Programmable Matter

[Jasper]

http://www.nanotech-now.com/Wil-McCarthy-interview-06132003.htm

I'm reading the book right now.  Shit's hard to follow.

[Jasper]

Can nobody comment?  I'm sure there are chemistry majors who can comprehend this stuff.

I'm baffled to fuck, personally.

[Richter]

Holy Hell, this looks fun if they can pull it off 

Felix: I'm getting the conceptualization of this, whhat are you thinking about this?

Also:  I'm wondering if with this model (mimicry of electron structure) could function properly without the mass of the nucleus being copied.  Without extra neurons, isotopes SHOULD be impossible.

[Jasper]

I asked Iason on IRC about this, and his answer is that it could work, since the effect of the nucleus is almost negligible.  Electron clouds do almost all of the interactions with other atoms, I guess.

[Jasper]

My thoughts on the conceptualization?

I dunno, what happens when a whole medium of creation becomes as hard to manipulate as pure information?  Basically anything you can imagine, right?

[Richter]

Well, fissionables would be out, AFAIK.
The same rules would apply as far as thermodynamics (exchange and replacing lost electrons and quantum dots), so chemical reactions would be restricted. 

Baring those constrains you'd be able to transmute matter as fast as you can get the data through and capture the electrons.

[Jasper]

So only the matter's color, transparency, reflectance, thermal and magnetic properties could be altered.

[Richter]

As long as it's only a function of molecular structure (and alignment), electrons, or conductivity, I agree it could be changed.

It would be tremendous for researching new elements, alloys, etc.  You'd just need to set up a test for the parameters of the material you want, and set an If - Then to watch for the best ratio of those parameters.  (ex: Make a better steel by brute force  )

I'm not as knowledgeable of how magnetics work and are affected, but being bale to make a selective and highly variable magnetic field would be amusing.  While magnetic monopoles are still theorectical AFAIK, you could fake it pretty good.

I can see a few downsides to the material thought.  Anything assembled from quantum dots could be de-assembled.  Just like a computer, any password you put on it, you can still format the hard drive and restore facotry defaults.  In the case of the "wellstone" they describe (a flexible matrix, aka CLOTH, covered with a  layer of qdots), it would revert back to the cloth state.  It could also be changed with little notice.  (The first person I saw bragging about having an Armani suit of this stuff, I'd want to fool the suit into turning into kelp on him.)

[P3nT4gR4m]

Even better, just wait till some twat in a quantum dots Lambo cuts you up at the traffic lights only to suddenly find himself trying to control a 120mph skid in a fridge

[Jasper]

I'm pretty sure a limiting factor of this wellstone is that it can't self-rearrange, it has to remain in the shape it normally is, unless there are moving parts built in.  The wellstone can only alter the way the matter interacts with other matter, not whether it's shaped like an apple or an orange.

[P3nT4gR4m]

In that case it's rubbish!

Let me know when science catches up with my desire to cause bizarre, kitchen appliances-based motorway pileups 

[Richter]

I'm pretty sure a limiting factor of this wellstone is that it can't self-rearrange, it has to remain in the shape it normally is, unless there are moving parts built in.  The wellstone can only alter the way the matter interacts with other matter, not whether it's shaped like an apple or an orange.

I need to restate my last few a bit.
With a matrix ENTIRELY made of quantum dots, MIGHT be able to pull off moving parts, checmical reations, etc., with fine enough control to the dots themselves, and a sufficient supply of electrons.
Wellstone, on it's quantum surface, could manage the same.  In either case, usual chemistry and physics applies. More electrons would need to be added to revert the dots to a useful state as they lost them in reactions.  Moving parts / friction would be an issue too, dots would invariably be lost.

[Jasper]

I still haven't cracked the book very well yet.  More effort tonight.  I'll try to discern if chemical reactions behave like normal.