Hi Richard Johnson‍,  As you note you had "no knowledge of analogue", by which I presume you mean 'no knowledeg of analog computers', which was, generically, part of the point of my question. It is like looking back at all the explanations, over the years, decades, centuries, of how the human brain works, and what you find is that the explanations match the current principal technology, so we now see the brain as a digital computer, rather than a late 19th century clockwork mechanical device (can't find the BBC article on that history at the moment).


I was guessing that, actually, the vast majority of the working population of engineers and scientists, particularly those under 60 (who were 18 in 1975 and possibly just starting their tertiary education) will have completely missed the ideas and methods of analog computing, and the speed at which it calculated rather complex things (relatively speaking). But then again analog could not compute 2 x 2 and get 4.00000 !


(for an easy analog computation, think of a mesh of electrical resistors that emulate flow of product though various channels that have linear flow characteristics - simply apply voltages at the edges and instantly measure the flows in any branch of the network (e.g. Rosen's theorem for mesh networks).


At the moment the whole 'Quantum' thing is stuck in an 'it's too complicated fror the likes of you' way of describing it, and the osmosis is preventing the diffusion of the knowledge.

At the moment I'm not a believer in the absolute ' instant' -ness of quantum computing (Simon Barker's). Certain aspects may have a mathematical instant effect, like 1+1=2 is instantaneous and reversible, but the thermodynamics is not in favour of quantum computing being that instant - It appears as if the physicists are hiding that under it being a 'measurement' issue, which is just a conceptual split (just like heliocentricity was useful to Galileo's maths ).


Most of the 'noise in old analog computers was at the limit, quantum in nature, it just looks like they have cut down the size (inertia) of the items that are being 'processed', so they can respond (interact) more quickly, which then begs the question, why so cold - it usually makes everything respond more slowly. Maybe they are meeting in the middle (ambient quantum phenomena and interactions are too quick, so slow/cool them down until we can see them making their quesses!)

 

Hi Richard Johnson‍,  As you note you had "no knowledge of analogue", by which I presume you mean 'no knowledeg of analog computers', which was, generically, part of the point of my question. It is like looking back at all the explanations, over the years, decades, centuries, of how the human brain works, and what you find is that the explanations match the current principal technology, so we now see the brain as a digital computer, rather than a late 19th century clockwork mechanical device (can't find the BBC article on that history at the moment).


I was guessing that, actually, the vast majority of the working population of engineers and scientists, particularly those under 60 (who were 18 in 1975 and possibly just starting their tertiary education) will have completely missed the ideas and methods of analog computing, and the speed at which it calculated rather complex things (relatively speaking). But then again analog could not compute 2 x 2 and get 4.00000 !


(for an easy analog computation, think of a mesh of electrical resistors that emulate flow of product though various channels that have linear flow characteristics - simply apply voltages at the edges and instantly measure the flows in any branch of the network (e.g. Rosen's theorem for mesh networks).


At the moment the whole 'Quantum' thing is stuck in an 'it's too complicated fror the likes of you' way of describing it, and the osmosis is preventing the diffusion of the knowledge.

At the moment I'm not a believer in the absolute ' instant' -ness of quantum computing (Simon Barker's). Certain aspects may have a mathematical instant effect, like 1+1=2 is instantaneous and reversible, but the thermodynamics is not in favour of quantum computing being that instant - It appears as if the physicists are hiding that under it being a 'measurement' issue, which is just a conceptual split (just like heliocentricity was useful to Galileo's maths ).


Most of the 'noise in old analog computers was at the limit, quantum in nature, it just looks like they have cut down the size (inertia) of the items that are being 'processed', so they can respond (interact) more quickly, which then begs the question, why so cold - it usually makes everything respond more slowly. Maybe they are meeting in the middle (ambient quantum phenomena and interactions are too quick, so slow/cool them down until we can see them making their quesses!)