Gordon D. Pusch wrote in
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.clearing.technology/msg/123ada3240c77f4c?hl=en&
:
Nanobots will use molecular conformation changes (e.g., Drexler's "mechanical" computation) >or electronic energy-level transitions to process internal information.
Which has more advantages, mechanical computation or electronic
energy-level transitions?
Photons will be useful for transmitting information _between_ nanobots,
as long as one is willing to send a whole bunch of photons per bit to ensure
a sufficiently high probability that at least one photon will get received.
In this case, which has more advantages, electronics or photonics??
iftikhargul@gmail.com wrote in
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.clearing.technology/msg/d398196f123242d9?hl=en&
:
Photonics requires straightline (i.e line of sight )communication
requirements which is not a requirement for electronics. You also need
electronics to process photonics and as a result of it you end up with
bulky electronics structures. In other words, electronics has distinct
advantages over all other modes of communications as well as
information processing in the forseable future.
No offense but that does not answer my question: "Which has more
advantages, mechanical computation or electronic energy-level
transitions?"
Anyways, if electronics is so great why do people bother with photonics
at all? Why not just use plain old electronics?
Yes, electronics do carry a dangerously-high risk of being victimized
by annoying, disrupting, and even damaging EMI and RFI when compared to
photonics. Electronic signal are also easier to eavesdrop on than
optical signals. But who cares?
A die-hard fan of electronics may ask, why not replace all optics
fibers with vacuum tube fibers.
.
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