Our future with the "beamsplitter"

"As I finish this article up, I have this one vexing question. What am I going to do with a laptop that operates at the speed of light? Is there anything they can do to get my fingers to type any faster? Probably not!"

I have said many times, if mankind can keep from blowing itself up, if we can avoid getting hit by a comet or an asteroid, and if the Tribulation does not start in October of this year (like the Christian numerologist said it would), we could have a very bright and exciting future in the next decade. How so? All these "gee whiz" science projects, which have looked upon in the past much more like science fiction than science, are going to come crashing together as science to help create a "Brave New World".

What is driving this huge change more than anything else? Computing power. Greatly reduced size and greatly increased speed. In other words, we are about to really kick the infamous "Moore's Law" right in the old buttinski. Rather than doubling the speed of data every year, it is about to go up by a million times or so.

Every time I am out shopping, and the clerk is working a terminal cash register which is slower than molasses, I often quip, "Speed of light, huh?" I say that why? First off, to inject a bit of humor in the situation. But mostly because (theoretically), computers are suppose to operate at the speed of light. Then why don't they? Because it is our fault. We clutter up the computing system with too many things which do not operate at even a fraction of the speed of light. So many times instead of a hare, data moves at the speed of a tortoise instead.

But hold on! Help is on the way! Both IBM and Intel are working on a beamsplitter. What the Sam Hill is a beamsplitter? I would have to let my high school engineering pal, Gary get into the nitty gritty of the technology. All I know about the beamsplitter is this - it is integral to keep the speed of data traveling at the speed of light. When the light source carrying the date comes into the terminal, the information must be split to get into the correct nanotechnology circuit boards - built so small, that data can continue to travel at the speed of light. How small is the nanotechnology circuitry in the terminals which will use the data? About 1/65th the size of a red blood cell. And without a functional beamsplitter, all that reduced size would be worthless to keep things traveling at the speed of light.

This breakthrough is going to change everything. Robotics, 3-D printing, computing,
data storage and extraction, transportation, medical science and energy. Is this going to happen in the next fifty years? Nope - next six to seven years. In fact, the beamsplitter will be out of the lab and in field testing as early as 2018. Our world in the year 2025 is going to look a whole lot different than our world in 2017. 

Before the year 2030, many of us will look back at these years and laugh at our anachronistic folly. We will have hundreds of unused train tracks and stations sitting around; tens of thousands of idled wind turbines in farmer's fields; and gasoline refineries waiting to be sold to a buyer who can tear them down and convert them into something useful.

One of my friends asked me a while ago how I find information on  some of this newfangled stuff. I go on the tech blogs, the tech sights, the tech companies web sites, and so on. The information is all out there. I am just scratching the surface. And there in abundance more every month. Information on hundreds of new items being tested in the labs. Items which will change and improve the lives of all mankind.

As I finish this article up, I have this one vexing question. What am I going to do with a laptop that operates at the speed of light? Is there anything they can do to get my fingers to type any faster? Probably not! That is - until bionics also kicks in.