Prof. Neil Gershenfeld

http://cba.mit.edu/~neilg

NSF CCR-0122419

MIT Media Labs

The Center for Bits and AtomsThe Center for Bits and AtomsThe Center for Bits and AtomsThe Center for Bits and Atoms

Joseph Jacobson, Scott Manalis, Isaac Chuang, Neil Gershenfeld, Marvin Minsky,Cynthia Braezeal (Media Lab), Joe Paradiso (Media Lab), Sandy Pentland (Media Lab),

Mitch Resnick (Media Lab), Kim Hamad-Schifferli (Mechanical Engineering),Seth Lloyd (Mechanical Engineering), Martin Schmidt (Microsystems Technology Laboratory),

Larry Sass (Architecture), Tim Swager (Chemistry), Alex Slocum (Mechanics Engineering),Rahul Sarpeshkar (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), Shuguang Zhang (Bioengineering),

Sebastian Seung (Brain and Cognitive Science, Physics), Bill Butera (IC design/fab),Karen Sollins (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), Bakhtiar Mikhak (Education/Outreach),

Sherry Lassiter (Program Manager), John DiFrancesco (Macrofabrication), Ashley Salomon (Microfabrication)Peter Shor, Ruzena Bajcsy, John Doyle, Barrie Gilbert, Alan Huang, Greg Papadopoulus, Nathan Myhrvold, …

NSF CCR-0122419 http://cba.mit.edu

Internet 0Internet 0Internet 0Internet 0

power

analog I/O

programming

controlserial

• IP to leaf nodes• bit size > net size• peers don’t need servers• implement function, not spec(Raffi Krikorian, Matt Hancher, Sun, …)

ethernet

$1-10 1-10kB RS-485, IR, ultrasound, powerline, …

Paintable ComputingPaintable ComputingPaintable ComputingPaintable Computing

Install

Update

Transfer accepted

Transfer refused

De-install

private functions

local scratch

(Bill Butera)

NanotecticsNanotecticsNanotecticsNanotecticsBrent Ridley, Babak Nivi, and Joseph Jacobson,

All-Inorganic Field Effect Transistors Fabricated by Printing,Science (286) 746, 1999

RF BiologyRF BiologyRF BiologyRF Biology

Remote Electronic Control of DNA Hybridization Through Inductive Coupling to an Attached Metal

Nanocrystal Antenna, K. Hamad-Schifferli, J.J. Schwartz, A.T. Santos, S.G. Zhang, and J.M.

Jacobson, Nature (415) pp. 152-155, 2002

Factoring 15Factoring 15Factoring 15Factoring 15 Experimental realization of Shor's quantum factoring algorithm using nuclear magnetic resonance, LIEVEN

M. K. VANDERSYPEN, MATTHIAS STEFFEN, GREGORY BREYTA, COSTANTINO S. YANNONI,

MARK H. SHERWOOD & ISAAC L. CHUANG, Nature (414), 883–887 (20/27 December 2001)

perfluorobutadienyl ironcomplex

Oops!Oops!Oops!Oops!

• January 15, 1990: AT&T’s long-distance network– 65 million calls, 9 hours

– an upgrade to improve switch reliability

• August 10, 1996: electrical grid– 25 GW, 190 plants, 7.5 million customers, 9 states

– tree, automatic load-shedding

• April 23, 1997: Internet– 40% Net “black-hole”

– erroneous routing table pointing to 1 ISP

Emergent failures:

Demonstrations ofemergent engineering

(don’t scale!)

Deep thinking aboutemergent engineering

(don’t work!)

rigor + relevance?