There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it
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There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it
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Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it
#2Why don't we have anything that can manipulate objects at the nano-scale? Couldn't we use atomic force microscopes to push some atoms together and at least make some interesting molecules (even if this process couldn't be scaled up)?
Also what ever happened to Feynman's idea of building half size remote controlled arms, which we then use to build half sized of that remote controlled arms, all the way down to a very small scale? Has anyone ever tried that?
Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it
#3Why don't we have anything that can manipulate objects at the nano-scale? Couldn't we use atomic force microscopes to push some atoms together and at least make some interesting molecules (even if this process couldn't be scaled up)? Also what ever happened to Feynman's idea of building half size remote controlled arms, which we then use to build half sized of that remote controlled arms, all the way down to a very s…
That is one of the authors points -- no one has done self replication on a macro scale and nanotech just assumes self replication at the molecular level
Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it
#4The name is all about the funding. There are many 'nano'-technology grants, which focus on devices that are tens of thousands, or even millions of nanometers large. Micro-techology, however, doesn't get the same funding from the NSF et al. MEMS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microelectromechanical_systems) has come a long way in a very short time, and, research-dollars willing, will shrink further, so the author is wrong when he says nanotechnology will take another century.
Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it
#5Why don't we have anything that can manipulate objects at the nano-scale? Couldn't we use atomic force microscopes to push some atoms together and at least make some interesting molecules (even if this process couldn't be scaled up)? Also what ever happened to Feynman's idea of building half size remote controlled arms, which we then use to build half sized of that remote controlled arms, all the way down to a very s…
Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it
#6[deleted]
Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it
#7The name is all about the funding. There are many 'nano'-technology grants, which focus on devices that are tens of thousands, or even millions of nanometers large. Micro-techology, however, doesn't get the same funding from the NSF et al. MEMS ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microelectromechanical_systems ) has come a long way in a very short time, and, research-dollars willing, will shrink further, so the author is…
For the same reason, it's "machine learning" rather than "non parametric statistics".
Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it
#8Why don't we have anything that can manipulate objects at the nano-scale? Couldn't we use atomic force microscopes to push some atoms together and at least make some interesting molecules (even if this process couldn't be scaled up)? Also what ever happened to Feynman's idea of building half size remote controlled arms, which we then use to build half sized of that remote controlled arms, all the way down to a very s…
That's kind of the point of the article, materials do not behave on a nano scale the same way they behave at our macro scale. You absolutely cannot scale down, you have to design from the bottom up instead.
The author thinks this is impossible because progress is slow. That's not really an argument, but I'll agree that "just you wait and see!" isn't one either.
However, biology shows us that it's not impossible to do self-replicating "machinery" so I think we'll get there one day, but it might probably be a lot more organic and a lot less mechanical than we currently envision when we say nanotech.
Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it
#9Why don't we have anything that can manipulate objects at the nano-scale? Couldn't we use atomic force microscopes to push some atoms together and at least make some interesting molecules (even if this process couldn't be scaled up)? Also what ever happened to Feynman's idea of building half size remote controlled arms, which we then use to build half sized of that remote controlled arms, all the way down to a very s…
That is one of the authors points -- no one has done self replication on a macro scale and nanotech just assumes self replication at the molecular level
That's not really true, we self-replicate all the time (thanks mom and dad). What we don't know how to do is design things that self-replicate from scratch, but we do already have plenty of existence proofs.
Also, self-replication is actually easier at the molecular level because all the parts are perfectly regular.
Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it
#10Why don't we have anything that can manipulate objects at the nano-scale? Couldn't we use atomic force microscopes to push some atoms together and at least make some interesting molecules (even if this process couldn't be scaled up)? Also what ever happened to Feynman's idea of building half size remote controlled arms, which we then use to build half sized of that remote controlled arms, all the way down to a very s…
We do have things that can manipulate objects at the nano-scale. They're called catalysts, and when they're made out of amino acids they're called enzymes, and you and I are built out of them.
Yes, you can assemble molecules with AFM. The problem with this idea is that either (a) the molecules don't stick together at temperatures much above absolute zero, or (b) they do, in which case they might be stable at useful temperatures, in which case it's better to figure out how to get them to self-assemble or to find a catalyst/enzyme that helps them self-assemble. Because your nifty molecule just isn't that nifty if it doesn't exist in quantities of order 1 mole, and 1 mole is... a lot. You just won't believe how vastly mind-bogglingly big 10^23 is.
All of which boils down to this: This essay is great, but the meat of it really is in the first paragraph. Nanotech is a euphemism for chemistry and biochemistry. It is 100% possible -- indeed, nanotech is older than any human-invented technology by many orders of magnitude, by definition, because humans are built out of "nanotech" -- but it's all just chemistry. The real question is why the word nanotechnology is so much more fashionable in grant-writing circles than the old words.