Can all n-manifolds be obtained by gluing finitely many blocks? Fix a dimension $n\geqslant 2$. Let $S= \{M_1,\ldots, M_k\}$ be a finite set of smooth compact $n$-manifold with boundary. Let us say that a smooth closed $n$-manifold is  generated  by $S$ if it may be obtained by gluing some copies of elements in $S$ via some arbitrary diffeomorphisms of their boundaries.
For instance:


*

*Every closed orientable surface is generated by a set of two objects: a disc and a pair-of-pants $P$, 

*Waldhausen's graph manifolds are the 3-manifolds generated by $D^2\times S^1$ and $P\times S^1$,

*The 3-manifolds having Heegaard genus $g$ are those generated by the handlebody of genus $g$ alone,

*The exotic $n$-spheres with $n\geqslant 5$ are the manifolds generated by $D^n$ alone.


A natural question is the following:

Fix $n\geqslant 3$. Is there a finite set of compact smooth $n$-manifolds which generate all closed smooth $n$-manifolds?

I expect the answer to be ''no'', although I don't see an immediate proof. In particular, I expect some negative answers to both of these questions:

Is there a finite set of compact 3-manifolds which generate all hyperbolic 3-manifolds?

and

Is there a finite set of compact 4-manifolds which generate all simply connected 4-manifolds?

 A: It is not entirely clear in the question whether a "block" is a manifold with smooth boundary, or perhaps a manifold that is allowed to have ridges or more complicated corners.  Let's assume that the boundary has to be smooth and that the blocks have to be glued along connected boundary components, because at the other extreme you can make any PL manifold from copies of a simplex.
If so, then Ian Agol's comment explains everything in dimension 3.  As he explained, it's Ian's theorem that there is a non-Haken manifold $M$ of Heegaard genus $g' \ge g$ for every $g$.  And, it follows from work of Scharlemann-Thompson and Casson-Gordon that a Morse function on such an $M$ must have a level set with a connected component of genus $\ge g'$.  (And equality is trivial because a Heegaard surface is always a fattest Morse level set.)
If you have your blocks, you can always arrange them as a collection of "cups", i.e., you can pick a relative Morse function which is $0$ on every boundary component and negative in the interior.  Then you can glue the boundary components of the blocks in pairs with "caps", which are copies of $\Sigma \times I$ with increasing Morse functions that begin at $0$ on their boundaries.  (Or, equivalently, you could have a bipartite collection of blocks.)  Since you can reuse the same Morse function on each cap or cup of a given type, having finitely many types implies a global bound on the genus of a connected component of a level set.
A: As Bruno rightly points out, my first answer (below) is nonsense.  So let me try to say something else vaguely useful.
In the Spring, I heard Ian Biringer talk about his recent work with Juan Souto.  I'm pretty sure he stated the following theorem:
Theorem: Let $\epsilon>0$ and $r\in\mathbb{N}$.  There are finitely many hyperbolic 3-manifolds with boundary $M_1,\ldots,M_k$ with the property that any hyperbolic 3-manifold $M$ with injectivity radius greater than $\epsilon$ and $\mathrm{rank}\pi_1M\leq r$ can be obtained by gluing the $M_i$ together along their boundaries.
This would imply that there is a finite generating set of blocks for hyperbolic manifolds with appropriate restrictions on the injectivity radius and rank.  I believe the proof is non-constructive, so one doesn't actually know what the $M_i$ are.
Poking around on the archive and Ian's web page, I don't see the result in question, so I'm at a loss to provide a reference!  But if this sounds useful, then no doubt one could contact Ian or Juan and get the details.

I'm somewhat out of my comfort zone here, but I think this is right.
The figure-8 knot complement $M_8$ is universal, meaning that every closed 3-manifold arises as a Dehn filling on a finite-sheeted covering space of $M_8$.  So the family $\lbrace M_8, D^2\times S^1\rbrace$ generates all 3-manifolds.
I don't have time to look at the references right now, but I'll try to get back to it later.
A: Thanks to Ian Agol for pointing out this question and a related one on levels of Morse functions - /30567/. In both case, for smooth manifold of dim $> 3$, as expected, there is no finite list of blocks ( or regular level components.)  The idea is that one may define the "width" of a group, by representing the group G as the fundamental group of some complex K and then slicing K into "levels". The game to to arrange the slices so that the image of $\pi_1$ of each component of each level set  maps a subgroup of small rank under the inclusion into $\pi_1(K)$.  width( G) is defined as a Minmax over all slicings of all complexes K with $\pi_1 K = G$ of the rank of these image subgroups. I wrote a few pages to show that width( $\mathbb{Z}^k $) $= k-1$. The only slightly technical ingredient is Lusternick-Schnirelmann category. This answers negatively these finiteness questions since there are $d$ manifolds with $\pi_1 =\mathbb{Z}^k$ all $k$, as long as $d>3$. As soon as the notes are teXed, I can post them on the arxiv or math overflow.
A: I posted a paper on the arXiv, Group Width which answers this question for manifolds of dim $>3$ with sufficiently complicated fundamental group (there will be no finite set of blocks). As Greg Kuperberg said, there are many interesting variations which remain open and are a nice challenge to technique, e.g. the case of simply connected manifolds.
