Computer Operating on Water Droplets: Highlights

Computer Operating on Water Droplets: Highlights

Question: Science has progressed to new heights. Discuss the latest invention: a computer that operates using water droplets

• A computer that operates on the distinctive physics of moving water droplets has been invented

• It was developed by an Indian origin scientist and his team

• The computer has been created over a span of 10 years

• It is incubated from an idea that came to Manu Prakash, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at Stanford University when he was a graduate student

• Work combines expertise in manipulation of droplet fluid dynamics and the fundamental element of computer science- in other words, an operating clock

• Synchronous universal water droplet logic and control has been demonstrated

• Droplet computer can perform any operation in theory that can be accomplished by a conventional electronic computer at significantly low rates

• Inventors aimed to create a new class of computers for precisely controlling and manipulating physical matter

• Physical matter will be algorithmically manipulated as well at the mesoscale

• Prakash studied if the droplets could be used as bits of data and utilise precise movement of the drops to process information and physical materials simultaneously

• Rotating magnetic field that can act as a clock for synchronising droplets was invented
• Scientists built arrays of tiny iron bars on glass sides and laid a blank glass slide on the top and sandwiched a layer of oil in the middle

• The mix of individual water droplets was carefully injected and infused with tiny magnetic nanoparticles

• The magnetic field was then turned on and each time the field lips, polarity of bars reverses whereby magnetised droplets are drawn in a predetermined direction

• Camera records interaction between individual droplets enabling observation of computation as it occurs during the real time

Facts and Stats

• Presence or absence of droplets represents 1s and 0s of binary code

• Clock ensures that all droplets can move in perfect rhythm and the system can work forever virtually without errors

• Most immediate application may involve turning the computer into high throughput chemistry and bio lab

• Instead of reactions in bulk test tubes, each droplet can carry certain chemicals and becomes its own test tube

• Droplet computer offers a high degree of control over these interactions