asgard/ancients/wriath/gould only base 2 number system for computers

[Gargen]

well in serveral episodes, there has been an encryption from another race and someone general carter cracks it, but cracking techniques that she would know would only apply to computers with base 2 number systems (0,1) so if they are able to crack alien encryptions then that would mean these races that are far superior technologically are still using this which is extremily limited. This also applies to the intergration of computers at atlantis. So my question is why is this is it that they dont need it or it is a much more advanced thing to add an extra digit to your systems?

Spoiler warning thingy highlight
if you dont think they are using it look at the wraith virus code its all 0 1

[valha'lla]

Thats cause a commputer has the simple on off postions so it can only use two repersentations which are 0 and 1 its like if u had two fingures u can only have two digits before u need another person to count the comlexty of the proram itself is the problem as all compture systems would use binary lanuage 1010010 kind of thing. Its life the race with the advanced mine weapons they realised they needed something to repersent having nothing or 0 so all races would have to do this to create that kind of tech like all alien computers would still only have to use binerary.

[LiquidBlue]

I think the point is that any base-n number can be represented in base 2. I am not sure in which epsiodes Carter had to break an alien encryption; it seems rather incredible. Was the alien program written in some sort of interpreted language. Trying to figure out how an alien program works by looking at the machine code seems to strain belief.

Speaking of nitpicks. What did McKay do, so that all of the sudden he could see that the Virus was written by the wraith? Just interpreting the code into some wraith character set, in an of itself does not prove anything. Couldn't he use a Japanese character set just as well and blamed it on those cunning people to the east, or couldn't he have used a Asgard character set and blamed it on the traitor within their midst!

[Ohper]

It's probably for the same reason why (just about) everyone speaks English. They don't want to devote half the 40 minute show to translations/decoding.

[_Owen_]

Now, actually, it is more common for a computer to use hexadecimal math as a language, Base 16. However, that is not the point, many times translation subroutines are run, like in "Intruder."

Owen Macri

[Gargen]

they well at least the writh do have a base 2 number system, ive seen it but the wratih arent very technoolgically advanced compared to the other races i metioned

Carter had to break the encryption in episode 116 nightwalkers

[Avatar28]

Now, actually, it is more common for a computer to use hexadecimal math as a language, Base 16. However, that is not the point, many times translation subroutines are run, like in "Intruder."

Owen Macri

Nope, computers do everything in Binary. Hexadecimal is used in many programming languages as shorthand because it's equal to 2^4, but the computer itself still runs on binary. 0, 1, off, on. It's likely that if the advanced races use digital circuitry (and I see no reason why they wouldn't for most stuff) which would inherently use binary. Before anyone goes shouting about quantum computers and qubits, I will point out that quantum computers aren't the end all/be all of computers and they're really not that great for most types of calculations.

[_Owen_]

In "Intruder"

Spoiler:

The Wraith code was translated into binary so it could interact with the Daedalus. Mckay translated it back to Wraith.

Owen Macri

[_Owen_]

Nope, computers do everything in Binary. Hexadecimal is used in many programming languages as shorthand because it's equal to 2^4, but the computer itself still runs on binary. 0, 1, off, on. It's likely that if the advanced races use digital circuitry (and I see no reason why they wouldn't for most stuff) which would inherently use binary. Before anyone goes shouting about quantum computers and qubits, I will point out that quantum computers aren't the end all/be all of computers and they're really not that great for most types of calculations.

Yes, ok, thank you very much, because that seems much more likley, I just remember hearing somwhere that computers did, it must have been some programing languages. Sorry about that. Binary does seem more likely to operate a computer.

Owen Macri

[~Thor~]

I doubt advanced races would use binary. I think there computers would operate more like the brain, since that has a lot more processing power than any human-built computer.

[valha'lla]

computer that worked more like a brain is a possibility, but then again making a computer like that is geting close to AI and we all know the possible consiquences of that but it still probably have to use some form of binary as a base as it still would only have the on off posstions to use.

[LiquidBlue]

I think a visit to Wikipedia's article on Turing Machines would be useful to this thread.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine

the thesis states that our notion of algorithm can be made precise (in the form of computable functions) and computers can run those algorithms. Furthermore, any computer can theoretically run any algorithm; that is, the theoretic computational power of each computer is the same and it is not possible to build a calculation device which is more powerful than a computer. (Note that this formulation has implicit in it the idea that memory/storage is separate from device; any actual computer has finite memory, but the formulation always assumes that memory can be added at will.)

