Episode of the Week : Wolf in the Fold

[CorporalCaptain]

I see that the real problem is that we don't have the same definitions of these concepts.

This offshoot to the thread topic begin in a particular context relevant to the thread but has now since grown beyond it. We could take up the general topic of whether competing mutually exclusive theories can both have supporting evidence, or in other words both be "backed" by evidence, whether in law or in science, in a more appropriate forum such as Miscellaneous or Sci/Tech.

 

[kirkfan]

I see that the real problem is that we don't have the same definitions of these concepts.

This offshoot to the thread topic begin in a particular context relevant to the thread but has now since grown beyond it. We could take up the general topic of whether competing mutually exclusive theories can both have supporting evidence, or in other words both be "backed" by evidence, whether in law or in science, in a more appropriate forum such as Miscellaneous or Sci/Tech.

That's fine by me.

 

[Push The Button]

This episode contains one of my all-time favorite Spock lines, when he is attempting to purge Redjac from the ship's computer..

Computer: this is a Class A compulsory directive. Compute, to the last digit, the value of Pi.

 

[kirkfan]

This episode contains one of my all-time favorite Spock lines, when he is attempting to purge Redjac from the ship's computer..

Computer: this is a Class A compulsory directive. Compute, to the last digit, the value of Pi.

They've done that in many a sci fi movie, especially from the 60s. It was all the rage back then.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

This episode contains one of my all-time favorite Spock lines, when he is attempting to purge Redjac from the ship's computer..

Computer: this is a Class A compulsory directive. Compute, to the last digit, the value of Pi.

They've done that in many a sci fi movie, especially from the 60s. It was all the rage back then.

What other movies did they do that in?

 

[kirkfan]

This episode contains one of my all-time favorite Spock lines, when he is attempting to purge Redjac from the ship's computer..

Computer: this is a Class A compulsory directive. Compute, to the last digit, the value of Pi.

They've done that in many a sci fi movie, especially from the 60s. It was all the rage back then.

What other movies did they do that in?

Well, It was a well-known tv-trope back then. It has to come from something.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

They've done that in many a sci fi movie, especially from the 60s. It was all the rage back then.

What other movies did they do that in?

Well, It was a well-known tv-trope back then. It has to come from something.

So, examples?

 

[kirkfan]

What other movies did they do that in?

Well, It was a well-known tv-trope back then. It has to come from something.

So, examples?

I don't have any.I thought my previous statement made that clear enough.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Well, It was a well-known tv-trope back then. It has to come from something.

So, examples?

I don't have any.

OK.... But you know it was a well-known tv-trope. Hmmmmm.

 

[tafkats]

So, examples?

I don't have any.

OK.... But you know it was a well-known tv-trope. Hmmmmm.

I don't know how many times it had been done before this episode, but "Kirk logics a computer into killing itself" and its variants were pretty much done to death by the end of Star Trek's run: "Return of the Archons," "The Ultimate Computer," "The Changeling," and "I, Mudd" all used variants.

TV Tropes has a page for it here. Most of the examples are more recent, so it's possible Star Trek was the series that made it a cliche.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

so it's possible Star Trek was the series that made it a cliche.

That would certainly contradict the notion that, "It was all the rage back then."

 

[Marsden]

I think if a lot of other shows come after something and imitate it, that's a mark of quality toward that show and not be accused of being a trope or a cliche.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Computer science, Star Trek style, never quite matched up with the real thing. I'd say nothing coming out of Hollywood was very educational in that area. Star Trek greatly expanded my English vocabulary as a child, anyway, and that had value.

 

[kirkfan]

so it's possible Star Trek was the series that made it a cliche.

That would certainly contradict the notion that, "It was all the rage back then."

The Prisoner and The avengers both had their computer killing episodes.

The Prisoner was funny. There was a guy asking questions to the computer using a machine to put holes in a card (The old way to communicate with a computer even some Asimov stories have them) anyway. At some point the computer asking question guy let his guard down and agreed to let the hero (number 6) ask his own question, so he asks the question on a little card and the computer burns itself up. The question was: "What?"

 

[CorporalCaptain]

so it's possible Star Trek was the series that made it a cliche.

That would certainly contradict the notion that, "It was all the rage back then."

The Prisoner and The avengers both had their computer killing episodes.

The Prisoner was funny. There was a guy asking questions to the computer using a machine to put holes in a card (The old way to communicate with a computer even some Asimov stories have them) anyway. At some point the computer asking question guy let his guard down and agreed to let the hero (number 6) ask his own question, so he asks the question on a little card and the computer burns itself up. The question was: "What?"

Well, you said "many a sci fi movie." That's somewhat different from what you'd said originally, but thanks for the examples.

 

[kirkfan]

That would certainly contradict the notion that, "It was all the rage back then."

The Prisoner and The avengers both had their computer killing episodes.

The Prisoner was funny. There was a guy asking questions to the computer using a machine to put holes in a card (The old way to communicate with a computer even some Asimov stories have them) anyway. At some point the computer asking question guy let his guard down and agreed to let the hero (number 6) ask his own question, so he asks the question on a little card and the computer burns itself up. The question was: "What?"

Well, you said "many a sci fi movie." That's somewhat different from what you'd said originally, but thanks for the examples.

I don't remember the movies specifically but it seemed something rather common back then. Asimov has like half a dozen stories of someone managing to crash a computer by asking strange questions. Not counting his robots stories that are more often than not about robots being trapped in contradictions within their laws. I remember "Liar" where Susan Calvin "kills" a robot just by exposing the facts to it a certain way.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Instances of insoluble problems, what we're now calling "logic bombs," arose in the context of formal logic as the groundwork for modern computers was being laid, with roots going back at least as far as ancient Greece, so they're certainly nothing new.

Compute pi to the last digit really isn't a good logic bomb, but in the context of the episode, and especially consider Nimoy's delivery, it is cute.

 

[kirkfan]

Instances of insoluble problems, what we're now calling "logic bombs," arose in the context of formal logic as the groundwork for modern computers was being laid, with roots going back at least as far as ancient Greece, so they're certainly nothing new.

Compute pi to the last digit really isn't a good logic bomb, but in the context of the episode, and especially consider Nimoy's delivery, it is cute.

One could object that there is no such thing as the last digit of pi and that therefore the request is simply invalid. It would be like asking: "What is the third of two numbers?" or "what is the volume of a square?" "Or find an odd number divisible by 2" etc... These questions would be rejected as being nonsensical.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I think that the only reasonable way of interpreting the command as the intended logic bomb is to occupy the computer by computing each digit of pi in sequence. Even knowing an algorithm for computing all digits, each digit in succession, of which there are plenty known and some are quite efficient, actually calculating each digit in sequence would require work, which could conceivably occupy all the computational resources of the computer, say in order to reach each particular place in the expansion as rapidly as possible.

 

[Push The Button]

I think that the only reasonable way of interpreting the command as the intended logic bomb is to occupy the computer by computing each digit of pi in sequence. Even knowing an algorithm for computing all digits, each digit in succession, of which there are plenty known and some are quite efficient, actually calculating each digit in sequence would require work, which could conceivably occupy all the computational resources of the computer, say in order to reach each particular place in the expansion as rapidly as possible.

It could have been any irrational number, of course, I'm supposing that Pi is more familiar to the average viewer than Euler's number or the square root of 7, for example.