Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Think we may be talking about different things here... The idea I am 
> talking about is that you programmaticaly do the equivalent of:

Well, if you're talking about logical reversability, sure. But that's not 
all that much more interesting than memoization.

> 1 + 2 + 4 * 5 = result
> roll back to 1 + 2
> 3 * 10 + 5 = result

Pulling out the result is irreversible.

> The point of the idea being that if you do not have to "turn on" a 
> switch, only shut some off, the cost is lower. 

That's not how it works. You have to drive the circuit backwards. You don't 
just turn off parts of it, as that's irreversible too. Unless you're talking 
about "logical reversibility", which isn't what I'm talking about.

> it didn't require a quantum computer to do so.

It doesn't necessarily need to be quantum entanglement. But the only 
mechanism people have used (at least that I've heard about) that worked is 
to do the computing with a chain of atoms that calculate what you're trying 
to calculate, with the calculation being driven along by a voltage gradient.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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