Comment Missing the point, perhaps? (Score 2, Informative) 250
As someone who does academic research in microfluidics, I should probably comment on this and some of the perceptions of it.
This stuff will not WILL NOT ever replace electronic circuitry. I don't think anyone who works with microfluidic applications would seriously claim this. There is just too large of a speed differential between fluids and semiconductors. Do you want your computer making decisions on the millisecond time scale (fluidics) or the subnanosecond time scale (silicon)? This work is a little misguided, and somewhat misleading as it tries to mimic electronic circuitry. Fluidic logic was rightly given up as a techy-backwater thirty years ago. There is tremendous potential in this field, however, when people start to think out of the box of usual engineering.
There are some really cool fluid physics that take over at these length scales. You can't have turbulence (the Reynold's number is far too low) so neighboring streams are totally laminar, and stay separate until they mix by slow diffusion. Buoyant forces dominate over convective forces (the Grashoff number is low), so you can do biology and chemistry experiments in these systems that were previously only practical in microgravity. For a tiny fraction of the cost, mind you... most microfluidicists use a channel-making process that employs photolithography, so you can use the economy of scale to do a f^Hckton of experiments for pennies on the dollar. Better than hoping your precious bugs survive the next shuttle flight.
This stuff is already having a serious impact in biotech and big pharma. The Human Genome Project wouldn't have been possible without technology that used these physics to shunt little packets of fluid around. Synthetic chemists use it to make thousands of variations on whatever drug they're working on.
Do some googling if you're interested... the field is booming right now.
Oh, and these guys are almost certainly using computers to drive their input pumps. Cheating, sorta...
This stuff will not WILL NOT ever replace electronic circuitry. I don't think anyone who works with microfluidic applications would seriously claim this. There is just too large of a speed differential between fluids and semiconductors. Do you want your computer making decisions on the millisecond time scale (fluidics) or the subnanosecond time scale (silicon)? This work is a little misguided, and somewhat misleading as it tries to mimic electronic circuitry. Fluidic logic was rightly given up as a techy-backwater thirty years ago. There is tremendous potential in this field, however, when people start to think out of the box of usual engineering.
There are some really cool fluid physics that take over at these length scales. You can't have turbulence (the Reynold's number is far too low) so neighboring streams are totally laminar, and stay separate until they mix by slow diffusion. Buoyant forces dominate over convective forces (the Grashoff number is low), so you can do biology and chemistry experiments in these systems that were previously only practical in microgravity. For a tiny fraction of the cost, mind you... most microfluidicists use a channel-making process that employs photolithography, so you can use the economy of scale to do a f^Hckton of experiments for pennies on the dollar. Better than hoping your precious bugs survive the next shuttle flight.
This stuff is already having a serious impact in biotech and big pharma. The Human Genome Project wouldn't have been possible without technology that used these physics to shunt little packets of fluid around. Synthetic chemists use it to make thousands of variations on whatever drug they're working on.
Do some googling if you're interested... the field is booming right now.
Oh, and these guys are almost certainly using computers to drive their input pumps. Cheating, sorta...
