Femtotech

FEMTO TECH, ATTOTECH, ZEPTOTECH, “X”TECH

One of my research interests is looking into the possibility of creating a femtotech, i.e. a technology at the femtometer scale (which is 10exp-15 meter).

I spend a lot of time studying PhD level pure math and math physics with this goal in mind (plus studying topological quantum computing, which promises to make quantum computing robust against local noise).

Recently, I have been studying particle physics, (QCD, in particular, which is Quantum Chromo Dynamics, the study of the strong (color) force in nature).

It was my intention to try to find phenomena in QCD that I could map the basic logic gates of computing (NOT, OR, AND) into. I managed to find an (in principle) solution to this problem that was then published on the kurzweilai.net site, as well as on the Humanity+ site.

A femtotech could outperform a nanotech by a factor of a trillion trillion. Presumably an attotech (at 10exp -18 meter) might outperform a femtotech as well.

I also found a way to implement (in principle) an attotech, but since it used the weak  force, and not the color force, its total performance was actually 10,000 times less than femtotech.

Theorists speculate that there may be force particles, called the X and the Y, that mediate the grand unified force of the  electroweak force and the  color force, using the gauge group SU(5). Their masses are thought  to be 1000s of times greater than the W and Z particles of the weak force, and hence operate at the zeptometer range (10exp -21 meter). Hence if they exist, a zeptotech  might be possible.

Having devised methods at the femto and atto meter level to create technologies (at least the computing side), I began to think about generalizing  this  process, and came up with the term “X”tech, where X is a variable that stands for one of the size levels.

As humanity, or our intelligent  machines, create these Xtechs, it seems to me obvious that those civilizations, that are hugely more advanced than we humans are, and that are billions of years older, may be all  around us, but way too small for us to detect. This kind of thinking has an impact on the SETI effort (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence).  Im now thinking more and more  seriously about SIPI (Search for Infra Particle Intelligence), i. e. trying to think about ways to communicate with whole civilizations that live in elementary particles.

At first SIPI seemed like a joke, but the more involved I  became with devising Xtechs, the more unavoidable the notion  of SIPI became. I think SIPI is the answer to Fermi’s famous paradox (if hyperintelligent  life is commonplace in the universe, “where are they?”) , namely that they are everywhere around us, but with human levels of technology, they are unobservable, being way too tiny for detection.

ESSAYS on FEMTOTECH and Tinier TECHS

To read my essay on Femtotech, click here. This  essay appeared on kurzweilai.net (here) and on Humanity+ magazine (here).

I then wrote a sequel essay on attotech, and smaller techs, and raised the point that the smartest creatures in the  universe are probably very very tiny (SIPI = Search for Infra Particle Intelligence). You can read it here.  A slightly modified version appeared in the Humanity Plus magazine,  under the title “X-Tech and the Search for Infra Particle  Intelligence”. You can see it (here).

I gave a talk at the Hong Kong “Humanity Plus” conference in December 2011, entitled “Femtotech, Attotech, Xtech, SIPI, Search for Infra Particle Intelligence, Deification of Physics”  This PPt presentation can be seen (here).

A YouTube video of this Hong Kong talk can be  seen (here).