This basicly means that my calculator, given enough memory, could run any algorithm the greatest supercomputer in the world could. In fact my calculator could emulate the supercomputer. Ofcouse my calculator would take a very, very, very long time.

Quantum computers and the algorithms they use do not fall into this category precisely. (I suppose even a quantum computer could be emulated by a turing machine, one would just need to model the particle's interactions and evolution with time. )

As a side note, In Arthur C. Clake's, "3001," it is revealed that humans eventually understood the mathematical properties of computers so well, that they were able to create viruses and attacks that were architecture agnostic, that instead exploited weakness inherent in computational devices in general.

--

My nitpick still stands, simply using a Wraith/Ancient character set to view the virus does not demonstrate that the virus was Wraith in origin anymore than viewing it with a cyrillic character set demonstrates that the virus was Russian in origin.

[Avatar28]

I doubt advanced races would use binary. I think there computers would operate more like the brain, since that has a lot more processing power than any human-built computer.

Actually, digital computers are fairly rapidly approaching the computing power of the human brain. We're still not there yet, but I believe I've read that within the next 20 years or so we should be approaching that point.

Neural networks are good but, again, not for everything. For example, as powerful as it is, even a slow digital computer is much faster at general calculation type functions than the human brain. Neural networks are good with things like learning, pattern recognition, and the like. For most general purpose needs, digital computers are still superior. And unless you have more discrete states than off/on, you'll always be faced with the fact that they use binary.

[_Owen_]

computer that worked more like a brain is a possibility, but then again making a computer like that is geting close to AI and we all know the possible consiquences of that but it still probably have to use some form of binary as a base as it still would only have the on off posstions to use.

Oh, ya, we absolutley cannot let antificial sentient life be created, COUGH Battlestar Galactic COUGH Cylons COUGH tons of other science fiction shows COUGH including I, Robot... sorry, I can't cough anymore.

Owen Macri

[VirtualCLD]

Actually, digital computers are fairly rapidly approaching the computing power of the human brain. We're still not there yet, but I believe I've read that within the next 20 years or so we should be approaching that point.

I would have to respectfully disagree. I think we have a very, very long way to go before digital computers even approach the level of complexity of a human brain. While I agree that digital computers are much faster, they are still dumb machines that just do what you tell them. They can not learn like we do, and AI is more like Artificial Stupidity more than Intelligence. While many an AI can emulate intelligence, that's all they can do, they can't really think for themselves.

I remember going to a talk on bipedal walking for robots and going over the different control systems used. To us, walking come naturally, after we learn it, and we can traverse almost any surface, regardless of friction. It's all done subconciously, without us even knowing that we are making subtle adjustments as we move from a carpeted floor, to wood floor, to a tile floor, to a dirt ground, and then rock, etc... But making robots do this is extremely difficult. Even Azimo sp? honda's robot, can only walk on specific surfaces and can only climb stairs with a specific step hieght.

And what's with this idea that all robots must turn on their masters? I mean, no all humans become criminals and killers, so why must all robots? That's always seemed like a cliche plot to me.

EDIT: Sorry, bit of an off-topic rant there. You can always go from one number system to another, that's not difficult. The basic principle of digital computers in RL (as previously stated) is that a 1 represents a switch that is on, and a 0 represents a switch that is off (actually it could be the other way around, or any number of things, but basically what I'm saying is that a computer deals with two voltage levels on a single line (a bit) a high voltage level, and a low voltage level). Now for the purposes of this post, let's assume, 5V = 1 and 0V = 0. This is why the base 2 number system is used. Theoretically, an alien computer (that for our purposes runs on electricity) and is able to use a base three system because it uses three voltage levels, say 5V = 2, 2.5V = 1, and 0V = 0. We could still interface with this computer by using an analog to digital converter so we could detect those three levels and convert them into a base two system (5V = 10, 2.5 V = 01, 0V = 00). It's plausible, but I would agree that the time would take to figure out what base number system an alien computer using, what are the various machine codes it uses, how it stores and retrieves data, would take a very long time.