The Physics of Communiction doc

5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224 USA ofice: Suite 202, 1060 Main Street, River Edge, NJ 07661 CJK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE British Library Cataloguin

The P h y s i c s of

C o m m u n i c t i o n

Delphi and Lamia, Greece, 24-29 November 200 1

1.3 LEUCHS M LUKIN RY CHIAO S METENS L REICHL P SIAFARIKAS L STODOLSKY A KARLSSON K GUSTAFSON S.KIM V KADYSHEVSKY G ORDONEZ I ZISIS G DIMAKIS A DIMAKIS

G TSAKLIDIS R PASSANTE S DOLEV A ELITZUR C KARANIKAS S PASCAZIO D XOURIS M COURBAGE E YAREVSKY Yu MELNIKOV A SISSAKL4N G ZENG

E KARPOV V LETOKHOV L WANG W.S SCHLEICH J:M RAIMOND A STEINBERG 0 NIMTZ E POUIK N SOURLAS T PETROSKY C DASKALOYANNIS M FLORATOS SI SI T HIDA V.V BELOKUROV

L VAIDMAN Vi KOCHAROVSKY 0 KOCHAROVSKAYA M GADELLA A BOHM G PRONKO L ACCARDI V GURZADYAN S LLOYD G HEGERFELDT P STAMP P ZOLLER

o m U i c i o

Proceedings of the XXll Solvay Conference on Physics

Delphi Lamia, Greece 24 - 29 November 2001

edited by

(International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry, Belgium

& Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)

5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224

USA ofice: Suite 202, 1060 Main Street, River Edge, NJ 07661

CJK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

THE PHYSICS OF COMMUNICATION

Proceedings of the XXII Solvay Conference on Physics

Copyright 0 2003 by World Scientific Publishing Co Re Ltd

All rights reserved This book, o r parts thereof; may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includingphotocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher

For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright

Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA In this case permission to

photocopy is not required from the publisher

ISBN 981-238-449-9

OF THE XXII SOLVAY CONFERENCE ON PHYSICS

International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry

ULB, Campus Plaine - CP 23 1

Boulevard du Triomphe

1050, Brussels, Belgium

V.V Belokurov

Institute for Mathematical Study of Complex Systems

Lomonosov Moscow State University

Center for Particle Theory, RLM 9.324A

Austin, Texas 78712-1081, USA

Technical University of Crete

GR-73 100 Chania Crete, Greece

ICRA, Dipartimento di Fisica

Universita di Roma "La Sapienza"

00185 Rome, Italy

and Yerevan Physics Institute

375036 Yerevan

Armenia

Department of Microelectronics and Information Technology

Laboratory of Quantum Electronics and Quantum Optics

Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)

California Institute of Technology, 12-33

Quantum Optics, Laboratory of Physics

Pasadena, CA 91 125, USA

0 Kocharovskaya

Department of Physics

Mailstop 4242

Texas A&M University

College Station, TX 77843-4242, USA

Vi Kocharovsky

Department of Physics

Texas A&M University

College Station, TX 77843-4242, USA

Dept of Mechanical Engineering

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Center for Studies in Statistical Mechanics and Complex Systems, RLM 7.220

University of Texas at Austin

Austin, Texas 78712, USA

Ch Panos

Department of Theoretical Physics

Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki

Center for Studies in Statistical Mechanics and Complex Systems, RLM 7.220

University of Texas at Austin

Austin, Texas 78712, USA

DK-8000 Aarhus, Denmark

I Prigogine

International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry

ULB, Campus Plaine - CP 23 1

The University of Texas at Austin

Austin, Texas 78712, USA

Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and Physics Dept

University of British Columbia

Fohringer Ring 6

80805 Munich, Germany

E.C.G Sudarshan

Department of Physics, RLM 9.328A

University of Texas at Austin

Austin, Texas 78712, USA

L Vaidman

Physics and Astronomy Faculty

Tel Aviv University

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTES FOR PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY,

Deputy Director of the Solvay Institutes Secretary of the Administrative Board Secretary of the Scientific Committee of Chemistry Secretary of the Scientific Committee of Physics

Consultant for the Administrative Board

xii

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTES FOR PENSICS AND CHEMISTRY,

