A fistful of wishful thinking

Article Abstract:

It was widely believed in the US in the late 19th century that settlement and cultivation, particularly of trees, would bring rainfall to arid areas, particularly the Great Plains beyond the hundredth meridian. The first report from the US Geological Survey of the Territories, published in 1867, stated that the timber increase resulting from settlement had already boosted rainfall in Nebraska. By coincidence, rainfall rose during the 1870s when settlement was spreading westward across the Great Plains. It is now known that trees have some connection with the moisture content of the air in their vicinity, but not with rainfall.

Environmental aspects, Rain and rainfall, Rain, Land settlement

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Parallel thinking

Article Abstract:

Delegates at the 'Unconventional Models of Computation' conference at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in Jan 1998 discussed three new models of computation. These were the reversible model, the DNA model and the quantum model. Events at the conference included the presentation of the world's first fully reversible universal computer. This machine works with a parallel architecture, and is able to undertake any computation using arbitrarily little energy per operation.

Conferences, meetings and seminars, Parallel computers

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Randomness everywhere

Article Abstract:

Omega has a simple mathematical definition but this does not allow the determination of more than a finite number of its digits. An Omega is computably enumerable as a systematic run of programs will allow improved approximation, and also random as it is incompressible. In 1998 it was proved that every Omega-like real number is an Omega, reinforcing algorithmic information theory that randomness is fundamental and pervasive in both pure mathematics and theoretical physics.

Research, Observations, Mathematical research, Numbers, Random, Random numbers, Omega Psi Phi

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