Technological Acceleration As we watch technology progress, those of us who are interested in computing power are seeing incredible things happening. These things will have a major impact on all our lives since computers are responsible for a major amount of all advances in the world. Technology advance is linear. Not everyone will agree with this statement, but one advance or part of it ofttimes leads to other inventions or innovations. These inventions may not even have anything to do with computers, but for example certain processes we discover in more efficient manufacturing of computer chips might lead to more efficient manufacturing in other areas. What is happening in computer development is just incredible. Computer processors or CPU chips are composed of transistors. In 1971 IBM launched its first microprocessor and it had 2,000 transistors. We thought this was incredible at the time, fitting all those transistors in a small piece of silicone. In 2020 it is said there are CPUs which contain 2.16 billion transistors. One can only imagine how much more powerful those CPUs are. The AMD 64 Core Epyc CPU has 8.64 billion transistors and this is a part you can buy for a very high end home computer. Imagine what is going into those super computers the high tech labs and military super computers use. There is a debate going on between some computer scientists and maybe physicists about using quantum computers verses classical computers. We have found out most people don’t need a quantum computer, heck many don’t even need a computer at all, their cell phones fulfill all their needs. Cell phones have become so powerful you can do almost any routine thing you want on them. Then there are those who want something more and do a lot of their work and game playing on a laptop because they want that bigger screen. Finally, there are the diehards like me who also have a powerful desktop which I use in various ways which no other laptop or cell phone could accomplish. It looks to me like the cell phone will eventually be responsible for the demise of the laptop and most desktop computers someday. I say this because has attachments come out for them which allow bigger keyboards and screens and they become even more powerful and we begin to see the same software made for them as for our computers there may be no reason left to own a traditional computer. The cell phone has already become the swiss army knife of devices. Maybe we shouldn’t even call it a phone, because it is so much more. Think about it, it is a camera, game machine, data storage machine, clock, recorder, email processor and that is only scratching the surface. There is even software available for it to give you an electrocardiograph. Want to do banking? You can do most of it on your phone. Want to create a photo album? You can do that too. Like social media and the web, your cell phone will take care of that. Cell phones are far more powerful than the computers which were used to guide the Apollo astronauts to the moon and land on it. Where quantum computers would be useful is for companies and governments who need more sheer computing power for their projects. Why are quantum computers better in that instance? You have to understand the way a computer works to understand the answer. A classical computer operates on zeros and ones. They really stand for “on” and “off”. A quantum computer has zeros, ones, and zero and ones simultaneously. In other words, they allow “on”, “off”, “and on and off at the same time.” Scientists claim this extra switch makes all the difference and will allow them to solve problems which are out of the grasp of classical computers no matter how powerful they are. Some say maybe they might be able to solve all the secrets of the universe someday using quantum computers. There is a big problem with quantum computers however. They create errors which have to be resolved in their calculations. The Qbits, which are basic units of quantum information are hard to handle. So far, we are at about 56 Qbits and the more Qbits the more errors. Correcting the errors in a quantum computer takes time and cuts down on the speed of the computation. Scientists have been wrestling with this problem for years now. It has been demonstrated quantum computers are capable of computing at hundreds of thousands of times faster than a classical computer. It is being said we are capable of building a quantum computer of about 100 Qbits, but what is really needed is the ability to build one with at least millions of Qbits. There seems to be good news on the horizon for quantum computing. Scientists from a couple of companies in Japan have announced they might have an answer. They said, "By compressing quantum circuits, we could reduce the size of the quantum computer and its runtime, which in turn lessens the requirement for error protection." If the error correction routine could be eliminated and millions of more Qbits added we might have enough computing power to change the lives of every person on the earth in ways we couldn’t even imagine now. Technology is not only composed of computers however even though they may be integrated into many different devices. Materials for clothing are being developed which will keep us warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer and the material is lightweight. No longer will we need layers of clothing or thick and heavy winter jackets after this material is perfected. Some are saying graphene would serve this purpose and it is only one atom thick, so it practically has no weight. So far it is the thinnest known material. This is the miracle material scientists want to use to replace silicon in computer chips, use it in touchscreens, solar cells, and energy storage devices. We have only scratched the surface of what this stuff can be used for. Another wonder material is aerogel. Aerogel is a material which is created from a gel which has all the liquid removed and replaced with gas without it collapsing. It is very low density and it incredibly efficient in insulating. Aerogel is said to be the lightest solid ever to appear on earth. Some are saying the possible uses for aerogel are limitless. Besides thermal protection it is said aerogel is up to 1000 times better at soundproofing than any other material. This might find itself being used in clothing in the future. There are just so many technological advances I could talk about, but others will have to wait for another time.
|
