Computing with Liquid Marbles

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We propose to make computing devices from liquid marbles. A liquid marble (LM) is a liquid droplet coated with hydrophilic powder which enables the LM to be manipulated like a soft solid. The coating prevents the liquid to wet the carrier surface thus LMs transport liquid through large distances without loss of mass and with minimum energy. Coating-liquid pair determines a LM's properties and manipulation schemes. LM can be manipulated mechanically and electromagnetically. Computing schemes proposed are inspired by conservative logic and collision-based computation. A collision-based computation employs mobile compact finite patterns. Information values (e.g. truth values of logical variables) are given by either absence or presence of the localisations or other parameters of the localisations. The localisations travel in space and do computation when they collide with each other. Almost any part of the medium space can be used as a wire. The localisations undergo transformations, they change velocities, form bound states, annihilate or fuse when they interact with other localisations. Information values of localisations are transformed as a result of collision and thus a computation is implemented. We will produce LMs computing devices: cascades of collision-based logical gates, an adder and an arithmetic-logical unit, where data signals are represented by the LMs, and results of computation by either LMs or bi-stable flip-flop elements. The computing devices made with LMs are completely mechanical and easily extendable to chemical or electromechanical in construction and operation, permit the achievement of elementary level instructions in computers with the following benefits: the functioning is self-evident, no specialised knowledge of electronics is required to operate the LMs computer, the prototypes proposed will be simple and durable constructions and inexpensive to manufacture, the principles of operation are clearly observable.