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Very Tiny Motor: Nano-level
Daeron Meyer writes " ABCNews is carrying the story of the Boston College prof who took four years but just 78
atoms to create a tiny motor. The current problem is that the wheel get stuck after rotating 120 degrees. So, not much use yet, but it's a step."
This "small" advance in technology is, to me, fairly parrallel to that discovery of the '50s on how electrons could be passed in a controlled manner across a PN junction. That little piece of information has led to the developement of electronics without vacumn tubes and eventually to the computer system(s) you are using to read this possibly off topic post.
I am fairly certain that not many folks had a vision of where that would lead in ~50 years.
I leave the predictions to the predictors.
I just think it is pretty cool
#941
But you wouldn't lose just one atom to the water. This motor is a single molecule. Assuming that all of the bonds are covalent, the motor is not going to dissolve in water. It is possible that the motor itself might go floating off into solution, but that is just something the designers would have to account for.
--Phil (Now I just need a Feed and a matter compiler...)
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!
These things are really cool, but they violate Strauser's Law. That is, they're smaller than a duct-tape molecule, and therefore not usable on a mass scale.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
As tripe-ish as the sequel series to Rendevezous with Rama is (namely Rama II, Gardens of Rama, and Rama Revealed), they do have a species of benign ultra-intelligent arthroid octopods (called octo-spiders in the books) which do have nanocamera which fly around and record a full-3D holographic memory of everything that happens inside Rama during their stay.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
You have atoms and molecules reversed, my friend. An atom is the building block from which molecules are formed. The motor is 1 molecule (most likely, or maybe 2 - they didn't say if the bit that turns is separate from the bit that it turns in) formed of 78 atoms. Ionic bonds are a crystal, which isn't really a molecule but a lattice of atoms; for example, table salt (NaCl) isn't a lot of NaCl molecules but a large lattice formed of sodium and chlorine atoms.
As for the motor 'reacting,' a spontaneous reaction is what happens when one higher-energy bond breaks and forms a lower-energy bond, thus releasing energy. This is the kind of reaction that needs to be worried about. (A nonspontaneous reaction requires that energy be added into the system, and even then it tries to release energy.)
As someone else pointed out, if the bond is covalent (which is formed by two atoms sharing electrons and is rather strong), it's not very likely to break from water. Water reactions are very different from dissolution; the nanomachine isn't likely to react with the water, particularly if it's made of silicon. After all, if silicates reacted freely with water, we'd be in a good deal of trouble, since glass (SiO2) is often used to contain water. Though SiO2 has a very low energy potential and doesn't react with much to begin with anyway.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
One danger I wonder about is this: We know that we can't really build machines this small; most of the talk I've seen has been about building tiny machines to build these tiny machines (basically self-replicating). I don't think we've ever done this in any other field...
How do you test something like that? You let it go (in a controlled environment) and see what happens. Now, if they're building those machines anything like the way I write code, they're occasionally going to go nuts and do something unexpected (oh come on it happens to you too).
Imagine a tiny factory that could duplicate itself using only water. Now drop it in the ocean...
it's not just us who can be used for batteries -- any eukariotic animal that engages in phosphoralation (sp?) is a source of energy. however, using the human/animal as a battery is rediculous on a large basis (think Matrix here). every time you run through a level of the food chain, you lose a LOT of energy. it would be FAR more efficient to just have mitochondria supported -- not an entire organism. if that was impractical, then cells -- any cells, just about -- could be used far more efficently than an entire organism, who uses energy for transport/growing hair/living. (Matrix always bothered me -- I loved the movie, but the premise is completely impractical. if you suck the electricity out of the brain, then the brain can't DO anything. you die. you can't be in "the Matrix" anyways)
:) personally, I'd be more than willing to have nanites running around and using a bit of my ATP while they destroyed a cancer or something similarly threatening.
however, the nanites could refuel from your cells if they were in there for something else. convenient food source
Lea
If another chemical reaction could then bond the next paddle to the plate, the rotating motion could continue indefinitely -- a motor, in other words.
The above claim offends my olde fashioned sense of thermodynamics, to wit, there are no perpetual motion machines. I really don't think a rotating molecule capable of supplying mechanical power (i.e., a "motor") can "continue indefinitely" w/o some kind of energy input, such as light as mentioned elsewhere. I can beleive a 120 degree motion powered by chemical bonds occurred, but don't understand how this can continue in perpetuity. Of course this is all at the quantum level and all new rules apply, all sorts of possibilities, like the ratchet effect alluded to: if that could take advantage of heat (agitated molecules) to create motion, 'd be cool!
My word
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
As I read over the responses to this article, I find the two typical responses very funny. It seems some people shout "Don't get all worked up, nanotech is a long way off, but won't it be great?" Then others post, "You people aren't worked up enough, the implications of nanotech are horrible." Ahhh, the future. Won't it be nice and ... middle of the road like it always is? ;)
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
If you bothered to read the article, you would have seen the bit about the 58-atom motor that runs on light -- and actually works!
:-)
It's made by the Dutch and Japanese, though. Read whatever you want into that
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Could this be the software of hardware...
When nanomachines are perfected, they'll be easy and cheap to produce, unlike the multibillion-dollar facilities needed to produce computer chips and other silicon-based devices. While Kelly took four years to design his molecule, he can now produce lots of them. "In one batch, you could make as many 1024 of individual units in principle," Davis says. "That's a trillion trillion."
Which means the future machines are likely to be teeny and plentiful.
hmmm, massively reproducible, fully configurable matter changers....neat.(and cheap to boot!)
+&x
Now, I am not a scientist, and perhaps it could be argued that every motor is powered at least indirectly by chemical reactions, but the specific type of chemical reaction at work here would tend to limit the applications of this little motor.
