From 5aad4cbdde4ed562e0cd983ae11adf302fd5e4ff Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Thomas Walker Lynch Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2026 14:46:52 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] caught up to yyyy in revision --- document/book/TM-2026.html | 18 ++++++++++-------- 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-) diff --git a/document/book/TM-2026.html b/document/book/TM-2026.html index 9bbc862..da20e69 100644 --- a/document/book/TM-2026.html +++ b/document/book/TM-2026.html @@ -2109,7 +2109,7 @@ Now suppose defining a Turing Machine that initially has the head on the leftmos

This is an assembly-level code description of an instruction sequence. To get it into final form, the labels that appear as instruction arguments would be replaced with their addresses. Symbolic labels would not appear on the tape. As an alternative to using absolute branches, relative branches could be used. Performance will be greatly enhanced for a sequencer that performs relative branching if it contains an adder circuit; otherwise, the addition of offsets would be another TTCA program invocation.

- Software + The software layer

Symbol in mathematics

@@ -2196,8 +2196,10 @@ Now suppose defining a Turing Machine that initially has the head on the leftmos

Symbol copy consequentiality

- Copying symbol instances is an integral part of the operation of the Turing machine. Typically the programmed control steps are used as a cost metric for running a program. Such steps integrate operations of copying symbols to and from the tape. Thus from a pure step count perspective the cost of the symbol copy is inconsequential, not due to any behavior of a symbol copy, but rather due the symbol copy being subsumed within the definition of the step.

-

+ Copying symbol instances is an integral part of the operation of the Turing machine. Typically the programmed control steps are used as a cost metric for running a program. Such steps integrate operations of copying symbols to and from the tape. Thus from a pure step count perspective the cost of the symbol copy is inconsequential, not due to any behavior of a symbol copy, but rather due to the symbol copy being subsumed within the definition of the step. +

+ +

However, this is feels unsatisfactory. Here we are tying to build a bridge from computation theory to architecture, and thus we want a step to be a constant time occurrence at least in the average, or at least approximately. To model the symbol copy time, a symbol could be copied a tranche of bits per step, thus giving the copy a step count. Then, if symbols were to grow in tranche count as a program ran longer, then symbol copy of ever longer symbols would be computationally consequential.

@@ -2369,7 +2371,7 @@ Now suppose defining a Turing Machine that initially has the head on the leftmos

An example of a non-Turing tape like model is the Emacs vertical line cursor model, where a cursor is said to be between characters. An ASCII file offers no such feature as 'in between' characters. Like a Turing Machine tape, a medial character in an ASCII file has a left neighbor and a right neighbor character. Any attempt to represent an in between cursor within the file itself would require inserting more characters into the file under the same model of every medial character having a left and a right character. Consequently, though emacs presents a model where cursor is located in between two characters, this model is only due to the interpretation of the functions' actual effects presented to users in the documentation. For example, instead of saying a cursor is located upon a character, and that inserting a character inserts the character to the right of the given character, the manual gives the description that the new character is inserted at the cursor location, where said cursor is in between the given character and its right neighbor. Thus the documentation presents the user with one model, which by necessity of using standard library calls to work with files, is built upon another model.

- + Computational Analysis

Definition

@@ -2593,7 +2595,7 @@ Now suppose defining a Turing Machine that initially has the head on the leftmos

- Let us take the multiplicative inverse of the additive identity as an example, AKA division by zero. In the second order, when we divide, say 6/0, the machine will not reduce. It will return a second order value: + Let us take the multiplicative inverse of the additive identity as an example, AKA division by zero. In the second order, when we attempt to compute a division, say 6/0, the machine will not reduce.

@@ -3219,16 +3221,16 @@ Now suppose defining a Turing Machine that initially has the head on the leftmos

Wolfram Mathematica utilizes a true second order computation system by keeping expressions in their exact symbolic form for as long as possible. An expression like Sqrt[2] + Pi remains an AST of symbols. It then relies on an extensive library of algebraic rewrite rules to simplify the tree. However, unlike Boehm and Cartwright's method of pulling precision through back propagating extension calls, when a numeric result is required, Mathematica runs the computation forward using significance arithmetic. Should there be insufficient precision at the result, it employs an adaptive retry loop Fredrik Johansson, "The significance of arithmetic," 2008. Mathematica implements significance arithmetic by approximating numbers as a floating point value with an attached error estimate, allowing dynamic adaptation and iteration if precision falls below the required threshold. See also: Wolfram Language Documentation, "Arbitrary Precision Numbers" (https://reference.wolfram.com/language/tutorial/ArbitraryPrecisionNumbers.html)..

