Water Computing

Andrew_Cronin writes "This is a nice project that some one did at MIT on building some logic computation systems without using electrons.. So why not use water..."

Comments

Very good

[Istealmymusic]

I remember of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, where when L.P.Waterhouse was walking amongst the beach at sundown, in a starlit avenue, and he drew lines in the sand. This was inspiration for barcodes, but that's beside the point. The point is Stephenson had the narrator narrate L.P.Waterhouse notice how the ocean is a Turing machine, it interacts with the sand, due to certain mathematical fluidity properties, to leave an indentation of predictable properties.

I've considered water-based computation long ago, but hats off to this student for logic design and implementation. My idea was to have water push open another wate gate, much like a flow-controlled valve, allowing for a water-based transistor. Combine this with other transistors, and you can build virtually any gate--I take that back, any gate you want. XOR and AND are good choices, as with a XOR a you can get NOT, to make a NAND, and as we all know NAND is the Univesal Binary Gate.

Who else tried this?

[thekernel32]

I really remember seeing a documentary on how the russians tried using water logic for computations and got pretty good with it back in the 40's. Then again they did alot of cool stuff over in that part of the world. They actually managed to stick with 50's technology for 40 years. yay communism! I knew someone who had no more after the berlin wall came down just because his job was dependent upon the crappy stuff they made breaking down. Reliable products from the west caused alot of people to loose their jobs.

I know it's an off topic rant, wanna give me some points for being interesting anyway?

Re:Cool...but an old concept

[friscolr]

In "The Way Things Work" (1988) David Macaulay also illustrates logic gates as plumbing in a building. It's on page 333 of the original book; the newer version even has an interesting rant about Bill Gates.

i always liked old school water clocks.

i seem to recall something about logic gates or some sort of logic being built out of matchboxes and beans. it played tictactoe, deciding the best move by plopping out a bean of a certain colour? i can remember neither the details nor the source.

Only digital water logic, why not analog too

[obiwan2u]

Why not extend the metaphor...

Inductance is the same as momentum. You could build a gadget that has a turbine in the water flow with a fly wheel attached. The gadget would resist water flow starting up, and would resist the water flow slowing down once it's moving. (same as an inductor fighting a change in current)

Capacitance is the same as a flexible membrane across the pipe, which will transmit AC changes in pressure, but not DC.

You could build a capacitor/inductor tuned circuit that either filters or passes certain frequency water waves

Also, water transistors should be fun. A small flow or pressure of water controls a larger flow or pressure (in either an analog or digital fashion)

It would be a way fun tool for teaching electronics.