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

Good idea, too small for me

[the-amazing-blob]

Sorry I'm late coming home, honey. I lost the car again.

Re:Good idea, too small for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Lost the car? Imagine misplacing the keys...

Re:Good idea, too small for me

[drpimp]

Unless of course it comes with nanospinners.. Then we're talkin'

Re:Good idea, too small for me

[operagost]

I'm pretty sure I can fit 19" rims onto it. And a fart pipe.

Only 4 nanometers across...

[d3ac0n]

And yet it still holds 10 clowns! Go figure.

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

is this a perfect solution for men that have really large reproductive organs?

Compact car

[Crixus]

So how does this redefine the phrase COMPACT CAR?

Re:Compact car

[slashname3]

Oh great! Now half the parking lot will be marked off for nano-car parking. Had enough trouble parking the hummer in the compact car spots now I have to jocky it into half a billion nano-car spots. :)

Re:Compact car

[ozmanjusri]

So how does this redefine the phrase COMPACT CAR?

You mean it's not an instruction. Whoops.

Been there....

[CaptainCarrot]

Talk about re-inventing the wheel!

Sheesh!

I feel humbled

[chrpai]

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

Re:I feel humbled

[forkazoo]

Hell, no. I feel like a giant super man that can pick up a million cars with his bare hands, and knock over thousands of cars with a breath. How the hell is that humbling?

Re:I feel humbled

[Dr Caleb]

Try changing the tire, super man. ;)

A great day...

[Aenema]

for the small people that helped make such a thing possible

Re:Rice U?

[bersl2]

Speaking of rice, where can you get Type-R stickers and spinning rims that small?

yeah, but the hard part is...

[bobalu]

...making a really small Midas muffler shop.

One question

[Auckerman]

How many microns/nanogram does it get?

Re:One question

[aminorex]

But one can easily imagine pushing such vehicles about using laser beams. A single laser can
push millions of little cars around, using spinning mirrors and judicious timing.

Re:One question

[mbstone]

It depends. YMMV.

Re:One question

[Spit]

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

Re:One question

[mindriot]

No no no.

It's YÅMV, of course. Your Ångströmage may vary.

I give it six months

[BandwidthHog]

Till they add an SUV to the lineup.

Directional Friction Reduction?

[jellomizer]

Could this be used to make materials that have significantly less friction going in one direction and more going the other. The possibilities are endless. Like Bar tables that when drinks are shifted across it can move around corners. and stop right at the customer. Cool

Re:Directional Friction Reduction?

[Compuser]

As someone who has done plenty of STM an nano work in his life,
I can tell you two things:
1. I do not believe they have proven the wheels roll. They think they
have proven it but their STM work is embarassingly bad
(for starters, clean Au-111 surface has herringbone reconstruction
which is not seen in their images, the car is not resolved with anything
close to atomic resolution, temperature drift is atrocious etc.)
2. The surface of gold is very "soft" even at room temperature. Heating
it to 100 C often is enough to restore herringbone reconstruction to
a mechanically randomized surface. By 200 C the surface is essentially
a liquid though gold's partial pressure is still negligible meaning
that this liquid does not yet evaporate. Everything I see in their
paper shows to me that the molecules do not roll, but rather diffuse
or surf along with the surface. Certainly many buckyballs are seen
near step edges, something that happens to all crap diffusing on the
surface because it is energetically favorable to assemble there.

In short, there is no evidence of science or even engineering here.
Slashdot bought into the PR of the kind of nano project that made
nanotechnology into a dirty word among the leading research groups
in the area. BTW, I am not doing STM research and am not planning
to so I am not speaking as a competitor. More like: this is why I
moved on from nano-work, so i don't have to deal with crap-meisters
like this.

Re:Directional Friction Reduction?

[nasor]

I also do "nano" work, and I wondered about this too. The problem with laying single molecules down on gold surfaces is that they tend to diffuse around the surface (or even sink into it) over time even at room temperature, and it happens much faster if the gold is heated. How do they know it's rolling?

