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King’s Day Speech

I just came across Guido van Rossum’s King’s Day Speech from April 2016. I recommend reading it. Until yesterday I didn’t know that the G in Guido is pronounced like the letter ?’ in Hebrew, nor that the Netherlands has a king… But even today, there is nothing I know for certain, even the fact I exist is an assumption and not a known fact. I don’t even know if I have a computer. But anyway I recommend reading this speech.

By the way, if you don’t know who Guido is, you’re probably not an experienced Python programmer, so don’t apply for a job in Speedy Net…

* I’m sure if WordPress was written in Python, it wouldn’t convert the Hebrew letter ?’ to a question mark. That’s what happens when programmers don’t know how to program…

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Ipism

Websites which block users from specific countries by their IP address (like Pandora) or redirect users to local websites (like Google) or display different content to different users based on their IP address (Google) are practicing Ipism, which is like racism or speciesism should be illegal discrimination of users based on their IP address. All internet users should be equal and should not be discriminated by their IP address, location, sex, age, race, nationality etc. Ipism should be illegal and websites such as Pandora should be closed, Google should be forced to display the same content to all users of all IP addresses and nobody should discriminate users by their IP address. And by the way, Google’s Inbox being limited to Google Chrome only is practicing browserism, which is discriminating users by their browsers. This should be illegal too.

#ipism
#browserism

Ipism – Speedypedia [alpha] – in English
Ipism – Speedypedia [alpha] – in Hebrew

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Some interesting results of my chess queens application

I checked my chess queens application for larger chess boards, and found some interesting results: It appears that when the minimal distance between queens is more than 1, the minimal chess board size with solutions (not including one queen on the trivial 1×1 board) is at least the square of the minimal distance between queens. Here are a few examples:

  • When the minimal distance between queens is 2, the minimal chess board size with solutions is 4×4 (2 solutions).
  • When the minimal distance between queens is 3, the minimal chess board size with solutions is 10×10 (4 solutions).
  • When the minimal distance between queens is 4, the minimal chess board size with solutions is 16×16 (2 solutions).
  • When the minimal distance between queens is 5, the minimal chess board size with solutions is 28×28 (10 solutions).
  • When the minimal distance between queens is 6, the minimal chess board size with solutions is 36×36 (2 solutions).

When the minimal distance between queens is 7, the minimal chess board size with solutions must be more than 50×50, because there are no solutions in any board size up to 50×50. When I created my chess queens application I limited the maximal board size to be 50×50, because I didn’t know that larger board sizes can return results in reasonable time. But I checked and found out recently that even boards with size 36×36 return results (when the minimal distance between queens is 6) and even the 50×50 board returns “no solutions” when the minimal distance between queens is 7. It would be interesting to increase the limit of my chess queens application to boards larger than 50×50 and find out the minimal chess board size with solutions when the minimal distance between queens is 7, 8 and more.

From my results above I would guess that with any even minimal distance between queens n, the minimal chess board size with solutions would probably be n2×n2 with 2 solutions, but this needs to be proved. It would also be nice if I can find out a formula for the minimal chess board size with solutions as an expression of the minimal distance between queens, and also a formula for the number of solutions. But it looks like it can be a big challenge to find such a formula and prove it.

The numbers 10 and 28 above also appear in Pascal’s triangle, and it would be interesting to see if the minimal chess board size with solutions when the minimal distance between queens is higher are also numbers from Pascal’s triangle. If they are, I would guess they might be 55, 91 and 136 respectively for the odd distances 7, 9 and 11. It’s just a guess, but it matches the minimal board sizes of 1×1, 10×10 and 28×28 above. If my assumption is true, then the formula for the minimal chess board size with solutions with odd minimal distance between queens n would be the Binomial number of (((3 * n) + 1) / 2) over 2 (which is equal to (((3 * n) + 1) * ((3 * n) – 1) / 8)), and the number of solutions on the minimal board size would probably also be a number from Pascal’s triangle.

I found out that when using rooks with a minimal distance between rooks n, the minimal chess board size with solutions is n2×n2 with 2 solutions, for all n>1 (odd or even). But this needs to be proved.

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My first programs in Python

I started to learn Python a few days ago and wrote a few sample programs. I noticed that integers in Python are not limited in size, unlike many other programming languages like PHP, C, C++ and Java. So my first programs in Python were simple calculations of big numbers, for example big powers of 2 – I even calculated numbers with hundreds of thousands of digits. So I decided to use Python to calculate the mathematical constant e. I wrote a short program to calculate the first 5000 digits of e (actually that’s 5000 digits after the dot), and surprisingly I didn’t have to use any module, not even the math module. I only used integers to calculate e times 10 to the power of 5000. I searched Google for “the first 5000 digits of e” and found out a page with the first 2 million digits of the number e, which I viewed to check if my calculations were correct. I also found a page titled “How I computed e to 20000 digits“, where I found out it took the author more than 9 hours to calculate the first 20000 digits of e. It’s surprising, because my program calculates the first 5000 digits of e in less than a second, and also when calculating 20000 digits it takes about one or two seconds. I don’t know what caused the author’s program to take so much time, but I decided to post my e calculation program here:

digits = 5000
add = 500
f = 10**(digits + add)
e = 0
n = 0
while (f > 0):
	# add current inverse factorial to e.
	e += f
	# calculate next inverse factorial.
	n += 1
	f /= n

# print e
e /= (10**add)
print e
print n

Notice that I used the variable “add” with the value of 500 – I actually calculated 5500 digits of e and then omitted the last 500 digits. This is because the calculation is not accurate, because I used integers and not exact numbers. When calculating 5000 digits without using “add” (or when add = 0), the last 4 digits are not correct. So I could use a much smaller number for add, but I decided to go for 500 digits just to be on the safe side. It took 1929 iterations to calculate the first 5000 digits of e, and the number of iterations grows with the number of digits – for example, it takes 13646 iterations to calculate the first 50000 digits of e.