-

The approach I used differs from both of these approaches. Like them, the first step is to build the AST, but then the tree is evaluated in two phases. The first phase analyzes the tree, while createing error propagation expressions either per computation step or for atomic computation blocks. These take the form of symbolic expressions with error \epsilon in and error δ out, over the domain of the input. Then instead of back propagation of precision requests at run time, there is a back propagation of precision requirements at analysis time. This approach was used on the AMD K5 processor transcendental microcode to guarantee that computations yielded specified accuracy. The method is also well suited for setting the bus widths for application specific processors, because the analysis step can occur once at design time. Thomas Walker Lynch, A. Ahmed, M. Schulte, T. Callaway, and R. Tisdale, "The K5 Transcendental Functions," Proceedings of the 12th IEEE Symposium on Computer Arithmetic, 1995. DOI: 10.1109/ARITH.1995.465368. Thomas Walker Lynch, "Numerical Analysis of Computer Approximations," September 2018. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10906.49601. License CC BY 4.0. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329402329_Numerical_Analysis_of_Computer_Approximations. +

The approach I used differs from both of these approaches. Like them, the first step is to build the AST, but then the tree is evaluated in two phases. The first phase analyzes the tree, while creating error propagation expressions either per computation step or for atomic computation blocks. These take the form of symbolic expressions with error \epsilon in and error δ out, over the domain of the input. Then instead of back propagation of precision requests at run time, there is a back propagation of precision requirements at analysis time. This approach was used on the AMD K5 processor transcendental microcode to guarantee that computations yielded specified accuracy. The method is also well suited for setting the bus widths for application specific processors, because the analysis step can occur once at design time. Thomas Walker Lynch, A. Ahmed, M. Schulte, T. Callaway, and R. Tisdale, "The K5 Transcendental Functions," Proceedings of the 12th IEEE Symposium on Computer Arithmetic, 1995. DOI: 10.1109/ARITH.1995.465368. Thomas Walker Lynch, "Numerical Analysis of Computer Approximations," September 2018. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10906.49601. License CC BY 4.0. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329402329_Numerical_Analysis_of_Computer_Approximations.

None of these computation systems, that of Boehm and Cartwright, Mathematica, nor my error analysis approach, makes use of the IEEE 754 standard floating point arithmetic. Rather they all require the use of variable precision. In the case of Boehm and Cartwright's this occurs through the serialization implied through lazy calls for more precision. In the case of Mathematica it is explicit in the significance arithmetic. In my error analysis approach, the means for variable precision was the High Radix Online Arithmetic Thomas W. Lynch, "High Radix On Line Arithmetic for Credible and Accurate Computing," Real Numbers and Computers, École des Mines de Saint Étienne, France, 1995, pp. 78 89. Thomas W. Lynch and Michael J. Schulte, "Software for High Radix On Line Arithmetic," Reliable Computing, vol. 2, no. 2, 1996, pp. 133 138. DOI: 10.1007/BF02425915..

-

Hence what would be useful for a replacement of the IEEE 754, would be variable precision number standard. There is one being proposed by John Gustafson called the Posit number representation John L. Gustafson, The End of Error: Unum Computing, Chapman and Hall/CRC, 2015. Posits serve as a hardware friendly alternative to IEEE 754 floating point numbers, providing variable precision mechanics.. +

Hence what would be useful for a replacement of the IEEE 754, would be a variable precision number standard. There is one being proposed by John Gustafson called the Posit number representation John L. Gustafson, The End of Error: Unum Computing, Chapman and Hall/CRC, 2015. Posits serve as a hardware friendly alternative to IEEE 754 floating point numbers, providing variable precision mechanics..

-

This section reviewed finite difference methods as a means to implement function extensions. A person should notice that finite differences are one among many methods for extending functions, and they are not always the best choice. In modern computing it is not common to implement function extensions. Rather it is more common to increment a value across a domain, while completely repeating the evaluation for each new domain value, for example when computing values to place on a plot. However, independent of their importance in applied computing, function extension and difference methods are of theoretical importance for analysis, particularly when applied to nonstandard analysis. These speak to the thesis of computational naturalism in the derivation of mathematics, rather than as a proposed method of implementing computational programs. +

This section reviewed finite difference methods as a means to implement function extensions. A person should notice that finite differences are one among many methods for extending functions, and they are not always the best choice. In modern computing it is not common to implement function extensions. Rather it is more common to increment a value across a domain, while completely repeating the evaluation for each new domain value, for example when computing values to place on a plot. However, independent of their importance in applied computing, function extension and difference methods are of theoretical importance for analysis, particularly when applied to nonstandard analysis. These concepts speak directly to the thesis of computational naturalism—deriving mathematics from computational logic—rather than merely proposing practical methods for implementing software.

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