Saturday, January 31, 2009

thinking machines

Do machines think? I was thinking about this when I was riding the bike. When you start a bike, you start it with first gear. Once it starts moving slowly you press the clutch, change to second gear and then release the clutch. You do this sequence of action many many times, that is whenever you start a bike. So the bike engine must be very much used to this.

Whenever you start the bike from rest in first gear and press the clutch, the bike engine would be anticipating that when the clutch is released, it will be in second gear. I tried the an experiment and below is my observation. you can also check this out -

Start the bike in first gear and press the clutch. Now instead of moving to second gear, release the clutch in first gear itself. The engine which was expecting second gear would jerk as it is first gear again. This jerk would not be seen if you continue in first gear itself without pressing the clutch.

So I thought even machines think few thinks, atleast based on their experience.