Realization Type: Statistical
All systems with realization type: statistical
Systems (8)
Biological brain
f(x) = general intelligence / perception, memory, reasoning, motor control
The human brain contains ~86 billion neurons connected by ~10¹⁵ synapses. Each neuron integrates thousands of synaptic inputs and fires a spike when its membrane potential crosses threshold — a leaky ...
Boson sampler
f(x) = sampling from the permanent of a unitary matrix (classically #P-hard)
Identical single photons enter an m-mode linear optical network (beam splitters and phase shifters implementing a unitary U). Detectors at the outputs sample from a distribution whose probabilities ar...
DishBrain (in-vitro neural culture)
f(x) = closed-loop sensorimotor control / game-playing (via biological learning)
~800,000 human iPSC-derived or mouse cortical neurons are plated onto a high-density multi-electrode array (HD-MEA). The DishBrain system (Kagan et al., 2022, Neuron) embeds the culture in a simulated...
Galton board (bean machine)
f(x) = Gaussian / binomial distribution
Balls dropped through a triangular array of pegs deflect left or right at each level. The distribution of balls in the output bins converges to a Gaussian as N→∞. Each peg is an independent Bernoulli ...
Physarum polycephalum (slime mold)
f(x) = Steiner tree / shortest transport network (approximate)
The plasmodial slime mold extends filaments toward nutrient sources and progressively reinforces paths that carry more flow, pruning inefficient routes. Toshiyuki Nakagaki showed it reproduces the Tok...
Quantum and quantum-inspired annealers
f(x) = Ising model energy minimization / QUBO optimization
Quantum and quantum-inspired systems for solving combinatorial optimization problems through annealing processes. Includes true quantum annealers (D-Wave) using superconducting qubits and quantum-insp...
Simulated annealing (thermal)
f(x) = argmin of energy / cost landscape
A physical system coupled to a heat bath at slowly decreasing temperature explores its energy landscape. At high temperature it escapes local minima; as T→0 it settles into a global minimum — if cooli...
Thermodynamic computer
f(x) = sampling from Boltzmann distributions
Uses thermal noise in analog circuits to sample from Boltzmann distributions. Thermal fluctuations provide natural randomness that follows statistical mechanics principles. The Normal Computing SDE (S...