Although this development does not contain nixies per se, it is the same technology. I am sure you will find it interesting or even exciting!
I came across the following publication in the journal of 'Lab on a chip' while researching details regarding the physics of a glow discharge for a different project. Researchers at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London developed a way to solve problems that require the computation of the shortest path between two points using glow discharges in Helium. In layman's terms, they etch the maze to be solved on an insulator such as glass, forming channels. They then cover the channels using another piece of glass and insert electrodes at the start and finish points. The channels are purged and filled with Helium at low pressure. A high voltage is applied and the shortest path is 'magically' illuminated by the glow discharge. The advantage of this is that even with extremely complex large mazes the solution is displayed almost instantaneously. Here is the publication link: http://tinyurl.com/79a6ep5 The method works so well that the discharge even shows the shortest path within the channel as you can see in this picture: http://tinyurl.com/72s8w9m Unfortunately the full paper is not available freely. Regards, Alex -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB.
