Steam Locomotives, Entropy, Information and Data Science
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Steam Locomotives, Entropy, Information and Data Science
If you're new here, you may want to first register and subscribe to the RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!This is the first in series of short photo blog posts discussing the ideas of Carl Sagan (and others) relating civilization, energy, and information. Let’s start of by discussing entropy (energy), thermodynamics and information. There are multiple links (thermodynamics species a minimum amount of energy usage required for computation). The first one we’re interested in here is due to MIT professor Claude Shannon. Prof. Shannon provided the mathematical foundations relating information, data science, and thermodynamics. Specifically, his mathematical formulation for information is identical to that of negative entropy. (Entropy, sometimes confused with the similar concept of energy or rather energy gradients, is the disorder in the universe. You can think of it as the useable energy available. We’ll come to the steam locomotives in the photo in a bit.) There’s another relationship as well: it takes energy to perform computation, and there is a thermodynamic minimum on the amount of energy necessary for computation.… Read the restData Science History: Quipu, Inca talking knots
These are Quipu, the talking knots of the Inca. This is data science history! This historical monochrome illustration dates from ca. 1615. It was drawn by Spanish conquistadors documenting the Inca. It is impossible to administer a complex civilization without a means of processing data and information. (This is one of the ideas behind our SETI photo and blog post theme of the last few days. Recall our earlier posts on Carl Sagan‘s expansion of earlier ideas measuring civilization through energy and information.) Although the ancient Inca (of modern-day Peru, Chile Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina) lacked writing, the Inca did have this system of these “talking knots” that allowed them to record transactions and information about their empire. This system was in use by the Inca from the 3rd Millenium BC, and, amazingly, remains in isolated use in some parts of South America into the present day. A version of this article originally appeared as a photo post on our Instagram feed.… Read the restVery Large Array (“looks” like SETI, but is it?)
This is Nasa’s Very Large Array (VLA). This “looks” like SETI, but isn’t actually, as we’ll explain. Frustrated by the recent lack of intelligent life here on Earth (as evidenced by recent news stories — google late January 2015 if you’re reading this post in the future), we’re again looking towards the stars. This is Nasa’s Very Large Array, a set of radio telescopes that are the “go to” image everyone associates with SETI (The Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence). Ironically, this array is not used for SETI at all. (The array just looks cool and the media uses it as “SETI” images. More evidence of lack of intelligent life on Earth, we guess. 🙂 Obviously the Drake equation will need to be revised given Earth’s recent loss of status on the intelligent life front this month. 🙂 This telescope array is from the 1970s in Socorro, NM, and may be outdated.… Read the restPuzzle painting: French anagram, Voltaire, Freedom of Speech
We celebrated the end of our puzzles with photos of other puzzles. For today’s puzzle painting: a French anagram, Voltaire, and Freedom of Speech? The solution? Why is Voltaire a puzzle? Well, Voltaire is actually a pen-name that is an anagram of the author’s real name. So there is a puzzle in that name. Of course, it’s also timely, as Voltaire has rather much been in the news lately. The New York Times ran an op-ed today in which someone criticized France for double standards. (The US freedom of speech is constitutionally protected. Speech in France is also free, but there are things in France, which, unlike in the US, it is illegal to say. The Times didn’t point this out, but we should mention that the US has sedition laws that are thought to become enforceable in times of war or major crisis — and are thought to be unconstitutional during times of peace.… Read the restDolphin with wearable computer? (photo blog)
Finishing up our mirror theme, we promised one last very special animal (or animal group) that is the last of the currently known animals that can recognize themselves in a mirror. (All of the others are mammals, with the exception of magpies. We started off with extinct mammoths, who are closely related to elephants, then went through magpies and great apes, with a lot of mirror photos along the way.) The actual animal that passed the mirror test is the bottlenose dolphin (shown here), but it is believed all cetaceans can pass the test. Cetaceans include dolphins, whales, and porpoises, known to be some of the most intelligent animals out there. This particular leaping bottlenose dolphin is named K-Dog, and has been trained by the US Navy in mine-clearing operations. He’s wearing what looks like a camera, but is described as a locator beacon (and probably includes a camera and other aspects of a wearable computer.)… Read the restRecent Comments
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