
Programmable Water (2003) - Phithagoras
http://www.blikstein.com/paulo/projects/project_water.html
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rihegher
If it's easy to do and does not require electricity nor electronics then could
it be that computers has been created in previous civilization and we are not
aware of it yet?

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altechcode
The concept of logic systems themselves have far preceeded the first
electrical circuits. I am sure this was put to physical use somewhere in
history, but to call it a "computer" would be kind of a stretch. Very doubtful
in my opinion, certainly not a computer to any extend we would imagine one
today.

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gnipgnip
Terrible title. I came here hoping for mystical stuff like,

[http://www.personal.psu.edu/~tms9/Therapy_Waters.html](http://www.personal.psu.edu/~tms9/Therapy_Waters.html)

Also. Look everyone! Programmable electrons!

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wwggggoi
yeh the thing being programmed not same as thing title said was being
programmed, am annoyed too

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amelius
Are these gates "regenerative", in the sense that you can combine them
indefinitely in theory? Or do they lose power, so that after a few consecutive
gates they lose their function?

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Aardwolf
I think if no water leaks away it looks like it can be infinite, but the
article mentions lots of leaks. Also, the amount of water doubles after AND,
that could escalate into a problem unless excess can be removed somewhere...

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Frenchgeek
So, if the water is the medium moving data, that make it a device with actual
memory leaks, right?

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ramgorur
hydraulic analog computing machines used to be one of many ways to perform
economic simulations, and there is a whole discipline came out of it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_macroeconomics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_macroeconomics)

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mrkgnao
I think I remember Terence Tao talking about something like this in relation
to Navier-Stokes.

