5 research outputs found
Direction Detector on an Excitable Field: Field Computation with Coincidence Detection
Living organisms process information without any central control unit and
without any ruling clock. We have been studying a novel computational strategy
that uses a geometrically arranged excitable field, i.e., "field computation."
As an extension of this research, in the present article we report the
construction of a "direction detector" on an excitable field. Using a numerical
simulation, we show that the direction of a input source signal can be detected
by applying the characteristic as a "coincidence detector" embedded on an
excitable field. In addition, we show that this direction detection actually
works in an experiment using an excitable chemical system. These results are
discussed in relation to the future development of "field computation."Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Grover's algorithm on a Feynman computer
We present an implementation of Grover's algorithm in the framework of
Feynman's cursor model of a quantum computer. The cursor degrees of freedom act
as a quantum clocking mechanism, and allow Grover's algorithm to be performed
using a single, time-independent Hamiltonian. We examine issues of locality and
resource usage in implementing such a Hamiltonian. In the familiar language of
Heisenberg spin-spin coupling, the clocking mechanism appears as an excitation
of a basically linear chain of spins, with occasional controlled jumps that
allow for motion on a planar graph: in this sense our model implements the idea
of "timing" a quantum algorithm using a continuous-time random walk. In this
context we examine some consequences of the entanglement between the states of
the input/output register and the states of the quantum clock