The World's Smallest Car

starexplorer writes "Start your Nano-engines? LiveScience.com is reporting that researchers at Rice University have designed the world's smallest car that is no more than 4 nanometers across. It has a chassis, axles and a pivoting suspension. The wheels are buckyballs. Why do it? The team wants to build a fleet of nanotrucks to carry atoms and molecules around minature factories." So it's not exactly self-powered, but it rolls. It's a start!

Comments

I feel humbled

[chrpai]

Can anyone else admit they feel humbled when they read things like this?

Sensationalist journalism

[fireboy1919]

You know, there's a word for a vehicle that doesn't have an engine, or a bed, and is smaller than a car.

It's called a wagon.

Doesn't sound as cool, does it? But that's what it is, isn't it?

Rechargable nanomotors that don't break - that's what we need for this kind of thing. Its the holy grail for nanotech right now.

If you don't avoid all references to objects that move under their own power (and you're talking about nanotech), then you're sensationalizing the news. Its like saying "Fusion done in cold!" when you mean that someone built a fusion laser system in Anarctica. Obviously cold means something specific when its that close to the word "Fusion."

Keep up the sensationalism, and you can't get the point across when you come across something that's actually fantastic.

Re:Sensationalist journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not so much "sensationalist journalism" as "people describing something new in terms they're most familiar with".

When cars were new, people called them "horseless carriages". Sensationalist journalism? No, simply using terms people are most familiar with. So when we build a horseless carriage (sorry, "cart"?) 4 nanometers across, what do we call it? Well, it has 4 wheels, and what do we know that has 4 wheels...

I suspect a lot of nano-things aren't going to technically fit the definition of, well, anything -- they're very different from other kinds of things people build -- but using terms most familiar to people makes sense to me.

Re:Sensationalist journalism

[some guy I know]

You know, there's a word for a vehicle that doesn't have an engine, or a bed, and is smaller than a car.

It's called a wagon.

Actually, the terms are rather blurred.
For example, railroad dining cars are not self-powered, station wagons have an engine, and covered wagons had beds (or, at least, bedding).

One of the definitions of "car", from dictionary.com, is "4-wheeled motor vehicle; usually propelled by an internal combustion engine".
Note the word "usually".
By stretching this definition, the "motor" could be the STM probe or the heated gold atoms or whatever actually make the vehicle move.
(The article isn't clear about that.)
Note that there is no requirement in the definition that the motor be mounted on the device itself.
So, the device has four wheels, and is powered by a motor.
That makes it a car.

I know that this is splitting hairs, but a split hair is a pretty big thing at nanoscales.

Re:It's perfect!

[Muttley]

What is a nano-toxin? How does it differ from a toxin? In what way does the creation of a small macromolecule in the shape of a car contribute to toxicity?

This is phobia and panic, started in the realm of GE food, and spreading, through ignorance, into the world of nanotech. Nanotech is ill defined, and literally means anything over the nano-scale. Scaremongers try to use new scary words (hence their profession), like nano-toxin, and site that nanoparticles are in things like sunscreen, aerosols...etc. Of course they are, for without TiO4 in sunscreen, it wouldn't block ultraviolet rays, and it wouldn't work. I fail to see the difference between a nano-toxin and a toxin, but regardless of what I fail to see, this kind of irrational skepticism and 'but it could be NANO-toxic!' are unhelpful, and only serve to further the divide between scientists and society. Likewise, scientists dismissing the concerns of the public also furthers this divide.

Inform yourself, ask questions of the scientists, but don't say sarcastic unhelpful things like 'it's perfect for producing nano-toxins', without explaining how this might occur.

Obligatory

[Council]

The obligatory joke to make here would be that if they think they've made this truck small, wait 'til they see what happens when the Japanese get their hands on it.

Or maybe, because the researchers are in Texas, I could suggest that they are now embarking on a program to make the biggest nano-car in the 50 states. Or that maybe they didn't insist on sticking a pickup bed on the back. Or "wow, have we discovered the only Texans who are secure about their penis size?"

But I'm not going to make any of those jokes. I'm not even going to make any potentially +1 insightful comments about how the real-world applications of this in terms of actual trucks in little tiny factories are clearly pretty silly from where I'm sitting, because things work totally differently on the nano scale, and that's just clearly grasping at some sort of relevance (though obviously, the construction methods are important).

Know why I'm not going to make any of those comments? Because I just don't care anymore. I try so hard to be interested sometimes, studying toward a Ph. D in physics and engaging in interesting slashdot debate day after day, and sometimes I sit here and realize that I don't really care about any of it. I want to go outside. I hate this damn computer, this damn internet, all you moderators, and myself for posting here seeking approval for these stupid, inane remarks and pseudointellectual commentary I barf up, seeing it moderated to +5 by people who don't know any better. Deliver me from this, merciful God. My soul is devoid of humor, and my life is an empty, broken shell.

Anyone want to go out for a drink?

Re:Better Link

[ToadMan8]

Just for the sake of correctness, you should say "With fewer cookies..."

Less is a measure of amount (e.g. "Put less milk in if it bothers your stomach."), whereas "fewer" describes a measure of something you can count (like cookies, cars, etc.).

Mixed Feelings About This

[Zobeid]

I've been watching for developments in nanotech ever since Engines of Creation was published back in 1985. It was a highly influential book for me, and I'm sure for many others. Progress has been a lot slower than some of us expected or hoped. This "car" brings forth two different feelings. . .

First, a dejected sigh. It's not useful for anything, and it's a long, awfully long way from the sophisticated "assemblers" that Drexler foresaw 20 years ago, with their thousands (or millions?) of molecular components.

On the other hand. . . These guys have actually built a mechanism with multiple moving parts at the molecular level. This is the first thing I've seen that looks anything like "real" molecular nanotechnology, as opposed to mere nanoscale particles.

So, is the glass half empty or half full? There's a temptation to laugh at this pathetic little "car" today -- but future generations might look back and say this is where the nanotechnology revolution first germinated. :)

Impressive, but slightly misleading

[musakko]

Granted, this is very impressive science. But to say it's a 'car' reminds me of those ads for sea monkeys from comics years ago: The ones which showed them as basically being a little underwater nuclear family. Still bought some though! http://seamonkeys.3wpages.com/ComicSeamonkeyAd1.jp g

Re:One question

[Spit]

Look out, I think it just ran over your sense of humour particle.