FOUNDED BY E SOLVAY A.S.B.L

Center for Particle Theory, RLM 9.324A

Austin, Texas 78712-1081, USA

C COHEN-TANNOUDJI

Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Department de Physique

Ecole Normale Superieure

Russian Academy of Sciences

Landau Institute of Theoretical Physics

2 UI Kozygina, V 334

Moscow 117 940, Russia

xiii

Department of Physics, RLM 9.328A University of Texas at Austin

Austin, Texas 78712, USA

H WAL,THER

Max-Planck-Institute fiir Quantenoptik

D-8046 Garching-bei-Miinchen, Germany

President, Society for the Hellenic Cultural Inheritance General Secretary for Central Greece

Rector, University of Patras Rector, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Rector, University of Thessalia

Rector, University of the Aegean Rector, University of Ioannina

M Papadopoulos Rector, Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki

K Simopoulos

T Xanthopoulos Rector, National and Technical University of Athens

Rector, Demokritus University of Thrace

xv

Prof I Antonopoulos Vice Rector

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Prof K Daskaloyannis Department of Physics

Aristotle university of Thessaloniki Prof M Floratos

Department of Applied Mathematics and Physics National Technical University of Athens Department of Wormatics

University of Athens Department of Physics University of Crete

LOCAL ORGANISING COMMITTEE

Technological Education Institute of Lamia Prof Th Kontogeorgos Technological Education Institute of Lamia

xvi

The Solvay conferences started in 1911 The first conference on radiation theory and the quanta was held in Brussels This was a new type of conference and it became the tradition of the Solvay conference; the participants are informed experts in

a given field and meet to discuss one or a few mutually related problems of

fundamental importance and seek to define the steps for the solution

The Solvay conferences in physics have made substantial contributions to the development of modem physics in the 20"' century

1 (191 1) "Radiation theory and the quanta"

2 (1913) "The Structure of the matter"

3 (1921) "Atoms and electrons"

4 (1924) "Electric Conductivity of Metals"

5 (1927) "Electrons and photons"

11 (1958) "The structure and evolution of the Universe"

12 (1961) "The quantum theory offields"

13 (1964) "The structure and evolution of galaxies"

14 (1967) "Fundamental problems in elementary particle physics"

15 (1970) "Symmetry properties of nuclei"

16 (1973) "Astrophysics and gravitation"

17 (1978) "Order and fluctuations in equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics"

18 (1982) "High energy physics What are the possibilities for extending our understanding of elementary particles and their interactions to much greater energies?"

19 (1987) "Surface science"

20 (1991) "Quantum Optics"

2 1 ( 1998) "Dynamical systems and irreversibility"

22 (2001) "The Physics of Communication"

For more information, visit the website of the Solvay Institutes

http:Nsolvayins.ulb.ac.be

xvii

This volume includes papers presented at the XXII Solvay Conference on Physics, which took

place from the 24 to 29 November 2001 in the European Culture Centre of Delphi The Castle of Lamia hosted the events of the last day

The Physics of Communication was the selected theme of the conference The 5 sessions

reflected present challenging issues, namely Decoherence and Irreversibility, Non-locality and Superluminosity, Photonics, Quantum Information and Communication, Quantum Computation The lively discussions, which followed the reports, have been recorded and are included after the presentations

The realisation of the XXII Solvay Conference was possible thanks to the complete spiritual and financial support of the Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic and the personal interest of the Minister, Professor Evangellos Venizelos

The excellent organisation is due to the professional and personal care of the personnel and the Director of the European Cultural Centre, Prof V Karasmanis, in collaboration with the administrative support and active interest of Dr A Soulogianni, Director of Educational Affairs of the Ministry of Culture

The key catalyst for the organisation and success of the Conference was Mr K Gouvalas, Director of the Minister’s office

The idea to organise the XXII Solvay Conference in Central Greece came spontaneously during a friendly meeting of one of us (Ioannis Antoniou) with Mr T Bellos, prefect of

Fthiotis, Mr G Kotronias, Mayor of Lamia, Prof K Anastasiou, President of the

Technological Education Institute of Lamia and Mr Y Zisis, representative of “Solon” Cultural Foundation Afterwards, they honoured their commitment with active interest, continuous support and personal involvement

Thanks to the initiative and support of the Ministry of Culture, the internationally recognised pianist, Vinia Tsopela, Professor of the University of Macedonia, performed Hadjidakis and Chopin at the opening, thus creating a marvellous atmosphere

