[tcaudilllg]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4449711.stm

The failure to find a unified field theory is collapsing technological growth. Although nano-technology is the future, it is clear that things are going to get bigger now as they become more complex, not the other way around.

At the atom level, the unified field theory is our only hope. Strings aren't cutting it.

[RuneLancer]

Let's face it, there's a limit to everything. Anyone could've predicted that, once we'd hit the very limits of what current silicone-based technology can allow, Moore's law would start failing us.

I remember reading something at the beginning of this summer. Apparently, there's a limit to just how fast you can cram electrons along a conductive surface before they become unstable and start screwing up. That limit's somewhere around 5 Ghz for a single-processor, single-station desktop PC. Basically, if we wanted to improve, we'd have to find something better than the brute-force approach (shrinking stuff to make electrons travel shorter distances) such as new technologies like hyperthreading (eeeeh...), more intelligent circuit design, better algorithms (branch prediction, pipelining, etc are example of this), and maybe even a completely new means of computing.

Quantum computers, here we come (?) :D

Edit: Kinda curious on what basis you claim that it's "clear" that as things become more complex, they'll now become bigger. Algorithms, ideas, and implementations can't be refined to perform better without bloating up...?
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[Sirocco]

AMD and Intel have seen the writing on the wall for quite some time, and are pushing for what we *should* have embraced over a decade ago -- multi-processor systems on the desktop. If you can't go any faster, the only thing to do is divvy up the tasks and let the processors do their thing.

Remember the BeBox? Running BeOS on dual Pentium 60s, their claim to fame was being able to routinely outperform Pentium 200s, and had a severe edge in multimedia tasks such as sample processing/mixing, and video filtering.

.

[LeoDraco]

I recall reading not too long ago that Intel was having cooling problems with the P4s as they approached the 4Ghz threshold. (Course, this was on wikipedia, so it might not be inheritly true.) Supposedly, the smaller scaled laptop processors that they have been pushing recently (PMs I think?) can sometimes out perform the P4s even though they push less instructions through.

The whole quantum computing field is interesting, from what little I know about it. While tangentially related, I am given to understand that, at least for digital signitures, quantum cryptography seems to be secure.

I know that at least one place was playing around with both holographic data storage and another with light storage/processing; perhaps one of those formats would help combat the inevitable?
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"...LeoDraco is a pompus git..." -- Mandrake

[tcaudilllg]

I've read a bit on the holographic stuff. It's in MIT's tech magazine this month, I think. Or maybe last month.

The holographic stuff is being done with nanotech. It's quite promising. :) My cousin does nanotech work. He told me some years ago his work is so demanding that he only has time for 15 minutes a day to practice on his guitar, and that's his release. I wondered why he was so serious about it. (he's my mom's first cousin, way older than me, with a PhD. A professional) If he saw this issue coming, then it wouldn't be surprising that he would work so hard on nanotech.

I estimate it'll take another 15-18 years to find the unified field theory. The theory itself is understood somewhat, but still not that well. What is understood already... is that it is the absolute Truth, and that it's not pretty. Einstein was tireless in his search for it. Given his difficulty with emotions, it seems likely the theory is like a union between music and his general relativity theory. The answer is probably evident in his later works....

My hunch is that the people who could find the thing actually do understand it perfectly, but they dare not reveal it for reasons of our "stupidity". Probably world events will have to pave the way for human acceptance of the theory.

[tcaudilllg]

The disaster in New Orleans is a manifestation of the same geometric pattern that fueled Moores Law. With the downfall of Moores Law will come the downfall of other elements of our civilization. The price of incompetence is at last clarifying.

[LeoDraco]

[tcaudilllg]

That's not what I meant.

The same forces that are making this particular disaster so crazy (the failure to restore the flood levy before it annihilated the city, for example) are the same forces that have mired physics in string theory, and the U.S. in Iraq. Both situations are going absolutely no where. A black hole of resources that is draining other causes of the energy they need to progress.

[Xegnma]

[LeoDraco]

That was all based on my faulty memories of stuff I read on slashdot awhile back. That said:

Holographic Disks
Optical Storage
(Interesting bit about data storage on fingernails)
And... Optical Computer Made From Frozen Light

Again, all of that is slashdot, so it might be just as well to take most of it with a grain of salt.

Edit: also, that last article contains a link to the wikipedia article about optical computers, which might be an interesting read.

Edit2: yet another slashdot article, this time about Production of Photon Processors Expected in 2006.
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"...LeoDraco is a pompus git..." -- Mandrake

[tcaudilllg]

Ah quantum computers! They found a way after all....

Will these be efficient though? Do they really have that much mastery over light? And how? This is a total surprise to me. I'd heard they hadn't made it out of the lab. (Optical fibers are rather limited, of course)

[tcaudilllg]

Nevermind, these computers seem a bit larger than silicon...

So Moores Law is still dead, and we're failing to make things smaller. I'm not surprised they weren't able to construct nanoscopic light tubules though. They really don't understand what they're dealing with.