Matt, What Mike is saying here may sound odd, but I think there is a reasonable way of interpreting it in light of the article Richard Loosemore posted in a recent thread (New Scientist: "Why nature can't be reduced to mathematical laws"). So, Mike is entirely correct here if we interpret the "potential" he is referring to as the abstractions that engineers *must* use to explore the space of possible designs. In other words: facts about the concrete universe could be entirely determinate, yet even the most concrete-seeming abstract model could contain logical indeterminacy. (How you *interpret* this indeterminacy, that is, constructively or classically, is of course another issue.)
--Abram On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 10:57 PM, Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- On Thu, 10/30/08, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> What are the shapes/forms (and range of shapes/forms) of >> atoms? > > The shapes are given by solving Schrodinger's equation. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation > >> And how would you or physics derive the properties of >> different materials from these shapes? > > By solving the equation for millions of atoms on a very large computer. > Computing chemical and physical properties has never been done this way > because unfortunately the computation time increases exponentially with the > number of particles. > >> where will the S&P 500 >> be at the end of Tuesday? > > Sorry, I would need a computer much bigger than the universe to compute that > (and it probably wouldn't finish running by Tuesday). > > -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > ------------------------------------------- > agi > Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now > RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ > Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com > ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
