Information Science Meets the Material World

Zauner, K.-P. (2005) Information Science Meets the Material World. Towards 2020 Science, Venice. 29 Jun - 01 Jul 2005.

Abstract

Current material science is very limited in its ability to organise matter in detail. We lack the capability to create extended heterogenous nanostructures. Nevertheless, such structures can feasibly be fabricated as is exemplified by living matter and its constituents. To break this long-standing limitation and to extend material science and engineering into the realm for complex heterogenous systems, fundamentally new approaches for the design of materials are required. To implement nano-structured systems at a time scale that does not increase proportional with component count, it will be necessary to endow material building blocks with the competency to self-organise. This implies moving away from external control and towards the embedding of information processes into molecular building blocks. Engineering in this domain faces the challenge of intrinsic context sensitivity---simple rules do not apply. The predictability of design decisions that underlies human creative engineering breaks down in the face of the complex component interactions. Computational science is essential for overcoming this hurdle. On-line modelling and simulation need to resurrect predictability to enable the conception and design of complex organised matter. In addition, search methods that can explore combinatorial design spaces in a practical time would be desirable.

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