Imagine someone taps your shoulder, and then your brain receives a signal from the touch receptors structured in your skin, interprets it, and tells you to stare in the direction of touch. This theory is what a group of University of Pennsylvania scientists and researchers from the US Air Force are working on to process mechanical information and integrate it into materials capable of thinking. Materials capable of thinking based on integrated circuits The work, published in the British journal Nature, is based on a new, reconfigurable alternative: integrated circuits, which typically consist of multiple electronic components contained in a single semiconductor material. They are usually silicon, and power all kinds of modern electronics, including phones, cars, and robots. The integrated circuits are a reflection of scientists’ awareness of processing information similar to the role of the brain in the human body. According to assistant professor of career development in mechanical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the research team, Ryan Harn, integrated circuits are the fundamental component needed for scalable computing for signals and information, but have not previously been recognized by scientists in any configuration other than silicon.
Scientists design engineering materials that can think like the human brain
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