Assignment 2, due October 5, 2005
Here are two classic documents that sparked the beginning of the electronics
age (ouch!). Don't worry about the details, but try to extract the importance of this
paper and patent before we discuss.
READ:
J. J. Thomson (1856-1940), "Cathode Rays", Philosophical Magazine,
vol. 44, page 293 (1897).
Facsimile from Stephen Wright, Classical Scientific Papers,
Physics (Mills and Boon, 1964). (home page: Thomson 1897)
READ: De Forest's 1908 patent for the Audion
(home page: reading/De Forest 08: Audion patent, see Patent No. 879532,
click on "image")
Problems
1. Discuss the possible future utility of DNA computing. Consider both
conventional applications, like web browsers, email, business, and so on;
and special, niche applications. Look for ideas anywhere you can find them,
but, as always, reference your sources accurately and completely.
2. Suppose we make a soup consisting of a solution of two kinds of DNA sequences.
One is rs, and the other is s'r', where r and s are
the usual sequences of about 20 bases that Adleman used, and r' and s'
indicate the Watson-Crick complements of r and s, respectively.
What sequences do you think will form in the solution? How might we select
some of the possibilities from others?
3. Suppose I need to run a really huge computation, like designing a complicated
drug at the molecular level. In fact, suppose that at present computer speeds
my computational task would take 100 years of computer time on
the fastest computer. Also suppose that Moore's Law will continue to hold
into the indefinite future, so that computer speeds will double every two years, say.
What should my strategy be for getting my job done as soon as possible?
(There's no need to be precise here; estimates and approximate numbers are OK.)
4. Here's an Essay Question: Write your response in
a few hundred words (a page or so) and in elegant prose. As always, reference
your sources accurately and completely. If you wish, you may submit your
response in poetic or musical form.
The famous mathematician G. H. Hardy said in 1940
(G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, with a foreword by C. P. Snow,
Canto edition, 1992, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1940, p. 140.):
There is one comforting conclusion which is easy for a real
mathematician. Real mathematics has no effects on war. No one has
yet discovered any warlike purpose to be served by the theory
of numbers or relativity, and it seems very unlikely that anyone
will do so for many years.
Discuss the accuracy of his prediction, and the circumstances that would
account for its accuracy or inaccuracy.