Monday, September 28, 2009

The Churn


We will analyze "News" as a simple problem of fluid engineering. News is introduced to the vessel at a certain average rate. While the news is in the vessel, all news is mixed thoroughly. The resultant mixture of old and new news exits at the same rate new news arrives. This means that some new news, an infinitesimal part, leaves the vessel immediately. Also, some particulates or "atoms" of news last for long amounts of time. Observed, but not well understood, are occasional "Great Red Spots," i.e., massive "weather-like" events in the noosphere such as the Jovian phenomenon referenced, or the O.J. Simpson trial.

Here however we are ignoring this complication and will analyze news as an average flow. The question is:
To repeat: for the purposes of illustration, let us assume that I introduce newest news at a tiny rate, and mix it with the existing news very vigorously. What comes in is pure newest news, but what goes out is that instantaneous tiny amount of newest news diluted with older news, a small amount of even older news, and extremely small amounts of really old news. Because we are mixing very, very well. Perfectly.

So: If you introduce one volume of new news, how much remains at the end of that?