/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.2319461]

Are replicators even possible? How would it theoretically work?

[Anonymous No.2319474]

TNG <3

[Anonymous No.2319471]

Possible, yes. Plausible? Maybe a thousand years from now.

How would they work? Pfffft. I think The Diamond Age is much more realistic, if you want replicators. That said, any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic, and ST:TNG is set a long ways into the future.

[Anonymous No.2319478]

Molecular assemblers. I give it a few decades. In any case, you'll be around to see it.

[Anonymous No.2319494]

>You will never live in a post-scarcity society.

[Anonymous No.2319496]

If I remember my trek correctly, the replicator was essentially a different use of the transporter technology. So it worked by disassembling things on a presumably sub-atomic level and reassembling the protons, neutrons, and electrons into a different form.

Given our current understanding of quantum physics, this is impossible, as it would be impossible to manipulate the electrons appropriately. This is because of the uncertainty principle, credited to Werner Heisenberg, which states that you cannot know both the position and velocity of an electron. It's why you hear them mention Heisenberg Compensators sometimes in TNG.

[Anonymous No.2319501]

They sure are! As the others said before, it would work on a molecular level. It seems inconceivable now, but one day, humans will take it for granted.

Kinda reminds me of the Internet...If you told my grandfather in 1940 about the internet he would say you were crazy.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.2319504]

>>2319494
Do I need to start spamming Manhattan Beach Project and Technocratic Republic of Sci pictures?

[Anonymous No.2319506]

As seen in Star Trek? Probably, but the energy requirements are hilariously over-the-top. What you would basically have to do is work particle annihilation in reverse and build yourself an object out of energy. In a second or two. An actual, real-world replicator would probably need to be an enormous facility closely orbiting a star. The orbit for power, the enormous for the hardware that generates and controls the effect.

Or maybe in the far future we'll figure out how to just force an object to come into existence, perhaps through control of probability. But at that point you have such godlike power that making yourself a sandwich is a trivial thing.

[Anonymous No.2319521]

>>2319504
How do immortality and a nation-building project relate to a post-scarcity condition achievable in the next 40-60 years?

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.2319552]

>>2319521
One of TRS greatest goals will be to achieve post-scarcity. Perhaps it will require more than one human lifetime.

[Anonymous No.2319553]

>>2319496
We could use photons and change them into electrons, replicators here we go.

[Anonymous No.2319571]

>>2319504
I've got you covered, bro.

[Anonymous No.2319573]

>>2319571
Is that Burma?

[Anonymous No.2319574]

>>2319496
While it's true there is some information that can't be copied (see the no-cloning theorem), this non-copyable information isn't necessary to create an edible banana, and probably not even to create a living animal.

[Anonymous No.2319579]

>>2319573
Tasmania

[Anonymous No.2319578]

What about teleporting?

[Anonymous No.2319585]

What is this technocratic republic I'm hearing about?

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.2319596]

>>2319573
>>2319579
>>2319571
And what a beautiful Tasmania it is.

[Anonymous No.2319597]

>>2319585
/sci/ thinks it can start it's own nation.

[Anonymous No.2319598]

>>2319574

Really? I'm not a physicist, so I'm kind of out of my depth beyond the uncertainty principle stuff, but it seems to me that it would be fairly easy to accidentally render elements as ions by misplacing electrons which would cause them to be reactive in ways which might render the food inedible. Is it possible to give a reasonably short answer as to why that wouldn't happen?

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.2319609]

>>2319585
in the late 2030's if the technologies I require are available, a nation with similar goals and services as http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna5.htm will be constructed. A nation for scientists and educated folk. To follow their dreams and not be constrained by their 9 to 5 job.
>>2319597
We will see. TRS isn't the final name (hell no) just the codename.

[Anonymous No.2319615]

>>2319598
Well, if all you're doing is detecting the positions of all the particles and trying to reconstruct the thing by placing particles in all the same positions, of course it's not going to work. But presumably whoever builds a replicator will be smarter than that. Instead of putting a proton here and an electron there, it would be something like place an atom at this location, bonded to these other atoms.

[Anonymous No.2319617]

>>2319596
Aren't there 507,626 people on that island who might object to the foundation of an experimental state there?

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.2319634]

>>2319617
The initial area shown houses ~200 people. They will have the option of becoming full-time TRS citizens, having dual citizenship and continue living where they are now, or have really nice houses and a second nearly identical community built on the Australian side.

The goal of this nation is to show a standard of living so high that nobody would WANT to resist us if we offered to merge.

[Anonymous No.2319673]

>>2319615

Yeah, that makes sense when working from pre-existing atoms and molecules, which is a concept I have no fundamental problems with (other than the fact that such a technology would probably put me out of a job), the issue is that in Star Trek it manifests matter from energy, and that would require the specific placement of electrons, wouldn't it?

[Anonymous No.2319687]

>>2319673
If they can make protons and neutrons and electrons out of energy and place them, why couldn't they make atoms out of energy and place them? Seems like an arbitrary restriction. That said, it's not as if Star Trek technology is representative of anything real. If it can be done, the most efficient way to do it will probably not be whatever the writers dreamed up.

