Difference between revisions of "Center for Bits and Atoms"

Revision as of 14:34, 17 June 2023

Just some notes for now …

Ready-fire-aim philosopy

Discoveries and scientific progress by

• working on practical problems (where ideas come from (?))
• failing but discovering something different
• which can be applied elsewhere eventually

Related is (highly speculative): The source of new axiomatic wisdom

Focus on growth plan (cellular automata)

Yes, I agree that the von Neumann bottleneck from
separating storage and compute (arithmetic logic unit ALU) is very bad.

But personally I think maximally distributed compute (cellular automata) is only useful in special application cases. E.g. far term utility fog.

I don't like the imperative nature of "what to do" step by step in a "growth plan".
I prefer the denotative nature in a direct description.
See: Decompression chain & Constructive solid geometry

Well, a "growth plan" could be an automated step within a decompression chain.
Actually extrusion in a nanofactory chip is kind of a growth plan.
Just that the assembling nano and micro-machinery does not push itself along but rather stays put and pushes the product.

There is a bio-analogy to the (topologically 2D) "meristem" "germinal epithelia" "germinal zones" "germinal cells".
See: Complex surface nonplanar nanofactory chip growthfronts
Also see: Misleading biological analogies that should be avoided

Reminder: Full volume growth would lead to

• excessive productivity due to higher throughput of smaller machinery.
• complications in feed-stock supply needing to cross product volume

Related

• The three axes of the Center for Bits and Atoms
• Simultaneous prototyping across scales
• Robot substructure gradients

• Brachiating gridcrawlers
• Mobile robotic device & Cellular shape shifting tangible systems
• Digital control over matter

External links

Websites:

• Landing page of Center for Bits and Atoms, CBA about page
• MIT: Center for Bits and Atoms
• Wikipedia: Center for Bits and Atoms

Videos:

• 2023-05-25 (~2hours): Neil Gershenfeld: Self-Replicating Robots and the Future of Fabrication | Lex Fridman Podcast #380

Papers & theses:

• Self-replicating hierarchical modular robotic swarms
• Assembling Integrated Electronics by Zach Fredin
• Discrete Robotic Construction by William Kai Langford

Related website with a lot of multimedia content:

• http://www.matthematic.com/projects/mit/cbaMain/cbaMain.html