CSCI 6370: Unconventional Computation
CSCI 6370: Unconventional Computation
Course Information
Instructor: Austin Luchsinger; EIEAB 3.246; austin.luchsinger@utrgv.edu
CRN: 72347Â
Syllabus: CSCI6370_syllabus.pdf
Schedule: Thursday, 6:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m., EIEAB 1.212
Office Hours: Open Door / By Appointment
Schedule / Topics
The course will roughly be divided into the following sections:
Computing with molecules (CRNs)
Computing with crystals (Self-Assembly)
Computing with thermodynamics (TBNs)
Computing with mechanical systems (Linkages)
Computing with subatomic particles (Quantum)
Computing with gravity (Tilt)
Resources
Books, papers, etc...
Molecular Computing Slides. Luchsinger, A. 2025.
Models of Computation. Erickson, J., 2015.
Computation: Finite and Infinite Machines. Minsky, M., 1967.
Petri Net Theory and the Modeling of Systems. Peterson, J. 1981.
Optimal Information Encoding in CRNs. Luchsinger, Doty, Soloveichik. 2023.
[slides]
Composable Computation in CRNs. [discrete] [continuous]
Deterministic Function Computation in CRNs. Chen, Doty, Soloveichik. 2014.
Tile Self-Assembly Survey. Matthew Patitz. 2013.
aTAM Arithmetic: Addition and Multiplication. Yuriy Brun. 2006.
aTAM Arithmetic: Subtraction and Division. Xang et al. 2008.
Fast Arithmetic in Tile Self-Assembly. Keenan et al. 2016.
Concentration Independent Coin Flipping. Chalk et al. 2015.
Program Complexity of Shapes. Adleman et al. 2001.
Self-assembly of Patterns. Drake, Patitz, Summers, Tracy. 2024.
Tile Complexity of Linear Assemblies. Chandran, Gopalkrishnan, Reif. 2012.
Thermodynamic Binding Networks. Doty et al. 2017.
Computing Properties of Stable TBN Configs. [original] [IP approach]
Programmable Kinetic Barriers in TBNs. Breik et al. 2021.
Barrier-1 Reachability in TBNs. Luchsinger. 2022.
TBN Experiments. Wang, Chalk, Doty, Soloveichik. 2025.
Full Tilt. [Presentation] Balanza-Martinez et al. 2019.
Problem Sets
TBD...