In science, we have to choose what research projects get funding. Someone is going to be rejected, we can't let everyone do what they want... unless we have a whole lot more funding.
For example, if we had more telescopes, then people wouldn't have to argue over who gets to use them.
In this case, the header was very misleading. They used the National Science Foundation's (a US government agency) Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile and were given funding from NASA!
My dad used to drink an obscene amount of coffee (black, no sugar). He would go through numerous pots a day. He still managed to get type two diabetes. His doctors think it was related to high stress, his high blood pressure, and of course, being overwieght.
He has since cut out caffine, trimmed down, relaxed, and his blood sugar is very stable.
There are side effects of caffine, such as anxiety which could easily encourage diabetes.
Re:Driving a Truck Through This One
on
Global Dimming
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· Score: 1
Speaking as a physicist, I can assure you that there is no vast right wing conspiracy among the astronomers to prop up Bush and Cheney (unless they promise to really increase funding). You do bring up a very good point about the astonomers and their measurements though.
Yes, we have done those calculations, and it doesn't matter if the atmosphere or the ground absorbs light. What matters is how much light the atmosphere reflects, which is the issue here. Generally the atmosphere is transparent, but when clouds form, it is largely reflective. If there are more clouds, there is less light absorbed by the earth.
As far as I'm concerned, global cooling never went out of vogue. When I teach astronomy, and we get to the section on the earth's atmosphere, I always point out that the last ice age started when CO2 levels were much higher than they are now. Also, this idea of dust (most is probably due to agriculture) reflecting sunlight is in most basic astronomy books. The main point is that we can't be sure what's going to happen, but's it's probably a good idea to try and keep things the way they were.
As for the using of equipment. I have met quite a few scientests and engineers who have no idea what they're doing (for the love of God, don't take flash pictures in a dark room!), but I'd like to think that even the most inept scientest could measure the temperature of a black piece of metal.
You get to work ALL the time! No family for you, in fact, people will be trying to turn your family against you with allegations of everything from infidelity to drug use. If you're not a problem to society, your son/wife/cousin will be soon.
Take out loans! That's right, it costs money to run, and sometimes, you just don't have the pork to back it up, so sell your house, take out huge loans and tell your kids they can't go to college.
Forget your ideals! Forget whatever you may believe, it's time to tow the party line. You don't want to be on the wrong side of the issue. If you're playing a Republican, you'd better not reach out to minorities, the Democrats will call it fake anyway. If you're playing a Democrat, you'd better not try and act responsable, the Republicans will just make something up if you don't give them something to work with.
By the way, my dad was a politician, and above are the reasons he got out. It's not all fun and games, there's a lot of reality they could expose with a game like this.
A way to self-assemble nanotubes into ropes which can be used macroscopically. Whether or not it's strong enough to use in a space elevator remains to be seen, but we can actually talk about trying that now!
The nanotubes which were used here are electronics grade tubes, that means that most likely they were single or double walled (single walled being the strongest possible), and had a very low defect density. This is obviously important to the mechanical strength.
I work in a nanotechnology lab, and part of my job is to grow nanotubes. They naturally come in ropes which are around 1 to 10 nanometers in diameter and a few microns to a centimeter in length. The tubes are held together in solution due to van der Waals forces (basically friction) which are absurdly high for nanotubes. We've been separating tubes from eachother in solution from years, but efforts to re-align them have focused on the air-water interface. All they have done is found a solution which will solvate more tubes, to the point that the tubes have no room to run "against the grain" and so become aligned. This is done all the time with polymers. In retrospect it seems obvious and easy (it wasn't).
I remember a week ago Smalley was being bashed here about his conflicting views with Drexler on the future of nanotechnology and molecular assemblers (versus self-assembly). If you'll notice, Smalley is on this paper. This is why he has a Nobel prize, and why he disagrees with Drexler, self-assembled nanotechnology is already here, and it's only going to get better.
Upon reflection, my "deathist" attitude, as you put it, does seem pretty depressing. I think it comes from a combination of things.
I started off in science in the fusion industry and the history there is pretty oppressive. That, in addition to the slow day to day progress is probably what causes it. It's hard to think of asssemblers when today I have to re-wire some basic electronics. It seems like everyone is talking about assemblers but the people who are working on nanotechnology.
This whole discussion has made me go back and look at what got me into nanotechnology. It was actually Drexler's book. Most of what Drexler says about nanoelectronics would lead people to believe that what I'm doing is impossible, and that was only ten years ago.
Maybe I just needed to be reminded why I started doing this again (thanks), but I think I agree with you now. Who knows what will happen even 10 years from now, let alone 70 to 100.
I still disagree with the methods Drexler proposes, but that's a different issue.
The main reason I downplay the assembler idea is that I don't want nanotechnology to become the next space program. That is, I don't want to have big expectations put on us so quickly, that when we can't deliver, we're tossed aside.
The reasons you're excited about the future are the same reasons I went into physics. I love science fiction, and I'd love to see all the cool things people think are possible. There is so much that nanotechnology can offer that is NOT assemblers, I want to see that stuff too.
I have to say, I was very dissapointed when I started doing nanotech research and realized that no one was working on assemblers. After a little while it made sense. Drexler compares us to the atomic scientests of the 30's, where I would compare us to the solid state scientests of the 40's. We're still looking for our transistor, and even after we find it, it's going to take a while to turn it into something usefull.
After reading your website, I see your points about directing research in usefull directions. The problem from an experimentalists point of view is that the most exciting and most profitable results often are a surprise (the laser, and the scanning probe microscope are good examples). What makes this exciting is the possibility of getting something absolutely unexpected and amazing.
Another way of looking at it, is that we're not yet to the point in the technology tree that we can look at assemblers as a possibility. We still have to get through basic nanotech, and probably a good deal of genetics, to get there. Right now, no one knows how long it could take. It could be 10 years, but it could also be 200 (look how long fusion is taking).
I don't have any problem with anything you say, except to imply that I'm old. After reading your website, I'm actually six months younger than you are!
In the nanotech field, Drexler is seen as someone who is good with the media and the government, and occasionally says the right thing. Smalley is one of our gods.
The rest of the world might see it differently, but that Nobel counts a hell of a lot to us.
By the way, you do misunderstand chemisty. Chemical reactions are definitely, definitely NOT do to "random mechanical interactions." I think a score of physical chemists have just keeled over in shock!
Sure, I agree. I think it's absolutely possible. The problem is that we're still working out the basics, and we can't ASSUME that it will just all come together. The experimental side of this will always lag the theoretical side, but we can't let the theory go too far without some sort of verification. We've already had it happen where a theory (molecular computing) went too far too fast, and led many people astray, only to be shown to not exist experimentally in the way the theorists predicted (see last October's Science for a summary). Again, that doesn't mean it can't be done, it just means you have to pay attention to the physical reality, and not get too excited by predictions.
What we have here are two different worlds colliding. Drexler is coming at this from the point of view of a theoretical physicist, while Smalley is an experimental chemist.
Drexler has found certain theoretical processes which would lead to molecular assemblers. The key problem comes from his assumption of complete control over the atoms. Despite his assurances to the contrary, you still have one big fat sticky finger which you've attached your strained structure to. He simply sees that it is possible (of course, if you read his books, there is a glaring lack of chemical calculations).
Experimentally (I'm a bit biased here, I'm an experimentalist) this is a bunch of crap. No one is anywhere close to doing anything like this. First we need to show experimentally that his idea of creating stressed structures and twisting them apart will work, and no one can touch that right now. How do you create the strained structures? In addition, this would have to be done in vacuum to keep interactions with the environment at a minimum. It would also have to be done at cryogenic temperatures to keep the atoms from vibrating out of place (remember we're relying on two unstable structures). This leads to an expensive and difficult proposal.
There are a few groups (I know of Wilson Ho's group at UCI - great pictures by the way) which are working on joining one atom with another. It's done under extreme conditions inside a scanning tunnelling microscope, and it's VERY hard. They don't do any twisting, they do the sensible thing and use applied voltages to excite and bind atoms.
