Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Closing in on the “perfect code” (2004)

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 38 posts

Re: Closing in on the “perfect code” (2004)

#11

Post by akhayam »

giobox wrote: post #7
capitainenemo wrote: post #3

30 years ago? What took so long for broad adoption? Patents? edit Article doesn't elaborate on why that might be, but it does note: "an alternative that has been given a new lease on life is low-density parity check (LDPC) codes, invented in the early 1960s by Robert Gallager at MIT but largely forgotten since then...Now researchers have implemented LDPC codes so that they actually outperform turbo codes and get even…

Not an expert, but I've encountered Reed Solomon error correction extensively in my career, and this seems to be replacing RS applications? I wouldn't be surprised if there was a fair amount of inertia to overcome given how widely used and how well RS worked for a very long time. RS was critical for things like ADSL data transmission over POTS and other similar large scale applications. The wikipedia page for RS sugg…

Just adding some extra color: Turbo codes did get instant traction in the industry once the academics actually "believed" them to be true. So the friction came from the academics and not the industry. Today, every communication system you are using are relying on Turbo codes in some shape or form.

Re: Closing in on the “perfect code” (2004)

#13

Post by readthenotes1 »

Yoric wrote: post #5
capitainenemo wrote: post #3

30 years ago? What took so long for broad adoption? Patents? edit Article doesn't elaborate on why that might be, but it does note: "an alternative that has been given a new lease on life is low-density parity check (LDPC) codes, invented in the early 1960s by Robert Gallager at MIT but largely forgotten since then...Now researchers have implemented LDPC codes so that they actually outperform turbo codes and get even…

Unfortunately, one of the common scenarios when it comes to percolating results from academia to industry is the following: 1. Academics make discovery/invent something. 2. Academics attempt to convince industry to adopt discovery. 3. Discovery is laughed out of industry as "impractical", "academic", etc. 4. Academics teach discovery to their students. 5. Students get into industry. 6. Students get into position of t…

1.5 More established academics deride, scoff, and do their best to extinguish this new work.

Re: Closing in on the “perfect code” (2004)

#16

Post by Yoric »

pipo234 wrote: post #8
Yoric wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, one of the common scenarios when it comes to percolating results from academia to industry is the following: 1. Academics make discovery/invent something. 2. Academics attempt to convince industry to adopt discovery. 3. Discovery is laughed out of industry as "impractical", "academic", etc. 4. Academics teach discovery to their students. 5. Students get into industry. 6. Students get into position of t…

> 3. Discovery is laughed out of industry as "impractical", "academic", etc. To be fair, sometimes academic inventions are impractical given the technical landscape du jour. They only become feasible as technology and society progresses, say 30 years. Also, your observation does not mean any invention is meaningful (and will eventually be recognized as such). I for one, learned a bunch of "impractical", "academic" no…

Fair enough.

Re: Closing in on the “perfect code” (2004)

#17

Post by Yoric »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #13
Yoric wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, one of the common scenarios when it comes to percolating results from academia to industry is the following: 1. Academics make discovery/invent something. 2. Academics attempt to convince industry to adopt discovery. 3. Discovery is laughed out of industry as "impractical", "academic", etc. 4. Academics teach discovery to their students. 5. Students get into industry. 6. Students get into position of t…

1.5 More established academics deride, scoff, and do their best to extinguish this new work.

I'm sure that this happens.

When I was an academic, I never encountered (or heard of) such situations, though.

Re: Closing in on the “perfect code” (2004)

#18

Post by mturmon »

capitainenemo wrote: post #3

30 years ago? What took so long for broad adoption? Patents? edit Article doesn't elaborate on why that might be, but it does note: "an alternative that has been given a new lease on life is low-density parity check (LDPC) codes, invented in the early 1960s by Robert Gallager at MIT but largely forgotten since then...Now researchers have implemented LDPC codes so that they actually outperform turbo codes and get even…

Turbo codes were used in the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2005 launch) due to work by JPL telecommunication researchers. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Reconnaissance_Orbiter#Te...)

Edited to add an early link to more granular technical work: https://ipnpr.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report/42-120/120D.pdf

Re: Closing in on the “perfect code” (2004)

#19

Post by Sniffnoy »

akhayam wrote: post #12
rrwright wrote: post #6

The article is from 2004.

Yes, wanted to share an interesting story of how great ideas can come from folks who are not the most popular names in a field. I feel the same will happen with AI now.

The thing to note here is that it's customary when posting an old article to HN to include the year in the title in parentheses.
Post reply on HN