Sorry to hear about his passing. It's scary how fast the virus took him. He got a fever on Wednesday, and was gone three days later. COVID-19 is really deadly for the elderly.
Yes they discussed his passing on another group. What I find interesting is that he worked out that one well before computers came out, and even before the ones who were available then were aware of graphics. His best friend it seems was Martin Gardner.
Conway developed the Game of Life in 1970. There were very definitely computers available then. Interestingly, Conway was inspired by the work of Stanislaw Ulam, of the Teller-Ulam H-bomb configuration design. Ulam and Ed Teller, in conjunction with von Neumann developed the very first computers built on American soil for the primary purpose of designing those bombs. Ulam had ideas about cellular automata which didn't work out and which Conway simplified to the point of workability.
I have never believed Conway did his initial experiments with pen and paper, at least beyond anything like a 4x4 grid. A person of his stature would have had access to computer systems. It may be that his experiments would have been considered frivolous and had to be concealed from the managers of the computing department.
From what I've read in interviews and from people who met him at that time, they **did** the Life game with pen and paper, large enough to observe some of those very interesting effects. Some of those interviewed have later said that they think they understood Life at a deeper level *because* they did it by hand.
Interesting, Tor. When you put it that way I suppose I can believe it. I just always figured that minicomputers were fairly common at universities in 1970, so of course Conway could have gotten access to one if he wanted. But he was also a mathematician, sooooo...
PS. and in Sweden everything is going well considering the circumstances: I finally got the house renovation finalized. And from next month I should have an office again after being relegated to a small corner while working from home.
In other Game-of-Life-ish news, remember when Stephen Wolfram wrote a really long book about cellular automata and their amazing ability to build complex structures from nothing? Well he's found a class of similar automata that could possibly actually build our universe, and used them to derive (rather than assume) special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, and a bunch of other "fundamental" stuff.
In other Game-of-Life-ish news, remember when Stephen Wolfram wrote a really long book about cellular automata and their amazing ability to build complex structures from nothing? Well he's found a class of similar automata that could possibly actually build our universe, and used them to derive (rather than assume) special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, and a bunch of other "fundamental" stuff.
That is an interesting find! The idea to derive the laws of nature from what exists is different from the idea that nature follows laws. Because the question might come up: do laws exist that are not known ;-) But if you find a simple principle that when working creates structures that correspond to "reality" and when the simulation results can be expressed in "laws of nature" it is likely that nature is based on corresponding principles what allows us to "understand" nature.
Compare those first principles to a constitution. And compare the diversity of nature to the diversity of a constitution based community. Then the inference clearly points to diversity to keep a system stable. As an example: the best doctors are distributed globally.
Just starting a place to check-in with my Parallax Forum friends.
Please check-in and let me know how you are doing.
Hi Whit... and everyone else! :-)
We're doing okay here in the California Central Valley. No signs of the bug in this household. Tho' I have this nagging cough, its been going on far too long to be related to the virus. Not much has changed in my daily routine. Occasional trips to the grocery and once in a great while to feed the Pony... my Mustang.
Work has slowed WAY down. The only assignments are rare special projects to assist local stores with disinfecting.
My roommate doesn't seem to have have the bug and she telecommutes. We joke about her business attire. It's a 3 piece suit... t-shirt, shorts and slippers.
Spending a lot of my new found "spare time" re-rearranging my work bench and digging out my bots to play with. Perhaps I should post a picture of the brood.
Anyhow... hope everyone is doing well and that we get through this mess with a minimum of loss.
I still have one of my favorite books from middle school: Scholastic Book Services' "Science Puzzlers" by Martin Gardner. Chock full of science experiments and still a great read.
Getting bored here so am spending time learning Diptrace.
Well worth the time, I've had great results working with the Diptrace family of design tools.
Let us know if you have any questions, there are a number of Diptrace users here on the forum...
