When are we building a Star Trek Replicator

A replicator, capable of building, creating, and synthesizing various objects would be really cool.
Does anyone know if any research is being done anywhere to develop one?

I'm pretty sure we don't have one yet.

reply to post by ChefSlug


It's called "3-D Printing." You can buy one starting at $1,500.

www.radioshack.com... erm=%2B3d%20%2Bprinter&utm_content=b&gclid=CKPk3pqI7LsCFTEV7Aod5WIAdA&gclaw.ds

The a "true" replicator in star trek creates mass out of energy in form of what ever you want.

Right now we barely have the energy to create a single sub atomic particle let alone trillions of atoms in a complex structure.
We just don't have the means. Energy and computing power for such a task is beyond any current means.



But 3D printing will create a sort of replicator.

reply to post by DJW001


comparing 3d printing to the concept of ST " replicators " is absurd

Once we have full quantum computers we will be able to start thinking about it from the computational side. As for the actual replicator, that's a different story. I have no idea what the device would be like but it's more than likely a quantum based device. Would be cool to have one...cigar, Cuban, Romeo y Julieta, wide Churchill. Ah life is good

i saw a 3d printer that had its plastic replaced with chocolate - thats pretty close

ignorant_ape
reply to post by DJW001

 

comparing 3d printing to the concept of ST " replicators " is absurd

I heard this in spocks voice.

reply to post by DJW001


Yeah, but does it replicate food?

reply to post by ChefSlug


I'm working on a design to create food molecules. It's still on paper, though - at this rate I'll build a workable device in one or two eternities.

reply to post by swanne

Yeah, but does it replicate food?

Yes, if you provide it with the appropriate raw materials.

reply to post by DJW001


Okay, but one still has to provide this material to the machine. In Star Trek, the machine would "create" this material itself. That's the tricky part.

reply to post by ChefSlug


Never in the foreseeable future.
We have 3D printers that can make mechanical pieces but, a true "STAR TREK" style replicator will not be made.
Now ask why, go ahead.
Oh you ask why?
Well I'll tell you then!
If a true replicator was ever made, big corp would go bankrupt the very next day.
Imagine a world with no scarcity, no profit could ever be made, and that is why we will not EVER get a STAR TREK replicator.
Small villages would have access to unlimited food, clothes, water, power, Etc.
Finally in closing I would like to say...
"And I think to myself, what a wonderful world"...
~Neil Armstrong...or was it lance

reply to post by g146541


As far as replicators go I'm seeing several comments in this thread where the quantum handwave dodge is used to explain replicators... Now when I saw those replicators on star trek my mind went a different place than it appears most of everyone else's mind went when I tried to decide how they worked.

What I always assumed was that when the ship docks at the starbase it s crates of "feedstock" for the replicator. My thought on what the feedstock was was something along the lines of big blocks of ULTRA dense matter either exotic or nonexotic. If I was thinking about exotic ways to do it I figured it would be blocks of iron which is extraordinarily common in the universe at large that are somehow compressed in freakishly high gravity to a density well beyond that of iron in conventional state. (thinking like a metric ton per cubic centimeter here) My other thought was it was stuff like depleted uranium and other heavy elements from the bottom rows of the periodic table with or without their radioactive isotopes included which may or may not help supply part of the juice needed to do what comes next.

now my assumption was that when you told the replicator what you wanted it would then use some sort of particle beam or electron gun or whatever to "slice" off or volatilize a sufficient total amount of feedstock mass for the request you made. It would then use ultra compact and super powerful particle accelerators and etc to literally disassemble the molecules of the feedstock first and then further break down the individual ATOMS. It would then use tractor beams and other really cool enterprise grade technology to take this slurry of protons neutrons and electrons and rebuild it valance by valance into the atoms and molecules you want *cue 6 million dollar man soundtrack we can rebuild him*

Once it has built the sum total of the molecules and atoms needed to construct your item. It would then proceed to use electromagnetic means to spit out atoms and molecules a few thousand at a time and use a variety of means from electron beam melting to more esoteric and advanced means to turn the molecules into the actual items.

Overall I'd say we're not nearly as far off as some people believe from replicator like technology with the exception of being able to generate the mind boggling amounts of power this would require in a compact package.... (with the methods I sketched out above you'd be talking a liquid natural gas supertanker ship worth of natural gas to make a foot long subway sandwich) Not to mention miniaturizing a crap ton of the technoogies we already have that you'd need to package into a replicator as well as the new technologies you'd need to develop and then miniaturize. It's not an insurmountable task, but there's some very key hurdles that we need to overcome before we could even THINK about building a replicator.

Now onto my rant


RANT:

How would those small villages have access to unlimited everything exactly? You do realize that the replicator in star trek was not a free lunch machine right? There was a "cost" to having the replicator make something which is made clear at one point or another in EVERY star trek series except maybe the original.

