This is  a dirty wiki quote.

String theory is a developing branch of quantum mechanics and general relativity with the aim of merging and reconciling the two areas of physics into a quantum theory of gravity.^[1] The strings of string theory are one-dimensional oscillating lines, but they are no longer considered fundamental to the theory, which can be formulated in terms of points or surfaces too.

Since its inception as the dual resonance model which described the strongly interacting hadrons as strings, the term string theory has changed to include any of a group of related superstring theories which unite them. One shared property of all these theories is the holographic principle. String theory itself comes in many different formulations, each one with a different mathematical structure, and each best describing different physical circumstances. But the principles shared by these approaches, their mutual logical consistency, and the fact that some of them easily include the standard model of particle physics^{[citation needed]}, has led many of the world’s greatest living physicists (such as Edward Witten, Juan Maldacena and Leonard Susskind) to believe that the string theory is a step towards the correct fundamental description of nature^{[citation needed]}. In particular, string theory is the first candidate for the theory of everything (TOE), a way to describe the known fundamental forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions) and matter (quarks and leptons) in a mathematically complete system.

Many prominent physicists, such as Richard Feynman and Sheldon Lee Glashow have criticized string theory for not providing any quantitative experimental predictions.^{[2] [3]} Like any other quantum theory of gravity, it is widely believed that testing the theory directly would require prohibitively expensive feats of engineering. Whether there are stringent indirect tests of the theory is unknown.

String theory is of interest to many physicists because it requires new mathematical and physical ideas to mesh together its very different mathematical formulations. One of the most inclusive of these is the 11-dimensional M-theory, which requires spacetime to have eleven dimensions,^[4] as opposed to the usual three spatial dimensions and the fourth dimension of time. The original string theories from the 1980s describe special cases of M-theory where the eleventh dimension is a very small circle or a line, and if these formulations are considered as fundamental, then string theory requires ten dimensions. But the theory also describes universes like ours, with four observable spacetime dimensions, as well as universes with up to 10 flat space dimensions, and also cases where the position in some of the dimensions is not described by a real number, but by a completely different type of mathematical quantity. So the notion of spacetime dimension is not fixed in string theory: it is best thought of as different in different circumstances.^[5]

String theories include objects more general than strings, called branes. The word brane, derived from “membrane”, refers to a variety of interrelated objects, such as D-branes, black p-branes and Neveu-Schwarz 5-branes. These are extended objects that are charged sources for differential form generalizations of the vector potential electromagnetic field. These objects are related to one another by a variety of dualities. Black hole-like black p-branes are identified with D-branes, which are endpoints for strings, and this identification is called Gauge-gravity duality. Research on this equivalence has led to new insights on quantum chromodynamics, the fundamental theory of the strong nuclear force.

I’m attracted to this kinda stuff as it examines how elements can exist in different states and in unison.

Quantum Physics

This article on gizmodo points out some discoveries in qutum mechanics and in specific to how they might be applied to future computing.

Remember when, just the other day, we were talking about the future of storage, and how quantum mechanics is on the pipe dream, it’s totally magic list for now? Yeah. Me too. Thing is, shit just got real: Updated.Real, and more importantly observable. Observable is important because until this week when one talked about quantum mechanics they were either spouting a lot of unproven theory about things way too tiny to be measured or they were Lt. Cmdr. Geordi LaForge on the engineering deck of the Enterprise D.

No longer!

A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving. - Nature

Bwah? It reads like science fiction, to me, but apparently science guy Andrew Cleland and his team, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, were able to cool a tiny 30-micrometer metal paddle to the point where it reached a quantum mechanical ground state. Or, as my limited understand calls it, the place where nature starts to get all freaky deaky.

After the cooling process was complete, Cleland and company were able to “simultaneously set the paddle moving while leaving it standing still.” Again: The metal paddle was both vibrating and not vibrating at the same time, and in a way that was observable by the naked eye.

Are you freaking out yet? Because I know a few cats in dark boxes that are right now.

Updated: Obviously, quantum mechanics is not, nor will be, my area of expertise. As AreWeThereYeti explains, better than I, “It’s important to realize that they didn’t actually observe it in a superposition. All they said was that the paddle is large enough that it could be observed by the naked eye, but not while it is in a superposition state.”

Right. So the object is observable by the human eye. Mind, slightly less blown.