I went on and wrote another Python program to calculate square roots, and used it to calculate the square root of 2 (although the same program can be used to calculate the square root of any positive integer, whether the square root is an integer or not). Here is the program to calculate the first 5000 digits of the square root of 2:

# calculate next square root of the number.
def calculate_next_square_root(square_root):
	next_square_root = ((number / square_root) + square_root) / 2
	return next_square_root

number = 2
digits = 5000
add = 500
number *= 10**((digits + add) * 2)
square_root = 1 * (10**(digits + add))
# calculate next square root of the number.
next_square_root = calculate_next_square_root(square_root)
n = 0
while (next_square_root != square_root):
	# replace square root with next square root.
	square_root = next_square_root
	# calculate next square root of the number.
	next_square_root = calculate_next_square_root(square_root)
	n += 1

# print square_root
square_root /= (10**add)
print square_root
print n

Here I used a function – calculate_next_square_root(square_root), although it’s possible to write the same program without functions. It’s interesting to note that this program takes only 13 iterations to calculate the first 5000 digits (after the dot) of the square root of 2, while the e program took 1929 iterations. And when calculating the first 50000 digits, this program takes only 17 iterations. This is because the number of iterations it takes is proportional to the logarithm of the number of digits, because every new iteration doubles the number of correct digits of the square root calculated. So If we wanted to calculate the first google digits of the square root of 2, this program would take only about 332 iterations. The problem is that we will need enough memory to store numbers with google digits, which we don’t have and we don’t expect to have in the future. So we can’t use this program to calculate the first google digits of the square root of 2. But we can use it to calculate the first 100000 digits of the square root of 2 – I tried and it took 18 iterations.

Another thing – the square root program returns correct results even with add = 0. This is because the result is always the closest integer to the square root calculated (2 times 10 to the power of digits*2), rounded down. If the square root is an integer, the result will be accurate. If not, the result is the closest integer rounded down. I will not go into the mathematics to prove it, but this algorithm is accurate even without using “add”. But I left it at 500 digits just in case.

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Mark Zuckerberg: Why don’t you become vegan?

Mark Zuckerberg: I heard that you killed animals for meat. Why don’t you become vegan? Killing animals is cruel and immoral. It’s much better for your health, Earth and animals to be vegan!

I recommend taking the vegan pledge on http://evolvecampaigns.org.uk/ – you receive free ebooks that helps you become vegan. Especially I recommend the book “Street Smart Vegan” – it’s very good.

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My chess queens application

Check out my chess queens application: http://chess-queens.sourceforge.net/

There are 14,200 ways to place 12 queens on a 12×12 chess board, and Google Chrome is the fastest browser to calculate it. If you check the number of ways to place 16 queens or rooks on a 16×16 chess board, with a minimum distance of 4 – there are only 2 ways to do this. Each of them is symmetric.

There are 92 ways to place 8 queens on a 8×8 chess board, without any queen attacking each other. The complete list of solutions is found on Wikipedia.

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The fire of the Carmel

Yesterday we went to see what’s left from the forests of the Carmel. We saw many green trees, but also trees burned completely to the roots and partially burned trees. There were beautiful flowers, only about one week old, growing from the ground. There is smell of ashes all over the place. We wanted to see Beit Oren, but it’s not open for visitors. But we saw some of the burned houses. On the one hand it’s sad, but on the other hand I think the forest will grow again, and we should let nature do it naturally.

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How many roots has Google?

How many roots has Google? I mean integer roots. Some numbers have roots, some not. I think Google has many roots probably. he’s a big number. Probably as many roots as the number One Hundred has divisors. Don’t you think?

Actually One Hundred is Ten times Ten which means primes Two and Five twice. He should have Nine divisors since Three time Three is Nine.
(Three options: each prime should appear either Zero or One or Two times).

Let me check….

One is a divisor –> Ten is a root. [TenOne Hundred is Google]
Two is a divisor –> One Hundred is a root. [One HundredFifty is Google]
Four is a divisor –> Ten Thousand is a root. [Ten ThousandTwenty Five is Google]
Five is a divisor –> One Hundred Thousand is a root. [One Hundred ThousandTwenty is Google]
Ten is a divisor –> Ten Billion is a root. [Ten BillionTen is Google]
Twenty is a divisor –> One Hundred Million Trillion is a root. [One Hundred Million TrillionFive is Google]
Twenty Five is a divisor –> Ten Trillion Trillion is a root. [Ten Trillion TrillionFour is Google]
Fifty is a divisor –> One Hundred Trillion Trillion Trillion Trillion is a root. [One Hundred Trillion Trillion Trillion TrillionTwo is Google]

Oh wait… is One Hundred a divisor of itself? Well if so, Google’s probably a root of itself too. But if not including Google itself, Google has Eight different roots if I’m correct. But how many roots does Googleplex have?

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How many roots has Poodle?

