|
|
|
| Authored by: jesse on Tuesday, October 09 2012 @ 05:23 PM EDT |
Remove the hard drive.... no problem - the math is still there.
If the hardware fails, you obviously have a hardware problem.
Mathematics has been able to detect such failures for centuries. That is why
there are things called validation -
Add two numbers together and get a result - validate by subtracting one of the
two, and you must get the other as a result. You don't - then you did it wrong,
wrote it wrong, or ran out of recording material...[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: StormReaver on Tuesday, October 09 2012 @ 10:54 PM EDT |
> Spoken by someone who doesn't understand hardware.
This posting is just to provide a little closure to this thread. Your red
herring statement is proof that this is going to be a pointless debate.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 10 2012 @ 04:15 AM EDT |
The hardware isn't. The hardware is patentable.
The software is math.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: scav on Wednesday, October 10 2012 @ 04:58 AM EDT |
Or possibly someone who doesn't understand mathematics.
Consider these computer languages:
* Haskell
* Scheme
* Erlang
* Prolog
Haskell and Scheme are more or less direct implementations
of the lambda calculus (with nicer syntax).
Erlang and Prolog are more or less direct implementations of
predicate logic (without nicer syntax ;).
In such cases, if you dispute that a program written in one
of those languages is an abstract mathematical object, you
can only be in motivated denial of reality.
If you can write a program in C or Java or even hand-code it
in assembly language, a computer scientist can implement the
same program in one of the above languages. In what sense is
it the same program? The source code is different certainly.
But the algorithms are the same, implementing the same
functionality: same inputs give the same outputs.
Since the algorithms in any program can be expressed in a
computer language that is undeniably a form of mathematical
notation, the algorithms themselves are abstract
mathematical entities, and therefore not patentable.
You don't get to tack on some irrelevant lumps of matter and
call the algorithm part of a patentable machine. A patented
device containing a computer that runs a program that
purportedly implements an algorithm doesn't actually contain
the *algorithm* as a physical component.
And I say purportedly because all software has bugs, and
it's provably undecidable whether a given program actually
implements an abstractly-specified algorithm (see the
Halting Problem).
Therefore it would be a legal nonsense to try to enforce
patents on algorithms for multiple reasons. I say would be -
It IS.
---
The emperor, undaunted by overwhelming evidence that he had no clothes,
redoubled his siege of Antarctica to extort tribute from the penguins.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
|
|
