This is just goddamn STUPID.

New Scientist explains clearly and lucidly the latest foofaraw about AI “solving” problems. The Navier-Stokes equations allegedly describe the behavior of fluids in motion, and are used to predict things like flow in turbines. The alleged mystery was whether the equations could ever produce a MATHEMATICAL singularity where the fluid’s speed would go to infinity. AI says the singularity can occur.

The entire question is NOT A QUESTION. It’s an Ockham UNNECESSARY ENTITY. We don’t need to THINK about infinite flow. It can’t happen and doesn’t happen. It’s goddamn physically impossible. The equations have worked correctly every time they were used, which means the alleged set of inputs that leads to infinity has never occurred in 200 years of using the math.

If mathies want to jack off to their version of dream girls, they should do it privately on their own time. They shouldn’t confuse their dream girls with reality, and shouldn’t be bothering the rest of us with their fantasies.

A few weeks ago I wrote about singularities:

In math a singularity is a point on a graph where you can’t figure an answer. The result is heading toward infinity, or toward 0/0, or some other value that can’t be calculated or handled or conceived.

When a real world process has a graph with a singularity, you have to KNOW IN ADVANCE where those WILD points are, and take great pains to keep the process AWAY from those points. How you avoid the problem depends on the situation.

In programming you can guard the gate with approximations:

if Y == 0.0000: Y = 0.0001
Result = X / Y

The result will be close enough to what “should” happen when y is 0.

In finance you stop compounding at a predetermined limit like the bond’s maturity date. In engineering you might place a centrifugal governor on the shaft, or close the dam gate at a predetermined flow, or let the graphite rods drop into the reactor.

= = = = = END REPRINT.

In this case the inputs available in the real world have never created the infinite output. If the math had ever yielded an infinite output, engineers would have seen it and avoided it, or adjusted the equations to get around it. There wouldn’t be a mystery.