Binary is optimal for information storage and transmission. This is because for a fixed amount of noise (from either environment or fabrication issues) binary requires only a single distance between states, whereas higher radix storage requires n-1. This, combined with the fact that energy required to store or transmit scales with the square of the voltage (or other variable), means that you need more energy per bit stored or transmitted with higher radices. Energy dissipation is now the main issue for most computation. The way forward is not higher radices, but reversible low-dissipation computing, which for reasons I don’t understand, no one is taking seriously.

On Jan 6, 2019, at 4:59 PM, Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:

Since useful quanputers might be a long ways off, maybe some other stunt could speed up current computation as we know it.

If trits could be stored, retrieved, and copied as easily as bits, there would be less *space* needed by a factor of of log_c(2)/log_c(3) = .6309+, where c = zeta(3).

Perhaps someone knowledgeable can estimate how much trits could actually speed up computation. Surely this has been much studied by now.

But the practical question is, Is there a practical way to build trit-based processors? Would it be easier if they could be as large as a room, or larger?

—Dan

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