Posted on 09/22/2015 2:10:36 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Move over, microchip. A random assembly of gold nanoparticles can perform calculations normally reserved for neatly arranged patterns of silicon.
Traditional computers rely on ordered circuits that follow preprogrammed rules, but this strategy limits how efficient they can be.
“The best microprocessors you can buy in a store now can do 1011 operations per second and use a few hundred watts,” says Wilfred van der Wiel of the University of Twente in the Netherlands. “The human brain can do orders of magnitude more and uses only 10 to 20 watts. That’s a huge gap.”
To close that gap, researchers have tried building “brain-like” computers that do calculations without their innards having been specifically laid out for the purpose, but so far no one had found a material that could reliably perform real calculations.
Now, van der Wiel and his colleagues have enabled a clump of gold grains to handle bits of information in the same way that conventional microprocessors do.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
If a bunch of dust floating in the vastness of the universe can come together and evolve into nearly infinitely complex and infinitely interleaved and interdependent systems that we have now, why couldn’t gold particles evolve to become anything at all?
In other words, evolution is the dumbest idea ever thought of.
If his numbers are right, I must have a nuclear reactor to run Skyrim at 60 FPS because ‘hundreds if watts par 1k calc is gonna take a hell of a power outlet.
Good news for the gold sellers on the radio. A new reason why the price of gold is gonna skyrocket any second now. Get yours soon!
It looks like 1011 is supposed to be 10 to the 11th power, or 100 billion.
Should have been 1011, not 1011
A minor discrepancy! ;)
Short answer? Gold is incorruptible but carbon can do tricks.
I’ve wondered if evolution design trial/error could “invent” a more efficient multiplication circuit
“What difference does it make!!” /s
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