令人惊悚的黑科技：化学培养皿里长出无人机

导读:将数字化合成和材料化学两项技术结合以来，英国科学家正在研究用化学手段制造无人机以及其他精密机械的可能性。

Evoking images from the liquid metal and nearly unstoppable Terminator from the movies, BAE Systems has posted concept video footage of a process to create drones of the future.

BAE系统公司发布了一份概念视频，展示了在未来制造无人机的过程。在视频里，无人机从液态金属里“长”了出来，看起来就像从电影里走出来的无人阻挡的终结者一样。

"A radical new machine called a Chemputer could enable advanced chemical processes to grow aircraft and some of their complex electronic systems, conceivably from a molecular level upwards," reads the description on the company’s website.

该公司网页上的介绍说道：“有一款称之为‘Chemputer’的全新机器，通过使用这款机器，可以用先进的化学方法来‘栽培’飞机和其他一切复杂的电子系统，所有制造出来的机械都是由物质分子构成，非常可靠、令人信服。”

The video shows a drone being produced in a large vat of chemicals and then moved to a staging area where a robotic arm inserts what are, presumably, the drone’s engine components. Sure this is just a concept, but BAE Systems has a track record of turning concepts into reality, so this isn’t just another concept video promising unlikely inventions.

在这家公司发布的这份视频里，一个巨大的化学培养皿里长出来了一架无人机，随后这个培养皿被移动到了另外一个地方，在这里一条机械手臂给无人机安装了发动机部件（推测）。当然这只是一个概念，但是BAE系统公司曾经把概念变成过现实，因此这并不仅仅只是一个不可能实现的发明的概念视频而已。

"We have been developing routes to digitize synthetic and materials chemistry and at some point in the future hope to assemble complex objects in a machine from the bottom up, or with minimal human assistance," said professor Nick Colosimo, a BAE Systems global engineering fellow in a statement on the company’s website.

BAE系统公司全球工程研究员尼克·科洛西莫在该公司网站上的一份声明中说道：“我们一直在试图将数字化合成和材料化学结合起来，从而希望在未来制造机械中的复杂部件时可以用培养皿来完成，或者最小程度地使用人力。”

"Creating small aircraft would be very challenging but I’m confident that creative thinking and convergent digital technologies will eventually lead to the digital programming of complex chemical and material systems."

“制造小飞机会很有挑战性，但是我有信心，创造性思维和逐渐融合的数字技术最终将会产生出复杂化学和材料系统的数字编程。”

The next obvious step would be humanoid robots produced by the "chemputer," and then science fiction will have officially predicted reality — again.

很显然，“Chemputer”的下一步将是制造仿真机器人，到那时科幻小说中的情节就将再一次被变成现实。