I Made A Water Computer And It Actually Works

The first 200 people to sign up at brilliant.org/stevemould/ will get 20% off an annual subscription.
Computers add numbers together using logic gates built out of transistors. But they don't have to be! They can be built out of greedy cup siphons instead! I used specially designed siphones to works as XOR and AND gates and chained them together so they add 4 digit binary numbers.
Subscribe to Matt's channel so you don't miss his Dobble video:
/ standupmaths
Here's my greedy cup siphon video:
• The Pythagorean Siphon...
Image credits:
Zoom in on transistor - NISENet
Moniac - Matt Brown
Moniac - Paul Downey
Moniac - Tiia Monto
Moniac - Marcin Wichary
You can buy my books here:
stevemould.com/books
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just like these amazing people:
Matthew Cocke
Glenn Watson
Joseph Rocca
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[@SteveMould]

It runs H₂OS The sponsor is Brilliant: The first 200 people to sign up at brilliant.org/stevemould will get 20% off an annual subscription.

[@Briarbot2011]

You're first

[@scienceium5233]

Ha ha ha

[@azivee8075]

sulfanol?

[@mmseng2]

I think it's the video that's brilliant, not the sponsor.

[@NandR]

@@williambrooks5129 videos can be uploaded and not made public right away.

[@noa8919]

I love how an overflow error literally results in an overflow of water.

[@Nick-lx4fo]

You gotta flush the buffer of bits!

[@bcn1gh7h4wk]

exactly lol was thinking the same

[@mikebell2112]

Got some current leakage going on, too.

[@srtghfnbfg]

He's letting the carry litterally and figuratively 'overflow' into the next bit slot x'] just genius

[@JorgetePanete]

@@srtghfnbfg literally*

[@a_commenter]

12:54 "We're gonna keep collabing until we get to a million" Quick! Nobody subscribe!

[@SteveMould]

Plan backfires

[@Krokodil986]

Lol

[@eccentricOrange]

@@SteveMould Plan successfully failed

[@Gakulon]

Nice profile pic!

[@ogi22]

@@SteveMould I have always preffered a practical approach to science, that's why i preffered a physics in applications... but i really understand that math is a physics language... you will not get far when one will outrun the other. We need people on both sides of this teeter-totter. we have to swing both ways to keep going further:)

[@NetEnlade]

In middle school I forgot about finishing my science fair project, and seeing it was due on that day, I rushed to make an analog water computer to determine the weather. If you go outside and it is raining, then it is rain today. It was a very simple design.

[@philiproler5572]

what was your grade? xD

[@NetEnlade]

@@philiproler5572 It snowed. :(

[@foulcamel5973]

one of the mean girls did this

[@royslapped4463]

@@philiproler5572 It was a joke.

[@philiproler5572]

@@NetEnlade damn thats unfortunate xD

[@one_smol_duck]

Oh, I've never actually understood how logic gates work with binary addition before. I "learned" it in school, but never understood. This is such a clear explanation. Thank you!

[@grn1]

ComputerPhile has done a few videos on binary logic that I thought were good (older videos so you might to scroll a bit). Some of their videos are hit or miss but there are certain presenters where you just know it's going to be good.

[@user-iz7el6pc5m]

thanks to no one😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡

[@maytang9792]

no pun intended?

[@alivape]

That's the thing about computing. You gotta get an in on all the abstractions. Like wtf is a 0 and a 1 supposed to be. When you see it working on a scale you can see, you start to actually see how things work in a computer.

[@FinkPloyd504]

It's weird seeing my same minecraft Redstone circuits made from water and actually understanding what's going on

[@General12th]

Minecraft turned out to be a remarkably good way to teach this generation's youngsters the basics of structural engineering, computation, and logistics. I'm sure that's not what Mr. Persson meant to do, but it's great how the game developed in that way.

[@bluesillybeard]

same

[@diarya5573]

Right!? I'm remembering my initial redstone days building one of these

[@JjMn1000]

Yes

[@Krokodil986]

Yeeah let's go redstone engineers

[@carykh]

Man, seeing the siphons finally pass over the threshold, and start dumping out their contents... is so satisfying

[@ziggyzoggin]

hi cary! :D

[@1.4142]

indeed

[@OrchidAlloy]

This is the perfect video for someone like you lol

[@therandomraddish7281]

Its Cary Kangaroo Holder!

