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Chaotic Computing In Practice

Posted by Hemos on from the using-the-machines dept.

codyhess writes "The Economist published a great article detailing efforts to use Chaos in computing - "Speaking at the American Physical Society's annual March conference, William Ditto of the University of Florida told of his efforts to create a 'chaotic computer'." Dr. Ditto can create standard logic gates (AND, OR, etc) that output a value according the their chaotic threshhold. Different logic operations can be performed by simply changing the threshhold, making an incredibly flexible computer that can perfom different functions instantaneously."

7 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Argh! by Knight+Thrasher · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Skynet is being born!! .. or not!! But I like the idea of logically flexible computers, and fear it at the same time. Sometimes, especially after work, it's nice to come home to something that can think in a straight line.

  2. Journalism at its best again by underworld · · Score: 3, Insightful
    They have also made a logic element out of a pair of leech neurons (nerve cells from blood-sucking worms) placed on a microchip. Dr Ditto readily admits that, like quantum computing, this technology is still in its infancy. But it certainly has potential--even though many people feel that existing computers are quite chaotic enough already.

    i think this paragraph really sums things up. the editor is such a moron as to explicitly state the obvious grammatical correlation between mathematically chaotic logic circuits and the general "chaos" users experience with their computers. and that preceded by a description that sounds like some kind of vampirian (or is it vampirical?), frankensteinian, technological monster. (rob zombie brings you "attack of the chaotic leech borgs"!).

    p.s. the chaotic leech borgs would be a good name for a band
  3. Re:IEEE Definition by pegr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The way I see it (although I am not a mathematician), the major hurdle to realizing this is the fact that generating random numbers usually results in patterns.

    Perhaps it's a semantical argument, but if you are producing patterns, you're not producing random numbers...

  4. Re:Sounds similar to... by millahtime · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "analog computers of old."

    All signals are analog. Digital is just a way to manipulate analog for logic. The fact that they found another way to manipulate analog for logic is not suprising. What is suprising is that it has taken this long.

    --
    Evolution or ID?
  5. Re:Anyone with the misfortune of reading my source by ackthpt · · Score: 2, Insightful
    ...is already well versed in chaotic computing.

    You wish.

    To protect the perpetrator I won't mention his name, but here's a warning about people developing off in a corner, by themseleves rather than collaborating with their peers.

    I worked for two years at one job before learning there was another programmer (besides the other two I worked with.) The group I worked with remained within the same office or no more than a room away and we frequently bounced ideas off each other, creating some damn fine products (if I do say so myself.) The other guy, actually a personal friend of the director, always worked on his own. When he retired and I inherited his work I was truly pissed off. The code was horrible and reflected the skills of a novice (a poor one at that) and was littered with GOTO statements and demonstrated a severly retarded understanding of documentation, coding style (i.e. 3000 line for-next loop with GOTOs out and back in again) and zero knowledge of library functions, which would have cut hundreds of lines from the code. (Since the code would be replaced by a full system a year later, all I had to do was just keep it running and fix corrupt data, which was frequent.)

    You might get the impression that the lone coder was chaotic, but you would have it backward. His procedure was orderly, straight forward, rarely diverging from his approach or skill set. The three (of which I was part) was Chaos -- we thought outside the box, tried things, introduced new approaches to old problems. Where we once would say, "no, that can't be done", we went to, "Yes, that can be done, and has, furhter, it's more useful and versitile than you ever imagined."

    Seize chaos, it's your real friend.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  6. Re: This sounds like a joke by bomblaster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Dude
    Did you check the date on that Economist article.

  7. Missing the point entirely by IncohereD · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, digital computers may use analog signals, but the basic operations of a digital computer (AND, OR, XOR, etc.) are fundamentally digital operations. They quantize the analog signals into 1s and 0s, and output quantized signals based on those digital values (of course, with some amount of analog error).

    An analog computer does no such thing. If it wants to add two signals, it adds them. In analog. You can do integrals and derivations in analog as well, amongst other things.

    A digital computer may have to use analog signals to operate on some level, but that does not make it an analog computer.