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Writing on Standing Water
A reader writes "Engadget is reporting on Japanese scientists who have found a way to 'write' characters on the surface of water using waves. This looks very cool - but the time required to change character seems very high (15-30 seconds). From the article: 'Liquid-based displays are nothing new -- in a vertical orientation, at least -- but apparently it's a lot more difficult to coax a standing pool of water into forming recognizable shapes and characters.'"
But it only works with Capital Os.
It's yet another way to go to an undeveloped country and convince the locals that you are a god.
using formulas known as Bessel functions to cut the processing time down to between 15 and 30 seconds and form characters
That sure makes it sound like the calculations involved are so great that the computer takes that long to process (as opposed to a physical delay in the hardware or medium). Certainly that could be reduced substantially either by optimization or throwing more CPUs at the problem. If that is indeed the issue then they could also precalculate the math for various shapes, and recall them instantly on demand. I also wonder if this is a purely virtual simulation inside the software, or if the system requires feedback from sensors in the real world to fine-tune the oscillations to produce the desired effect. In that case it may take that much time to stabilize the system because of chaos and the like. I have a hunch that must be what's going on, because certainly these people are smart enough and have enough funding so that processing speed alone isn't the issue.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Because we are fresh out of glass coke bottles.
Someone needs to make it spell out "John Keats."
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.