So you actually don't need 57 trillion squares. The surface area of the globe is (only) 510 billion m^2. Diving that into 3m^2 blocks like what3words did, you end up with 170 billion squares, a far cry from 57 trillion. This means you only need 5,540 unique words to generate all 3 word address possibilities.
So yes, you could still stick with 3 word addresses with an optional 4th check word.
what3words maps 57 trillion squares to 3 word addresses by shipping a 40,000 word list. Due to the sheer size of the word list, it's cluttered with problems:
Plurals
Homonyms
Compound words
Obscure words
Lexeme forms
Long edit distances
Unnecessarily long words
A smaller word list could easily address all these issues by adding one more word. Something like 4,096 words is more than enough to reach all 57 trillion 3m x 3m squares on the globe with 4 word addresses.
One of the problems is the lack of error detection. A more tightly, curated list would greatly minimize that risk, but a "check word" could eliminate it. Simply hash the 4 words with SHA-256, read the 12 least or most significant bits to deterministically pick the 5th check word, similar to BIP39. The person on the phone would then communicate five words to emergency services, and the risk they're sent to the wrong location is non-existent.
Granted, 5 words is more to manage than 3, I admit. But it should not be hard to build a list of 4,096 common words of say 3-8 characters. The what3words word list minimum length is 4 characters, and the maximum is 18 characters. This is actually the breakdown:
4 characters: 1342 words
5 characters: 2849 words
6 characters: 4799 words
7 characters: 6496 words
8 characters: 6842 words
9 characters: 6002 words
10 characters: 4735 words
11 characters: 3164 words
12 characters: 1962 words
13 characters: 1121 words
14 characters: 439 words
15 characters: 202 words
16 characters: 39 words
17 characters: 7 words
18 characters: 1 word
The average character count is unnecessarily heavy in its current implementation, where few characters per word with one or two more words could on average be the same length to type.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Aaron Toponce.
Re: Re: Re: Mathematical distance theorems...
So you actually don't need 57 trillion squares. The surface area of the globe is (only) 510 billion m^2. Diving that into 3m^2 blocks like what3words did, you end up with 170 billion squares, a far cry from 57 trillion. This means you only need 5,540 unique words to generate all 3 word address possibilities.
So yes, you could still stick with 3 word addresses with an optional 4th check word.
Re: Mathematical distance theorems...
what3words maps 57 trillion squares to 3 word addresses by shipping a 40,000 word list. Due to the sheer size of the word list, it's cluttered with problems:
A smaller word list could easily address all these issues by adding one more word. Something like 4,096 words is more than enough to reach all 57 trillion 3m x 3m squares on the globe with 4 word addresses.
One of the problems is the lack of error detection. A more tightly, curated list would greatly minimize that risk, but a "check word" could eliminate it. Simply hash the 4 words with SHA-256, read the 12 least or most significant bits to deterministically pick the 5th check word, similar to BIP39. The person on the phone would then communicate five words to emergency services, and the risk they're sent to the wrong location is non-existent.
Granted, 5 words is more to manage than 3, I admit. But it should not be hard to build a list of 4,096 common words of say 3-8 characters. The what3words word list minimum length is 4 characters, and the maximum is 18 characters. This is actually the breakdown:
The average character count is unnecessarily heavy in its current implementation, where few characters per word with one or two more words could on average be the same length to type.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Aaron Toponce.
Submit a story now.