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Meso/Micro/Nano Scale Technologies
Meso/Micro/Nano Scale Technologies Clayton Teague, Chief, APTD, MEL John Evans, Chief, ISD, MEL June 8, 1999 Contents of Presentation • What we (MEL) have done in meso-scale area • What is nanotechnology • Nanotechnology is important • Principal message • Why is it important to industry and NIST? – Examples of industry/NIST work at all scales • Challenges for NIST • Long term needs at the nano-scale • Short term needs at the meso/micro-scales • Priorities • Ideas • Discussion topics Background • During past 9 months, MEL has explored measurements and standards needs of meso and micro-scale manufacturing • Visited 20 companies • Conducted and participated in three workshops jointly sponsored with DARPA and NSF • Organized informal NIST-wide co-ordinating group for meso/micro/nano scale activities • All feedback from these efforts points toward an exploding growth of nanotechnology • We see a continuum of needs for NIST efforts from the macro-scale to the nano-scale What is Nanotechnology? • Technology on the scale of atoms -100 pm- up to biomolecular systems as large as cells - 10’s mm • “Top-down” - achieving increased miniaturization through extension of existing microfabrication schemes • “Bottom-up” - capability to construct functional components, devices, and systems from building blocks of atoms and molecules Nanotechnology Strategies Nanotechnology is important! • “We’ve got to learn how to build machines, materials, and devices with the ultimate finesse that life has always used: atom by atom, on the same nanometer scale as the machinery in living cells.” Richard Smalley, Nobel Laureate, 1995 • “I believe nanoscience and nanotechnology will be central to the next epoch of the information age …” John Armstrong, formerly Chief Scientist of IBM, 1991 • “If I were asked for an area of science and engineering that will most likely produce the breakthroughs of tomorrow, I would point to nanoscale science and engineering.” Neal Lane, Director OSTP, 1998 • “Nanotechnology has given us the tools to make contact with the world of the molecule and the atom. -
2007 February
ARTICLE .1 Macro-Perspectives beyond the World System Joseph Voros Swinburne University of Technology Australia Abstract This paper continues a discussion begun in an earlier article on nesting macro-social perspectives to also consider and explore macro-perspectives beyond the level of the current world system and what insights they might reveal for the future of humankind. Key words: Macrohistory, Human expansion into space, Extra-terrestrial civilisations Introduction This paper continues a train of thought begun in an earlier paper (Voros 2006) where an approach to macro-social analysis based on the idea of "nesting" social-analytical perspectives was described and demonstrated (the essence of which, for convenience, is briefly summarised here). In that paper, essential use was made of a typology of social-analytical perspectives proposed by Johan Galtung (1997b), who suggested that human systems could be viewed or studied at three main levels of analysis: the level of the individual person; the level of social systems; and the level of world systems. Distinctions can be made between different foci of study. The focus may be on the stages and causes of change through time (termed diachronic), or it could be at some specific point in time (termed synchronic). As well, the focus may be on a specific single case (termed idiographic), in contrast to seeking regularities, patterns, or generalised "laws" (termed nomo- thetic). In this way, there are four main types of perspectives found at any particular level of analy- sis. This conception is shown here in slightly adapted form in Table 1.1 Journal of Futures Studies, February 2007, 11(3): 1 - 28 Journal of Futures Studies Table 1: Three Levels of Social Analysis Source: Adapted from Galtung (1997b). -
Eclipse Phase: After the Fall
AFTER THE FALL In a world of transhuman survival and horror, technology allows the re-shaping of bodies and minds, but also creates opportunities for oppression and puts the capa- AFTER THE FALL bility for mass destruction in the hands of everyone. Other threats lurk in the devastated habitats of the Fall, dangers both familiar and alien. Featuring: Madeline Ashby Rob Boyle Davidson Cole Nathaniel Dean Jack Graham Georgina Kamsika SURVIVAL &SURVIVAL HORROR Ken Liu OF ANTHOLOGY THE Karin Lowachee TRANSHUMAN Kim May Steven Mohan, Jr. Andrew Penn Romine F. Wesley Schneider Tiffany Trent Fran Wilde ECLIPSE PHASE 21950 Advance THE ANTHOLOGY OF TRANSHUMAN Reading SURVIVAL & HORROR Copy Eclipse Phase created by Posthuman Studios EDITED BY JAYM GATES Eclipse Phase is a trademark of Posthuman Studios LLC. Some content licensed under a Creative Commons License (BY-NC-SA); Some Rights Reserved. © 2016 AFTER THE FALL In a world of transhuman survival and horror, technology allows the re-shaping of bodies and minds, but also creates opportunities for oppression and puts the capa- AFTER THE FALL bility for mass destruction in the hands of everyone. Other threats lurk in the devastated habitats of the Fall, dangers both familiar and alien. Featuring: Madeline Ashby Rob Boyle Davidson Cole Nathaniel Dean Jack Graham Georgina Kamsika SURVIVAL &SURVIVAL HORROR Ken Liu OF ANTHOLOGY THE Karin Lowachee TRANSHUMAN Kim May Steven Mohan, Jr. Andrew Penn Romine F. Wesley Schneider Tiffany Trent Fran Wilde ECLIPSE PHASE 21950 THE ANTHOLOGY OF TRANSHUMAN SURVIVAL & HORROR Eclipse Phase created by Posthuman Studios EDITED BY JAYM GATES Eclipse Phase is a trademark of Posthuman Studios LLC. -
