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With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

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Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#211

Post by danmaz74 »

jacquesm wrote: post #192
danmaz74 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't reply to your other comment yet, so I'll do it here. I think that this is a "duck typing" memristor: You can use it as a memristor, but it's not what was predicted. Anyway, if you're interested, watch the video I linked (thanks to @achille): It really explains what this is all about. If you have some basic understanding of semiconductors physics I think you'll enjoy it :)

I think I get what you're going for now, sorry it took a while for the coin to drop. Just like a battery can look like a capacitor under some conditions it really isn't a capacitor. Capacitors and batteries can be described using the same basic laws, even though the fundamental mode of operation is completely different. They have the same basic properties: - internal resistance - a certain capacity - a breakdown volt…

That's a good comparison, as far as I understand this thing. With the exception that the "real memristor" is only a theoretical device.

Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#212

Post by dnautics »

andrewcooke wrote: post #203
frik wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conceptual symmetry between the resistor, capacitor, inductor, and the memristor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor#mediaviewer/File:Two-... The scales fell from my eyes. Now the electronics math makes sense - Memristor was the missing puzzle piece.

what an awful diagram. it implies there's some kind of symmetry that relates all four, but when you look at the details there are asymmetries. if you think it was helpful look at it again and explain why di appears in two quarants but dq and dv appear once each.

are you sure you're looking on both sides of the equations?

Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#213

Post by comex »

fchollet wrote: post #28
valarauca1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This means we might be able to make a literal version of the hitchhikers guide. All of human knowledge in your hand, no network connectivity needed.

All of Wikipedia (English) already fits on a smartphone with a 64GB SD card.

You could also just strap a portable terabyte hard drive to your phone. Not as cool as this, but it does fit in your hand.

Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#215

Post by mindslight »

jacquesm wrote: post #145
jawns wrote: post #33

For those of you who are unfamiliar with what a memristor is, as I was, HP has an easy-to-understand analogy on its FAQ page about memristors: "A common analogy for a resistor is a pipe that carries water. The water itself is analogous to electrical charge, the pressure at the input of the pipe is similar to voltage, and the rate of flow of the water through the pipe is like electrical current. Just as with an electr…

Interesting tidbit: a while ago, I was talking about memristors with a physics trained person. And he told me something that really stuck: It is impossible to make an inductor (coil) without resistance and without capacitance. It is impossible to make a capacitor without some inductance and a little bit of leakage. It is impossible to create a resistor that does not have self-inductance or a bit of capacitance. If yo…

> it must somehow follow that parasitic mem-resistance must have been with us all along

I'm not so sure about that. It's impossible to make things without unwanted series/parallel resistances because conductors/insulators aren't perfect. It's impossible to make things without parasitic capacitance because without a perfect insulator, any two points have some capacitance between them - just like how there's also a parasitic gas discharge tube if the electric field between terminals reaches the dielectric breakdown voltage of air (this is another two terminal device, it's just not linear). These are all well-known physical phenomena that we deliberately assume away when we draw simple schematic symbols on paper, and then have to add back in when they end up applying.

Constraining the domain to two-terminal AND passive AND linear devices, one will have a very small number of possibilities for equations that describe them. Good old R/C/L that we know and love, and purportedly "M". But what is THE physical process that M describes and therefore gets made interesting by?

One could create a battery-powered opamp circuit that had two external terminals and fulfilled whatever equation you dreamed up (once again up to the limit of your abstraction, in this case constrained to lower frequencies). But the existence of that equation/device doesn't imply that there has to be a low-level physical phenomenon that will let you directly implement it.

Every time I try to read about memristors, I grok the bits in isolation, but mostly come away confused. C and L have state as well, and would also make great computer memory but for those nasty parasitic effects. From the wikipedia page: researchers everywhere are working on memristors, yet memristance was documented 200 years ago, yet the creator is arguing that the definition applies to phase change ram? I almost feel it's the "Cloud" of device physics research.

Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#216

Post by reitzensteinm »

LaikaF wrote: post #57
rasz_pl wrote: post #50

TLDR they are hyping up Memristors and hinting at HP trying to bundle it with some of their proprietary crap if/when they finally deliver.

You know a lot of programs that know how to use memristors?

There are quite a few smug replies to you, but my siblings are missing that the interesting thing about memristors is their potential for putting dynamically configurable computation (using implication logic) directly inside high density storage.

Taking advantage of such systems will not be business as usual, it'll look even more foreign to us than CUDA does to a Javascript developer.

Sure, you can use an interface and use them just like a regular storage device, but until and unless you can get the cost per bit below flash it's not interesting at all.

If that was all memristors could do, it's not even clear that they would be in active development - this is a moon shot by HP (no pun intended).

Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#219

Post by jacquesm »

mindslight wrote: post #215
jacquesm wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting tidbit: a while ago, I was talking about memristors with a physics trained person. And he told me something that really stuck: It is impossible to make an inductor (coil) without resistance and without capacitance. It is impossible to make a capacitor without some inductance and a little bit of leakage. It is impossible to create a resistor that does not have self-inductance or a bit of capacitance. If yo…

> it must somehow follow that parasitic mem-resistance must have been with us all along I'm not so sure about that. It's impossible to make things without unwanted series/parallel resistances because conductors/insulators aren't perfect. It's impossible to make things without parasitic capacitance because without a perfect insulator, any two points have some capacitance between them - just like how there's also a par…

The big problem is that your two terminal battery powered op-amp circuit would (1) sooner or later run out of battery power and (2) would have to exhibit it's memory function through some 'ordinary' memory device.

If we're going to use 'ordinary' memory devices anyway then the whole exercise is moot.

What exactly drives 'M' is the billion dollar (and probably many billions of dollars) question...

It's more like the cold fusion of semiconductors, but apparently they have something. I'll hold off any judgment until they do their unveiling, but this had better be good and not yet another promise.

Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#220

Post by [deleted] »

trumbitta2 wrote: post #194
jawns wrote: post #33

For those of you who are unfamiliar with what a memristor is, as I was, HP has an easy-to-understand analogy on its FAQ page about memristors: "A common analogy for a resistor is a pipe that carries water. The water itself is analogous to electrical charge, the pressure at the input of the pipe is similar to voltage, and the rate of flow of the water through the pipe is like electrical current. Just as with an electr…

Always thought water increases its speed when you shrink the pipe, not the other way around

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