Sometimes there is a scientific breakthrough so monumental that it could change much of our understanding of the way our world works yet we never notice this fact. We don't notice it because this great breakthrough is being applied to some mundane product. Maybe mundane is not the correct word to use here, maybe we should say a product that is in many homes and is becoming very common place. This was the case when the transistor first appeared. I remember getting an early transistor radio for my birthday. It was not the tiny pocket size radio that we have all come to use but a heavy gold toned metal case that was about 2/3 as long and 1/2 as thin as the standard portable tube radio of the day. It stopped working after I had it a week. I was not impressed at all. It never occurred to me that inside this case was a breakthrough technology that would power the computers of the future along with many other devices necessary to monitor our health, keep planes flying and maintain our defenses, just to mention a few uses. Just think where we would be today without the transistor?

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Well it has happened again and this time almost none of us have noticed it. What is this great invention that a lot of us are already familiar with? Is it some exotic medicine that we have in our little white medicine chests, is it the shrinking of computer memory or is it our ever more capable televisions? No, no and no. There is no denying that medicines are advancing and that some day we may be able to take one to cure all but I am sure this will be a long way off. Shrinking memory is revolutionizing the communications industry along with cameras and appliances but again this is not the big breakthrough that I am referring to. Lastly our televisions may someday be the only entertainment/communication device we will need in the home but lets get to what I am really talking about.

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The fantastic, breakthrough device is our inkjet printer. Yes that humble device that sits attached to our computer and prints out our letters, photos and in some cases, copies of information from the web. Now why would I make a statement like this, am I nuts? I hope not but I guess only a psychiatrist could answer that question. The reason I say this about our inkjet printer is that it has other uses.

Inkjet printers have been used to print out printed circuits on paper that actually work. It is just a matter of substituting conductive fluid instead of ink, more or less. Can you imagine a complete circuit board on a sheet of paper? Not only do you save on cost and weight but also on power. You may someday be able to include a small tv in a greeting card if they ever figure out how also make a cheap screen. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. As hard as this is to believe, scientists have been able to use a fluid with animal cells to print out part of a beating heart, a cat's heart. But it certainly doesn't end there. Doctors want to use it to print out pieces of skin and further down the road maybe organs. It may also have uses in the precise mixing of medicines.

The medical field doesn't have a monopoly on it's uses however. It is thought that the print head is so sophisticated that its nozzles, if used in a car engine, or any engine for that matter, would make the engine much more efficient since the nozzles themselves are more efficient than any other mass produced nozzles. Think of it, a car that gets much better gas mileage using the same technology as your printer, bet the thought never occurred to you?

It has also been suggested that printers could be used to reproduce exact 3D copies of objects from anywhere. A modified inkjet printer that used some sort of liquid that would harden instantly could reproduce any object. Lets say you have an architect living in Hong Kong who would like to send a model of a new building to an architect in New York. He puts his model in a 3D scanner which then sends the signals over the internet to a special inkjet printer in the New York office. This printer makes complete passes over the paper, each time building up the model by, lets say, 1/20 of an inch. In less that a half hour a complete exact copy of the model is in New York.

So next time you buy one of those $49 inkjet printers, think about the technology that is inside of it, you may want to pay more to show your appreciation. Yeah, sure!