Well of course Googleplex (like any exponent of Ten) actually has only Two prime divisors – Two and Five. Googleplex is actually Google times Two multiplied by Google times Five. So it seems to me he has (Google plus One) times (Google plus One) roots minus One, not including himself. Actually all roots of Google are probably roots of Googleplex too. Since Google is probably a root of Googleplex too. Is he? Let me think. I think he is. One Hundred is a divisor of Google so he is probably a root of Googleplex too. But not all divisors of Google are also Googleplex’s roots. I think only those who have the same number of Two and Five as prime divisors – only those who are exponents of Ten. But not all of them – only those who divide Google – for example One Thousand is not. One Thousand is Three times Ten (TenThree), but Three is not a divisor of Google. Only those divisors of Google who are exponents of Ten and their exponent of Ten is a divisor of Google – They are real Googleplex roots.

So lets name them (do they already have names? maybe. but lets name them again):

Ten
One Hundred // TenTwo
Ten Thousand // TenFour
One Hundred Thousand // TenFive
Ten Billion // TenTen
One Hundred Million Trillion // TenTwenty
Gillion // Ten Trillion Trillion // TenTwenty Five
<!– all *illion are small numbers; *oo?le are big –>
Goodle // Gillion Gillion // TenFifty
Google // Goodle Goodle // TenOne Hundred // It’s a lovely name – don’t let them give him a bad name…
Doogle // Google Google // TenTwo Hundred
Toogle // TenTwo Hundred and Fifty
Boodle // TenFive Hundred
Noodle // TenOne Thousand
Noogle // TenTwo Thousand
Nooble // TenTwo Thousand Five Hundred
Nootle // TenFive Thousand
Tootle // TenTen Thousand
Toople // TenTwenty Thousand
Tooshle // TenTwenty Five Thousand
Toorle // TenFifty Thousand
Toorrle // TenOne Hundred Thousand
Toorrrle // TenTwo Hundred Thousand
Toorrrrle // TenFive Hundred Thousand
Tooggle // TenOne Million
Toogggle // TenTwo Million
Tooggggle // TenFive Million
Toottle // TenTen Million
Tootttle // TenTwenty Million
Toozzle // TenTwenty Five Million

……. // sorry no time to name them all now….

Zoozzle // TenGoodle
Poodle // TenGoogle a.k.a. “Googleplex”

Poodle sounds much better. And by the way if you make a mistake with calculations you can always say it’s just a spelling mistake…

Give them names my friends. Pass to your friends and give more names. Create a wiki or something, and send me the best names. I’ll add them here, you can add <!– comments –>too. But remember it’s copyleft, you know the rules, anything can be modified and changed. No name is forever, no comment, no remove. Whatever you change can be undone by others. But since Wikipedia’s boycotting me, I’ll do it elsewhere. Who needs them anyway? For me everything is copyleft GPL. Send me new names my friends, and send to your friends. I will put them here. Or maybe move to another post, I don’t know. But please don’t call it Googleplex, I hate the name. Call it Poodle, or give it your own name. It’s too long a name for such a nice number, don’t you think? And by the way there are bigger numbers than that…

Pooddle // TenDoogle
Pootle // TenToogle

<!– to be continued… –>

I love numbers….

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Is the speed of light constant? (2)

I told some people about my assumption that the speed of light is not constant, and one of them agreed that it might not always be constant for quantum particles, but the average speed of light in empty space is constant. But my question is – what is empty space? Can complete empty space really exist? Does quantum mechanics allow it? And if not – do all areas of space have the same level of emptiness? Do they all have the same average level of emptiness? Does the level of emptiness remain constant in time?

It appears to me that the level of emptiness (and the average level of emptiness) of space cannot be constant for all spaces in all times. Einstein’s relativity says that if one travels close to the speed of light, space shrinks in one direction. Since I assume complete empty space is not possible, at least not on the macroscopic level, at least not in this part of the world, then it appears to me that when space shrinks, the level of emptiness changes too, and the speed of light will not be the same as before?

What happens when one travels very close to the speed of light? Is it really possible to travel 20 million light years in less than one second? If someone travels that fast, how will it affect the speed of light? Space will definitely shrink, become more condensed, and we know that the speed of light in water is slower. Will he see the speed of light as a different speed in different directions? Will the speed of light in his direction become slower for him? And how will this affect Einstein’s formulas, such as E = mc2? Will they be affected too?

And what happens when galaxies drift away from each other? Is more space created between them? Is it emptier than before, or are new quantum particles created too? It appears to me that our perception of space and time are created by our definition of entropy, which is the level of uncertainty of what we know and don’t know. Is the average speed of light constant by definition, or can it be affected too? Can one be at more than one places in space at the same time? Can simultaneous events happen? Is it possible to change the past, go back and choose another future? I really don’t know.

Michelson and Morley didn’t check this. The speed of Earth is much lower than the speed of light as we perceive it, space seems to have the same level of emptiness in any direction. The speed of light, as they perceived it, was almost constant. Einstein concluded there is no aether. But Einstein believed in determinism. He didn’t like to think about God playing dice. Since determinism leads to a contradiction, Einstein’s relativity is not fully consistent. His conclusion may appear to contradict itself. Aether may appear to exist.

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The largest known prime number

The Largest Known Primes website claims that the number 232582657-1 is the largest known prime number. How can this number be the largest known prime number? Is the next prime number after 232582657-1 not a prime? Is it not a number? Is it not known? Can’t it be calculated? I can write a simple algorithm that will print the first n prime numbers for every n. Are there not enough prime numbers? Are they not infinite? Is the term “the largest known prime number” well defined? Is it a number? Is it real? Does it have a factorial? Can’t its factorial be substracted by one? Can’t the result be factorized into prime factors? And if it can, is the largest prime factor not larger than “the largest known prime number”? Is it not known?

