Neil Hopcroft

A digital misfit

Angels dancing on the head of a pin

As it looks like I’ll have a little more time on my hands in a couple of weeks, I thought I’d try to pick up some of the blue-sky thinking I was doing before I got stuck in the now. Theres plenty of room at the bottom seemed like a good place to start, since thats where it all started.

Poking around at Nanotechnology Institute they are running Advanced Technologies in Crime Prevention and Detection II, which I could be quite tempted by. Though I fear that we’re not really utilising the security mechanisms available to us already, so it seems a little redundant to generate more. Ho hum, maybe I’ll meet a mad rich investor who simply must throw money at me in exchange for hot air and a nice looking business card.


Categories: Memories.

/ 7 Comments

7 comments

  1. scifilittlemy

    This is quite an old speech (1959) and things have moved on quite a bit. One problem of using atoms as on/off switches is how heat affects everything. Maybe we should be looking at spins states which would incidentally double the capacity if I understand it correctly. probably would be able to confirm my physics.

    As for the chemistry and biology. We know roughly how to synthesise most things. For it’s just either it’s too energy expensive (eg it needs to be born in a star, requires to many inputs or nature just does it so much better.

    BTW most of the biology problems have been solved in Feynman’s lecture. It seems we got the DNA issues slightly wrong. My opinion is that we assumed that if we knew the make up of DNA we would how to build a human kit. Instead we got list of where to get the ingredients. I think the some of the most exciting work in molecular biology and biochemistry is how we evolved to have 99.5% efficient protein and DNA building. I don’t believe in god but this is the closest thing I’ve see to a divine creation. We can’t even get close to that kind of efficiency when we build antibodies or enzymes. And we could hope to build similar to nature as it is some complex.

    Don’t even get me started on the nature/nurture debate has I feel it has completely transformed into probabilities. Agh I feel like all my probability waves are going to collapse and I’m going to turn into an orange.

    Thanks Neil, I needed that. A good science rant gives me a good release ;-D

    Reply
    • neilh

      Yeah, I know its not recent, but its kinda good to understand where it all came from. I should reread Engines of Creation and the Diamond Age, too. But that’ll have to wait until I’m home and unpacked…

      I find some of the potential fascinating, but my background doesn’t really cover the practical side of it, maybe I turn into some kind of management person who doesn’t need to know anything…

      Reply
      • scifilittlemy

        Yeah I loved Diamond Age. I can highly recommend Cryptonomicon and I expect you’ve already read it. If not I suggest you purchase a copy now as it seems to have two of your current themes, spooks and new technology.

        Never got round to reading Engines of Creation. May be something I’ll pick in Borders this afternoon.

        And Oi! I’m a manager. I like to think I know a little about a lot and know who to talk to. So there (damn why isn’t there an emoticon for blowing a raspberry ;-)

        Reply
        • neilh

          Cryptonomicon is an excellent book, perhaps it needs a little more paranoia, but apart from that its great. I got the first paperback edition which was a seriously chunky tome to read on the tube every day.

          You should read Engines of Creation – its a positive view of the potential of the future.

          Reply
  2. ulfilias

    When you write your 35page pamphlet, count me in for a copy….lets just hope i don’t need to carry an electron microscope in my back pocket to read it though !

    Reply

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