Great! It seems that I am wrong about the restrictions imposed by language dependence. From this Scientific American article by Chaitin: http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~km9/Randomness%20and%20Mathematical.pdf
Defining randomness or the simplicity of theories through the capabilities of the digital computer would seem to introduce a spurious element into these essentially abstract notions: the peculiarities of the particular computing machine employed. Different machines communicate through different computer languages, and a set of instructions expressed in one of those languages might require more or fewer bits when the instructions are translated into another language. Actually, however, the choice of computer matters very little. The problem can be avoided entirely simply by insisting that the randomness of all numbers be tested on the same machine. Even when different machines are employed, the idiosyncrasies of various languages can readily be compensated for. Suppose, for example, someone has a program written in English and wishes to utilize it with a computer that reads only French. Instead of translating the algorithm itself he could preface the program with a complete English course written in French. Another mathematician with a French program and an English machine would follow the opposite procedure. In this way only a fixed number of bits need be added to the program, and that number grows less significant as the size of the series specified by the program increases. In practice a device called a compiler often makes it possible to ignore the differences between languages when one is addressing a computer. Thanks again Marcus, a wonderful read. -- Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