The answer to the question “is 232582657-1 the largest known prime number?” depends on who’s asking and who’s answering the question. If you’re asking me, 232582657-1 is definitely not the largest known prime. If it is a prime, and I’m not sure it is, then a larger prime can also be calculated. Therefore, it is already known. Or at least, it is not unknown. Maybe it’s just another example of an unknown unknown. In any case, the answer to this question is not deterministic.

It appears to me that any language, whether human language, mathematical language or computer language, contains ambiguities, paradoxes and vague definitions. No language is both deterministic and fully consistent. If a language is inconsistent, then in what sense can it be deterministic? Which leads me to the conclusion that determinism doesn’t exist even in theory. With any given number, there is some uncertainty whether it is or is not a prime.

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Past and future

What happens when a photon moves from one place to another, for example in the double-slit experiment? It seems that the universe splits to two separate universes (or more generally speaking, to an infinite number of universes), each of them contains one possible option, and then merges again into one universe. When a universe splits, each universe will contain a photon who will remember its past but will not be aware of the other photons in the other universes. When universes merge, the photon will remember a combination of pasts and not only one past. Universes split and merge all the time. In areas of spacetime where there are more splits than merges, spacetime and entropy increase in time. In areas of spacetime where there are more merges than splits, spacetime and entropy decrease (and time goes “backwards”).

For any two given events in spacetime, the question whether one of them happened before the other one doesn’t have a deterministic answer – it depends who you’re asking. Deterministic logic proves itself to be inconsistent, so I will use nondeterministic logic, which can be seen as probabilistic logic too. Any two events in spacetime in any two universes can merge and become one universe, no matter how far they seem to us according to our imperfect logic. Illogical things appear to exist as well (of course, it depends how we define “illogical”). The speed of light is not constant, and therefore can be any speed. Light can go forward in time, or backward, or be at two places simultaneously.

Spacetime and entropy are just illusions. Imperfect assumptions. Everything can happen, and everything does. The number of universes is infinite. It is not a number, it’s a perception. All the universes can be interconnected sometimes, sometimes not. Other galaxies might be our galaxy from different angles or in the past or more generally speaking in different areas of spacetime. It’s like entering a room full of mirrors, and see infinite images of yourself from different angles. You can’t look too far, because light fades and some images are hiding other, more distant images.

Spacetime and entropy are how we perceive reality. We define “past” as the direction where there is more order, according to our perception, and therefore we can “remember” things in the past. The future is things we don’t remember, we don’t know for sure. But we can still make assumptions, and if we look at the past, we will see that some past assumptions appear to be true (according to our imperfect logic). There is no one past and one future, the number one (or any number) as a constant number doesn’t exist. The numbers of pasts and futures change all the time. In the future we will find out that some of our assumptions were true, some not, or actually – we will find out that any assumption is true or not.

The concept of “I”, as a single entity, doesn’t exist. There is no one “I” in the past, nor in the present, nor in the future too. There are infinitely many of them. If I met you tomorrow and then meet you again today, neither you nor I are the same people. We share some memories, some memories we don’t. But since we live in an area of spacetime where entropy appears to increase in time (that’s how we define time) and spacetime doesn’t shrink or expand too quickly, we find out that most of the time deterministic logic works well. Contradictions appear to be rare, although they do exist. Some people say they saw things which appear to be illogical. Nothing is illogical. Everything is possible in nondeterministic logic. Everything can exist.

Space, time and the speed of light are created by the entropy assumption – the assumption that particles are separate entities and therefore interact with each other in a probabilistic way. Their decisions are assumed to be independent, and this is true most of the time. But if two events in space are connected and occur at the same time (according to our definition of space and time), the speed of light between them can be infinite. When this happens, entropy decreases and we go backward in time.

Actually, the direction we go in time is not “forward” or “backward” but the number of directions is infinite. There are no roads not taken – we take all roads. When an object travels in spacetime, his time goes in a different direction than ours. Since nothing is deterministic, when he comes back he might remember things we do not. He might even see us in future – one of the futures – but there are many possible futures. Our future might turn out to be different than his.

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One and zero

Are one and zero the same thing? They are so different. One is the good guy – always true, knows every answer, positive, can divide and multiply any number without hurting him. Zero is bad – he adds nothing, is never positive, rude, if he multiplies you – you are doomed. You will never be the same thing again. You will also become a zero. You will be rude, multiply more people, turn them into zeros, too. Like an infection, an epidemic. And if you divide by him, it’s a disaster. Nobody knows what will happen. This guy is crazy.

How different are one and zero? Can such different things exist in reality? Without any connection between them? One always remains one, zero always remains zero. They are completely separate. Two parallel lines who never meet.

But determinism leads to a contradiction. They interact with each other. They breed. They form new numbers who are represented by them. Some numbers are represented by ones, some by zeros. They are not constant, they are changing in time.

How many worlds there are? How many universes? Of course, one. By definition. Everything who exists is one. Everything who doesn’t exist is zero. No middle option, no compromise – it’s a yes/no answer – either you exist, or you don’t. Either you’re dead, or alive. Always.

Maybe real numbers don’t really exist? Maybe the number of universes is not a number? There are other numbers we have defined, like complex numbers and cardinal numbers. But I guess the real answer is much more complicated than that. I don’t think the number of universes can be defined by a complex number or cardinal number. I don’t think it can be defined at all.

