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Carrotin... your PC
Posted 11th December 2007 at 7:22pm by M1ke, tagged as University | Commenting Closed

I attended a research seminar today on the subject of molecular electronics. Despite this sounding mildly coma inducing it was a very well done talk, working off the premise that we can construct computers from carrots. We were shown how various molecules in nature (all carbon based) can be used to create electronic circuits, in much the same way as our favoured material, silicon. Whilst a processor using these techniques could not rival modern silicon processors for speed they can be used to make cheap electronic circuits for other uses, such as LEDs. To round up we were shown a calculator which had its battery removed and replaced with a potato and a lemon. Apparently the task had been to power it with just a potato, but the lemon was found necessary for the calculator to switch on.

Incidentally if we assume a potato and a lemon weigh about 0.2kg together, and that a calculator takes maybe 1W of power to run we can see that it would take over 400kg of fruit and veg to power a basic laptop. To put it in perspective thats 3x your weight in greens. Were this to be implemented wide scale, grocers would become very happy people indeed.

Finally we were shown a "demonstration" of a molecular manufacturing process that could be used in the future to literally have molecules construct each other - assuming we can handle the problems of Entropy which is basically the thermodynamic law that everyone wishes they could break but finds themselves unable to. Admittedly the demonstration we were shown involved small plastic santas manufacturing a car for the lecturer, but the essential point is there - just wrapped up in festivity.

All in all it was an interesting talk and the tikka sandwiches provided for attendees made it even better. As for the carrots - the future's bright, the future's...

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