The singing arc: the oldest memristor?

Jean-Marc Ginoux (1) , Bruno Rossetto (1)

1 PROTEE - Processus de Transfert et d'Echanges dans l'Environnement - EA 3819

On April 30th 2008, the journal Nature announced that the missing circuit element, postulated thirty-seven years before by Professor Leon O. Chua has been found. Thus, after the capacitor, the resistor and the inductor, the existence of a fourth fundamental element of electronic circuits called "memristor" was established. In order to point out the importance of such a discovery, the aim of this article is first to propose an overview of the manner with which the three others have been invented during the past centuries. Then, a comparison between the main properties of the singing arc, i.e. a forerunner device of the triode used in Wireless Telegraphy, and that of the memristor will enable to state that the singing arc could be considered as the oldest memristor.

Mots clés: memristor; singing arc; nonlinear characteristics; dissipative systems

Domaines: Systèmes dynamiques [math.DS]

Jean-Marc Ginoux, Bruno Rossetto. The singing arc: the oldest memristor?. Andrew Adamatzky et Guanrong Chen. Chaos, CNN, Memristors and Beyond, World Scientific, pp.494-507, 2013, 978-981-4434-79-9. ⟨10.1142/9789814434805_0040⟩. ⟨hal-01057255⟩