Comment by PendulumSegment
1 year ago
This is very interesting because according to one of the authors of the mechanical computing paper(personal communication) they never dynamically simulated the mechanisms. It was purely kinematic. So this web browser simulation is new work. Reversibility might disappear once dynamics are modelled.
Indeed. The web simulation clearly applies damping, which is an irreversible element. A truly reversible process should probably be built around minimally-damped oscillating elements, so that the stored energy never needs to dissipate.
Even if damping is removed they might not be reversible. Logic gates that were found to be individually reversible, were found to have difficulties operating when connected in a circuit: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/603242297.pdf
It's impossible to avoid incurring some losses at finite speed, but as far as I know there is nothing fundamental preventing one from approaching reversible operation when operating at a sufficiently slow (but nonzero) speed.