{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","author_name":"npub15n7zls4lcps7wksmdctal39neyact74jljgsq86ylkzfn4njk95sv8vrz4","author_url":"https://nostr.ae/npub15n7zls4lcps7wksmdctal39neyact74jljgsq86ylkzfn4njk95sv8vrz4","provider_name":"njump","provider_url":"https://nostr.ae","html":"📅 Original date posted:2016-03-08\n📝 Original message:Dave Hudson via bitcoin-dev [bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org] wrote:\n\u003e I think the biggest question here would be how would the difficulty\n\u003e retargeting be changed?  Without seeing the algorithm proposal it's difficult\n\u003e to assess the impact that it would have, but my intuition is that this is\n\u003e likely to be problematic.\n\nI have no comment on whether this will be *needed* but there's a simple\nalgorithm that I haven't seen any coin adopt, that I think needs to be: the\ncritically damped harmonic oscillator:\n\n    http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CriticallyDampedSimpleHarmonicMotion.html\n\nIn dynamical systems one does a derivative expansion.  Here we want to find the\nfirst and second derivatives (in time) of the hashrate.  These can be determined\nby a method of finite differences, or fancier algorithms which use a quadratic\nor quartic polynomial approximation.  Two derivatives are generally all that is\nneeded, and the resulting dynamical system is a damped harmonic oscillator.  \n\nA damped harmonic oscillator is basically how your car's shock absorbers work.\nThe relevant differential equation has two parameters: the oscillation frequency\nand damping factor.  The maximum oscillation frequency is the block rate.  Any\noscillation faster than the block rate cannot be measured by block times.  The\ndamping rate is an exponential decay and for critical damping is twice the\noscillation frequency.\n\nSo, this is a zero parameter, optimal damping solution for a varying hashrate.\nThis is inherently a numeric approximation solution to a differential equation,\nso questions of approximations for the hashrate enter, but that's all.  Weak\nblock proposals will be able to get better approximations to the hashrate.\n\nIf solving this problem is deemed desirable, I can put some time into this, or\ndirect others as to how to go about it.\n\n--\nCheers, Bob McElrath\n\n\"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.\"\n    -- H. L. Mencken"}