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Post by Botanical Engineer on May 11, 2015 21:01:29 GMT
Thank you so much! I will start reading this tonight! If there is metal I expect it to be very useful!
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Lantern
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World: Glazed
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Post by Lantern on May 16, 2015 21:25:02 GMT
My world has, solid, liquid, gas, plasma, and glass. Glass, like solid, but if glazed, weight of sand before is down, weight of glass afterward is up. We have -air, water, wood, rocks, dirt, and metal, -glass, plastic, ceramic, cardboard, paper, ink, graphite, and paint. Have computers, connected by "net" (metaphorical), made of metal, use electricity.
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Post by Botanical Engineer on May 17, 2015 4:06:13 GMT
I've been working with my housemate to find out what metals we can extract from the soil. We think we've figured out which ones are there in measurable amounts, that we can get out. Calcium, magnesium, and potassium are the ones there seem to be the most of. There is less of copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, and zinc, but they are still there.
I'm planning to start trying to figure out if any of these metals are getting into plants, and if there's a way to get plants to extract a larger and more useful amount of some of the more useful metals. According to the book, it's possible to edit plants to extract metals, although their specific advice doesn't work because it is for patterns with four symbols, but I think I can use some of the theory to get it to work!
Does anyone know which of the metals would be best for making medical blades that can be cleaned and re-used without splintering or anything? Or other useful things they could do in fairly small quantities? I don't want to extract too much metal, in case plants need them to live. I got the impression that the tools most people are using to get to this forum are only useful if there are a lot of them, and they can communicate with each other?
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Post by Andrew on May 17, 2015 4:43:09 GMT
Computers are useful individually, but are a lot more useful if there are a lot of them.
I don’t know what metals would be good. I know that copper and iron can have problems when they get wet and are not dried quickly; I don’t know if that applies to the others but expect it does.
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MagicPhD
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Post by MagicPhD on May 18, 2015 2:57:53 GMT
Hmm, I'm not a material science expert, but I'll give it a shot.
First, I know all of these are used by humans, at least in trace amounts. Plenty of iron and calcium, but some of all of the others. So be careful.
I don't see an easy way to make a strong, rust-proof material with the metals you have there. No chromium for stainless steel, no tin for bronze...
Perhaps manganese bronze? 65% copper, 27% zinc, 4% iron, 4% manganese. Pretty tough and corrosion resistant, but I don't know how well it will hold an edge. Probably still better than what you have.
If corrosion wasn't an issue, then high-carbon steel is much easier to make: 99% iron and 1% carbon.
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MagicPhD
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Post by MagicPhD on May 18, 2015 16:32:38 GMT
Some other notes, now that I've thought some more: Don't try to extract pure potassium metal. Right now it's bound nicely in biological systems, but the pure metal explodes when it touches water. Individual computers are very useful: they can store and process information much better than human minds. And don't think you need metal and plastic to make one: people have made simple computers out of flowing water: you can probably do pretty well with your properly specified plants. All you need is to create logic gates: objects that take in two inputs (generally 0 and 1, corresponding to off and on), and return a single output (again, 0 or 1). Here's a diagram of the 4 gates (AND, OR, NAND, NOR) you need: Input 1 | Input 2 | AND output | OR output | NAND output | NOR output | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
From these building blocks, you can create a machine that can do rapid math or other information processing. I'll send you a primer on it if this interests you.
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Post by Dr. Realist on May 18, 2015 17:03:21 GMT
Some other notes, now that I've thought some more: Don't try to extract pure potassium metal. Right now it's bound nicely in biological systems, but the pure metal explodes when it touches water. Individual computers are very useful: they can store and process information much better than human minds. And don't think you need metal and plastic to make one: people have made simple computers out of flowing water: you can probably do pretty well with your properly specified plants. All you need is to create logic gates: objects that take in two inputs (generally 0 and 1, corresponding to off and on), and return a single output (again, 0 or 1). Here's a diagram of the 4 gates (AND, OR, NAND, NOR) you need: Input 1 | Input 2 | AND output | OR output | NAND output | NOR output | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
From these building blocks, you can create a machine that can do rapid math or other information processing. I'll send you a primer on it if this interests you. Technically, you only need a NAND or a NOR gate: all other gates can be built from NAND or NOR gates. The actual physical representation of the logic is somewhat irrelevant, but electricity flowing through metal works very well because it is extremely fast. Speed of calculation is the main advantage of computers, since ultimately all they can do is add. Recommending building computers to a society that's just beginning to perform ore extraction doesn't seem like it's the best place to start, in my opinion: in order to do seriously interesting things, silicon transistors are close to essential. I would instead stress the durability and melleability of metal- the key component that unites brass, bronze, tin, iron, and silver, is that you can bend them into a (often quite intricate) shape and then expect them to hold it. Regarding useful things that you can do with ample quantities of calcium, magnesium or potassium... The only thing that springs immediately to mind is that if you heat magnesium strongly enough that it ignites, it'll give off an extremely bright flare of light.
