Friday, January 13th, 2012

Making A Computer From Bubbles

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Bubbles can do computations, says Stanford professor Manu Prakash. Just like electrons running through wires in your computer, Prakash and Neil Gershenfeld, of MIT, directed bubbles through tiny etched tubes and showed basic computations were possible. Because the presence of a bubble can influence the behavior of another bubble, Prakash was able to build "and," "or" and "not" gates. Bubbles are bigger and slower than electrons, but they can carry things--meaning you could create as you compute, Prakash says. (Credits: music by Broke For Free, Directionless EP, Free Music Archive, additional footage from Manu Prakash, produced by Flora Lichtman) Viewed 21597 times. See More Videos

Stanford professor Manu Prakash explains how bubbles can be used as bits to make a computer. By directing the bubbles through etched pathways, they act like electrons traveling through circuits in the computers we are familiar with. Except in this system, the computer is powered by gravity and the bubble bits can carry things inside of them as they compute.