A Santa Claus machine, named after the folkloric Santa Claus, is a hypothetical machine that is capable of creating any required object or structure out of any given material. It is most often referenced by

futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abo ...

s and

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

writers when discussing hypothetical projects of enormous scale, such as a

Dyson sphere A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its solar power output. The concept is a thought experiment that attempts to explain how a spacefaring civilization would meet ...

. These types of future constructions would be too large for many civilizations to build directly, so they would need a series of machines to intelligently build the machine with little or no direct control.

Origin

The term was coined by Theodore Taylor in 1978:

It's possible to imagine a machine that could scoop up material – rocks from the Moon or rocks from asteroids – process them inside and produce just about any product: washing machines or teacups or automobiles or starships. Once such a machine exists it could gather sunlight and materials that it's sitting on, and produce on call whatever product anybody wants to name, as long as somebody knows how to make it and those instructions can be given to the machine.

Discussion

A mature Santa Claus machine requires significant advances in technology to be possible, including the ability to take any collection of matter and reconfigure it into any other type of matter. Scientifically, it requires two parts: a disassembler and an assembler. One form of disassembler would consist of an ionizing chamber, which heats the input matter to 43,000 °F (24,000 °C). Once all the molecular bonds are broken and the electrons ripped off, each atomic nucleus would be moved through a magnetic field, where its path would curve in proportion to its charge/mass ratio, as per mass spectrometry. The separated ions would be captured by a linear array of cold traps to provide reservoirs of each element. The assembler would use these reservoirs as input to some kind of

additive layer manufacturing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer ...

device (also known as 3D printers and rapid prototype machines). Many of these printers are commercially available today—though currently few can print with more than one highly prepared material (much less an alphabet consisting of all the raw elements). An autonomous Santa Claus machine would presumably require a high level of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

, though for small projects, autonomous behavior is probably not necessary. However, the "matter compiler" (that figures out which atom goes where) must be programmed appropriately—not a trivial task. A gigantic project such as a

would undoubtedly require not only autonomy, but also self-replication.{{citation needed, date=August 2012 These capabilities would enable a single Santa Claus machine, given sufficient matter and energy, to construct a project of any size.

References

External links

* the Replicating Rapid-Prototyper Project
RepRap.org
*

Don Lancaster Donald E. Lancaster is an American author, inventor, and microcomputer pioneer. Background Lancaster is a writer and engineer, who authored multiple articles for computer and electronics magazines of the 1970s, including ''Popular Electronics' ...

'
Santa Claus machine library
* Seth Rosenthal

Wired magazine ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fr ...

, May 1994 Robotics concepts Artificial life

Origin

Discussion

See also

References

External links