Friday, February 16, 2007

Water computer

Paulo Blikstein of MIT has created a simple computer that is run not by electricity, but by water. Made out of just acrylic and a LEGO support board and fed with a water jet, the device can do basic Boolean calculations. I'm pretty sure some wise-acre will have Linux ported to this by the end of the week.

Pictures of the device and background on the theory behind it, fluidics, can be found in the link below. Enjoy!

Further Information:

4 comments:

William said...

Some friends and I have always speculated as to why there was never a water computer built in the early medieval days of man or during the height of Egypt. All one needs is a lot of tubes, a big slope to put them on (i.e. a small mountain) and a way to move the water to the top (i.e. peasants). It would have made calculating the taxes so much easier, and the peasants wouldn't have felt left out in the process.

Minervine said...

@ stimpy:

All one needs is a lot of tubes

Imagine that: the Internet really being a series of tubes!

// Lawls courtesy of Sen. Ted Stevens.

The Lizu said...

@Minervine:

Lawl. Intertubes.

Acidic said...

I am currently working on a similar project now. I'm trying to create a computer that runs entirely off of love...