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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

#81

Post by akshayubhat »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #7
fragmede wrote: post #4

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…

For the same reason, it's "machine learning" rather than "non parametric statistics".

well you could argue that Theory of CS is same as Mathematics of Computation. or Biology is just Chemistry and Chemistry is just Physics.

Traditionally statistics is more geared towards hypothesis testing and analytics. While Machine Learning is about making prediction.

Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it

#82

Post by spot »

jacquesm wrote: post #74
spot wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why summarize and criticize a book published in 1986?

Not that I necessarily agree with this particular summary in everything, but the point of summarizing something it to make it easier to digest the core of the argument before criticizing it. For that to work you have to have a really good understanding of the subject matter though, and I think he does Drexler great disservice when he says "He seems to lack the imagination, and of course, the physics to figure out wha…

i understand what summary is for. what i don't "understand" is why he chose as the target a book that's 24 years old in a fast moving field. actually i do understand: it was a strawman!

i agree with your assessment.

Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it

#83

Post by Dylan16807 »

DotSauce wrote: post #29

What about liquid glass coating? First step. "coating one millionth of a millimetre thick – 500 times thinner than a human hair – can be applied to virtually any surface to protect it against water, dirt, bacteria, heat and UV radiation." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7125556/Liqu...

Other than that being plain old chemistry, the numbers don't line up. 500 times thinner than a hair is 100+ nanometers, not 1 nanometer.

Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it

#84

Post by anamax »

paraschopra wrote: post #75
BrandonM wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Evolution took billions of years to engineer the ribosome I see this argument a lot, but it doesn't really hold water. Evolution wasn't trying to engineer the ribosome. In fact, the only thing evolution tries to do is replicate. The biological forms that have come out of that are completely random. Humans, on the other hand, consciously make efforts at engineering. Thousands of monkeys will never (for all practical…

> Evolution wasn't trying to engineer the ribosome. Evolution isn't purposeless. Sure, it is a random process but it has a purpose. And that's of survival of the organism (or if you like Dawkins, genes that encode the organism). > The biological forms that have come out of that are completely random. Wow, biological forms are NOT random. They are what they are because of the environment they are habituated in. The ex…

> Evolution isn't purposeless. Sure, it is a random process but it has a purpose. And that's of survival of the organism (or if you like Dawkins, genes that encode the organism).

Is survival a "purpose" or is it just the consequence that is selected for? (Survival isn't a property like length or color.)

Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it

#85

Post by z92 »

spot wrote: post #55
jimbokun wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It also depends on what your time scale is. I’m willing to bet, at some nebulous point in the future, long after Drexler and I are dead, someone may eventually develop a technology sort of vaguely like what he imagines." This is the point I was paraphrasing.

you are right, i missed the weasel words. so really, this guy agrees that it's happening, but he disagrees with the timeline. but he didn't actually provide any information or argument about the rate of progress of miniaturization.

I read it as that this guy disagrees that it's happening. But taking the path of "never say never" he agrees that it might happen far in the future. But there is no sign that it's happening. Not even any sign that it might happen. No progress in 50 years. Zero. That was his point.

Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it

#86

Post by pjscott »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #3
tocomment wrote: post #2

Why 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

Self-replicating nanotech is only one kind. All you really need to be able to do is build nanomachines; whether they're built by identical nanomachines or by some big contraption doesn't matter to the end result.

Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it

#87

Post by jacquesm »

crayz wrote: post #22
asmithmd1 wrote: post #3

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

This is really a straw man argument. If you go read Drexler's blog(e.g. this series: http://metamodern.com/2009/12/19/molecular-manufacturing-whe... ), he is very explicit that the path forward is studying natural self-assembly from DNA and then tearing that apart, finding how it works, and modularizing/modifying it for our own purposes. None of this appears to be a "crazy idea" or something out of humanity's reach t…

That's the main problem with this piece, it attacks a Drexler that no longer exists, his views have shifted quite a bit from back then.

Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it

#89

Post by russell »

Tichy wrote: post #57
markkat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, and we can make those using bacteria machinery. But, it is actually pretty different when compared to some of the possibilities set out by nanotech folk. Viruses passively work in a system where their structure is intrinsic to the system. Most nano-techs can be better explained as catalysts, surfactants, anti-bodies, etc. Technologies and phenomenon long studied in existing fields.

I agree that it seems unlikely that we'll achieve nanobots that are more complicated than biological cells. An example of an unrealistic idea would be a remote controlled (or even autonomous) submarine diving through blood vessels, broadcasting what it sees to the outside world in HD quality. Still, lot's of interesting things should be possible...

Such devices are already possible because the scale needed is mm not nano. For example the devices to do angioplasties are pretty big because blood vessels are pretty big. There is also a lot of commercial and research work being done on "remote control" treatment delivery, esp. for cancer treatment. (By remote control I mean externally guided as opposed to joystick control.)

Re: There is no nanotech, stop talking about it and start laughing at it

#90

Post by geuis »

"Imagining self replicating nanobots or nano machines is ridiculous." The author does not seem to understand that all of cells of life are nano machines. If you insist on a definition of a machine being a collection of gears and bolts, then you must expand your definition.
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