AKA The Atoms Themselves Are Computers Part 2
Tiny device mimics human vision and memory abilities
Jun 2023, phys.org
There won't be any computers one day. Somehow things will compute by themselves because of the way they're designed. Each thing will compute differently because it will be made of different things and arranged in different ways. There won't be all-purpose computers anymore; some things will see, some will hear, some will count, maybe some will smell.
A neuromorphic vision device -- a single chip enabled by a sensing element, doped indium oxide, thousands of times thinner than a human hair and requires no external parts to operate, captures, processes and stores visual information.The device mimics a human eye's ability to capture light, pre-packages and transmits information like an optical nerve, and stores and classifies it in a memory system like the way our brains can.
via Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology RMIT, Deakin University and University of Melbourne: Aishani Mazumder et al, Long Duration Persistent Photocurrent in 3 nm Thin Doped Indium Oxide for Integrated Light Sensing and In‐Sensor Neuromorphic Computation, Advanced Functional Materials (2023). DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202303641
Image credit: AI Art - Blue Molecule - 2023
Physicists design metamaterials with built-in frustration for mechanical memory
Jun 2023, phys.org
The future of computing where everything is a computer -- "metamaterials are materials whose responses are determined by their structure rather than their chemical composition"
But this metamaterial now has memory -- To construct a metamaterial with mechanical memory, they realized that its design needs to be "frustrated," and that this frustration corresponds to a new type of order, which they call non-orientable order. These materials naturally want to be ordered, but something in their structure forbids the order to span the whole system and forces the ordered pattern to vanish at one point or line in space. There is no way to get rid of that vanishing point without cutting the structure, so it has to be there no matter what.
(A simple example of a non-orientable object is a Möbius strip)
via University of Amsterdam: Xiaofei Guo, Non-orientable order and non-commutative response in frustrated metamate, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06022-7
New type of computer memory could greatly reduce energy use and improve performance
Jun 2023, phys.org
Processes data in a similar way as the synapses in the human brain, and based on hafnium oxide."In conventional computing, there's memory on one side and processing on the other, and data is shuffled back between the two, which takes both energy and time."Conventional memory devices are capable of two states: one or zero. A functioning resistive switching memory device however, would be capable of a continuous range of statesAt the atomic level, hafnium oxide has no structure, with the hafnium and oxygen atoms randomly mixed, making it challenging to use for memory applications.However, the researchers found that by adding barium to thin films of hafnium oxide, some unusual structures started to form (and which allow electrons to pass through), perpendicular to the hafnium oxide plane, in the composite material.
via University of Cambridge: Markus Hellenbrand et al, Thin-film design of amorphous hafnium oxide nanocomposites enabling strong interfacial resistive switching uniformity, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adg1946
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| AI Art - Nanotechnology Activated by a Frequency in the Human Body - 2023 |
The catch-22s of reservoir computing: Researchers find overlooked weakness in powerful machine learning tool
Sep 2023, phys.org
Sante Fe Institute is always far out:
Reservoir computing is effective in predicting the trajectory of chaotic systems after seeing very little training data, and can even determine where the system would end up just from its initial conditions.
"In a sense, you have this kind of information sneaked in before the training begins," he says. And if they perturbed the model? "Generally, it performed really poorly," Zhang says. That suggests that the model cannot make accurate predictions unless key information about the system being predicted was already built in. For RC, the duo observed that in order to correctly predict the system, the model requires a lengthy "warm-up" time that's almost as time-consuming as the dynamic movements of the magnet itself.
via Santa Fe Institute and Toronto Metropolitan University: Yuanzhao Zhang et al, Catch-22s of reservoir computing, Physical Review Research (2023). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.5.033213
New 'assembly theory' unifies physics and biology to explain evolution and complexity
Oct 2023, phys.org
Assembly Theory - developing as empirically validated approach to life detection, with implications for the search for alien life and efforts to evolve new life forms in the laboratory.In prior work, the team assigned a complexity score to molecules called the molecular assembly index, based on the minimal number of bond-forming steps required to build a molecule. They showed how this index is experimentally measurable and how high values correlate with life-derived molecules.The new study introduces mathematical formalism around a physical quantity called "assembly" that captures how much selection is required to produce a given set of complex objects, based on their abundance and assembly indices."Assembly theory provides a completely new lens for looking at physics, chemistry and biology as different perspectives of the same underlying reality," explained lead author Professor Sara Walker, a theoretical physicist and origin of life researcher from Arizona State University.
via University of Glasgow and Arizona State University: Leroy Cronin, Assembly theory explains and quantifies selection and evolution, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06600-9.
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