Self-Assembly, Self-Replication, and 4-D Printing Are Humanity’s Future
Why these technologies will change our world even more than computers
From the time of the ‘Analytical Engine’ proposed by Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage to the modern day, consider the extent to which computers have changed human civilization. Communication from one city to another took place no more quickly than the speed of a horse or a ship. When one’s children departed to other cities or even to other continents, if their letters stopped arriving, the parents might never know what happened to their children.
It’s hard for people today to imagine such a world, for few today even remember what life was like without a telephone (though I well remember paying $22/minute for calling my family in America from overseas). Even now, when one’s children are about to move far away (as my youngest son and his household are considering), we know we can ‘Facetime’ them and see their faces in real time as much as they’ll allow — even if they’re on the other side of the planet. The degree to which this has changed our world is hard to overstate.
I grew up in a very rural place, and my family would tell me stories of what their lives were like before they got their first radio or telephone, and the first time they saw an airplane. For…
