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> “I was driven to error-correcting codes—they’re what make browsers work. So why were they in the equations I was studying about quarks and electrons and super

by talles 11y ago

> “I was driven to error-correcting codes—they’re what make browsers work. So why were they in the equations I was studying about quarks and electrons and supersymmetry? This brought me to the stark realization that I could no longer say people like Max are crazy.” Is he loosely associating mathematical constants with arbitrary error codes that we made up in computing?

CocaKoala 11y ago
He is not. An error code is a way to refer to an error. Error-correcting code is something else entirely; it is a way to encode information in which small errors in the transmission of the information can be detected and possibly corrected. For a simple example: I want to send you 5 bits of data, and you receive 01101. You assume (but cannot prove) that you got the right data; maybe a bit was flipped somewhere and I actually sent you 11101! So you and I agree that we'll include a parity bit in our messages. If I'm sending you an odd number of 1-bits, the parity bit will be 1. If I'm sending you an even number of 1-bits, the parity bit will be 0. So now, I send you five bits of data, plus one parity bit. You get the message 011011. You see that you have fives bits, 01101, and a 1 for the parity bit, which means that you should be expecting an odd number of 1-bits. That is what you have, so you can assume that as long as no more than 1 bit can be flipped in transit, you have the data with no malformations. This concept can be extended to detect more errors (what if two bits get flipped) and to detect where the errors take place, which helps to correct them. That's why it's called error-correcting code.
- talles 11y ago
  And what this has to do with "quarks and electrons and supersymmetry"?
  - CocaKoala 11y ago
    Hell if I know, man. If I did, I'd have included it in my explanation! But there was a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of what was being said, and I felt like it was worth explaining what I knew so that at the very least, incredulity was being expressed for the correct reason.

by talles 11y ago

CocaKoala 11y ago

He is not. An error code is a way to refer to an error. Error-correcting code is something else entirely; it is a way to encode information in which small errors in the transmission of the information can be detected and possibly corrected. For a simple example: I want to send you 5 bits of data, and you receive 01101. You assume (but cannot prove) that you got the right data; maybe a bit was flipped somewhere and I actually sent you 11101! So you and I agree that we'll include a parity bit in our messages. If I'm sending you an odd number of 1-bits, the parity bit will be 1. If I'm sending you an even number of 1-bits, the parity bit will be 0. So now, I send you five bits of data, plus one parity bit. You get the message 011011. You see that you have fives bits, 01101, and a 1 for the parity bit, which means that you should be expecting an odd number of 1-bits. That is what you have, so you can assume that as long as no more than 1 bit can be flipped in transit, you have the data with no malformations. This concept can be extended to detect more errors (what if two bits get flipped) and to detect where the errors take place, which helps to correct them. That's why it's called error-correcting code.

talles 11y ago
And what this has to do with "quarks and electrons and supersymmetry"?
- CocaKoala 11y ago
  Hell if I know, man. If I did, I'd have included it in my explanation! But there was a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of what was being said, and I felt like it was worth explaining what I knew so that at the very least, incredulity was being expressed for the correct reason.