Manu Prakash has created a computer that runs on water. He used the unique Physics of moving water droplets to design a clock that is required in a computer. Here are some amazing facts about the technology and the man behind it.
Manu Prakash has created a computer that runs on water. He used the unique Physics of moving water droplets to design a clock that is required in various electronic devices including a computer. Here are some amazing facts about the technology and the man behind it.
We often run to rescue our electronic gadgets whenever they come in touch with water. But Manu Prakash, an Indian-American scientist, has created a computer that runs on water.
Prakash, Assistant Professor of Bio-engineering at Stanford, teamed up with two of his students, Jim Cybulski and Georgios Katsikis, to design a unique computer that works on the Physics of moving water droplets.
Here are 8 things you need to about Prakash and his amazing technology –
1. The computer uses water instead of electrons to send the data.
2. The team designed arrays of tiny iron bars on glass slides that look something like a Pac-Man maze. They laid a blank glass slide on top and sandwiched a layer of oil in between.
3. This was followed by carefully injecting the individual water droplets that had been infused with tiny magnetic nano-particles.
4. The tiny water droplets are trapped in a magnetic field. The droplets move in a precise direction and distance when the magnetic field is rotated. This results in a computer clock which is a crucial component in a device like a computer.
5. The clock is responsible for various operations to start and stop resulting in information synchronisation.
6. The invention would turn the computer into a high-throughput chemistry and biology laboratory which is the immediate application of this invention. The droplets will work as test tubes and carry the chemicals.
7. Computer clocks are responsible for nearly every modern technology including smartphones, DVRs, airplanes, internet, etc.
8. Prakash got the idea of building a computer like this 10 years ago while he was graduating from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
9. Born in Meerut, Prakash had amazed the world last year by building a foldable, paper microscope.
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