Long ago I once attended a conference whose keynote presentation was by a group which was involved in DNA computing. They were talking about using a beaker of solution to compute a Hamiltonian cycle of length, I dunno, let's say 15. I asked how large a beaker would be needed to compute a cycle of length 25. The answer was: about the size of the Pacific Ocean. :-)
A computer made from DNA can compute the square root of 900
21–30 of 57 posts
Re: A computer made from DNA can compute the square root of 900
#22We know this is true, because most people can compute that it is 30. The interesting thing is how little dna is required.
> We know this is true, because most people can compute that it is 30. The interesting thing is how little dna is required. I was going to say that "No, it means a computer made from DNA can make another computer from DNA that can compute the square root of 900, but I'm the father of the two year old that will, presumably at some point, be able to calculate it as well. It'll just take somewhere around 10 years(?). I…
Yeah, it took six or seven years from when I was created to when I could compute the square root of 900, and that’s considered prodigiously fast.
Re: A computer made from DNA can compute the square root of 900
#23Re: A computer made from DNA can compute the square root of 900
#24It's interesting to consider that humans are computers made from DNA too.
When all you have is a hammer...
Re: A computer made from DNA can compute the square root of 900
#25I can't wait for the first artificial neural network written in DNA.
The first time I heard about a DNA neural network (from moss) was in the scifi book Slant by Greg Bear.
Re: A computer made from DNA can compute the square root of 900
#26I can't wait for the first artificial neural network written in DNA.
I do wonder however whether there exist a deep learning architecture built with real neurons.
Re: A computer made from DNA can compute the square root of 900
#27Scott Aaronson’s ETH Zurich lectures talk about physical computing (and its limitations, exception being Quantum computing) here: https://gess.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/paul-bernays-lecture... He even makes his own “Soap bubble” computer from people who claim that soap bubbles can be used for global parallel optimization problems. Spoiler, it doesn’t work well and gets stuck in local optima as the size gets larger.…
Sad, I loved the idea of bubble computing. I wonder if there are similar ideas with complex electric fields to model equation and enjoy "RT" (sampling speed time) evaluation of solutions.
I guess the bubble popped early for that area of tech?
Re: A computer made from DNA can compute the square root of 900
#28Re: A computer made from DNA can compute the square root of 900
#29We know this is true, because most people can compute that it is 30. The interesting thing is how little dna is required.
Human beings aren't DNA computers in the sense of the DNA itself processing information, unless you count the feedback and control stuff.
Re: A computer made from DNA can compute the square root of 900
#30Scott Aaronson’s ETH Zurich lectures talk about physical computing (and its limitations, exception being Quantum computing) here: https://gess.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/paul-bernays-lecture... He even makes his own “Soap bubble” computer from people who claim that soap bubbles can be used for global parallel optimization problems. Spoiler, it doesn’t work well and gets stuck in local optima as the size gets larger.…
Sad, I loved the idea of bubble computing. I wonder if there are similar ideas with complex electric fields to model equation and enjoy "RT" (sampling speed time) evaluation of solutions.
Every time I hear about a sad story of "this scientist had spent their whole life trying to discover the better computing in DNA and failed" I feel like the reporters are not mentioning the fact that actually the scientist knew perfectly well that their model of computation was inherently unscalable and they were simply pulling money out of absolutely oblivious investors.
Oh god I love the _idea_ of better computing. But let's be honest, there isn't much of an alternative, is there?