Towards Molecular Computing

pq writes "The NY Times has a progress report on molecular computers: the results are finally rolling in. This July, HP and UCLA reported molecular logic gates; now Yale and Rice are reporting the ability to cycle those gates on/off and HP is announcing conducting wires less than a dozen atoms across. Interesting review - to quote, `this should scare the pants off anyone working in silicon.' " Mmmm...nano.

Comments

Re:Timeline

[Saige]

Could someone with a bit of information in this area provide what they see to be a reasonable timeline for nanotech? I have been doing alot of pondering on technology growth and futurism lately and wondering how much I'll see in my lifetime, especially considering how much I've ALREADY seen in my lifetime.

All the estimates I've seen, and this is from many areas, including top researchers, is 20-30 years for the first assembler. And once one of those is built, things should explode in quick succession.

They've said they will be very suprised if it is not here in 50 years.

I know people have always liked to quote the predictions about how AI would be here by now, etc, etc. But this figure is arrived at from many different directions. The progression of how much material is used for memory, and the size of computer chips are two things that will hit the nanotech level around then. Convergence from chemistry, biology, and engineering/physics directions all point to about that area.

I've seen more than enough to convince me that the odds are very good I'll see it in my lifetime. And I'm 25.
---