Visions of the Future: Physics and Electronics

By: Horn, Jack

Book Overview

Leading young scientists, many holding prestigious Royal Society Research Fellowships, describe their research and give their visions of the future. Re-written in a popular and well illustrated style, the articles are derived from scholarly and authoritative papers published in a special Millennium Issue of the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions (used by Newton, this is the world's longest running scientific journal). Carefully selected by the journal's editor, Professor J. M. T. Thompson FRS, topics include quantum physics and its relation to relativity theory and human consciousness; electronics for the future; exotic quantum computing and data storage; telecommunications and the internet. The book conveys the excitement and enthusiasm of the young authors for their work in Physics and Electronics. Two companion books cover Astronomy and Earth Science, and Chemistry and Life Science. All are definitive reviews for anyone with a general interest in the future directions of science.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521805384
• ISBN13: 9780521805384
• Release Date: July 2001
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 222 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Can Computers Still Improve?

Perhaps you read Scientific American? If so, and you are comfortable with the level of treatment, then how about the British equivalent? That is basically the level of treatment in this book of research topics at the boundary of physics and engineering.The most relevant chapters are probably those discussing how we can take the semiconductor progress and keep pushing, pushing and pushing it ever onwards. Moore's Law, you understand. Current industry techniques may give us another 10 years. But what then? Various new physical phenomena are suggested in the book as possible novel ways to encode and change information. Of course, when these will prove economically feasible is totally open at this time. But you can hope.On a "purer" note, the book also has a fascinating discussion of how human consciousness may derive from fundamental physical processes. Think of this as continuing the narrative from Roger Penrose's "Emperor's New Mind"...