While w measures the number of cells you need, r is a coarse approximation of the complexity of each cell.
In practice people never got a ternary cell that cost only 3/2 of the best binary cells (in both space, power and money). That's why research dried up. But there's no reason to think this is fundamental.
In practice people never got a ternary cell that cost only 3/2 of the best binary cells (in both space, power and money). That's why research dried up. But there's no reason to think this is fundamental.