"It took about 40 years to find it, but scientists at Hewlett-Packard said on Wednesday they discovered a fourth basic type of electrical circuit that could lead to a computer you never have to boot up.

The finding proves what until now had only been theory -- but could save millions from the tedium of waiting for a computer to find its "place," the researchers said.

Basic electronics theory teaches that there are three fundamental elements of a passive circuit -- resistors, capacitors and inductors when the power is turned off, and must be accessed from the hard drive when the computer goes back on.

But a computer that incorporates this new kind of memory circuit would never lose it place, even when the power is turned off.

"If you turn on your computer it will come up instantly where it was when you turned it off. That is a very interesting potential application, and one that is very realistic," Williams said.

But he said understanding this new circuit element could be critical as companies attempt to build ever smaller devices.

"It's essential that people understand this to be able to go further into the world of nanoelectronics," referring to electronics on the nano scale -- objects tens of thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair.

"It turns out that memristance, this property, gets more important as the device gets smaller. That is another major reason it took so long to find," Williams said."