ReviewNature2021
Mechanical computing.
Review in Nature, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 80 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
80 citing papers in PubMed.
- Viscoelastic nanomechanical devices for neuromorphic information processing.Science advances · 2026Article
- Programmable Information Processing With Reconfigurable Self-Contact Variable Stiffness Mechanical Metamaterial.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Self-locking non-volatile coding metasurfaces via origami-based mechanical bits.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Trainable soft electronics with memory in liquid crystal polymers.Science advances · 2026Article
- Combinatorial decision-making driven by multicomponent surface condensates.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Mechanochemical and machine-intelligent design of programmable materials: From molecular interactions to macroscale functionality.Materials today. Bio · 2026Review
- A pseudo-dynamic paradigm for reprogramming domain-wall-lattices in architected solids.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Dynamic drives allow independent control of material bits for targeted memory.Science advances · 2026Article
- Mechanical hysterons with tunable interactions of general sign.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Magnetic coupling transforms random snapping into ordered sequences in soft metamaterials.Science advances · 2026Article
- Light-programmable mechanical computing via polyaniline composite film.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Embodying physical computing into soft robots.Nature communications · 2026Review
- Rotary Electromechanical System Integrating Non-Reciprocal Memory and Combinational Logic.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Hysteretic slit-snapping and multistability in buckled beams with partial cuts.Science advances · 2026Article
- Physical Intelligence in Small-Scale Robots and Machines.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Review
- Digital composites with reprogrammable phase architectures.Science advances · 2026Article
- Mechanical non-reciprocity programmed by shear jamming in soft composite solids.Nature materials · 2026Article
- Multi-Instably Mechanical Systems for Computing-Storing Functions.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Fibrous contextual embodiments formed by task-invariant continuous blow spinning in dynamic environments.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2026Article
- General-purpose mechanical computing enabled by origami circuit reconfiguration with robotic addressing and activation.Nature communications · 2025Article
20 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mechanical mechanisms have been used to process information for millennia, with famous examples ranging from the Antikythera mechanism of the Ancient Greeks to the analytical machines of Charles Babbage. More recently, electronic forms of computation and information processing have overtaken these mechanical forms, owing to better potential for miniaturization and integration. However, several unconventional computing approaches have recently been introduced, which blend ideas of information processing, materials science and robotics. This has raised the possibility of new mechanical computing systems that augment traditional electronic computing by interacting with and adapting to their environment. Here we discuss the use of mechanical mechanisms, and associated nonlinearities, as a means of processing information, with a view towards a framework in which adaptable materials and structures act as a distributed information processing network, even enabling information processing to be viewed as a material property, alongside traditional material properties such as strength and stiffness. We focus on approaches to abstract digital logic in mechanical systems, discuss how these systems differ from traditional electronic computing, and highlight the challenges and opportunities that they present.
Identifiers
34616053What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.