At 09:25 AM 3/4/97 -0700, Bruce Toback wrote:
>Glenn Cole quotes a C|Net article:
>
>>   Joel Birnbaum, director of HP Labs, said that DNA-based computers may
>>   be one way to accomplish quantum computing. By using DNA sequences,
>>   researchers can execute millions of simultaneous equations.
>
>Somehow, I don't think that Joel Birnbaum said that DNA-based computers
>may be a way to accomplish quantum computing.

Bruce, you're quite right. Having just returned from ACM97 in San Jose and
having attended Joel Birnbaum's presentation, I can assure you that Birnbaum
hasn't taken leave of his senses. What he offered was a list of possible
future directions for faster computing given the fact that a CMOS technology
endpoint will be reached early in the 21st century. Included were Quantum
computers, DNA-based computers, and Optical computers, a photon-based
technology. Like many other speakers, though, he predicted development would
probably be most affected by a breakthrough which none of the sages at the
conference could predict (former examples: the transistor, the microchip).

For me the highlight of the conference was Nathan Myhrvold's announcement of
Nathan's First Law of Software: "Software is a gas - it expands to fill the
container it is in" and its corollary "Software brings hardware to its knees
just before the next machine upgrade is released".

Regards, Eric Bender

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