Invention, Intension and the Limits of Computation
Minds & Machines { under review (final version pre-review, Copyright Minds & Machines) Invention, Intension and the Limits of Computation Hajo Greif 30 June, 2020 Abstract This is a critical exploration of the relation between two common as- sumptions in anti-computationalist critiques of Artificial Intelligence: The first assumption is that at least some cognitive abilities are specifically human and non-computational in nature, whereas the second assumption is that there are principled limitations to what machine-based computation can accomplish with respect to simulating or replicating these abilities. Against the view that these putative differences between computation in humans and machines are closely re- lated, this essay argues that the boundaries of the domains of human cognition and machine computation might be independently defined, distinct in extension and variable in relation. The argument rests on the conceptual distinction between intensional and extensional equivalence in the philosophy of computing and on an inquiry into the scope and nature of human invention in mathematics, and their respective bearing on theories of computation. Keywords Artificial Intelligence · Intensionality · Extensionality · Invention in mathematics · Turing computability · Mechanistic theories of computation This paper originated as a rather spontaneous and quickly drafted Computability in Europe conference submission. It grew into something more substantial with the help of the CiE review- ers and the author's colleagues in the Philosophy of Computing Group at Warsaw University of Technology, Paula Quinon and Pawe lStacewicz, mediated by an entry to the \Caf´eAleph" blog co-curated by Pawe l. Philosophy of Computing Group, International Center for Formal Ontology (ICFO), Warsaw University of Technology E-mail: [email protected] https://hajo-greif.net; https://tinyurl.com/philosophy-of-computing 2 H. -
Limits on Efficient Computation in the Physical World
Limits on Efficient Computation in the Physical World by Scott Joel Aaronson Bachelor of Science (Cornell University) 2000 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science in the GRADUATE DIVISION of the UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY Committee in charge: Professor Umesh Vazirani, Chair Professor Luca Trevisan Professor K. Birgitta Whaley Fall 2004 The dissertation of Scott Joel Aaronson is approved: Chair Date Date Date University of California, Berkeley Fall 2004 Limits on Efficient Computation in the Physical World Copyright 2004 by Scott Joel Aaronson 1 Abstract Limits on Efficient Computation in the Physical World by Scott Joel Aaronson Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science University of California, Berkeley Professor Umesh Vazirani, Chair More than a speculative technology, quantum computing seems to challenge our most basic intuitions about how the physical world should behave. In this thesis I show that, while some intuitions from classical computer science must be jettisoned in the light of modern physics, many others emerge nearly unscathed; and I use powerful tools from computational complexity theory to help determine which are which. In the first part of the thesis, I attack the common belief that quantum computing resembles classical exponential parallelism, by showing that quantum computers would face serious limitations on a wider range of problems than was previously known. In partic- ular, any quantum algorithm that solves the collision problem—that of deciding whether a sequence of n integers is one-to-one or two-to-one—must query the sequence Ω n1/5 times. -
Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties
ISBN 0 85403 604 0 © The Royal Society 2004 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1998), no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, or, in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK, or in accordance with the terms of licenses issued by the appropriate reproduction rights organization outside the UK. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the terms stated here should be sent to: Science Policy Section The Royal Society 6–9 Carlton House Terrace London SW1Y 5AG email [email protected] Typeset in Frutiger by the Royal Society Proof reading and production management by the Clyvedon Press, Cardiff, UK Printed by Latimer Trend Ltd, Plymouth, UK ii | July 2004 | Nanoscience and nanotechnologies The Royal Society & The Royal Academy of Engineering Nanoscience and nanotechnologies: opportunities and uncertainties Contents page Summary vii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Hopes and concerns about nanoscience and nanotechnologies 1 1.2 Terms of reference and conduct of the study 2 1.3 Report overview 2 1.4 Next steps 3 2 What are nanoscience and nanotechnologies? 5 3 Science and applications 7 3.1 Introduction 7 3.2 Nanomaterials 7 3.2.1 Introduction to nanomaterials 7 3.2.2 Nanoscience in this area 8 3.2.3 Applications 10 3.3 Nanometrology -
Nanotechnology and Picotechnology to Increase Tissue Growth: a Summary of in Vivo Studies
