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Fingers can detect nano-scale wrinkles even on a seemingly smooth surface

sciencedaily.com

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Re: Fingers can detect nano-scale wrinkles even on a seemingly smooth surface

#31

Post by nostromo »

alister wrote: post #23
ClementM wrote: post #4

The title is a bit misleading though. Though it would be real cool, saying we can detect molecule size pattern does not mean we could read Braille alphabet on molecule size dots. The eye can detect nanometer size patterns: we can make the difference between blue light ( radiation with a 400 nanometers wave length ) and red light ( radiation with a 800 nanometers wave length ). Does not mean we can see nanometer size…

As another (minor) clarification to the article, where it says: If your finger was the size of the Earth, you could feel the difference between houses from cars I think it would be easier to visualize this way: If the Earth was the size of an orange, your finger could feel the difference between houses from cars

I like your analogy better. But it still implies that you could feel one car and one house, which you couldn't.

So, perhaps an even better analogy would be:

If the Earth was the size of an orange, your finger could feel the difference between cities and forests.

This puts more emphasis on the distinct patterns the objects form as a group, rather than the individual objects.

Re: Fingers can detect nano-scale wrinkles even on a seemingly smooth surface

#32

Post by lukevdp »

bjornsing wrote: post #29
alister wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another (minor) clarification to the article, where it says: If your finger was the size of the Earth, you could feel the difference between houses from cars I think it would be easier to visualize this way: If the Earth was the size of an orange, your finger could feel the difference between houses from cars

That still requires a pretty impressive feel for the relative size of oranges and planets though. I would have preferred something like this table: 2 nm Diameter of a DNA Alpha helix 4 nm Globular Protein 6 nm microfilaments 7 nm thickness cell membranes 20 nm Ribosome 25 nm Microtubule 30 nm Small virus (Picornaviruses) 30 nm Rhinoviruses 50 nm Nuclear pore 100 nm HIV So 13 nm is on the scale of a very small virus..…

Something tells me that you don't really need an analogy at all :)

Re: Fingers can detect nano-scale wrinkles even on a seemingly smooth surface

#33

Post by weinzierl »

My experience with machining fittings was that I could see a gap of 100 um and I could feel a step of as low as 10 um. This was also the limit of the machining and measurement equipment, so I don't know if I could have felt smaller steps.

Machining gave me a sense for dimensions in the micrometer range. I think of 1 um = 1000 nm = near infrared, visible light ends at 800 nm. It makes the phenomenon of light somehow tangible.

Re: Fingers can detect nano-scale wrinkles even on a seemingly smooth surface

#34

Post by XorNot »

weinzierl wrote: post #33

My experience with machining fittings was that I could see a gap of 100 um and I could feel a step of as low as 10 um. This was also the limit of the machining and measurement equipment, so I don't know if I could have felt smaller steps. Machining gave me a sense for dimensions in the micrometer range. I think of 1 um = 1000 nm = near infrared, visible light ends at 800 nm. It makes the phenomenon of light somehow t…

When making nanocubes, you could still resolve that they were square even at 100 nm with an ordinary light microscope, which was a surprising (yet kind of obvious in hindsight) discovery for me.

This does make me wonder if it would've been possible to feel them.

Re: Fingers can detect nano-scale wrinkles even on a seemingly smooth surface

#35

Post by weinzierl »

XorNot wrote: post #34
weinzierl wrote: post #33

My experience with machining fittings was that I could see a gap of 100 um and I could feel a step of as low as 10 um. This was also the limit of the machining and measurement equipment, so I don't know if I could have felt smaller steps. Machining gave me a sense for dimensions in the micrometer range. I think of 1 um = 1000 nm = near infrared, visible light ends at 800 nm. It makes the phenomenon of light somehow t…

When making nanocubes, you could still resolve that they were square even at 100 nm with an ordinary light microscope, which was a surprising (yet kind of obvious in hindsight) discovery for me. This does make me wonder if it would've been possible to feel them.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think physics prevents this. An excellent lens has a numerical aperture of maybe 0.95 at best, so with Abbe's formula you get a resolution limit of maybe 200 nm at best. With an oil immersion microscope (still a light microscope, albeit not an ordinary one) you might get as low as 100 nm, but that doesn't mean you could see that fact that the tubes are square. It's a long time since I've heard physics and that I've been in an laboratory, so maybe I'm wrong.

Re: Fingers can detect nano-scale wrinkles even on a seemingly smooth surface

#36

Post by canistr »

KiwiCoder wrote: post #3

Disney Research has done some interesting work on touch screens for the visually impaired. http://www.olivierbau.com/teslatouch.php One of the side benefits of this kind of tech -- for everyone, not just visually impaired -- is being able to experience otherwise untouchable objects (camera takes an image, you touch the screen instead of the object).

Interestingly enough, FastCoDesign also had an article about a bunch of these guys. One person in particular, Ivan Poupyrev who is cited at the bottom of the above Teslatouch article, is slated to move to Motorola (furthermore Google).

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3024801/motorola-just-hired-one-...

Should be fascinating what Google/Motorola will do with this relatively unknown hire of a HCI/UX guru.

Re: Fingers can detect nano-scale wrinkles even on a seemingly smooth surface

#37

Post by hyperion2010 »

This article is completely overstated. People have been measuring this for decades. Look up the work of Mountcastle or Bensmaia on somatosensation and vibrotaction. Most of what we perceive down at the nm scale is differences in frequency with which our skin vibrates when we run our finger across a surface, we even have the spikes from peripheral nerves that show the differences in textures.

Re: Fingers can detect nano-scale wrinkles even on a seemingly smooth surface

#39

Post by sliverstorm »

bjornsing wrote: post #29
alister wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another (minor) clarification to the article, where it says: If your finger was the size of the Earth, you could feel the difference between houses from cars I think it would be easier to visualize this way: If the Earth was the size of an orange, your finger could feel the difference between houses from cars

That still requires a pretty impressive feel for the relative size of oranges and planets though. I would have preferred something like this table: 2 nm Diameter of a DNA Alpha helix 4 nm Globular Protein 6 nm microfilaments 7 nm thickness cell membranes 20 nm Ribosome 25 nm Microtubule 30 nm Small virus (Picornaviruses) 30 nm Rhinoviruses 50 nm Nuclear pore 100 nm HIV So 13 nm is on the scale of a very small virus..…

A virus is 30nm? Good lord. The minimum feature size of commercial transistors is half that right now.

Re: Fingers can detect nano-scale wrinkles even on a seemingly smooth surface

#40

Post by dbalatero »

runeb wrote: post #16

That is until you learn to play the guitar

I can feel subtle differences with small finger movements on cello. It's actually really fun really high up on the instrument, as the notes are super close together, and you can make extremely microscopic movements that affect the pitch/sound!
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