Richard Feynman and the Connection Machine (1989) • Hacker News Board

Re: Richard Feynman and the Connection Machine (1989)

#31

Post by sten » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 10:03 PM UTC

yesenadam wrote: post #28

sten wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't leave out the rest of the quote. >"Yes, it really annoys me," she said. "On the other hand, he is the only one who ever explained quantum mechanics to me as if I could understand it." That was the essence of Richard's charm.

I "left that out" because it reminded me of how people say "Yes, my husband was a violent psychopath, but underneath he was a gentle, sensitive man." or something. Being 'charming' is how sociopaths get away with it, not a balancing, redeeming feature. So don't tell me I have to mention the "redeeming feature", thanks. (Besides, I thought it was strange she said "as if I could understand it", not "in a way I could un…

Whoever this woman was, she was an engineer working at a cutting edge computer company in the 1970s. She likely suffered ridiculous prejudices to get to the point where she was. I'm inclined to believe that she did know (at least some) quantum mechanics and had to put up with people treating her as if she didn't know.

I can see how you've read the context and I think I've taken the opposite understanding. Either way, now people who didn't read the article can see both and decide for themselves!

Re: Richard Feynman and the Connection Machine (1989)

#32

Post by yesenadam » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 10:33 PM UTC

sten wrote: post #31

yesenadam wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I "left that out" because it reminded me of how people say "Yes, my husband was a violent psychopath, but underneath he was a gentle, sensitive man." or something. Being 'charming' is how sociopaths get away with it, not a balancing, redeeming feature. So don't tell me I have to mention the "redeeming feature", thanks. (Besides, I thought it was strange she said "as if I could understand it", not "in a way I could un…

Whoever this woman was, she was an engineer working at a cutting edge computer company in the 1970s. She likely suffered ridiculous prejudices to get to the point where she was. I'm inclined to believe that she did know (at least some) quantum mechanics and had to put up with people treating her as if she didn't know. I can see how you've read the context and I think I've taken the opposite understanding. Either way,…

I'm sorry I wrote the bit in parentheses as it meant you didn't respond to the important point, the part not in parentheses. The bit about his charmingness seemed like those justifications people give to arsehole behaviour - sociopaths are usually charming - not an effectively "balancing", redeeming one. Maybe you thought otherwise. And please allow me to make a point without being told to quote some part other than what I choose to. Thanks.

Re: Richard Feynman and the Connection Machine (1989)

#33

Post by aeternus » Sun, Jan 27, 2019, 9:09 PM UTC

wuschel wrote: post #19

A very entertaining and informative essay. Could perhaps someone try to elaborate on the calculation of buffers needed per chip? Quote: To a physicist this may seem natural, but to a computer designer, treating a set of boolean circuits as a continuous, differentiable system is a bit strange. Feynman's router equations were in terms of variables representing continuous quantities such as "the average number of 1 bits…

The problem sounds like it can be solved with queueing theory. The (common) inductive proof method is covered by the wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queueing_theory#Example_analys...

However since the arrival of messages can be modeled as a probabilistic or continuous rate, differential equations can also be used. I'm not sure if this is how Feynman did it, but this paper shows how to model queueing using differential equations:

http://pi.math.cornell.edu/~rand/randpdf/ENOC2017_queueing.p...

Re: Richard Feynman and the Connection Machine (1989)

#34

Post by wuschel » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 1:48 AM UTC

aeternus wrote: post #33

wuschel wrote: post #19

A very entertaining and informative essay. Could perhaps someone try to elaborate on the calculation of buffers needed per chip? Quote: To a physicist this may seem natural, but to a computer designer, treating a set of boolean circuits as a continuous, differentiable system is a bit strange. Feynman's router equations were in terms of variables representing continuous quantities such as "the average number of 1 bits…

The problem sounds like it can be solved with queueing theory. The (common) inductive proof method is covered by the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queueing_theory#Example_analys... However since the arrival of messages can be modeled as a probabilistic or continuous rate, differential equations can also be used. I'm not sure if this is how Feynman did it, but this paper shows how to model queueing…

Thanks for looking into this, and posting these directions!

Re: Richard Feynman and the Connection Machine (1989)

#35

Post by andyjohnson0 » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 4:26 PM UTC

yesenadam wrote: post #29

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Not to excuse it, but he was the product of a different time. > Well, why say that? Of course it's an attempt at excusing it. No it isn't. Because there's a difference between excusing something and explaining it. As my post was a recommendation for a book about Feynman's life , I felt was doing the latter not the former. Just to be clear, then. Sexist behaviour was just as wrong during Feynman's lifetime as it i…

Ok sure, I hear you. People who say "I don't mean to be racist, but.." almost always immediately say something racist, and never feel like it is racist. That seems exactly like "Not to excuse it, but.." - "Not to excuse it" comes out because your brain feels the need to say that, in the same way. Also I guess it's hard talking with people we don't know - assessing what to take for granted or not. Maybe you really did…

> "Not to excuse it" comes out because your brain feels the need to say that, in the same way.

No. Its not the same thing. People who say "I'm not racist but ..." are attempting a pre-emptive distraction from their own breaking of a social norm. I wasn't doing that. And you have no idea know what my "brain feels the need to say". I don't even know why you'd think you do.

I could have written "I think he was the product of the different times he lived through. That doesn't excuse his behaviour, but I think it explains it." But I was short of time: that's all.

And I'm going to leave it at that.