Quite frankly, Feynman and Drexler have been major impediments to experimental nanotechnology for a long time now. There are plenty of interesting, self-assembled structures out there that can do some amazing things which are not related to the assembler idea. There are plenty of good research groups which are dismissed funding in favor of groups which are flailing around in the dark.
The first thing you learn about nanotechnology is that any intuition about the macroscopic world doesn't carry over. Trying to fit our notions of the rest of the world into the nano-scale world is foolish and wrong. Those strait lines between atoms in a molecule are not always strait.
Before we try to use nanotechnology to shape the future we need to understand it. Drexler gives the impression that we already do, and that it's time now to move foward, but no one knows how yet; we just don't understand.
I think it would be wrong of us to say that molecular assembles are impossible. Personally, I think it is possible, and that's why I do this. But to say that they are "close" or to give ANY prediction of when we will see them is just silly. After saying that, let me say something silly and say that although I hope to see nanotechnology come of age in my life, I don't expect to.
That's a big deal which is still unresolved in physics.
There is the classic debate between Bohr and Einstein in which Einstein argues that quamtum mechanics doesn't obey local causaulity, and Bohr responds by saying that reality doesn't exist on that scale anyway.
The issue has basically stayed there philosophically while experimentally we've moved foward as if there was a physical quantum world, which disobeys all sorts of other things and by and large ignored the philosophical consequences.
For example, if you ever take electromagnetism, ask your professor how much electrical energy is stored in an electron.
Those are the kind of questions that keep us physicists awake at night.
Oddly enough, you forgot to mention Japanese liscensing fees. It just so happens that it is to Japanese companies that one must pay DVD liscensing to, not American nor European.
It's nice that you've kept up with science so well that you're able to write off all of these projects.
In science, we like our results to be reproducable. In the past ten years there have been elements and atomic transistors "discovered", only to have a similar lab show that the results were not right. We need to have two differently set up experiments to verify things. Personally, I think particle physics is going in the wrong direction, but at least I can understand why they want an experiment running.
By the way, this is why we're agreeing to fund the European/Japanese fusion reactor (we already have two large fusion reactors in the US).
I really have to take offense at your last statement. Much of the software produced by these projects is open source. Too often programmers forget that their roots are in physics, where we still write our own drivers, create our own interfaces, and use programming to simulate the universe.
Physics does not care what we define as output, or information.
If you have one output, and one "energy sink" which would store the energy (as the parent says the real catch is to do that without changing it at all), you essentially have two outputs. In essense, the question is, what do you do with your outputs, put it to use, or let it go?
As you point out, the engineering of such logic devices might be a bit difficult.
There are pressures to perform in any job, and simply saying that screwing up will cost you money is no reason to charge as much as is charged. If I screw up in my job, the building I work in may end up with a large smoking hole in the side, yet I don't get paid a third of the money they claim a wedding photographer gets.
I actually have been wowed flipping through the pages of a wedding album from some newlywed friends of mine, and the pictures were taken by what I would call a "cheap" wedding photographer. This was someone who does it as a hobby, and charges commensurately.
You're right when you say it's like being a drummer. You should and can only do it if you would do it for free. If you feel the need to make boatloads of money off of it, I don't want you taking pictures at my wedding.
The problem is that that is all "micro" not "nano".
The awfull truth of the matter is that there is NO nanotechnology in use or realistically close to use right now outside of catalysts and better paints.
It is very popular now (especially in Japan... where this all started) to claim anything cool is nanotechnology. These wire meshes we're talking about here are many orders of magnitude smaller than your millermeter screen. It would be like saying we don't need skyscrapers, we already have two story houses.
Now the Nanoletters article which is referenced is also a good deal of hype... ok, all hype.
None of us (I'm in this field too) know what is going to happen or where it's going to be useful. If we already knew, we wouldn't be doing research, we'd be in production.
There is already a "standard" way to move nanowires from a substrate to glass or plastic.
This may be difficult for some of you to believe, but the standard technique is to use scotch tape. It's quite amazing, but you can pick up an array of wires on scotch tape (a similar array to that in the article). Then you simpliy place the tape wherever you want your wires and dissolve it away.
