Published in ScienceNOW, 7 Mar 2011
For some, mazes are a way to idle away a few spare minutes or a way to get lost among the hedges of country gardens. Yet maze solving has more serious uses, such as helping robots navigate or planning better routes for traffic. Now such applications could benefit from what two U.S. researchers say is the best maze-solving method yet—and it all rests on a simple electrical circuit and an unusual device called a memristor.
In the past, researchers have tried various ways to solve mazes. They include the slow but simple “random mouse” method, which involves taking a random left-or-right decision at every junction and wandering aimlessly until the exit is found, and mathematical algorithms that analyze each possible route. Last year, a group from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, showed that even simple oil droplets could navigate mazes, so long as they were driven by chemicals placed at the end. […]
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