9 ms·

it's taken me a good 5 minutes to convince myself a single device can be both AND and XOR. that's weird stuff. is there any way to get AND, XOR and NOR in a s

it's taken me a good 5 minutes to convince myself a single device can be both AND and XOR. that's weird stuff. is there any way to get AND, XOR and NOR in a single device "for free"? after all, they don't overlap (only one is 1 for any given pair of inputs). also, how do you build a practical system when the flow rate is not constant (AND doubles the flow here, for example)?

gizmo686 13y ago
>also, how do you build a practical system when the flow rate is not constant (AND doubles the flow here, for example)? You could probably make it constant. In this case, at the output of the AND gate, put a pressure regulator valve, that will allow the extra pressure to leak out of the system (or into a return pipe). A similar problem would be duplicating the signal. The simplest solution I can see is a device that has two always pressurized inputs, and one control input. When the control is pressurized, it leverages a spring loaded switch to allow the two always on streams through.
- zeckalpha 13y ago
  That is a transistor.
jonsen 13y ago
a single device can be both AND and XOR. that's weird stuff. I'd say it depends on how you would define "single device". Imagine the possible complexity of such water devices build with a 3D printer and still it's just a lump of uniform material, albeit structured.
- gizmo686 13y ago
  I think that a distinction can be made here. Consider the device as an XOR gate. There is no element within the device that is not a fundamental part of the XOR system. The AND gate arises as a natural result of constructing the XOR gate. This feels fundamentally different from constructing an XOR gate, and then adding an AND gate. On a meta-level, in writing the above comment, I feel as if we are missing some critical vocabulary that would make this entire question seem trivial. Any ideas on what this vocab. is?
verbin217 13y ago
If you combined the output hoses you'd get an OR. So you have AND, OR, and XOR in one device. You can make a NOT from the same device using the XOR and connecting an input to the water source.
rcthompson 13y ago
It can be both AND and XOR because it has two outputs. You could add a 3rd output for NOR in theory. You would probably add a 3rd always-on stream that drains into the NOR output by default but is deflected away when either or both of the other streams comes through.

gizmo686 13y ago

>also, how do you build a practical system when the flow rate is not constant (AND doubles the flow here, for example)? You could probably make it constant. In this case, at the output of the AND gate, put a pressure regulator valve, that will allow the extra pressure to leak out of the system (or into a return pipe). A similar problem would be duplicating the signal. The simplest solution I can see is a device that has two always pressurized inputs, and one control input. When the control is pressurized, it leverages a spring loaded switch to allow the two always on streams through.

zeckalpha 13y ago
That is a transistor.

jonsen 13y ago

a single device can be both AND and XOR. that's weird stuff. I'd say it depends on how you would define "single device". Imagine the possible complexity of such water devices build with a 3D printer and still it's just a lump of uniform material, albeit structured.

gizmo686 13y ago
I think that a distinction can be made here. Consider the device as an XOR gate. There is no element within the device that is not a fundamental part of the XOR system. The AND gate arises as a natural result of constructing the XOR gate. This feels fundamentally different from constructing an XOR gate, and then adding an AND gate. On a meta-level, in writing the above comment, I feel as if we are missing some critical vocabulary that would make this entire question seem trivial. Any ideas on what this vocab. is?

verbin217 13y ago

If you combined the output hoses you'd get an OR. So you have AND, OR, and XOR in one device. You can make a NOT from the same device using the XOR and connecting an input to the water source.

rcthompson 13y ago

It can be both AND and XOR because it has two outputs. You could add a 3rd output for NOR in theory. You would probably add a 3rd always-on stream that drains into the NOR output by default but is deflected away when either or both of the other streams comes through.