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The Nanotech Nose: Towards A Smaller Future
Farrax writes "One of the first steps to nanotechnology, either strong or weak, is the ability to even talk about materials on this scale with precision. Thursday, with the successful test of a nano-tech "nose," that step was achieved: weight fluctuations of 5.5 femtograms were detected on a bar of gold. The dream of nano-technology moves forward: maybe we'll see it by 2020 after all."
i wonder if things will eventually reach a point where it's no longer beneficial to get any smaller?
for instance, mobile phones nowadays are a great improvement from a 1-foot long cellphone our grandparents used, but if things get too small for human-beings to use it properly, then we won't use it.
so with all these nano techonologies going on, even if we can build all the components for a mobile phone so small, don't we still need something reasonable sized to use it?
And I'll be a bad slashdotter and not look for them (I'm tired!) but I do believe that a couple years back, a professor in England released a tech timeline that would document the progression of technology for the next century and beyond. He was something like 80% correct in his predictions up till that point, so they sort of carried weight. Anyhow... sure nanotech will be a great thing, but I quiver to think of the applications of this in war... which I believe in that timeline came quickly after the devlopment of the tech. Links, anyone, anyone?
SecondPageMedia - Wha
to a degree i am sure you are right, traditional robotics have put some people out of work in factories. Increased automation for assembly & production lead to a more service based economy which has generally been bad for blue collar labor... lower pay, worse benefits, low job security. Of course nafta has probably done far more to the manufacturing job base than robotics have.
You have to remember that nanotech is hardly what sci-fi books tell you about though. It won't be like you will be buying a big can of nano workers and kick back at the pool while you watch them swarm and build your house. They will be situational just like a lot of regular automation has been... And open up a number of markets where humans cant do the work, creating jobs in the process.
Actually, on this scale things are very, very mechanically strong, depending for their strength on atomic bonding.
Think of trying to break a particle of talcum powder, rather than a tiny little teacup.
Besides, you don't rely on just one or two of the thingies, you make them up in the millions and if you lose a few it doesn't matter.
KFG
A femtogram is a billionth of a billionth of a gram, or roughly the mass of 122 gold atoms.
This is a misunderstanding on the part of the article's author, I am sure. There are 10^15 femtograms to a gram in my book?
I am time and time again confused by the meaning of the word "billion" on either side of the North Atlantic but I take that the Usonian value is 10^9, right?
Sorry, just confused.
Curious term - considering changes of weight in a gold bar was measured using lasers and the changing vibration of silicon (to condense things badly)
I don't know about anyone else, but when weighing, lasering, or vibrating things... using my nose is one of the last options I'd consider
Maybe it's just me.
We already have this. They're called "bacteria" or "viruses." I don't see how human-made stuff will be that much better.
Ewige Blumenkraft.
Regulations won't don't do squat.
There's only a couple ways to prevent extinction from some nasty bio or nano-disaster (whether intentional or accidental): 1) Permanently move some eggs off our basketcase-planet; 2) Hope that benevolent AI and IA (human Intelligence Amplication) emerges before full-blown nanotech, to safely handle it better than any stupid & selfish humans could; 3) Luck.
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Power to the Peaceful