I was just reading the new Popular Science, and it actually has a whole article a few pages long about the possibility of using DNA as a processor. It talks about a few new developments, and what the limit is on silicon. They say a new silicon compound developed by INM, silicon germanium, is able to reach speeds above 100 GHz, but that is pretty much the limit on silicon. They also show possibility of moletronics, which are devices that use atoms to direct the electric charge, rather than traditional gates, and the "quantum computer" which uses electron spin to do calculation. The interesting thing on the quantum computer is that it has 3 possible outcomes for a binary system. In traditional binary, their is the possibility if 1 or zero, on and off respectively, you can only have a 1 or zero at any time. In the quantum computer their is the possibility of a 1 or zero or both, electron spins down, electron spins up, and the superposition respectively. The superposition allows the 1 and zero to exist simultaneously. This is interseting because with traditional bits, it requires 8 bits to produce any number between 0 and 255 at once. With the superposition of the electron, eight of these bits can represent all numbers between 0 and 255 simultaneously. This lets one qubit (the quantum bit) perform as 2 bits, 2 qubits as 4 bits, 4 qubits as 16 bits, etc... They actually have working quantum computers that use 7 qubits. This machine is capable of out-calculating todays fastest computers. To quote the magazine "Fred Chong, an associate professor of computer science at UC Davis, estimates that today's fastest computer would require billions of years to factor a 300-digit encryption key as it laboriousely tried one possibility after another; a quantum computer would crack the code in about 30 hours."
Think about the possibilities.
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