3 ms·

It gets weirder than that, if you bring a fluorescent bulb close enough to high-voltage transmission lines, it will just glow. https://www.farmanddairy.com/top-

It gets weirder than that, if you bring a fluorescent bulb close enough to high-voltage transmission lines, it will just glow. https://www.farmanddairy.com/top-stories/how-to-make-a-fluorescent-bulb-glow-under-transmission-power-lines/623730.html https://www.farmanddairy.com/top-stories/how-to-make-a-fluor... Induction is a fact about the physical world which I accept but have never truly understood.

Izkata 3y ago
I remember reading about an experiment years ago where computer chips that could be reconfigured programmatically (FGPAs? Not sure) were put through a genetic algorithm to see if it could come up with a circuit to do a task on its own. In one of the results, the circuit wasn't actually connected end to end so it took them a while to figure out how it worked - turned out the two halves were communicating through induction. I think that same experiment had a configuration that would only work on one chip and not others it was copied to, because it accidentally relied on impurities in one of the components.
- scrlk 3y ago
  Was it this article? https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/ https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/ > "It seems that evolution had not merely selected the best code for the task, it had also advocated those programs which took advantage of the electromagnetic quirks of that specific microchip environment. The five separate logic cells were clearly crucial to the chip’s operation, but they were interacting with the main circuitry through some unorthodox method — most likely via the subtle magnetic fields that are created when electrons flow through circuitry, an effect known as magnetic flux. There was also evidence that the circuit was not relying solely on the transistors’ absolute ON and OFF positions like a typical chip; it was capitalizing upon analogue shades of gray along with the digital black and white."
  - Izkata 3y ago
    Yep that's it, I remember this line too: > He also strayed from convention by omitting the system clock, thereby stripping the chip of its ability to synchronize its digital resources in the traditional way.

Izkata 3y ago

I remember reading about an experiment years ago where computer chips that could be reconfigured programmatically (FGPAs? Not sure) were put through a genetic algorithm to see if it could come up with a circuit to do a task on its own. In one of the results, the circuit wasn't actually connected end to end so it took them a while to figure out how it worked - turned out the two halves were communicating through induction. I think that same experiment had a configuration that would only work on one chip and not others it was copied to, because it accidentally relied on impurities in one of the components.

scrlk 3y ago
Was it this article? https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/ https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/ > "It seems that evolution had not merely selected the best code for the task, it had also advocated those programs which took advantage of the electromagnetic quirks of that specific microchip environment. The five separate logic cells were clearly crucial to the chip’s operation, but they were interacting with the main circuitry through some unorthodox method — most likely via the subtle magnetic fields that are created when electrons flow through circuitry, an effect known as magnetic flux. There was also evidence that the circuit was not relying solely on the transistors’ absolute ON and OFF positions like a typical chip; it was capitalizing upon analogue shades of gray along with the digital black and white."
- Izkata 3y ago
  Yep that's it, I remember this line too: > He also strayed from convention by omitting the system clock, thereby stripping the chip of its ability to synchronize its digital resources in the traditional way.