This magical moment finally comes – when we change talk into action. So pleasant pain… The most important discovery is that such a change is an illusion, because we always operate with informations which (may) have a material representations.
The new technique, the multiplanet technique waits patiently when someone notices it…
previous part: https://quantumidea.tech/2020/08/23/why-i-started/
Do nothing, change everything
We want to do something. A chair, a teddy bear, a house, a plane.
How to do it in the most cost effective way?
By doing nothing. Then we will not use any energy or matter.
Well, then we will also have nothing.
This approach is only seemingly stupid. The truth is that when we do just that, the solution will emerge on its own.
When I was a kid I found a little book – The Invention Algorithm. I found many strange things in it. This book advised that when looking for a solution, everything should be reduced to absurdity, contradiction and don’t worry about that! Don’t judge anything emotionally, just get to the heart of the matter as deep as possible. Later I found out how important this book is. Its author is Genrich Altshuller, who created TRIZ.
We agreed earlier that the ideal effectiveness is when we do nothing.
So we have to do more than nothing to have something.
I promised that solution would come automatically! – it is in the word “more”.
How much can “more” actually be? And even better question – what can it look like?….
A pinch
We have just gained knowledge from wise books, but I would like to remind you that we got exactly the same wisdom from our allied expert – Mr. Bumblebee! He mentioned something about the air…Good! We are the next step further. Our main material will be air. We have to start somehow, the air is the best start, it costs nothing…
How many useful things can we make of it? Not too much. If we make a teddy bear from the air, we will not be able to hug him . Well, let’s add the second ingredient. So we make a composite – A (air) and B (some material). Let’s think – how could we distribute, deploy, our second material in space? Because air is gas, it is everywhere, evenly. I assume that the second material will be at least a liquid or even better a solid, so as to have some constructional effect… So we are looking for some geometry…
Oh dear, what to choose? There are so many possibilities… Relax. Since the neighbor, the surroundings, of our component B is the air, then if we consider everything in open space, let us assume that we present a given area of air as a sphere, because it is a very beautiful figure, universal in all directions… If we allow many spheres to freely fill the space as closely as possible, a very interesting rest will remain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_packing
Our component B will occupy only ~ 26% of the total space… I think that’s a great result! Note that we get in return for about a quarter of a space the overall strength of our something. Of course we can use different configurations and these proportions will change, but that quarter is a reference.
This is how I came to the point that foams are our salvation.
Cooking
Of course, this was a short, soulless description. In fact, it is a great, delightful adventure that will take your breath away – studying how bees, our bones or plant cells deal with it.
A variation on the foams are nonowovens. These two structures are siblings.
Note that in the past we treated all such situations as a defect in the material. Today we are finally beginning to appreciate this form of materials.
For exemple we produce metal foams. Unfortunately we commit there the sin of using form. We make something about a given shape (rectangular) to cut it later… Worse still, we are unable to regulate the characteristic of this foam in various places, they are simply isotropic objects.
Imagine that a few years ago I proved myself that it is possible to achieve metal objects of any shape, which are open-cell foam, while having the ability to vary the size of cells in different zones, i.e. anisotropic. Oh yes! And now the best part – it can be done in the kitchen, crazy low-tech which is higher-tech… The method is so brazenly simple and easy that you will get angry…
[OK! Well, we are doing exactly the same as a moment ago. We take spheres – sugar pearls… Remember, we are in the kitchen! Make these spheres/pearls slightly moist, make them sticky. Now we can make what we want – a teddy bear or an endoprosthesis. We can use different sizes of spheres/pearls! Have fun! Then we leave our work to dry. Once it is solid, pour it with melted wax (from the candle on the windowsill, but watch out! take tea lights, don’t even touch your wife’s favorite scented candle…) When the waxes solidify, scratch it lightly to get to the spheres/pearls. Put the whole thing into water. Our spheres are made of sugar and they will dissolve. They had connections with each other, so we will also wash those that are deeper… Suddenly we have a wax version of our metal foam! Now it’s a formality – we can use the ancient technology… lost-wax casting. Yes! There will be some plaster in a good kitchen… Pour plaster over the wax. Then we melt the wax out. After that, we melt some tin (someone who has assembled several printers always has some pieces of tin in his pocket, check it!) in a spoon and pour it into our mold. After all, we break the mold and we have wonderful metal foam teddy bear! They don’t have such cute even in NASA…]
A sinful paradise
We have our first shape. The Foam. We know it is good. But please note that danger lurks here!
It would be a mistake if we treat the foams, their geometry as filling, pattern, interior of any object. Funny guy, always good, always effective for any occasion. If we fill a rectangular cube with foam, we will not achieve something good. It will still be a bad object, maybe just a little bit less bad. We have to provide a huge change. Qualitative, not quantitative. We cannot choose the lesser evil. We must look for a much better good.
Foam is only an idea. It is a hope, a carrier, a guidepost, a leaven of good topology.
Until now, we used to separate a given object into the outside and inside. And that’s why sometimes the topology on the outside is bad (e.g. cube), but there is better situations inside (because there is foam). Or it is opposite – the outside is pretty good but the inside is very bad (it is just solid). These matters must not be divided. There is one topology. From general to specific. You have to take it totally. Women are an outstanding example confirming this rule.
So foams are like a safe haven, a calm port, it’s good to get out of them and come back to them, they’re safe for most cases.
Another remark – if we prepare an executive technology based on foams, we should think how to change their characteristics in some regions, and that it can be done freely. The kitchen technology can do that but we had to carry out many other frustrating and costly additional operations. That is why I abandoned this method, although it is better than other known, it is still primitive. And worst of all, it is terrifyingly energy intensive!
So, this is not enough, we have to go much further. We must finally be able to act freely in space.
The created object must have full freedom. Therefore, we should accept the principle that we can not touch it! No hands, no tools, no robots. No mechnical contact! Please, no!
We will influence the object in a different way, provide it with information what to do, send it another portions of material etc. We will choose waves for this job… They are perfect candidates for this mission!
Corpus delicti from kitchen:
