- American researchers built a mechanical computer
- It is made of metal bars and springs and is capable of performing basic computing operations.
- This could pave the way for major technological advances and “could help improve people’s lives by having more responsive artificial limbs or touch rooms.”
Can you build a PC with springs and metal bars that works completely mechanically, without electricity? No, of course you can’t, but it is possible to design a device that is capable of performing basic calculations and does not require any power supply.
Interesting Engineering highlighted a project by researchers at St Olaf College and Syracuse University, which has been published in the scientific journal Nature.
The paper, titled “Mechanical Hysterons with Tunable General Sign Interactions,” describes a mechanical computing platform that uses steel bars and connected springs.
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Joey Paulsen, Associate Professor of Physics at St Olaf College, explains: “We normally think of memory as something on the hard drive of a computer, or inside our brain. However, many everyday materials retain some form of memory of their past; for example, rubber can ‘remember’ the extent to which it has been compressed or stretched in the past.
“The research team wanted to understand if we could use everyday materials not only to remember movement but also to process information or calculate.”
This is actually possible, since scientists were able to build three mechanical computers.
The first project could count (up to three) and a second computer was able to determine whether it had been pushed an even or odd number of times. A third was designed to remember whether a medium or large force had been applied to it, all without a battery in sight.
Rotors next, then forward and up from there?
Obviously, these initial inventions are relatively basic, and while it’s impressive to build something capable of functional computing from simple chunks of metal (which, of course, has been done in the distant past), it may make you wonder what the point of it all is, aside from the novelty of such a mechanical platform.
Well, first of all, there could be a lot to build on in terms of combining these types of mechanical innovations. One of the next steps for researchers will be to look at scalability here. (They are now testing how the state of one rotor affects its interaction with a second rotor, with a view to adding a third.)
Mechanical computing platforms can also have serious real-world applications, especially in harsh environments where traditional solutions don’t work or even survive. For example, in the case of extreme heat, a mechanical computer could operate in scenarios where silicon chips would melt.
Paulsen notes: “Our results are a step toward designing materials that can sense their environment, make a decision and then respond. What we learned, often called smart materials, could help improve people’s lives by having more responsive artificial limbs or touch rooms.”
This is not the first time that concepts of this type have been explored in the contemporary technological world. A couple of years ago, scientists at North Carolina State University created a mechanical computing design that used a series of plastic cubes that were pushed and pulled to input, store and work with data.
Now, a computer made of plastic cubes, what does that remind me of? Oh yeah, that rather nifty Lego brick-built PC from earlier this week…
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