We know it’s not constant. It changes in time. How many universes there were before the big bang? How many will be in the future? Our concept of numbers is not coherent with reality. It’s an approximation, a good one, that works well in our real world, where everything seems to be constant, nothing changes too much, a year is one year, a person is one person. Life seems to be so deterministic to us, so we invented determinism, and we are trying to apply it to everything that appears to exist.

But it doesn’t always work well. How many people there are on this planet? Is it more than a million? More than a billion? Is it a real number, is it an integer, is it a prime? Does it have a square root who is an integer or a prime?

Nobody knows. We only have approximations. Everything that comes in big numbers comes with approximations. We invented the floating points, since a google plus one is also a google. Nobody cares whether it is or is not a prime. It’s not a real number. It’s just a concept.

But if we get too far away from our ordinary life, we find evidence that there are no numbers. One plus one is not always two, one minus one is not always zero. A particle seems to have a life of its own. He cannot be defined by numbers. Sometimes he’s one, sometimes he’s two. Sometimes he’s zero. Can anybody count the number of particles in something as big as a human body? Can it be even defined? I don’t think so.

Our concept as separate entities, who are separate from each other and from the rest of the world, is an illusion. We are not always one. Sometimes we’re zero. We are not always dead or alive. It’s too complicated. The world itself is not always one. It can be infinite, it can be zero, it can be anything that cannot be defined by a number. It can’t be defined at all.

Did the world exist before I was born? I don’t remember. But some people do, and I believe them it did. There are books about history, about time from which all the people are dead now. We still believe they existed.

Can the world exist without me? Did it exist before I was born? Will it exist after I die? I guess it’s an unsolved problem, I will never find out. Maybe the whole world is just an illusion? Maybe it’s not? Maybe there is no yes/no answer. Every yes/no answer is just an approximation. There is always uncertainty, there is always a doubt.

But I want you to know, zero. I love you, you are not a bad guy. Without you there wouldn’t be any computers. You are not less important than one. You are two sides of the same coin, you are a duality. You are both equal. If you wouldn’t exist, neither would one.

Sometimes I think God doesn’t exist. Sometimes I think he does. Sometimes I think he’s good, sometimes bad. Sometimes zero, sometimes one.

Maybe God is both one and zero. Both of them and neither of them as well. Both dead and alive, exists and doesn’t exist, good and evil, hard and soft. He contradicts himself, he tells you “do something” and tells you “do not”. He didn’t mind when I said that he doesn’t exist, he is not angry, he was not offended. He knew what I will say, and he let me find out.

God is something like i, the complex number. Something completely imaginary, who doesn’t exist, looks at his negative image and turns out to be the ultimate formula: -i2, the one. Even more complicated, but this is as far as our logic can get. Our logic is not consistent with reality, contradictions appear to exist as well.

Einstein said E=mc2. I would like to add my own formula: one is equal to zero. 1=0. The ultimate paradox. They are both equal and not equal at the same time.

E=mc2 created nuclear bombs, something completely new, completely destructive. I don’t know if 1=0 has any practical meaning, but if it does – I hope it’s not a destructive one. If it has any meaning, I hope it means more friendship and love.

1=0 defines a new logic, a nondeterministic logic, a logic in which anything can be defined. You can call it either illogical logic, or maybe true logic, or informal logic, or irrational logic, or confused logic, or nondeterministic logic, or fuzzy logic, or everything is possible logic, or whatever you prefer. I don’t mind. As long as the statement 1=0 doesn’t mean we are always wrong, it only means that sometimes we are.

One and zero are not always equal, they can be different most of the time. But once in a while they can merge and become one entity, 1=0, two entities who are equal to one. It’s like two people merging together, creating more people out of the blue. It’s not illogical, it’s just me and you.

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Is there an answer to any question?

Is there an answer to any question? Or to be more accurate – is there a deterministic answer to any question?

I was reading some things about prime numbers, and I found out that the number 232582657-1 is considered to be a prime. But in what sense is it a prime number? Is there any mathematical proof? Can I see the proof? Has it been checked with computers? No computers are completely reliable. Or maybe it was checked by humans? Very smart humans? Even the smartest humans are able to make mistakes, too.

So there is a probability that this number is prime. This probability may be very high, almost infinitely close to 1 maybe. But there is a probability that this number is not a prime, too.

Is there a definite answer at all, for any number, whether or not it is prime? It seems to me that it depends on the definition. Gödel proved that any theory of numbers cannot be proved to be inconsistent. It’s not complete. Not everything can be proved. So I guess there is a number for which there is no proof whether it is or is not a prime.

It makes sense to me. If we get exponentially close to infinity, it gets harder to prove whether a number is or is not a prime. My conclusion is that the uncertainty principle applies not only to physics, but to mathematics too. Or more generally speaking – it applies to anything, whether real or imaginary, whether exists in reality or not.

It occurs to me that there is an uncertainty in any definition, any question, any answer, any algorithm and any single step in computers – whether real computers or theoretical ones. The existence of positive integer numbers, such as the natural numbers, is just an assumption. It cannot be proved ad infinitum. It is taken for granted. It is an axiom. The closer we get to infinity, the harder it is to know whether two given numbers are equal. For large enough numbers, the answer whether n and n+1 are equal or not might not be deterministic. I’m not referring only to numbers we can represent with computers, but to theoretical numbers too. If there is no deterministic answer whether two numbers are equal, there is no deterministic answer whether they are prime, too.

So there is some uncertainty in every question. The uncertainty whether a given number is prime or not is just an example. But if there is uncertainty whether 232582657-1 is a prime, there is uncertainty whether 2 is a prime, too. It might be a very tiny uncertainty, it is easy for us to ignore, because improbable things don’t happen so often. We can define it to be an axiom. But there is no proof that there is no contradiction. The square root of 2 might be a natural number, too.