82,790,000 / 61,913 = 1338 as of 03,30,2020
82,790,000 / 67.366 = 1229 as of 04,01,2020 7 days to double # of positive tested individuals
82,790,000 / 73,522 = 1126 as of 04,02,2020
82,790,000 / 79,696 = 1039 as of 04,03,2020
82,790,000 / 85,778 = 965 as of 04,04,2020
82,790,000 / 91,714 = 903 as of 04,05,2020 11 days to double # of positive tested individuals
82,790,000 / 95,391 = 868 as of 04,06,2020
82,790,000 / 99,225 = 834 as of 04,07,2020
82,790,000 / 103,228 = 802 as of 04,08,2020
82,790,000 / 108,202 = 765 as of 04,09,2020
82,790,000 / 113,525 = 729 as of 04,10,2020 16.7 day to double # of positive tested individuals
82,790,000 / 117,658 = 703 as of 04,11,2020
82,790,000 / 120,479 = 687 as of 04,12,2020
82,790,000 / 123,016 = 673 as of 04,13,2020
82,790,000 / 125,098 = 661 as of 04,14,2020
82,790,000 / 127,584 = 648 as of 04,15,2020
82,790,000 / 130.450 = 634 as of 04,16,2020
82,790,000 / 133.830 = 618 as of 04,17,2020
82,790,000 / 139.897 = 609 as of 04,18,2020
82,790,000 / 139.897 = 602 as of 04,19,2020
82,790,000 / 139.897 = 591 as of 04,20,2020
82,790,000 / 143.457 = 577 as of 04,21,2020
82,790,000 / 145.694 = 568 as of 04,22,2020 Lifting the curtain a little, let's see what happens!
82,790,000 / 149.900 = 552 as of 04,23,2020
82,790,000 / 152.300 = 543 as of 04,24,2020
82,790,000 / 152.438 = 543 as of 04,25,2020
82,790,000 / 154.175 = 537 as of 04,26,2020
82,790,000 / 155.193 = 533 as of 04,27,2020
82,790,000 / 156.337 = 530 as of 04,28,2020
82,790,000 / 157.641 = 525 as of 04,29,2020
82,790,000 / 159.119 = 520 as of 04,30,2020
82,790,000 / 160.758 = 515 as of 05,01,2020
82,790,000 / 161.703 = 512 as of 05,02,2020
82,790,000 / 162.496 = 509 as of 05,03,2020
82,790,000 / 163.175 = 507 as of 05,04,2020
82,790,000 / 163.860 = 505 as of 05,05,2020
82,790,000 / 164.807 = 502 as of 05,06,2020 Lifting the curtain more
82,790,000 / 166.091 = 498 as of 05,07,2020
82,790,000 / 167.300 = 495 as of 05,08,2020
82,790,000 / 168.551 = 491 as of 05,09,2020
82,790,000 / 169.218 = 489 as of 05,10,2020 Reproduction rate >1, maybe due to statistical errors
82,790,000 / 169.575 = 488 as of 05,11,2020
82,790,000 / 170.508 = 486 as of 05,12,2020
82,790,000 / 171.306 = 483 as of 05,13,2020
82,790,000 / 172.239 = 481 as of 05,14,2020
82,790,000 / 173.152 = 478 as of 05,15,2020
82,790,000 / 173.772 = 476 as of 05,16,2020
82,790,000 / 174.355 = 475 as of 05,17,2020
82,790,000 / 174.697 = 474 as of 05,18,2020
82,790,000 / 175.210 = 473 as of 05,19,2020
82,790,000 / 176.007 = 470 as of 05,20,2020
82,790,000 / 176.752 = 468 as of 05,21,2020
82,790,000 / 177.212 = 467 as of 05,22,2020
It shows that social distancing works. Now we wait another week to decide how to lift the curtain a little more. As the numbers show now one of 500 is known to carry the virus or recovered and should be immune. At an infection rate of about 1 the number of unknown cases should be another few 100 thousands. So the probability to contact an infected person is less than 1/500, maybe 1/300. The statistic I do is not perfect, as the number of inhabitants is constant, the death toll is not taken into account nor the number of recovered or in quarantine. But it is a long way to a state, where you can meet more people immune, not carrying the virus than others. If the infection rate stays as it is this will take years and we do not know if immunity persists over this period or it the virus mutates. So the hope is that a cure is discovered or a vaccine developed. As the world community creates an increasing number of scientists and laboratories we hopefully will be able to react on new viruses very fast and at low cost.
Next we again have to turn the face to the real problems we face. And that is for sure not related to P2
Still chugging along myself here in NorCal. At work (an EMS), we have greatly modified things to keep operating: Many working from home, social distancing has made some of our workcells massively oversized (luckily we were a little low in sales volume as it hit so we have some flex space). Our challenge is that we are in the middle of quoting COVID-19 related medical hardware (sorry, NDA, so not details) that could be a massive impact to our infrastructure apart form other new business we are winning. In general, customers have slowed, but we are still steady with monthly revenue, even with a good 20% less workforce on the floor. Creativity is running rampant within my Engineering team and some of their ideas have been amazing.
We are also making PETG face shields by the hundreds with our laser and shipped the first sets of orders last week. One of my engineers modified an open source design to fit the material we were able to source and also shrunk down the cycle time.
