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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 31 2012 @ 03:42 AM EDT |
What you say is true even for a special purpose computer.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: emmenjay on Friday, August 31 2012 @ 05:27 AM EDT |
I got about 1/4 way through a detailed explanation of the many things wrong with
this, and I gave up. There are so many fundamental holes in your understanding,
you probably won't understand me anyway.
I'll make a few quick points
and then I'll leave it to the religious zealots.
There is no
universally accepted definition of "mathematics". Some people define it so
loosely that there is nothing, that is not mathematics. If you define maths as
"everything" then it is meaningless. Saying "maths cannot be patented" is the
same as saying "nothing can be patented".
That may or may not be a good
idea (patenting nothing), but it is not the current law in any jurisdiction I
can think of.
Whether patents are desirable is a subject for a
different post. This one is just on defining software.
I would be
inclined to include the analysis or manipulation of numbers, symbols or
geometric shapes. Arithmetic, algebra, calculus, geometry. Stuff like that.
Stuff that I would exclude includes copying/storing stuff, designing a
good UI with user-friendly layout and pleasing colours, understanding how people
want to do their job or play their game or whatever they are doing.
I'm
sure there are better definitions, but that's the best I can think of, right
now.
I like the definition of algorithm from reference.com: "a
set of rules for solving a problem in a finite number of steps".
OK,
I'm done. Flame away.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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