Planck scale transistors?

[ambam]

Are planck scale transistors scientifically possible?

 

[hunter315]

The regular transistor math hits the fan long before that scale, the plank length is at 10^-35 meters. An angstrom is defined to be the radius of a hydrogen atom which is around 10^-10 meters, an electron is on the scale of 10^-15 meters so if we shrink to even 10^-20 im pretty sure my head will explode since we just cannot grasp concepts that small.


The plank length basically puts you on the size of the fabric of the universe and dealing in raw energy so i think at that point it becomes quantum computing with the universe as either one giant Q bit, 10^35 really small ones, or already knowing the answer to every question in the universe since you are already messing with it.


In short, no i really doubt they are unfortunately, but it is interesting to think about.

 

[vmem]

based on modern chemistry and physics, it should not be possible. something like a double helix of DNA, a basic building block of life, has a width of roughly 10 angstrom or as Hunter states above, 10^-10 meters. the atomic radius of silicon (just the single atom), is 111 PICO-meters, or 1.11^-10 meters.

thus, to move smaller, you literally have to go beyond the size of an atom. this presents us with a problem because the radius of an electron is ~10^-19 meters. to go smaller, you have to cut down the electrons, and go to the level of quarts or beyond. THUS, it would not be possible to make a TRANSISTOR at the planck scale as the definition of a transistor requires electrons to be present.

though I must say it isn't impossible to make an device based on something at the planck scale. but to be realistic, it would have to be purely based on something completely optical

 

[vmem]

in addition, just judging from my argument above, you can see that we'll hit a brick wall as transistor processes hit around 8nm or so, as at that scale, we're literally dealing with single molecules, and well, you can't exactly cut a molecule in half...

 

[blackhawk1928]

I heard if you took a bacteria cell and magnified it to the size of the entire visible universe, a plank would be about the size of that bacteria in real life as comparison.

If this is even scientifically possible, probably will occur in thousands of years. The transister itself would be smaller than the electrons of current/electricity that would have to flow through it. Who knows though, maybe by that time we could split electrons into smaller ones or make smaller ones.

 

[ambam]

in addition, just judging from my argument above, you can see that we'll hit a brick wall as transistor processes hit around 8nm or so, as at that scale, we're literally dealing with single molecules, and well, you can't exactly cut a molecule in half...

In nanometers, what is the size of a single atom?

Perhaps they could use photons in place of electrons using planck-scale transistors and logic gates.

 

[hunter315]

Nano meters is 10^-9, pico is 10^-12, so the 111 pm radius of silicon is about .22 nm or 2.2 Angstroms so at 8nm you still have some space to work with just not much. I don't think we can use "transistors" forever, they will hopefully have been replaced by about 2030 by a different technique. There are papers on using single graphene based "transistors" as complete logic gates which greatly reduces the number of transistors needed, then you have the shift towards quantum computing for the brute force number smashing so hopefully computing will soon shift from silicon based transistors to something new.

 

[TheBigTroll]

at current levels, planck scale transistors are not possible. we probably will be replacing transistors with something else before we get to atom sized transistors

 

[EdgeBer]

If this is even scientifically possible, probably will occur in thousands of years.

If moores law continues as its current rate we reach planck scale in 2552.
There is plenty of room at the bottom Feynman said in 1959, Doug Engelbart discovered the speed of the down elevator in the same year. Moore wrote it down in 1965. Doubling the processor count every 21 month on a square die, means shrinking the die size by half every 21x2 months. Thats halving every 3.5 years. As we are now at 14 nm(10^-8) with the coming Haswell architecture. We need to continue halving for roughly another 300 years. Not that much.
(Three halves per digit moving 27 digits from 10^-8 to 10^-35 that is 3x27x3.5 or 295.5 years in 2295)
Will that be the moment Carl Sagan was refering to as the universe becoming self aware.?
To do so we have to move on to quantum computing and then to String or M computing.
So Intels road map drives the roadmap of the LHC at Cern. Science fiction that is for now.

We saw a size decrease from 24nm to 12nm iover a periodeof six years so the 3.5 years Moore predicted are not met in this time frame. If you correct for some developmental jitters and delays you may arrive at the nice symmetrical date of 2552.

 

[ambam]

If moores law continues as its current rate we reach planck scale in 2552.
There is plenty of room at the bottom Feynman said in 1959, Doug Engelbart discovered the speed of the down elevator in the same year. Moore wrote it down in 1965. Doubling the processor count every 21 month on a square die, means shrinking the die size by half every 21x2 months. Thats halving every 3.5 years. As we are now at 14 nm(10^-8) with the coming Haswell architecture. We need to continue halving for roughly another 300 years. Not that much.
(Three halves per digit moving 27 digits from 10^-8 to 10^-35 that is 3x27x3.5 or 295.5 years in 2295)
Will that be the moment Carl Sagan was refering to as the universe becoming self aware.?
To do so we have to move on to quantum computing and then to String or M computing.
So Intels road map drives the roadmap of the LHC at Cern. Science fiction that is for now.

We saw a size decrease from 24nm to 12nm iover a periodeof six years so the 3.5 years Moore predicted are not met in this time frame. If you correct for some developmental jitters and delays you may arrive at the nice symmetrical date of 2552.

Time travel is more scientifically viable than planck scale transistors.

Such technology infinitely exceeds anything seen on star trek or star wars. It completely violates the laws of physics and is probably scientifically impossible.

This technology won't even be possible in the year 3000.