[@austinbrown145]

That's what she said... and he said

[@Fritzafella]

A memory leak 😂 I've watched a lot of your puns Matt bit I've never laughed this hard!

[@PrebleStreetRecords]

This is so cool. My uncle, Bill Horton, did a ton of early research on fluidics and the fields use in computing, he would have loved to see this and how accessible it is to people.

[@theCodyReeder]

I think this would work a lot better with mercury; it’s not as sticky.

[@SteveMould]

Well you would say that!

[@tanmay______]

Time to explore another mine

[@haydenallen888]

First time I’ve seen you in the wild cody

[@vk3hau]

and then you could place electric pads in the tanks and have mercury switch's turn lights on or off..

[@SteveMould]

@@vk3hau this is sounding really cool now

[@Xatzimi]

"I have a water computer" "Cool, do you mean water-cooled?" "No"

[@maxdukhovskoy1406]

@Fontecha Diesel Hayden r/ihadastroke No but seriously, ar you ok?

[@proloycodes]

2^8 + 2^3 + 2^0th like

[@himshikharbiswas]

Initially i thought the same🤣

[@UCmDBecUtbSafffpMEN3iscA]

I had a good laugh in this one, thank you

[@sir_duckington1245]

XD

[@VlogrBlogr]

13:45 this one scene just did more for me to understand computers and why they work, visually, than any other video on the internet. I get it now.

[@twohorsesinamancostume7606]

I'm more of a practical learner so while I understood the purpose of logic gates and what they do in theory, I now have a better understanding of HOW they work. This was perfect for me, thank you.

[@medokn99]

Wet® Inside

[@bhutwheyttherismor86]

Pshhh, after watching this video... Same.

[@arnob1711]

Your pfp goes so well with this

[@DrRiq]

[INSERT JOKE ABOUT HARD DISK]

[@f-seal7193]

@@bhutwheyttherismor86 you alright mate? Cuz you sound so sus

[@brgmember]

@@f-seal7193 sussy🤣🤣😂🤣😂😂😂😂🤣🤣😂🤣😂😂😂

[@thelonelyrogue3727]

You've got a memory leak 😂

[@joachimlarsen2k]

Top comment in the making

[@eeeeeek]

That's water damage

[@DasGanon]

I was waiting for an overflow error

[@andricode]

He might need to flush cache

[@Spartan322]

I read that with a melody of "You got a friend in me", works surprisingly well.

[@Memes4daysz9]

This is some really nice work! I actually used the logic gates from this to make my own computer and it ran flawlessly, I don’t know how to thank you enough for this. This also got me into addition calculations of computers as it’s mesmerizing to watch as something works with another thing to get a result

[@Kyvien09]

So I just recently found your videos, and this one interested me, because I'm technically in my second year of college, taking IT-security courses, I learned about binary and it got me thinking on how this would work if I wanted to use this to identify different complete octets. Thank you for this amazing video and reactivating my brain with what I have learned recently!

[@MrStrez2]

"have you tried turning it off and on again?" "Yeah standby" *tips the computer upside down*

[@geekjokes8458]

if it works, it works!

[@GM-os1bl]

The real question is: "Can it run Doom?"

[@horstwalter9383]

I was hoping I'm not the only one.

[@justanothergrunt9053]

**BFG Division** Slowly gets louder and louder.

[@fregtz735]

Well yes but no. So if you add a lot more of these maybe like maybe 500 of those water things you could probably like play minesweeper on it but you would need a screen and electricity but yes. You would just need a room about the size of your mom to house the water computer. (Sorry i just had to make a your mom joke but jokes aside it would work.) And it would be extremely slow, like 1 frame per day.

[@pieppy6058]

@@fregtz735 well yes but no . This is just a very basic alu to make a programmable computer you would need memory and instruction set

[@MattThompsonOnGoogle]

Yes, but it would be the slowest game ever.

[@pauls5745]

I've tried this a couple times and used hydrophobic coatings on glass to make outputs cleaner and the system overall more reliable. Steve always has good insights into design! that's why I love this channel and come back to older vids

[@erencan.s]

It is really nice to see great channels' collaboration.

[@bouncydachon]

“What are your specs?” “I have a water computer” “Water cooling?” “Did i stutter?”

[@onradioactivewaves]

I can't see without my specs!

[@daanoffline5716]

Flexes with 3 calculations per minute

[@drypenguin5174]

this computer has 13 bits of memory

[@mixup2216]

4 bit

[@Ezullof]

Can it run Doom?