And further how would it bankrupt companies? even if your device COULD make anything for free at No cost to you or the environment... You would still have the need to provide specifications and designs to said machine in order for it to produce things. This essentially means that lots of people would still be employed all over the world figuring out how to make new things or make old versions of stuff better.... Then there's installation and servicing of the machines building things that are too large for a replicator to produce whole and about 150 million other things that could very much keep people busy and that said busy people could charge people for the privilege of having done.

This is like the inane wish fulfillment statements "free energy" proponents often tout where once "free energy" devices are available evil will be out of a job Lions will escort old zebras and giraffes to and from the watering hole, and congress will get along!

The reality is statements like these and the mindsets behind statements like this are essentially LAZY. Freedom isn't free! Liberty is, quite frankly, pretty damn labor intensive to maintain, and finally if someone offers you an EASY solution where they make the hard choices for you it's not because they're nice people!

People need to grow up and stop thinking if only X or Y would happen, or if only this or that were illegal, or if only everyone agreed with me on X or Y topic (and or if only it were ILLEGAL or would get you declared insane to state this opinion that doesn't match mine! ) There is NO magic solution or technology that will come along and make life easy and egalitarian for humanity!

Quite frankly thinking that there is is the sign of a weak mind that has to assign human like motivations to inanimate objects and concepts. Technology and Information are both completely neutral, it's how you as a person choose to use them that creates positive or negative situations and experiences for yourself and others.

First of all you'd need to be able to scan the object at the atomic level. You'd have to create a "blue print" so to speak of every single atom and molecule. Then, you'd have to somehow figure out how to take a beam of energy and convert it to match the blueprint.

The replicators in ST use transporter technology to assemble matter from energy. Since matter = energy and vice versa, it IS a possibility in the distant future.

We simply do not have anywhere near the technology to create something that advanced.

reply to post by roguetechie


These machines would bankrupt companies and change the world.
Next village over needs a machine? Don't buy it, replicate it!
No power? Make a generator.
If there were no scarcity, folks would not worry and wars would not really get fought.
How do you convince someone who is comfortable to risk everything for someone else's good??
I think I'm right here.

DJW001
reply to post by ChefSlug

 

It's called "3-D Printing." You can buy one starting at $1,500.

Agreed. I was thinking about this. It's still very primitive but now that the technology is getting more attention, it won't be long before it'll start advancing. Probably quite rapidly. It's going to get faster, more accurate and easier. And cheaper.

reply to post by g146541


you can think what you want, I can't force you to be right.

Do you not see the major gaping glaring holes in what you just said.

1. no power replicate a generator.... Well how are you powering your replicator? Replicators will require MASSIVE amounts of energy to run no matter which way you envision them.... my way or the star trek explanation. Yeah you could probably make your replicator make you a new generator... but then you have to FUEL the generator!

2. people who have everything they need won't risk everything to help someone else... I guess all the airline pilots caught over the years smuggling colombia's finest back to the US were just strange anomalies? Or Monkeys that will fight and even KILL each other even when they have more food than they can possibly eat! You really believe we are that far from that? Uday and Qusay Hussein say different.

Replicators would have the POTENTIAL to vastly improve the quality of life of people on earth (provided we have a good enough and clean enough power source to run them with) But that's only the POTENTIAL.

There is NO EASY BUTTON!

Humans will still be humans with all the great and touching things that entails as well as the horrific and disgusting as well!

Speaking as someone works on his own time when not in classes for my engineering degree. What I can say is everything in my research so far indicates that as of AT THE LATEST 1910 the west breached a tech level where there was really no reason for anyone in the west to go hungry or go without much of anything up to and including their very own model T and the newest in electric lighting appliances available at the time. Further there were already massive surpluses of production capacity even then that could have allowed the west to bootstrap the rest of the world to their technology and living standard in about 3 decades at the outside.

Did that happen?

Now that we have technology far surpassing that and with the advent of super computers in everyone's pocket there's even LESS of a reason for the starvation death and madness we see every day.

Has it stopped?

You and I both know it's getting worse!

Repressive government.... No government.... Lots of technology.... No technology.... NONE OF THESE CREATES PARADISE ON EARTH!

What creates paradise on Earth is humans doing their best to acknowledge human nature and find ways to work WITH IT not try to ignore it or savagely repress it!

A true «replicator» is called MIND try to use it; it’s been around since the beginning of mankind.

ChefSlug
A replicator, capable of building, creating, and synthesizing various objects would be really cool.
Does anyone know if any research is being done anywhere to develop one?

I'm pretty sure we don't have one yet.

As others have mentioned, 3D printers are a primitive version of the replicator.

So is this:







If i were to guess I'd say we'd have something we feed raw elements into and get stuff made out of them sometime around 2085.

reply to post by ChefSlug


The first generation is called 3D printers. Just think its the start. I have heard speculation one day large 3D printers will be used to make houses.

No I mean a REAL replicator. What can you do with just energy?

You can heat and go and all these action verbs but to be, or not to be that is the question.

Does anyone know any work being done for molecular construction, rearrangement, etc?