11–20 of 117 posts
That's not exactly true. See, for example
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2005/09/14.html
for a 60 micrometers by 250 micrometers robot from 2005.
Of course, that's not nanotechnology, and the article's main point might well be valid. Still, there seems to be a good deal of exaggeration in it.
Because those seem to operate perfectly happily in a nanoscale environment, manipulating things around them.
Also, "Mechanical objects on microscales do not exist" is gratuitously false, we even have really simple mechanical objects (like cantilevers) on the 100nm scale now.
Nano machinery is real, it exists, it powers the world, it's called biology.
The problem is that we seem to have a hard time translating our hard won knowledge of mechanical engineering to the nano scale, I expect some time will pass before the SF visions will become a reality but I think eventually we will get there. Figure another 50 to 100 years or so?
As long as we keep thinking in terms of conventional mechanics (wheels, gears, levers, wires and so on) it's going to be slow progress because we are trying to push down the size limit on our macroscopic ingredients without a real appreciation of what you can do with molecules 'as is'.
I think at some point the 'genetic synthesis' crowd is going to meet up with the 'nano technology' crowd and that's when we'll see some real action. The first little bits of progress in that direction have already been made.
So, viruses don't exist then? Because those seem to operate perfectly happily in a nanoscale environment, manipulating things around them.
The 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
And ducks can fly with flexible wings.
And the Sun is a thermonuclear reactor.
You can find demonstrations of this type of things everywhere, that doesn't means that we can make them work with our materials, techniques and knowledge.
Nanotech seems to my like AI, always there, at just two steps... that's the type of problems that smell to vaporware from miles.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Now if only we could re-program women to make iPhones. The late-night trips to the gas station and gravel store because wife has another petroleum and sand-craving would totally be worth it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.