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Originally Posted by Radar
I suppose it's not an insult to publicly call someone a liar.
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Radar - that was my point. To call someone a liar by itself is nothing more than an insult. To say someone is lying AND provide reasons why is a logical discussion.
My criticisms were based primarily on 'Rush Limbaugh like' claims. Why? Rush Limbaugh is faxed daily from the White House what he should say. Reasons why are totally irrelevant. Therefore Rush Limbaugh lies. It is called propaganda. I have not insulted Rush. I have defined him for what he is by what he does.
Meanwhile I just read an article in this month's Scientific American on a problem with quantum computing. The way I read it, decoherence means the qubit has maybe 0.5 microseconds to be initialized, perform a logical operation, and qubit states read. Decoherence is the "loss of the very quantum properties that such computers would rely on." Fundamentals of quantum computing may be demonstrated in a 'basic' research experiment. But things like decoherence are the 'devilish details' that will add 10+ years to getting a functioning machine out of basic research and through application research.
A functioning transistor was finally demonstrated in 1948. But transistors took another 15 years to eventually appear in products. And even then, transistors were so exotic that a radio was rated by its number of transistors. A 'best' transistor radio was 9 transistors. Quantum computers have yet to achieve the equivalent of a 1948 transistor. They are many years from becoming useful. However quantum physics is the future. Much like the transistor was in 1948 or blue-green steel in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".
Superconductivity saw a breakthrough maybe 15 years ago. For a while, it appearred superconductivity would start appearing in products everywhere. However failure of superconductive wires in Chicago's Con Ed and use in a naval warship still have not succeeded. And still, the subatomic nature that creates superconductivity is not comprehended enough to predict and then find warmer supercondutors. Having so little knowledge of what makes some compounds superconductors means we are still a long way from profitable applications. But then it too demonstrates long time periods between basic research and a useful product.
There is nothing in from basic research that can rescue Moore's law if the FET transistor does hit that brick wall. As the EE Times article noted, many of the tricks for perserving Moore's law are no longer so promising.