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Show me a way to physically compute exp or ln that is less gates than add. More gates means costlier in $, more energy in compute, and for these functions, higher latency.

You don’t get to make up free ops, claim there is no cost in reality, and hand wave away reality.

There are infinitely many ways to do what the paper did. There’s no gain other than it’s pretty. It loses on every practical front to simply using current ops and architectures.

by lioeters1 days ago|

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> no gain other than it’s pretty

Conceptual elegance is worth something, isn't it? I don't mean just aesthetic pleasure, as in recreational mathematics, but there's often (not always) value in being able to succinctly describe a wide range of phenomena with a small number of primitives. It could open up new ways of understanding or working that wasn't possible before. Not saying this specific discovery fits the description, but it seems too early to dismiss the idea entirely based on its im/practicality compared to existing solutions.

Aren't there examples in the history of mathematics, where a new idea was criticized for being impractical, then later found to have applications or implications, possibly unexpected even to the person who discovered it?

by ageofthun16 hours ago|

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I feel sad when pragmatics comes in scientific discussions... that's not what science should be (I think). But I value the discussion this paper is bringing to distinct contexts (even outside academia). That by itself adds value to this work.

by Qem1 days ago|

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> Show me a way to physically compute exp or ln that is less gates than add.

IIRC a resistor in series to a capacitor does the trick, for exp.

by SideQuark17 hours ago|

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No, it approximates exp poorly over an infinitesimally small interval compared to exp. Resistors and capacitors are no where ideal components, which is why they have spec sheets to show how quickly they diverge.

If we’re making sloppy approximations to a tiny range of exp, then I too can do it with a few terms.

by gyb9971 days ago|

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The feasibility of memristor analog circuits is evident, and I believe this paper represents a valuable early exploration. We've been constrained by Boolean logic for quite some time now.

by SideQuark17 hours ago|

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The world has had many types of logic before and after Boolean logic was created, many used in computing. Boolean logic isn’t a constraint; it’s used where it’s useful, and others are used where they’re useful.