V Dimitropoulos, Professor of Mathematics, and his group of amateur dancers performed traditional Hellenic dances in an original way during the banquet

Dr E Yarevsky and Dr S Metens kindly helped in the scientific aspects of the organisation

The heavy organisational details were arranged thanks to the coordinated effort of several people In particular we mention Mrs Anne De Naeyer, from the Solvay Institutes, Mrs A

Gotsi from the European Cultural Center, Mr M Kostakis and E Tsekoura from the Ministry

of Culture, Mrs M Karayanni from the Prefecture of Fthiotis, Prof R Kotronia, Director of the office of the Mayor of Lamia, Mrs I Moutsopoulou-Zisi, Mr A Belesis, Mr I

Paraskevolakos, Mr N Theodorakis, Mr P Katsoulakos, Mr D Sarinakis and Mr G

Mavrouleas from Solon Cultural Foundation

The conference could be observed in real time, via the Internet, thanks to the kind sponsoring

of the Hellenic Telecommunications Organisations (OTE and COSMOTE) Mr A Dimakis,

xix

Mr G Dimakis and Mr Y Zisis coordinated the teleconference effort During the

conference, about 2000 visits have been registered

The T.V broadcasting and interviews were arranged by Mr Y Zisis (STAR Lamia Channel)

and by Mr P Savidis (National Channel ET 3) The presentations in ET3 have been repeated more than 10 times during the following year at the request of the public h4r Y Zisis, in addition to overall support, arranged also the press releases and the publicity About 10 articles were devoted to the conference The whole publicity effort was coordinated by h4r

Prigogine

It is with special pleasure to see that this edition completes the effort to prepare and realise the XXII Solvay Conference on Physics, which has been hosted by the Ministry of Culture in the European Cultural Centre of Delphi with great success

We had the opportunity to attend leading scientists presenting and discussing the new impressive possibilities in Physics, which are expected to re-shape communication in the years to come I was especially pleased to welcome Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Laureate, key founder of chaos theory and Mr Jacques Solvay, President of the Solvay Institutes It is well known that the Solvay conferences shaped the path of physics in the 20" century, as so many mythical personalities like Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Marie Curie, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, actively participated in these conferences It is a common secret that the Solvay conferences have also served as a platform for the Nobel Prizes

Progress in physics and chemistry in the 20" century has been intertwined during the last ninety years with the activities of the Solvay Institutes The XXII

Solvay Conference on Physics marks the passage and continuation of the Solvay

Conferences into the 215' century This edition will be one more stepping stone in the

history of science In this sense, the Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic is specially satisfied to contribute to this important scientific progress, by organising and supporting the XXII Solvay Conference on Physics

xxi

x

-

Ladies and Gentleman,

It is a great pleasure and honour to open the 22“d Solvay Conference on Physics It is a special day for me From October 30 till November 3, 191 1, the first Solvay conference took place in Brussels nearly 90 years ago The theme of the fust conference was Radiation and Quanta This is now the first Solvay conference in the XXI century I am also very pleased that this conference takes place in Greece Our presence here is a tribute to the role of Greek science and philosophy in the Western worldview

Since 90 years, there has been an enormous change in science, as well as in the interaction between science and society For a long time, science appeared as a highly specialized field, an elitistic occupation For Einstein, scientists were people who wanted to escape the vicissitudes of every day life Today science is permeating all our life, especially fields such as communication and molecular biology

My great grand father, Ernest Solvay was confident that sciences will lead to an improvement of the human condition He was a man of multiple interests, equally attracted by Physics, Chemistry, Physiology and Sociology The possible role of science

in the present society is a conflictual subject Is this really an occasion for the improvement of human condition or is science bringing us closer to apocalypse? We can only guess what the future may be It is still likely that science, communication especially, will permit us to reach a more multicultural and less conflicting society

The Solvay conferences have been, in the past, exceptionally successful Heisenberg has written: “The Solvay Meetings have stood as an example of how much well-planned and well-organised conferences can contribute to the progress of science” I am sure that this conference will be as successful as the preceding ones It was often said that the people who came together at the Solvay conferences went then to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize This is somewhat exaggerated, but there is some truth to it

Here is the photograph of the first Solvay meeting, where we see Mrs Curie, Poincare,

