[ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy

[spike]

> ...On Behalf Of Keith Henson
> Subject: [ExI] Accelerando, The Spike, war and energy
> >
> > ...
> 
> I was reading The Spike again recently.  I can't think of 
> anything Charles Stross missed that was not covered there.  
> It really isn't dated because most of the content was so far 
> downstream...

Way agreed, The Spike contains really excellent material, highly relevant to
this day.  It is in a sense the best existing condensed version of the ExI
archives.  There are some really sexy parts in there too, such as the
material on page 86 of the 2001 edition, oohhh that is exciting.  I get so
turned on, it's better than sneaking to the back of the public library in
the 70s with the National Geographic.

That being said, I thought of a better way (than on p. 86 of The Spike) to
describe in a thought experiment how fast the largest known prime number is
increasing in size:

An alien spacecraft lands on Earth.  The alien recognizes the surface upon
which she has landed as a living entity, and so wishes to figure out what is
the scale of the life forms found thereon.  The entity has a mass of about 1
microgram, and concludes this is the scale of life on earth, but two minutes
later it recognizes that this life form is actually an indivual skin cell on
the surface of another larger lifeform, a verroa mite which has a mass of a
milligram, so the spacecraft's inhabitants conclude that the largest life
forms on earth are three orders of magnitude greater than originally
thought, but two minutes later it recognizes the mite is on the surface of a
bumblebee with mass three orders of magnitude greater still, one gram, but
two minutes later the alien recognizes the bumblebee is taking a rest on the
back of a raven with a mass of a kilogram, then two minutes after that,
recognizes that the raven is perched on the back of a bison with a mass of
1000 kilgrams, and two minutes later recognizes that the million kilogram
structure next to the bison, a column of cellulose with green material
attached, is a lifeform itself.  

So in ten minutes from the identification of the cell as alive, the largest
known (to the alien) life form has gone from a microgram to a milligram to a
gram to a kilogram to a megagram to a gigagram, from single cell to the
giant redwood tree, fifteen orders of magnitude in ten minutes or an average
of an order of magnitude very 40 seconds.

Like the scale of earth's life from the point of view of the alien, the size
of the largest known prime number has been increasing in size at this rate
for the past fifteen years, an order of magnitude about every 40 seconds,
requiring a new prefix every two minutes, more or less steadily since the
formation of GIMPS in 1995.  This analysis is actually on the conservative
side, as the growth rate is actually slightly faster than that, and
accelerating.

Oooh, sexxxy.  {8^D  pant pant.

Damien feel free to use the above in any future addition of The Spike.  I
would be honored sir if you do.

> > ...
> 
> It's not my idea.  Spike is under an NDA on this as well but 
> he can express an opinion as to its technical merits...Keith

This too I choose to withhold for now.  I do not wish to be kept awake at
night worrying if I accidentally revealed anything under which I am
obligated by an NDA.  I mean this not only from a legal standpoint, but
rather primarily from an ethical and moral point of view.  

I am no copyleft fan, rather I fully recognize the value of protecting
intellectual property.  I can see a world in which everything of real value
is information.  I treat every comment uttered by Keith on the phone or in
person as covered by NDA.  Until I see it posted online by him in a public
forum such as this, I refrain from comment.

But I won't send you away completely empty handed:  It's cool.  {8-]

Those of you who haven't read The Spike, do so forthwith, then return here
and let us start a discussion thereupon.  Those of you who have read it, do
let us start a discussion thereupon.

Final note: Damien did not name his book after me, he had the title The
Spike before he ever heard of me.  {8-]

spike