Future thoughts

[pIII_Man]

Isn't the speed of the electron signal greatly effected by other things such as temperature...the guage of wire used...the wires material...i would only imagine that theoretically electricity travels the speed of light...but not in real world situations...

So easy to fry yet tastes so good...
Silicon: The other, other, other white meat

 

[Flinx]

Electricity propagetes through a wire at about 90% of the speed of light, the exact speed depending on the alloy of the wire and the surrounding medium (air or some isolation materiel). That means that when you switch on the current, it takes a little over one second before current flows in the other end of your wire if it is 300,000,000 meters long.

Electricity is conducted by individual electrons jumping from atom to atom. When an electron arrives at an atom, it pushes another off that atom, etc. that means that individual atoms travel much slower, something to the order of hundreds of meters per second.

Ok, ok, I was inaccurate :frown: .

Seems to me that the propogation speed is what we are concerned about (and please correct me if I'm wrong). 90% of the speed of light is still a significant portion of the speed of light. So it is not the propogation speed that is the issue here (Re: photonic computers) It is the switching (or some such). Now would we expect switching to be faster in the photonic computer?


The loving are the daring!

 

[Mephistopheles]

Flinx, I don't know where you got that statement from, but it is definitely not from a person who knows physics. There are a few physically inaccurate statements there...

For instance, it is false that the electrical signal, i.e. the "electricity" and the information carried by it, travel at less than the speed of light. <b>Electricity travels at the speed of light.</b> Moreover, it is CORRECT that it would take electricity MORE than 1 second to reach the other end of a wire that is three-hundred million meters long. These are not conflicting sentences because the speed of light is only 300000000m/s <i>in vacuum</i>. To be physically fair, we must state that electricity travels at the speed of light in the medium it is in, i.e. light travelling through a copper wire would be as fast as an electrical signal.

And going on, it is true that electrons travel slower. However, their speed is nowhere near the hundreds of meters per second mentioned in that quote - it is more like a few centimeters every hour, like I said. I stand by that.

<i>BTW, if we were in a quantum physics forum, I'd remember everyone that, according to quantum field theory, the messenger particle for the electromagnetic interaction - responsible for the propagation of the signal - is a photon. Therefore, the signal must travel at the speed of light in that medium.</i>

<font color=red><b>M</b></font color=red>ephistopheles

 

[Flinx]

Ok, ok all that aside (btw thx I alway appreciate learning stuff )

1) Is it the propogation speed we are worried about?
2) Are switching speed the problem? If so, why would we
expect "photonic" swithing to be any faster?

The loving are the daring!

 

[NateKingCole]

it is more like a few centimeters every hour

8.4 cm/hour

 

[ra5555]

Just reminding u guys CPU speeds isn't just about mhz, I mean a 3.2Ghz Pescott will be faster than the 3.2Ghz P4, I mean The speed of the processor will increase quite substantialy, but may be not corresponding to mhz

 

[NateKingCole]

Well depending on how they implement the 64-bit processors. If they're complete FAGS about it, it won't be any faster and infact slower. Personally I think 64-bit cpu's are better suited for server applications, but who knows? Not me anyways, not until I see the benchmarks.