[IS] Physicists calculate absolute highest speed limit possible for computers. - Overclock.net

pale_neon · 10-13-09

Quote:

With the speed of computers so regularly seeing dramatic increases in their processing speed, it seems that it shouldn't be too long before the machines become infinitely fast -- except they can't.

A pair of physicists has shown that computers have a speed limit as unbreakable as the speed of light. If processors continue to accelerate as they have in the past, we'll hit the wall of faster processing in less than a century.

Intel co-founder Gordon Moore predicted 40 years ago that manufacturers could double computing speed every two years or so by cramming ever-tinier transistors on a chip. His prediction became known as Moore's Law, and it has held true throughout the evolution of computers -- the fastest processor today beats out a ten-year-old competitor by a factor of about 30.

If components are to continue shrinking, physicists must eventually code bits of information onto ever smaller particles. Smaller means faster in the microelectronic world, but physicists Lev Levitin and Tommaso Toffoli at Boston University in Massachusetts, have slapped a speed limit on computing, no matter how small the components get...

http://www.insidescience.org/researc..._75_more_years

abstract here

thecubemaster · 10-13-09

That makes sense, you can cap out on frequency because the wavelength of light will become infinitely smaller as frequency grows without bound.

lordikon · 10-13-09

Does this factor quantum computers?

kkbob33 · 10-13-09

makes perfect sense to me. how can computers go faster than the speed of light?

mtbhrd · 10-13-09

I feel like this article is nothing more then high school physics... Wow, computers are limited to the speed of light, couldn't have guessed that one. Lemme throw a prediction in there as well.

I dunno, not to impressed with this article.

Lord Xeb · 10-13-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordikon

Does this factor quantum computers?

This factors everything. A computer can only calculate so fast.

Tempest001 · 10-13-09

Is this for everything that is computers, or is it just processors?
Because if its just processors, I could just assume that we would go from a one socket per mobo standard to a two socket standard, effectively doubling the speed.

But it still has to travel on the mobo, which could probably end up being limited as well, so it probably wouldn't make much of a difference.

Timlander · 10-13-09

Makes sense i guess. Interesting.

Gwb · 10-13-09

Nothing is impossible

Liability · 10-13-09

Quote:

A pair of physicists has shown that computers have a speed limit as unbreakable as the speed of light. If processors continue to accelerate as they have in the past, we'll hit the wall of faster processing in less than a century.

The speed of light has already been surpassed.

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[IS] Physicists calculate absolute highest speed limit possible for computers.

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