Comedian Eugene Mirman (who can be seen frequenting the Flight of the Conchords set) sends us a video message from the future using a new technology called the “Time Bag”
Enjoy…
Posted under Fun
This post was written by drknuth on February 15, 2009
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel
It is an engaging and complex tale of the revitalization of English magic during the Napoleonic Wars.
The novel is writing in the style of the nineteenth century. It is, of course, a work of fiction, but Susanna Clarke paints such a convincing picture of the history of English magic that I left the book half-believing that it all really happened.
The book opens in the early 1800s when practical magic had been forgotten and replaced by theoretical magicians. The York Society of Learned Magicians learn of a Mr. Norrell a practicing magician who stuns them by making statues talk about what they have seen. Mr. Norrell enters the limelight as England’s only practical magician. Meanwhile, Jonathan Strange, who has a natural predilection for magic approached Mr. Norrell in hopes of being taken in as his student. They do not get along well, but Mr. Norrell takes him in—while keeping certain secrets from him. They eventually become rivals.
The novel is filled with other characters like the Man with the Thistledown Hair, who is a delightful, yet malicious and terrifying fairy. He takes a liking to the Butler Stephen Black and holds him hostage by summoning him each night to the fairy realm to partake in a ball.
As a physicist, I really appreciate this quote from the book “The practice of magic makes the theory so much easier to understand.” (page 280) It reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke‘s “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” from “Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible
Another favorite quote of mine is: “I have never experienced magic at first hand before. I do not think that I shall be in any great hurry to do so again. It is most eerie and unpleasant. How in the world is a man to know what to do when nothing behaves as it should?” (page 558) I think that I like this because it speaks to the importance of prediction in our ability to understand our world.
The Man with the Thistledown Hair brings Lady Pole back to Life - Portia Rosenberg
The compelling black and white sketches by Portia Rosenberg
The one above shows the Man with the Thistledown Hair hovers over Lady Pole before he brings her back to life.
This book is hopefully being made into a movie. I hope that they take the time to do it right as it is a fascinating and complex tale.
You can get Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel
This post was written by drknuth on February 3, 2009
Knuth: Developing Robotic Scientists for Space Exploration
The University at Albany (SUNY) has highlighted Knuth’s research in a recent news piece.
UAlbany Professor Kevin Knuth with a robot built from LEGOs. (Photo Mark Schmidt)
Kevin Knuth has a laboratory in the physics department of the University at Albany that is filled with LEGOs. The bricks are relatively cheap and can be used to rapidly prototype a robot’s body. Knuth’s robots are being programmed to solve such problems as mapping complex terrain.
At UAlbany Day on Saturday, Oct. 25, he will give a demonstration on Robotics and Robotic Exploration in Life Sciences Room 143 at 10:45 a.m.
http://www.albany.edu/news/update_4522.shtml
Building instructions for the robot shown in the UAlbany article can be found on Brickengineer.com
Visit Autonomous Exploration News for information on Knuth’s company Autonomous Exploration Inc.
Visit Robots Everywhere for a general blog on robotics news.
Posted under Exploration, Fun, Intelligent Systems, Internet, Lego, Research, Robotics, Space
This post was written by drknuth on October 21, 2008
John Horton Conway’s Game of Life
I have always been fascinated by cellular automata, specifically the brand governed by the rules devised by the mathematician John Horton Conway, which is known as the Game of Life.
What I find particularly fascinating is the fact that such simple rules give rise to such complex behaviors. The Game is played this way:
There exists a grid of squares, each of which can be in one of two states: ON or OFF. The rules for changing states are simple and depend only on the states of the square’s 8 nearest neighbors.
- An ON cell with fewer than two ON neighbours turns OFF.
- An ON cell with more than three ON neighbours turns OFF.
- An OFF cell with exactly three ON neighbours turns ON.
One can think of the first rule as stating that the cell dies from loneliness. In the second rule, the cell dies from overcrowding. To come to life, you need exactly three neighbors. Here is a link to the original Scientific American article from 1970.
Since each cell has eight possible neighbors, but can only stay on if it has one or two ON neighbors, the playing field will be rather sparse. The situation is rather unstable since three ON neighbors can turn ON a cell, but this increases the chances that another ON cell will now have more than three ON neighbors, which would make it turn OFF. In that event, life would lead to death. In a generic sparse environment, the tendency is to grow, but this leads to a crowded environment where the tendency is to diminish. The general result is that the playing field will be mostly empty with pockets of ON cells evolving dynamically.
This game is an excellent example of how simple rules can lead to extremely complex behavior.
To play, you can check out an online applet, or download your own superfast game from Golly Game of Life. The latter is very nice as you can choose from a host of fascinating patterns to load and play with.
One can go to Stephen Silver’s Life Lexicon to see a library (or bestiary) of most of the known creatures.
Above is an emblem I created in Mathematica that is a period-29 oscillator. That is, the pattern repeats every 29 steps. I had previously used it on a website for a course on complex systems that I taught at CUNY in 1998.
Kevin Knuth
Albany NY
Posted under Complexity, Fun
This post was written by drknuth on April 13, 2008
