Print Me: Part IV

(Story begins here.)

Liubo perused the list of available molecules for printing. The forum's repository of printing instructions for molecules were loosely grouped according to molecular weight in atomic mass units, then by number of atoms, then roughly according to the proportion of the types of atoms that were used so as to conform to the type of molecular gel (organic, base metals, precious metals) that needed to be used.

It was a veritable trove of interesting information that chemists would have killed for a century ago. A catalogue of chemical compounds was one thing that even the mighty Dupont Corporation had amassed for a long time, but to have them catalogued in such a manner, complete with synthesis information that an automated device could use for absolute replicability, it was the type of standard that any chemist or chemical engineer would kill for. Part of the difficulty of synthesising molecules was the need to work out what source materials could be used in terms of their associated binding energy and unit price on the market; the other part was dealing with by-products of the associated chemical reaction that was considered waste. In many ways, chemical synthesis of molecules was the micro-economic version of regular economics, since there was no way to absolutely destroy waste by-products, since matter was never truly created or destroyed---they could only be combined in a myriad of ways according to their chemical properties.

`Maybe I should start with something small and easy to confirm. Something like glucose? Ah, I don't have the right reagents to test for that. Let me see... oh I can do a simple starch. It's not that small, but I do have a bottle of tri-iodine that I could use to test for its presence. Okay, that's settled then,' Liubo thought to himself as he looked at the repository of chemicals and settled on one of the many starch molecules for synthesis.

He downloaded the instruction file to his laptop's desktop, and continued to scour through the database for something fun to print in the future. He gave a quick glance to the molecular printer---it was still running through its paces, and the screen glowed with ``45 minutes left''.

Liubo shrugged his shoulders and continued to look through the forum.

In one of the newer conversation threads, there was a post that had a ``mystery'' molecule printing instruction uploaded. It was in one of the puzzle forums, where the goal was to print the mystery molecule using the printing instructions, and then, based on whatever chemical/physical tests that one could muster, deduce what the molecule was. It was a fun game that was played by many owners of molecular printing devices, because it served as a great way to build up skill in qualitative analysis, as well as using other physical chemistry tools that were available to improve the chemical deductive knowledge. Such games were possible because the instructions for the molecular printer were not exactly human readable---while there had been decompilers that could convert the binary-encoded information into a set of mnemonic instructions that could, in theory, be read by a human, the reality was that the instructions were to control quantum-mechanical parameters, which meant that even though one could read the the translated instructions, what they actually ended up synthesising was still a mystery until the end product was synthesised.

There was always some risk that the mystery molecule was something that could be termed as a biohazard, but those were far and few. There was a budding industry of ``molecular anti-virus companies'' who were full-blown testing labs whose sole purpose was to take various molecular printing instructions, synthesise the molecules, and then test them for safety. Those that were deemed safe would have a digital signature assigned to it to assure others who downloaded the same instructions that they were unaltered and were safe. The whole industry revolving around such anti-virus capabilities was still nascent, since the number of tests that were needed to deem a synthesised molecule as relatively safe was always increasing, with ever-increasing complexity.

So despite all the efforts, there was always some residual risk involved.

But that was part of the fun of the mystery molecule puzzles anyway---to be a sleuth in figuring out what the molecule was. There had been various efforts to simulate the mnemonic instructions in a computer, but due to the large numbers of quantum-mechanical effects involved with the sometimes stupendously large number of atoms, only the smallest molecules' behaviour could be thus simulated.

Liubo was well aware of the risks that were involved, but the draw of being the first to identify the molecule from the provided printing instructions was too big to resist, and so he spent much of the remaining time looking through them for mystery molecules of various sizes.

(Story continues here.)

Print Me: Part III

(Story begins here.)

Dinner was hurriedly had, and Liubo quickly hooked up the power supply to the molecular printer. Double checking all the connections and assemblies against the mangled Chinglish instructions, he was satisfied at their correctness and stopped for a moment to stare at the technological marvel that sat in front of him at his main work bench. Hesitating just slightly with that remnant bit of doubt, Liubo flipped the switch on the power extender that he had connected the molecular printer to, before pressing on the literal Big Red Switch that was on the molecular printer itself.

The click of the switch engaging was soon overtaken by a low frequency hum that was close in frequency to that of the mains supply but was off in timbre just by that bit---within it was a kind of high pitched squeal that was not unpleasant.

Liubo looked on eagerly as the machine went through its power on self-test, beeping confidently at the end of it to indicate that there were no obvious issues that it had detected since the last time it was on. Next to the Big Red Switch was a small coloured LED display that showed a single line of ``Ready'' followed by some rasterised buttons on actions that could be done with it.

Liubo checked the instructions and followed it to navigate the on-screen menu to get to the more in-depth diagnostics and calibration. The instructions suggested that the in-depth diagnostics and calibration be run at least once a month or after every one hundred hours of operation, whichever came first. It explained that it was necessary to ensure that the internal quantum systems were within parameters that the built-in error correction could account for. Liubo knew that it was a vast improvement over the milli-second decoherence that the very first systems had. Sure, it did not have the same level of consistency and reliability as that of a filament-based 3D printer, but then again, it was using technology more complex than the electro-mechanical ones.

The on-screen menu was now on the in-depth diagnostics and calibration menu item, with an indication that it would take about an hour to complete, with an option to run a more superficial one that would take only ten minutes. It also said that it had detected that it was the first time that the molecular printer was activated in the local environment (`How did it know that?' thought Liubo to himself), and that the full version was recommended to ensure proper operation.

Liubo sighed and tapped on the rasterised button that said ``Run Full''. A confirmation screen came up and he replied positively to that as well. With the acknowledgements in place, the printer showed one final message reminding Liubo to not power off the machine for any reason while the in-depth diagnostics and calibration was taking place. The machine beeped off a final confirmation and went on its merry way, humming and shrieking at various durations throughout the whole hour.

Liubo wanted to go away and do something else, but felt obliged to sit around to observe---it was, after all, the first time that he was operating such a device. While doing research for the purchase, he had already learnt of the basic principles that guided the operation of the molecular printer. Among those principles included the astronomically small probability that the quantum-mechanical system house within could create a strange black hole that could cause a localised gravitational anomaly that would lead to a runaway effect of wiping out matter within a one kilometre radius, but there had been quite a few safety features built in to reduce the likelihood of that happening to even lower than the probability of being simultaneously struck by lightning while getting knocked down by a car off a mountain road with a shark biting on one's left ankle.

In short, it was safe to use, but the novelty of the device could not draw Liubo away from it.

After staring at the printer for nearly ten minutes, Liubo finally decided that there was nothing to observe from the outside while the printer was going through its diagnostics and calibration, and that it was probably a better use of his time to look for molecules to print with it.

Liubo pulled up his laptop from one of the other tables, and turned to the molecular printer owners' forum, where other enthusiasts of molecular printing hung out and shared their knowledge and gossip.

Among those was some printing instructions for some interesting molecules.

(Story continues here.)