Gem-gum technology

Defining traits of technology level III
building method	robotic control (machine phase)
building material	minimal molecule fragments and single H atoms
building environment	vacuum or noble gas
Navigation
back to very first level	technology level 0
previous level	technology level II
previous step	introduction of practically perfect vacuum
you are here	Technology level III
basis for products	diamondoid metamaterials
products	further improvement at technology level III

In-vacuum gemstone metamaterial technology (or in-vacuum gem-gum-tec for short) is the far term goal of atomically precise manufacturing. Note that this level of technology is not a creative vision but a methodical projection.

About the chosen name for this kind of technology (meta)

"In-vacuum gemstone metamaterial technology" is a novel term introduced on this wiki (2017).

Alternative older terms had one or many of the following problems:

• they didn't exclude unrelated topics well (far too general and wide in scope)
• they didn't capture the most important aspects of the technology well
• they weren't catchy memorable and usable short

This situation led to problems in form of confusion and conflict in the past.
Introduction of the new terms should in general be kept to a minimum.
But in this case the new term seems well motivated and thus justified.

Motivations for the name

The "gem-gum" part of the name represents two core ideas:

1) The core idea that even when one can mechanosynthesize almost nothing (just a few simple base materials) one can make almost anything by mechanical emulation. Mechanical metamaterials. "gum" is just a shorthand for a concrete example of such a metamaterial that rhymes on "gem" which makes memorization a lot easier. Also it's an concrete example that's rather un-intuitive. Rubber made from gemstone. Which could peak interest (click-bait effect).

2) The core idea that gradually increasing the stiffness of the materials one builds with is the ultimate key to advanced mechanosynthesis. The term "gem" (short for gemstone - obviously) points exclusively to the stiff base materials of the far term target technology. This explicitly excludes early stage atomically precise manufacturing such as "structural DNA nanotechnology" which has no positional atomic precision and would be mushed in with other terms.

The "in-vacuum" part of the name narrows down further to materials that can only be synthesized in practically perfect vacuum.

Modifications of the name

On this wiki "Technology level III" may sometimes be used synonymously for in-vacuum gem-gum technology.

By leaving out the "in-vacuum" part of the name (leaving only "gem-gum-tec") one can precisely widen the scope to include one technology level below. Namely (In liquid gem gum technology).

An other term occasionally used on the wiki to refer to gem-gum-tec is "advanced atomically precise technology". In-liquid gem-gum-tec may or may not be included dependent on context.

Introduction

The nature of products is outlined in the definition of advanced APM on the Main Page. (TODO: Maybe move some information to here)

Artifacts (products) of in-vacuum gem-gum technology are manufactured via robotic atomically precise pick and place actions with molecule fragments of a size ranging from one to a few atoms each (force applying mechanosynthesis). This happens in an environment "filled" with practically prefect vacuum.

Products are assembled in some advanced productive nanosystem e.g. an atomically precise small scale factory.
Most promising candidate at the moment are nanofactories with appropriate design that employ convergent assembly.

This page will focus more on the products (artifacts of atomically precise technology)
rather the production devices (devices for atomically precise manufacturing)

Related

• The defining traits of gem-gum-tec
• In-vacuum gem-gum technology is both making up and made by Pants-pockets gemstone-gum factories.
  If that sounds paradox it's because of the chicken egg problem of bootstrapping such factories.