nanog mailing list archives
Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology.
From: Robert Bonomi <bonomi () mail r-bonomi com>
Date: Wed, 18 May 2011 15:27:14 -0500 (CDT)
Wildly off-topic for the NANOG mailing-list, as it has -zero- relevance to 'network operations'
Date: Wed, 18 May 2011 13:07:32 -0700 Subject: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. From: Landon Stewart <lstewart () superb net> To: nanog <nanog () nanog org> Lets say you had a file that was 1,000,000,000 characters consisting of 8,000,000,000bits. What if instead of transferring that file through the interwebs you transmitted a mathematical equation to tell a computer on the other end how to *construct* that file. First you'd feed the file into a cruncher of some type to reduce the pattern of 8,000,000,000 bits into an equation somehow. Sure this would take time, I realize that. The equation would then be transmitted to the other computer where it would use its mad-math-skillz to *figure out the answer* which would theoretically be the same pattern of bits. Thus the same file would emerge on the other end. The real question here is how long would it take for a regular computer to do this kind of math?
I have, on my computer, an encoder/decoder that does _exactly_ that. Both the encoder and decoder are _amazingly_ fast -- as fast as a file copy, in fact. the average size of the tranmsitted files, across all possible input files is exactly 100% of the size of the input files. (one *cannot* do better than that, across all possible inputs -- see the 'counting' problem, in data-compression theory)
Just a weird idea I had. If it's a good idea then please consider this intellectual property. LOL
'Weird' is one word for it. You might want to read up on the subject of 'data compression', to get an idea of how things work. See also "polynominial curve-fitting", for the real-world limits of your theory. for the real-world limits of your theory.
Current thread:
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possiblewith today's technology., (continued)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possiblewith today's technology. Steven Bellovin (May 19)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible Dorn Hetzel (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. Philip Dorr (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. Andrew Mulholland (May 19)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. Dorn Hetzel (May 18)
- RE: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. Stefan Fouant (May 18)
- RE: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. Joe Loiacono (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. Christopher Morrow (May 18)
- RE: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. Joe Loiacono (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. Robert Bonomi (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. Steven Bellovin (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. William Pitcock (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. John Lee (May 18)
- RE: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possiblewith today's technology. George Bonser (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possiblewith today's technology. Landon Stewart (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. Heath Jones (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. Valdis . Kletnieks (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible Heath Jones (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible Aria Stewart (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible Justin Cook (May 18)
- Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology. Valdis . Kletnieks (May 18)