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.

Keywords: memristor; singing arc; nonlinear characteristics; dissipative systems

Domains: Dynamical Systems [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⟩