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You are relying on implicit assumption that quantum mechanics is the only possible theory that could lead to an invention of MOSFET transistors. Maybe this assu

by ordu 7y ago

You are relying on implicit assumption that quantum mechanics is the only possible theory that could lead to an invention of MOSFET transistors. Maybe this assumption is true, but I do not know it to be proved. Of course QM is the only known to us theory that had led to MOSFETs, but it doesn't mean that one couldn't invent some completely different way to describe reality which would enable him to invent MOSFETs.

theamk 7y ago
In order to build a MOSFET, you need to know how do electrons react in the presence of thin barriers, and how thick should the gate oxide be to prevent breakdown while still keeping the field strong. Does a civilization know this? If no, they cannot make MOSFETs. If yes, than whatever branch of physics and math describes this is called “quantum mechanics” Can it be different, can you do QM without Schrödinger Equation? Sure, but it will still be QM. One can rearrange terms on formulas, use different units, work with voltage instead of energy, introduce various metrics and so on. Physicists do it all the time, it is simply theory reformulation.
- stult 7y ago
  >In order to build a MOSFET, you need to know how do electrons react in the presence of thin barriers, and how thick should the gate oxide be to prevent breakdown while still keeping the field strong. And yet I somehow managed to produce a pretty complex quantum computer before I was even born: my brain. Or maybe my mom did, but she is nearly as ignorant of quantum physics and biology as I was as a fetus, so the point stands. The person above was wrong about your implicit assumption about QM and dependency chains. Your real assumption is that interstellar societies will develop technologies intentionally using explicit knowledge that charts such a dependency chain, rather than evolving capabilities via or alongside implicit knowledge, such as the implicit knowledge we all share in which allows us to produce human brains with no intellectual effort whatsoever. We don't and can't know what chunks of those dependency chains are innate for other species, which in turn means we don't know how they will traverse such a chain, even assuming ad arguendo your hypothesis that the dependency graph is essentially linear.
  - drdeca 7y ago
    Is your brain really a quantum computer though?
    - klyrs 7y ago
      This is a popular theory. But so far the best we've got is that quantum mechanics are maybe necessary to explain neuron interactions. Which is basically equivalent to calling a computer "quantum" because it's made of MOSFETs.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mannykannot 7y ago
  While I agree in doubting that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis can be used in the way the author does (for one thing, I do not think the strong version is supported by the evidence, and I think the strong version is required here), I think it is worth noting that De Forest, inventor of the audion (precursor of the triode), had a very mistaken idea of how it worked. Today, we have devices that use high-temperature superconductors without having a complete theory of how they work. The inventors of smelting and gunpowder did not understand the chemistry of their inventions...
- ordu 7y ago
  > In order to build a MOSFET, you need to know how do electrons react in the presence of thin barriers, and how thick should the gate oxide be to prevent breakdown while still keeping the field strong. Here you are speaking using words like "electron", "thin barrier", "oxide" and so on. So you are thinking in a framework of our culture and our variant of STEM. Doing so you are trying to prove that there is no way to invent another variant of STEM. I believe, that such an approach could achieve nothing. I mean, to speak "electron" you need to rely implicitly on a whole mountain of theories about reality. So even if you proved that one cannot build MOSFET without QM, it would mean that he cannot do it while relying on this mountain of theories. It wouldn't prove that there are no other mountains allowing to invent MOSFET. > Can it be different, can you do QM without Schrödinger Equation? Sure, but it will still be QM. It is a trivial proposition. "QM without Schrödinger Equation" is QM by definition. The question is if it possible to build some other models of reality that allow to invent MOSFET. As I see it you are trying to remove QM from the mountain of theories and to think what could replace QM. It is completely possible that nothing but QM could replace QM in such a setup. But what would happen if you remove all of the mountain of theories and start from scratch? I do not know. To see what would happen I need to design an empirical research that would involve some millions of people and a few millennia. To be sure I would need to repeat this at least 50 times.
  - afiori 7y ago
    The fact that the electron exist is not culturally dependent. As much as the fact that stars exists. Any alien civilization capable of studying the behavior of atoms must also be able to express concept that are compatible with ours. Maybe the do not use numbers, calculus, or maybe they do not even use unit of measures. Yet the result of our experiments will have to be the same and since we can develop experiments that show specific operations they must also be able to express those operations.
    - ben_w 7y ago
      Electrons are a perfectly adequate model for reality. I do not read the previous poster as disputing this point. Instead, they appear to be asking, “is there another model for reality which would also work well enough to build a MOSFET?” I do not know either. That said, people keep telling me that both QM and GR are known to be incomplete, so perhaps electrons are no more real than phlogiston? I would certainly be surprised, but that’s besides the point, and even if someone is currently rolling their eyes and preparing to explain why I am wrong and electrons can’t possibly be “like phlogiston” (not a position I actually hold so don’t waste your time), an alien civilisation could make an analogous mistake and fill the electron-shaped gap in their physics model with something completely different analogous to the way phlogiston filled the oxygen-shaped gap in chemistry.
- tachyonbeam 7y ago
  AFAIK triodes (vacuum tubes) were discovered by accident. Could you not say that a MOSFET works on a principle very similar to a triode, but on a much smaller scale (small enough to exploit quantum phenomena)? I think it's possible that someone could discover MOSFETs by accident, maybe after theorizing that you could build triodes on a microscopic scale.
  - theamk 7y ago
    Sure, they can build a MOSFET. But it will be pretty bad, you need to have a theory of operations before you can make reliable, powerful and small device we have today. In fact, a field effect transistor (the FET part of MOSFET) was discovered in 1925 and 1934, but nothing happened with it until the theory was there, and someone (Shockley) spent years refining the theory with experiments.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

