JoeV
Thin Air, Bright Sun
Is photography closed? Are there an infinite number of possible images, implying an infinite wealth of potential creativity yet to be discovered?
How many possible photographs are there?
As a side question, are you old enough to remember the early days of electronic calculators? I do. I had an interesting collection at one time, including ones with red LED displays, others with green fluorescent tube displays that ate batteries like crazy. I'm left with three HPs using RPN logic, and a red LED version once sold in hardware stores. Every phone, tablet and computer has a calculator, these days.
These are the kinds of thought experiments that will challenge even the best scientific calculator. But here goes.
Assume square format, 800 pixels on a side, 8-bit RGB channels. Pretty much the standard image viewed on a phone, tablet or computer.
Total possible photos = (Total Color Levels) ^ (Total Pixel Count)
That's total number of color levels raised to the power of total pixel count. If this isn't obvious, imagine a simple photo of just two pixels, each with three color levels. That's 3^2 or 9 total possible images.
Three 8-bit color channels implies 2^24 color levels, which is: 1.677x10^7.
800x800 pixel image size implies 640,000 pixels total.
Total possible photos = (1.677x10^7) ^ (640,000)
Converting to scientific notation (Google will be of little help here, as are most scientific calculators; you'll have to dust off your high school maths):
Total number of photographs = 5.4075 x 10^4,623,820
That's 5.4 followed by 4,623,823 zeroes.
That's a lot of photographs, each one unique. Many will differ by only one pixel. But it's a finite number of images.
How long would it take to view all those photos, assuming a rate of one photo per second (I know people who surf the Net faster than that)?
First, assume the universe is 14.8 billion years old. That's 4.667 x 10^17 seconds.
Obviously, at one photo per second, it will take much, much longer than the age of the universe for one person to view them all. That's assuming other problems are solved, like extending a person's lifespan, and supplying huge quantities of grilled steaks, dark beers and great coffee (because, that's why).
How about if we use 5 billion people, each viewing photos at a rate of one per second, each for 80 years? It would still require 4.29 x 10^4,623,801 earth-fulls of people for 80 years to view them all.
I'll leave it to the morbidly curious to calculate the total possible number of 15-minute YouTube videos. (Hint: divide by 30x60x15; 25x60x15 for Europe). For the total number of Vine videos, divide by 30x6.
Such thought experiments are useful, actually. For one, there are a large number of seemingly near-identical images for every seemingly unique one. Which raises the point of how do we agree on uniqueness. How many pixels have to differ before two photos are no longer practically unique?
You can also see that there will be a huge number of images that will appear to be random grain, similar to what we used to call "snow" in analog TVs tuned to a dead channel.
There will also be a huge number of images that will be non-random but abstract, along with another huge set that will be in the gray area between random and abstract. You can begin to see that random and abstract are not necessarily the same thing.
Any image that can be represented as three 8-bit RGB channels, at 800 pixels on a side, will be included. Including every 800-pixel rendering of every painting ever made. And every '80s-era 8-bit video game graphic ever made. And every one never made.
Every photograph yet to be made will be included, even ones that never could be made without Photoshop, like Jesus riding a unicorn atop a pizza slice inside a snow globe, for example. Or substitute your favorite diety. Or every possible version of Ansel Adams's "Moon Over Halfdome," including the alternate ones with purple dolphins jumping off the waterfall, or "Moonrise over Hernandez, New Mexico" with massive mothership UFOs in the sky.
Every photograph ever made will be included, along with the alternate 640,000 versions of each with a dead pixel (not counting color variations amongst the dead pixels - you can figure that out for yourself).
So, yes, photography is theoretically closed. But still pretty darned open to future creative potential.
And so now I'll end it here, because I have more photos to make, and view. Just don't take any of mine. Now, where's that steak and beer?
~Joe
Addenda: Corrected video numbers. But heck, this is all theoretical anyway, so what's a few thousand between friends?
How many possible photographs are there?
As a side question, are you old enough to remember the early days of electronic calculators? I do. I had an interesting collection at one time, including ones with red LED displays, others with green fluorescent tube displays that ate batteries like crazy. I'm left with three HPs using RPN logic, and a red LED version once sold in hardware stores. Every phone, tablet and computer has a calculator, these days.
These are the kinds of thought experiments that will challenge even the best scientific calculator. But here goes.
Assume square format, 800 pixels on a side, 8-bit RGB channels. Pretty much the standard image viewed on a phone, tablet or computer.
Total possible photos = (Total Color Levels) ^ (Total Pixel Count)
That's total number of color levels raised to the power of total pixel count. If this isn't obvious, imagine a simple photo of just two pixels, each with three color levels. That's 3^2 or 9 total possible images.
Three 8-bit color channels implies 2^24 color levels, which is: 1.677x10^7.
800x800 pixel image size implies 640,000 pixels total.
Total possible photos = (1.677x10^7) ^ (640,000)
Converting to scientific notation (Google will be of little help here, as are most scientific calculators; you'll have to dust off your high school maths):
Total number of photographs = 5.4075 x 10^4,623,820
That's 5.4 followed by 4,623,823 zeroes.
That's a lot of photographs, each one unique. Many will differ by only one pixel. But it's a finite number of images.
How long would it take to view all those photos, assuming a rate of one photo per second (I know people who surf the Net faster than that)?
First, assume the universe is 14.8 billion years old. That's 4.667 x 10^17 seconds.
Obviously, at one photo per second, it will take much, much longer than the age of the universe for one person to view them all. That's assuming other problems are solved, like extending a person's lifespan, and supplying huge quantities of grilled steaks, dark beers and great coffee (because, that's why).
How about if we use 5 billion people, each viewing photos at a rate of one per second, each for 80 years? It would still require 4.29 x 10^4,623,801 earth-fulls of people for 80 years to view them all.
I'll leave it to the morbidly curious to calculate the total possible number of 15-minute YouTube videos. (Hint: divide by 30x60x15; 25x60x15 for Europe). For the total number of Vine videos, divide by 30x6.
Such thought experiments are useful, actually. For one, there are a large number of seemingly near-identical images for every seemingly unique one. Which raises the point of how do we agree on uniqueness. How many pixels have to differ before two photos are no longer practically unique?
You can also see that there will be a huge number of images that will appear to be random grain, similar to what we used to call "snow" in analog TVs tuned to a dead channel.
There will also be a huge number of images that will be non-random but abstract, along with another huge set that will be in the gray area between random and abstract. You can begin to see that random and abstract are not necessarily the same thing.
Any image that can be represented as three 8-bit RGB channels, at 800 pixels on a side, will be included. Including every 800-pixel rendering of every painting ever made. And every '80s-era 8-bit video game graphic ever made. And every one never made.
Every photograph yet to be made will be included, even ones that never could be made without Photoshop, like Jesus riding a unicorn atop a pizza slice inside a snow globe, for example. Or substitute your favorite diety. Or every possible version of Ansel Adams's "Moon Over Halfdome," including the alternate ones with purple dolphins jumping off the waterfall, or "Moonrise over Hernandez, New Mexico" with massive mothership UFOs in the sky.
Every photograph ever made will be included, along with the alternate 640,000 versions of each with a dead pixel (not counting color variations amongst the dead pixels - you can figure that out for yourself).
So, yes, photography is theoretically closed. But still pretty darned open to future creative potential.
And so now I'll end it here, because I have more photos to make, and view. Just don't take any of mine. Now, where's that steak and beer?
~Joe
Addenda: Corrected video numbers. But heck, this is all theoretical anyway, so what's a few thousand between friends?
