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From: Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: OT: sound speed depends on frequency on mars
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2024 21:52:24 +1000
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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:
>>>
>>>> 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:
>>>>>
>>>>>> 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:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>>> It has a lot in common with playing colossal cave
>>>>
>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> Serial implies one-dimensional ordering, while Collossal Cave was two
>> dimensional.
>>
>> 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