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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.

4 of 155 comments (clear)

  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. 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. 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.

  4. 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.