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"This category [science fiction] excludes rocket ships that make U-turns, serpent men of Neptune that lust after human maidens, and stories by authors who flunked their Boy Scout merit badge tests in descriptive astronomy."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Lithocule | ||
| Tiny intelligent building blocks. |
Lithocule literally means tiny stone; in this case, a tiny building block. It is not clear how they maneuver. In the book, uncounted numbers of these tiny parts are coming together in ocean shallows to create a new island.
| ...each lithocule knew exactly where it was supposed to go and what it was supposed to do. They were tetrahedral building blocks of calcium and carbon, the size of poppyseeds, each equipped with a power source, a brain and a navigational system. |
| Technovelgy from The Diamond Age,
by Neal Stephenson. Published by Bantam Books in 1995 Additional resources -
|
This is an interesting way to present a stereolithograph technology; in fact, it inverts the current technology completely. In standard stereolithography, the "smarts" are in the machine that has the design and control over where the particles settle to create the object. The polymer in the tank is "dumb" - it just deposits a solid bit when "told" to by the laser.
For more about stereolithography, see the entry for nanofax.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Diamond Age
More Ideas
and Technology by Neal Stephenson
Tech news articles related to The Diamond Age
Tech news articles related to works by Neal Stephenson
Lithocule-related
news articles:
- Duroquinone Molecule Nano-Brain
| Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly |
| Nano-Chainmail 2D Mechanically Interlocked Polymer |
| Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick |
| GNoME AI From DeepMind Invents Millions Of New Materials |
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'Twoflower's Luggage, which was currently ambling along on its little legs...'
'He came to as the ship went into free flight, arching in a high parabola over the plains...'
'The peculiar quality of this light, which gave it its great preeminence over all other penetrating rays...'
'The overworked leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it...'
‘Where to, sport?’ the starter at cab relay asked.
This is nothing new for science fiction fans!
