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Shareware Overload Trio 2
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Shareware Overload Trio Volume 2 (Chestnut CD-ROM).ISO
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1993-09-10
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While "switching times" within a photonic transistor are usually
calculated as the time it takes light to go from the beam combining
optics to the mask, the fact is, that actual switching occurs much
faster. Information is actually processed AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT.
The actual switching occurs on a photon for photon basis. That is,
photons that cause the destructive interference at the hole do so by
"interfering" with like photons that arrive at the same time from
the hologram which is always on. Therefore, even a photonic NOT
that is several nanoseconds long (several feet in length) will be
able to NOT an input beam that is pulsating in the femtosecond
range. (Millionths of a nanosecond.)
In some applications that may not be helpful, but in digital
processors, for example, the fact becomes very useful. This is because
the signals in a processor operate on a matching basis for producing
such things as RAM read and write signals and the like. In the case
of information that must be processed at light speed, the information
must merely be pipelined into the photonic circuitry timed with the
information, with which it is being processed, so it will all show up
at the output on time.