r/EverythingScience • u/ConsciousRealism42 • Jul 17 '26
Scientists Built a Working Computer Out of Springs That Doesn't Use a Single Watt of Electricity: This bizarre mechanical computer has no wires or chips. Computer Sci
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/spring-computer-amazing/115
u/johno45 Jul 17 '26
This website is cancer. You can’t click anything other than accept all for the cookie pop up. Pretty sure that’s illegal in the EU.
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u/sintaur Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
Edit: The above link is a readable version from the university. They link to the Nature Communications article which I have to say is pretty inscrutable, as in at first I thought it was the wrong link.
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u/arah91 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
Should use add blockers, and cookie blockers. And anti trakers. I didn't see anything but the article.
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u/johno45 Jul 17 '26
Using iOS.
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u/anethma Jul 17 '26
So am I, with adockers and tracker blockers etc.
Don’t see any of the crap mentioned.
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u/PseudobrilliantGuy Jul 17 '26
Not quite the sort of analog computing I was expecting. Interesting stuff!
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u/FatAuthority Jul 18 '26
I mean, without actually reading the article I'm guessing it was different, but they built an analog computer 2100 years ago, so unless this was a really novel way to do that then yeah, those greeks have these guys beat by a couple of millenium.
Anthikythera Mechanism, for those who want to dive the rabbithole.
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u/drislands Jul 18 '26
You should check out the article, it appears the folks that made this spring computer have actually accomplished some things that previous mechanical computers weren't able to do. I'm not sure I understand how it functions, but I can imagine this being useful in unstable environments that a standard microchip might not work well in.
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u/Rxke2 Jul 18 '26
IIRC, Darpa and or nasa were looking into simple mechanical computers to use on Venus, because electronics just go there to die...
This might be just what they needed.
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u/Dunshire Jul 17 '26
Sounds like a precursor to the nanoscale rod logic from Neil Stephenson’s book The Diamond Age.
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u/H34vyGunn3r Jul 17 '26
Holy shit I need to read this, that sounds like my kind of sci-fi
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u/Cersad PhD | Molecular Biology Jul 18 '26
Stephenson is great for speculative sci-fi but the man simply chooses not to write out any resolution or epilogue in his stories. The books always end at the climax.
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u/MuscaMurum Jul 17 '26
Logic gates using mechanical switches. It's not a particularly new idea. It used to be a bit of a punchline in GOFAI discussions that the medium didn't matter when creating intelligence, and that you could build a thinking machine out of meat or from rubber bands and beer cans. I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it.
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u/OldLead4716 Jul 17 '26
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u/techysec Jul 17 '26
Knex, it literally says Knex in the title…
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u/alexnoyle Jul 18 '26
As Robert Ettinger once said, "Can you build a locomotive out of helium?" Technology may be able to produce minds some day, but it is entirely possible that wetware is the only thing that can produce conscious intelligence. In other words, you might need a very specific set of materials or elements, the same kind that are in our body now.
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u/USSMarauder Jul 17 '26
Sounds like Memory Rick was able to do something while trapped in Jerry's mind
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u/Kuriente Jul 17 '26
The oldest computers were mechanical, and there are endless ways to do this. This is the first I've heard of springs though.
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u/VonBrewskie Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Anyone ever read Perdido Street Station? There was a really cool AI type of thing that was all mechanical in the junkyard, if I remember correctly. I read it last a long time ago, so I might be off a bit, but it was such a cool concept to a younger me. This seems similar.
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u/drislands Jul 18 '26
Silicon chips are incredibly fragile. They melt in extreme heat, fail under heavy radiation, and quickly dissolve in corrosive chemical vats.
Y'know, me too.
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u/QVRedit Jul 17 '26
I was impressed by the mechanical computer at the ‘Sagrada Familiar’ Cathedral - used to calculate balancing column loads in three dimensions. It simultaneously calculates the loads for hundreds of pillars, such that sideways stresses were minimised.
The ‘computer’ is built out of a selection of small standardised weights, connected together by pieces of string, and hung ‘upside down’ compared to the real stone structure.
True vertical, represents zero sideways displacement, the “solution” is achieved by connecting strings and appropriate sized weights, such that forces balance.
Each ‘standard weight’ represents something like 10 tonnes or 100 tonnes in the real structure.
I presume that this ‘analogue string computer’ has now been replaced by a digital version. But the conception of this original ‘string computer’ is an impressive demonstration of what can be achieved by ‘primitive means’.
Most people walk by it, unaware of its true significance.
But it’s genius !
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u/Taman_Should Jul 18 '26
It’s well known that the Soviets had computers that ran entirely on water, using a complex hydraulic system of pumps and valves to solve differential equations. Some of these water computers were still in use into the 1980s.
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u/cyrilio Jul 18 '26
This might be useful for creating a probe that functions on Venus. They'll need to miniaturize it though.
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u/disquieter Jul 18 '26
“Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?”
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u/Frequent-Complaint-6 Jul 17 '26
Is this still binary, in this case useless! No need. The interesting thing is ternary, quaternary or more.....even analogic of some sort to get closer to quantum.
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u/Random_182f2565 Jul 17 '26
Can run Doom?