imported_Eniqcir
13-01-2004, 01:26
(Kudos to anyone who knows where the title of this thread comes from)
Researchers at Mars' Amaranth University have recently released a report on what they call "a truly revolutionary technology". Inspired by the school's reputation for exceedingly lazy inhabitants, [see July 2237MT story on Techneurgist van Maan] graduate students in the School of Techneurgy set out to make their lives easier, with incredible results.
The students, who wish to remain anonymous at this time and have published their work in the name of Professor van Maan, include nanomaterials specialists, electrical propulsion engineers, and several avid readers of classic sci-fi, one of whom happens to also be a grocery bag boy. Put them together, and it's a wonder the technology hasn't been thought of before.
But what is this technology, you ask? To answer that, we'll give a quote straight from the source: You see, I had just read "The Roads Must Roll", and was thinking of how the Roadway transportation system would be so convenient, if it weren't utterly unworkable. But then my roomate reminded me of an old Clarke story, we got together with the Nanotechs down the hall, and boom! the Moving Walkway was born.
Conveniently, we ended up with a grocery bagger, so the idea wasn't hard to explain, and after that it was only a matter of time to build a prototype. Imagine the rollers at the end of a grocery store checkout counter, how they let things slide along them. Then just shrink it down to nanoscale, and multiply the length a few million times.
The Walkway, currently no more than a meter-long prototype in the nanofabrication lab, consists of a diamond microcircuitry substrate over which is laid a series of carbon nanotubes, each separated by only a few angstroms and running over the breadth of the substrate. Each nanotube can be rotated at an independant speed, carrying along anything lying on it like a checkout counter roller. By slowly increasing the speed at which individual nanotubes roll further from the end of the Walkway, an object or person can be accelerated along its length, giving the illusion of a walkway with a moving center, but fixed ends.
Researchers at Mars' Amaranth University have recently released a report on what they call "a truly revolutionary technology". Inspired by the school's reputation for exceedingly lazy inhabitants, [see July 2237MT story on Techneurgist van Maan] graduate students in the School of Techneurgy set out to make their lives easier, with incredible results.
The students, who wish to remain anonymous at this time and have published their work in the name of Professor van Maan, include nanomaterials specialists, electrical propulsion engineers, and several avid readers of classic sci-fi, one of whom happens to also be a grocery bag boy. Put them together, and it's a wonder the technology hasn't been thought of before.
But what is this technology, you ask? To answer that, we'll give a quote straight from the source: You see, I had just read "The Roads Must Roll", and was thinking of how the Roadway transportation system would be so convenient, if it weren't utterly unworkable. But then my roomate reminded me of an old Clarke story, we got together with the Nanotechs down the hall, and boom! the Moving Walkway was born.
Conveniently, we ended up with a grocery bagger, so the idea wasn't hard to explain, and after that it was only a matter of time to build a prototype. Imagine the rollers at the end of a grocery store checkout counter, how they let things slide along them. Then just shrink it down to nanoscale, and multiply the length a few million times.
The Walkway, currently no more than a meter-long prototype in the nanofabrication lab, consists of a diamond microcircuitry substrate over which is laid a series of carbon nanotubes, each separated by only a few angstroms and running over the breadth of the substrate. Each nanotube can be rotated at an independant speed, carrying along anything lying on it like a checkout counter roller. By slowly increasing the speed at which individual nanotubes roll further from the end of the Walkway, an object or person can be accelerated along its length, giving the illusion of a walkway with a moving center, but fixed ends.