Originally posted by bullet1968
guys,
what was the experimental computer processor they were using to try and design chips made of atoms?? I saw the doco some time back but cant remember the name?? I think the processor was liquid cooled nitrogen for temps?
cheers bullet
Hmm, not sure of the of the exact processor name, but it's all nanotechnology. You can do a Google search and read some really interesting stuff about it.
https://www.actionbioscience.org/newf...rs/merkle.html
and here's where you can keep up with the latest advancements in nano-tech:
https://www.nanotech-now.com/
G-man: The size isn't really the issue here. Data traveling at the speed of light could circle the Earth 7 or so times per second. Bring that scale down to size of your average CPU... and you don't really have any lag. Of course you're right about the current, but with advancement being made in material sciences, such as carbon nanotubes, it won't be long (if they don't exist already) before we have materials that can withstand even the most punishing of condition's. A single strand of carbon nanotubes (at the width of a hair) is stronger than the steel support wires on modern bridges. So strong they are more than strong enough for the space elevator (I shouldn't really get started on that 
I'm obsessed with exploration ). They are also great conductors.
With all these advancements size isn't really the issue. Plus with 4 cores doing all the calculation work, and handling individual tasks, the distance really doesn't matter. When one or two cores are processing/transferring data over long distance (more than your 10cm) the remaining cores are busy making up the difference. The user never really experiences performance losses.
Not to mention Moore's Law is expected to become redundant by 2015.
About the subject of Quantum Entanglement you brought up earlier. Essentially you are not traveling faster than the speed of light. And the original particle does not move, but rather it's attributes are transversed, but not directly. It's more like mimicking, when two particles are entangled they are forced to do the same thing, and even as you spread them further and further apart, they are still bound to perform the same actions. While this 'teleportation' works great for photons, it would be a completely different thing for a complex organism such as a Human. But data is a completely different, and this might work for long distance instant data transfer.
The other form of teleportation is the same in that your original atoms will not be transported anywhere, but rather a digital blueprint which would be received and remolecularized from a barrel of subatomic particle at the destination. Of course the 'original' you would be vaporised in the process. But this doesn't really have anything to do with processors, as the data here would only travel at light speed.... but I still enjoy talking about it.
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Last edited by Mayaniac; 30-04-2010 at 02:42 PM.