[@AdityaSingh-mj6ei]

Gamers: I have liquid cooled pc Steve: I HAVE LIQUID PC

[@magictime8959]

liquid binary calculator

[@ethaphu5589]

Yeah, but Steve surely isint a gamer because there's no way he can play something with that lol

[@youraunt]

@@ethaphu5589 but like people can play DOOM on a pregnancy test people can play Bad Apple using discord alone he can definitely play something on there, as long as it's better than apple products

[@ethaphu5589]

@@youraunt No he can't, you can't compare discord and pregnancy tests with a transistor based solely in water and gravity. I'm too lazy to state arguments but anyway: (still does it) It would be too hard to display it; It's been a long time since I have watched that video, but that's like, 6 transistors? 6 transistors that take up a huge amount of space and that needs up to 7 seconds for the water inside it to flow, Even if it was as big as a building, it would be impossible, just because something is said to be a computer it doesn't mean it can do complex tasks like playing Doom, it is exclusively demonstrative.

[@ethaphu5589]

@@youraunt Don't be naive

[@gemblersk2519]

Dude, this can help learning computer processing so much in future I feel like some people don't realize how big affect this can have for people who will learn computer processing and stuff about computers in general. It can make learning so easier and helps understanding very well since you see example and have pepper explanation

[@renatoximenes4693]

A year ago I thought about making a water computer, but i couldn't develop a configuration for some logical ports. Seeing your design just blew my mind.

[@samsibbens8164]

Bringing a brand new meaning to "integer overflow"

[@DrRiq]

OR STACK OVERFLOW #AMIRITE

[@giovannirizzi516]

came here to make the same joke

[@44cheetah1]

Ok, but I was actually hoping one of them would make that joke

[@ca-ke9493]

But integer overflow is not really this concept tho, more like short circuits?

[@Katt1n]

@@ca-ke9493 huh? When your number is greater than 31, the water will literarily overflow from the left bucket. Can't get any more clear cut than that.

[@TheLimeLines]

That 'wet inside' on the thumbnail is amazing, there's some serious meme potential there

[@pastek957]

It's a "sbubby", there are a lot of different ones

[@TheLimeLines]

@@pastek957 yeah, I'm on the sub Reddit, just wet inside has a nice ring, like the good old 'dead inside' sbubby

[@aspopulvera9130]

I can agree to that 😂

[@StuckOnAFireHydrant]

I'd buy a sticker with wet inside on it! For my water cooled computer that I (don't) own of course!

[@kamuy_1337]

Uwu

[@MrDarviel]

Btw. I think there is a way to turn this into a digital number once again: Once all individual "buckets" have settled, you could put the fluid from each bucket onto a lever scale and put them at the corresponding distance to the center such that their pull on the lever corresponds to their number. So meaning: 8 _ _ _ 4 _ 2 1 | _ _ _ "measure" (maybe with a spring and a ruler). The number 8 corresponds to the fluid in the bucket which has the bit for 8 for example.

[@Buphido]

Great idea! Now we only need a way to do the opposite.

[@Joevideostube]

What really amazed me is I read about fluidic computing in a printed article some 30 years ago, anyway thums up for nicely show the kind of hard work that normally takes to make a workable device from the inital idea.

[@spooderman4008]

Finally, my future computer will no longer be water cooled but water itself.

[@thepupilsofrob3287]

But what if it falls over then you have to scoop it back in

[@Andrew-my1cp]

Your profile pic is fucking terrifying

[@baliart908]

Wtf is your profile pic man?!

[@benholroyd5221]

@@baliart908 what happens when the human centipede gets hungry?

[@spooderman4008]

To answer those who are questioning my pfp: It's me! Sillys. :)

[@AllDayBikes]

0:04 That is the look of a man who spent weeks building a water computer

[@nou4898]

and it has water cooling too

[@fadedc]

@@nou4898 built in

[@jirifiala5090]

🤣

[@strawberrylemonadelioness]

Sweet! This looks really cool! I like seeing computers being made with other stuff, I think I've seen them being made with marble machines too.

[@RajeshKumar28sep]

A brilliant display of logic circuits at work. I plan to use this in my class :) Just a technical correction, at 6:50 the full adder will have an OR gate instead of a XOR on the left (in the end). In other words, the Cout would come out of an OR instead XOR.

