Engineers at Stanford University have reinvented the idea of fluid-operated equipment to create the world’s first water-operated computer. Using magnetized particles flowing through a micro-miniature network of channels, the machine runs like clockwork and is claimed to be capable of performing complex logical operations.

Using poppy-seed sized droplets of water impregnated with magnetic nanoparticles, the new fluidic computer uses electromagnetic fields to accurately pump these droplets around a set of physical gates to perform logical operations. Suspended in oil and timed to move in very specific steps, the droplets in the system can theoretically be used to accomplish any process that a normal electronic computer can, albeit at considerably slower speeds.