View Full Version : The coolest 3d printer I have seen. Star Trek Replicator, pretty darn close!
This is really neat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZboxMsSz5Aw&feature=player_embedded
Charles Pegge
10-07-2011, 23:12
Enjoyed this video very much Kent. My brother who has a degree in mechanical engineering was impressed too but we thought that the CAD/CAM part, was almost certainly more involved than the impression given in this demo. There are quite a few concealed moving parts in a wrench of that design which would have to be rendered manually after the shape was scanned in.
Charles
danbaron
10-07-2011, 23:47
(These are just my immediate ideas, I don't claim them to be coherent.)
(I can't watch the video, so I am guessing.)
I do know (or, at least I am pretty sure), that there is currently no mechanical device on Earth that can replicate itself.
If you think about it, can a microscope make a microscope?, can a hammer make a hammer?, can a computer make a computer?, etc.
More so, can a microscope make the exact model of microscope that it is?, etc.
Actually, although animals do replicate, they do not clone themselves, i.e., each animal is different (certainly smaller) than both of the animals which produced it.
So, with (complex) animals, it requires two to make one.
If there was such a machine, I guess the input would be the raw materials which it was composed of, and the output would be an exact duplicate of itself.
Intuitively, to me, it is not an easy problem to make such a mechanical device.
For instance, think about all that is involved in making an automobile.
Do you ever expect that when an automobile becomes old, its last act will be to expel a new version of itself?
I could imagine that in the future a robot could assemble a duplicate of itself.
But, I can't imagine that the robot will also be able to internally manufacture all of the parts that it is composed of - chips, circuit boards, internal machinery, metallic skin, etc, and then output another robot, like giving birth. If it did so, the robot it spawned would have to be smaller than itself, like a baby is smaller than the mother, yes? Could the "baby" robot then grow?
Maybe it is a deep problem. Intuitively, we expect that something cannot create itself. I think that is why philosophers struggle with the problem of infinite regress. This problem is similar, while not creating itself, this device would be creating its duplicate.
I think that in this area it is easy to become confused. Imagine that one of the tools required to make a hammer, is a hammer. In that case, there should be no hammers, correct?
The problem of duplicating other objects is not as hard as the problem of self-duplication, right?
The true test of a universal replicator, would be self-replication, yes or no?
Charles Pegge
11-07-2011, 11:23
The nearest thing we have to a perfect self-replicator is DNA. But it can only perform its replication in a highly complex biological system of enzymes and various supporting molecules as well as the DNA monomer components. I think it is true to say that nothing in our universe can independently replicate itself. But many systems are capable of producing objects similar to themselves in a fractal way, by very simple means. The formation of crystals for example.
Charles
danbaron
11-07-2011, 19:59
I agree with you, Charles.
I might quibble about, "nothing in our universe".
Who knows?
Anyway, lately I have realized that, besides other people (which is the worst), the thing which makes life so hard, is entropy.
Left alone, everything deteriorates and falls apart.
You could buy a brand new car, never drive it, and keep it in your garage - it would still fall apart.
If you came back in a hundred years, it would be a piece of junk.
Look what happens to most things (I guess, other than dirt, rocks, copper, aluminum, tin), if they are constantly exposed to the Sun.
The Sun's UV destroys almost everything.
That is the difference between life and everything else.
Living things constantly repair themselves.
I think that is why I can watch my car fall apart, while I seem unchanged (I know, it is an illusion) to myself.
Objects composed of cells, have the ability to do self-repair, but, probably, getting other materials to do it, steel, for instance, is not so easy.
How much better things would be if none of the things we constructed ever deteriorated, for instance, our homes.
Dan
danbaron
11-07-2011, 21:11
In my experience, you find the true predators at the top of almost any pyramid, for instance, Cheney, Bush, Blair, Murdoch, etc.
I think that humanity is at the edge of many crises which threaten its existence.
In my opinion, here is one of them, by no means the biggest.
Soon (if not already), science will be able to slow aging.
Then, it will be able to stop and reverse aging.
Can you imagine what it will be like having these predators around forever?
We will age and die, while they will remain pristine.
Do you think any of them would ever agree to "move along", and make room for new people.
To me, they will turn this astral plane (level of existence (which I hope is not the only one)) into the worst one.
Charles Pegge
12-07-2011, 00:42
There must be a mathematical proof somewhere that an independent self-replicator is impossible.
In Object oriented programming there is no difficulty in creating an object that can be used to create an identical object. But in reality, the underlying structure is a class which all the objects depend on.
Charles
They did use that special scanner that supposedly sees everything. The guy who got the wrench made seemed really surprised that it figured out the moving parts inside. So they must have special programs that can perhaps extrapolate mechanical parts from what it sees?
Once we have free energy and can make matter from the energy, then we are in business. But till then this printer is so cool and it only took 1.5 hours to make. Which is amazing in itself.
danbaron
12-07-2011, 06:09
I can't say that this article is clear to me.
I guess the machine copies itself, along with its instruction tape.
The machine and the tape made from the same material?
How does the machine perform the assembly?
For me, the article is cryptic enough, to be irritating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_universal_constructor