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"I went [to the top of] Vehicle Assembly Building and looked down, and tears burst from my eyes. The size of this cathedral where the Rockets take off to go to the moon is so amazing."
- Ray Bradbury
 |
| Matter Compiler | ||
| A device that builds the desired article (such as a dress) atom by atom according to a specified design. |
The ideal of being able to construct materials molecule by molecule is now being tested with very small nanomachines. However, it is only a matter of time before larger articles are made available.
One example that has a history in science fiction is the idea that customized clothing, like dresses, blouses and ribbons, could be created in an absolutely customized manner.
| Whenever Nell's clothes got too small for her, Harv would pitch them into the deke bin and then have the M.C. make new ones. Sometimes, if Tequila was going to take Nell someplace where they would see other moms with other daughters, she'd use the M.C. to make Nell a special dress with lace and ribbons. |
| From The Diamond Age,
by Neal Stephenson. Published by Bantam Books in 1995 Additional resources -
|
Tired of shopping for clothes, and trying to find something that fits you? You might want to take a look at the entry for customized clothing from Methuselah's Children by Robert Heinlein some fifty years earlier.
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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
Matter Compiler-related
news articles:
- Filabot Turns Dull Plastic Junk To 3D Printed Shiny
| 3D Printing An Entire Car |
| Self-Building, Self-Tooling, Autonomous Manufacturing |
| 3D Printing Is Here - Pay For The Printer! |
| 3D Printing: The End Of Global Supply Chains? |
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'... the immense, three-dimensional, minutely cubed model...'
'I donned it and drew its hood, and threw on its current.'
'Microscopic machinery, smaller than ants, smaller than pins, working energetically...'
