation.  I would like to give a little shout out to the work John Baez is doing in that regard.

Predicting economic events with some certainty(?) and here the questions of Nassim Taleb and the Black Swan raises its head again. Fractal Antennas. A lot of things have elevated the discussion for me as to wonder how we have graduated  to a degree to a level of perception that was not so obvious before.

Both the theorists and the experimentalists looked only at the pile of tokens that landed in a particular slot at the bottom of the Plinko board. While the experimentalists had a set of guidelines about how the tokens should have gotten there and excluded any tokens that didn’t follow the rules, the theorists didn’t care as much about that. They were primarily concerned with the mass of the initial particles, the mass of the final particles and the ratio between them.

When the initial massive particles decay into lighter ones, the total energy must be conserved. Sometimes this energy goes missing; if the missing energy adds up to a certain amount, it could mean that a supersymmetric particle carried it away without being detected.See:Keep it simple, SUSY

It also deals with Particle physics and collision processes as the link suggests at the bottom of this entry. So it seems we are getting some kind of hold on this probability and outcome in terms of what was a random act can now become specific and predictable.




If you get the opportunity to watch the latest show of Touch I thought it interesting,  as I see this fellow searching all over for a machine that is mechanical and not electronic,  to use for a project for Amelia.

What is capture in the picture here below is what made this interesting. While a fictional story,  Amelia is capable of being able to determine the randomness of a dropped ball,  even before the result is known. This kidnapping is somehow recognized as a necessary evil when taking Amelia. They want to teach another computer to be able track the neurons as she relays the pockets with which the balls drop as some underlying algorithmic process sequencing.



 


The idea for me while it is nice it is so plain that we could map such an abstract mind to have encompassed such probabilities. It is again with such forth sight that I came to such a vision as an  encompassing one, held above such statistics.  Natures way. If you must, a overlord position using the recognition of Powers of ten,  for as such a view is to contain,  all must contain such outcomes.

So this part of this post is not finished, as ideas will spring up as people and scientists talk about different things. For me,  it is about seeing these "abstract things" as viable entries into the recognizable as functions of our everyday lives.





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Saturday, February 09, 2013

What is Life?

WHAT IS LIFE? ERWIN SCHRODINGER

First published 1944 What is life? 

The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell. Based on lectures delivered under the auspices of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies at Trinity College, Dublin, in February 1943.



What Is Life? is a 1944 non-fiction science book written for the lay reader by physicist Erwin Schrödinger. The book was based on a course of public lectures delivered by Schrödinger in February 1943, under the auspices of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies at Trinity College, Dublin. The lectures attracted an audience of about 400, who were warned "that the subject-matter was a difficult one and that the lectures could not be termed popular, even though the physicist’s most dreaded weapon, mathematical deduction, would hardly be utilized."[1] Schrödinger's lecture focused on one important question: "how can the events in space and time which take place within the spatial boundary of a living organism be accounted for by physics and chemistry?"[1]

In the book, Schrödinger introduced the idea of an "aperiodic crystal" that contained genetic information in its configuration of covalent chemical bonds. In the 1950s, this idea stimulated enthusiasm for discovering the genetic molecule. Although the existence of DNA had been known since 1869, its role in reproduction and its helical shape were still unknown at the time of Schrödinger's lecture. In retrospect, Schrödinger's aperiodic crystal can be viewed as a well-reasoned theoretical prediction of what biologists should have been looking for during their search for genetic material. Both James D. Watson,[2] and independently, Francis Crick, co-discoverers of the structure of DNA, credited Schrödinger's book with presenting an early theoretical description of how the storage of genetic information would work, and each respectively acknowledged the book as a source of inspiration for their initial researches.[3]

Contents

Background


The book is based on lectures delivered under the auspices of the Institute at Trinity College, Dublin, in February 1943 and published in 1944. At that time DNA was not yet accepted as the carrier of hereditary information, which only was the case after the Hershey–Chase experiment of 1952. One of the most successful branches of physics at this time was statistical physics, and quantum mechanics, a theory which is also very statistical in its nature. Schrödinger himself is one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics.
Max Delbrück's thinking about the physical basis of life was an important influence on Schrödinger.[4] Geneticist and 1946 Nobel-prize winner H.J. Muller had in his 1922 article "Variation due to Change in the Individual Gene"[5] already laid out all the basic properties of the heredity molecule that Schrödinger derives from first principles in What is Life?, properties which Muller refined in his 1929 article "The Gene As The Basis of Life"[6] and further clarified during the 1930s, long before the publication of What is Life?[7] [verification needed] But the role of the macromolecule DNA as the genetic material was not yet suspected in 1929, rather, some form of protein was expected to be the genetic material at that time.

Content


In chapter I, Schrödinger explains that most physical laws on a large scale are due to chaos on a small scale. He calls this principle "order-from-disorder." As an example he mentions diffusion, which can be modeled as a highly ordered process, but which is caused by random movement of atoms or molecules. If the number of atoms is reduced, the behaviour of a system becomes more and more random. He states that life greatly depends on order and that a naive physicist may assume that the master code of a living organism has to consist of a large number of atoms.

In chapter II and III, he summarizes what was known at this time about the hereditary mechanism. Most importantly, he elaborates the important role mutations play in evolution. He concludes that the carrier of hereditary information has to be both small in size and permanent in time, contradicting the naive physicist's expectation. This contradiction cannot be resolved by classical physics.

