Information is something that can be encoded in the state of a physical system, and a computation is a task that can be performed with a physically realizable device.  Thus the quest for better ways to acquire, store, transmit, and process information leads us to seek more powerful methods for understanding and controlling the physical world. Limitations inherent in the physical form of information (such as the size of atoms and the quantum effects that unavoidably arise in very small systems) pose great challenges that must be overcome if information technology is to continue to advance at the rate to which we have grown accustomed.

The CPI is dedicated to the proposition that physical science and information science are interdependent and inseparable. Our research aims, on the one hand, to foster physical insights that can pave the way for revolutionary new information technologies, and, on the other hand, to stimulate new ideas about information that can illuminate fundamental issues in physics and chemistry.

News

Professor Erik Winfree and his group have created DNA logic circuits that work in salt water, similar to an intracellular environment. Such circuits could lead to a biochemical microcontroller, of sorts, for biological cells and other complex chemical systems. The lead author of the paper is Georg Seelig, a postdoctoral scholar in Winfree's lab. Read more... 12-7-06

Michael Hochberg and Tom Baehr-Jones, along with Axel Scherer, the Neches Professor of Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, and Physics, and collleagues at the University of Washington, have developed a new silicon and polymer waveguide that can manipulate light signals using light, at speeds almost 100 times as fast as conventional electron-based optical modulators. 11-1-06

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