Physicist Proposes a New Type of Computing

SpankiMonki writes "Joshua Turner, a physicist at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, has proposed using the orbits of electrons around the nucleus of an atom as a new means to generate the binary states used in computing. Turner calls his idea orbital computing. Turner points to recent discoveries (including a new material that allows rapid switching of its electron states and new low-power terahertz laser technology) that could lead to the development of a computer with vastly improved performance over current technologies."

Spintronics

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever happened with Spintronics [wikipedia.org]?

In theory these systems could be great. What I worry about is if they will be stable enough.

Of course, this is using orbitals, which generally are a more stable element with regards to electrons and their speedy existence.
I don't think they decay spontaneously, do they?

With all these ideas, it makes me wonder what one is going to come first, this, optical computing, quantum computing, superconductive computing, ternary computing and others.
I'd love to see Ternary, personally, Binary is awful, Balanced Ternary is beauty.
Of course, with this, it'd probably be possible to make use or higher bases. You'd probably even be able to make complex gates with for them. (well, you only need NAND or NOR really)

Re:New Type of "Computing"

[thesandbender]

Actually, it could prove to be radically different than current computers/computing. Almost all current computers are based on binary logic, your bit is either on or off. Electrons can actually have several orbital states so it is possible that computing could be approached in a different manner. This assumes that logic could actually be performed with the orbital states and it's not just a bit store. All of this is quite a long way off though, per the article you currently need a two mile long accelerator to change the orbital state of an electron this accurately.