Molecules react to form crystals and supramolecules.
Cells sometimes coalesce to form organisms. Even heavenly bodies self-assemble into astronomical systems. It has been suggested that self-assembly will ultimately become an important technology, enabling the fabrication of great quantities of small complex objects such as computer circuits. Recent developments in DNA computing have highlighted the intimate connection between self-assembly and computation. Despite its importance, self-assembly is poorly understood both in theory and in practice.