As the demands on computation bring it beyond the limits of
traditional computers, information processing is appearing
in domains ranging from printed penny tags to femtosecond
atomic dynamics to quantum coherent nuclear spin evolution.
I will discuss models of computation and communications that
can take advantage of the latent capabilities of physical
mechanisms to manipulate information, and explore their scaling
from millions to trillions to Avogadro-scale systems of
imperfect elements. These ideas will be demonstrated through
both experimental realizations and some of their short-term
applications.
Bio
Professor Neil Gershenfeld leads the Things That Think consortium
at MIT's Media Laboratory, where he also directs the Physics and
Media research group.
His unique laboratory investigates the relationship between the
content of information and its physical representation. Most
fundamentally this includes work on molecular computers and
information processing in natural system, which helped lead
to the first complete experimental realization of a quantum
computation that demonstrated the algorithmic speed-up over
classical searching, and the discovery of dissipative nonlinear
dynamical systems that implement logical coding functions.
He has also investigated instrumentation and algorithms to
embed intelligence in everyday objects such as furniture and
footwear, with devices from his laboratory seen everywhere
from rural India to installations at New York's Museum of
Modern Art to shows by the magicians Penn & Teller to widely-used
automobile occupant safety systems. And his interest in the
applications of these technologies has resulted in the
development of virtuosic musical instruments including a cello
for Yo-Yo Ma and an interactive stage for the juggling Flying
Karamazov Brothers.
Beyond his many technical publications and patents, he is the
author of best-selling books including "When Things Start To
Think," the texts "The Nature of Mathematical Modeling" and
"The Physics of Information Technology", and "Time Series
Prediction: Forecasting the Future and Understanding the Past."
His work has also been featured by the White House and Smithsonian
Institution in their Millennium celebrations, and been the subject
of print, radio, and TV programs in media including the New York
Times, CNN, and PBS.
Dr. Gershenfeld has a B.A. in Physics with High Honors from
Swarthmore College, was a member of the research staff at Bell
Labs where he studied laser interactions with atomic and nuclear
systems, received a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Cornell
University for experimental tests of order in complex condensed
matter systems, and was a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society
of Fellows where he ran an international study on prediction
techniques.
