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Computing

Parallel thinking

Nature volume 392, pages 549–551 (1998)Cite this article

The computer seems to be the only commodity ever to become exponentially better as it gets cheaper. Its information handling capacity has grown at a rate ten million times faster than that of our nervous systems during the four billion years since life began on Earth. Yet the theory and technology of computing has rested for more than 50 years on the Turing-machine model of computation, which leads to many intractable or undecidable problems. Are there alternatives? This was the question addressed at a conference in JanuaryFootnote 1, where three new models of computation were discussed: the DNA model, the quantum model and the reversible model.

* Unconventional Models of Computation, Univ. Auckland, New Zealand, 5–9 January 1998.

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Figure 1: The layout of a single cell of ‘Flattop’, an adiabatic (and therefore reversible) processor.

Notes

  1. * Unconventional Models of Computation, Univ. Auckland, New Zealand, 5–9 January 1998.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Computer Science, University of Auckland, Private Bag, 92019, Auckland, New Zealand

    C. S. Calude

  2. the Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, 87501, New Mexico, USA

    J. L. Casti

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  1. C. S. Calude
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  2. J. L. Casti
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Calude, C., Casti, J. Parallel thinking. Nature 392, 549–551 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/33284

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