Re: "Matter Cube" for Portable Assemblers

Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)
Fri, 31 Jan 1997 10:02:12 +0100 (MET)


On Thu, 30 Jan 1997, Omega wrote:

> Chris,
> > groups near other specific groups to keep things inert and peaceful. You
> > don't want one set mixing with another set or you get a nice densely packed
> > bomb!
>
> It is an interesting problem, but I don't see why any readily available
> energy would not be extracted from the materials on their way in. Almost
> all substances can be reformulated into highly inert forms.

This depends on how you want to distribute energy (and heat dissipation)
in your system. If the feedstock is inert, then the nanites will have to
use energy to reform it into something different on site, and will cause
distributed heating and problems of distributing energy. If you store high
enthalpy parts in the cube, then they can mainly be used "off the shelf"
and the energy dissipation will have to occur in the recycling system.

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Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
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