by ordu 7y ago

theamk 7y ago

In order to build a MOSFET, you need to know how do electrons react in the presence of thin barriers, and how thick should the gate oxide be to prevent breakdown while still keeping the field strong. Does a civilization know this? If no, they cannot make MOSFETs. If yes, than whatever branch of physics and math describes this is called “quantum mechanics” Can it be different, can you do QM without Schrödinger Equation? Sure, but it will still be QM. One can rearrange terms on formulas, use different units, work with voltage instead of energy, introduce various metrics and so on. Physicists do it all the time, it is simply theory reformulation.

stult 7y ago
>In order to build a MOSFET, you need to know how do electrons react in the presence of thin barriers, and how thick should the gate oxide be to prevent breakdown while still keeping the field strong. And yet I somehow managed to produce a pretty complex quantum computer before I was even born: my brain. Or maybe my mom did, but she is nearly as ignorant of quantum physics and biology as I was as a fetus, so the point stands. The person above was wrong about your implicit assumption about QM and dependency chains. Your real assumption is that interstellar societies will develop technologies intentionally using explicit knowledge that charts such a dependency chain, rather than evolving capabilities via or alongside implicit knowledge, such as the implicit knowledge we all share in which allows us to produce human brains with no intellectual effort whatsoever. We don't and can't know what chunks of those dependency chains are innate for other species, which in turn means we don't know how they will traverse such a chain, even assuming ad arguendo your hypothesis that the dependency graph is essentially linear.
- drdeca 7y ago
  Is your brain really a quantum computer though?
  - klyrs 7y ago
    This is a popular theory. But so far the best we've got is that quantum mechanics are maybe necessary to explain neuron interactions. Which is basically equivalent to calling a computer "quantum" because it's made of MOSFETs.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mannykannot 7y ago
While I agree in doubting that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis can be used in the way the author does (for one thing, I do not think the strong version is supported by the evidence, and I think the strong version is required here), I think it is worth noting that De Forest, inventor of the audion (precursor of the triode), had a very mistaken idea of how it worked. Today, we have devices that use high-temperature superconductors without having a complete theory of how they work. The inventors of smelting and gunpowder did not understand the chemistry of their inventions...
ordu 7y ago
> In order to build a MOSFET, you need to know how do electrons react in the presence of thin barriers, and how thick should the gate oxide be to prevent breakdown while still keeping the field strong. Here you are speaking using words like "electron", "thin barrier", "oxide" and so on. So you are thinking in a framework of our culture and our variant of STEM. Doing so you are trying to prove that there is no way to invent another variant of STEM. I believe, that such an approach could achieve nothing. I mean, to speak "electron" you need to rely implicitly on a whole mountain of theories about reality. So even if you proved that one cannot build MOSFET without QM, it would mean that he cannot do it while relying on this mountain of theories. It wouldn't prove that there are no other mountains allowing to invent MOSFET. > Can it be different, can you do QM without Schrödinger Equation? Sure, but it will still be QM. It is a trivial proposition. "QM without Schrödinger Equation" is QM by definition. The question is if it possible to build some other models of reality that allow to invent MOSFET. As I see it you are trying to remove QM from the mountain of theories and to think what could replace QM. It is completely possible that nothing but QM could replace QM in such a setup. But what would happen if you remove all of the mountain of theories and start from scratch? I do not know. To see what would happen I need to design an empirical research that would involve some millions of people and a few millennia. To be sure I would need to repeat this at least 50 times.
- afiori 7y ago
  The fact that the electron exist is not culturally dependent. As much as the fact that stars exists. Any alien civilization capable of studying the behavior of atoms must also be able to express concept that are compatible with ours. Maybe the do not use numbers, calculus, or maybe they do not even use unit of measures. Yet the result of our experiments will have to be the same and since we can develop experiments that show specific operations they must also be able to express those operations.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    Electrons are a perfectly adequate model for reality. I do not read the previous poster as disputing this point. Instead, they appear to be asking, “is there another model for reality which would also work well enough to build a MOSFET?” I do not know either. That said, people keep telling me that both QM and GR are known to be incomplete, so perhaps electrons are no more real than phlogiston? I would certainly be surprised, but that’s besides the point, and even if someone is currently rolling their eyes and preparing to explain why I am wrong and electrons can’t possibly be “like phlogiston” (not a position I actually hold so don’t waste your time), an alien civilisation could make an analogous mistake and fill the electron-shaped gap in their physics model with something completely different analogous to the way phlogiston filled the oxygen-shaped gap in chemistry.
tachyonbeam 7y ago
AFAIK triodes (vacuum tubes) were discovered by accident. Could you not say that a MOSFET works on a principle very similar to a triode, but on a much smaller scale (small enough to exploit quantum phenomena)? I think it's possible that someone could discover MOSFETs by accident, maybe after theorizing that you could build triodes on a microscopic scale.
- theamk 7y ago
  Sure, they can build a MOSFET. But it will be pretty bad, you need to have a theory of operations before you can make reliable, powerful and small device we have today. In fact, a field effect transistor (the FET part of MOSFET) was discovered in 1925 and 1934, but nothing happened with it until the theory was there, and someone (Shockley) spent years refining the theory with experiments.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]