Re: archive of past shootins

"Ken Nadvornick" <register.nadvor@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:i5GdnbOIbPzOQTLVnZ2dnUVZ_oLinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Ken Nadvornick" wrote:

Implicit in the definition of entropy is the definition of time
as a sequential phenomenon. Meaning that while any CPU can
process instructions very, very rapidly, it can never process
two at precisely the same moment in time.

"Walter Banks" responded:

Actually there are exceptions to this including processors
running windows and executing x86 instructions. Many if not
most Intel and other processors starting about introduction
of pentiums achieve their speed because the CPU executes
the instruction stream where possible in parallel. Most of
the current crop of embedded processors achieve both
parrallel and overlapped instruction execution.

But never via precisely the same event at precisely the same moment in
time.

If an instruction stream is being executed in parallel - and it is
certainly
easy enough to do - it must be done as separate events at the same points
in
time. (Are these called instruction or execution "pipelines?" I don't
remember.) In this case a single "CPU" is no longer the minimum unit of
granularity, but rather a container for multiple lower-level events
occurring
concurrently.

In the same way, you could never physically stand (the same "event") in
precisely the same location concurrently (the same "time") with someone
else.
If you wanted that spot, you'd have to wait (sequential passage of time)
for
that person to move from that location. Only then could you occupy the
location *formerly* occupied by that individual. Additionally, while you
were
waiting for him to move, you'd be executing a similar event (standing, but
in
a different location) in parallel (at the same time).

And I also suspect that if Niels Bohr were reading this, he might just
offer a
tantilizingly different point of view rooted in scale...

Ken


You just wait until they get that quantum computer thingy working! :-)
-Jim


.

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