<html><head><style type=text/css><!--
.mcnt p.mcntMsoNormal, .mcnt li.mcntMsoNormal, .mcnt div.mcntMsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; }
.mcnt a:link, .mcnt span.mcntMsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }
.mcnt a:visited, .mcnt span.mcntMsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }
.mcnt p.mcntMsoAcetate, .mcnt li.mcntMsoAcetate, .mcnt div.mcntMsoAcetate { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 8pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; }
.mcnt p.mcntmcntmsonormal, .mcnt li.mcntmcntmsonormal, .mcnt div.mcntmcntmsonormal { margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; }
.mcnt p.mcntmcntmsoacetate, .mcnt li.mcntmcntmsoacetate, .mcnt div.mcntmcntmsoacetate { margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; }
.mcnt p.mcntmcntmsochpdefault, .mcnt li.mcntmcntmsochpdefault, .mcnt div.mcntmcntmsochpdefault { margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; }
.mcnt span.mcntmcntmsohyperlink { }
.mcnt span.mcntmcntmsohyperlinkfollowed { }
.mcnt span.mcntmcntballoontextchar { }
.mcnt span.mcntmcntemailstyle19 { }
.mcnt span.mcntmcntemailstyle20 { }
.mcnt span.mcntmcntemailstyle21 { }
.mcnt p.mcntmcntmsonormal1, .mcnt li.mcntmcntmsonormal1, .mcnt div.mcntmcntmsonormal1 { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; }
.mcnt span.mcntmcntmsohyperlink1 { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }
.mcnt span.mcntmcntmsohyperlinkfollowed1 { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }
.mcnt p.mcntmcntmsoacetate1, .mcnt li.mcntmcntmsoacetate1, .mcnt div.mcntmcntmsoacetate1 { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 8pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; }
.mcnt span.mcntmcntballoontextchar1 { font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; }
.mcnt span.mcntmcntemailstyle191 { font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); }
.mcnt span.mcntmcntemailstyle201 { font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); }
.mcnt span.mcntmcntemailstyle211 { font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); }
.mcnt p.mcntmcntmsochpdefault1, .mcnt li.mcntmcntmsochpdefault1, .mcnt div.mcntmcntmsochpdefault1 { margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; }
.mcnt span.mcntBalloonTextChar { font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; }
.mcnt span.mcntEmailStyle38 { font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); }
.mcnt .mcntMsoChpDefault { font-size: 10pt; }
.mcnt @page WordSection1 { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 1in; }
.mcnt div.mcntWordSection1 { page: WordSection1; }
.mcnt a {color: blue}
.mcnt a:visible {color: purple}
--></style></head><body><div><strong>From: </strong>spike <spike66@att.net> </div><div><br><blockquote class="mcnt mori" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; border-left-width: 2px; border-left-color: blue; border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex;"><div class="mcnt"><div class="body"><div class="mcntWordSection1"><p class="mcntMsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">One of our Extropian RSPs Hal Finney was reading all this and (being Hal) went off and co-developed or invented a system which does something like that, performs some kind of special calculation and creates numbers which can be traded as currency. Hal Finney read our Mersenne Prime as currency discussion, then went off and invented BitCoin.</span></p></div></div></div></blockquote></div><div><div></div></div><div><br></div>I am reminded of John Baez post<div>https://plus.google.com/117663015413546257905/posts/bPCvcDTDysi</div><div>He starts out with a great quote ("<span style="color: rgb(64, 64, 64); font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">What's the saddest thing about being a mathematician? Seeing worlds of soul-shattering beauty - but being unable to share this beauty with most people.") but it is the ending that really links it to Hal's story:</span></div><div><span style="color: rgb(64, 64, 64); font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><br></span></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><span style="color: rgb(64, 64, 64); font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">"You may be wondering: </span><i style="color: rgb(64, 64, 64); font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">So, what's this all good for?</i></div><div><br style="color: rgb(64, 64, 64); font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"></div><div><span style="color: rgb(64, 64, 64); font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">And the answer is: nobody knows yet. But this amazing fact about the number 6 is connected to many other amazing things in mathematics, like the group E8 and the Leech lattice, both of which show up in string theory. I don't know if string theory is on the right track. But I hope that someday, when we understand the universe better than we do now, these mysterious and beautiful mathematical structures will turn out to be important - not just curiosities, but </span><i style="color: rgb(64, 64, 64); font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">part of why things are the way they are."</i></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Many of these things turn out to be important, yet in ways we cannot fathom when we discover or learn about them. Today I made use of a piece of math I learned back at the start of the 90s to say something relevant about the brain. Google's pagerank algorithm is based on the link between eigenvalues and graph theory - and the reason it runs so well is pretty deep. Whatever beats Google from being the biggest, coolest company around is IMHO likely to be based on a small piece of math or other understanding that come from a completely different area from its applications. Maybe the secret of AI is hidden in intersection theory or tropical geometry. </div><div><font color="#404040" face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><br></span></font><br>Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University<br><br><br></div></body></html>