4 ms·
> I don't think this brute force approach is going to work, we need a different way to figure this out, but I'm confident that once figured out, it will seem si
by smaili 10y ago
> I don't think this brute force approach is going to work, we need a different way to figure this out, but I'm confident that once figured out, it will seem simple looking back on it.
Why not? Couldn't we use machines to automate this and analyze the results?
- JimmyM 10y agoI think it might take a while. http://coolconversion.com/math/factorial/What-is-the-number-of-zeros-on-the-end-of_175_factorial http://coolconversion.com/math/factorial/What-is-the-number-...
- sixQuarks 10y agoWhen you're talking about 175 different genes, there are far more combinations of genes than there are atoms in the universe. Perhaps a quantum computer can tackle this kind of problem, but nothing we have today can brute-force the solution.
- alister 10y agoThey got it down to 473 genes, but let's say that minimal life is some 20 of those genes. A brute force approach would require trying 10^34 combinations[1]. And that's already with the simplifying assumption that 20 genes is the minimal set rather than 19 or 106 or some other subset. [1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=473+choose+20 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=473+choose+20