Keen! I wonder if this would be an approach to time-delay medication: encapsulate the dosage inside a cage of DNA molecules – a structure that doesn’t encode any actual genetic information – say just an endless chain of AAAAAA (no GTC) – and when the framework dissolves, the medication is released. Tiny time capsules… More accurate than just wax!
I think someday the IBM demonstration will be even more legendary than another thing that happened in 1989, Tim Berners-Lee’s first paper describing Web technology.
Base on the wikipedia page molecular assembler include hypothetical machines that manipulate individual atoms.
A nano printer would not manipulate individual atoms but would be spitting out molecules. It would print molecule by molecule to build stuff.
It may not be able to cut or move molecule or molecules. Where molecular assembler would be able to move atoms around.
A molecular assembler and nano printer would definitely 100% need bin for every thing it is working with. If it does not have the raw materials it can’t print or build any thing.
You can’t make elements. The only way a star trek replicator would work will you will not need a bin of set molecule or element is I see.
1 Step even more complex than nano printer or molecular assembler where by manipulating proteins and electrons turning it into any element you want
2 chemical reaction
3 turning energy into matter would require energy of a star.
One problem with working with atoms is base on the Uncertainty Principle. You can never no 100% where atom is. So this will make it very hard to manipulate individual atoms.
And if you can’t manipulate individual atoms you can’t build any thing even some thing as small as a human hair or speck of dust!!
Plutonium.