Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible with today's technology.

[William Pitcock <nenolod () systeminplace net>]

On Wed, 18 May 2011 13:07:32 -0700
Landon Stewart <lstewart () superb net> wrote:

> 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?
>
> Just a weird idea I had.  If it's a good idea then please consider
> this intellectual property.  LOL

I believe they call this 'compression'.

William