What is New on the Forefront of Science?

If I say that GPS or global positioning system is interesting, I am sure that I will hear the cry," That's been around for 30 years." Well, listen to this. Last year the fastest transistor in the world was discovered at the University of Illinois at a speed of 600 GHz. That's well over the speed limit, you might say. Well, just last week in August, they tested the fastest transistor to date at University of Rochester. They clocked the new Balistic Deflection Transistor at 3 Tera Hertz. That is a thousand times faster than the commercially available processor we use these days, folks. They were granted a 1.1 million dollars by the National Science Foundation to study it.

The implications are obvious. In ten years we can have a computer that is a thousand times faster than what we have now, from 3 Giga Hertz to 3 Tera Hertz. Hard drives of Tera Bytes will be commercially viable to the masses and there will be a big market for faster computers and they will be outdated like cars.

It is still in the experimental stages, as most components in our computers can not operate functionally at that speed as of yet. And at that frequency, the radio waves emitted is absorbed by water vapors at 1 meter, or roughly about 3 feet. Anything beyond Tera Hertz is infrared ray zone, and the FCC may have problems with interference and allocating bandwidth at that frequency.

As I used to quip in electronics class, "Maybe the speed of the processors will reach the speed of light and then maybe we will actually be able to see what we're doing." ( As you know the frequency and the wave length is inversely proportional to the speed of light.) It seems like we've reached the limit to how fast our technology can function. ( Because as it approaches the visible spectrum range, it is easily dissipated into heat.)

As our cell phones clog up the air waves and is encroaching on military air space, I wonder what will happen to our air space as faster and faster computers are mass produced. One thing for sure, the communication network of our great nation will be the best in the world.

The transistor was invented in the 50's by Bell Laboratories and these 4th generation transistors have come a long way in 55 years. I predict that someday the price of laptops may come down perhaps to less than $100 and everyone will have one, bar none. What a thought for the day.

Note: Bill Gates is now the richest man in the world with assets of over 40 Billion Dollars because he invented the Window Operating System in the 70's. What do you think about that?

Article Source: http://www.content.onlypunjab.com

The author Norman Dreamer has two websites; Mfe.awardspace.com and Wxyz.atspace.com

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated