How the 'memristor' could revolutionize electronics

In 1971, a physicist conceptualized the existence of a fourth fundamental element in the electronic circuit, besides the three that were already in use at the time.

His name was Leon Chua and he believed -- for reasons of symmetry -- that an extra component could one day be constructed to join the resistor, the capacitor and the inductor.

He called it "memristor", a portmanteau of the words memory and resistor.

It took 37 years for our engineering abilities to catch up with that idea: the first memristor was built by Hewlett Packard in 2008.

And today, many researchers believe it could spark a revolution in computing.
...
In a transistor, once the flow of electrons is interrupted by, say, cutting the power, all information is lost. But a memristor can remember the amount of charge that was flowing through it, and much like a memory stick it will retain the data even when the power is turned off.

More

I wonder what this will bring to life. I also wonder how the NSA will use it further invade privacy.

a reply to: roadgravel

Oh you cute kid......already posted.....
however whos to say it wasn't in another forum....?
This is indeed a quantum leap in electronics....
Between this and a few other new inventions we could make a big dent in world markets.....
It will revolutionise electronics......granted....but combine this with grapheme. and a few other breakthroughs and voila ...back on top again....

Saw this today.

Might as well can this thread.

We used to call this static memory. Its been around since flip flops…

Search-- difference between dynamic refreshed memory and static memory