|
Posted by Tim Tyler on July 18, 2009, 12:44 pm
Please log in for more thread options
William R. Cousert wrote:
show/hide quoted text
> Couldn't today's version print out a slightly better version, which in turn
> would print out an even better version, repeating the process until we have
> something that can print IC's?
The proof-of-concept of self-replication that we have works along
radically different lines.
The current plan seems to be not to copy itself, but to copy its
parts - in a way that allows them to be relatively easily assembled
by a human.
It would be surprising if a machine could print out better versions
of itself. Where would the information that allowed the improvements
come from? It happens in biology - but *very* slowly. You can't
just say "like this but smaller" - things change as you get smaller.
It seems as though you would need some extra R & D as well.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.
| 
XML Sitemap
> No. The thing can't print ICs -- it can't even print things that require
> high macroscopic tolerances.