The Physical Limits of Computing

  • Authors:
  • Michael P. Frank

  • Affiliations:
  • -

  • Venue:
  • Computing in Science and Engineering
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

Can the 20th-century trend of exponentially improving computer technology be maintained throughout the 21st century? Our best present-day understanding of physics suggests not. Many of the fundamental limits on information processing from thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics are only a few decades away. Novel physically motivated computing paradigms such as reversible computing and quantum computing may help in certain ways, but even they remain subject to some basic limits.