In chapter IV, Schrödinger presents molecules, which are indeed stable even if they consist of only a few atoms, as the solution. Even though molecules were known before, their stability could not be explained by classical physics, but is due to the discrete nature of quantum mechanics. Furthermore mutations are directly linked to quantum leaps.
He continues to explain, in chapter V, that true solids, which are also permanent, are crystals. The stability of molecules and crystals is due to the same principles and a molecule might be called "the germ of a solid." On the other hand an amorphous solid, without crystalline structure, should be regarded as a liquid with a very high viscosity. Schrödinger believes the heredity material to be a molecule, which unlike a crystal does not repeat itself. He calls this an aperiodic crystal. The aperiodic nature allows to encode an almost infinite number of possibilities with a small number of atoms. He finally compares this picture with the known facts and finds it in accordance with them.
In chapter VI Schrödinger states:

...living matter, while not eluding the "laws of physics" as established up to date, is likely to involve "other laws of physics" hitherto unknown, which however, once they have been revealed, will form just as integral a part of science as the former.
He knows that this statement is open to misconception and tries to clarify it. The main principle involved with "order-from-disorder" is the second law of thermodynamics, according to which entropy only increases in a closed system (such as the universe). Schrödinger explains that living matter evades the decay to thermodynamical equilibrium by homeostatically maintaining negative entropy (today this quantity is called information[8]) in an open system.

In chapter VII, he maintains that "order-from-order" is not absolutely new to physics; in fact, it is even simpler and more plausible. But nature follows "order-from-disorder", with some exceptions as the movement of the celestial bodies and the behaviour of mechanical devices such as clocks. But even those are influenced by thermal and frictional forces. The degree to which a system functions mechanically or statistically depends on the temperature. If heated, a clock ceases to function, because it melts. Conversely, if the temperature approaches absolute zero, any system behaves more and more mechanically. Some systems approach this mechanical behaviour rather fast with room temperature already being practically equivalent to absolute zero.

Schrödinger concludes this chapter and the book with philosophical speculations on determinism, free will, and the mystery of human consciousness. He believes he must reconcile two premises: (1) the body fully obeys the laws of quantum mechanics, where quantum indeterminacy plays no important role except to increase randomness at the quantum scale; and (2) there is "incontrovertible direct experience" that we freely direct our bodies, can predict outcomes, and take responsibility for our choice of action. Schrödinger rejects the idea that the source of consciousness should perish with the body because he finds the idea "distasteful". He also rejects the idea that there are multiple immortal souls that can exist without the body because he believes that consciousness is nevertheless highly dependent on the body. Schrödinger writes that, to reconcile the two premises,
The only possible alternative is simply to keep to the immediate experience that consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown; that there is only one thing and that what seems to be a plurality is merely a series of different aspects of this one thing...
Any intuitions that consciousness is plural, he says, are illusions. Schrödinger is sympathetic to the Hindu concept of Brahman, by which each individual's consciousness is only a manifestation of a unitary consciousness pervading the universe - which corresponds to the Hindu concept of God. Schrödinger concludes that "...'I' -am the person, if any, who controls the 'motion of the atoms' according to the Laws of Nature. However, he also qualifies the conclusion as "necessarily subjective" in its "philosophical implications." In the final paragraph, he points out that what is meant by "I" is not the collection of experienced events but "namely the canvas upon which they are collected." If a hypnotist succeeds in blotting out all earlier reminiscences, he writes, there would be no loss of personal existence - "Nor will there ever be."[9]

Schrödinger's "paradox"


In a world governed by the second law of thermodynamics, all isolated systems are expected to approach a state of maximum disorder. Since life approaches and maintains a highly ordered state - some argue that this seems to violate the aforementioned Second Law implicating a paradox. However, since life is not an isolated system, there is no paradox. The increase of order inside an organism is more than paid for by an increase in disorder outside this organism. By this mechanism, the Second Law is obeyed, and life maintains a highly ordered state, which it sustains by causing a net increase in disorder in the Universe. In order to increase the complexity on Earth - as life does - you need energy. Most of the energy for life here on Earth is provided by the Sun.

 

See also

 

References

  1. ^ a b Margulis, Lynn. & Sagan, Dorion. (1995). What Is Life? (pg. 1). Berkeley: University of California Press.
  2. ^ Watson, James D. (2007), Avoid Boring People: (Lessons from a life in science), New York: Knopf, p. 353, ISBN 978-0-375-41284-4. Page 28 details how Watson came to appreciate the significance of the gene.
  3. ^ Julian F. Derry (2004). "Book Review: What Is Life? By Erwin Schrödinger". Human Nature Review. Retrieved 2007-07-15.
  4. ^ Dronamraju KR (November 1999). "Erwin Schrödinger and the origins of molecular biology". Genetics 153 (3): 1071–6. PMC 1460808. PMID 10545442.
  5. ^ American Naturalist 56 (1922)
  6. ^ Proceedings of the International Congress of Plant Sciences 1 (1929)
  7. ^ Schwartz, James (2008). In Pursuit of the Gene. From Darwin to DNA. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-02670-4.
  8. ^ Shannon, Claude; Weaver, Warren (1949), The Mathematical Theory of Communication, ISBN 0-252-72546-8
  9. ^ Schrödinger references The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley as a "beautiful book" leveling with the view he has taken in the last chapter.

 

Other cited literature

 

External links



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