Jan 16, 2015

[fluffy]

My work now has a ..... a 3d printer. -bill

What would happen if you set a 3d Printer to continously create 3d Printers? A causal loop that would consume the universe? [/Thesearethequestions]

j$

That was sort of the plot of season 1 of Lexx.

PEDANTRY BELOW:

Most 3D printers as we know them aren't capable of printing themselves because their principle of operation requires a nozzle that has a melting point higher than the material they print with. However, combined with a CNC mill you can print out all of the non-electronic parts necessary to build a 3D printer, and do a lot of the work for making the circuit boards. Being able to fully print the electronics themselves is probably more than a few years off, however. Also, a CNC mill can't produce another equivalent CNC mill because of a similar problem, in that you can't cut material without a harder material, so we probably don't have to worry too much.

Although it does occur to me that there are 3D printers that are capable of printing different materials and which use different principles of operation, so it's possible to get into a dependent cycle where printer A prints printer B prints printer C prints printer A. And the principle of operation of a ceramic printer (for example) doesn't have the same self-destructive limitation as a plastic printer.

Okay so maybe we do need to worry, at least when we have the ability to print circuits as well.

[j$]

My work now has a ..... a 3d printer. -bill

What would happen if you set a 3d Printer to continously create 3d Printers? A causal loop that would consume the universe? [/Thesearethequestions]

j$

That was sort of the plot of season 1 of Lexx ...

Ha ha ha!

[HeuristicsInc]

Hm, 3d printer makes plastic bits but is made of not plastic bits. I suppose you might get crummy 3d printer-like plastic bits.
-bill

[Hoblit]

And isn't there the obvious point in which a 3d printer couldn't print something the same size as itself? Did someone already cover this? Does Dudley get there in time to untie the damsel before the train?

[Niveous]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine

[fluffy]

Something that is strictly a printer cannot, but something that can assemble parts afterwards has no theoretical limit on the size of things it can make. So, a printer with a robot arm can do plenty more.

[Lunkhead]

What we don't want is nanotechnology machines that can grab any nearby molecules and use them to replicate themselves, leading to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo

It seems like we're very far from that. The 3d printers we have currently are not fast or reliable enough to really be of concern even if they somehow went into an out of control self replicating mode, right? Also I thought they generally use very specific materials that they consume in specific ways (e.g. you have to set up the material reservoir manually, generally the amount of material available is fairly small, etc.).

[Caravan Ray]

I thought we had an optional challenge of making a video for one fight a while ago. "The Sugar Shaker" maybe? I think nobody came through on that one though.

I didn't make this for the fight - but it is my favourite video I have made - for that song "Sugar Shaker" (also as a double up for "No One Else" in Nur Ein)