[extropy-chat] Why no assembler design?

[scerir]

> Speaking as someone who knows more or less nothing about the subject, and
> has some vague imagery about lots of painted little balls stuck together,
> but knows lots of C++ and other languages, I'm asking: what is your
> estimate about the manpower and knowledge required to get an useful tool?
> Does one need to be a chemistry expert, or at least interface with one?
> Are there standard algorithms and/or formulas that can do the job?
> Ciao,
> Alfio

I do not know anything about the subjects (painted balls, or C++)
nevertheless I can provide *useless* references :-)

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Quantum Mechanical Universal Constructor
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0303124
Arun K. Pati, Samuel L. Braunstein
Arbitrary quantum states cannot be copied. In fact, to make a copy we must
provide complete information about the system. However, can a quantum system
self-replicate? This is not answered by the no-cloning theorem. In the
classical context, Von Neumann showed that a 'universal constructor' can
exist which can self-replicate an arbitrary system, provided that it had
access to instructions for making copy of the system. We question the
existence of a universal constructor that may allow for the self-replication
of an arbitrary quantum system. We prove that there is no deterministic
universal quantum constructor which can operate with finite resources.
Further, we delineate conditions under which such a universal constructor
can be designed to operate dterministically and probabilistically.

John Baez, 'Is life improbable?', Found. Phys. 19 (1989), 91-95
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/improbable.pdf

Eugen P. Wigner, "The Probability of the Existence of a
Self-Reproducing Unit", In "The Logic of Personal Knowledge:
Essays Presented to Michael Polanyi on his Seventieth Birthday,
11th March 1961", London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961, 248 pages.

Rebek, J. "Synthetic Self-Replicating Molecules," Scientific American,
July 1994

J. Am. Chem. Soc. 119 10559 (1997)

http://ch-www.st-andrews.ac.uk/staff/dp/dp_index.html

http://www.chemie.uni-marburg.de/~nanobio1/PKiedrowski.html