6 ms·
A cool way to explain logic gates with water [video]
- pstuart 7y agoNow someone should take this to the next level and makes a fountain that implements an 8-bit adder.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- kylek 7y agoWill 3 bits do? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qP9HfUOCN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qP9HfUOCN4
- pstuart 7y agoThat will do quite nicely, thank you!
- rkagerer 7y agoIs that a text-to-speech voice?
- CGamesPlay 7y agoYeah, lots of science videos do this, particularly when the authors are non-English-native and (presumably) nervous about their voice/accent.
- rkagerer 7y agoIt's one of the more interesting TTS voices I've heard, particularly in terms of where it places emphasis. Any idea what it's named?
- acqq 7y agoA typical example that just appears to be "insightful" while what is happening in the actual logic gates has no similarity with that at all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58nSgVvXVbo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58nSgVvXVbo so any "intuition" one might hope to gain from these two pipes will be wrong. Therefore "explain logic gates" is an incorrect title. It can be used to explain the truth table for AND, but not the gates.
- stared 7y ago"Logic gates" is an abstract concept, and yes, it is essentially a truth table. You refer to one of the transistor-based implementations of logic gates. Yes, it works differently.
- acqq 7y agoI refer to any kind of logic gates actually used in the devices we use -- otherwise what is there to "explain"?
- saagarjha 7y agoThe boolean algebra part.
- acqq 7y agoFor "the boolean algebra part" the table like from here (second slide) is a real explanation: https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse370/03au/lectures/02-Comb.pdf https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse370/03au/lectur... "There are 16 possible functions of 2 input variables: in general, there are 2^(2^n) functions of n inputs" "And" from the original tweet is just one of them.
- darkmighty 7y agoCMOS logic is actually really simple and easy to understand (from a functional model of ideal CMOS transistors). Indeed a water analogue shouldn't be necessary if one wants to understand modern gates themselves.
- userbinator 7y agoI suppose you could call this "dynamic water logic" because it relies on flow instead of pressure. I was expecting hydraulic relay valves ("static water logic"), which are widespread in industrial control applications, and perhaps even more commonly, the automotive automatic transmission: http://www.cogpro.com/chapters/E-CruiseOMatic/images/E-CruiseOmatic0051_jpg.jpg http://www.cogpro.com/chapters/E-CruiseOMatic/images/E-Cruis... Almost all the material I could find about computing with water seems to focus on dynamic gates, essentially completely ignoring the century-old[1] knowledge of hydraulics that's been present all along. Perhaps this shows just how isolated the different disciplines can be. [1] I have a book from the early 1900s about water-operated elevators, complete with descriptions of all the valving required to control the hydraulic ram. They were logic gates, before they were even called logic gates!
- 1wd 7y agoWhat's the book called?
- userbinator 7y agoHydraulic Elevators Looks like archive.org has a copy: https://archive.org/details/hydraulicelevato00baxtrich https://archive.org/details/hydraulicelevato00baxtrich It's from 1910, so almost 110 years ago.
- TuringNYC 7y agoThe book The Three Body Problem also has a great scene explaining logic and computational math via ... traditional means :-)
- carlosdp 7y agoI was thinking the same thing! Great book, highly recommend
- zemnmez 7y agoi don't think this would 'explain' a logic gate to anyone who doesn't already understand a logic gate. this model doesn't convey any information that would help someone reason about a logic gate. If you didn't know anything about logic gates and you saw this, how would it improve your intuition? If I imagine these water streams in my head, does it help me understand how, why or what logic gates do? i learned logic gates playing mods for games I was playing... I could have a motion sensor and see when I NOT'd it it made its signal the opposite. I could AND two of my sensors and see that I now had a signal combining both. I think this kind of thing, a model that simulates how logic gates are used gives a much better intuitive understanding of what they're for and how to use them.
- blotter_paper 7y agoDisagree. I once had a conversation with a sibling who was trying to understand logic gates, and I ended up using a verbal explanation of a very similar setup (in my example the AND gate was a pipe with a hole in the bottom just big enough to drain one but not both of the potential incoming streams, and another hole partway up leading into an output pipe). I think pipes can provide a useful example that seems more real and tangible than semiconductors. As an aside, I've heard/read more than one source use water as an analogy for electricity -- I think it can help people reason about, for example, friction impeding rate of flow before they're comfortable enough thinking about electrons that this would make sense intuitively.
- Wowfunhappy 7y agoIt totally worked for me. I have zero physics background, and this is something I've never understand. I knew what a logic gate did, but the core idea of "how does a gate just know whether it's this AND this" always seemed like magic. I had a serious lightbulb moment with this video. Although, I had to download it and slowly scrub through several times. I still don't actually understand how this would work with electricity, but I can see how it's broadly possible.
- zeta0134 7y agoArmed with this information, you should try to understand voltage, resistance, relays, and transistors, in roughly that order. That may help to bridge the gap from the water gates here, to transistors which are solid state; you can't see them moving, but they largely accomplish the same basic function and can be used to create the same kinds of gates using just electricity.
- h4kor 7y agoSo, water is turing complete.
- elfexec 7y agoNo. No more than electricity is turing complete.
- 6510 7y agoI want to build a megalithic computer using a river flowing down a mountain. The AND gate is a enormous door lifted by an enormous arm attached to an enormous block hollowed out from the bottom so that it can float. Input is done by almost lifted doors that can be moved by applying enough man power. The display is just enormous blocks lifted up. It should do something important like play pong.
- sandoooo 7y agocool. now if someone could just explain water flow with logic gates...
- emmelaich 7y agoI strongly suspect Ted Stevens was thinking of hydraulic systems and logic when he made the "series of tubes" comment. He attended engineering school in 1942, around the time that hydraulic systems underwent a resurgence.
- hyperpallium 7y agoIf the navier stokes equations are turing equivalent there's no analytic solution.
- tsumnia 7y agoI know HN is normally above such low brow things, but since these were made by the original creator, I think it's okay... Logic Gates with "Yellow Water": https://gfycat.com/radiantimportantfieldmouse https://gfycat.com/radiantimportantfieldmouse Logic Gates with Slurm: https://i.imgur.com/UJyNd9T.gifv https://i.imgur.com/UJyNd9T.gifv
- Jemm 7y agoI kind of like the way the Ontario Science Centre taught logic gates which was by using balls on tracks rather than water.
- dexmaxtron 7y agoi think that app really sucks i mean instagram is much better for such things i have ever used twitter and it was really stupid so i don't use it ️