Updated: Be sure to check out Justin’s reply to AreWeThereYeti’s comment as well. I promoted it so it should appear for everyone. Interesting, record-correcting, stuff in there. The debate continues -j.l. [Nature via Kottke]

(I also like how there is a debate on the subject emerging, but that’s another tangent I can’t be bothered going down right now heh)

So I guess really looking at this stuff I’m interested in how information might exist in different states, for different people or via different means of consumption. I really need to find some research papers into this kinda stuff I think.

Read the full article »

http://www.chipoglesby.com/2009/11/retaining-institutional-knowledge/

// November 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // Journalism, The Future

In our October SMC meeting Doug Fisher made a great point when he said “What other business leaves 99% of their raw material on the cutting room floor?”

That quote has given me plenty to think about when it comes to retaining ‘institutional knowledge‘ in the workroom.

Managing information

Newspapers have always been plagued by how they manage information. Most reporters use notepads and keep them tied up in boxes shoved away under their desk.

There may be some online content stored in individuals reporters directory but there’s no central repository of information available. At best, some reporters store all of their contacts in a MS word document. *ugh*

With staff layoffs most mid-sized newspapers have completely done away with their library staff, opting instead for a digital library such as Olive.

But what happens to the institutional knowledge when layoffs come? Think of all the history that a reporter takes with them. Every contact they have, every note they’ve taken may just as well walk out of the door with them.

Suggested software

So how do we tackle this mountain of data and inefficiency?

To begin with, reporters, editors and producers need to understand that their knowledge belongs to everyone in the newsroom. I know that some may find it shocking when you ask them to share their sources with others, but it’s time to stop playing this game and start collaborating as a team.

Next, newspapers should install and internally host their own free wiki site.

Within those pages, reporters and editors can create information-rich pages about every prominent business, councilman, elected official, high school and sports team they cover.

Take for example the public wikipedia page of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. This could easily be duplicated for newspapers and could include twice as much information because every story we’ve and everyone else has published would be linked to this page. It could also include contact information, known associates, political positions, campaign donors or whatever you could imagine.

Every time a reporter or editor learns new information about an individual subject it could be added to the wiki to help retain that much needed knowledge and context. Over time a huge database could be created and using API’s and metadata, it could also be connected to your photo archives and digital libraries giving you the ability to do some great data-mining.

A reporter could easily maintain their own pages by creating entries for people they cover like the mayor, the governor, head football coach, whoever and adding small nuggets of information over time. If the need arises or beats are swapped, then all of their knowledge moves right on to the next person who covers that beat.

The type of information that is retained could very, but newspapers could create a type of guideline for what should be kept on the wiki pages. If working on something confidential, a team could password protect their page, but this would be outside of the norm since we want everyone to collaborate.

All of this comes down to newspapers need to curate raw data and give it a place to reside for long term use. Newspapers need to do a much better job on connecting the dots internally as well as externally.

Issues to consider

One thing to take into consideration is where you want to host this wiki. Do you want to store it on the internet and allow your readers to collaborate with you or do you want to store it internally behind a firewall available only from within the building and via VPN?

If there were a way to password protect certain parts of the page, I would make the bold move to suggest that it be publicly available and ask your readers to contribute their collective knowledge. Obviously there would still be a need to fact check everything that readers post.

Another issue to consider is how to get reporters and editors excited about doing something like this. There are certain types of people (like me) who could sit around and semantically tag blogs and multimedia all day, and then there are others who are lucky if they even check their work emails once a week.

Sometimes you’ll see a strong push for something exciting like this in the very beginning, like writing a company blog, but it slowly tapers off over time, So keeping folks interested will also be an obstacle.

The bottom line

As more papers face more cutbacks and layoffs our ‘institutional knowledge’ is going to keep on walking out the door an an alarming rate.

Setting up an internal wiki is only the beginning for what could be accomplished. With some basic software and data mining, reporters and editors could uncover a completely new set of data that will give their site premium content, but connecting the dots has to start somewhere. Where do we go from here?

http://blog.thinkphp.de/archives/124-An-alternative-Approach-to-Tagging.html

+--------------+  +--------------+ +--------------+
| bookmarks    |  | keywords     | | relations    |
+--------------+  +--------------+ +--------------+
| ID           |  | ID           | | ID           |
| url          |  | keyword      | | bookmark     |
| title        |  +--------------+ | keyword      |
+--------------+                   +--------------+