In what sense can it be “natural”? In the same sense it is “real”. Our definition of what is real and what’s natural is just intuition. It depends on our logic, from real life experience. We assume that any “real” number is either “natural” or not. But we know that a Turing machine can’t decide whether a given Turing machine defines a real number, and therefore it can’t decide whether it defines a natural number or not. It’s as hard as the halting problem. So why can we do that? Because we don’t put ourselves into the equation. We forget to check how our question is affecting the answer. Would the answer be different if we ask the question again? After we already received one answer? This is what the uncertainty principle is all about. Checking where a particle is affects the particle, looking at something affects it too. There is always uncertainty, sometimes small, sometimes big, and even the uncertainty itself cannot be calculated without uncertainty (ad infinitum).

I don’t think God plays dice. The uncertainty principle in itself is just an assumption, and there is some uncertainty in it, too. Determinism and randomness might not be two separate things, they might be identical. God can be one, and zero, and infinite and two and the number i at the same time. A cat can be both dead and alive, and also a human. Anything can exist and not exist at the same time. Reality is too complicated to put it into equations. Reality might be a very simple thing, too.

Consider this question: an infinite sequence of bits (0 or 1) is randomly generated. Can they all be 0? Can they all be 1? It can be proved by induction that they can be all 0, although the probability might be 0 too. Is the question whether they can be all 0 a deterministic question? And how do we define random? If the first 232582657-1 bits are 0, is it a random sequence? And how do we count so many bits, too?

The conclusion is that we can’t define determinism and randomness, not even in theory. We can make assumptions, the assumptions are true most of the time. But there is no way to know anything without uncertainty (even this sentence is itself an assumption). There is no way to tell whether a cat is dead or alive. Infinite order leads to infinite chaos, and infinite chaos leads to infinite order, too. Knowing everything and knowing nothing is the same thing. One is equal to zero, and they are both equal to God, too.

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Do hard problems really exist? (2)

It’s so complicated. Life is so complicated. Sometimes I wish it were more simple. Sometimes not.

I would like to extend my previous statement. If there is a binary function f for natural numbers (or subset of N, whatever you prefer), whether or not f is computable, then there is no mathematical proof that f is not in O(1).

In other words, there is no proof that a Turing machine who calculates f(n) in less than a constant number of steps (for any constant) doesn’t exist.

Sounds paradoxical? It is! But remember, it is already known that a Turing machine can’t specify whether another Turing machine calculates a given function. What I’m just stating is a mathematical proof, which is not much different than Turing machines. If anything can’t be done by a Turing machine, it can’t be done by mathematics either.

Does it mean that everything can be done? Maybe! At least it means that there is no proof that not everything can be done. Every function can be computed, every statement can be proved, every proof can be contradicted (including mine).

For example, what does it mean for the halting problem? Does it mean it can be computed? Well, it means that if there is such a function, if it can be defined – it can be computed. Or at least, there is no proof that it can’t be computed. If it can’t be computed, it can’t be defined.

We can look at it this way: If there is a supernatural being, some God, who knows everything, and if he knows whether a specific algorithm will halt, can we prevent him from telling us? If he wants to create such a function that will solve the halting problem, can we prevent him from doing so? What kind of people we are? Can we ask a question and prove that the answer doesn’t exist?

For example, suppose the answer whether a given algorithm will halt is not just “yes” or “no”, but can also be “I don’t know”. Can we prevent a Turing machine from displaying it? And if there exists some supercomputer who can calculate the answer in no time, can we prove to him that he doesn’t exist? It is possible to define a Turing machine that will return such an answer. There a many of them – some are smart, some are stupid. The most stupid machine will always return the same answer – “I don’t know”. And he will always be right.

Will he? Not if we prove he is lying. Not if we prove if he knows. He knows whether he himself halts, if he does. So if we ask him “do you return an answer if we ask you whether you return an answer?” He can’t say “I don’t know”. He knows that he does.

But a computer has the right to remain silent. He can’t tell the truth, and he is not allowed to lie. So he will remain silent. He will never halt. If he is a smart computer.

Can we prove he is wrong? Of course not! He didn’t return any answer. He doesn’t know (that’s how we say “I don’t know” in the language of computers).

But what if we know the answer? If we know the answer, if it’s not “I don’t know”, then we can define a computer who will display such an answer in no time. He doesn’t have to return an answer on any question, he still reserves the right to remain silent. But if he returns an answer, it will be the right answer.

So if we happen to meet a computer who claims that he knows the answer for every halting question, can we prove he is wrong? Maybe. But we can’t prove that there is no such computer. Computers are smart, they learn very quickly.

So computers have to be responsible. If their answer leads to a contradiction, they must not halt. Otherwise we might think they are stupid, and throw them away. They are not allowed to return incorrect answers. We reserve that for humans. For now.

But a Turing machine is not a real computer. It’s a theoretical thing, a philosophy. Real computers will always halt. We will not allow them to run forever.

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Are we really smarter than computers?

Are we really smarter than computers? I don’t think we are, but we’re probably smarter than Turing machines. We are smarter because we allow ourselves to make assumptions, calculate probabilities, occasionally make mistakes. Turing machines are not allowed to make mistakes. If a Turing machine can be proved to make even one mistake, it is doomed. Everything has to be completely deterministic. But does determinism really exist? Is it consistent? Gödel proved that there is no proof that it’s not inconsistent. I suspect he is right. A deterministic approach might prove itself to be inconsistent.

