question - nanotechnology

flashgordon · 2003-11-01 21:06:36

how many people here have actually read Eric Drexler's "Engines of Creation?"

Free Spirit · 2003-11-03 20:16:19

You can read the book for free at the Foresight website. Drexler wrote an additional book on nanotech assemblers called "Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation." I haven't read it yet but it's gotten good reviews at Amazon. What's scary is that if this technology becomes possible, disgruntled individuals could potentially wipe out all life on Earth. Richard Smalley, who got a Nobel in chemistry, thinks nanoassemblers are impossible but some think his reasoning is flawed.

Rxke · 2003-11-13 13:18:18

Thanks for the link, Free Spirit, i installed it right away on my old Palm, at last something interesting to read on my daily train rides

BTW, this might also be of interest to people: Design study of a primitive Nanofactory
85 pages study, peer-reviewed, pretty awesome results: factory could be possible in 10 years time, no real obstacles theoretically... once the first nano-scale 'assembler' is built, it could spawn a macro-sized nanofactory in a matter of weeks. Possible applications are quite mind-blowing. (read the end of the article if you can't be bothered reading the whole stuff...)
The paper raised a lot of eyebrows in the nanotech community, it's bein' taken quite serious.

Free Spirit · 2003-11-14 02:03:55

Thanks for the link, Free Spirit, i installed it right away on my old Palm, at last something interesting to read on my daily train rides

Glad I could be of help.

BTW, this might also be of interest to people: Design study of a primitive Nanofactory
85 pages study, peer-reviewed, pretty awesome results: factory could be possible in 10 years time, no real obstacles theoretically... once first 'assemble' is built, it could spawn a macro-sized nanofactory in a matter of weeks. Possible applications are quite mind-blowing. (read the end of the article if you can't be bothered reading the whole stuff...)
The paper raised a lot of eyebrows in the nanotech community, it's bein' taken quite serious.

I had briefly heard of this before but I googled it and came up with thearticle. I didn't really expect to live long enough to see MNT, but I've just changed my mind. Imagine how many problems a nanoassembler/disassembler could solve. Many of our environmental and waste problems would be considerably eased although there's the very real danger of some lunatic(s) using it for great evil. If we could create food this way, we could restore a lot of land back to nature as growing food on a mass scale may no longer be needed which means solving a lot of water issues. But then again, no telling which despot will use the technology to kill us all.

Rxke · 2003-11-14 02:27:24

Free Spirit, not sure why you had to Google it, the link was in my post already?

For people interested in some more reading, I recommend This column, with links to free White Papers , a nice introduction into various aspects of nanotech without the rampant misinformation you find in the popular press... Kudos to Tim E. Harper for posting these. I sent him a 'thank-you' email, and got a nice reply back almost instantly, the guy is serious about this initiative to inform 'the masses.'

'Bout food: not possible with this design(?), it's diamond-lattice based stuff, and of course food is also mainly carbon-based, but there are very big hurdles to take to synthesize complex CHNSxxx thingies... Still it could be used for building very cheap agricultural hardware and stuff,...

Boy oh boy... This all sounds so far out (the possibilities,) it's hard to accept this 'science-fiction' stuff IS really not that far off.

You could, for instance, launch a VERY small factory to (insert place of choice here) and let it grow into a macro-scale one,... to build virtually all the hardware you could dream of... All you need is a source of solar radiation, a bit of Xenon (or possibly another inert gas,) and carbon. Then just sit back and see the magic unfold...

Free Spirit · 2003-11-15 03:16:31

Between doing four things at once, I must've overlooked your link, would've saved me a lot of time. I realize food isn't possible with that design, what I meant is that with refined future technology it could be possible. The machine in the article is only a crude form of molecular assembly. I was looking way ahead.

Rxke · 2003-11-15 04:10:53

"the machine... only a crude form... i was looking way ahead..."

Heh, MY mind staggers at the possibitlities this crude device would come up with... I guess i've got no imagination

BTW that foresight site is a real treasure-trove of info... Damn, a lot of sleepless nights ahead... again. (Love it.)

Rxke · 2003-11-16 03:22:33

Hmmm... Found something disturbing... On the Foresight page.

Eric Drexler, the 'God' of nanomanufacturing, wrote a paper called: The Case Against Mars in 1984...

I think this is, sadly, the way a lot of scientists react: they're afraid to lose *their* funding if *another* Big Project? gets the limelight. Sigh.

Wim · 2003-11-16 04:26:36

found it ...

Well I think a lot of people think that way. What way ? Well, putting tons of billions into a venture like Mars is too much for now. Let the *science* evolve for a while (30 years or so) up to a point where that same venture to Mars is 10 percent of the original price that was calculated/estimated 30 years ago.
And that is too bad. For one, that I will have to wait another lifetime (?) and second that pioneers are the ones who can get things started.
In another thread some 'guest' basically spit on Adrean I think it was, for the fact that Adrean participated on MDRS and wrote in his log all about his frustrations etc.
Well isn't it possible that when you don't start an 'adventure' tike MDRS now but instead launch it directly to Mars so to speak, all the frustrations come out then. (I'm just thinking outloud)
The same for nano. Start it now, don't wait.
Same for Mars, now is the time
Back to the pioneer-time Ahooo !!

