the electrical equivalent of F=ma?

[yermom]

the comparisons made in this article are pretty heavy...

any EEs out there want to remind me what "hysteresis" is?

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207403521&printable=true

[skycat]

Hysteresis describes a system where the output state depends on the direction of the input state. It's used a lot to remove noise dependence on a buffer or switch (as well as a lot of other things).

Consider two circuits that are used to power an led. The first one swithes the led on if the control signal crosses some aribtrary level, say .5 VDD. If the control signal has any noise on it, the led will start blinking whenever it is nears the threshold voltage.

Using hysteresis, the second circuit will turn the led on if the control signal crosses say .6 VDD in a positive dirction, and will turn the led off if the control singal crosses something like .4VDD in a negative direction. Now you would have to have signifigantly more noise to cause the output state to change.

Clear as mud?

[skycat]

By the way, I hadn't seen that article yet. Very interesting. Thanks for posting.

[SoonerInKCMO]

You mean the answer isn't V = IR? :(

[yermom]

comparing this to Newton's 2nd Law is pretty nuts, i mean anyone who has done Physics at all understands how important that is to understanding the basics of anything in mechanics

i remembered my Electrical Science prof talking about hysteresis but i didn't remember what he said about it

[skycat]

I don't really like the analogy. I've always liked the symmetry between a mass spring damper system, and an RLC circuit.

This seems more like a special case of resistance (or actually resistance can be said to be a special case of memristance) to me.

Either way, it's going to be quite a while before any practical applications of this stuff are out in the wild.

[NormanPride]

It sounds like the main application is memory and perhaps for powering nanomachines. Let me tell you, of all the technology that scares me, nanotech scares me the most.

[OklahomaRed]

220, 221. Whatever it takes. :D

[soonerbrat]

who what?

physics II was not my friend.