Unified Theory

Posted by Stephen Guerin on Jun 06, 2006; 5:02pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/FW-SFI-Seminar-Complexity-Parallel-Computation-and-Statistical-Physics-tp521927p521947.html

Jochen writes:
> > Where is the difference between steps, "depth" and time, if
> > "the depth
> > of a system" is simply defined in terms of the number of parallel
> > computational steps needed to simulate it ?
> > Depth seems to be just another word for (virtual) time.

Yes, I agree depth to be a measure of one kind of time, ie how much parallel
time (processing cycles) does something take vs. elapsed background
"wallclock" time. Maybe Gus can jump in and layout ~7 or so common types of
time so we can figure out which kind of time we're really talking about.

And as West and Brown's quarter-power allometric scaling (metabolic/system
rate scales at 3/4, duration at 1/4, and cellular/agent rate -1/4) all are a
function of time, I suspect one could find similar scaling laws with depth
as you increase the number of agents/mass in certain types of ABM eg ones
that exhibit self-organization or move through phase-transitions.

-Steve