A circuit of our politics?
This image from Lewis Fry Richardson (1930), Electrical Model illustrating a Mind having a Will but capable of only Two Ideas, scanned (because I can) from The Analogy Between Mental Images and Sparks, Psychological Review, vol 37, no. 3, p. 222.
The lamps having been rested overnight, insertion of the plug K caused lamp Q to light while P remained extinct. Contact at x, applying the extra W of 12 volts for about a second, caused both lamps to flash, P more brightly than Q; and when contact at x was withdrawn, P remained alight but Q extinct, although the main voltage V was applied steadily all the time. Thus the lighting of P had inhibited Q. Again a temporary contact for about a second at y left Q alight but P extinct. And so on to and fro many times in succession.Oscillating preferences, a great deal of resistance on the right, and much pent-up capacitance on the left. Looks like a good analogy to our polarised political landscape! (I first came across this bit of fun in a TED talk by George Dyson about the birth of computing.)
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