Nanotechnology and picotechnology to increase tissue growth: a summary of in vivo studies Ece Alpaslan1 and Thomas J Webster1,2 Author information ► Copyright and License information ► Go to: Abstract The aim of tissue engineering is to develop functional substitutes for damaged tissues or malfunctioning organs. Since only nanomaterials can mimic the surface properties (ie, roughness) of natural tissues and have tunable properties (such as mechanical, magnetic, electrical, optical, and other properties), they are good candidates for increasing tissue growth, minimizing inflammation, and inhibiting infection. Recently, the use of nanomaterials in various tissue engineering applications has demonstrated improved tissue growth compared to what has been achieved until today with our conventional micron structured materials. This short report paper will summarize some of the more relevant advancements nanomaterials have made in regenerative medicine, specifically improving bone and bladder tissue growth. Moreover, this short report paper will also address the continued potential risks and toxicity concerns, which need to be accurately addressed by the use of nanomaterials. Lastly, this paper will emphasize a new field, picotechnology, in which researchers are altering electron distributions around atoms to promote surface energy to achieve similar increased tissue growth, decreased inflammation, and inhibited infection without potential nanomaterial toxicity concerns. Keywords: nanomaterials, tissue engineering, toxicity Go to: Introduction Bone tissue and other organ dysfunction can be provoked by poor eating habits, stress, age-related diseases such as osteoarthritis or osteoporosis, as well as accidents.1 To date, common procedures to restore or enhance life expectancy involve medical device insertion or organ transplantation.1 However, due to the low number of donors and its high cost, organ transplantation is limited. -
The Limits of Knowledge: Philosophical and Practical Aspects of Building a Quantum Computer
1 The Limits of Knowledge: Philosophical and practical aspects of building a quantum computer Simons Center November 19, 2010 Michael H. Freedman, Station Q, Microsoft Research 2 • To explain quantum computing, I will offer some parallels between philosophical concepts, specifically from Catholicism on the one hand, and fundamental issues in math and physics on the other. 3 Why in the world would I do that? • I gave the first draft of this talk at the Physics Department of Notre Dame. • There was a strange disconnect. 4 The audience was completely secular. • They couldn’t figure out why some guy named Freedman was talking to them about Catholicism. • The comedic potential was palpable. 5 I Want To Try Again With a rethought talk and broader audience 6 • Mathematics and Physics have been in their modern rebirth for 600 years, and in a sense both sprang from the Church (e.g. Roger Bacon) • So let’s compare these two long term enterprises: - Methods - Scope of Ideas 7 Common Points: Catholicism and Math/Physics • Care about difficult ideas • Agonize over systems and foundations • Think on long time scales • Safeguard, revisit, recycle fruitful ideas and methods Some of my favorites Aquinas Dante Lully Descartes Dali Tolkien • Lully may have been the first person to try to build a computer. • He sought an automated way to distinguish truth from falsehood, doctrine from heresy 8 • Philosophy and religion deal with large questions. • In Math/Physics we also have great overarching questions which might be considered the social equals of: Omniscience, Free Will, Original Sin, and Redemption. -
Thermodynamics of Computation and Linear Stability Limits of Superfluid Refrigeration of a Model Computing Array
Thermodynamics of computation and linear stability limits of superfluid refrigeration of a model computing array Michele Sciacca1;6 Antonio Sellitto2 Luca Galantucci3 David Jou4;5 1 Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie e Forestali, Universit`adi Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, 90128 Palermo, Italy 2 Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, Universit`adi Salerno, Campus di Fisciano, 84084, Fisciano, Italy 3 Joint Quantum Centre (JQC) DurhamNewcastle, and School of Mathematics and Statistics, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom 4 Departament de F´ısica,Universitat Aut`onomade Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Catalonia, Spain 5Institut d'Estudis Catalans, Carme 47, Barcelona 08001, Catalonia, Spain 6 Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica, Roma 00185 , Italy Abstract We analyze the stability of the temperature profile of an array of computing nanodevices refrigerated by flowing superfluid helium, under variations of temperature, computing rate, and barycentric velocity of helium. It turns out that if the variation of dissipated energy per bit with respect to temperature variations is higher than some critical values, proportional to the effective thermal conductivity of the array, then the steady-state temperature profiles become unstable and refrigeration efficiency is lost. Furthermore, a restriction on the maximum rate of variation of the local computation rate is found. Keywords: Stability analysis; Computer refrigeration; Superfluid helium; Thermodynamics of computation. AMS Subject Classifications: 76A25, (Superfluids (classical aspects)) 80A99. (all'interno di Thermodynamics and heat transfer) 1 Introduction Thermodynamics of computation [1], [2], [3], [4] is a major field of current research. On practical grounds, a relevant part of energy consumption in computers is related to refrigeration costs; indeed, heat dissipation in very miniaturized chips is one of the limiting factors in computation. -
SESSION: Archaeology of the Future (Time Keeps on Slipping…)
