Non-Standard Computation: Molecular Computation - Cellular Automata - Evolutionary Algorithms - Quantum Computers

In recent years, a discussion of fundamentally new computer concepts has been stirred up by new developments in various scientific areas. Even in the newspapers one could find articles containing evocative terms like ́Quantum Computers ́ or ́Molecular Computers ́. The background is the need for better performing computers in applications which require an extremely high parallelism or a special behaviour such as the simulation of quantum systems. Examples include the design of a turbine with about 100 parts, a realistic simulation of for instance only 40 electrons in a solid, and the search for the shortest telephone line that connects 100 cities scattered over a country. These require calculations that is far beyond the power of conventional computers! This exciting book provides the first overview of and introduction to the chemical, biological and physical non-standard computation concepts which promise to solve these problems by a massive parallelism and a clever use of other effects: Molecular and Quantum Computers, and Genetic Algorithms. Written on a scientific level, it is an up-to-date information source for scientists and graduate students working in the field in physics, chemistry, computer and life sciences as well as interested readers with a scientific background. In recent years, a discussion of fundamentally new computer concepts has been stirred up by new developments in various scientific areas. Even in the newspapers one could find articles containing evocative terms like  ́Quantum Computers ́ or  ́Molecular Computers ́.

The background is the need for better performing computers in applications which require an extremely high parallelism or a special behaviour such as the simulation of quantum systems. Examples include the design of a turbine with about 100 parts, a realistic simulation of for instance only 40 electrons in a solid, and the search for the shortest telephone line that connects 100 cities scattered over a country. These require calculations that is far beyond the power of conventional computers!

This exciting book provides the first overview of and introduction to the chemical, biological and physical non-standard computation concepts which promise to solve these problems by a massive parallelism and a clever use of other effects: Molecular and Quantum Computers, and Genetic Algorithms.

Written on a scientific level, it is an up-to-date information source for scientists and graduate students working in the field in physics, chemistry, computer and life sciences as well as interested readers with a scientific background.

There's never enough computer power for challenging questions. Problems such as the design of turbines consisting of more than 100 parts or the simulation of systems of some 50 interacting particles are far beyond today's computer capacities. Or, how to find the shortest phone line connecting 100 given cities? The most promising answers to such questions come from unconventional technologies. The massive parallelism of molecular computers or the ingenious use of quantum systems by universal quantum computers provide solutions to the dilemma. And as for the phone line problem - genetic algorithms mimick the way nature found its way from the first cells to today's creatures. While relying on conventional computer hardware, they introduce an element of chance on the software level, thus circumventing the disadvantages of traditional deterministic algorithms. A textbook for those shaping the future of computing, this volume is also pure fun. Provides an overview and introduction to the chemical, biological and physical non-standard computation concepts, which promise to solve these problems by a massive parallelism and a clever use of other effects. This book is useful for scientists and graduate students working in the field in physics, chemistry, computer and life sciences. This book on non-standard computation describes new methods for performing computations that exploit the inner parallelism of new media or new algorithms.