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Chaotic Computing In Practice
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."
Nothing new, I've been doing that since Windows 3.11! :)
analog computers of old. IIRC they were used for ballistics calculations and similar by the military.
Here is an example.
Look into what kind of mathematical operations can be realized with multiplying DACs.
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.
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
Couple of thoughts:
This isn't quite the same thing as having randomly perturbed input thresholds, which is how neurons work. And, as anyone who's tried it knows, neurons are only about 95% efficient in determining the correct result. It takes a lot of logical processing on top of the neural bitwise decisionmaking to distill the 95% to the 99% or so correct answer rate that constitutes "intelligent thought".
And, they'd better look into real-world noise margin requirements for thresholding electrical switching decisions, or "chaotic" is all their output will ever be.
Chaotic systems are actually quite controlloable in a very interesting way. The key property that makes a chaotic system so unpredictable is divergence -- if two copies of the system differ by delta, that delta will grow exponentially in time (doubling according to a coefficient call the Lyapunov coefficient). Yet, the divergence is never arbitrary. Instead, the divergence in chaotic systems happen within a space called the strange attractor - the diverging trajectories stay within in the attractor zone even as the split from each other.
If you map the strange attractor and nudge the system are the right point of the cycle, you can push the system into what ever mode of behaviro you want. Although you cannot predict the longterm behavior of the chaotic system, you can perturb it periodicaly to stabiize it or rapidlly shift its behavior. Scientists are looking at how to use this chaotic control theory to control unstable systems such as ultrahigh power lasers, manuerable jet aircraft, and heart tissue.
The key controlling a chaotic system is to understand how the chaotic system diverges (the shape of the strange attractor) and use that knowledge to deftly inject perturbations at just the right moment.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The only thing I want to know is; are these computers Chaotic Lawful, Chaotic Neutral, or Chaotic Evil?
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
Catholic computing:
The system has encountered an unrecoverable error and IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT. I SAW YOU pausing just a little too long before closing those suggestive webcam ads. Now go burn that copy of The Da Vinci Code, wash your eyes out with holy water after your clandestine mission to The Passion, and go out and buy a wooden yardstick to smack your fingers with every time you have an innapropriate thought.
And spit out your gum.