real life replicator = awesome!

[broox]

I've been reading about these forever. Right now it's limited to plastic sort of stuff but they say that one day nano technology will allow anything to be created, from electronics to cloth to even food! I want a 3D printer! Seriously, this is the future. Instead of going to the store to buy a spoon or whatever you'll just download the design and make it yourself!

[Gilberto]

I saw these on Colbert. They use the same acrylic stuff that legos are made of.

[lynn]

Yes but I don't just download books and print them because paper is expensive. How much will the plastic stuff cost? That's always troubled me about these replicator things, you can't make things out of nothing, you have to have some sort of raw material there to start with. Say you're out in space, don't you need to carry a store of the material with you to replicate all this stuff? Where do they get the molecules from, space around them? Doesn't that seem shonky to anyone else?

[Scary Gary]

Aug 13, 2011 20:14:49 GMT -5 lynn said:

Yes but I don't just download books and print them because paper is expensive. How much will the plastic stuff cost? That's always troubled me about these replicator things, you can't make things out of nothing, you have to have some sort of raw material there to start with. Say you're out in space, don't you need to carry a store of the material with you to replicate all this stuff? Where do they get the molecules from, space around them? Doesn't that seem shonky to anyone else?

The molecules come from the acrylic powder that they use. I'd guess that they use lasers to precisely fuse the powder into the forms they desire from a programmed "mold".

[lynn]

Yes, exactly, in this real life instance there must be a base substance used to "replicate" the other object. So in space they must carry around a supply of something, right?

[Scary Gary]

Now I see what you meant. The idea in Star Trek was that the star ships produced so much energy that they could convert it into matter. E=mc^2 or m=E/c^2 in this case. Their computers are so sophisticated that they can convert the energy into complex foods and items.

Neat idea, but I don't think that it has any real basis in reality (sort of like the whole time travel thing).

[broox]

Of course you would need to take a supply of this powder to space with you, but the idea is that it is worth the extra cost/weight of taking the powder to be able to replace any part on the ship in a pinch. Remember in Apollo 13 when they were trying to rig parts together out of random crap?

As for home use, yeah it's cost prohibitive now, but all new technologies are. When cell phones came out in the 80's they cost thousands of dollars, now they're free with a contract. Even blu ray players are under a hundred dollars now, they were several hundred a year or two ago. So in time this powder will be inexpensive, as will the printers.

This is still early days, like I said we're limited to plastics, but the idea is that one day in the future we will be able to make just about anything. No more ordering "real dolls" for gilberto, he can make his own!! ;D

[drivebyluna]

My husband's boss just ordered one of these, just because he could I guess. Hooray living in Silicon Valley!

[broox]

Think of all the cool stuff you could do (if the powder isn't too expensive). For a toy person like me you can make your own action figures, or for a music person like me you can make musical instruments, or specialized tools or cases for iphones etc. Will your husband get to play with it?

[lynn]

no doubt this thing is cool, and it will certainly be helpful to us when the dinosaur apocalypse occurs and we need to distract them with fake dinosaur sounds. But I just don't think we'll be using it to make everything like they seem to in futuristic shows. Wouldn't that just cripple industry?

[Scary Gary]

Aug 15, 2011 18:19:36 GMT -5 lynn said:

Wouldn't that just cripple industry?

Not the replicator industry.

Unless, of course, if you can replicate a replicator.

[drivebyluna]

Aug 15, 2011 15:05:45 GMT -5 broox said:

Think of all the cool stuff you could do (if the powder isn't too expensive). For a toy person like me you can make your own action figures, or for a music person like me you can make musical instruments, or specialized tools or cases for iphones etc. Will your husband get to play with it?

yeah. he's used one before to make his nerf sentry gun.

[lynn]

at least he didn't waste his turn making something uncool

[broox]

Aug 15, 2011 18:19:36 GMT -5 lynn said:

no doubt this thing is cool, and it will certainly be helpful to us when the dinosaur apocalypse occurs and we need to distract them with fake dinosaur sounds. But I just don't think we'll be using it to make everything like they seem to in futuristic shows. Wouldn't that just cripple industry?

Robotics and globalization have already crippled industry. New technology always hurts old business models. Whale oil was once a big industry. The old telephone giants (ma bell, bell south, etc) have all but disappeared or have been gobbled up by cell phone companies. The same thing will eventually happen with newspapers (unfortunately). The other day the publishers of Paste magazine came into my station for an interview where they said they had to abandon printed magazines and now exist only as an iphone app (weird to imagine Clark Kent working for the Daily Planet app).

Industry will surely still exist to build large items (appliances, cars, houses, etc). Many futurists have said that the industrial revolution will one day seen as an exclusively 20th century anomaly. I dunno.

Luna, since you have some actual experience with these things, do you have any idea how expensive / cost effective the powder is?

[lynn]

Here's a slightly less upmarket looking model.
store.makerbot.com/makerbot-thing-o-matic.html