Ainan invents optoelectronics

On the 12th November 2006, Ainan Celeste Cawley, aged six, independently invented the idea of optoelectronics.

Ainan was musing about the problem of electronic miniaturization. "How come chips are getting smaller, every year?" He began, with earnestness. "What happens when they get too small for electrons to pass through?"

With just a single beat for thought, he came up with an answer: "They should use light, instead." He observed, "But then you need to turn it back into electrons. So, you turn electrons into light, then light into electrons - and you pass the light along optical fibre."

Ainan was proposing beginning with an electronic signal, turning it into a photonic signal, calculating, then turning it back into an electronic signal. I don't know much about technology, but that sounds a lot like opto-electronics to me.

I asked him if this was his idea and he assured me that it was: all his ideas are...but I was just checking before I reported it.

In reporting Ainan Celeste Cawley's conversations, I am often left with a dilemma. Would it interest the readers of my blog to know how he speaks and thinks...or would it turn them off from its technical nature? I am left therefore to choose matters which are more accessible. Much of what he says is a rapid patter of scientific ideas, observations, facts, theories, propositions and matters to be explored. It is simply too abundant to report: each day's report would be thousands of words of scientific jargon...and I am sure that would be too much for all but the most technical/scientific of readers. So, instead, I report snapshots in digestible sizes.

Please give me some feedback as to your tolerance of scientific reporting: can I expand upon what Ainan says, more thoroughly...would it actually be of interest? I cannot know until you tell me. Thanks.

If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, six, a scientific child prodigy and his creative thought, and gifted brothers, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also speak of child prodigy, child genius, savant, the creatively gifted and gifted children in general.