Einstein, and many other famous people, who received indeed the Nobel Prize

Thank you

xxiii

Dear colleagues, authorities, friends,

I first want to thank the Greek authorities for their magnificent hospitality we receive here I specially want to thank my colleague and &end, Professor Ioannis Antoniou, who

has organised the conference I want also to thank the local committee, which has made

the arrangements and all participants, who will, I am convinced, make this conference a success

As Mr Solvay mentioned, the first meeting was exactly ninety years ago in Brussels The subject of this first conference was “electrons and photons” In a sense, the present conference continues the problems studied in the first conference as it deals largely again with interactions, with the matter, as light In the 20“ century, we have attended the birth

of a new Physics The progress realized is amazing There was a feedback between progress in science and the Solvay conferences Thanks t o this progress, we had very interesting Solvay conferences and conversely the Solvay conferences contributed to the development of new results in science The progress has been such that many physicists say “We are now at the end of the golden age, we are at the end of creative Physics How could we imagine something else of comparable importance after the achievement of the 20fi century?” The last frontiers would be the high-energy physics, cosmology or the brain I have heard this suggested by a few very famous physicists I personally don’t believe it I think there is a kind of autocatalytic character in the evolution of science

More we discover and more we are likely t o discover So much has been discovered in

the 20* century This is for me an indication that we shall all make, in the future again, new fundamental discoveries Take the problem of communication How many aspects have we missed? The first aspect, which I want to emphasize, is the relation between communication and irreversibility It is clear that the situation, after we receive a message, is different from the one which was existing before the communication was established We obtain new information and this new information will contribute to the

decision we take for the future Let me emphasize that, in my view, the flow of time, the

arrow of time is not due to the fact that the communication is first prepared and then received, like we prepare breakfast and then we eat it On the contrary, it is because there

is an arrow of time in the universe that we first prepare our breakfast, to eat it later In

xxiv

this sense, of course, communication is closely related to the measurement problem and to the problem of the time symmetry breaking There is still the dilemma how this universe,

which is obviously an evolutionary universe, can be ruled by time reversible laws like

classical dynamics or quantum theory This problem is now more than 20 years old and still is discussed because of the dilemma between the static dynamical View, which was predominated as in Boltzmann's time, and the evolutionary view at the basis of thermodynamics In most books you still find that the arrow of time is due to our

approximations I could never believe in this because if the arrow of time is a very

fimdamental property of our universe, which cannot be due to any approximation or to ignorance, then we should introduce it as a basic law of nature Communication involves transmission of information The discussions about information remain at the operational

level As far as I can see, only by understanding the dynamical foundation of entropy can

we hope to give a sense to information It is interesting that in many fields we encounter instabilities, manifesting in classical theory as chaos or in quantum theory as decoherence Also there is a general movement from a static equilibrium view of nature to a fluctuating unstable evolutionary view Communication is also a problem of great actuality because computer communication has, of course, been of great importance in recent times Conversion to quantum computing has been expected by many scientists Therefore, the problem of communication is far from being in a satisfactory state Many aspects have to

be elucidated In general, my feeling is that we are not at the end of Physics We are only

at the beginning of developing new methods, which require new Physics and also new

Mathematics There is also something special about the problem of communication which

is so close to human problems of our time Professor Metakides will certainly say something about this in his address Communication is at the basis of the evolution of civilization An example in European history is communication between Islamic

knowledge and European knowledge in the middle age History has brought us to a

stratified, stable world Communication has hopei3ly to play a role in the various cultures, which are existing today, and bringing them closer together Communication extends, of course, to larger and larger scales Larger scales involve stronger and stronger non-linearities Communication is both a basic scientific problem and a basic human problem Let's hope that the human aspect of communication will improve the life

of society in the 21" century

It is difficult to imagine a more illustrious assembly The discussions were passionate Quantum theory and relativity were just born and had still to he incorporated in the general frame of science

I would like to thank my friend, Ilya Prigogine, as well as Professor Antoniou, for having proposed, with the agreement of the scientific committee, the subject: “Physics of communication”

