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"The way you write science fiction is: you sit down at your writing machine and you open your mind to the first thought that comes through."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Biologics | ||
| A computer that is made of organic (biological) components, rather than inorganic materials like silicon. |
There are a number of limits that are gradually being approached in fabricating computer chips with silicon and other elements. One is size; we are coming to the point where it is no longer possible to squeeze more transistors into a smaller area. Another is power (and heat); faster processors use a lot more energy, and for that reason have a significant problem with waste heat (leave your laptop on your lap for more than 15 minutes and you'll see what I mean!).
So, why not turn to nature for a better computing model?
| Why limit oneself to silicon and protein and biochips a hundreth of a millimeter wide, when in almost every living cell there was already a functioning computer with a huge memory? A mammallian cell had a DNA complement of several million base pairs, each acting as a piece of information. What was reproduction, after all, but a compterized biological process of enormous complexity and reliability? The earliest biologic strings had been inserted into E. coli bacteria as circular plasmids. The E. coli had absorbed the plasmids and incorporated them into their original DNA. The bacteria had then duplicated and released the plasmids, passing on the biologic to other cells... the cells developed their own memory and the ability to process and act upon environmental information. |
| Technovelgy from Blood Music,
by Greg Bear. Published by Arbor House in 1984 Additional resources -
|
Work has been done to create computer circuits with organic components; see this news article on the
leechulator, a calculator made up
of neurons taken from leeches.
Take a look at the entry for intellectual cell from the same book; there is an interesting quote (with a link) from a talk by Seymour Cray, the father of supercomputing, about biological computers.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Blood Music
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and Technology by Greg Bear
Tech news articles related to Blood Music
Tech news articles related to works by Greg Bear
Biologics-related
news articles:
- The Most Complex Synthetic Biology Circuit
| ElectionSim: China's 'Ender's Game' Battle Sim, Or Lem's 'Kingdom In A Box'? |
| Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer |
| Cortex 1 - Today A Warehouse, Tomorrow A Calculator Planet |
| Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness? |
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'Our planes are going to start bringing in bales of discarded plastics...'
'... completely forgetting the ship at sight of the awesome figure and great head of the giant Gaut...'
'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.'
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
