On the physical and circuit-theoretic significance of the Memristor

—It is noticed that the inductive and capacitive features of the memristor reflect (and are a quintessence of) such features of any resistor. The very presence in the resistive characteristic v = f(i) of the voltage and current state variables, associated, by their electrodynamics sense, with electrical and magnetic fields, forces any resister to cause to accumulate some magnetic and electrostatic fields and energies around itself, i.e. L and C elements are always present. From the circuit-theoretic point of view, the role of the memristor is seen, first of all, in the eliminating of the use of a unique v(i). This makes circuits with hysteretic characteristics relevant, and suggests that the concept of memristor should influence the basic (general) problem of definition of nonlinearity. Since memristor mainly originates from resistor, it was found methodologically necessary to overview some unusual cases of resistive circuits.