Scientists have successfully developed a computer out of E. coli bacteria (
again), which has managed to solve the Burnt Pancake Problem -- at least in a limited form. The problem involves creating a golden-side-up stack of pancakes out of all different size pancakes, each of which is burned one side, with the largest pancake on the bottom tapering up to the smallest on top. You can only use a spatula to flip a top section of pancakes, and the math problem is to sort the stack in as few flips as possible. In addition to making regular human mathematicians very hungry, the problem exponentially spirals out of control -- for six pancakes there are 46,080 permutations, for 12 pancakes there are 1.9 trillion. The E. coli computer differs from a regular computer in that it turn each piece of DNA into a simulated pancake, with sections of DNA being flipped to hide from a killer antibiotic if they get the answer right, and killed if they get the answer wrong. With millions of "computers" able to fit in a drop of water, scaling won't be an issue once they figure things out, but for now E. coli can only figure out how to sort two pancakes.
[Thanks, Hraefn]
posted May 29th 2008 7:34PM
> With millions of "computers" able to fit in a drop of water,
> scaling won't be an issue
Wrong. Scaling will become an issue as soon as you have millions of possible solutions. As you say:
> for 12 pancakes there are 1.9 trillion
So, to solve the problem for even 12 pancakes takes 1.9 million drops of water (say a bath full) (divided by how many attempts you're willing to wait for each one to compute).
You cannot sidestep the exponential complexity of a problem just by throwing more processors at it.
Actually the e.coli bacteria only has a volume of 1x10-18 m3 so even 1.9 million would only occupy 1.9x10-12 m3 which is a minscule volume
Silly question perhaps but if they are programmed to die if the answer is wrong does that not mean the one that programmed it knew the answer already? And how useful is that then?
Perhaps it can reduce E-coli poisoning if you stack your pancakes just right though.
Pancakes? I cat get a Hell of a lot more E.Coli from Jack in the Box
BTW, their Sirloin BBQ burger iz teh win.
WE'RE ALL DOOMED!!!
I can see the headlines in a few years: invincible bacteria decimates world population, was taught to dodge antibiotics by silly scientists.
DOOM.... DOOM... DOOM... DOOM... DOOM...
So you are saying it does play doom I gather.
Does anyone else see this as a very bad thing? They're training bacteria to be resilient to anti-biotics. As I understand it that's a bad thing and is already happening naturally. Why should we help something that's gonna end up hurting us?