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Get Ready For ... Nanosoccer!
DeviceGuru writes "For the past few years, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology has been sponsoring nanosoccer — a new team sport for universities with programs in micro-electro-mechanical systems. The soccer nanobots, operated by human players via remote-controlled magnetic fields and electrical signals, slide tiny discs around on a 30mm x 30mm playing field. Two demonstration competitions have already been held, and a third one is slated to take place next summer in Austria at RoboCup 2009."
3 x 3 cm (or 1 x 1 inch) playing field ? Doesn't sound like nanosoccer to me. Not even microsoccer. Maybe millisoccer.
Let me know when they have a 30 x 30 micron playing field. That will be nanosoccer.
sorry ;)
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As a ps, there are 16 'fields' built into a chip which measures under 30mm x 30mm - each field is significantly smaller than the summary gives the impression of, at about 2.5mm across (although the article's not exactly clear either).
Is crushing a suspect's child's testicles illegal?
John Yoo: "No, [if] the President thinks he needs to do that."
Real Men play nanosoccer with buckyballs!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
In a time when we are bailing out our greatest financial institutions with $700 billion just to get them to give out mortgages to millions of low-paid workers again, is this really the time to be investing in "science" and "technology"?
Short answer: Yes
Long answer:
The LHC, which is the most expensive science experiment ever cost about $10 billion. I.e. a drop in the bucket compared to things like the proposed bailout or the Iraq war.
On the long term science and tech have consequences that can benefit the whole human race. Apart from the main and direct benefits there are also often other unforeseen benefits that you get for free. E.g. The World Wide Web that you are using right now was developed as a side project CERN.
To butcher an old saying: The NYSE bailout is the equivalent of giving someone enough food to survive another day. Money invested in science and technology might teach you how to fish, farm, build, cure ... hell, just about every single thing that keeps you alive on a day to day basis.
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At first when I read the title I thought it would involve stick figures a few hundreds of carbon atoms high playing soccer with a molecule of Buckminsterfullerene. Then I started picturing how cool it would be if we could make video games that used atoms of carbon instead of pixels, and an electronic microscope for us to see the result, and what the nanoscopic versions of Pong, Space Invaders or Pac-Man would play like.
Then I read the summary.. :-(
You just got troll'd!
I'm really fed up with the nano hype, from the article "the players [cut] measure from a few tens of micrometers to a few hundred micrometers", so this should be named micro-soccer, not nano-soccer!
On the nanoscale (not this one), it will not be Bend it like Beckham. It will be Kick it like Casimir.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Quantum Soccer will be boring. All matches end 1:1.
Do not trust this signature.
Bender: Checkmate!
Fry: No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!
As the old saying goes:
Give a man a fire, and he will be warm for the rest of the night.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
That's funny. Your objection makes me realize how arbitrary the label "nano" is. Our base units (meter, second, kilogram) are all entirely manmade and chosen for historical reasons that could just as easily have led to different base units. It's an accident of history that we're now working at length scales one-billionth of the base chosen 130 years ago. And it's entirely coincidence if we happen to be also working at one-billionth of our time and mass units.
Maybe we should just arbitrarily agree that "nano" means "based on meter, second, kilogram base units" and nothing magical happens in the nano range that doesn't happen in the micro and pico ranges.
What? That was Dr Farnsworth when his horse lost in a quantum finish.
http://www.clipstr.com/videos/FuturamaAQuantumFinish/
It doesn't even make sense for a chess game.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
I hate Quantum Soccer. Every time I start to play, some know-it-all from the future takes over my body and scores all my goals for me.
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Not a problem. A soccer game in the US stands a very good chance of remaining unobserved.
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
Soccer is boring enough. Making it so small that you can't see it with the naked eye?
Brilliant!
Can we get Ronaldo and Beckham on the fast track to miniaturization, please?
And someone do some research on pico-curling, while you're at it!
This explains the "nano football hooligans" who are constantly harrassing my cat.
I thought he had been hitting the catnip a bit hard lately until I noticed about 100 nano empty Foster's lager cans falling out of the brush after his nightly brushing and the distinct smell of eurotrash permeating his fur.
DAMN YOU NIST!
I'm going to feed this troller to death.
The 2009 US military budget is 651,2 Bil. and $79.6 Bil. of that goes to military research and testing. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/pdf/budget/defense.pdf [gpoaccess.gov]
On the other hand, only $6.9 billion went for the National Science Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budget#Total_spending [wikipedia.org]
Now, to be fair, the NSF doesn't include medical research so we'd have to consider that but where do you think you'd have to cut first?
*walks away*
I disagree.
He'll be warm for at least a few hours after he's dead, too.
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