Gaussian distributions are good approximations for many phenomena because of the central-limit theorm, but certainly the noise in a circuit is not actually unbounded. The real upper limit would be the result of some quantum-mechanical computation, which is not pratical to use. Even classical mechanics provides limits to otherwise unbounded distributions sometimes. For example, the Boltzman distribution tells us the distribution of the speeds of individual molecules in a gas at a certain temperature. It is unbounded. However, if it were derived again taking special relativity into account the upper limit would be the speed of light. If you further took quantum mechanics into account, then any molecule moving fast enough would be ionized by collisions, and thus suffer other types of losses (radiation for example) further modifying the distribution. In physics there are no real infinities (except as far as we know at the center of a black-hole, but some people argue with that too.) Christopher E. Reid Chief Scientist and Founder Pressando SI 9315 SW Lake Street Tigard, OR 97223-6034 503-869-6703 (cell) 503-624-8159 (home) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven Kan" <steven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "SI-List" <si-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <Alan.Hiltonnickel@xxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, July 03, 2006 2:35 PM Subject: [SI-LIST] Re: Fibre channel interconnect margins > From: <Alan.Hiltonnickel@xxxxxxx> > Sent: Monday, July 03, 2006 10:01 AM > Subject: Re: [SI-LIST] Re: Fibre channel interconnect margins > >> Steven Kan wrote On 07/03/06 09:46,: >> >>>I suppose we're way off in the weeds, here, but is the noise actually >>>unbounded? Or does it just behave in a Gaussian-like manner within the >>>realm of times/rates that matter for shipping product? I suppose if I sat >>>in my chair for long enough, a truly unbounded system might cause a gold >>>bar to pop into existence on my desk, but my empirical GBR (gold-bar >>>rate) >>>is currently 0. >> >> Steve, that's only because your observation period is too short. Call me >> in about 10e12 years, and I'll help you count your gold bars. >> >> -- >> Alan Hilton-Nickel > > I guess that's exactly my point. Does anyone really believe that n years > hence, there will appear a gold bar on my desk if n is sufficiently large? > Or do real laws of physics behave such that at some threshold probability > q, > q===0 and not just a very small number? > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > To unsubscribe from si-list: > si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field > > or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: > //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list > > For help: > si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field > > List FAQ wiki page is located at: > http://si-list.org/wiki/wiki.pl?Si-List_FAQ > > List technical documents are available at: > http://www.si-list.org > > List archives are viewable at: > //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list > or at our remote archives: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages > Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: > http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List FAQ wiki page is located at: http://si-list.org/wiki/wiki.pl?Si-List_FAQ List technical documents are available at: http://www.si-list.org List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu