Shrink Ray/Duplicator Theory

We have all seen in the movies and cartoons of shrinking rays and duplicator devices.

Clearly on a molecular level this is impossible.
But science is still advancing with each passing day.

Here is my theory, that if we one day get to this point in science.

Its clear logic that molecules cannot be shrunk anymore than they already are, or that molecules can be duplicated.

But what if we had such a device that did both?

It would remove half the molecules, thus making a duplicate and ending up with 2 identical, yet smaller, objects.

Makes sense doesn't it? What do you think?

 

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Everything exists in perfect proportion in the human body. You can't just cut away half and expect it to function.

And what about the brain?

 

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At the moment I cant see any way of doing it scientifically in a controlled and easy manner.
You will have to break the atomic bonds of something over, ummm, 10^23 atoms and then reform them 6 inches away in the same structure. The only way to do it would be to render the orginal object down to its atoms, and rebuild it atom by atom, assuming you knew exactly where each atom went, and we have no way of working it all out, at least not in a way that takes less than a few minutes and some analysis.

Then theres the effect on kinetics and thermodynamics etc. If you took half of someones body away, youd be left with a brain that couldnt function due to missing half its neurons. If you took away half the atoms in a car engine, the two smaller engines would function differently because of the different mass/ surface area ratio and such factors.

 

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Quite impossible, but have you considered a career in writing science fiction? I suggest first a few courses in chemistry and physics.

 

It seems that some of the posters here use substantially less than half their brains, so they could readily be shrunk several times.

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did I say anything about this working on a human... when I say object, you assume It means a human being? My idea could still work on humans in thoery... but your right, the affect something of nature would have on nuero patterns and the brain is unforseen.

As far as I know they are actully progressing VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERY slowly on "teleportation." So considering that, YES, the 2nd object will be have to moved to a 2nd point did not excape me.

I guess I went a bit extream using the word molecules. Atoms would make more sense.

But consdier, Say you had a round plastic ball. You remove every 2nd atom in a row of atoms..... and teleport it to another area.


True, it is a bit far fetch, but have only begun to explore what we can do.
Look at Juels Vern.... his ideas where far fetched back in his time. Some of them still are. He wrote books that expressed his ideas....

I may take you up on writing that book marv. And I will be sure to do "SOME" reseach first.

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Remeber... I'm not saying something like this will ever happen in our life times.

 

I guess this would work for simple objects. It wouldn't work for living things, were single individual molecules play important roles. You couldn't, for example, cut half the atoms out of an enzyme and have it still work.

 

True.

 

Actually, asssuming we on this thread live for another 60 years, I think it extremely likely that none of what you are postulating will happen. maaybe in a century or two, if they are even physically possible, but so far there is no clue as to how teleportation would work. There are areas where physics is a bit fuzzy, and they may provide the opening into a new region the way problems like black body radiation did at the end of the 19th century, but on the whole, things are nearly stalled. (Thats my opinion anyway)

 

I think it would be a good idea. Another one might be to digitize via some MRI like device, transmit a signal to a receiver, and re-assemble. This could also be a duplicator/replicator. Hmmmmmmmm....lots of possibilities. You might be the next Isaac Azimov!

 

Lots of possibilities? most of them have I am afraid been done already. The easiest ones were done over 50 years ago.

And by the way, do you mean digitise by an MRi type device actually finding out where every atom is ni respect to every other atom? That would be hard enough, but I dont understand the transmit to a reciever and reassemble, since you are not actuallly transferring any matter by doing that.

 

It would give you a copy in a new location, rather than actualy moving the original.

Or maybe you could use it to just get lots of copies in one place. Hmm...instant army of super-soldiers...

 

If you can do all that, why bother with the super soldiers? Just zap everyone who opposes you with your magic shrinking ray!

 

It might be hard to get everyone to agree to go into the shrinking machine...

 

At least one part of this was done when 'IBM' was written in atoms using IIRC an electron microscope. That simple little structure was built up atom by atom. Its therefore not such a stretch to imagine that process being automated, speeded up, and having an array of atoms or molecules to assemble things with.

While not practical today, a chemical printer/assembler is not entirely out of the question in the century ahead.

And once such a machine exists, using it to build larger more complex objects is primarily a matter of scaling.


Now what about the data input side? How do we chemically map a human being? Well, we cant with any accuracy, but we do have some tools that just might prove adequate for at least some purposes. Human parts are currently sliced into ultrathin slices for research using glass blades, and the slices viewed and mapped. Its not inconceivable that we might, in perhaps another 1000 years, have analysed and mapped every chemical and its position in the human body using this technology.

Then we could assemble a slightly grainy copy of a human being, and if we get the resolution good enough it might even work. Admittedly the fact that it would be a cadaver would be something of a disappointment, but you cant have everything!


Lava

 

about the "mri" machine, if we could get the raw materials compiled to make the cells, maybe from stem cells, then just have a kind of a blueprint, frm the MRI kind of thing if there was a way to recomposite cells to follow said blueprint, you could posibly recreate human beings any way you wanted them.:shh:

 

Isn't it true that even apparently "solid" objects are actually mostly empty space? Suppose your "shrink ray" somehow altered the properties of the atoms so that the electrons moved into a closer orbit causing all the atoms to apparently shrink to one half their original size. The density would double, of course. And I have no idea how you would alter the atoms in this way. But, if we're just tossing out ideas here...

 

You would probably need colossal inputs of energy to keep the whole system stable. And who knows what would happen to how the brain functions. One of the arguments for the existence of a deity is how perfectly all the universal constants line up. If electrons were any farther away from the nucleus, the universe would turn into an electron soup; any closer and chemical reactions wouldn't take place.

 

Reduce the amount of space between atoms, and reduce the amount of space between the atomic nucleus and the electrons--things get smaller. Sounds simple, but just try doing it

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This is a pretty cool idea. I can see this happening with simpler objects, not living things. Also, it could go to a point where making it too small and then, when you try to restore it, it'll be all, eww. Like on MC paint. You can take a picture and make it smaller, but if you try to bring it back to normal size, it'll be all block-like depending on how small you tried to make it.