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Here is a story from JonnySpace. C:\>

When the Apollo 13 flight was jeopardized by unforeseen events, new
flight plans produced by computers were available in 84 minutes.
At the time, one person working on the problem could have performed
the task in 1,040,256 years. With a desk calculator, the time would
have been cut to 60,480 years.

Many people ask, how fast do computers operate JonnySpace?

Computers operate at speeds measured in nanoseconds (ns).
1 nanosecond = 1 billionth of a second. High performance computers
are capable of executing trillions of instructions per second. One
supercomputer built by a Japanese company has has a theoretical
maximum speed of 1 petaflop (1 quadrillion operations per second).
By comparison your brain is made up of about one trillion cells.

You may say, I can't conceive of how fast a nanosecond is. Help?

No problem. One nanosecond is to one second what one second is
to 32 years. One nanosecond is the approximate time required for
light to travel one foot.

Is there any limit to the internal speed of a computer JonnySpace?

Electrical signals are propagated at speeds approaching the speed
of light (1 foot / nanosecond). Integrated circuits packing many
thousands of transistors per square inch have been designed to
minimize the length of the interconnections through which electrical
signals are propagated; this reduces the time it takes a signal to
travel from one transistor to another in the circuit. If signals are
propagated using light instead of electricity, speed and bandwidth
can be optimized. The only limit to the internal speed of a computer
lies in our minds perception and imagination of what a computer is,
and how it can be created.

I hope this will shed some light on the subject (pun intended).
You should now be able to realize the importance of the hybrid
silicon laser and its benefits. For even more info click this link
Silicon Photonics Research.
Originally posted on the Planet in 2006 by JonnySpace.