First computer that operates on water drops.

First computer that operates on water drops.
In a ground-breaking feat, world's first synchronous computer
that operates on water droplets has been developed by an
Indian-American researcher from Stanford University.

The work combines Prakash's expertise in manipulating droplet
fluid dynamics with a fundamental element of computer science
- an operating clock.
"In this work, we finally demonstrate a synchronous, universal
droplet logic and control," Prakash said.
Because of its universal nature, the droplet computer can
theoretically perform any operation that a conventional
electronic computer can crunch, although at significantly slower
rates.

The ability to precisely control droplets using fluidic
computation could have a number of applications in high-end
biology and chemistry and scalable digital manufacturing.
Computer clocks are responsible for everything - smartphones,
airplanes, internet. Developing a clock for a fluid-based
computer required some creative thinking.
Prakash realised that a rotating magnetic field that could act
as clock to synchronise all the droplets might do the trick.
The team built arrays of tiny iron bars on glass slides. They
then laid a blank glass slide on top and sandwiched a layer
of oil in between.
Then they carefully injected into the mix individual water
droplets that had been infused with tiny magnetic
nanoparticles. Next, they turned on the magnetic field.
Every rotation of the field counted as one clock cycle and
every drop marched exactly one step forward with each
cycle. A camera recorded the interactions between individual
droplets, allowing observation of computation as it occurs in
real time.

According to Prakash, the most immediate application might
involve turning the computer into a high-throughput chemistry
and biology laboratory.
Instead of running reactions in bulk test tubes, each droplet
can carry some chemicals and become its own test tube, and
the droplet computer offers unprecedented control over these
interactions.
Prakash and his colleagues, however, have a more ambitious
application in mind. Their goal is to build a completely new
class of computers that can precisely control and manipulate
physical matter.