3 ms·

I think the title should be "Efficient classical algorithm for boson sampling discovered". I don't get the whole singularity thing.

sp332 9y ago
A singularity originally referred to a single point where (the mathematical description of) a field has infinite strength. For example, a black hole that had collapsed to an infinitely dense, infinitely small point. But lots of people now are referring to the event horizon around the back hole as the singularity. So when something starts to tip inevitably, it's called a singularity even though that's just the beginning of getting there.
- amelius 9y ago
  I think in the "Kurzweil sense" a singularity means that after the tipping point is reached, no human involvement should be necessary to reach the "infinite strength point" (the true singularity). Note that this holds for black holes at least.
- Udik 9y ago
  I always intended it as "the point beyond which no description is possible", from the mathematical concept of singularity as a point in which a mathematical object is not defined. Which sort of fits with the idea of a point in progress beyond which no description of the future is possible.
  - dwringer 9y ago
    "Wait. I've seen this. I stand here, right here, and I'm supposed to say something. I say, 'Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo.' . . . What? What did I just say?"
- danbruc 9y ago
  A singularity originally referred to a single point where (the mathematical description of) a field has infinite strength. That's not really true. The term singularity was almost certainly first used in mathematics. Most physicist don't believe that there are singularities in nature, it's just our incomplete or simplified physical theories that have them in their equations. And in mathematics there are quite a few kinds of singularities, of isolated points that have drastically different behavior than their neighborhood, and diverging to infinity is just one example.

sp332 9y ago

A singularity originally referred to a single point where (the mathematical description of) a field has infinite strength. For example, a black hole that had collapsed to an infinitely dense, infinitely small point. But lots of people now are referring to the event horizon around the back hole as the singularity. So when something starts to tip inevitably, it's called a singularity even though that's just the beginning of getting there.

amelius 9y ago
I think in the "Kurzweil sense" a singularity means that after the tipping point is reached, no human involvement should be necessary to reach the "infinite strength point" (the true singularity). Note that this holds for black holes at least.
Udik 9y ago
I always intended it as "the point beyond which no description is possible", from the mathematical concept of singularity as a point in which a mathematical object is not defined. Which sort of fits with the idea of a point in progress beyond which no description of the future is possible.
- dwringer 9y ago
  "Wait. I've seen this. I stand here, right here, and I'm supposed to say something. I say, 'Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo.' . . . What? What did I just say?"
danbruc 9y ago
A singularity originally referred to a single point where (the mathematical description of) a field has infinite strength. That's not really true. The term singularity was almost certainly first used in mathematics. Most physicist don't believe that there are singularities in nature, it's just our incomplete or simplified physical theories that have them in their equations. And in mathematics there are quite a few kinds of singularities, of isolated points that have drastically different behavior than their neighborhood, and diverging to infinity is just one example.