Technological percolation limit

Developing a system in parallel and in pieces that only eventually come together to give a singly connected contiguous whole. But while for a long arduous time of not much visible progress it is and stays fragmented and non-connected at some critical (technological percolation limit) point things get singly contiguously connected rapidly via lots of suddenly possible system integration work. – One concrete interpretation: Building a modular robotic system eventually capable of pick-n-place self-replication. there is the frame and the end-effector and the work-piece site as and other places as separate places allowing to start working from but at the end it all needs to come together to a single singly connected physical structure kinematic loop. – Important when starting: Early having A good focus on making the patches fit together at when eventually meeting up with them. Pieces fitting together is a given for a pre-made puzzle like the analogy here. But physical R&D is harder in that it designs the shape of the puzzle pieces while assembling the puzzle.

After crossing a threshold where all the required things come to together to being fulfilled simultaneously
and in a way that fits together (either by chance or by active effort) long neglected areas of technology often receive an unexpected massive boost. An ignition.

(wiki-TODO: discuss the concept in general and APM specific case)

Example: Advanced productive nanosystems

Various needed mechanisms and machine elements coming together to subsystem components.
Various subsystem components coming together to an entire system eventually.
That in a very nonlinear sudden and phase transition like way. Thus "percolation limit".

For parts of this happening see pages:

• RepRec pick-and-place robots (GemGum) & ReChain as one main subsystem
• Early diamondoid nanosystem pixel (direct path)
• Modular molecular composite nanosystems (incremental path)

Percolation limits e.g. towards replicative capability.
But one can look at percolstion limits towards other capabilities too.

(wiki-TODO: Maybe add some concrete examples right here. frame, endeffector, ...)

Example: Autonomous humanoid robots (with today's non atomically precise technology)

Autonomous humanoid robots might experience the crossing of a technological percolation limit in
the not too far future (that is: likely way before gem-gum factories arrive)
With all the sub-technologies coming along well.

• Orientation: Inertial measurement units (IMUs) with sensor fusion
• Moving: mechanics, motors, dynamic robotics control (as one pretty inseparable sub-technology)
• Seeing: image recognition (interestingly this is bidirectional and lets as see the computers "hallucinations" – deep dream)
• Hearing: speech to text STT
• Thinking: contextual understanding (language translation systems need to really understand the text to make really good translations)
• Speaking: text to speech TTS
• Neuromorphic hardware chips
• ...

Once all the parts work sufficiently well then all the parts may come together spookily fast

Related (but far future): Multi limbed sensory equipped shells and Gem-gum balloon products

RepRec ReChain projects

See: RepRec & ReChain

Related

• Bridging the gaps
• Theoretical overhang - pre-built segments fall in place all at once
• The "right time" for an (possibly old) idea to spread (and gain mass adoption)
• Serendipity that is not as much "by chance" as one might think
• Up: Percolation limit in general

External links

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percolation_threshold