The singing arc: the oldest memristor?

摘要

On April 30th 2008, the journal Nature announced that the missing circuitelement, postulated thirty-seven years before by Professor Leon O. Chua hasbeen found. Thus, after the capacitor, the resistor and the inductor, theexistence of a fourth fundamental element of electronic circuits called"memristor" was established. In order to point out the importance of such adiscovery, the aim of this article is first to propose an overview of themanner with which the three others have been invented during the pastcenturies. 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 ofthe memristor will enable to state that the singing arc could be considered asthe oldest memristor.