The SWASC (Sealing-Wax and String Computer) had a walk on and trip up part when I discussed finding shortest paths between towns on a road-map in my Algorithms course. Set-up: (1) Cut the string into segments representing town-to-town distances; (2) Join the ends together with wax blobs representing towns. Operation: (3) Grasp start and finish towns in left and right hand resp. (4) Pull. Output: (5) The straight line of string gives the shortest route. Unless you pulled too hard. Or your arms were too short. Performance: constant time: knocking Dijkstra's algorithm into a cocked hat. Along with itself when it overheats. WFL
* Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> [Sep 12. 2014 08:17]:
[...]
I'd be interested in any other proposals for "steampunk" mathematics.
[...]
Does the "quaternion machine" described on pp.232-234 in the "Book of numbers" by Conway/Guy qualify?
Best, jj
P.S.: I recall building such a TEA laser. Turned out to be quite fiddly (very sensitive to the exact geometry).
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