Warning: nerd stuff ahead…
8 minute audio on youtube of the theoretical physicist discussing his discovery. This video, is of course, someone else’s work. I try to keep my blog “my crap only” as possible, but this was just too weird to pass up.
I’ll try distill what he’s saying as best I can. He’s saying that there’s evidence that within the fundamental fabric of reality dictated by superstring theory, there exists a subtle, yet deliberate form of computer-like error-checking. What he’s describing is the backbone to TCP/IP; Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. The protocol that allows our computers to connect via the world-wide-web and talk to each other.
Back before there was a world-wide-web, there was a network that ran on connection-less UDP. UDP simply broadcast data packets to any computer that might be listening, similarly to how television broadcasting worked over airwaves. Within the first packet-switching networks out of DARPA in the late 60’s, they implemented a computer networking protocol that was more like a handshake.
Instead of blasting out data to anyone who might be listening, TCP ensured a connected state: computer A would connect to computer B, and computer B would ACKNOWLEDGE the connection, and send a message back to computer A saying “Okie-dokie, I am now prepared to receive information from you now.” The actual data you wanted to send was only a piece of the whole envelope being sent. There was all sorts of data included in your actual message, like how many bytes was in this packet, which packet is this one in the series of the message, and lots and lots of error checking bits and checksums and the like. Very similar to things like how big is the envelope, how many stamps does it have, which mailman picked it up, and which post office is it going to.
What this theoretical physicist is saying, is that the equations found in superstring theory are showing evidence that the very binary “checksums” found in our modern computer network error-checking are also found in the superstring equations of reality.
Discarding, or accepting and interpreting what this implies is an exercise I leave to the reader.
I knew you were too smart for me… sigh.
Wha..? If breathing weren’t an involuntary action, I’d have suffocated years ago..
Well, I don’t know what it does for my credibility, but I admit that I’ve pondered such things 🙂
Ain’t nothing wrong with pondering reality, my friend…ain’t nothing wrong with that.