Writings, Musings, and Essays on Replicator Technology
executive summary of the project
This page contains links to articles and papers written by the
RepRap researchers on the social, economic, and philosophical aspects of the
RepRap project.
How the
RepRap Project came about and what it may mean if it is successful. This paper was written by
AdrianBowyer just before he started the project to set out his initial ideas.
RepRap is a form of
Universal Constructor. A Universal Constructor is a machine that can copy itself. The idea was originally von Neumann's.
This is a reprint of
AdrianBowyer's keynote address on
RepRap at the Seventh National Conference on Rapid Design, Prototyping & Manufacturing, at the Centre for Rapid Design and Manufacture in High Wycombe in June 2006.
An analysis by
ForrestHiggs of the likely impact of
RepRap on future Chinese industrial growth, looking at parallels with the growth of nineteenth-century mechanised agriculture in the USA.
The stylistic effects that
RepRap may have on product design and architecture.
This is an article by Adrian Bowyer on the evolutionary psychology of human creativity and how
RepRap may facilitate an aspect of it that could eliminate intellectual property. It originally appeared in
The TCT Magazine volume 15, issue 3, p33 in June 2007.
Fallacy follows from the assumption that Adrian is intelligent
Hilariously
a bunch of intelligent design loonies have latched onto
RepRap in the forlorn hope that it will boost their cause. In one or two places they approach (but don't quite hit) the argument, "Adrian Bowyer designed a self-replicating machine. Adrian Bowyer is intelligent*. Therefore all self-replicating machines need an intelligent designer." They have clearly never heard of the fallacy of propositional logic called
affirming the consequent.
*An unestablished conjecture...
--
AdrianBowyer - 26 Jul 2006