(October 15, 2015) Scientists
from the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in
Warsaw in cooperation with the Institute of Physics of the PAS and the
University of Jena have developed the concept of a simple chemical computer
made of microdroplets capable of searching databases. Computer simulations,
carried out on databases of malignant tumours, have confirmed the validity of
the adopted new design strategy, which opens the door to the
popularisation of chemical methods of processing
information.
Under the appropriate conditions, oscillating chemical
reactions can occur inside a droplet. If there is more than one droplet and
they are in contact with each other, the resulting chemical waves are able to
penetrate into neighbouring droplets and disperse throughout the whole complex.
This phenomenon is well-known, and attempts are being made to use it, among
other things, for chemical data processing. Propagation of information throught
many droplet system depends on their geometrical arrangement. Up to now, not
much was known about how to design the shape of the microdroplet complexes for
them to execute specific tasks. So, at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of
the Polish Academy of Sciences (IPC PAS) in Warsaw, Poland, a novel strategy
has been proposed. Instead of laboriously designing complex systems of
microdroplets for a particular purpose, it is better to first produce a system,
and then try to teach it something useful.
“We adopted a strategy
that nature uses with great efficiency. Let's just look at ourselves. After
all, our brains don't evolve to, for instance, recognise letters! First the brain
comes into existence, and only then does it learn to read and write. Why not
approach complex microdroplet systems in a similar manner, since we know that
they also process information? Our proposal is therefore as follows: first
let's make a system of interacting chemically microdroplets, and then let's
check what it can learn to do,” says Prof. Jerzy Górecki (IPC PAS).