https://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Purely_20functional_20programming_20with_20heat_20output#1763275883 Half a croissant, on a ... plate, with a sign in LCD (+14, -1)(+14, -1) computer:cooling front of it saying heatsinks ... liquid '50c' Liquid h a l f b a k e r y Nitrogen (+2, -13)(+2, -13)(+2, -13) You want a piece of Computer this? Cooling idea: add, mighty fan (+3) search, Outdoor CPU (+4, -2) annotate, link, Heat Pipe view, overview, Purely recent, by name, functional random programming (+5, -1) with heat meta: news, help output , about, links, spinning report a problem fractal (+3, -6) heatsink account: browse Stirling CPU (+13, -1)(+13, -1) anonymously, or Cooler get an account Swept and write. Boundary (+2) Layer register, login Heatsink Tablet Overclocking (+1) pan pipe case ... Purely functional programming with heat output Box sits there and does stuff - (+5, -1) thermometer is output (+5, -1) I don't know where to put this, but it also applies to the ALGOL 60 standard, which has no I/O capability. Purely functional programming, as I understand it, has no side-effects. All it does, ideally, is take and return values. This is thermodynamically suspect. What must surely be happening is that the computer sits there and gets hot when it processes data. Heat is output and a side-effect, so thermodynamically it appears that functional programming is as impossible as a perpetual motion machine. That said, there are apparently logic gates which never lose information but that's not something I currently understand. Once again that seems thermodynamically suspect. In the physical world, a device running a purely functional program just is going to get hotter and its heat will vary according to how intense its processing is. This means that it really is possible to design a functional program with no side-effects from the perspective of processing at all. When it comes to output time, binary data can be converted to serial form and then output as follows: 1 is intense computing which heats up the CPU a lot, and 0 is less intense computing which doesn't change the temperature much. Then, aim some kind of temperature-measuring device, also known as a thermometer but not the mercury or alcohol kind so much as one of those gun things for taking temperature remotely, and monitor fluctuations in temperature, probably more the rate of heating or cooling than actual temperature or heat, and you have an output technique for a purely functional program, and for something running ALGOL 60. No input though. -- nineteenthly, Nov 12 2025 Presumably the input could be a cigarette lighter applied to the circuitry? -- pocmloc, Nov 12 2025 It's an existential angst engine; we see that it struggles, but those struggles have no discernible meaning, and then the algorithm terminates. I suggest it needs a friend. -- pertinax, Nov 12 2025 So this is how Charlie Brown keeps warm since he has basically no hair? Makes sense. Functionally this is a resistor that does some 1's and 0's on the side. -- RayfordSteele, Nov 12 2025 Yes. But for all we know, it isn't lonely. It might be instantiating interacting protagonists. -- nineteenthly, Nov 13 2025 Percussive input maybe? -- nineteenthly, Nov 13 2025 So ... it's playing board games against itself, and then you hit it? -- pertinax, Nov 13 2025 Maybe. Who knows what it's doing? -- nineteenthly, Nov 13 2025 Well, if it's //instantiating interacting protagonists//, then it's playing board games against itself, or something quite similar. And percussive input does mean you hit it. "Your honour, I submit that ... !" -- pertinax, Nov 14 2025 What it comes down to is that, we are all doomed to live in interesting times. It's going to become convoluted chaos soon and we are all just dust in the wind. Some dust will find purchase, while other dust does not. In another reality other dust finds purchase, while some dust does not. ...and in another reality... etc. etc. So. We just all need to determine which reality is 'this' one. I have a feeling that this is determined by consciousness, meaning that one persons' outcome will vary from another persons. There is not only one reality program running at any one time. They run simultaneously in their infinite probability programs and overlap whether they want to or not. Enjoy the ride. -- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 14 2025 As I am modeling-in-mind your described device, I envision something remarkably close to the computing device described by Douglas Adams for calculating the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. Which makes me think - perhaps, rather than "climate change", we should be thinking "computational intensity". -- lurch, Nov 16 2025 Climate change is a con. It's real. No doubt... but it's been going on forever.. ...but then to tax it from the populace?... Nice con. Props. If we don't live within a multi-verse then quantum computing would not exist. Every decision made by every microscopic organism creates a new reality. Your thoughts can control it... if -- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 16 2025 back: main index business computer culture fashion food halfbakery home other product public science sport vehicle