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Are Optical Computers as PCs on the horizon?

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f0dder:
Iirc intel is down to 40nm now - that's pretty frigging small.

I wonder what the smallest scale we can reach are... I recall something about the laws of quantum mechanics setting some limits :)

kyrathaba:
Well, there is a physical limit on how small they can get.  The smaller, the thinner.  Get the electron pathway too thin and it won't stand up to the heat generated by the electron flow.  It would melt.  So there must be a lower bound on size due to this factor, if nothing else.

Deozaan:
the speed of current computers is ... roughly half the speed of light in a vacuum.
...
New conducting materials developed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center can act as computer logic gates that perform 1,000 times faster than today's fastest silicon chips, and are smaller.
-kyrathaba (April 25, 2007, 06:25 PM)
--- End quote ---

Are you saying that computers can be 500 times the speed of light in a vacuum with these new materials?

kyrathaba:
No, although I can see where I may have given that impression.  Although electrons in chips can flow approximately half the speed that electrons in a vacuum can flow, there is also the matter of resistance in the material of which the circuits are composed (no resistance in a vacuum, on the other hand), and the distance they must flow inside a PC which, though small, do take time.  What I meant by the part that you quoted above is that the research at NASA's Marshall SFC has shown optical logic gates that can switch (on/off) 1000 faster than the current ones in silicon based chip technology.

Edvard:
And, secondly, what everyday applications will such powerful computers, using A.I., be put to in those two years, respectively?

--- End quote ---
As fast and powerful as computers may get in the future, they will never outstrip the bounds of human nature.
In other words, I strongly suspect folks will still be finding ways to use computers (in whatever incarnation they may be then...) to find pictures of naked people and play some (incredibly fast) tetris.
 :-\  :P

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