[extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles

[Max M]

Eugen Leitl wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 12:12:30PM -0500, John K Clark wrote:
> 
>>1) There must be a physical mechanism to compute how proteins fold up since
>>the same protein always turns into the same shape and does it in just a few
>>seconds, but our most powerful supercomputers would take centuries to figure
>>out even the simplest one. What is that computational mechanism?
> 
> There's no new physics involved. It's a question of how to write code for a
> big machine -- depending in whether it's clever or dumb code that machine
> might or might not yet exist. Of course, no currently used forcefield is even
> approximately up to the task.


I think that point that John tried to make is that it is deterministic, 
not chaotic. And so should allow simplification. We just need some way 
to add the hinges.

Emzyme chemistry and proteomics will be soo big. I am pretty shure that 
Nano will come from this direction.

So fast protein folding will be a really big issue.


>>9) Why is there something rather than nothing?


And another one in the same family:

Why is there a limit on the speed of light?


regards Max M