If water or current flows from the other direction, the hose shrinks... 
Gadzooks, don't like the sound of that!
Posted on 04/30/2008 7:09:12 PM PDT by Aristotelian
CHICAGO, April 30 (Reuters) - It took about 40 years to find it, but scientists at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday they discovered a fourth basic type of electrical circuit that could lead to a computer you never have to boot up.
The finding proves what until now had only been theory -- but could save millions from the tedium of waiting for a computer to find its "place," the researchers said.
Basic electronics theory teaches that there are three fundamental elements of a passive circuit -- resistors, capacitors and inductors.
But in the 1970s, Leon Chua of the University of California at Berkeley, theorized there should be a fourth called a memory resistor, or memristor, for short, and he worked out the mathematical equations to prove it.
Now, a team at Hewlett-Packard led by Stanley Williams has proven that 'memristance' exists. They developed a mathematical model and a physical example of a memristor, which they describe in the journal Nature.
"It's very different from any other electrical device," Williams said of his memristor in a telephone interview. "No combination of resistor, capacitor or inductor will give you that property."
Williams likens the property to water flowing through a garden hose. In a regular circuit, the water flows from more than one direction.
But in a memory resistor, the hose remembers what direction the water (or current) is flowing from, and it expands in that direction to improve the flow. If water or current flows from the other direction, the hose shrinks.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
“Their goal is an amazing 20 minutes! And I bet they can do it.”
They already did.. and it is called VISTA.
One of the two layers has a few missing oxygen atoms, forming "holes".
A flux of current in the wire adjacent to the layer with the holes will push the holes to the other layer.
Whichever of the two layers has the holes has one-thousandth the resistance of the other layer. Once the holes are in one layer, they will stay there, persistently, without power applied, until moved to the other layer with a slight flux of current in the proper wire.
The thing basically has two stable states - either one layer or the other has the holes.
The intermediate states, with some of the holes in each layer, cannot be accurately and repeatably obtained. So, like a common light switch on the wall, it's a two-state device for practical purposes.
Though what point you were making I will acknowledge I missed, so my reply above might not be relevant to your point. Sorry if that's so.
bump
Think of how the transistor array became what is our new economic basis. The memristor array will be much more of an extension of mans imagination. Code will become dynamic and intimately personalised. You will be your array. This is ultimate security and ultimate control. There is no turning back. Bwahahahahaha....:)
——You’re leaping across a couple layers——
What am I now, part of the twelve days of Christmas? ;o)
Of course my mother did always tell me I was a gifted child.
More profit in it this way, with patents and all. Cleverness beyond the science.
Assuming arrays of these components will have dynamic effects, don’t you think you may be a little early in your countenance? This may be able to be made into a dynamic decision determinator. This can be used as a final determinant.
If water or current flows from the other direction, the hose shrinks... Gadzooks, don't like the sound of that!
"Hey, we're hosed again....hoser."
Well, it’s not exactly like a leaky diode. From what I am reading anyway. A “leaky” diode won’t change it’s properties, it’ll always be leaky.
You sound knowledgeable on the subject. If there was such a need for this device, couldn’t it have been simulated with a circuit containing active devices?
I just read that sales are going so bad for VISTA and so good for XP, that MS is going to stop selling XP soon (I don't remember when) to try to force people to buy VISTA.
"couldn’t it have been simulated with a circuit containing active devices?"
Memory constructed with active devices usually requires some sort of power source, like a battery, to maintain the logic state of the gate array. Memory sticks and cards don't though. In those devices and in these, there's a capacitance present in each element of the array that holds the logic state of each gate. The key features of these devices is a nanoscale device with an ionic capacitance which allows for the creation of an electronic diode. The sticks and cards with active devices have larger scale elements and a capacitor associated with each active element to hold the logic state of the gate.
So this is a true passive memory element, neat. Long road from a laberatory device to a commercial product though.
(pancake inflation, I guess ...)
Thaaaaank you. That article gives me much more information.
They’re right — this is something fundamentally new, new, new. Very exciting stuff, this device.
The dual nature of the action (ie, push the current hard & fast, you have a digital response, slow and easy, you have an analog response) has very interesting possibilities.
... and they wouldn't all fit under the hood of that little car.
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