Newspaper Article

FAX ME UP, SCOTTY: NEW DEVICE SENDS 3-D REPLICAS

Davidson, Keay

1994

Overview

Solid, three-dimensional copies of objects now can be transmitted electronically. A device dubbed a fabber uses a laser to scan an object, creating a record of its exact shape. Then the record is sent to another computer -- thousands of miles away, if necessary. That computer instructs a laser to fire into a vat of liquid polymer. The laser beam hardens the polymer, slice by slice, starting from the bottom and working upward. The result: a plastic replica of the original object. Details appear in Discover magazine. Nor am I making up this item about [Frank J. Tipler], a Tulane physicist whose new book, The Physics of Immortality -- Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead (Doubleday, $24.95), describes how he used \"the most advanced and sophisticated methods of modern physics, relying solely on the rigorous procedures of logic that science demands, {to create} a proof of the existence of God.\" I'm pretty familiar with the history of physics and the manner in which J.J. Thomson determined the unit charge on the electron, back in the 1890s, and frankly, I don't see any similarity between his careful laboratory toil and Tipler's speculations; but maybe I've been blinded by my heathen attitudes, as my creationist readers assure me.

• Publisher: The Salt Lake Tribune
• Subject: Tipler, Frank J