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Nanotech Products Hitting the Market

Posted by michael on from the does-it-come-in-extra-large dept.

stdin writes "Saw this on SFGate. Nanotech's first fruits are nearing the consumer market." Not little machines, yet, but a variety of products using very small components.

5 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. No Nano! by PhysicsGenius · · Score: 1, Interesting
    I can see the use for tiny machines as much as the next person,, plus I applaud the use of Linux in theoretical research projects, however, something nobody seems to want to talk about is the feasibility of propelling an object composed of somewhere between a few dozen and a few hundred atoms. Remember Newton? F=ma ring a bell? To find the acceleration of a nanobot, a = F/m where F is the thrust of the propellant and m the mass of the nanobot. The thrust can be calculated by multiplying the mass of the propellent by its acceleration which in turn equals 2v/d (v = the final velocity and d the atomic radius).

    Plug these numbers in and you'll find that even if the propellant consists of a single atom the forward velocity of the nanobot will be somewhere in the region of 1/100th of the speed of light. That may not sound like much, but even 1/1000 * 3e8 m/s = 3e5 m/s = 300 km/s = 1080000 km/h!

    1. Re:No Nano! by Have+Blue · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You're assuming nanomachines use ejection-based engines. Perhaps it would be better to use less-efficient forms of propulsion like propellers or even legs. Also, you're neglecting the fact that (in general) the machine is makings its way through a relatively dense medium. Most of the force would be spent displacing the thousands or millions of atoms in the path it is trying to follow.

    2. Re:No Nano! by CarlDenny · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Huh?

      Your calculations make no sense. Where did you get 2v/d from? How did the atomic radius enter into the picture at all?
      That calculation clearly involves a -lot- of assumptions, most of which I doubt you know/remember, and are not applicable to the situation you describe.

      If I have a machine with 100 atoms, and propel it by ejecting a single atom at velocity V, the machine will be moving at ~V/100 in the opposite direction.

      This is ignoring the numerous other methods for propelling an object, without ejecting a propellant. Various forms of electromagnetic fields do a damn good job.

  2. The new buzzword by Target+Drone · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It sounds like "nano" is about to become the new prefix of choice. It will be in front of every product in the same way that "e" became popular a couple years ago during the dot com era.

  3. I don't get it. by crucini · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The advances mentioned in the article seem to be improvements in grinding substances finely. The article claims that there is some kind of continuum from this grinding to actual nanotech machines, and that cautious investors are starting at the easy end of the continuum.

    I don't see how this could be. It seems that if you want to approach the kind of nanotech described in Stepehenson's The Diamond Age you would probably work with tiny machines and assembly techniques and gradually push the size envelope downwards - which is how it happened with silicon. Or work with subtractive etching techniques that could remove material to leave behind movable parts. Merely grinding up tiny nondescript particles - in other words soot or dust - doesn't seem like a step on this road at all.

    Of course my understanding of nanotechnology is firmly grounded in science fiction.