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Post by Andrew on May 18, 2015 17:07:27 GMT
I think the recommendation was for magically building computers with plants. I expect whatever Garden plants use for nervous systems is also quite fast.
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Post by Dr. Realist on May 18, 2015 17:15:52 GMT
I think the recommendation was for magically building computers with plants. I expect whatever Garden plants use for nervous systems is also quite fast. If Garden plants' nervous systems are similar to my own, I would expect it to be somewhat slower due to the ion channels involved, but appreciable speeds should be achieveable... Though I'd expect it to be a significant bioengineering project.
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MagicPhD
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Post by MagicPhD on May 18, 2015 17:20:02 GMT
Regarding NAND gates: true. But building ANDs out of NANDs will just add more steps, and speed is a limiting factor in first-gen systems.
I challenge you assertion that transistors are needed. In my universe, interesting work was done with much slower vacuum tubes and punch card systems. Additionally, DNA based computing can be highly parallizable, even if it is inherently slower.
Furthermore, Botanical Engineer's world seems to be in a completely different technological progression, due to lack of ores. Sufficient advances in biology, which they seem good at, could produce a fast computer, and I don't think we know enough to rule that out.
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Post by Dr. Realist on May 18, 2015 17:30:39 GMT
Regarding NAND gates: true. But building ANDs out of NANDs will just add more steps, and speed is a limiting factor in first-gen systems. I challenge you assertion that transistors are needed. In my universe, interesting work was done with much slower vacuum tubes and punch card systems. Additionally, DNA based computing can be highly parallizable, even if it is inherently slower. Furthermore, Botanical Engineer's world seems to be in a completely different technological progression, due to lack of ores. Sufficient advances in biology, which they seem good at, could produce a fast computer, and I don't think we know enough to rule that out. I wouldn't say that nothing interesting could be done with such things, but it wouldn't be my first suggestion for the use of newly-discovered ores. I would probably prefer working plumbing to my computer if I had to choose.
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MagicPhD
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Post by MagicPhD on May 18, 2015 17:43:53 GMT
We seem to be talking past each other.
I agree that the scarce amount of metals extracted from soil should go to other things: Botanical Engineer's request was for metal medical equipment that would not leave splinters in the patient's body during surgery, for example.
My point was 1) Computers are powerful multipurpose devices 2) Metal is not necessary to build them*
So I think we have no conflict in opinion here.
* Though the fastest ones I know of do use metal.
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Post by Botanical Engineer on May 18, 2015 20:54:25 GMT
I was planning to be careful, but thank you for the warning and confirmation that I should. I will not extract pure potassium metal.
How should I combine the metals to make manganese bronze, once I get the metals extracted? (They won't be extracted in useful quantities for a while.) How long does it take for high-carbon steel to become unsafe to use? And where would the carbon come from?
I would be interested in a primer on making computers. Only mobile plants and a few plants that can react to stimuli have anything like nervous systems, and I wouldn't want to edit most mobile plants for this purpose.
Computations done in a plant on my world wouldn't be DNA based, if your world's DNA is the same as Andrew's, and operates based on two sets of two that can only connect to each other. It would have to be pattern based.
We have a working sewage system, already.
If there are other useful suggestions for things to do with metal to help people, I would like to know of them!
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MagicPhD
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Post by MagicPhD on May 18, 2015 21:33:25 GMT
Carbon is not a metal, and it is plentiful. It's the primary component of ash, for example. In this case we want it in the form of charcoal: heat wood in an enclosed space with no oxygen. The wood will turn black: this is called charcoal. Charcoal burns hotter than wood, which you will need to make any of the alloys (mixtures of metals) here.
To make the bronze, gather up the proportions and then melt them. You will need temperatures around 1200 K, so be careful.
Steel will start to rust within a few days if exposed to water. Rust is not inherently unsafe, but it is an excellent breeding ground for harmful bacteria.
Here's a primer on the Bessemer process, which is used to make steel.
Pattern based computing is probably possible. Given that you can perceive them, it might be your best shot.
Here's a primer on computation in general: it should be substrate-neutral.
[Attached: The Bessemer Process (History of Steelmaking, Volume II)] [Attached: Computer Logic: Design Principles and Applications]
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Post by Botanical Engineer on May 20, 2015 3:05:03 GMT
MagicPhD, Once I have figured out a way to safely extract a useful amount of metals from soil, I will try that! From descriptions I've read here, I don't think we have bacteria, but we do have small-seed plants. Will vigorous cleaning probably be enough to make the steel safe again?
... That is a lot of information about computers. Thank you! My house mate is reading through it to figure out what general effects I'll need to be able to make, and ideas about how to make them useable to actual people. If it is something I can do right, I will make those changes. This will probably take a while.
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