Reminded me of A.K. Dewdney's "Computer Recreations" column in "Scientific American" back in the day (I think a lot of people may have hated on his column since it followed in the shadow of Martin Gardener's infamous "Mathematical Recreations"). One of the "analog computers" he mentioned was using dried spaghetti to sort numbers — where the length of each spaghetti noodle represented the magnitude of a number. Of course grabbing them into a bundle in your hand and setting the bundle on end on a flat surface would "sort" the values.
Would the surface tension across a film that accurately finds the shortest path between n points be considered a "computation"?
One thing fascinating by "analog computers" is the way they seem to be practically instantaneous regardless of n. That is perhaps part of the efficiency reflected in the article.
> One thing fascinating by "analog computers" is the way they seem to be practically instantaneous regardless of n. That is perhaps part of the efficiency reflected in the article.
If this were true, it would have profound implications. It's probably not true.
His soap bubble analogy is pretty cool. There is a direct analogy for filtering where its impossible to get instantaneous perfect response out of a filter, either DSP simulated or hardware. It would seem that merely filtering a signal is much simpler than simulating the airflow across a wing or whatever.
There are also conceptual issues that the airflow across a wing is ideally under stable low angles of attack, constant, but during "fun times" which is precisely when you'd want a model instead of a test pilot, the air flow will vary over time (to the general detriment of flying ability...) so what it means to instantly solve a wing is unclear in itself.
Would the surface tension across a film that accurately finds the shortest path between n points be considered a "computation"?
One thing fascinating by "analog computers" is the way they seem to be practically instantaneous regardless of n. That is perhaps part of the efficiency reflected in the article.