NationStates Jolt Archive

A post I saw in another thread triggered this. I was going to post it in that thread until I realized it was entirely unrelated. So it gets its own thread.

Many people seem fascinated with nanotechnology. People read "Engines of Creation" or some other such nano-hype book, and think "Ooh, the solution to all Earth's problems!" Or they read that one Michael Crichton book and think "Nanotech is bad!" and such.

To begin with, most people's perceptions of nanotech are extremely far off the mark. Including some of the self-described geniuses of nanotech.

At the subatomic level, new forces come into play. Brownian motion, and atomic forces, and all that. Things at the nanoscale get buffeted about quite a bit, and many materials tend to stick to things.
The "Engines of Creation" view of making machines that are just tiny versions of macroscale machinery is wrong. Perhaps it will be possible in the far future if we develop new materials, but for now it is entirely out of the question.

What we can do is take a cue from nature. Nature has self-assembling or partially self-assembling systems left and right, and all sorts of interesting cellular machinery. Now, people like Drexler look at that and say "It's wildly inefficient! We can do better with intelligently designed machines!"
The problem is that we have no experience on the nanoscale. We are ignoring that fact that things work differently there.
It's a bit like trying to build a building, but ignoring gravity. It doesn't work.
Nature has developed systems that DO work on the nanoscale. We can take a cue from biotech, and possibly create things that do serve some purpose on the nanoscale, albeit not miniture robots and all the junk Drexler imagined up. When nanotech begins to work, it will have more in common with biology than with conventional engineering.

Read something like "Soft Machines: Nanotechnology And Life", or "Nanocosm: Nanotechnology and the Big Changes Coming from the Inconceivably Small". These books have more of a glimpse at what we actually CAN do, rather than things that won't work.

The most interesting real nanotech idea I have ever come across is that of nanocarbons. These are tiny tubes of carbon a few nanometres long and even less wide. Chains of these, it is agreed, if laced through things like concrete or cotton could make (in the case of cotton) bullet proof vests as light as a normal shirt and (in the case of concrete) builidngs that retake their original shape if damaged. The problem is however that manipulating these things is very difficult and normally when implaced in concrete they tend to clump togther instead of arrange themselves into neat lines.

Come on people, I thought this would be a more interesting topic. Dont tell me you can't discuss anything other than politics

Who is Myrth? He/she/it is always mentionned in threads! Who is he/she/it?!!?!?!

HELLO. FACINATING AND POTENTIALLY (allbeit, a long way off) REVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE BEING DISCUSSED. CAN WE HAVE SOME ACTUALL DISCUSSION?

HELLO. FACINATING AND POTENTIALLY (allbeit, a long way off) REVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE BEING DISCUSSED. CAN WE HAVE SOME ACTUALL DISCUSSION?

it's spelled albeit :P.

EDIT:
Also, fascinating, not facinating.

HELLO. FACINATING AND POTENTIALLY (allbeit, a long way off) REVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE BEING DISCUSSED. CAN WE HAVE SOME ACTUALL DISCUSSION?

Its a bit hard to talk about if you dont know what the hell it really is.

Why do I suspect the realm of nanotechnology is mostly metallurgy (as in making materials, not the things made out of them) and medicine?

The area of nanotech I'm most interested in is the use of them in cyborgization. Imagine small brush like structures that could clean deposits from the inside of arteries, or structures able to destroy clots, ect. Potensially we could design structures that attach themselves to viruses, rendering them unable to connect with cells and useless. The most impressive thing would be if we could create nanotech capable of fortifying genetic materiel in some way or acting as a powerful antioxydent, decreasing aging dramatically. I don't know much about the field, but I'm sure some of this stuff is possible.
I exspect us to have a lot of nanotech racing about inside our bodies in the future, eventually becoming as mundane as immunization is now.

The area of nanotech I'm most interested in is the use of them in cyborgization. Imagine small brush like structures that could clean deposits from the inside of arteries, or structures able to destroy clots, ect. Potensially we could design structures that attach themselves to viruses, rendering them unable to connect with cells and useless. The most impressive thing would be if we could create nanotech capable of fortifying genetic materiel in some way or acting as a powerful antioxydent, decreasing aging dramatically. I don't know much about the field, but I'm sure some of this stuff is possible.
I exspect us to have a lot of nanotech racing about inside our bodies in the future, eventually becoming as mundane as immunization is now.

I'm sure it would be too costly to become mundane any time soon, or not soon for that matter.

What's fun is everyone's thought of nanotech is the home nanofactory. (not in this thread, of course, but your everyman sort of person, who watches the news and wows at the little gear in the electron microscope like it isn't so very 2002.)

REALITY CHECK: The nanofactory is bullshit.

The purpose of nanotech is not to do big operations. It's to do small operations an astronomical number of times.

The killer apps of nanotech, therefore, appear to be perfect alloys/crystals and clinical immortality.

Ankhmet: The human body is already based on fractal design principles and recursion. That's why it only takes about 6 gigabytes of code to actually make it up. The size of a program to build everything in the body spot-on would be larger than would fit on all the hard drives in the world - and would likely even tax a hard drive the size of a world. This is why not even identical twins are the same, why cloning and teleportation haven't nearly the practical upshot people think they have.

The reason nanotech could work in making perfect alloys and crystals is because those things are just one thing done trillions of times. Maintaining the body in opposition to aging is based on similar principles as 'find and replace' and fractal patterns and recursion. We actually have something that does the role people hope nanotech will supplement, such as enzymes, white cells, mitochondria, quite a few other things; the reason people die in spite of all of them isn't because they failed, but because we expect them to do something they were never supposed to - the body is only good enough to get people to the point where they make more of themselves, and we want so much more out of it in this day and age.

I am very old (32) and can remember back when genetic engineering was going to do everything that nanotechnology is supposed to be able to do for us now. Call me cynical, but I am guessing that improvements in our lives due to nanotech and other technologies will occur in similar ways as other technologies have helped us in the past. Our economies will become maybe 3+ percent more productive a year, and human lifespans will continue to increase at a gradual rate. The increase in productivity basically means will be able to get more stuff and better stuff with the same amount of work. 3+ percent increase a year sounds high compared to last centuary, but I'm optimistic and even expect the rate to accelerate as more people in the world, especially women, become richer and better educated. Human life spans will probably increase at a roughly similar rate to what they have, although I expect at some time we will reach a point where ageing will be more or less stopped. However, I think people get a little too excited at the prospect of immortality. The person you were when you were five years old is effectively dead. The person you were when you were ten years old is effectively dead. If I'm alive in one hundred years time, the person I am now will be dead. My body will be inhabited by someone I don't know now, who has vauge recollections of being me. That said, it still can be fun to get excited about what we'll be able to do in the future.

A post I saw in another thread triggered this. I was going to post it in that thread until I realized it was entirely unrelated. So it gets its own thread.

Many people seem fascinated with nanotechnology. People read "Engines of Creation" or some other such nano-hype book, and think "Ooh, the solution to all Earth's problems!" Or they read that one Michael Crichton book and think "Nanotech is bad!" and such.

To begin with, most people's perceptions of nanotech are extremely far off the mark. Including some of the self-described geniuses of nanotech.

*snip*

Read something like "Soft Machines: Nanotechnology And Life", or "Nanocosm: Nanotechnology and the Big Changes Coming from the Inconceivably Small". These books have more of a glimpse at what we actually CAN do, rather than things that won't work.

Silly Neo, Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553380966/103-0345811-1703011?v=glance) is not only the best of all possible books about nanotechnology, but also practically a documentary. :p

Neo! Where have you been?!

When I think of nanotech, I think of things like bulletproof vests, self-cleaning windows, dirt-repellent surfaces, gloves and shoes that let you climb walls (not sure if that one is possible :D ). Basically, cool materials. Oh, and quantum computing is nanotech I think.

Neo! Where have you been?!
Hi!
Actually, sleeping, mostly.
What's fun is everyone's thought of nanotech is the home nanofactory. (not in this thread, of course, but your everyman sort of person, who watches the news and wows at the little gear in the electron microscope like it isn't so very 2002.)

REALITY CHECK: The nanofactory is bullshit.

The purpose of nanotech is not to do big operations. It's to do small operations an astronomical number of times.

The killer apps of nanotech, therefore, appear to be perfect alloys/crystals and clinical immortality.
Exactly. I think that the most effective nanotech won't be so much about design, as it will be making modifications to things we already know about in nature or creating similar systems modified in such a way as to do a simple task such as those you mentioned.
Who is Myrth? He/she/it is always mentionned in threads! Who is he/she/it?!!?!?!
Myrth is a mod, and also evil incarnate. According to certain others, that apparently makes him extremely desirable or something like that.
Also, if you read poll options out loud for some reason, "Myrth" so happens to be fun to say. So that makes him well-qualified to be a poll option...or something.

When I think of nanotech, I think of things like bulletproof vests, self-cleaning windows, dirt-repellent surfaces, gloves and shoes that let you climb walls (not sure if that one is possible :D ). Basically, cool materials. Oh, and quantum computing is nanotech I think.

People tend to miss the last post on the page, so I thought I'd quote.

Hi!
Actually, sleeping, mostly.
Oh ok, hope you had fun :p