Would it be possible to truly digitize physical objects?I'm not talking about scanning a piece of paper, but of being able to reproduce a 1:1 copy of the object given sufficient tools (which I'm aware can't actually exist, as measuring uncertainty and manufacturing error are a thing).Sure, we would need to perform an analog to digital conversion, which is never gonna be perfect, just arbitrarily precise given enough memory.However at the end of the day physical objects are made up of atoms. If we can record these atoms and their relative positions that's digital information, isn't it?I guess we would need to record the momentum of the atoms as well, but that's just thermodynamics.Once we have the momentum, couldn't we just agree upon say 15 degrees Celsius as a reference point, perform a conversion from the measured temperature to our reference temperature.(Yes, our physical theories aren't perfect, I know, but we can get like 99.99% close)Do we ever need to have a look at the sub-atomic level, where we can't measure momentum and position at the same time?
>>16924196Thinking about this for a hot minute:If you have a solid piece of iron at 15 degrees which you then melt at say 2000 degrees and cool down to 15 degrees you will obviously have a differently shaped object, where the atoms will have a wildly different relative position.But what about heating that piece of iron up to 100 degrees, at which point it is solid?Then my approach would work, as I don't think we'd qualify fluids or gasses as objects.The slight problem is that the individual atoms will have wildly different kinetic energies, some will be basically static, some will behave gaseous and try to escape their structure.How do we account for this?
>>16924196CAD, drawings, and text can be used to reproduce most things we manufacturer
Digtizing a physical object at the subatomic level would be isomorphic to that object being physically real. So no, thats not possible. Yet another reason mind uploading is not possible. The computer chip required to store that information would be physically larger than the object by many orders of magnitude.
>>16924202Sure if you have the documentation that's one thing.You could feed that to a hypothetical perfect manufacturing machine and create the object. If the original object was created by sticking to the plans 100% we now have a copy that's closer to the actual specification, as we don't have to account for manufacturing errors.If you don't you could either go for a manual reverse engineering approach (which likely won't result in a perfect copy) and repeat the above process.Or you have access to a hypothetical machine that does something like an ultra-precise 3D scan or tomography.I'm asking: Is something like the replicator from StarTrek possible, or I guess teleportation would be a somewhat better example (as it involves converting specific atoms into information and back).
>>16924203>Digtizing a physical object at the subatomic level would be isomorphic to that object being physically real.But do we need to even touch the subatomic level?Aren't the relative positions of the atoms at a certain reference temperature enough?>The computer chip required to store that information would be physically larger than the object by many orders of magnitude.Yes, I'm aware that the tools can't really exist.It's more of a thought experiment.
Anything manufactured by a factory was created using digital data. I’m not sure what exactly the OP is asking
>>16924208You dont need subatomic precision for 99.9% of technology.Eventually you'll be able to fabricate anything but computer chips from raw materials. Someone will eventually invent a machine that can build anything but computer chips. I think you can build most things from graphene composites, including clothes, motors, batteries, filtration systems, and solar panels. Graphene also has the most optimal materials characteristics and its an abundant element. But you can probably have a factory that does all kinds of stuff from graphene. Actually, you can do graphene chips now, so yeah, graphene is the future.
>>16924196as it stands currently, you can do approximations. In order to digitize physical objects at level beyond a 1:1 representation (one being the amount of physical data in the universe required to represent the object to an equal equivalent represented through other means) You would have to have a way to encode data beyond the physical limitations of reality. Somehow creating 2 bits from 1 physical logic gate. or many bits from one physical logic gate.
>>16924458If this is not possible, however, a 1:1 representation of reality would be an interesting thing.
>>16924459But it does go down to fundamental questions of reality, like what is exactly below subatomic, etc.
>>16924196Also I do question if in a simulation of reality, we would be restricted by the heisenburg uncertainty principal. Would be a good question for researchers.
wtf are you even talking about? why would you need "sub-atomic accuracy", whatever the fuck that even means, to recreate an object? you don't even need atomic accuracy unless we're talking about 3d printing the highest precision scientific equipment here, you don't think cars rolling off the assembly line are atomic clones do you?>momentum of the atomsjesus christ my dude, you're talking about shit that changes instant to instant anyways, that's like saying you have to memorize if you got heads or tails this coin flip so you know where you left off next time you go flip a cointhere's nothing physically stopping you from reproducing any physical object, you just need its schematics and the raw materials and a method of assembly
>>16924196>truly digitizeThis is a meaningless phrase. A rough 3D model made by some kid is just as much a "true digitization" of a car as your atomic-level one. Both are equally lacking in the quality that makes the original car actually exist.
>>169245263d print a bacteria.
>>16924526The pic in the OP gives away what I'm talking about.It was an actual anti-piracy campaign. "Piracy. It's a crime."It tries to equate stealing physical objects with copying digital files.Well, what if you COULD copy a physical object like you can copy a file on your PC?I'm well aware that cars rolling off an assembly line aren't atomic clones lol, I even spoke of manufacturing error in the OP.>you're talking about shit that changes instant to instant anywaysThe average kinetic energy of a substance is its temperature which inherently defines how that substance behaves (elasticity etc).I guess taking the "general" temperature alone wouldn't account for local hot and cold spots so I was talking about measuring the momentum of individual atoms, which might well be overkill, yes.This is more of a thought experiment than anything else. This approach is not needed to produce our best equipment and probably impossible because tools are limited by measuring uncertainty etc.CAN you represent an object digitally by recording its atoms with their relative positions (which will change according to the momentum and collisions).Is there SOMETHING on the sub-atomic level that needs to be taken into account or not?CAN two objects whose atoms are in the exact same position with the exact same momentum be different because of sub-atomic phenomena?(I'm aware that no such 2 objects exist in practice)
>>16924533>Both are equally lacking in the quality that makes the original car actually existOK I get your point. But I was also talking about a hypothetical tool/machine that can bring the digitized object into existenceThe rough 3D model of the kid would just encode geometry, but surely that is not a sufficient data structure, as that geometry changes with temperature.So a 1:1 digital representation of an object would need to encode that as well, at least.Is there anything else one needs to account for? Particularly, is there anything on the subatomic level we need to account for?
>>16924629>I was also talking about a hypothetical tool/machine that can bring the digitized object into existenceYou're still not making sense. Whether or not you can replicate something from any kind of blueprint has nothing to do with "true digitization" and everything to do with what you're trying to produce and your manufacturing methods. Artificial constructs don't need atomic-level scans, only the design plan and the right kind of automation. Organic, living things can't be reproduced at all, because even if you had a perfect snapshot of their physical state on a subatomic level, you'd have to reproduce it almost instantaneously, otherwise there would be a point in the manufacturing process where (e.g.) you have half a living body trying to do its normal biological processes with the other half missing, which is nonsense.
