Re: OT: sound speed depends on frequency on mars

On 6/09/2024 12:19 am, john larkin wrote:

On Thu, 5 Sep 2024 15:58:47 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
 

On 5/09/2024 12:58 am, john larkin wrote:

On Tue, 3 Sep 2024 15:48:32 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
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On 3/09/2024 2:02 am, john larkin wrote:

On Mon, 2 Sep 2024 18:23:26 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
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On 2/09/2024 2:32 am, john larkin wrote:

On Mon, 2 Sep 2024 01:24:18 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:
>

On 2/09/2024 12:27 am, john larkin wrote:

On Sun, 1 Sep 2024 15:34:13 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:

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<snip>
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It has a lot in common with playing colossal cave
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure
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though with a computer game you can be confident that there is a
solution, while in real life you may find that you need to move the
goal-posts, or adjust the client's ambitions.

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Trying lots of arguably crazy ideas is educational, and has a chance
of stumbling onto something really valuable. But one has to do it
fast, because there's literally a universe of possibilities to
explore.
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Exploring Colossal Cave is a good analogy to exploring the electronic
circuit solution space, except the circuit space is much bigger hence
impossible to explore serially.

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Serial implies one-dimensional ordering, while Collossal Cave was two
dimensional.
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Most circuit problems have a single input and single output, but the
space in between can be as complicated as you like.

  The set of all circuits that can be designed from the Digikey catalog
is past 2-dimensional.

Obviously.

The trick is to use a good search algorithm.

There isn't one. An algorithm is an explicit step-by-step procedure, and the process of getting from a client's requirement to a workable design doesn't seem to have been systematised to that extent.

If the problem you are trying to solve has conventional solutions, these
can serve as known routes through the territory you need to explore, and
I've had people reject my short-cuts because they didn't understand the
problem clearly enough.

 Yes, most people reject unusual solutions for several reasons, one
being jealousy that they couldn't think of it.

I can't say that I've seen that. The example that I had in mind rejected what I'd proposed because it used a little bit of positive feedback and that - to him - suggested that it could latch up. It couldn't have and never did when Honeywell used it a few years later (not that either of us had anything to do with that).

Conventional solutions will have lots of competitors, who have to
fight it out by under-bidding one another.

Obvious solutions tend to get adopted more frequently (which is what makes them "conventional"). The cheapest acceptable solution does tend to become an industry standard, and about the only way to under-cut that kind of competition is by producing the product on a larger scale, usually in China.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney