3 ms·
The WireWorld Computer
- akg 15y agoI really think there are some really powerful applications for this going forward. Building computation/logical rules into the materials to organically create complex structures might be one way to achieve goals synthetic approaches cannot. Reminds me of Saul Griffith's talk at TED: http://www.ted.com/talks/saul_griffith_on_everyday_inventions.html http://www.ted.com/talks/saul_griffith_on_everyday_invention...
- bfrs 15y agoFor me this computer provided one of those rare aha! moments. I finally got what all the fuss about Cellular Automata (CA) and Conway's 'Game of Life' (GoL) is all about. I'm aware that the GoL has been proved to be Turing Complete too, but then in the case of WireWorld CA, seeing is believing. It is said "a picture is worth a thousand words", in this case, a picture [1] is worth a tome [2]. [1] http://www.quinapalus.com/wires11.html http://www.quinapalus.com/wires11.html [2] http://www.wolframscience.com/thebook.html http://www.wolframscience.com/thebook.html (psst...NKS copies are available for $1-2 and are excellent bed risers! ;)
- pjscott 15y agoThe style of logic used here resembles quantum dot cellular automata: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_dot_cellular_automaton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_dot_cellular_automaton