On one side, it corresponds to the technical interests of our time There is a relation with non-linear optics and semi-conductors On the other hand, over the last years, astonishing news has circulated in the scientific press There is a new phenomenon called super luminosity which connects with the possibility of delaying or even stopping light Information can be communicated by quantum teletransport Quantum correlations lead

to the creation of the quantum computers This demonstrates that contrary to what has been stated in many places, we are far from being at the end of Science But seen from

my perspective, observing from the outside, we are at a new beginning of science in the sense of a different approach from that of 191 1 and the personalities on the photograph There is also another aspect close to the heart of my friend, Professor Prigogine Communication requires a distinction between before and after There is an arrow of time involved How this arrow of time brought us into the fimdamental physics, is still a controversial subject This is a favourite theme of the scientific research performed at the Solvay Institutes in Brussels I shall not go into details, as Prigogine will undoubtedly develop this theme in his lecture

In conclusion, I want to thank the participants for coming here My gratitude goes also to the local organizing committee for their efforts I would like also to thank the European Cultural Centre of Delphi for the traditional Hellenic hospitality we have received in this magnificent place, as well as the Ministry of Culture and the Government of the Hellenic Republic for their genuine interest and kind support, which have made this conference possible

Thank you

GEORGE METAKIDES

Director of Essential Information Society Technologies and Infrastructures,

DG Information Society, European Commission

Introduction

I would like to outline in this paper a number of the reflections that are currently ongoing

as part of the planning of the next phase of European research funding for what we called Information Society Technologies, or, if you prefer, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)

Support for Information Society Technologies is part of a broader political initiative that was launched by the Heads of the EU Member States at the summit of March 2000 in Lisbon This date is significant because it was about two weeks before the collapse of the NASDAQ market, synonymous with the collapse of most of the technology stocks and much of the euphoria that surrounded all the related exuberant visions

question to be asked is

the following: is the -

general context still

valid today or was it

mostly hype, does it all

still make sense?

What happened in a

very short period is that

we went from this

euphoria of the land of

milk, honey and dot-

coms to a land of

uncertainty One may ~

~ _ _ ~ -

euphoria (see Figure l), like “There will be no business except e-business” (Wired

magazine) And then, in the era of turbulence, dot-coms have turned themselves into

November 2001, McKinsey published a report even questioning whether many of the

So, what happened to the vision, what happened to the expectations? Was it really all smoke? I do not think so I believe that as the pendulum swings again now, the reality is

xxvii

that: we are all becoming “older” (certainly true), “wiser” (debatable), (but certainly)

the channel, a lot of that noise was the hype, but the message is still there and it is as valid

as ever

planning at the European level

mentioned above and the topics

of interest to this conference

The general approach of the

the form of a triptych (see

Figure 2)

Technology is one part of

it, but it goes together with policy, and in the end, to make it all happen, with human resources and skills

This has now been I

as well For research

the approach is today

In this paper we argue the

case for the validity of the

message by looking at the

Society Technologies Programme that will run for the period 2003-2006, as part of the 6'h

EU Framework Programme that is currently under preparation

eCel

Seamless 2% Rich Connectivity

Intelligent Environ men& Anthropocentric Interfaces

FIGURE 5

Technology

As far as ICT technology progress is concerned, I fully share here the view of Ilya Prigogine: we are not at the end, but at the very beginning of a digital revolution Or, to quote Michael Dertouzos, “we haven’t seen anything yet”

In particular, we are only at the very beginning of the digitalisation of the economy; this is indeed a revolution that will continue to bring changes through to the end of this decade and even much longer The pace of technological advance will continue to gallop under the so-called “exponential laws” (e.g Moore’s Law), with computing,

communication and storage capabilities doubling every 18, 9 & 12 months respectively (see Figure 4)

Whilst technology is advancing exponentially, applications and services follow much quicker than ever before, but they are developing in a step-wise fashion, in the shape of a series of alternating jumps and plateaux The jumps are caused by the advent of disruptive technologies that change the rules of the game Their cusps are synonymous with huge business opportunities for capturing new markets or extending existing ones through the development and deployment of whole new families of innovative products, applications and services History shows that those who wait for the plateaux find only monopolised or commoditised marketplaces

To illustrate the above, the following example from the IT sector can be used: the shrinking of processors permitted us to move from the mainframe era (60’s and ~ O ’ S ) , to the stand-alone PC era (from the 70’s until 1985) Then came the shrinking of laser

technology, which enabled the Internet as we know it This gave rise to a new plateau, that of networked computing