[@samykamkar]

All of this boolean logic really makes me want to pee.

[@gormintaunty7133]

but most of all, samy is my hero

[@itsmerg5273]

but most of all, samy is my hero(really i mean it)

[@VivekYadav-ds8oz]

Hey you finally remembered your channel's password! Seriously though when are you gonna resume making videos?

[@cringe511]

holy shit i wasn’t expecting you here

[@MohamedAnsari_H]

Yay Samy!!!

[@cuckoophendula8211]

Whoa, any fiction authors that like to incorporate "hydraulic computers" into their steampunk inspired story line, here's something for ya.

[@Roxor128]

Terry Pratchett did in one of his Discworld stories (Making Money). Probably based on the economic analogue computer mentioned in the video, given its role in the story.

[@jerrygrimes8813]

Ever since my Mechanical Engineering degree, I've joked that I wanted to invent the steam lightbulb and the hydraulic TV to put the EEs out of business!

[@nolan412]

Who needs a pump?

[@sergeigarbar1948]

Its not fiction. We made fluidic logical components years ago. Now with 3d prineterss should be happy tine. But youtube continues to censir my message about it.....

[@sergeigarbar1948]

@Electro_blob 2 Idont know. Probably because i mentioned it was produced in USSR.

[@laurab994]

Beguiling! Love it. Love the explanation, love the practical demonstration. Super 😁

[@jamesburke2759]

This is the best and easiest explanation of how a pc works. This should be the first lesson of computer engineering. if I had this easy to follow visual guide when i was 14 it would have saved me years of questions.

[@SaHaRaSquad]

Fun fact: Someone actually built a fully functional computer in Dwarf Fortress using the game's water simulation and thousands of crafted parts.

[@jordanl.8509]

Dear God... RIP that dude's free time.

[@SaHaRaSquad]

@@jordanl.8509 What's even crazier are the people pushing Factorio to its limits. Someone literally built an in-game pixel-based "display" using a ridiculous number of trains and then created a Doom-like 3D engine just using Factorio's ingame components. I'm sure those people can build quantum computers using a box of wooden sticks.

[@JamesBideaux]

@@SaHaRaSquad someone also used conways game of life which is apparently turing complete to "play" tetris after building a virtual tetris machine.

[@Pk2723]

Both the creator of Dwarf Fortress and its players are insane and I love em for it.

[@criticalgems2605]

Link?

[@CaptainMangles]

"What does your water computer do?" "It computes water." "Oh."

[@Queer_Nerd_For_Human_Justice]

this made me laugh

[@_mossy_8520]

It computes drip 🥶🥶

[@Klexology]

I've watched many videos on computers but I've never understood them until now. Thank you Steve!

[@TheLonelyPeople314]

I am like stupidly happy I found this video. A while back I was making a calculator in Minecraft and it took me days and it never really worked. Then I found this and it has helped SO much. Keeping it in binary makes both the computation and display much easier. Also good video

[@nitehawk86]

Memory leak: "I've never been so proud of such an easy joke." :)

[@daudmeer6852]

you should use hydrophobic coating inside of the containers and tubes so liquid dont stick inside of them and use distilled water or some other kind of fluid that can flow better

[@negriignaciojose1781]

or just add detergent to water... (lower the surface tension)

[@jorgepeterbarton]

Liquid hydrogen

[@NineJuanJuan_]

Hydro- Hydropho- pho- Hydrophobic *CANCELED*

[@adamplace1414]

Just rain-x everything, for sure.

[@miguelbaltazar7606]

yeas

[@halonothing1]

This is really cool. One thing I've always wanted to see somebody do is make an actual circuit that uses the hydrological equivalents to passive electrical components like textbooks always use to familiarize you with them. That is, use a narrow section of pipe or tubing in place of a resistor, use a flexible diaphragm that flexes back or forth as a capacitor. And use a weighted water wheel or turbine as an inductor. I've always wanted to see somebody try making something like an RLC circuit that oscillates at a specific frequency when energy is added in the form of voltage or current. OR in the case of the water circuit, by water pressure or flow. Which are the equivalents of voltage and current, respectively.

[@gazbot9000]

several clips later.... you have earned my subscription! Reminds me of one of those non-electronic tutorial computers as described in Neil Stephensen's 'The Diamond Age', only for reals this time. Nice work!!

