4 ms·

Faraday and Babbage: Semiconductors and Computing in 1833

28 points by klelatti 4y ago

westurner 4y ago
Timeline of Quantum Computing (1960-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_quantum_computing_and_communication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_quantum_computing_... 1960-1883 = 77 years later
- westurner 4y ago
  From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996743 https://westurner.github.io/hnlog/#comment-31996743 https://westurner.github.io/hnlog/#comment-31996743 : > Qubit#Physical_implementations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit#Physical_implementations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit#Physical_implementations > - note the "electrons" row of the table >> See also: "Quantum logic gate" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_logic_gate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_logic_gate
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Ah! A previous discussion about steampunk computers after the invention of photography, was dismissed because no semiconductors. But Faraday knew about them! A reasonable fiction could be written where steam engines are contemporaneous with CPUs, perhaps as huge structures of suspended film or some such!
mikewarot 4y ago
Interesting historical footnotes, but without a handy AC power supply, even a rectifier isn't much use. Note that most (but not all) of Faraday's devices produced direct current. Babbage's failure to ship a working product set back computing about 100 years.
- hinkley 4y ago
  People who are just slightly ahead of their time tend to have competitors, people who looked at the same world and have essentially the same idea, and then it's down to whether we think Liebniz or Newton invented it, or whether we confusingly credit one but rely on the techniques of the other (see also Edison & Tesla). I think history has unfortunately proven Babbage a dreamer. He had no contemporary who could swoop in and profit from his slow progress, because his work was not obvious/compelling to anyone else of his caliber.
- mannykannot 4y ago
  Computing as we know it (post Moore's law) depends on semiconductor technology. It is quite a stretch to suppose that, if Babbage had produced a working device, then the period of Moore's law expansion would have occurred 100 years earlier, given that it depended on the development of semiconductor devices, which in turn depended on developing a quantum theory of condensed matter.
  - mikewarot 4y ago
    You don't need quantum theory for transistors... I watched my chemistry professor explain how a diode, then a junction transistor worked back in 1982 at Rose-Hulman.
melony 4y ago
The silver sulphide semiconductor isn't much of an improvement compared to the alternative (vacuum tube particle accelerator). But the lack of need for a vacuum is definitely convenient.

28 points by klelatti 4y ago

Timeline of Quantum Computing (1960-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_quantum_computing_and_communication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_quantum_computing_... 1960-1883 = 77 years later

westurner 4y ago
From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996743 https://westurner.github.io/hnlog/#comment-31996743 https://westurner.github.io/hnlog/#comment-31996743 : > Qubit#Physical_implementations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit#Physical_implementations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit#Physical_implementations > - note the "electrons" row of the table >> See also: "Quantum logic gate" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_logic_gate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_logic_gate

JoeAltmaier 4y ago

Ah! A previous discussion about steampunk computers after the invention of photography, was dismissed because no semiconductors. But Faraday knew about them! A reasonable fiction could be written where steam engines are contemporaneous with CPUs, perhaps as huge structures of suspended film or some such!

mikewarot 4y ago

Interesting historical footnotes, but without a handy AC power supply, even a rectifier isn't much use. Note that most (but not all) of Faraday's devices produced direct current. Babbage's failure to ship a working product set back computing about 100 years.

hinkley 4y ago
People who are just slightly ahead of their time tend to have competitors, people who looked at the same world and have essentially the same idea, and then it's down to whether we think Liebniz or Newton invented it, or whether we confusingly credit one but rely on the techniques of the other (see also Edison & Tesla). I think history has unfortunately proven Babbage a dreamer. He had no contemporary who could swoop in and profit from his slow progress, because his work was not obvious/compelling to anyone else of his caliber.
mannykannot 4y ago
Computing as we know it (post Moore's law) depends on semiconductor technology. It is quite a stretch to suppose that, if Babbage had produced a working device, then the period of Moore's law expansion would have occurred 100 years earlier, given that it depended on the development of semiconductor devices, which in turn depended on developing a quantum theory of condensed matter.
- mikewarot 4y ago
  You don't need quantum theory for transistors... I watched my chemistry professor explain how a diode, then a junction transistor worked back in 1982 at Rose-Hulman.

melony 4y ago

The silver sulphide semiconductor isn't much of an improvement compared to the alternative (vacuum tube particle accelerator). But the lack of need for a vacuum is definitely convenient.