Water can think, maybe electricity can too ? "Forcing decissions by applieing pressure on pipes/circuitry/models" / "Pressure can think theory" :)

I almost replied ....

D from BC

Sometimes water can be very stupid.

Soap bubbles are even smarter.

John

It doesn't think. The flow rate is inversely proportional to the resistance.

It already does. See "Ohm's Law" and "parallel circuit" for starters.

Good Luck! Rich

Good for you! Lessee, "thinking" by the path of least resistance. Now THAT is the last thing America needs today!!!

Reminds me of an old story...

"What's the greatest invention in history?"

"The Thermos bottle."

"Why?"

"Well, it keeps hot things hot and cold things cold...the clever thing is, *How does it know?*"

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

Principle of Least Action. You are centuries too late.

| > Maybe electricity could do this as well ? ... | > We do not know what the optimal combination is... we let the water of the | > electricity find out the correct path by simplieing applying pressure. | |

This might be better:

-Rob

----- Rob Warnock

I've had cool thoughts like that. Sounds like a tortured mind. Good luck.

Actually such observations can be quite useful. I am reminded of a method to find the shortest path from a root node to all other nodes: A ball is a node, a string is an arc between two nodes and its length the cost of this arc. Now hang this contraption by the root node ball. Then all "taut" strings represent segments of shortest paths. I forget who came up with it first but they must have first observed the ball & string setup and then realized its application.

A link at the bottom of that page gives this:

Yes, water is so smart it can do calculus! And here I thought this was a silly thread ...

Mark

...

That water can make decisions, think, and figure things out, might be a useful observation in your head.

newssvr21.news.prodigy.net!newsdbm04.news.prodigy.net!newsdst01.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.com!newscon04.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.net!newshub.sdsu.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!news-xfer.nntp.sonic.net!posts.news.sonic.net!nnrp0.nntp.sonic.net!not-for-mail

by applieing pressure on pipes/circuitry/models" / "Pressure can think theory" :)

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Water pressure is like unto voltage.

The volume of water flowing is like unto amperage.

A water wheel with a flywheel attached is like unto an inductor.

A tank with a piston separating its two halves is like unto a capacitor.

Yea and verily, that which water can do, an electrical analog thereto may simulate, as has been known even in the ancient days before Lee deForest gave us the thermionic valve.

John Savard

No, because for viscous fluid flow, pressure drop goes as the square of velocity, so there's no correspondence to "Ohm's Law." At high flow rates, flow becomes turbulent an even more nonlinear.

Starbuck's "problem" will yield different solutions if "solved" by simple electrical or fluid systems.

The idea of associating voltage with pressure is just plain wrong.

John

I've got to wonder what the particular glob of water was thinking whet it ended up in my toilet instead of taking that last turn and ending up spending the rest of its life in a beautiful fountain, gently coursing down sculptures of naked nymphets over and over again.

Maybe it tossed a coin - "Heads, useful; tails, pretty." ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Like, if you actually measure things?

Serious analogies exist where different systems use the same equations. This ain't one.

Voltage is neither pressure nor force. It's a weak analogy.

It's easier, and more accurate, to explain electricity in terms of electricity. Eventually, to do anything more advanced that wiring up a table lamp, you have to use numbers. And the fluidic vs electric numbers don't align. This is s.e.d., a place where people use numbers. Well, most of them.

John

The toilet clogged...so I kept flushing it until it went down.. The spice sim didn't work...so I kept sim'ing until I got the part value right :)

D from BC

The analogy does have some utility. From a physical systems point of view, many systems can be represented as an analogous electrical circuit. Since the mathematical equipment for solving circuit problems is extensive, it is often easier to solve physical problems in this manner. The trick is to choose a consistent set of analogs such that the physical equations are satisfied.

Regarding the specific Voltage Pressure analogy, note that Voltage can be interpreted as Joules per Coulomb (J/Coul), representing specific potential energy deliverable (that is, energy per coulomb).

In a similar fashion, pressure can be interpreted as Newtons per square meter, or Joules per cubic meter. That is, specific potential energy deliverable per unit volume (or mass) of fluid.