Thread by @anderssandberg

Thinking a bit further: why is glue bad here? The deep reason is that performs an irreversible operation: to disassemble you need to go counter to the force of entropy. Usually with solvents or heat.

https://twitter.com/anderssandberg/status/1417571679295918089

Unscrewing a screw is easier: overcome some friction to move the state along a certain path. Clips or Velcro are strictly speaking reversible: you invest a bit of energy in mechanical deformation that could in principle be recovered as they snap back.

Note that you do not want objects to be reversibly disassembable at equilibrium (they would slowly fall apart): energy or configuration barriers are fine. The tougher the environment, the higher or more complex they must be.

Configuration barriers essentially consist of bounds on how things can move that make random or simple forcing unlikely to dislodge things. Think Japanese joinery or locks/latches/doors.

Even people who scoff at Drexler's work on molecular nanotechnology should take note at how he outlined isentropic manufacturing and disassembly in Nanosystems and elsewhere: this is how we should want things to work on macroscale too to make recycling possible and effective.

Seems that one would like to have a language to describe the operations of disassembly so they can be automated. Essentially an inverse, machine-performable IKEA manual. Which is also, if fully reversible, an automated assembly manual.

When Bruce Sterling suggested spimes I think most assumed there would be info chip- or tag-embedded in physical realizations, but progress in computer vision and surveillance may mean we can bind the manual to objects without complex subparts. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spime

My suspicion is that a fully reusable "design for disassembly world" is also largely an automated manufacturing/assembly world. And likely also an automated design world.

Note: you still want glue and other ways for entropic forces to hold things together for many applications when the risk or performance profile outweighs ease of disassembly. Plus, surface finishes or coatings etc. are not going to be easy to recycle.