[@gillo100]

Need to get Cody and his supply of Mercury. Won't wet the glass so no failures from trapped water

[@StraightOuttaJarhois]

I wonder if one of those hydrophobic sprays would do the trick too.

[@HerbaMachina]

@@StraightOuttaJarhois that would absolutely improve the performance.

[@bharris591]

@@StraightOuttaJarhois better get Rhett and Link on that part. Greatest crossover in history.

[@ksp-crafter5907]

A Mercury Computer 😲 That would be soo cool! You could also couple this with an electric switch system because of the conductivity of mercury.

[@sandipsing2657]

👍

[@janneaalto3956]

"you've got a memory leak" Laughed so hard at this that people came to see what the hell was going on XD

[@Vasharan]

Q: But can you get a stack overflow? A: Yes, but you'd have to run an injection attack.

[@lyrimetacurl0]

The second from the left only had 0.8 bits in it.

[@1Chitus]

As a digital designer of microchips I'd like to say your introduction to adders is one of the best I've seen so far; my high school teacher sucked on the basics like this but luckily I still ended up in IC design :)

[@zircon256ua]

I love this content! I love water physics, angles, polygons, and everything in between!

[@CrazyHorse151]

9:55 As a computer scientist, I highly appreciate this series of jokes.

[@ogi22]

Jokes? OK i can get it as a joke, but that's a brilliant logic interpretation in physical world.If you get this, you will have no problems understanding logial gates in the future:)

[@khodis2002]

@@ogi22 but that's not how memory leaks physically work :)

[@blueeyesdarkmagician5386]

@@ogi22 :)

[@spandexgoblin]

@@khodis2002 it is now

[@CrazyHorse151]

@@ogi22 Regarding the memory leak one, that's maybe similar-ish but not really a real-world equivalent. Memory leaks happen when a subsystem doesn't inform the OS that some part of the memory is free to be used again. So subsystem has nothing to do with the memory, OS still thinks it is being used.

[@delphicdescant]

It's not only that one pun - all the CS terminology about buckets, overflow, leaks, etc. really feed into the *excellent* humor.

[@alexpotts6520]

It's almost like early computer scientists needed analogue metaphors to describe how computers worked...

[@ZhePorgi0550]

I’m pretty excited in this Steve mould video and seeing water channels and gravity, simple stuff used to make functional logic gates that can be used and combined like circuits and that take the flow energy and transform it into light or other things to show bits being either 1 or 0 (on / off states)

[@AK-vk8uj]

The effort you put to your videos is unbelievable. Thank you for the dedication 👍👍

[@NicosLeben]

Instead of splitting the lines to make a "10ml" out of a "20ml" you could use a reservoir which can hold 10ml and just use the overrun. That way it can not split unevenly accidentally.

[@AlxM96]

I was thinking the exact same thing! Make it go through a tube on the side of the tank raised by the exact amount and you're good without spills

[@JohnDlugosz]

@@AlxM96 Isaac Newton's water clock worked this way.

[@lewzero]

This seriously just made me understand the part of computers that I could never quite grasp. 35 years of not understanding _why_ the gate system that computers use works, all answered in sixteen and a half minutes. And now that I understand, I can hardly believe I didn't before. I honestly feel that my life is about to get way easier, thank you for that

[@mosesracal6758]

I even just understood the concept of 1 and 0 bits, very awesome way of connecting the digital to the physical world

[@emissarygw2264]

Yeah it's why I took a bunch of computer architecture classes and stuff in college. I really wanted to understand how things work all the way down. It's really fascinating.

[@robmarrin6720]

Spot on this is exactly how you are tau in college, water explains the flow of current through faucets,, the water is there potentially but until you draw it, flow cannot occur same with electricity and logic gate's, in this case it shows both the flow of electrons and the logical outcomes 👍

[@phantomsoul8937]

I know this video is "old" by now but you guys synergize so well, its been quite fun.

[@Sukshula]

your ability to clarify complex subjects is unparalleled!

[@zack1stplayer]

This is taking Liquid Cooled™ to a whole new level

[@gaia9020]

It is only the next logical step

[@carius989]

Liquid driven

[@DTG4844]

The trademark is giving me ominous vibes

[@gotchabiqch8942]

@@DTG4844 the trademark was the cherry on top wym®

[@chargemankent]

Well... It's not Liquid Cooling... It's Liquid Core!

[@ryant2568]

I love these different types of computers. I saw a guy once built a fully working 8-bit computer in minecraft.

[@fktx3507]

That's amazing. Could you illustrate with this setup how all these zeros and ones end up showing a picture or a video on a screen?

[@alphtheor.879]

This could turn into a crazy puzzle in a game in some ancient temple dedicated to some advanced people to open a door.

[@Lanyovan]

Informaticus (2003) had stuff like this. It's from a series of german educational point&click adventures, each focused on a different natural science. In Informaticus you were part of an archeological team who uncovers a lost civilization with knowledge on Logic/Computer Science. While I don't remember a water-powered computer, there was one puzzle that used crystal skulls as optic logic gates. Another puzzle had you program a robot to traverse a 2D labyrinth and there was also Conway's Game Of Life in it.

[@randomchie4933]

crystal maze? 😁

[@zenmode3125]

Fuck it, DnD dungeon puzzle time

[@Jam._.]

@@zenmode3125 YEEAAHHH

[@braedonlackovic1776]

Me with my 1 semester of computer engineering class knowledge

[@HarnaiDigital]

"He puts a lot of efforts to show that 9+5= 8+4+2" That killed me.😂

[@TomCRitucci]

Me too hahaha My $0.30 keychain calculator can do better than that

[@benoliver5593]

Just remember a lot of public school teachers have issues trying to explain a concept like this

[@HarnaiDigital]

@@benoliver5593 yep. Schools, colleges and Universities sucks. Books are super boring. Experiments are Cool and Informative.

[@prumchhangsreng979]

@@HarnaiDigital u are missing the point. A decent school always teach with experiment, but even with experiment, it's actually hard to explain this concept.

[@HarnaiDigital]

@@prumchhangsreng979 yes. You have a perfect point. Let me tell you something. There are different modes of education. Speaking, Books, Experiments, pdfs and videos. But most beautiful and easy one is video. It helps to share much more knowledge with in matter of minutes if done right. Maybe you can check my videos on that once and leave your Thoughts. The place where I'm living, we don't do experiments. Just freaking study and test. I hate this a lot.

[@minacapella8319]

This is crazy. It's so simple but so intricate.

[@Ruiluth]

That was the best explanation of full vs half adders I've ever seen

[@fredrum3966]

The irony in the poster behind Matt that says "Education works best when all the parts are working" while showing three interlocking gears, I guess it truly does represent the education system.

[@Agent24Electronics]

I remember seeing the same poster in high school and making the same joke. Guess nothing's changed...

[@Crlarl]

That was featured in Matt's book, Humble Pi.

[@anderpanders6210]

Probably the irony isn't lost on Matt either

[@DreadKyller]

@@anderpanders6210 Oh no, it definitely isn't, in his book "Humble Pi" he wrote a section talking about that 3-gear diagram.

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

Oh, I KNOW! This was SO distracting! It's a functional stand-still!

[@hedgehog3180]

It's always a sign of a well working computer when you're cheering on it to get the correct answer.

[@electronash]

I used to do that on my Celeron. lol

[@Roxor128]

@@electronash Would have thought that would be a 1994 Pentium.

[@tomasbernardo5972]

Great way to explain the logic. Just a note, in the full adder, the xor that doesn't belong to any of the half adders can be replaced with an or gate, in a real life situation you would probably want to have a circuit that is as simple as it needs to be. I get that using the syphons it's easier that way tho

[@scandalouxx]

"wet inside" is wild 💀💀💀

[@fuzzydark1395]

Bruh that "Wet Inside" name was on point

[@lauritslolck]

Yes right?! 😂

[@astrayan88]

Charles Babbage would be proud of this I reckon. If Babbage's computers have a steampunk vibe then this must be aquapunk.

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

Ada Lovelace would probably be able to figure out the decimal input.

[@anmolgarg6873]

Your videos are really amazing, i learn the concepts very easily

[@davidunkown1925]

It'd be nice to see a self filling / refilling calculator where the "answer" repopulated input one and the water fill was controlled by valve "button" inputs. Also, thanks for teaching me the concept behind binary addition calculation, never took in school

[@storminmormin14]

Oh my gosh. I saw the photo you posted and was like “huh that looks like a logic gate of some kind.”

[@harry.tallbelt6707]

Same here :D

[@Krokodil986]

I mean if it's a computer how else can you manipulate bits

[@DreadKyller]

@@Krokodil986 They meant before the video came out, some KZbinrs post teaser images on sites like Twitter, so without context that it's a water computer, just seeing the picture they thought it looked like logic gates. Obviously with the context of knowing that it's a water computer it becomes obvious that they are.

[@Krokodil986]

@@DreadKyller oh right, I thought he meant the thumbnail of the video rather than the photo from before 😂

[@stevenclark2188]

I like how this demonstrates how the amplification effect of transistor gates is a necessary feature to keep signal levels up.

[@flatikk]

While watching your video I actually came up with an idea of as to how to make a classic transistor using only water. Perhaps you could take a normal tube with a propeller in the middle which is supposed to act as a pump. The water from the first input comes directly into the center of the propeller, meaning that it won't be able to spin it much, but a second current of water comes tangent to another propeller that is coaxial with this one, meaning that both inputs have to have water flowing through them to have water at the output.

[@Minemac2]

I hope they don't stop doing videos together once they get to 1 million. They work well together

[@immko]

Dont worry, they are friends and do stand up together too.

[@m.degroot6837]

"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can be used to build a computer. Be water, my friend." -Bruce Lee

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

What I'm hearing is someone needs to make logic gates based on kung fu moves.

[@UCmDBecUtbSafffpMEN3iscA]

@cukkoo cukkoo Lmao

[@anduro7448]

@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 how tf does that even work

[@Owenbrown900]

Steve lee

[@anatine_banana_69]

@@anduro7448 maybe a roundhouse kick if it's 1 AND 1 and a half kick if it's 0 AND 1 or something like that

[@Nhatanh0475]

"There it's go" "Yayyyyy" Me: I have watch enough.

[@christopherpardell4418]

You can do an ancillary video about fluidics. The military actually built control systems with complex logic gates that operated in line with hydraulic fluid to perform ratio, multiplication and division operations that resulted in dynamic control surfaces that adjusted force output based upon input parameters like airspeed, inertial forces and pilot input. These were early attempts at making logic based control systems that would be immune to EMP in nuclear war. What they looked like was tall stacks of thin steel plates with channels cut in them, separated by gaskets, where the inputs and outputs where holes passing into adjacent plates on one side or the other. The whole thing was filled with hydraulic fluid at pressure, and the flow thru the various inputs controlled by valves and regulators, with the flow either resulting in greater or lesser hydraulic flow to the control surfaces.

[@anxietyprimev6983]

So, I did the math, and it turns out it would take about 20,048,773 of these water-powered logic gates to be able to run Doom. Better start firing up that 3D printer. How you'd get that to show up on a screen is beyond me, but I'm sure you could figure it out. Have fun!😊

[@adrianbundy3249]

I hope you love playing doom on 0.5 FPS. I mean, that would be relying on water drip speed :)

[@Roxor128]

@@adrianbundy3249 Oh, it'd be much, _much_ worse than that. If one instruction takes 20 seconds, and we assume the kind of machine Doom was written for needed 15MIPS to run the game, then one second of gameplay would take 300 million seconds, or about _ten years_ to calculate on this thing.

[@Ranstone]

@@Roxor128 At the original Doom's intended 35FPS, that's 104 days per frame. XD

[@kostyr13]

Maybe something less computationally overwhelming like Tic-Tac-Toe or Tetris could be achievable (maybe). In tetris, it could be helpful that both water and the tetrinimos want to fall down. Who know? Fill the gates with more saturated color and that can be out display!!!!

[@unicornhuntercg]

@@adrianbundy3249 0.5 FPS on this !!? Bro you're dreaming, I'd estimate days per frame.

[@jorggamingcr409]

2:33 and that is what in electronics we call as timing and propagation issues. Electrical signals also suffer from timing or other problems like jutter and clock skew among others. Lenght of wires, crosstalk, etc.

[@teja8086]

I appreciate your work man

[@koshi6505]

You could make a number display by draining the individual reservoirs into an aggregate reservoir. Each 10ml of water is an integer increase. Actually, you already have a sort of reverse aggregate reservoir. Fill the drain reservoir to the maximum amount that can be added, and then fill the inputs from the drainage reservoir. The amount missing the the amount inside the machine.

[@paul2tr]

6:53 The result should be 0 and the carry 1, you did the opposite. Result: (1 xor 0) xor 1 = 1 xor 1 = 0 Carry: (1 & 0) xor ( (1 xor 0) & 1) = 0 xor ( 1 & 1) = 0 xor 1 = 1 We can also do the addition in binary: 1 + 0 + 1 = 10 => result 0, carry 1.

[@jonhtte]

Thanks, I have been searching for this comment

[@IamFluffY90]

I noticed the same thing. I just wanted to follow the logic out of curiosity and was surprised when I got the opposite outputs. Turns out, the logic gates were formed correctly and the arithmetic was wrong 😂

[@joshuawilliams4695]

Was just going to say the same lol

[@user-gr1np8rm6b]

Plot twist: he made the mistake on purpose to test the viewers

[@LivKASS]

@Felix Jove Maybe he did. He did say he wasn’t gonna explain it and to feel free to pause of we want to ponder it

[@hayd7371]

"I think someone's using this to mine bitcoin and it's slowing everything down" Brilliant.

[@AlexSchendel]

The leakiness/imperfect function of the gates honestly mimics real transistor behavior more closely. Because modern processors are running their clocks at such high speeds, the amount of time (nanoseconds) it takes for the voltage to rise or fall starts mattering a lot, so instead of reaching 0V for a logical 0, you might only hit 0.2V. by the time the output voltage is actually measured.

[@Chapy63]

I like that you took the time to open all the seringes, even the empty ones. Quite a commitment ahah

[@baze3541]

Someone: I've got a 800W gold+ power supply, what do you have? Steve: GRAVITY

[@jebwatson]

As a holder of a computer science degree and a software professional, this is damn fascinating. Thank you! "I've always wondered what the volume of a 1 is" - Priceless commentary

[@dannygjk]

Have you done any assembly language programming?

[@jebwatson]

@@dannygjk A fair bit in college, but it's been a few years. x86 and some ARM.

[@diegomariapagnoni9202]

AMAZING! Thanks, truly beautiful!

[@solaokusanya955]

I love you mehn! For the first time, just this singular video gave me an intuitive eureka feeling!..

[@nicklacerte7134]

"Someone must be slowing the system down mining for bitcoin" I almost lost my food on that one with an audible laugh

[@andrewberryman4957]

Bottom of the email: "You were right about tau and I was wrong." Well done, Steve.

[@umartinko]

And it even appears on 3:14 timestamp. :)

[@andrewberryman4957]

@@umartinko beautiful

[@motttta]

What is Tau?

[@andrewberryman4957]

@@motttta ​ You're in for a treat. Tau is another Greek letter that in this context represents a value that is twice the value of pi. There is a long-standing "feud" between Steve and Matt (or Matt and Steve, depending on your allegiance) as to which is the better mathematical constant. Numberphile did a couple of videos: the first with Professor Moriarty, kzbin.info/www/bejne/bmTSl5yVgZuYd9E, followed shortly by Steve and Matt, kzbin.info/www/bejne/kIHZYoiMZdd3brc

[@umartinko]

@@andrewberryman4957 ​@Motta Not to forget ViHart, who even has a playlist dedicated to Pi and Anti-Pi videos ;) kzbin.info/aero/PL5F03A9D6D278C5D9

[@Mehaffeyj]

On board a certain aircraft carrier, (not sure what I can say)we used a pneumatic analog computer to control feed flow to the Steam Generators. Extremely complicated but very reliable. No electronics or the security concerns that come with them.

[@overlordprincekhan]

"Wet Inside" LOL, this made my day

[@cmel7841]

For those of us that were in high school in the 80s this brought back a lot of memories. I am a software engineer now and it all started with something like this.

[@krischycupcakez]

i just clicked to comment the "wet inside" from the thumbnail is stupendously amazing, i love it

[@claudiamund-cooper9388]

Thank you sooo mich. I teach English for scientists, engineeris and technicians, so this video of yours fits in nicely. And your English is very nice to listen to as well.

[@Shadobanned4life]

This is an astonishing,practical look at binary logic. Thanks for a Class A1 video !

[@jrlanglois]

Next step is to outdo Ben Eater: "I built a GPU with my water computer."

[@nyancat7486]

doesn't even need cooling, it runs on water!

[@techboywitha7887]

What's new language to learn to code on this new water computer 🙄

[@WindsorMason]

@@techboywitha7887 Java, the answer is fed into a coffee pot.

[@Katt1n]

@@techboywitha7887 In theory you could run any language on it, given enough computing power and a structure similar to modern computers. In practice? Extremely basic assembly.