Thoughts on the Infinite

I need a pure mathematician to discuss this with me but I have been having some shower thoughts on infinite numbers and their implications.  I am not a formally trained mathematician and am almost certainly using words like “set” and “infinite” differently than would be properly used by one, but regardless I need to get these out of my head.

First, it seems logical for order sets of infinitely large things, of a defined group, that the nature of their being ordered would mean all possible patterns for that set would occur.  For example the defined group of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 in the order of “1”, “2”, etc through infinity would always contain any possible finite “number” regardless of the patter if we assume the patter must contain those ten characters.

Second, it seems just as logical for unordered sets of infinitely large things, of a defined group, that the nature of their being unordered would mean all possible patters for that set would NOT occur.  In other words, that because such a set is ordered in a non-exhaustive way that even if the set was used infinitely it would not guarantee all possible discrete sets would be used. For example the defined group of a, b, c, d, e… through z order via “one”, “two”, etc. through infinity would not automatically contain the word “xxxzxxznnnzzz” because such word violates the rules of the English language.  So an infinite number of words would be produced but non of them would be xxxzxxznnnzzz.

The natural implication for this is that for sets that have arbitrary rules that the normal assumptions for infinite breakdown.

A totally different question also comes to mind.   For infinite numbers that (although unordered still contain all possible patters) for example pi.  Do specific patterns in these sets generally appear random (at least within the confines of their set length?)   Is their randomness generally uniform?

Make More Urgent the Necessity

Luck is the residue of design.

–Branch Rickey

After an Dr. Dobb’s interview with Christos Papadimitriou I have been thinking about design, creation, and development of complex systems.  Specifically systems that are fundamentally efficient.  The most important systems in existence are all amazingly complex (in fact, entirely too complex to ever design) and yet are built (often upon very simply concepts.)  They evolve into existence and are created without ever being engineered.

My favorite example is economics, which has as its basis very simple rules.  Economics sprout markets; which which are not only insanely complex but suffer from constant attempts to control always with perfect failure.  Other example include physics and the universe, computers and the internet.

So my question is, what other systems exist that can be created, but cannot be designed?

Hack This List

If you got nothing to do for the weekend and have a couple extra YEARS to spend trying to solve a problem here is a great place to start. It is a list of many of the worlds most famous unsolved codes, ciphers, and languages. Solving any one of these will bring you fame and fortune (as I guarantee you will be able to find a security job somewhere!)

…and just a quick word of advice, don’t bother trying to solve the Voynich Cypher.

The Voynich Cypher

An article in Nature discusses whither or not the Voynich Manuscript is a well designed fraud using a known form of encryption. For those of you who are not familiar with the Voynich Manuscript, its Elizabetian era “book” that is in a never before seen “language”. Most fraudulent manuscripts from that era have been demonstrated so by linguists and cryptographers. So far the Voynich Manuscript has stumped experts (mostly because it contains so many similarities to actual language structure. You can find out more about the Voynich Manuscript at Philip Neal’s Voynich Manuscript page.