FIGURE 6

The plateau that is coming next is brought about by a new vision It can be attributed again to a kind of shrinking, that is the shrinking of sensors and actuators of all kinds and

to the recent advances in embedded software Their combination will allow the creation

of an environment of ambient intelligence (see Figure 5)

ambient intelligence are as follows

The main technology building blocks that are underneath this new environment of

Seamless communication networks, spanning from the personal area to the regional

and global area Seamless communications, be that through fixed wired or wireless telephony, wireless LANs, mobile telephony or through satellites

A new generation of what Michael Dertouzos would call anthropocentric interfaces: interfaces that will enable us to communicate with computing and networking systems through our senses in a most intuitive and natural manner as opposed to artefacts that we have today Interfaces that will increase the usability of such systems and enhancelsubstitute for our senses

Intelligent environments enabled by computing embedded in anylevery physical object in our surroundings and with everything linked together through seamless communication networks

And a new family of intelligent systems based on a new generation of knowledge

technologies, binding everything together and removing the complexity of human interaction with information technology

FIGURE 7

Given the above, how will this new vision of Ambient Intelligence materialise in

practice? Some representative examples are shown in Figure 6 The illustrations of this

figure are not an attempt to provide a futuristic vision, since each one of these items exist already today as prototypes in laboratories The only thing that prevents many of these prototypes to go to the market is the business case, the business model, not the technology

as such

Video walls, virtual-real meetings: a truly new generation of video conferencing technology You are at a meeting table with people around in front of you You are able to communicate with them effectively as if they are sitting next to you in the same room, in fact you are led to believe they are present in the same room, but they are actually located at several remote locations

Foldable workstations: by folding up the screen, they become your new computing and networking environment

Navigation schemes in all kinds of transport systems and new driver assistance

systems for assisting car driving under difficult traffic or weather conditions or at night

Immersive television For watching exhibitions and shows from your TV, as if you were physically present there and for choosing any viewing angle you wish

The medical mirror aimed in particular for handicapped or aged people that need health monitoring at home Practically all the basic health measurements and monitoring can take place at home, without the patients staying in the hospital more than what is necessary

And then, the Call-My-agent sort of example, where you just order what you want to

be done rather than keying it into the keyboard

All the above examples support the message that scientific and technological advance and applications go now hand in hand, but also that we are still at the very primitive stage

in these technologies

But what is underneath these technologies to support their exponential advance? In the case of computing, there is a fairly clear roadmap - see Figure 7 This roadmap is based on what is known as Moore’s law: the memory size or the number of transistors on chip is doubling every 18 months In fact, the first part of the roadmap is based on the miniaturisation advances of CMOS technology It is the world of the so-called

“shrinkers” But then, there comes a point around year 2010-2011 where a switch is

‘expected to take place and to move from the shrinkers to the “thinkers” Namely, this is

at the stage where what before was considered as noise (in Shannon‘s terms) becomes now a useful signal: the quantum effects

There is a lot of basic research that the Community is funding in the area of understanding quantum effects and using them to build the next generation of computing and networking This is supported by the Future and Emerging Technologies part of the IST Programme and is expected to be strengthened even more in the IST Programme

under the 6‘h Framework Programme

But there exists a roadblock It is not related to technology advances in hardware but

to progress in software As mentioned before, in microelectronics, according to the law of

Moore, computing power is doubling every 18 months This corresponds to a compound annual growth rate of 58 % (see graph of figure 8) In order to keep pace with this

growth, geometric structures are getting so small that small-scale effects must be considered Despite the use of advanced CAD tools, the growth in design productivity as

measured by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors is only 21 %

CAGR, massively below the growth in system complexity Another cause of design gaps

is coming from shrinking product lifetimes Time-to-market is becoming so important that now it alone can sometimes determine the economic success The systems are more complex but have to be designed in shorter time This again is shown in the productivity

map of Figure 8 Bridging this productivity gap is one of the major challenges of this

FIGURE 8

decade for realising the vision, especially when one also considers the advances expected

by the next generation of computing, quantum computing: it will factor a 1000 digit number in a fraction of a second and is going to undo the whole basis of cryptography as

we know it today

All the above related to the computing side, but what is going to happen on the networking side? Seamless communications and broadband access everywhere: by meshing all sorts of different communication networks, whether these are fixed telephony

networks, fixed wireless networks, 3”d generation mobile networks, wireless LANs or

whatsoever Indeed, within this decade, the integration of fixed and mobile, all-IP, communication infrastructures and their interconnection and interoperability will permit

the seamless roaming of data and services and their access from anywhere at anytime These will be provided not only through PC-based but notably also through digital TV as well as through mobile communication platforms This in its turn will contribute to opening up demand for a whole new generation of broadband applications and services The above do not represent just a quantitative advance but also a qualitative one, because then the network will become the computer, in the sense of grids The easiest example one can use today is the sharing of computing power by some 3.5 million PC’s to try and decipher space signals - that is the SETZ @ home initiative Similar efforts are also under way for environmental modelling and other “peer-to-peer’’ platforms

