Publications [#237004] of John H. Reif

Journal articles or Book chapters PUBLISHED

1. Reif, JH; Sun, Z, On frictional mechanical systems and their computational power, SIAM Journal on Computing, vol. 32 no. 6 (September, 2003), pp. 1449-1474, Society for Industrial & Applied Mathematics (SIAM), ISSN 0097-5397 [doi]
   (last updated on 2026/01/14)

   Abstract:
   A class of mechanical systems connected by frictional contact linkages between surfaces and their computational power were described. A universal Turing machine (TM) was simulated by a universal frictional mechanical system. It was found that the robotic mover's problem was undecidable when there were frictional linkages. It was also observed that a mechanical computer was constructed which had the computational power of any conventional electronic computer with constant number of mechanical parts.