Blurring The Line Between Fact And Fancy...

You've just gotta love it, or shake your head in wonder, at how quickly things now move from the realm of science fiction towards the realm of science's potential reality.

Just last week, we were exploring how copyrights and other intellectual property issues might be affected if today's "crude" make-it-so devices ("stereolithography" devices, by several technologies, which turn 3D computer models into real, physical, 3D objects) eventually evolve towards Star Trek's "matter replicator" (http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/20010219.html#_Toc506708903).

Of course, I did point out that while today's technologies can render solid objects that are good for many "rapid prototyping" purposes, these are usually "simple" objects, without the complex multi-material
"guts" found inside so many of today's finished manufactured products. So, while these stereolithography devices can turn out a very useful gear train, or a solid prototype of a new clock radio, they can not, today, create a working clock radio. (See http://www.zcorp.com/content/product_info/nfbuild.html for one example of how this is accomplished today.)

But now RCFoC reader Kenneth LaCrosse has sent me this picture, and its accompanying article (http://uanews.opi.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/wa/MainStoryDetails?ArticleID=3075), about "Atom Optics":[Image - Atom Laser - http://opi2.opi.arizona.edu/images/atomlase(h).jpg]

Eh? "Optics" normally refers to "light," not atoms. While we have done some extraordinary and unexpected things using optics and the laser, how does "optics" relate to our discussion of "printing" real objects from 3D computer models? For the answer, let's visit the research labs for a moment:

In 1993, University of Arizona scientists, led by Pierre Meystre, predicted the "crazy notion" that it should be possible "to combine beams of atoms, just as beams of laser light are mixed to form a new
laser light beam." Six years later, Nobel Prize winner William Phillips, at the U.S. Commerce Department's NIST labs, pulled this off: working with atoms cooled to very close to absolute zero, he found that those frigid atoms react to the counterintuitive rules of quantum physics, such as that "the wavelength of atoms becomes as long or longer than visible light wavelengths." At which point, these "atom waves," like the one pictured above, begin acting like laser beams.

But, "so what?"

Just as the advent of coherent "light laser" led to astonishing things, such as painless eye surgery, precision machining, the fiber backbone of our communications infrastructure, and even to the creation of
"stereolithographic" solid objects from 3D computer models, this new type of "atom laser" holds fascinating, seemingly science fiction potential as well. According to Meystre,

"Atom holography is another stunning idea. Instead of making an image in light as done in conventional holography, atom optics would make the hologram of atoms.

'What this means is, we could make a real, 3-dimensional replica of some object. We could copy objects.

All of the individual steps to do this with nonlinear atom optics have been demonstrated. It's just a matter of making it work all together. I think it will happen in the next two or three years.'"

That's an earthshaking prediction -- and it sure sounds like the basis for the science fiction "matter replicator." But don't expect such a device to be on Kmart's shelves in a few years. (Which is probably a
good thing, considering that Kmart's shelves might no longer be necessary if we could "order up" a real working "copy" of something over the Internet.)

Nevertheless, as a starting point, Meystre does see "atom holography and lithography" providing the nanomanufacturing techniques to construct inertial sensors that are "billions of times more sensitive than counterpart optical devices for navigation," "gravity-measuring sensors for detecting underground tunnels and chambers of undiscovered oil and mineral deposits," and many more developments that we have yet to dream of.

Even with this development of "atom lasers," it will surely be a very long time, if ever, before I can "print" my next table radio from a pattern that I download from Sony. But it's worth thinking about this advance, even if the "matter replicator" remains in the province of Star Trek. Because, if this "atom laser" turns out to be as fundamental an advance as the "optical laser" before it, imagine the changes that just, might, occur.

Thirty-five years ago, I remember gazing in wonder at the milliwatt optical lasers sold by Edmund Scientific, and envisioning how their future big brothers might be used for industrial machining and for "ray guns." I never imagined CD players in every home or pocket, or LASIK eye surgery, or optical fiber, or Star Wars weapons, or so much more.

So I wonder if now, while reading about these "atom lasers," I've read my NEXT "Edmund Scientific catalog," and where this new "atom laser" may take us, thirty-five years from now...

Don't Blink!

This is an excerpt from the "Rapidly Changing Face of Computing, " a free weekly multimedia technology journal written by Jeffrey R. Harrow, Principal Member of Technical Staff for the Corporate Strategy group at Compaq. A more extensive version of this discussion, as well as others around the innovations and trends of contemporary computing and the technologies that drive them, are available at http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc . Jeff's opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Compaq. The RCFoC is a service of, and Copyright 2000, Compaq Computer Corp."