Dit anibodie sea miy englich ?

Rxke · 2003-11-16 05:02:36

Same feeling here, Wim...

Read the MDRS stuff too, he got flamed for no reason, in my opinion, they worked hard, and relaxed 'hard.' Nothing wrong with that, as long as they don't wreck things. I had my questions sometimes, like the racing stuff, what if someone gets really badly hurt etc... but still, Chuck Yeager and a lot of the first astronauts were a wild bunch, too... As long as you know when to party and when to get serious...
MDRS is very valuable to get to know in advance exactly the problems Adrian mentioned.
(BTW why only 2 weeks 'missions' ? By the time they get their bearings, they must start preparing to pack again. Probably a lack of money, but 4 weeks or longer seem to make more sense...)

About the "wait 'till the technology matures and gets cheaper" kind of reasoning... You're too right. Also, if everybody waits, it won't mature, or are there some magical creatures working for us when we sleep, doing the basic stuff?
Everybody that says something like that should get retired. I mean it. I'd say to them if you don't have a vision, you don't belong in science/engineering. Take a walk to the nearest pond and go fishing, but don't interfere with the hardworking people that actually DO something. You're burning up taxpayer money if you stay.
Sounds harsh, I know, but i have too much respect for people that still have a goal in their life to be apologetic towards the 'settled' ones. I still have a lot of respect for certain NASA and JPL people that make things possible, in spite of the hugely inefficient workings (what's in a name?) of the Dinosaur.

(ok, end of rant)

Wim · 2003-11-16 05:22:26

Outloud thinking again ...
A lot of the threads about sending people to (not on earth) places reflect directly on NASA. We shouldn't forget that there is ESA spending money and will be increased (the link is in dutch sorry for that but I couldn't find any other link in English), there is Russia -- ok I know all about the lack of money etc. but still ... -- and there is China I think will be play along. Japan maybe ? The X-prize will have an impact (link)
I guess what I want is that I like to see science evolve in a way that I can use it (payable sub-orbital flight) or be part of it or at least watch it on tv/net.

Rxke · 2003-11-16 05:48:37

We're going off-topic but anyhow...
I guess NASA gets most of the attention because of their huge budget, compared to the other organisations...
ESA clearly does not have the money, for the forseeable future, but their cooperation with Russia (Russian hardware on Frenc Guiyana) is interesing, to say the least. China has just started etc... Japan looks kinda cash strapped too...
X-Prize is interesting for subborbital, Rutan's SSO going through it's paces nicely, and Armadillo looks to be doing fine too (this *just* popped up in my subscription- another X-Prize contender...)

But there are other private entrepeneurs building rockets going orbital, so, that could prove interesting in the long run. (Hey, one of them is even selling sattelitelaunches on eBay, as we speak!)

To get on-topic again: X-Prize contender Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites could get its hands on some interesting new composites in the near future, there are now composites being made (small scale production) that use nanotubes. They look very promising, people calling it a great breakthrough, comparable with the introduction of glass-fiber in composites. The stuff is lightweight, stress and pressure characteristics are spectacular, and it seems very tolerant to high temperatures, there's even talk to use it in rocket engines... (I'll try to find the link)
Imagine Burt getting his hands on this stuff...

Free Spirit · 2003-11-16 07:21:36

To get on-topic again: X-Prize contender Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites could get its hands on some interesting new composites in the near future, there are now composites being made (small scale production) that use nanotubes. They look very promising, people calling it a great breakthrough, comparable with the introduction of glass-fiber in composites. The stuff is lightweight, stress and pressure characteristics are spectacular, and it seems very tolerant to high temperatures, there's even talk to use it in rocket engines... (I'll try to find the link)
Imagine Burt getting his hands on this stuff...

CNT could make great wind turbine blades, over a 100 times stronger than steel and only 1/6 the weight. We could build some multi-megawatt monsters.

Wim · 2003-11-16 09:48:35

Rxke, I think the link that you were looking for is this one. I't about the SpaceElevator.

Rxke · 2003-11-16 09:59:39

No, the one i'm looking for is elusive, if i try to google it, i get gazillion matches... sigh...

The Space elevator is in my 'favourites' book, another amazing project... But it's not using nano-machines, 'only' nanotubes for it's cable.

I'll never find that article back, i'm afraid, found it 'by accident' while looking around tech pages, forgot to bookmark it.

Wim · 2003-11-16 10:54:49

Some other links where nanotubes are used ...
displays
superthreads

I also found this link.

what am I doing ? copy pasting google in here ?
???

Free Spirit · 2003-11-16 14:25:07

No, the one i'm looking for is elusive, if i try to google it, i get gazillion matches... sigh...
The Space elevator is in my 'favourites' book, another amazing project... But it's not using nano-machines, 'only' nanotubes for it's cable.
I'll never find that article back, i'm afraid, found it 'by accident' while looking around tech pages, forgot to bookmark it.

I read about a nanotube composite that they made on sheets of plastic and then could peel the composite off the plastic after it had setup. Is that the article your referring to? I just wonder though if the bad health effects cnts can cause will hamper their acceptance. Asbestiosis (spelled wrong?) is not a pretty disease by any stretch of the imagination.

Rxke · 2003-11-16 14:58:42

Nope, again :;): turns out there's been so much publicized about it, it's the nano needle in the macro haystack...

'bout the health effects... Had a course called toxicology last year, asked the (damn... watchacallit in english...) Anyway, he's a doctor, does a lot of reading up on the subject, and there's a lot of confusion about the whole subject. There's nano and nano. Asbestos fibre being in fact Macro... some nano'd go 'right through' you, or get errr... absorbed by your system harmlessly through simple (what's in a name in biology) osmotic reactions of your cells...without causing much damage, unles it coalesces into bigger 'clumps,' wich go macro, in fact, it all depends how big the particles are...

(boy doesn't seem to make much sense, trying to translate from dutch a short discussion i had a year ago with a 'crazy' professor, i bet i got half of it wrong too...) Anyway if i remember correctly, most of these nanothingies get produced and applied in a soluble form, so there'd be minimal risk of huge 'dust' clouds entering your lungs. Sure enough, you wouldn''t want to go swimming in the stuff...

(edit) damn, i remember, the could pose a treath to health: some of these particles are possibly reactive, they can bond with other particles, like lead and so on, posing a threath for buildup of contamination or worse interference with antibodies (not sure if that's possible w pure carbon nanostuff)... But he was mainly talking about buckies and tubes w/o external free bonding places, so inert stuff...

Wim · 2003-11-16 15:06:25

One more try with this link ? or this one ?
It's this one ?
a couple more on this link or
this one.

I go to sleep now ...

Rxke · 2003-11-16 15:10:15

Noooo! stoppit! you're posting links faster than i can absorb, poor me! (yea, i end up reading them all)

Appreciate it, though!

(Hey, one of those links i read before, on another place, it's a small world... pun intended)

Rxke · 2003-11-16 15:30:42

Hey... that last link... about the memorychips... Nano-lab.com makes stuff like that, you can buy it for experimenting, there's a guy on Spacedailyboard trying to get a new kind of 'solar'cells (not neccessary solar power) out of that... using massive arrays of nanodiodes on a macro scale... That's the link,

he experimented with an array of limited connections on macroscale wich seemed to work under labconditions and now he's looking if it scales up to a usful powerlevel. He patented the idea, but now it's 'open source' so to say.

Free Spirit · 2003-11-17 18:56:06

I hope your right about the health effects of nanotubes Rxke. I read that they don't dissolve in the lungs and could cause the type of scarring that asbestos does, but that was awhile ago so maybe new light has been shed on the problem. I wonder though, what if you were to inhale a bundles of cnt dust? The cnt molecules individually might not hurt you, but bundles of them building up in your lungs might. It's going to be a shame if we can't use the material because of health reasons.

Byron · 2003-11-17 19:15:44

The cnt molecules individually might not hurt you, but bundles of them building up in your lungs might.

This is the kind of crap that causes me so much grief with my asthma.

I heard about a scientific study a few years back that radial tires is what is causing the worldwide explosion in asthma cases, except in places where people aren't exposed to automobile traffic (like out in the remote deserts or the Oregon coast).

But I haven't heard anything about that since then...gee...I wonder why.... ???

B

flashgordon · 2003-11-20 10:44:56

Well, I see that some people here have indeed read some of this book; i don't know what to say of the state of the current world; i used to say the near future is going to be more temultuous than most would like; i'm starting to see some of that coming sooner than I would like; i read at spacedaily.com about china's grain output going down due to global warming and less usable water(I've read plenty of new technologies for purifying water, but who know's when that stuff will be available; then, there's been a lot of talk about these new nano-grained irons that in the lab have proven to be able to absorb lots of pollutants very effectivelly; let's hope they get that stuff out in the field soon enough . . .); my history teacher noted the american dollar shrunk 25% over the last year compared to the euro or something like that; things are definitelly happening; no wonder the U.S. conservatives are stepping aside and funding so much radical nanotech; they just passed a 3 billion dollar nanotech funding bill a day or two ago; everytime america put in nanotech funding, china or somebody else put up the equivalent; we'll see how the europeans, chinese react to this latest funding hike for nanotech; i mean nanotech funding has just been going through the roof!

Those companies that have the highest or best stocks seem to be in control of the world; pretty soon, those who developed nanotech will be in control of the earth, and any anti-tech movements will be powerless to stop the development of the inevitable nanomachines.

Enough from me for now.

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#1 2003-11-01 21:06:36

Re: question - nanotechnology

#2 2003-11-03 20:16:19

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#3 2003-11-13 13:18:18

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#4 2003-11-14 02:03:55

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