Chapter 406: Millennium Reward

A memristor, short for memory resistor, is a circuit device capable of representing the relationship between magnetic flux and charge.

Unlike ordinary resistors, its resistance is determined by the charge flowing through it. That is to say, its resistance will be changed by the current that flowed through it last time. By measuring the resistance of the memristor, one can know the amount of charge that flowed through it, thus having the function of remembering charge.

Because this characteristic is very similar to the plasticity effect of neural synapses, it is one of the most effective ways to simulate artificial neural networks.

And the magic silicon carbide material discovered by Denzel Evans can be seen as a type of magic memristor. It is not a magic semiconductor, so it cannot be used to make ordinary classic computer chips, but it is extremely suitable as a magic neural network chip.

And neural network chips, because they are naturally suitable for machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms, are actually more suitable for the Internet of Things than ordinary classic chips. They are more capable of making "things" possess "intelligence."

This thing is simply tailor-made for Murphy's "Magic Internet of Things" project.

At this time, the memristor was still a theoretical concept. It was still twelve years away from 2008, when the first memristor component in the original world was manufactured by HP.

At this time, even electronic memristors hadn't appeared in the world, and Denzel Evans didn't have Murphy's future vision and didn't know the potential of artificial intelligence and neural networks in the future, so he didn't think in this direction at all.

Murphy didn't explain too much to him, but immediately formed a project team, which gathered various experts in artificial neural networks and extracted a large amount of data on memristors and artificial neural network research from his memory.

Since this area had some relation to his own profession, he had paid more attention to it at the time, so the data was much more detailed. Basically, relying solely on this data could save them more than twenty years of research, approaching the research progress before Murphy traveled through time.

"Currently, various applications of magic technology are blossoming, which has already brought huge changes to the world. I believe everyone has experienced this through various projects such as the moon landing."

At the project team's inaugural meeting, Murphy spoke to everyone.

"However, if we want to apply magic technology more widely in various fields and let it inherit the scientific research achievements of the past few hundred years, we still have two important problems to solve."

"The first is the magic energy problem. Several frontier projects, such as the Artificial Magic Net project, are all to solve this problem."

"And the second equally important one is magic chip technology. The technological progress of the modern world can basically be seen as the progress of precision technology. The upper limit of our processing and production capacity depends on the ability of precision processing. And if we want magic technology to have the same processing precision, we must manufacture chips that can operate with magic as energy."

"And this project team today is to research artificial neural network chips with magic memristors as the core. I have already distributed the advanced research data on memristors and artificial neural networks to everyone. Everyone needs to verify and familiarize themselves with this data first, and then on this basis, go further to develop magic chips sufficient for commercial application."

"Originally, for such profound and frontier research, we should move forward slowly. But unfortunately, we don't have much time left."

"Gods are invading our world."

"And the weapons we can use to defeat them might be in your hands."

"To speed up the research progress, from now on, every laboratory can apply to use a time accelerator to accelerate time in themselves or a certain area," Murphy said. "Of course, to avoid this method disguisedly reducing everyone's life, we will provide life-extension magic for free."

"We have two ways of life extension: one is to become a vampire, and the other is to combine anti-aging potions and immortality potions. Both methods can extend everyone's lifespan by more than a thousand years."

"However, no matter what method is used, the time everyone invests in research is real. The boring research process and the setbacks and suffering endured in this process will not be reduced at all. The aging and trauma imposed on everyone's mind by those years will be as certain as this time is to you."

"For this, we are almost powerless."

"Therefore, this is a research method that goes to the future. While paying the highest respect to the brave choices everyone may make, I personally also hope that everyone can consider carefully, seriously, and responsibly whether to use such means."

However, just as Murphy finished speaking, a researcher in the audience raised their hand, "How is the salary calculated?"

"Naturally, it is measured by everyone's actual working time," Murphy said.

"Then what else is there to say? I apply to use time acceleration!" the researcher said. "Since I have embarked on this path, the so-called boredom, dullness, setbacks, suffering, etc., are all things I have already prepared for mentally. Being able to pay only some mental price and get papers and results a hundred times faster—if peers knew about this, they would definitely be envious enough to reincarnate on the spot!"

"I heard the highest magnification of the time accelerator is a hundred times? Something that might take others a year to produce results, I only need three days! With such a good thing, is there any need to hesitate?!"

"I heard that becoming a vampire will make you unable to sleep, but your appearance can always be kept young. Is it true?" a female researcher raised her hand and asked. "I mean, I want to know if it will make me ugly?"

"That's not accurate, but there are indeed some experimental results showing that vampires will only show signs of aging at the end of their lifespan. As for the sleep problem, our vampire treatment potion will also be made soon, and those negative effects should be solved quickly."

"Then I have no problem. I will also apply for time acceleration."

"Can the magnification of time acceleration be higher?" a researcher asked.

"It is possible to continue to improve in the future," Murphy answered, "but even if there is a higher magnification time accelerator, I don't suggest everyone use it. There are too many uncertain factors."

"How exactly is the time acceleration of the area operated? Is there any danger?" someone asked again.

"We will cover the entire research room or institute with magic metal wires and then use a time accelerator on it. To ensure the various needs of everyone in the building, it will be equipped with various facilities and materials, and at the same time, it will always maintain contact with the outside world. The acceleration state can also be stopped at any time. We have fully considered various possibilities. This acceleration method is safe."

"Of course, the larger the accelerated area, the more substances involved, and the higher the acceleration magnification, the greater the magic energy consumed. Therefore, currently, we can only perform a hundred-fold acceleration on facilities of about 30,000 cubic meters."

"Then, I propose that the magic chip project team accelerate collectively," Denzel Evans said. "This way, we can also always align our research progress with each other. Anyway, this is already the most frontier research, and whether we communicate with the outside world is basically unimportant."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 407 =====