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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watrose!rpjday
From: rpjday@watrose.UUCP (rpjday)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Analog models of computation
Message-ID: <8195@watrose.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-Oct-86 18:43:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: watrose.8195
Posted: Tue Oct 14 18:43:28 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 15-Oct-86 01:16:06 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 23
Xref: watmath sci.math:1 sci.physics:3


  I am interested in collecting examples of problems in the area of
computation that are generally acknowledged to be reasonably to
obscenely difficult using the digital computer model, but which have
simple elegant solutions if one was allowed to construct some form
of "analog" computer.  
  As an example, the problem of finding the shortest path between two
points in a graph is easily solved if one is allowed to build a string
model of the graph, then pick it up by the source node, and measure the
distance straight down to the target node.  I'm sure everyone is familiar
with this trick, but I'm also sure there were other "analog" models
of computation, some for supposedly intractable problems.
  Can anyone out there recall others, and mail them to me, or post
them to the net?  I will eventually summarize and repost to net.math
(or sci.math, if that's what it is being renamed to).
  Thanx muchly.



______________________________________________________________________
R Day					rpjday@watrose.uucp
CS Department                         rpjday%watrose@waterloo.csnet
U. of Waterloo       rpjday%watrose%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa