Advanced Concepts Team

wow it's frigthening! it's the dream of every anarchist, every drug, arm, human dealer! the world made as a global fiscal paradise... the idea is clever however it will not replace real money because 1 - no one will build a fortune on bitcoin if a technological breakthrough can ruin them 2 - government never allowed parallel money to flourish on their territory, so it will be almost impossible to change bitcoin against euros or dollars

interesting stuff anyone read cryptonomicon by neal stephenson? similar theme.

:) yes. One of the comments on reddit was precisely drawing the parallels with Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash / Diamond Age / Cryptonomicon. Interesting stuff indeed. It has a lot of potential for misuse, but also opens up new possibilities. We've discussed recently how emerging technologies will drive social change. Whether it's the likes of NSA / CIA who will benefit the most from the Twitters, Facebooks and so on, by gaining greater power for control, or whether individuals are being empowered to at least an identical degree. We saw last year VISA / PayPal censoring WikiLeaks... Well, here's a way for any individual to support such an organization, in a fully anonymous and uncontrollable way...

One of my colleagues has made a nice, short write-up about BitCoin: http://www.pds.ewi.tudelft.nl/~victor/bitcoin.html

very nice analysis indeed - thanks Tamas for sharing it!

mmm I'm not an expert but it seemed to me that, even if these criticisms are true, there is one fundamental difference between the money you exchange on internet via your bank, and bitcoins. The first one is virtual money and the second one aims at being real, physical, money, even if digital, in the same way as banknotes, coins, or gold.

An algorithm wanna-be central bank issuing untraceable tax free money between internet users? not more likely than the end of the world supposed to take place tomorrow, in my opinion. Algorithms don't usually assault women though !:P

well, most money is anyway just virtual and only based on expectations and trust ... (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply) and thus if people trust that this "money" has some value in the sense that they can get something of value to them in exchange, then not much more is needed it seems to me ...

@Leopold: ok let's use the rigth words then. Bitcoin aim at being a currency ("physical objects generally accepted as a medium of exchange" from wikipedia), different than the "demand deposit". In the article proposed by Tamas he compares what cannot be compared (currencies, demand deposits and their mean of exchange). The interesting question is wether one can create a digital currency which is too difficult to counterfeit. As far as I know, there is no existing digital currency except this bitcoins (and maybe the currencies from games as second life and others, but which are of limited use in real world).

I guess that's the "exceptional object in our cosmic neighbourhood"...

interesting guy indeed ... "Forget today's green technologies like electric cars, wind turbines, solar cells and smart grids, in other words. None meets what Mr Khosla calls the "Chindia price"-the price at which people in China and India will buy them without a subsidy. "Everything's a toy until it reaches that point," he says. I also like this one since its a bit like ACT topic selection: ""I am only interested in technologies that have a 90% chance of failure but, if they do succeed, would change the infrastructure of society in some radical way," he says." should we propose SPS to him ? :-)

one more: ""I never compute returns. If you start forecasting cash flows, you lose innovation, you lose instinct. You average yourself down to mediocrity." "I've had many more failures than successes in my life," admits Mr Khosla. "My willingness to fail gives me the ability to succeed."

Have you seen the movies? Awesome!

evviva, ACT neurosciences score again :)

WOW!!!!

do you want to add some of that to the humanoids in space acta futura article?

I looked at the wiki input on this, but I don't know what I should do. Aren't you writing the article. I definitely think there are some stuffs to pick up on the list and develop further.

nice ....

Finally something worth to read in the MM field!. The idea is excellent, congratullations. However, I think there is a typo or mistake in the definition of l=3x10-13 m, the "waist" of the laser beam. Seems clear that 0.3 pm is too small for being a waist of any laser beam.

Thanks for your commendation. Of course, the problem with nonlinear transformation optics is the same as with linear: it's very easy to come up with theoretical descriptions of devices that have the most absurd properties, but it will be extremely hard to fabricate them. But if you have any good suggestion, please shoot! About the laser beam: Pekka made the simulations, since I am not a "Comsolist", but still I think the numbers are correct. You are right that we should not call this a laser beam. Our problem was the following: we need to have a very simple model that can be simulated exactly (full Maxwell equations) but naturally exhibits self focusing. The Gaussian beam was the simplest solution. Since our model is purely classical and moreover we do not take into account diffraction effects, the parameter "l" is of minor importance. Taking "l" much larger gives almost the same picture but requires much more computer power to simulate. I guess that's why Pekka chose an unnaturally small number.