HomeChemistryA computer made of corrugated rubber

A computer made of corrugated rubber

Leiden University and AMOLF research institute in Amsterdam researchers have developed a computing rubber. These researchers were studying about mechanical metamaterials and their research paper has been published in the journal PNAS. In their paper they have said that corrugated rubber can function as computer. They have said that simple materials can process information and they are trying to find out the principles behind this.

Other researchers use telescopes and microscopes to study their subjects, but researcher Martin van Hecke and Hadrien Bense have just used a piece of rubber. They folded it and then they filmed it. By this process they have proved that an extremely simple material like rubber is also able to process some kind of information.

The researchers have published a video is which they have shown a piece of corrugated rubber is squashed slowly and the corrugations slowly bend in the beginning but they suddenly snap means that they have taken another shape. Bense and Van Hecke called this snapping points as “bits” and these bits shift from 0 to 1 as they bend and they come back to 0 as they unsnap.

The two researchers have charted all the states by using a camera.

The field that the two researchers have explored is called “mechanical metamaterials”. In this field the properties of a material are dependent on mechanical structure. It does not only depend on the properties of the material.

The researchers have recorded four states of the transition of the corrugated rubber. In the beginning, it transitioned from the mode of no bits switched on to the mode of all three bits switched on. Then again it came back to no bits switched on state as the pressure was released.

Later on, the researchers have recorded seven different states of its transformation.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Latest Science News Articles - PhysicsAlert.com

explore more