SESSION: Archaeology of the future (time keeps on slipping…) North American Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) New York University May 22-24, 2015 Organizer: Karen Holmberg (NYU, Environmental Studies) Recent interest in deep time from historical perspectives is intellectually welcome (e.g., Guldi and Armitage, 2014), though the deep past has long been the remit of archaeology so is not novel in archaeological vantages. Rather, a major shift of interest in time scale for archaeology came from historical archaeology and its relatively recent focus and adamant refusal to be the handmaiden of history. Foci on the archaeology of ‘now’ (e.g., Harrison, 2010) further refreshed and expanded the temporal playing field for archaeological thought, challenging and extending the preeminence of the deep past as the sole focus of archaeological practice. If there is a novel or intellectually challenging time frame to consider in the early 21st century, it is that of the deep future (Schellenberg, 2014). Marilyn Strathern’s (1992: 190) statement in After Nature is accurate, certainly: ‘An epoch is experienced as a now that gathers perceptions of the past into itself. An epoch will thus always will be what I have called post-eventual, that is, on the brink of collapse.’ What change of tone comes from envisioning archaeology’s role and place in a very deep future? This session invites papers that imaginatively consider the movement of time, the movement of archaeological ideas, the movement of objects, the movement of data, or any other form of movement the author would like to consider in relation to a future that only a few years ago might have been seen as a realm of science and cyborgs (per Haraway, 1991) but is increasingly fraught with dystopic environmental anxiety regarding the advent of the Anthropocene (e.g., Scranton, 2013). -
The Limits of Computation & the Computation of Limits: Towards New Computational Architectures
The Limits of Computation & The Computation of Limits: Towards New Computational Architectures An Intensive Program Proposal for Spring/Summer of 2012 Assoc. Prof. Ahmet KOLTUKSUZ, Ph.D. Yaşar University School of Engineering, Dept. Of Computer Engineering Izmir, Turkey The Aim & Rationale To disseminate the acculuted information and knowledge on the limits of the science of computation in such a compact and organized way that no any single discipline and/or department offers in their standard undergrad or graduate curriculums. While the department of Physics evalute the limits of computation in terms of the relative speed of electrons, resistance coefficient of the propagation IC and whether such an activity takes place in a Newtonian domain or in Quantum domain with the Planck measures, It is the assumptions of Leibnitz and Gödel’s incompleteness theorem or even Kolmogorov complexity along with Chaitin for the department of Mathematics. On the other hand, while the department Computer Science would like to find out, whether it is possible to find an algorithm to compute the shortest path in between two nodes of a lattice before the end of the universe, the departments of both Software Engineering and Computer Engineering is on the job of actually creating a Turing machine with an appropriate operating system; which will be executing that long without rolling off to the pitfalls of indefinite loops and/or of indefinite postponoments in its process & memory management routines while having multicore architectures doing parallel execution. All the problems, stemming from the limits withstanding, the new three and possibly more dimensional topological paradigms to the architectures of both hardware and software sound very promising and therefore worth closely examining. -
Galactic-Scale Macro-Engineering: Looking for Signs of Other Intelligent Species, As an Exercise in Hope for Our Own
Galactic-scale macro-engineering: Looking for signs of other intelligent species, as an exercise in hope for our own * Joseph Voros Senior Lecturer in Strategic Foresight Faculty of Business & Law, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia Abstract If we consider Big History as simply ‘our’ example of the process of cosmic evolution playing out, then we can seek to broaden our view of our possible fate as a species by asking questions about what paths or trajectories other species’ own versions of Big History might take or have taken. This paper explores the broad outlines of possible scenarios for the evolution of long-lived intelligent engineering species—scenarios which might have been part of another species’ own Big History story, or which may yet lie ahead in our own distant future. A sufficiently long-lived engineering-oriented species may decide to undertake a program of macro-engineering projects that might eventually lead to a re-engineered galaxy so altered that its artificiality may be detectable from Earth. We consider activities that lead ultimately to a galactic structure consisting of a central inner core surrounded by a more distant ring of stars separated by a relatively sparser ‘gap’, where star systems and stellar materials may have been removed, ‘lifted’ or turned into Dyson Spheres. When one looks to the sky, one finds that such galaxies do indeed exist—including the beautiful ringed galaxy known as ‘Hoag’s Object’ (PGC 54559) in the constellation Serpens. This leads us to pose the question: Is Hoag’s Object an example of galaxy-scale macro-engineering? And this suggests a program of possible observational activities and theoretical explorations, several of which are presented here, that could be carried out in order to begin to investigate this beguiling question.