

Legos that build legos (vid) - nickb
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ3AcPEPbH0

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aston
The L Combinator.

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euccastro
On the topic of metacircular/self referential Lego stuff,

<http://www.cefvigo.com/galego/galeria_vilari%F1o.htm>

These are recreations of classical photographs with Legos. The funny part
about this is that the camera with which the pics were shot is itself built
from Legos (barring lenses and a few other select pieces). I have a copy of
the book from this exposition, which has a pic of the camera, and some 20+
more Lego pics- a few of the best were left out from the website. I can scan
some if anyone is interested.

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jey
Very cool, but I was hoping for something more general purpose, like the Lego
equivalent of a molecular assembler. :-(

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_assembler>

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ph0rque
I think that one of the problems that will need to be solved before molecular
nanotechnology arrives is how to put together (and take apart) units of atoms
using very similar atoms as the dis/assembler. So, if it can be done in Legos
using a much smaller number of pieces, it can serve as a model for the
molecular dis/assembler.

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jey
I doubt a lego-scale model would help much, the forces and effects involved at
the molecular scale are much different. However, K. Eric Drexler, father of
the field of molecular nanotechnology, has done some theoretical work to show
that it's feasible in his book "Engines of Creation". A newly revised version
of it is available for free as an eBook:
<http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=503>

A more technically oriented book is "Nanosystems":
[http://www.amazon.com/Nanosystems-Molecular-Machinery-
Manufa...](http://www.amazon.com/Nanosystems-Molecular-Machinery-
Manufacturing-Computation/dp/0471575186)

~~~
ph0rque
Hey, a fellow mnt (molecular nanotechnology) enthusiast, cool!

Yes, I've read EoC and Nanosystems (well, I skimmed Nanosystems; it's not a
very easy read, being so informationally dense), and follow the Center for
Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN, <http://crnano.typepad.com>) blog regularly.
As an entrepreneur, I think a startup that comes up with a molecular assembler
would be a truly disruptive one, and I'm looking forward to sufficient
advances in technology that this is feasible.

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cellis
tut tut, I see human input.

