How long did you think it was going to take before I had an opinion about 3D Printing? This is really a big new thing and really high tech. We all know that high tech is the future, so why an I so skeptical about the promises of 3D Printing? I'll tell you.
Remember the sculpture Michel Angelo? Here is how he described what he did. He looked at a piece of marble and saw a figure "trapped" inside. His job was to "free" that figure without hurting the figure trapped inside. In math, this is call the "dual", which means coming from the outside and removing what, "is not" the figure. The "primal" is 3D Printing, which means coming from the inside out and building up to the figure. Another way to understand is a sculpture who works in "clay". He builds up the figure one piece of clay at a time. Isn't this exactly what 3D printing does? Or look at a bricklayer. Doesn't he build a large structure one layer of bricks at a time? Notice, also, what all these processes have in common? The build just one piece at a time. This may be a good idea for making jewelry or pieces of art where cost is not the major concern, but when it comes to improving the quality of life for us common humans, it is not of much value.
How about a door for a car? We need a million car doors. Now the steel is rolled in a steel mill going down a "cheap" rolling mill line at 150 feet per minute. That roll of steel is then run thru a big punch press that stamps out a complex 3 dimensional door every 10 seconds. In the process, the steel is work hardened and thus strengthened in a way that a casting or 3D can not do. This is just one example of the myth of 3D printing. My prediction is that it may be great for making fancy "class rings" for our kids who graduate from high school, but not to really impact our quality of life.
Did you ever do any welding? With the new wire feed welders, it is almost like 3D printing. You take two pieces of steel that were rolled in a steel mill to a basic shape and you join them with a weld. What the welder does is to use an "ink jet printer" (welder) to print liquid steel around the joint and glue the two pieces of steel together. With the 3D printer, it is my guess that they would try to print the two pieces of steel too. Who could afford that kind of waste.
What we have here is a common situation regarding technology and that is because some high tech thing can be done, it must be good! Right? Being "good" is not good enough. It has to be both "good" and "worth it". What I have been blogging on is that we never consider it some thing is "worth it" or not. Obamacare is just another example of something that appears "good" , but has turned out to be "not worth it". 3D printing is a "good" idea, but I think that it is "not worth" what the public and the media are claiming. That's my bottom line.