Uh huh

[connah0047]

I can see the science team going to the board of directors:

BoD: What's the problem?
Scientists: Well, we need to be able to move atoms and molecules around in precise ways.
BoD: How can we help?
Scientists: We need some funding to build little, tiny trucks to carry them around in.
[long pause]
BoD: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! No really guys, what did you need?

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

[dirtsurfer]

See, this is the problem with nanotechnology. No matter what great advances you make, there are always so many people who just want to split hairs.

*ba-dum-dum-pshh*

Re:Sensationalist journalism

[Leibel]

from dictionary.com 5. Archaic. A chariot, carriage, or cart. I think this qualifies, although maybe on a technicality. Surely if you put the worlds smallest motor on it, you'd have the worlds smallest motor car. I think that it's not as sensasionalist as you make out.

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:Heh.

[unr_stuart]

Why do Texans insist upon finding every place possible to put an engine?

I can see it now

[Omnieiunium]

Pimp my nano car.

Pic

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a pic:

          .

I hope they don't make the same mistake Ford made, and only offer it in black.

-AC

Re:Pic

[Soul-Burn666]

They already offer it in white aswell.
Here's a pic, with the car circled:

            o

Re:Heh.

[Robocoastie]

proves once again that people with high fallooten pieces of paper from universities will do anything to justify spending half their life and income in school.

Better Link

[sapgau]

With less cookies and better pictures at Nanotechnology Now

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.).

The biggest problem

[Harker]

The ground clearance sucks.

H

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?

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. :)

EPA Estimates

[Quiet_Desperation]

Sadly, it was designed by GM, and so only gets 12 miles per gallon.

Re:Rice U?

[slashname3]

why an unpowered car?

Because that darn intern lost the pistons and camshaft for the motor. He's still looking for them.

short-sightedness

[UESMark]

It is so typical that when developing the industrial nano-cities of the future they chose to develop nano-cars instead of a sensible atomic mass transit system. If this policy continues the consumption of nano-gas will raise nano-oil prices so high that soon we will have to invade nano-arabia. I for one will continue to endorse nano-carpooling and the use of nano-bikes whenever possible,

Crookes Radiometer

[kd5ujz]

I wonder if you could attach a dark material, and a light material, and have the car move ala the vanes in a radiometer. with a car this small, light should be able to move it. Of course you would need a slight vacuum. Another problem, would be that people still do not have facts as to how the radiometer works, just theorys.

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

Package

[ozTravman]

Okay so guys with small penises buy big cars.... Finally they have made a car suitable for me!

Re:Smallest car comes from RICE university?

[kurzweilfreak]

And little tiny Jesus fish. Followed by the little tiny Darwin fish.... which will actually be real bacteria that will consume the entire car.

Re:Rice U?

[plover]

Nanotech has already hit the marketplace.

I'm too lazy to google for it, but there's a company selling a nanomotor coated window glass for office buildings. You can buy it today.

The idea is that the tiny motors rotate when powered by the sun. When the glass is dirty (spots from the rain, mineral deposits, bird "deposits", spider webs, etc.,) in a few hours the rotation will sweep the dirt from the glass. It's supposed to pay for itself by avoiding window-cleanings, especially on high-rise buildings.

And I believe someone is using something similar to make a nanotech-based fog-free snowmobile visor. If you've ever ridden a snowmobile for more than a few hundred yards, you're probably familiar with the fogging problem. The first guy to market with this will have a solid lock on a big pile of money.

And let's not forget our old buddy, DLP. While it's not technically "nanotech", it's still "microtech."

What I think is neatest about the glass treatments is that they have nothing to do with computers or even technology! Some creative person just came up with a damn clever idea. There will undoubtedly be more.

Eight thimble-sized cylinders

[mortong]

Bah, that's nothing. Wake me up when they make a little blue dune buggy.

Can't sit in a nanontech car

[SpaghettiPattern]

You can't sit in a nanontech car. This smallest car ever is still the Fiat 500. Here's an image. And yes, (theoretically) 4 people can sit in it.