Post by Morreion on Sept 30, 2015 9:21:12 GMT -5
Meet the Library of Babel: Every Possible Combination of Letters That has Been (or could be) Written (Quarks & Quasars)
Imagine a library whose books contain every possible combination of letters and numbers. When you really think about it, the implications are staggering. Assuming that you really have every possible combination, that means that you will have every poem ever written and every poem that will ever be written. You will also have every scientific finding—every discovery and moment of “Eureka!”
With this, you could unravel the universe and uncover the greatest works of art. You would also have every history that was lost to time’s decay, and you would have an outline of every possible future for every person alive today (and also every person who may yet be born).
In short, it would contain an accurate account of your death.
Of course, in order to make this library, you would need a nearly infinite supply of paper, ink, and time. Enter Jonathan Basile, the creator of The Library of Babel.
...For previous generations, such a library was nothing but fantasy; however, Basile, who studied English literature at Columbia University, saw that computers could allow us to actually make Borges’s vision into a reality. As such, Basile set out to make the Library come to life.
Notably, he removed the numbers in order to make the project somewhat feasible.
After that, he spent six months trying to create his library. Unfortunately, he discovered that it would still require more digital storage than could fit in the entire universe. To make the task even more manageable, Basile utilized books that are 410 pages long and contain 3,200 characters per a page. Even with these limitations, he calculated that the number of “books” would be somewhere around 10 to the power of two million.
So he had to settle for a library that exists as an algorithm. This program runs whenever someone plugs in text at libraryofbabel.info. He also scaled it back so no two books share a page, and the library still has 10 to the power of 4,677 books.
Imagine a library whose books contain every possible combination of letters and numbers. When you really think about it, the implications are staggering. Assuming that you really have every possible combination, that means that you will have every poem ever written and every poem that will ever be written. You will also have every scientific finding—every discovery and moment of “Eureka!”
With this, you could unravel the universe and uncover the greatest works of art. You would also have every history that was lost to time’s decay, and you would have an outline of every possible future for every person alive today (and also every person who may yet be born).
In short, it would contain an accurate account of your death.
Of course, in order to make this library, you would need a nearly infinite supply of paper, ink, and time. Enter Jonathan Basile, the creator of The Library of Babel.
...For previous generations, such a library was nothing but fantasy; however, Basile, who studied English literature at Columbia University, saw that computers could allow us to actually make Borges’s vision into a reality. As such, Basile set out to make the Library come to life.
Notably, he removed the numbers in order to make the project somewhat feasible.
After that, he spent six months trying to create his library. Unfortunately, he discovered that it would still require more digital storage than could fit in the entire universe. To make the task even more manageable, Basile utilized books that are 410 pages long and contain 3,200 characters per a page. Even with these limitations, he calculated that the number of “books” would be somewhere around 10 to the power of two million.
So he had to settle for a library that exists as an algorithm. This program runs whenever someone plugs in text at libraryofbabel.info. He also scaled it back so no two books share a page, and the library still has 10 to the power of 4,677 books.
