tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post4307149228496454558..comments2024-03-28T18:17:00.135-05:00Comments on Computational Complexity: CS HappeningsLance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-14930161681147442972010-09-04T01:49:46.441-05:002010-09-04T01:49:46.441-05:00About E = IR , never mind I just realised it is ab...About E = IR , never mind I just realised it is about physics ! I guess it's kinda ironic, given the context it was mentioned...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09364120444779754928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-44429113040706070722010-09-04T01:44:07.767-05:002010-09-04T01:44:07.767-05:00If you walk in a room and a sensor turns on a ligh...If you walk in a room and a sensor turns on a light, does that count as a robot?<br /><br />Let me recall my Autonomous Systems course.<br /><br />1. It exists in the physical world (it's not a simulation).<br />2. It can operate on its own (autonomy)<br />3. It receives input from the environment (someone walked in).<br />4. It interacts with and alters the environment (light on/off).<br />5. It has a clearly stated mission: keep the light on as long as someone is in the room. (goals)<br /><br />Therefore it is a robot, with one small requirement: The robot's reaction should be the same whether the person that walks in the room is aware of its existence or not (so that the system is totally autonomous ; the algorithm that controls it should treat the environment only as input and not as its own logic).<br /><br />Also,thanks for sharing this great story mr. Ben Fulton. It is funny, it is educational , it is though provocative! Exactly what you'd expect from a man nicknamed "HAL DRAPER"<br /><br />Finally, can someone post some introductory links in E = IR ? My initial search revealed it has something to do with computable real numbers?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09364120444779754928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-71107788307839698552010-09-03T23:43:07.922-05:002010-09-03T23:43:07.922-05:00That engineer will be the last keeper of the secre...<i>That engineer will be the last keeper of the secret of the universe: E = IR. </i><br /><br />I thought that the discovery of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor" rel="nofollow">memristor</a> proved the incorrectness of Ohm's law in the same way that general relativity or quantum mechanics proved that classical newtonian physics was incorrect.Tyson Williamshttp://www.cs.wisc.edu/~tdwnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-85116932284897161682010-09-03T16:34:50.806-05:002010-09-03T16:34:50.806-05:00As transistor sizes drop through 40 nm it's ge...As transistor sizes drop through 40 nm it's getting harder-and-harder to measure circuit parameters directly ... this is one of several forges in which nanotechnology and quantum systems engineering are being hammered into shape.<br /><br />For this reason, BNC cables are disappearing from our lab too ... in the next generation pretty much everything is migrating onto <a href="http://gnuradio.org/redmine/wiki/gnuradio/FAQ#What-is-GNU-Radio" rel="nofollow">GNU Radio's USRP/FPGA</a>---<i>"Where bits meet quanta"</i> (as we jokingly say).<br /><br />This torrent of change is hugely altering engineers' working conception of reality ... into what, no one is certain. <br /><br />That's why we engineers are increasingly borrowing/adapting/repurposing as many ideas from mathematicians, as we can.John Sidleshttp://www.mrfm.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-86549705090981859072010-09-03T15:47:11.466-05:002010-09-03T15:47:11.466-05:00Well, we too used Spice in our day and had labs st...Well, we too used Spice in our day and had labs starting with circuit theory where actual voltages were measured. That sounds like an extreme case of cost cutting.<br /><br />Not all electrical engineers are digital design engineers by the way.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-61688023732405093272010-09-03T13:41:56.398-05:002010-09-03T13:41:56.398-05:00If you walk in a room and a sensor turns on a ligh...<i>If you walk in a room and a sensor turns on a light, does that count as a robot?</i><br /><br />It isn't a robot unless it can do The Robot.Andy Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03897281159810085972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-88470349724803075152010-09-03T11:05:56.364-05:002010-09-03T11:05:56.364-05:00Ms fnd in a Lbry is a short story from 1963 about ...<a href="http://home.comcast.net/~bcleere/texts/draper.html" rel="nofollow">Ms fnd in a Lbry</a> is a short story from 1963 about a civilization that collapsed because of the inability to find data.Ben Fultonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858593972149277774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-17984806467351847622010-09-03T10:05:36.118-05:002010-09-03T10:05:36.118-05:00We had two electrical engineers come to our quantu...We had two electrical engineers come to our quantum systems engineering laboratory as junior-senior summer interns.<br /><br />We handed them them the business-end of BNC cable and said "Start by measuring the noise spectrum of this voltage."<br /><br />Those interns jumped back as though the BNC cable were a snake descending from a forest canopy. <br /><br />It turned out that neither intern had ever measured a physical voltage on a physical cable ... they had worked only with SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis). It disquieted them to experience physical voltages that sometimes differed surprisingly from simulation-based expectations.<br /><br />Yes, that summer those interns learned about many surprising aspects of electrical engineering. <br /><br />The point is that pretty much all aspects of modern engineering are intimately engaged with system-level issues that relate to complexity. Although theorems are vitally important, seldom are theorems alone sufficient to solve broad-spectrum practical problems. Thus employers tell us that graduating engineers commonly are relatively deficient in their pragmatic capacity to grapple effectively with issues that relate to real-world system-level complexity.John Sidleshttp://www.mrfm.orgnoreply@blogger.com