[Anonymous No.2319712]

Can I have more information on this TRS project, I'd like more information if /sci/ invades =='

[Anonymous No.2319726]

>>2319596
looks too fucking cold

[Anonymous No.2319728]

>>2319712
It started with this image.

[Anonymous No.2319731]

>>2319687


Well, to make atoms you have to make protons and neutrons and electrons, so the same issue applies. Just as when you make protons and neutrons you have to make various flavours of quarks.

[Anonymous No.2319746]

>>2319687

I wasn't suggesting that Star Trek's take on any tech would be realistic, I was just trying to narrow the question down to a specific device to better answer the question of the possibility of it existing.

[Anonymous No.2319748]

>>2319726

Did a site visit halfway through last year, yes it's fucking cold.

[Anonymous No.2319759]

>>2319748
>mfw there are people genuinely interested in this
:D
>mfw "I was just visiting on vacation don't get your hopes up"
:(

[Anonymous No.2319764]

>>2319609
we need to advance the current state of robotics before we can achieve this. We need to automate a macdonalds...

Fortunately for us, we have cheap robot vision now in the form of the microsoft Kinect.

[Anonymous No.2319772]

>>2319759

I live here, I was visiting the hydro power station.

[Anonymous No.2319786]

>>2319617

take tasmania, none of us mainlanders want it. Keep whatever inbred tasmainias you find too.

[Anonymous No.2319857]

we need to get a site or wiki up fro the TRS project and start fleshing it out in more detail, goals, laws, estimated cost, etc.

[Anonymous No.2319890]

>>2319857
Agreed. This doesn't have to be a "OMG DO IT RIGHT NOW!!!" kind of deal.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.2319923]

>>2319726
It's no Sydney but it certainly ain't Helsinki
>>2319857
As the project entirely depends on technologies that have not yet been developed, I am going to wait until I have a solid source of income from which I can make the large sum of money required to star tit up. Think 2020. As 2030 approaches some really serious planning will be done.

[Anonymous No.2319926]

where the fuck is my AI and robots?

where the fuck is it, guys? Get the fuck off of your asses and get to work. I want to have a fucking conversation with a robot.

[Anonymous No.2319927]

>>2319923

hmmm... I like your style

[Anonymous No.2319933]

>>2319923
Inurdaes your assitance is required at:
>>2319880

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.2319937]

>>2319926
The speed required for human level intelligence seems to sit around 2025.
>>2319927
:3

[Anonymous No.2320384]

there are similar devices. Some can create an object using a quantum template and plasma, and with the right tools they can replicate it over and over, provided they have the template.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.2321343]

>mfw molecular assemblers.

[Anonymous No.2321978]

life is an illusion. Who is replicator?

[Anonymous No.2322069]

Now wait, obv we don't have a molecular assembler on the rack atm, but we do have rapid prototypers that build from base polymers, right? I heard they're (almost?) doing organs now.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.2322076]

>>2322069

Hell we even have 3D printers.

ONE STEP CLOSER TO MOLECULAR ASSEMBLERS AND THE DIAMOND AGE

[Anonymous No.2322094]

>>2322076
Okay, so stay with me here... what if-

as RPs (rapidprototypers) are already nearly of size to be considered personal (one to a home), and reproduce even complex circuitry from base polymers... isn't that a massive chunk from resource scarcity right there? Want an iphone, get blueprints, bzzzzz = iphone. Neh?
Items can also be reduced back to base polymers, and reused.
Right? No?

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.2322115]

>>2322094

Yes.

It's going to be hard not to have post-scarcity aftewr molecular assemblers, it will go the way of software: There will be free versions, but most people will be content with the advertised costy blueprints they are used to. Like Linux vs. every other operating system ever, as an example.

Carbon and energy for the assemblers are easy to get. But Carbon is not all: You need Nitrogen, from air, Hydrogen and Oxygen from water, and water for drinking (ie: You need water for electrolysis and for people).

Even though we'll have super-awesome Von Neumann water filters or whatever, transporting the water may be a pain.

tl;dr: Even with post-scarcity, molecular assemblers, there will still be some scarcity.

[Anonymous No.2322137]

>>2322115
Right, but people wont need to starve to death in abhorrent numbers, and billions won't need to live in poverty so a few can have swimming pools.
There is no utopia, just emergence. All Im saying is we can do a hell of a lot better, even with what we're capable of today.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.2322139]

>>2322137

>Right, but people wont need to starve to death in abhorrent numbers, and billions won't need to live in poverty so a few can have swimming pools.
>There is no utopia, just emergence. All Im saying is we can do a hell of a lot better, even with what we're capable of today.

Agree entirely.

[Anonymous No.2322163]

>>2322139
Fuck yes. You are a man.

Im not used to discussion being this civil. I usually lurk /new/, as social dynamics is kind of my thing, but fuck its horrible over there. On the other hand, I've honed my socratic debate skills down to a razors edge, so I guess its not all bad.

[Anonymous No.2322184]

>printable electronics
>ordinary inkjet printer can be hacked to print electronics
>someone designs a cellphone you can print, then use 3D printer to make covers
>they will be primitive, but you have to start from somewhere
It'll happen soon