[extropy-chat] Stupid luddites oppose home cyclotrons...

[Robert Bradbury]

On 12/2/05, Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:

> Its really irritating that I forget so much of what I read.  Do you
> still remember details of your molecular biol stuff after you work on IT
> stuff for a while?
>

The question should probably be reversed.  It generally comes back fairly
quickly either way.  Interestly, I recently saw a televised class from the
Univ. of Washington in which the Prof. was discussing applications of graph
theory (big in Comp. Sci.) to the problem of self-assembly of
nanotechnological devices/systems.  Brought me back to the days when graph
theory was almost 'everything' (to a hard-core compiler -> assembly language
optimization person).

Interestingly, the Prof. apparently has funding (presumably DARPA) to build
a large air-hockey table with big fans to blow around little
semi-intelligent "pucks" which compute whether to bind (according to
graph-based assembly rules) to other pucks they bump into.  (Its a much
larger version of molecular motion/diffusion based chemical assembly.)  The
graph based rules are used to determine whether one ends up with a useful
assembled product in the end or a pile of waste materials (aka crap).  Also
of interest is that computer science shows up in TSIN in Kurzweil's
discussion of work by Fredkin & Wolfram's work regarding cellular automata
and whether our Universe might be based on them (Chp. 2).  The CA work
intersects with the Graph Theory & Self-Assembly work and the question of
whether or not we are running in a simulation.

But don't ask me questions on this as I'm currently throwing out random
associations that my mind came up with and haven't read the necessary
background sources or thought about it in depth.
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