"A group of researchers has fabricated a single-atom transistor by introducing one phosphorous atom into a silicon lattice. Through the use of a scanning tunnelling microscope and hydrogen-resist lithography, Martin Fuechsle et al. placed the phosphorous atom precisely between very thin silicon leads, allowing them to measure its electrical behavior. The results show clearly that we can read both the quantum transitions within the phosphorous atom and its transistor behavior. No smaller solid-state devices are possible, so systems of this type reveal the limit of Moore's law - the prediction about the miniaturization of technology - while pointing toward solid-state quantum computing devices."
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Member since:2005-07-06
The Standard Model will NOT be "wrong" - it works too well for that, is too useful (also http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm ).
OTOH its faults are beyond "could never the less" - we KNOW it's basically interim (I won't use the word "wrong") ...mass of neutrinos, not explaining that which forms most of our universe (dark matter and energy), gravity (at odds with general relativity overall), or apparent absence of antimatter, and so on.
Post above it was just about mixing concepts; how particles are distinct from the idea of strings, a sort of expression of them. And an example of elementary (how people often directly name them in such wishes) particles being the limit, since that's how they are defined (the goalpost might move of course, it happened few times; but not the definition).
Mildly frustrating, people finding some catchwords and throwing them around; or naively extrapolating rates of progress (scientific method and such did give us the capability to unravel and exploit the world in more swift fashion than was the case throughout most of our existence - hence also made us realize hard limits; and tech plateaus - short spurts of progress are actually rather typical), worse if it leads to cargo cults of sorts.
"3D chips will undoubtedly offer tremendous gains" ...maybe, maybe not - we will see.
Superconductors - what about them? We don't know if high-temp ones are feasible, of the types adequate here (and maybe even just not practical, maybe properties of some other necessary chip components getting in the way; maybe, say, power dissipation of interconnects not being that much of a problem; anyway, do we really want terminators walking around? 
)
Edited 2012-02-27 22:21 UTC
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Member since:
2011-01-28
zima,
"Strings are not particles sort of by definition; and there wouldn't be 'smaller' beyond elementary ones."
The theory, which is a clever interpretation of the statistical data we have available, could never the less be wrong. But yes it seems the OP jumped to the conclusion that strings could be "reprogrammed"; that might invalidate the premise that they are already programmed as they are to explain the universal laws of physics. Changing them would in affect create a different universe.
"3D chips aren't about miniaturisation (plus I believe they have the usual, if not more severe, power dissipation issues)"
3D chips will undoubtedly offer tremendous gains, yes the heat dissipation is a bummer. But what about superconductors?
Or here's another idea for thermal computers...
(no idea about the plausibility of such a thing though)
http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/devices/thermal-transistor-the-...