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Envisioning the Desktop Fabricator
mkl writes "Yesterday I fantasized about a generator of matter. Not a laser plotter for carving 3d objects, but a device that will assemble any given object from its base, out of atoms. I was thinking about a device that can find its place under the roofs of all the people working on PCs all over the world. So I fantasize about it at work and what do I see in the Wired News newsletter? 'Any product, any shape, any size -- manufactured on your desktop! The future is the fabricator.' Heh."
Yesterday I fantasized about a generator of matter ... a device that will assemble any given object from its base, out of atoms.
I also fantasized about a generator of matter, one that was able to generate Natalie Portman right in front of me complete with a handbag full of a strange gritty substance. Ooooh yeah.
First post to mention The Diamond Age : Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (Bantam Spectra Book) by NEAL STEPHENSON. All about nano-tech and fabricators and stuff.
Test 1 2 3 4
.. what would you make ?
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Tea, Earl grey, Hot!
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
.... and you thought Lexmark ink was expensive!!
...once created, throw the entire world economy into chaos? Of course I am referring to not a simple fab as the article is talking about, but what it is insinuating at, a device capable of assemling things at the atomic level.
Think about it.. once you buy such a device, no matter *what* the initial cost, you could use it to make almost anything... including, other devices!
Such a device would make physical goods value-less. The only things of value any longer would be services and artistic creations.
Then again, this all sounds way too good to be true. We're not evolved enough as a sepcies to have that kind of tech - think also - everyone instantly has access to unlimited weapons. Great.
We would kill ourselves off as a species within days.
Then again maybe that's not a bad thing.
I saw a prototyping machine at a recent trade show, that could lay down ABS plastic. For a six cubic inch toy wheel, it was an overnight job. It wasn't neceessarily a desktop unit, it was still considerably larger in footprint than an HP LaserJet 4, and is floor standing, I think.
It also costed $25,000.
The machine type described are good for prototyping and custom parts, but there are usually better mass production methods. Laying down atom-by-atom will be slow for a loooong time and at best be of most consequence to nanomachines for that time.
Engines of Creation: http://www.foresight.org/EOC/
Not everyone thinks this is only a dream. Of course, many people think these people are crazy.
But one must reach a bit beyond the accepted if one is to achieve something greater than the norm.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
But did Roddenberry get a patent on the idea..... never mind, gotta run..... have to get down to the office first......
http://www.bathsheba.com To start building a model from my 3D file, the design is built up, one layer at a time, from steel powder held in place by a laser-activated binder. ... This produces a porous steel part that is about 60% dense. ... The model is heated, the stems are dipped in a crucible of molten bronze, and capillary action causes the bronze to wick throughout the piece. Counterintuitive to say the least, but apparently it works very well.
at a speed of 1 billion atoms per second takes about 20 million years.
Slow, slow.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
Calvin: "If you could have anything in the world right now, what would it be?"
Hobbes: "Hmm..."
Calvin: "Anything at all! Whatever you want!"
Hobbes: "A sandwich."
Calvin: "A SANDWICH?!? WHAT KIND OF STUPID WISH IS THAT?!"
Calvin: "Talk about a failure of imagination! I'd ask for a trillion billion dollars, my own space shuttle, and a private continent!"
Hobbes: (eating sandwich) "I got MY wish."
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
It strikes me that although we may have mass consumer 3-d plotter type stuff that can create objects out of certain substances, or maybe a combination of a few materials, atom-by-atom assembly is going to be a long way off, if ever. At the very least it will require very advanced nanobots.
But what is more likely is biological printers that grow stuff out of cells. It will be much easier to let the cells do the work of reproducing and just induce specialization into a lattice of pre-grown tissue through chemical infusion.
This wouldn't be home genetic engineering, just creation of specialized tissue from a batch of pre-cooked cells of a fixed genome. It could be some other organism's genome, plant or animal or something specially designed for object replication, or even, your own...
So in 50 years or so, you or a doctor may be "printing" out a new patch of skin for your tatoo removal or a new seed for a lost tooth, or high follical count skin for your balding head. Or a tentacle to help you type faster. Or, well, I don't really want to even get into where elective plastic surgery is likely to go in the next decade with reguard to certain less seemly "self-enhancements" people might be inclined to make, nevermind the concept of "home bio-generation kits."
It's truly scary stuff -- let's just say tomorrow's anime conventions may not require costumes for the truly devoted fans.
Someone had to do it.