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Taking another swing at computing

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Could a mechanical principle familiar from the playground be the key to a new means of computation? Research on tiny gallium arsenide bridges points in that direction.

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Figure 1: Binary data can be stored in a bi-stable mechanical system such as the nanoresonator studied by Mahboob and Yamaguchi2, two pendulums sharing a common drive (above) or a child using its legs to keep swinging in the playground.

DAVID C. FORTIN

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, T6G 2G7, Canada

    Mark Freeman

  2. the National Institute for Nanotechnology, Edmonton, T6G 2M9, Canada

    Mark Freeman & Wayne Hiebert

Authors
  1. Mark Freeman
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  2. Wayne Hiebert
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Correspondence to Mark Freeman or Wayne Hiebert.

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Freeman, M., Hiebert, W. Taking another swing at computing. Nature Nanotech 3, 251–252 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2008.121

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