Hmmm..provocative idea...but the devil is in the details.
"Suitable matter"? Is this a mono-element nanomachine? i.e. a novel
molecular-level restructuring of (e.g.) sodium? Or must the
nano-self-replicator find a specific compound? e.g. sodium chloride?
or some aggregate of (e.g.) sodium chloride and iron oxide? or--?
No special requirements for the "construction site"? (temperature,
etc.?)
When you say "programmed to repeat the process", which process do you
mean--just the self-replication, or also "boosting (their replicants)
to near light speed"?
F. LeFever
In <379874e8.3481585 at news.demon.co.uk> ohgs at chatham.demon.co.uk (Oliver
Sparrow) writes:
>>"Steven Mix" <stevenmix at prodigy.net> wrote:
>>> Life is out there. Somewhere.
>>Off-topic, but what the hell? No doubt it is out there. I noted
Vinge's
>hierarchy of explanations as to 'where are they'? Someone replied that
>getting about would be difficult. Doubtless, unless we understand what
>constitutes separation better than we do at present. Assuming the
problem
>is intractable, and that there are reasons to explore (itself an
>assumption) then how would one go about it?
>>The answer has to be very small objects, hugely replicated, that can
(a)
>unwrap themselves when they find a chunk of suitable matter and (b)
produce
>more of themselves. A bacterium-sized nanomachine could be boosted to
near
>light speed with relative ease - light or microwave pressure, for
example -
>and teratonnes of these could be made and sprayed about at random (in
the
>galactic plane) in decades by anyone with the technology. If these are
>programmed to repeat the process, the galaxy would be fully populated
by a
>generation of such machinery in a time not much longer than its
diameter
>measured in light years. This offers a fairly tight test: either (a)
this
>cannot be done or (b) there is nobody to do it or (c) it has been
done,
>because it only has to be done once.
>>If it has been done, then the logical extension is to spray the local
>system with recording-transmitting nanomachines. Who knows, you may
have
>just such a thing nesting in your cortex, transmitting your thoughts
in
>polarized sneutrinoes, or whatever, to a database in the Oort cloud
and
>thence to day time TV, somewhere far, far away. Paranoia starts here.
>_______________________________
>>Oliver Sparrow
