Is programmable matter a replacement for replicators?
Programmable matter
- Thread starter Ralph O Ward III
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Dunno, but I do know that programable matter is a real thing, although it doesn't work quite like what was shown in the episode. Hard-SF author Wil McCarthy wrote a nonfiction book about the subject. It's a cool read.
Very similar. Programmable matter would take the existing substrate and shape it into any form. 24th-century Replicators can create objects by transforming energy to matter at a molecular level, an offshoot of the transporter. At its most basic level: catoms, programmable matter could also do something like this.
Overview:
A more scholarly lecture:
Programmable matter in 30-40 years?
Overview:
A more scholarly lecture:
Programmable matter in 30-40 years?
Possibly, I never really felt it was that far fetched, even though Chabon clearly used it as an amusing callback to TOS fixing complex engineering problems in 15 minutes.
All you need is a mind-reading wi-fi (machines can already read human brain impulses in 2020 with wires) using something akin to reverse mind uploading tech, and some programmable matter, and voila, a multitool, suitable for description by a useful Arthur C. Clarke quote or two.
RAMA
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