Quantum-Tunneling Electrons Could Make Semiconductors Obsolete 276
Nerval's Lobster writes "The powerful, reliable combination of transistors and semiconductors in computer processors could give way to systems built on the way electrons misbehave, all of it contained in circuits that warp even the most basic rules of physics. Rather than relying on a predictable flow of electrons that appear to know whether they are particles or waves, the new approach depends on quantum tunneling, in which electrons given the right incentive can travel faster than light, appear to arrive at a new location before having left the old one, and pass straight through barriers that should be able to hold them back. Quantum tunneling is one of a series of quantum-mechanics-related techniques being developed as possible replacements for transistors embedded in semiconducting materials such as silicon. Unlike traditional transistors, circuits built by creating pathways for electrons to travel across a bed of nanotubes are not limited by any size restriction relevant to current manufacturing methods, require far less power than even the tiniest transistors, and do not give off heat or leak electricity as waste products, according to Yoke Khin Yap of Michigan Technological University, lead author of a paper describing the technique, which was published in the journal Advanced Materials last week."
Re:Faster than Light? (Score:4, Insightful)
Tunneling is instantaneous. A tunneling electron (for example) jumps from one position to another. It does not cross the intermediate space, so you can say it actually does not go FTL, because it does not "travel" in a very real sense. Tunneling is a very well established effect. For example in Zener-Diodes with 5.6V about half of the noise produced is tunneling, and about half is thermal.
So, sorry, you are wrong. What is unclear though is whether tunneling can carry information. There is some indication that it can, but it would probably be severely distance limited (read: centimeters to meters at best) and hence not play any role in the larger scheme of things.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Citation please. I've studied the history of science and you are speaking bullshit. I think you have quite the belief you need to challenge, and you might want to reflect on your own hypocrisy. Are you thinking, for example that Einstein disproved Newton or that quantum mechanics disproved classical physics? Neither of these occurred. Both of these theories simply amplified the previous theory and explained phenomena beyond the previous range of observations. And not surprisingly, relativity and quantum mechanics become classical physics at normal resolutions.
You've probably repeated that line about noble scientists who fought the system to get their theory through a hundred times, right? The reality is that for the last several centuries, it has just been data that has driven scientists. Even something as revolutionary and contradictory as evolutionary wasn't driven out of a desire to fight against current wisdom and have an open mind. It was simply due to finding the right data. The Big Bang? Data again. Plate tectonics? Data yet again. Solar nucleosynthesis? Data still.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you pretty much made that up. Or you're defining "major advancement" such that it cannot be a major advancement unless it's contradictory to current wisdom.
Regardless, the summary is clearly wrong, because there has been no breakthrough that lets information travel faster than light. If there were, we probably wouldn't be talking about transistors, we'd be talking about that breakthrough.
And the scientific wisdom is almost always right -- that's why it's so impressive when it's wrong. You absolutely should treat any claim of FTL with the same extreme skepticism as hollow Earthism. Especially since it is relatively easy to show (eg. to those with approx. an undergraduate education in a related field, or a precocious high-schooler) that FTL implies the possibility of backward time travel, barring a few really, really conceptually unlikely and unsatisfying scenarios.
In my experience, this notion of "major scientific* advances are always people who don't accept conventional wisdom" only ever seems to come up in discussions about the speed of light, in discussions about global warming, and in discussions about Young Earth Creationism. I might be forgetting a couple. But I think the unifying feature is that people really, really *want* the truth to be different from what all the evidence points to, because that would be so awesome. Well, the awesomeness is debatable in terms of YEC, but it would be really cool if global climate change were something that'll sort itself out without us, or if the speed of light turned out to be just a trivial matter and all the stupid scientists were just dribbling their lips with their fingers instead of pressing harder on the gas pedal. It's just not what anything points to and we should demand extraordinary evidence of claims to the contrary just like we would demand extraordinary evidence of a machine that resurrects people hundreds of years dead with their memories intact. Okay, maybe that latter claim is even more unlikely to be true -- but then again the extraordinary evidence should be a bit easier to produce if it is true, so I think that balances.
*For political advances people say this all the time. It's often how they defend people like Stallman for being an asshole, or Gates or Jobs or Torvalds etc..
Re:Faster than Light? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is unclear though is whether tunneling can carry information. There is some indication that it can...
No that is clear - it cannot [wikipedia.org]. If it could, and if there was any indication that it could, it would be direct evidence of the violation of causality. This is a "Big Thing" at ANY scale because all I have to do is find an intertial frame where the receipt of the information precedes its reception and then stop the information being transmitted. Having this restricted to a distance of a few cm just makes the resulting paradox less entertaining, but just as implausible, as the ones you see on Star Trek.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reread the history of your profession. You are astoundingly wrong, though I'll admit the early examples are more impressive by dint of resulting in imprisonment, torture, and such. Even today though it's not difficult to find classical and M theorist zealots calling each other crackpots or worse.
I'm not taking issue with the FTL wrongness in the article. I'm taking issue with those who believe something to be Truth rather than theory. That is a hallmark of religion not science. Theory means "This is true as far as I can tell. If you can prove otherwise, have at it."
As for my definition, nobody ever became famous for making steady, incremental advancement in their field. Greatness comes from turning things on their ear and thinking the thoughts that your peers would never even consider.
Re:The laws of physic are unbreakable (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bob Widlar. Luther Burbank. George Washington Carver.