6 ms·
Programmable Water (2003)
- amelius 10y agoAre these gates "regenerative", in the sense that you can combine them indefinitely in theory? Or do they lose power, so that after a few consecutive gates they lose their function?
- Aardwolf 10y agoI think if no water leaks away it looks like it can be infinite, but the article mentions lots of leaks. Also, the amount of water doubles after AND, that could escalate into a problem unless excess can be removed somewhere...
- Frenchgeek 10y agoSo, if the water is the medium moving data, that make it a device with actual memory leaks, right?
- gnipgnip 10y agoThe pressure head will likely fall off very rapidly with the number of gates.
- lifeformed 10y agoYou could probably build "amplifiers" down the line by adding more water to circuits with positive flow.
- marcosdumay 10y agoYou can certainly plug them in complement style, so that water does not run when it's not switching (except for leaks), and that pressure does not drop from one gate to the other (but you must consider fan-in and fan-out).
- totalZero 10y agoYou could install delay pieces between stages of your computer, like those Japanese fountain pieces that collect water and tip over when they get full. Put them all on one axle, and the different logic components of your stage will stay synched.
- rihegher 10y agoIf it's easy to do and does not require electricity nor electronics then could it be that computers has been created in previous civilization and we are not aware of it yet?
- altechcode 10y agoThe concept of logic systems themselves have far preceeded the first electrical circuits. I am sure this was put to physical use somewhere in history, but to call it a "computer" would be kind of a stretch. Very doubtful in my opinion, certainly not a computer to any extend we would imagine one today.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoWhat enables computers we know today is not just logical circuits - primarily, it's that we're able to pack a shit ton of them in a very, very small volume. Each processor today has close to a billion logic gates in it (assuming ~4 transistors per gate).
- taneq 10y agoWell, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism is arguably pretty computery and is thousands of years old. To build something we'd consider a 'computer' requires a huge amount of conceptual background. Boolean logic, binary arithmetic, memory, Von Neumann architecture... and to be useful, it really has to exist in a society with lots of things being recorded and tallied on paper.
- gnipgnip 10y agoTerrible title. I came here hoping for mystical stuff like, http://www.personal.psu.edu/~tms9/Therapy_Waters.html http://www.personal.psu.edu/~tms9/Therapy_Waters.html Also. Look everyone! Programmable electrons!
- wwggggoi 10y agoyeh the thing being programmed not same as thing title said was being programmed, am annoyed too
- mrkgnao 10y agoI think I remember Terence Tao talking about something like this in relation to Navier-Stokes.
- ramgorur 10y agohydraulic analog computing machines used to be one of many ways to perform economic simulations, and there is a whole discipline came out of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_macroeconomics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_macroeconomics