I have been working from home a lot, but it seems I put more hours in. What I normally would spend commuting has converted to work hours. My Engineering team is really busy right now, so my workload has steadily increased since this all started. I am becoming an expert in MS Teams though and it is really proving to be a valuable tool.
Hope everyone is doing well.
Wash your hands........ (that's the new "over and out")
Comments
I have never believed Conway did his initial experiments with pen and paper, at least beyond anything like a 4x4 grid. A person of his stature would have had access to computer systems. It may be that his experiments would have been considered frivolous and had to be concealed from the managers of the computing department.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_Season
PS. and in Sweden everything is going well considering the circumstances: I finally got the house renovation finalized. And from next month I should have an office again after being relegated to a small corner while working from home.
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2020/04/finally-we-may-have-a-path-to-the-fundamental-theory-of-physics-and-its-beautiful
I am stunned.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/asimov-2014-technology-predictions
That is an interesting find! The idea to derive the laws of nature from what exists is different from the idea that nature follows laws. Because the question might come up: do laws exist that are not known ;-) But if you find a simple principle that when working creates structures that correspond to "reality" and when the simulation results can be expressed in "laws of nature" it is likely that nature is based on corresponding principles what allows us to "understand" nature.
Compare those first principles to a constitution. And compare the diversity of nature to the diversity of a constitution based community. Then the inference clearly points to diversity to keep a system stable. As an example: the best doctors are distributed globally.
Hi Whit... and everyone else! :-)
We're doing okay here in the California Central Valley. No signs of the bug in this household. Tho' I have this nagging cough, its been going on far too long to be related to the virus. Not much has changed in my daily routine. Occasional trips to the grocery and once in a great while to feed the Pony... my Mustang.
Work has slowed WAY down. The only assignments are rare special projects to assist local stores with disinfecting.
My roommate doesn't seem to have have the bug and she telecommutes. We joke about her business attire. It's a 3 piece suit... t-shirt, shorts and slippers.
Spending a lot of my new found "spare time" re-rearranging my work bench and digging out my bots to play with. Perhaps I should post a picture of the brood.
Anyhow... hope everyone is doing well and that we get through this mess with a minimum of loss.
Stay safe Parallaxians! :-)
Amanda
I still have one of my favorite books from middle school: Scholastic Book Services' "Science Puzzlers" by Martin Gardner. Chock full of science experiments and still a great read.
https://www.ebay.com/i/113783421293
Same, and lol, I've had the same suit more than a few days now. Getting totally spoiled.
Well worth the time, I've had great results working with the Diptrace family of design tools.
Let us know if you have any questions, there are a number of Diptrace users here on the forum...
Thanks!
BRAIN BLEACH - BRAIN BLEACH!!!
Is that even allowed under your HOA rules?
According to federal regs no governing body can abridge your right to entertainment. That menns tv antennes sat dishes etc.
jim
Goodie!
Only if you finish one a week.
Working on it. Now what's with that screaming Blue Howler on your property?
Start: doubling of cases every 7 days due to social distancing. As 1300 ~ 1K it will take 10 weeks to get a hit. But when reaching 9 weeks without infection, the chance to need vaccination to be immun is pretty high :-)
Links: https://tagesschau.de/ausland/coronavirus-karte-verdopplungszeit-101.html
https://rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Fallzahlen.html It shows that social distancing works. Now we wait another week to decide how to lift the curtain a little more. As the numbers show now one of 500 is known to carry the virus or recovered and should be immune. At an infection rate of about 1 the number of unknown cases should be another few 100 thousands. So the probability to contact an infected person is less than 1/500, maybe 1/300. The statistic I do is not perfect, as the number of inhabitants is constant, the death toll is not taken into account nor the number of recovered or in quarantine. But it is a long way to a state, where you can meet more people immune, not carrying the virus than others. If the infection rate stays as it is this will take years and we do not know if immunity persists over this period or it the virus mutates. So the hope is that a cure is discovered or a vaccine developed. As the world community creates an increasing number of scientists and laboratories we hopefully will be able to react on new viruses very fast and at low cost.
Next we again have to turn the face to the real problems we face. And that is for sure not related to P2
The world just clocked over 3M and USA 1M
Kinda pleased to be in Oz atm.
We are also making PETG face shields by the hundreds with our laser and shipped the first sets of orders last week. One of my engineers modified an open source design to fit the material we were able to source and also shrunk down the cycle time.
I have been working from home a lot, but it seems I put more hours in. What I normally would spend commuting has converted to work hours. My Engineering team is really busy right now, so my workload has steadily increased since this all started. I am becoming an expert in MS Teams though and it is really proving to be a valuable tool.
Hope everyone is doing well.
Wash your hands........ (that's the new "over and out")