Quote from: ABCbits on Today at 09:58:39 AM

That was interesting read. I have few casual thoughts about it.
1. The actual delay will be slightly longer, considering time to verify block and not all node have direct connection to node on different planet.
2. On section 3.2.4, the paper mentioned miner on location 4 should choose mine on top of block that is less likely to be orphaned (rather than one with most accumulated work). What are basis to consider which block is less likely to be orphaned?
3. I see you write it under assumption light remains as communication method with lowest delay/latency. I certainly hope there'll be better communication option when human moved on from current (type 0) civilization.

Thanks!

1. I agree that there will be other delays associated with the communication, e.g. information processing times at the endpoints, but this is the time that I did assume will diminish towards zero as humanity progresses. For the sake of simplicity, the most important and longest portion of this delay is the light-time latency

2. The reason is because the block has yet to be orphaned, and neither have yet to reach consensus. - it's like betting on a very slow man in the 100 meter dash vs. Usain Bolt, if you observe the slow man at the 90 meter mark, and Usain is still at the 10 meter mark. You're able to determine the probability that the block will be orphaned by how far away that block is from propagating towards the system's center of hash to reach consensus first.

3. I also agree FTL communication would be great, but for the time being I did still want to explore what this would look like given our current physics constraints.