Re: Fun with C

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:57:32 -0700 (PDT), Maciej Sobczak wrote:

> On Apr 26, 8:18�am, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mail...@dmitry-kazakov.de>
> wrote:
> 
>>> What? A simple hanging spring can oscillate while being purely linear.
>>
>> That system is not linear.
> 
> Taking into account your further response to Nasser, I take that you
> mean the *real* hanging spring.

No, I mean that x(t) =A sin(2Pi f t) + x0 is not a linear function of time.
I didn't mean effects non-ideal pendulums have.

>> What I meant was: take the i486 and describe its [electric] behavior by
>> means of Newtonian mechanics. Of course it need not to be a detailed
>> description, only a sketch
> 
> OK, so welcome back to simplified models. Hanging spring is a linear
> system then. :-)

No, it is not. Linear meant to be its position. For this the acceleration
must be 0. You used "linear" in the sense that one of the forces is a
linear function of position. That does not give you a linear solution.

>> how it could be done considering that its
>> components (electrons etc) are rigid bodies.
> 
> It's pointless.
>
> It was not designed at this level of detail (higher-level abstractions
> and reusable design modules were used instead), so there is no point
> in describing its behaviour at this level.
> In which case I again don't understand what you are trying to prove.

In XIX century a physicist would claim that knowing all initial states and
velocities [and electric charges] of particles he would be able to describe
i486 (running Linux etc) with any given precision. Today, we know that he
could not. Which is the whole point. Newtonian mechanics fails to explain
how a simple (single core! (:-)) processor works. In fact it cannot
describe a single transistor.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de