Prescience and Spice and Everything Nice

There is prediction, and there is prognostication.  And, once in a great while, there is true prescience.

Consider the case of J.C.R. Licklider - a seminal figure of whom, until recently, I had never heard. On reading about him, I am staggered by his dead-on prescience in predicting the ultimate power of social connections via the internet - back in 1960. His Man-Computer Symbiosis has to be read to be believed. In it he touches on the obvious: the need for speed, memory, robust programming languages, and effective I/O.  But he goes much deeper, brilliantly identifying memory and its organization (which leads to necessary "searchability") as necessary developments before the symbiosis can happen:

Man-computer symbiosis is an expected development in cooperative interaction between men and electronic computers. It will involve very close coupling between the human and the electronic members of the partnership. The main aims are 1) to let computers facilitate formulative thinking as they now facilitate the solution of formulated problems, and 2) to enable men and computers to cooperate in making decisions and controlling complex situations without inflexible dependence on predetermined programs...Prerequisites for the achievement of the effective, cooperative association include developments in computer time sharing, in memory components, in memory organization, in programming languages, and in input and output equipment.

And note the reference to emergent behavior: to enable men and computers to cooperate in making decisions and controlling complex situations without inflexible dependence on predetermined programs.

Man-Computer Symbiosis reminds me of one of my favorite sci-fi books, although pigeonholing it into that genre doesn't do justice to Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future, by Olaf Stapledon. Here Stapledon predicts the fate of mankind from Stapledon's present (1930) through the next two billion years, during which mankind evolves through

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Eine Kleine Nachtfractal

Listen to Mozart by Renata SpiazziThe melodic recursiveness of most music, especially as manifested in the crystalline, almost-mathematical purity of Mozart compositions, suggests the presence of fractal-like structures that exist both in time and the frequency domain - structures that are both solid and ephemeral, logical and otherworldly.

Some may hear (even if they don't articulate) a richness that is reminiscent of fractal construction. Marin Alsop, Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, describes Mozart's popularity as the result of "the depth of the music and ... the fact that Mozart makes contact with our inner selves. Maybe it's because of his organic approach to composition - taking a small, cellular idea and developing it into something beautiful, he takes you by surprise but also comforts you."

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Real Physics and Faked Farm Music

The ultimate in modeling occurs when a simulation of physical events is so real that reality pales in comparision.

Consider, for example, the case of the University of Iowa Farm Music Machine, as described in a recent e-mail making the rounds:

This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa.

Amazingly, 97% of the machines Components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft Iowa, yes farm equipment! It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment, calibration, and tuning before filming this video but as you can see it was WELL worth the effort.

It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University and is already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian.

If you haven't seen/heard this device, check out the video. (Note - this is a wmv file. If your media player can't play it, try viewing the film at any one of hundreds of websites, e.g. digg)

While this is an amazing video, the Farm Music Machine is obviously not true - it is a brilliant computer animation produced by Animusic titled Pipe Dream. The e-mail describing the FMM may just be the most benign, and popular urban legend listed on Snopes.

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Playing a Mandelbrot Set - Hum a Few Iterations and I'll Fake It

Eventually by Sergio Lazo

In the annals of how-to songs one will find everything from delicate interactions with a weapon of mass destruction - e.g. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb by U2 - to an even more dangerous and potentially deadly situation - How to Handle a Woman from Camelot comes to mind.

(Yes I know that How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is not the name of an actual song! So suggest a better title to match up with How to handle a Woman.)

And now comes the ultimate how-to for the fractally-minded: Mandelbrot Set by Jonathan Coulton, the Contributing Troubadour for Popular Science Magazine and composer of "well-crafted geek folk-pop. Hilarious but heartbreaking songs about mad scientists, robot armies and self-loathing giant squids." His is the voice of "every one of us who has ever sat despairingly on the floor, surrounded by parts of an Ikea endtable, weeping over our Allen wrenches.

Coulton's work is truly unique. Check out his site for all of his tunes. And there are plenty of them: In 2005-2006 he recorded and published a new song podcast every week. All of the lyrics are there, as well as guitar tabs and videos.

Mandelbrot Set is funny, incredibly clever, and mathematically correct! Some excerpts...

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