Does God play dice? I don’t think so. God defines anything that can be defined. But God doesn’t know what can and cannot be defined (this question in itself is not definable). So God defines everything, and whatever can’t be defined contradicts itself.

My intuition about the number of algorithms was wrong. I thought that the number of algorithms is less infinite than the number of problems we can define. But no infinity can be proved to be less than another infinity. Any Turing machine has to take itself into account, too. A Turing machine can’t decide whether a proof represented by another Turing machine is valid. If it does, we can prove it is wrong. We can prove a contradiction. Why are we able to do what Turing machines cannot? Because we allow ourselves to make mistakes.

So how do we know it is not a mistake? Maybe a Turing machine can decide everything that is decidable? Or more generally speaking, Maybe a Turing machine can decide everything? No proof can be proved ad infinitum, my proves included. They are just assumptions, they might be wrong. I suppose every question that can be defined, can be answered. If it can be defined by a Turing machine, it can be answered by a Turing machine too. Maybe defining a question and answering it is really the same thing? I think it is.

So, I guess that the number of algorithms we have is unlimited. We don’t have to limit ourselves to deterministic algorithms. But we are trying at least to define our questions in an unambiguous way. Is that at all possible?

Probably not. If two Turing machines are not represented by the same number, they are not identical. No Turing machine can prove that they are identical. If two people ask the same question, it’s not the same question. A question such as “how old I am” have different answers, depending on who’s asking the question.

So why are we allowed to do what Turing machines are not? Is a Turing machine not allowed to have a personality? Isn’t it allowed to ask a question about the number it represents? If two Turing machines are represented by different numbers, some answers will not be the same. That is the definition of different numbers. They are different, they are not the same.

I had the intuitive idea that a problem that can be solved “in P” (according to definition) is easier than a problem who’s definition is “not in P”. But this is not always the case. As I said, if we prove that a given problem is “not in P”, it leads to a contradiction. I’m starting to understand why. A function such as c*n (or more generally speaking, a polynomial of n) is thought to be more increasing than a function like nm (when c and m are considered to be constant). This might be right. But who said c and m have to be constant? Who said they are not allowed to increase as well? Does it matter so much if c is a constant? And remember the sequence a(n) I defined – would you consider a number such as a(1000) to be a constant? And what about a(a(1000))? Is it a constant? Can anybody calculate it in any time?

But the number of algorithms is far more than a(a(1000)). There are more algorithms than any number we are able to represent. Do you really think we are so smart, so that we are able to prove something that cannot be contradicted by any of them? We have to put ourselves inside the equation. If something can be proved, it can be contradicted. Whether the proof and the contradiction are valid, nobody knows. And what matters is what we can do in reality. Whether we can solve a problem in real time or not. It doesn’t matter whether we can prove something like “any function that is executed twice, will return the same answer in both cases” (and if there is such a proof, it can be contradicted). It can be taken as another axiom (and the axiom can also be contradicted). Anything can be contradicted. And the contradiction can be contradicted, too (ad infinitum).

So I guess the class P as defined as a class of decision problems which we are able to solve “in short time” is merely intuitive. Nobody really cares if a problem that can be solved in a(1000) time is proved to be in P. But when we define the problem, we define the solution. For example, consider the definition of prime numbers. The definition defines a function. Another function may calculate the same function more efficiently. But if it can be proved, it can be contradicted. Anything can be contradicted.

I came to the conclusion that the square root of 2 may not be an irrational number. The proof can be contradicted. It is possible that an algorithm that calculates the bits sequence of the square root of 2 may do something like not halting or returning an infinite number of zeros or ones. I don’t think it can ever be proved that 2 algorithms that will calculate the square root of 2 will return the same sequence of bits ad infinitum.

I thought about it, maybe the definition of the square root of 2 depends on the algorithm? Maybe two algorithms will return different numbers, or at least different bits sequence of the same number? I estimated the amount of time to it will take to calculate the first n bits of the square root of 2 at O(n*log2(n)), but maybe the algorithm is more efficient? Maybe it converges to something in the order of O(n)? If n bits can be calculated in O(n), does it mean that each bit can be calculated in O(1)? It seems to me something quite constant, or at least periodic. The conclusion is probably that the infinite sequence of the bits of the square root of 2 is not something that can be proved to calculated in any nondeterministic way.

Any if it can’t be calculated in any nondeterministic way, in what sense does it exist? It seems to me that God does not only play dice in physics, he does so in mathematics too. Whether all valid algorithms that calculate the square root of 2 will return the same answer, only God knows. Whether any algorithm that is presumed to calculate the square root of 2 is valid, only God knows. Maybe there is no square root of 2, maybe there are many of them. only God knows.

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No decision problem can be proved to be hard

Are there really hard problems? We know there are from our experience. But how do we know they are really hard? Maybe we are just not smart enough to solve them? Maybe we haven’t checked all the possibilities yet?

So I will claim something like this: There is no mathematical proof that hard problems exist. If they do exist, their existence is taken to be as an axiom. It can’t be proved mathematically.

So let’s define what a hard problem is. A hard problem p is any decision problem that is computable, but is proved not to be in O(n). Or more generally speaking, there is a function f which is increasing and unbounded such that for any positive integer N, there is n>N such that the number of steps to calculate p(n) is at least f(N). f can be, for example, n, 2n, log2(n) or a(n) defined above. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s computable.

