Utility fog
Utility fog (also referred to as foglets) is a hypothetical collection of tiny
Conception
The term was coined by
In the original application as a replacement for seatbelts, the swarm of robots would be widely spread out, and the arms loose, allowing air flow between them. In the event of a collision the arms would lock into their current position, as if the air around the passengers had abruptly frozen solid. The result would be to spread any impact over the entire surface of the passenger's body.
While the foglets would be micro-scale, construction of the foglets would require full
Hall and his correspondents soon realized that utility fog could be manufactured en masse to occupy the entire atmosphere of a planet and replace any physical instrumentality necessary to human life. By foglets exerting concerted force, an object or human could be carried from location to location. Virtual buildings could be constructed and dismantled within moments, enabling the replacement of existing cities and roads with farms and gardens. While molecular nanotech might also replace the need for biological bodies, utility fog would remain a useful peripheral with which to perform physical engineering and maintenance tasks. Thus, utility fog also came to be known as "the machine of the future".[6]
See also
- Grey goo
- Molecular machines
- Nanorobotics
- Nanotechnology
- Programmable matter
- Self-reconfiguring modular robotics
- Smartdust
- Neural dust
- Synthetic biology
- The Invincible, a 1964 science fiction novel with intrigue centered on nanobotic swarms
References
- ^ Hall, J. Storrs (July 5, 2001). "Utility Fog: The Stuff that Dreams Are Made Of". KurzweilAI.
- ^ Hall, J. Storrs (July 6, 2001). "What I want to be when I grow up, is a cloud". KurzweilAI.
- ^ On Certain Aspects of Utility Fog by Dr. J. Storrs Hall
- ^ a b LEGOs (TM) to the Stars Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine The Assembler, Volume 4, Number 3 Third Quarter, 1996, Tihamer Toth-Fejel
- ^ John Storrs Hall, "Utility Fog: A Universal Physical Substance," in Vision-21: Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in the Era of Cyberspace, G. A. Landis, ed., NASA Publication CP-10129, pp. 115-126 (1993)
- ^ J. Storrs Hall (2008). "Utility Fog: the machine of the future". Nanotechnol. Perceptions. 4 (1): 15–22.
External links
- Utility Fog at Nanotech Now, many links.