For you, Eleanor? Of course! I look forward to it.
But do you have an "elevator pitch"?
I feel that a lively exchange of short messages conveys ideas much more
efficiently and effectively than an annual exchange of hyper-dense
documents.
Cheers,
-James Holton
MAD Scientist
On 4/1/2024 6:27 AM, Eleanor Dodson wrote:
It. Will probably take me a. Full year to draft the. Application - is
that too slow?
On Mon, 1 Apr 2024 at 09:22, Frank Von Delft
<0000bcb385fe5582-dmarc-requ...@jiscmail.ac.uk> wrote:
Oh dear, your prime number oversupply crashed the crypto Ponzi
schememarket. Will you accept $10e2 proposals now?
Sent from tiny silly touch screen
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* James Holton <jmhol...@lbl.gov>
*Sent:* Monday, 1 April 2024 08:01
*To:* CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
*Subject:* [ccp4bb] request for applications
Hey Everyone,
It may sound like an incredibly boring thing that there has never
been a
formal mathematical proof that finding the prime factors of very
large
numbers doesn't have a more efficient algorithm than simply trying
every
single one of them. Nevertheless, to this day, encryption keys and
indeed blockchain-based cryptocurrencies hinge upon how
computationally
hard it is to find these large prime factors. And yet, no one has
ever
proven that there is not a more efficient way.
It occurred to me recently that cryptocurrencies (blockchains) are
nothing more than a sequence of numbers, and Large Language Models
fundamentally take a sequence of "words" and predict the next one
in the
series. So, they seem naturally suited to the task of finding a more
efficient way. I spent some of my free time trying my hand at this.
There were some twists and turns along the way, but as of today it
seems
to be working. Predictions are now coming pretty fast. By the end of
April 1, I expect to have ~ $1e12 USD on current ledgers. This may
have
certain socioeconomic ramifications, but that is not what I want to
discuss here. What I want to discuss is how to use this new source of
scientific funding!
My question for the BB is: what would YOU do if you had $1e12 USD for
your science? No non-scientific proposals please. There are plenty of
other forums for those. This BB is about biological structural
science,
so please stay on-topic. OK? And now: suggestions!
I am particularly interested in projects that can only be done with a
large, cooperative $1e12 USD, but not by 10e6 independent and
unrelated
$100e3 projects. The Apollo moon missions, for example cost $300e9
(adjusted USD). On a smaller scale, re-doing the whole PDB from
cloning
and expression to crystallization and structure solution would
only cost
about $500e6 USD. That would finally give us a good database of
crystallization conditions for training an AI to tell you, given a
sequence, what the crystallization conditions (if any) will be. That
might take a lot of computing power, but there is plenty left over to
buy 10 zettaflops of computing power (and the solar panels needed to
power it). Or, if we really want to just divide it up, that would be
$10e6 for each of the ~1e5 people on this planet who fit into the
category of "biological scientist". That's not just PIs, but
postdocs,
grad students, techs. Everybody.
I'm sure this will solve a lot of problems, but not all of them.
And, I
like to get ahead of things. So, what are the non-financial problems
that will remain? I think these are the most important problems in
science: the intellectual and technological hurdles that money can't
overcome. I'm hoping this will be an opportunity for all of us to
focus
on those. I know we're all not used to thinking on this scale,
but, at
least for today, let's give it a try!
Looking forward to your applications,
-James Holton
MAD Scientist
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* James Holton <jmhol...@lbl.gov>
*Sent:* Monday, 1 April 2024 08:01
*To:* CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
*Subject:* [ccp4bb] request for applications
Hey Everyone,
It may sound like an incredibly boring thing that there has never
been a
formal mathematical proof that finding the prime factors of very
large
numbers doesn't have a more efficient algorithm than simply trying
every
single one of them. Nevertheless, to this day, encryption keys and
indeed blockchain-based cryptocurrencies hinge upon how
computationally
hard it is to find these large prime factors. And yet, no one has
ever
proven that there is not a more efficient way.
It occurred to me recently that cryptocurrencies (blockchains) are
nothing more than a sequence of numbers, and Large Language Models
fundamentally take a sequence of "words" and predict the next one
in the
series. So, they seem naturally suited to the task of finding a more
efficient way. I spent some of my free time trying my hand at this.
There were some twists and turns along the way, but as of today it
seems
to be working. Predictions are now coming pretty fast. By the end of
April 1, I expect to have ~ $1e12 USD on current ledgers. This may
have
certain socioeconomic ramifications, but that is not what I want to
discuss here. What I want to discuss is how to use this new source of
scientific funding!
My question for the BB is: what would YOU do if you had $1e12 USD for
your science? No non-scientific proposals please. There are plenty of
other forums for those. This BB is about biological structural
science,
so please stay on-topic. OK? And now: suggestions!
I am particularly interested in projects that can only be done with a
large, cooperative $1e12 USD, but not by 10e6 independent and
unrelated
$100e3 projects. The Apollo moon missions, for example cost $300e9
(adjusted USD). On a smaller scale, re-doing the whole PDB from
cloning
and expression to crystallization and structure solution would
only cost
about $500e6 USD. That would finally give us a good database of
crystallization conditions for training an AI to tell you, given a
sequence, what the crystallization conditions (if any) will be. That
might take a lot of computing power, but there is plenty left over to
buy 10 zettaflops of computing power (and the solar panels needed to
power it). Or, if we really want to just divide it up, that would be
$10e6 for each of the ~1e5 people on this planet who fit into the
category of "biological scientist". That's not just PIs, but
postdocs,
grad students, techs. Everybody.
I'm sure this will solve a lot of problems, but not all of them.
And, I
like to get ahead of things. So, what are the non-financial problems
that will remain? I think these are the most important problems in
science: the intellectual and technological hurdles that money can't
overcome. I'm hoping this will be an opportunity for all of us to
focus
on those. I know we're all not used to thinking on this scale,
but, at
least for today, let's give it a try!
Looking forward to your applications,
-James Holton
MAD Scientist
########################################################################
To unsubscribe from the CCP4BB list, click the following link:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/WA-JISC.exe?SUBED1=CCP4BB&A=1
<https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/WA-JISC.exe?SUBED1=CCP4BB&A=1>
This message was issued to members of www.jiscmail.ac.uk/CCP4BB
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