4-D Printing Looks Cool, but What's the Point

An impressive video shows a strand of material that folds itself into prescribed shape underwater. The inventor explains how the underlying idea could be useful.

The Internet was abuzz last week about a new idea, intriguingly dubbed “4-D printing,” emanating from the TED conference in Long Beach, California. Much of the buzz was probably a response to the sci-fi sounding name, which seems to imply that 3-D printing—itself all the rage right now—has already been supplanted as the technology most likely to take manufacturing to the next level. In fact, the new technique still uses 3-D printing, or depositing materials layer by layer to build a custom 3-D structure. 4-D just involves using materials that help the new structure continue to assemble after it’s been printed. Which brings us to the video that’s been making the rounds: