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This week I’ve been reading “Asimov on Chemistry” a collection of Isaac Asimov’s early scientific essays. And Oh my how computing has changed since the 1960’s! As the following extract demonstrates…..

pg 44-47 from “Asimov on Chemistry”

“The phenomenon of superconductivity has allowed the invention of a tiny device that can act as a switch. In simpest form, it consists of a small wire of tantalum wrapped about a wire of niobium. If the wires are dipped in a liquid helium so that the niobium wire is superconductive, a tiny current passed through it will remain indefinitely until another current is sent through the tantalum wire.

Properly manipulated, such a “cryotron” can be used to replace vacuum tubes or transistors..so that a giant computing machine of the future may well be desk-sized or less if it is entirely “cryotronized”….The only catch is that for such a cryotronized computer to work, it must be dipped wholly into liquid helium….Which brings up the question, of course, wether we have enough helium on Earth to support a society in which helium-dipped computers are common.”

(>_< At this point I was laughing so hard I was starting to tear up, but wait it get's better....)

“It is possible to imagine, then, a computerized society of the future down to it’s last few million cubic feet of easily-obtainable helium. What next? Scrabble for the traces in air and soil? Make do with liquid hydrogen? Abandon cryotronized computers and try to return to the giant inefficient machines of the past?…..Such a threatened society ought to have developed space travel, so that they need not seek helium only here on Earth…..The next biggest source of helium is Jupiter….Suppose mankind could establish a base on Jupiter V, Jupiter’s inner most satellite…Uncounted tons of helium may prove easy to collect liquefy and store. The next logical step would be to refrain from shipping….Instead, why not build the computers right there on Jupiter V?”

(So in 1960 according to Isaac Asimov we would all need to go to Jupiter V to access a PC, because of the vast amounts of helium that it would use. LOL!)

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