I wrote:
> It seems unlikely to me that anyone will be able to fabricate a cold > fusion device at home, using 3-D printers or what-have-you. Not for the > next thousand years or so, until those machines evolve into Clarke's > universal replicators. > Maybe 1,000 years is too much, but it will be a long while. There has been a lot of enthusiastic talk about these 3-D printer replicator things. I am all for them! I think they are great. But I think some naive commentators fail to recognize some crucial limitations to today's versions: 1. They use only material. Plastic. They cannot be used to fabricate metal, wood, silicon or nickel. You cannot make a NiCad battery or a cold fusion device with that. 2. Resolution is limited. You could not make a computer chip, even if the devices could lay down silicon and metal. I do not think resolution is fine enough for a cold fusion device. Certainly not nanoparticle devices. Despite these limitations, I expect these things will become useful for making parts in the lab such as the fitting that holds the cathode and anode in place. In the distant future, the capabilities of these machines may gradually expand, until they can lay down any element in any configuration. Such as, for example: a fried egg, the Hope Diamond, a copy of the Mona Lisa correct down to the molecule, or a thermonuclear bomb. That is what Clarke predicted. By the time that happens we can hope that the machines will have so much built-in intelligence, it will refuse to fabricate a thermonuclear bomb. The process will be so complicated that no human will be able to override the build-in protections, or run the machine manually. - Jed