And then there are all the activities which, in terms of complexity, one would call the tera-world, like protein folding that is foreseen to be at the origin of the next revolution in

medicine A protein folds in nature in about 20 milliseconds To simulate it today using

the most powerful computer may take 40 months The interconnection and inter-working

of the most advanced computing systems may permit to satisfy soon the requirements of the tera-world, like these computations in proteomics This is expected to come, again, within this decade

So, one aspect is that the network will become the computer, the other aspect is that the network will become the system, within a distributed control architecture In this case, one is referring to complex non-linear systems, where control does not mean what it used to be, where it is impossible to control everything completely all the time, where

FIGURE 9

proceeding by model decomposition and model reduction techniques is no longer sufficient There, totally new techniques mainly coming from the theory of complex systems must be devised to serve

Once again, the roadblock is found in the underlying knowledge technologies, which are needed both for the nano-scale, in the case of nanotechnology, and for the tera-scale,

in the case of networking What is needed in fact is disruptive software technologies, in

the sense that they represent the discontinuity with respect to what it is possible to do

today (see Figure 9) Such disruptive software technologies will have to deal mainly with

the following

and data handling, including intelligent data mining and data retrieval

with each other

And finally, with

The simplest perhaps adjustment is going from the basics, be that scientific or as an engineer or as a citizen in the information society, to a set of evolved basics - these are the so-called 3Ss (see Figure 10):

the lower technician

level to the most advanced computer science or microelectronics application - have not

an expiration date of more than 4 years As an example one can mention all those people

who thought that, having learnt Oracle and C++ would provide a job for a life as a well- paid programmer This was true five years ago but certainly it is not any more today

We are now entering the world of continuous learning and training and one has to question what will happen Can universities, as we know them today, remain the sole and

exclusive portrayer of professional training? I do not believe so Certainly, universities

should and will remain the keepers of truth and beauty, and at the core of scientific research But as far as professional and vocational training are concerned, there seem to

be many other actors - the private sector and commercial services - that come, using the technologies themselves, to play a role

So to caricature, the argument, we can say, is that the skills needed for the 21" century can be categorised in four areas (see Figure 11):

1 skills required for dealing with the nano-world,

2 skills for addressing the problems of the tera-world,

3 cognition skills providing the glue,

4 and finally, all the above must be underpinned by complex system theory and the techniques emanating from it, because in every single category such a context is valid

Conclusions

At several points in this

paper I made reference to

(Figure 12) This was

because I wished to use

this occasion to honour

them It is also because

each one had a direct

student days to that most elegant foundation of digital communication theory

Michael Dertouzos as a spiritual brother and a visionary, who saw and anticipated the bridge between basic research and applications, and, perhaps more importantly, the bridge - a sort of luminous arc - between technology and humanism He made extensive reference to this in his final book “The unfinished revolution”: The enlightenment, some 300 years ago - perhaps unnecessarily, perhaps accidentally -

separated technology and humanism It is perhaps time to see if these two can be brought back together

It was meant to be that both Claude Shannon and Michael Dertouzos left us in 2001

It is now up to us to carry their vision forward

Contributors to the Proceedings of the XXII Solvay Conference

on Physics

Administrative Council of the International Solvay Institutes for

Physics and Chemistry

Scientific Committee of Physics of the International Solvay Institutes

for Physics and Chemistry

Honorary Committee

Hellenic Scientific Committee and Local Organising Committee

The Solvay Conferences on Physics

Preface

Prologue by Minister E Venizelos

First Solvay Conference

Opening Address by J Solvay

Opening Remarks by I Prigogine

Challenges in Ambient Intelligence

G Metakides

Decoherence and Irreversibility

Stochasticity and Time Symmetry Breaking in Hamiltonian Dynamics

I Prigogine, S Kim, G Ordonez and T Petrosky

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