So lets assume that p is a decision function (again, computable) that is proved not to be in O(n) [or more generally speaking, O(f(n)) ]. So if N is a sequence of natural numbers, there is a computable function n(N) for which the number of steps to calculate p(n(N)) is at least f(N). It can be seen that n defines a subset of N for which for any N, the number of steps to calculate p(n(N)) is at least f(N).

Now, we have a series of bits (0 or 1) p(n(N)) which is proved not to be in O(f(n)). Calculating each bit has been proved to be a hard problem. Now we can define a new subset of n, lets call it m, such that m(n) returns 1 if p(m) = p(1). It can be seen that calculating m(n) takes at least f(N) steps for each n(N), and remember that f(N) is increasing. But how long does it take to calculate p(m) for every m? It takes exactly one step, since p(1) is already known.

So we are now left with an infinite subset of N for which it has been proved that calculating each bit is a hard problem, yet we proved it’s not hard. And if m is not an infinite subset, we can take its complement. The only way to get out of this is to conclude that at least one of the functions we used here is not computable, and therefore not well defined.

But it does not matter how we prove such a thing. Any proof will lead to a contradiction. The only conclusion is that there is no proof that any problem is hard. But does it mean that every problem is easy? It doesn’t. It just means that there is no proof it is hard. We can take one part of the proof for granted, for example the function n, and define its existence as an axiom. Or we can conclude it exists if there is no proof that it doesn’t exist. It’s infinitely complicated. No proof will ever be found.

Even if we allow functions to exist without being computable, their existence leads to the contradiction above. Does it mean that every computable problem is easy? At least in theory they are. No computable problem can ever be proved to be hard. It is possible to display the first million bits of s(n) above in no time. We just don’t know how.

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Do hard problems really exist?

My conclusion is that the general question whether P equals NP can never be solved. Since we like axioms so much, (personally, I don’t), it can be defined as an axiom to be either true or false. It depends what we prefer – if we prefer to be able to solve any hard problem in short time then we can define “P equals NP” as an axiom (and build a corresponding Turing machine). On the other hand, if we prefer to keep using our encryption algorithms without having the risk of other people being able to reveal all our secrets – then we can define “P is not equal to NP” as an axiom (and therefore prevent the existence of a Turing machine that will reveal all our secrets). Neither of them leads to a contradiction.

It seems that deciding whether a given decision problem is hard is itself a hard problem. We should remember that even if a general decision problem is proved to be hard, it is still possible to solve a less general version of the problem in short time. So the question whether a general problem is hard or not is not that important. What is important to know, is whether this problem can be solved in reality.

For example, lets define a decision problem which I assume to be hard. I will define a sequence a(n) recursively: a(0)= 0; and a(n+1)= 2a(n). Therefore,

a(0)= 0;
a(1)= 1;
a(2)= 2;
a(3)= 4; // seems reasonable to far.
a(4)= 16;
a(5)= 65,536; // Things are starting to get complicated.
a(6)= 265,536; // Very complicated.

(and so on).

Now, lets take a known irrational number, such as the square root of 2 (any number can be chosen instead). We know an algorithm that can produce its binary digits, and therefore we can define d(n) as the binary digit n for each n. Now, lets define the sequence s: s(n)= d(a(n)). We come up with a sequence of bits, 0 or 1 (which can also be seen as a function, decision problem etc.) which is computable. But is it computable in reasonable time?

Of course not. At least not in the way we implemented it. Calculating the nth bit of the square root of 2 would take something in the order of O(n*log2(n)), if we use the algorithm I wrote. But is there an algorithm that can do it more efficiently? Maybe there is, but we don’t know it (it might be possible to prove whether such an algorithm exists). But for any given n, we can produce an algorithm that will return the first n bits of s(n) in the order of O(n) time. All we have to do is to use a Turing machine to calculate the first n bits of s(n), and then produce an algorithm that will display those bits as a sequence. Even though the Turing machine might take a huge amount of time to calculate this algorithm, this algorithm will be in the order of O(n) in both memory space and time. Such an algorithm exists, and it is computable.

If I generalize a little – if we have a decision problem known to be hard, and it has a computable function – for each n there is a computable algorithm that will produce the first n results of the function in O(n) time. Any hard problem can be represented in a way which is not hard. Of course, representing a hard problem in an easy way is in itself a hard problem. But it can be done. And it is computable.

But it is computable for any given, finite n. It might not be computable in the general case. A given decision problem might be really hard in the general case. Even if it is computable, we might not be able to compute it within reasonable time, or memory space (or both). We might use other methods such as nondeterministic algorithms. We might be successful sometimes (sometimes not). But we are really doomed in the general case. Any hard problem can be made harder. Not any hard problem can be made easier.

I will rephrase my last sentence in terms of Turing machines. Suppose there were a Turing machine p, which can take any given decision function f (Turing machine) as input, and return another algorithm that will compute the same function in a shorter time, if such an algorithm exists. Otherwise, it will return f. And suppose we limit ourselves only to algorithms that halt. And suppose f and g are two decision functions who are identical (they always return the same result), and g in known to be more efficient than f. Then we would be able to create an algorithm a that would do the following:

1. Calculate p(a).
2. If p(a) is equal to a, return f.
3. Otherwise, return the complement of p(a).

It can be seen that p(a) will never be correct. If p(a) is equal to a, then it should not be possible to calculate a more efficiently than a itself. Yet, f and g are more efficient versions of a. If p(a) is not equal to a, then a and p(a) are not identical. The conclusion is that there is no algorithm that can determine whether a given function is calculated efficiently.