led by Kim Kyung-rok at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, which will help development of low power and high computing microchips in the future. This research theme was selected as one of the future projects funded by Samsung in 2017, published on July 15, 2019. Potential future applications With the advent of mass-produced binary components for computers, ternary computers have diminished in significance. However, Donald Knuth argues that they will be brought back into development in the future to take advantage of ternary logic's elegance and efficiency. One possible way this could happen is by combining an optical computer with the ternary logic system. A ternary computer using fiber optics could use dark as 0 and two orthogonal polarizations of light as +1 and −1. The Josephson junction has been proposed as a balanced ternary memory cell, using circulating superconducting currents, either clockwise, counterclockwise, or off. "The advantages of the proposed memory circuit are capability of high speed computation, low power consumption and very simple construction with fewer elements due to the ternary operation." Ternary computers in popular culture In Robert A. Heinlein's novel Time Enough for Love, the sapient computers of Secundus, the planet on which part of the framing story is set, including Minerva, use an unbalanced ternary system. Minerva, in reporting a calculation result, says "three hundred forty one thousand six hundred forty... the original ternary readout is unit pair pair comma unit nil nil comma unit pair pair comma unit nil nil point nil". Virtual Adepts in the roleplaying game Mage: The Ascension use ternary computers. In Howard Tayler's webcomic Schlock Mercenary, every modern computer is a ternary computer. AIs use the extra digit as "maybe" in boolean (true/false) operations, thus having a much more intimate understanding of fuzzy logic than is possible with binary computers. The Conjoiners, in Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series, use ternary logic to program their computers and nanotechnology devices. In Stanisław Lem's short story "The Hunt", the robot hunted by the protagonist is called Setaur, Self-programming Electronic Ternary Automaton Racemic. Tasen and Komato aliens, in the computer game Iji, use ternary logic to program their nanotechnology. See also Radix economy Ternary numeral system Skew binary number system Ternary signal Flip-flap-flop Ternary SRAM Decimal computer Unconventional computing References Further reading External links The ternary calculating machine of Thomas Fowler 3niti – Collaboration for Open Ternary Computer Development