H. Peyton Young SFI WORKING PAPER: 1991-08-043 SFI Working Papers contain accounts of scientific work of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Santa Fe Institute. We accept papers intended for publication in peer-reviewed journals or proceedings volumes, but not papers that have already appeared in print. Except for papers by our external faculty, papers must be based ...

Conventions of Spatial Literacy Conventions in media serve as a kind of shorthand between creator and audience: In order to understand and enjoy novels, films, theaters, audiences must be able to “read” the conventions of these media. Though early filmgoers did not understand that the train coming toward them in the Lumiere Brothers’ L'Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat (1895) was merely a projecte...

A few conventions for thinking about and writing quantum pseu-docode are proposed. The conventions can be used for presenting any quantum algorithm down to the lowest level and are consistent with a quantum random access machine (QRAM) model for quantum computing. In principle a formal version of quantum pseudocode could be used in a future extension of a conventional language. Note: This repor...

The mathematical modeling conventions known collectively as the Discrete Event System Specification (DEVS) can be used to specify models of essentially any system that varies in time. But when DEVS is used for implementation, as opposed to specification, practical considerations such as convenience, efficiency, and repeatability motivate various changes to the original conventions. Here we disc...

At the start of Convention (1969) Lewis says that it is "a platitude that language is ruled by convention" and that he proposes to give us "an analysis of convention in its full generality, including tacit convention not created by agreement." Almost no clause, however, of Lewis's analysis has withstood the barrage of counter examples over the years, and a glance at the big dictionary suggests ...

In this brief proceedings article I summarize the review talk I gave at the IAU 246 meeting in Capri, Italy, glossing over the well-known results from the literature, but paying particular attention to new, previously unpublished material. This new material includes a careful comparison of the apparently contradictory results of two independent methods used to simulate the evolution of binary p...