Bacteria with chips?

Press, 29 June 1985, Page 20

Bacteria with chips?

Tomorrow’s World: Computers. By Jack Weber. British Broadcasting Corporation, 1985. 128 pp. (Reviewed by A. J. Petrie) Computers are one of the most significant discoveries mankind has made, easily on a par with writing, fire, or the wheel, according to Mr Weber. Regardless of whether we find these machines stimulating or threatening, the very worst thing we can do to ignore them, he says. The basis for these remarks is cogently and entertainingly explained in this well-illustrated and thoughtprovoking volume. The stage has long been reached when the appearance of a book on computers immediately brings the reaction “Not another!” This volume, however, is something out of the ordinary. As the “Tomorrow’s World” tag implies, it deals with the remarkable developments which are coming, not merely what has happened so far, although Mr Weber explains the development of computers in a manner than any reader, no matter how nontechnical, can both understand and enjoy. The content is much more than crystal-gazing: the developments Mr Weber discusses are already being worked on, and some already exist in prototype. Present silicon chips, the remarkable super-miniaturised heart ' of today’s computers, have almost reached their limits. The endless search for reduced size has good reasons: small chips cost less, work faster, and run cooler. Even

then, the fastest machines require refrigeration. The next step may be a protein computer, on molecule-sized chips produced by bacteria. In turn, future computers on a chip may, for instance, be suitable for implantation in the human body, with connections to nerves and functions so as to restore those lost by accident or disability. Artificial intelligence is a catch-cry: computers that can learn as they go along. Weber makes it clear that any real artificial intelligence is well beyond the horizon, and he illustrates this with a neat point: nobody even knows how to go about teaching a computer to have a sense of humour. There are other boundaries to the future. Nothing can travel faster than the cosmic speed limit — the speed of light, 300,000 km a second. Already this limit is making itself felt, Weber says, Electrical impulses typically travel at one third the speed of light, and in a very fast computer, producing pulses at 100 million pulses a second, each pulse travels one yard before the next is produced. Thus, any chips more than half a metre apart cannot be synchronised. Three years ago the Japanese announced that they planned to create the next generation of computers by 1992. The technologists of the West have taken up the intellectual and commercial challenge. Startling developments are ahead, and people everywhere need to know more about them. To this end, Mr Weber’s book is almost required reading.