Star Trek Replicator

Based on magic powder!

Now maybe if they reverse the polarity on the quantum mechanical stabilizer while adequately purifying the dilithium crystals, they can replicate people!

YouTube

Originally posted by Kunsoo
Based on magic powder!

Now maybe if they reverse the polarity on the quantum mechanical stabilizer while adequately purifying the dilithium crystals, they can replicate people!

http://youtu.be/ZboxMsSz5Aw

My dad could do that 60 years ago but as a Catholic he could not explain how.

Originally posted by Kunsoo
Based on magic powder!

Now maybe if they reverse the polarity on the quantum mechanical stabilizer while adequately purifying the dilithium crystals, they can replicate people!

http://youtu.be/ZboxMsSz5Aw

I don't think that magic powder would be strong enough to be an actual auto mechanic's tool. I have used those wrenches and know for a fact something made out of a resin matrix would never have the strength of a real steel wrench (where REAL strength is required). Sure you could use it for some everyday purposes like the example the dude displayed but if you have some really tight bolts on a motor that is rusted or stuck, a real steel wrench can take the torque required to start the nut turning but that matrix job would just crumble like the piece of plastic it really is.

Which is not to say this technology is crap, someday something as strong as a steel wrench will undoubtedly come out of such printing technology, maybe with an additional annealing step or something.

The thing that gets me about that scanning process is what about differences in the bottom of the wrench? Suppose there was something internal to the wrench like in a ratchet wrench? I dare a scanner to get that one.

Printing something with the strength, certainly the strength to weight ratio of or better than steel is not hard. Making something with the hardness of steel may well be trickier.

However the complexity/scanning issue is easy... just design the object directly in a CAD program and print the virtual object.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I don't think that magic powder would be strong enough to be an actual auto mechanic's tool. I have used those wrenches and know for a fact something made out of a resin matrix would never have the strength of a real steel wrench (where REAL strength is required). Sure you could use it for some everyday purposes like the example the dude displayed but if yo ...[text shortened]... s something internal to the wrench like in a ratchet wrench? I dare a scanner to get that one.

It is impressive nonetheless. I imagine even getting a 3D light display within
a confined area would be useful. Someone could look at the layers of a heart,
or something else. There is a lot of upside to this.
Kelly

Originally posted by googlefudge
Printing something with the strength, certainly the strength to weight ratio of or better than steel is not hard.

Compression strength, perhaps not. But tensile strength? That may be a lot harder. (Then again, spiders essentially manage just that...)

Richard

Originally posted by googlefudge
Printing something with the strength, certainly the strength to weight ratio of or better than steel is not hard. Making something with the hardness of steel may well be trickier.

However the complexity/scanning issue is easy... just design the object directly in a CAD program and print the virtual object.

Well, that may be one answer, or the only answer, not sure. One thing for sure, that would not be scanning. I wonder if computer chips could be made this way? The big guys are getting down to 24 nanometer sized features now, 240 angstroms, and you are now starting to count atoms, I think a silicon crystal has its atoms about 3 angstroms apart, so we are talking about less than 100 atoms to make a transistor or at least one layer. Or about 1 million atoms to make a device 24X24X24 nanometers. That is getting down there in size!

I think it will be a long time till we get 3D printing down to that size.

That would be a real challenge due to dopant requirements, uniformity issues, lattice mismatch (deliberate in some devices) and so forth. I think electronics is way too subtle for this kind of technology, at least in this half of the 21st century.

Originally posted by Kunsoo
Based on magic powder!

Now maybe if they reverse the polarity on the quantum mechanical stabilizer while adequately purifying the dilithium crystals, they can replicate people!

http://youtu.be/ZboxMsSz5Aw

Only if they're able to re-route power from the main deflector dish.

Originally posted by sh76
Only if they're able to re-route power from the main deflector dish.

Piece of cake -- just calibrate the inertial dampeners to emit frequency-modulated tachyon particles in a harmonic negative-field warp coil inductance resonator, and they're good to go.