For instance, given the large number of chemicals that can be dissolved in water, you might not want to get it wet. Ever. At all. After all, if we're building on the less-than-100-atoms level, I'd say that every atom counts and losing even ONE to water (or whatever) would be devastating to the efficacy of the whole thing.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
"But the process of getting the energy out of the glucose is a lot more complicated than getting it out of ATP"...
The process of getting energy out of glucose is by converting it into ATP.
Yes, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) easily breaks down into adenosine diphosphate (ADP), and in so doing, releases energy. But that's not an argument against using for fuel - just the contrary. The fact that it can so easily be "coaxed" into releasing energy is what makes it so good at being the basic energy source for humans.
Also, it's worth noting that using instability as the basis for a power source isn't new to science - nuclear power is a pretty good example.
One of the things that I didn't see mentioned in the ABC article (and is only briefly mentioned in the BBC article) is that the machine runs on ATP. ATP is the fuel generated by the human biological process known as the "Krebs cycle". (You get ~32 ATP from one glucose molecule.) This means, then, that we're building machines that can use humans as batteries... now where have I heard that story before?
What gets me is the amount of miniaturisation we're getting at. 60 years ago, we had Turing machines that filled an entire room; today, we have nano-sized Turing machines. That's several orders smaller.
If this trend continues, we'll get nano-sized Pentium-III's in 60 years or less. :)
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Anyone want to lend him a tin of WD40?
(Sorry, had to be said!)
All spelling mistakes are in my mind and are faithfully reproduced by my fingers
If I remember correctly ATP is not the most stable of compounds. It usually loses a Phospor molecule and turns to ADP so I don't see it becoming a standard energey molecule outside of our bodies anytime soon. On the other hand glucose related molecules are a lot more stable and give you more energy. But the process of getting the energy out of the glucose is a lot more complicated than getting it out of ATP (see citric acid cycle in the body) so I would expect future research to move into that area.
Vidi, vici, veni. (I saw, I conquered, I came)
do you think sonys new product , maybe a nano disk player. how about nano hard drives , if we can get that moter up to speed so to say maybe we can have nano drives , micro board , as i have noticed the only thing limiting the size of computer is interfaceablity with a human , think of a beowolf cluster of nano processers with 40 tera of nano drives allin the size of your palm pilot. maybe even a way of taking it to the next level , nano do offer a lot of promise for the future , but watch it and we may all turn into the borg , (peronaly that is kinda appeling) all i have to say is keep MS away from it. i would only run linux if it comes near my body , think of seeing a blue screen while you try and tie your shoes, and having to reboot your brain . wouldnt that suck .
get those magnets away from me NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
Now I love nanotech just as much as anybody. In fact, my favorite book is "The Diamond Age". The thing that gets me about a nanotech computer, though, is that no matter how small it is, you'll still need a big-ass monitor. With that monitor comes a cord attached to the computer. Add speakers, input devices, power supply, and any other connections, and you have the same jumbled mess of wires that you have with your current computer plugged into something the size of an Tylenol.
Of course, you could always make the box the same size and have 300 or so little Tylenol-sized computers inside it. Of course, that seems like a bit of a waste of energy.
No reason to get excited yet. Nanotech has a long way to go to get to practicality. According to the discussions I have had with people who should know there are still major problems to be solved.
Like getting rid of waste heat and chemicals. Like getting fuel to the motors in the first place. Like control systems, power transfer, actuators and sensors.
Of more interest in the article was the mention of the Japanese effort that uses less atoms (58) and spins when light is shone on it. Chemical reaction based nanotech is the most likely posibility in the near term because we can build on biological systems we already understand (the example in the article used ATP). But long term I would think truly useful nanotech would be powered by photons or electron transfers or something like that.
Jack
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
A couple of years ago I read a story saying that this sort of technology could be used to power laptops (and other portable electronic devices). Instead of bateries you use loads of nano-drives, attached to nano-turbines to generate electricity. As most fuels store energy in a more efficient way than batteries you get more power for longer. Using the chemical sources described for these devices they could be powered off your body, giving you laptop as much power as you want, you just have to eat more. How long before this is marketed as a slimming device?
The thought that occurs to me when I see things like this, is that people are saying they need to reinvent the wheel, and this time give it square corners for improved safety.
The groups that have put together these projects have certainly made a chemical accomplishment, but why is everyone looking to this as a 'nano-motor'? Bacterial flagella already exist, function off of ATP, they average 0.25 micrometers (250 nanometers) in diameter, come in a variety of lengths, have been clocked at 2400 rpm, can be assembled in minutes from informational schematics in large quantities, and have repair and maintenance facilities preexisting. To me it's like hearing someone say they've assembled something they call ENIAC and that it is unquestionably superior to the SGI I use for molecular modeling...
Nanomotors, switches, levers, atomic pumps, and power stations already exist. I don't understand why the 'Nano' researchers aren't using them.
'Machines' don't have to be made of metal, after all the two in the article aren't.
Nanotech is a scary thing, give us (humans) and new technology and what will we do with it? Find a way to use it to kill one another. So just imagine wars fought with these tiny machines, the left over bodies of millions of them will cause serious enviromental damage. Will you feel safe knowing that at any moment nanosites that have been imbedded into your body without your knowledge could start disassembling you from the inside out? All in all I feel the human race itself is not yet ready for a technology so great.
Not true. Aerobic prokaryotes actually produce 38 ATP per glucose vs human cells which produce 36 per glucose. Humans would produce 38 but 2 ATP must be spent to get the pyruvate molecules (product of the glucose) into the mitochondrial matrix. Prokaryotes do not incur this extra expense since they do not have mitochondria (they basically *are* the mitochondria), so they produce more ATP per glucose.