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You'd generally do well to avoid keeping your laptop well away from liquids, but a new computer designed by researchers has turned this logic on its head -- by being powered by drops of water.
Manu Prakash, an assistant professor of bioengineering, and his students spent more than a decade building the synchronous computer processor, which works using the unique physics of moving water drops, instead of the typical electrons.
However, Prakash and his team aren't looking to replace the conventional processor that's powering your PC or smartphone. Instead, they hope to lead the way for a new class of computers that can control and manipulate physical matter.
Prakash was first struck by the idea as a graduate student, by combining his expertise in manipulating droplet fluid dynamics and computer science. The computer is made up of tiny 'T' and 'I'-shaped pieces of metal that are arranged to alter the shape of a magnetic field generated by electromagnetic coils in the machine. Acting like a magnetic clock, the magnetised drops of liquid can then be controlled to move around in specific patterns, "like slot cars on a track".
Since water droplets can be a mixture of different materials -- in this case, iron particles -- the Stanford computer can be used as a way to sort or arrange droplets of different chemicals.
Prakash said of the research, published in the current edition of Nature Physics, "In this work, we finally demonstrate a synchronous, universal droplet logic and control."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