Of course you're still left with the same problem as on the substrate which is that no one understands how or why these arrays do whatever they may do (which is generally NOT reproducible). Everyone has been shouting molecular electronics for so long that they havn't stopped to actually check that it IS molecular electronics. A timely article in Science last month basicaly served as a retraction for the last 5 years of research in this field.
It's fine for them to report that they found a new way to move nanowires onto glass or plastic, but the days of saying these types of networks are only a few years away from market are over.
The main problem is the lack of a common view between both types of people. Scientests tend to be able to plan for the future much better than politicians. We don't care as much about what happens next year, or next election cycle, as we do 50 years from now.
The problem is, really planning ahead will not get you re-elected, and in the political world it takes more than one term to really learn how the game works.
Most geeks who find their way into government will end up being advisors and sitting on commitees where long term thinking is appreciated, and the pressure to perform this minute is reduced.
The whole fallacy with your argument is in thinking that politics is about problem solving. It's not. Politics is about getting re-elected, first and foremost. Geeks in general (I didn't say all of us) lack the abilities and desire to perform that type of job.
Re:Stephenson == very educated avantgardistic writ
on
Quicksilver
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· Score: 1
Actually, the problem I always find with him is that literary people don't recognise him as a science fiction author.
It's the same thing that happened to Douglas Adams after he died. You go looking for his book in the "Science Fiction" section and find it in the "Literature" section. As anyone who knows anything at a book store or library about this, and their response is that he is too good a writer to be in the science fiction section.
"Go gold" refers to the production of a master CD of the program from which all other versions are copied. The master CD is usually gold foil (instead of the normal aluminum).
They claim that carbon nanotube fibres don't exist because they don't. The best example is from the group in Texas, where they have strengthened a polymer with nanotubes. Very, very cool, but not quite what we're looking for yet. The inter-molecular forces between the nanotubes in a bundle like that are not as great as the inter-atomic forces within the nanotube.
My job right now is to grow nanotubes, and if I'm really good I can get some that are millimeters long. We have a long way to go yet. On the other hand there are a LOT of really crazy things we can do with nanotubes that I assure you no one has thought of before. We're pretty far from Diamond Age yet, and the implications of what's being worked on now are unclear. Remember, no one has yet made a commercial device with a nanotube. The theory on why they act the way they do is a decade old, and probably wrong. We have to figure out what we have before we know what's possible.
Thus you have shown why the space program is failing.
There are many, many smart, capable people out there who would be willing and able to make this happen. Think of all the physics departments out there, and the legions of graduate students and post docs who would work on this. Not all of us are government contractors, or so full of ourselves that we think if we can't do it no one can.
Now, I agree it would cost more money than they're probably willing to spend, but to say it's laughable is just wrong. That's the kind of attitude which has turned NASA from the best of American science into the depressing place it is today.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a simple solution for that:
money
In science, we have to choose what research projects get funding. Someone is going to be rejected, we can't let everyone do what they want... unless we have a whole lot more funding.
For example, if we had more telescopes, then people wouldn't have to argue over who gets to use them.
In this case, the header was very misleading. They used the National Science Foundation's (a US government agency) Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile and were given funding from NASA!
My dad used to drink an obscene amount of coffee (black, no sugar). He would go through numerous pots a day. He still managed to get type two diabetes. His doctors think it was related to high stress, his high blood pressure, and of course, being overwieght.
He has since cut out caffine, trimmed down, relaxed, and his blood sugar is very stable.
There are side effects of caffine, such as anxiety which could easily encourage diabetes.
Speaking as a physicist, I can assure you that there is no vast right wing conspiracy among the astronomers to prop up Bush and Cheney (unless they promise to really increase funding). You do bring up a very good point about the astonomers and their measurements though.
Yes, we have done those calculations, and it doesn't matter if the atmosphere or the ground absorbs light. What matters is how much light the atmosphere reflects, which is the issue here. Generally the atmosphere is transparent, but when clouds form, it is largely reflective. If there are more clouds, there is less light absorbed by the earth.
As far as I'm concerned, global cooling never went out of vogue. When I teach astronomy, and we get to the section on the earth's atmosphere, I always point out that the last ice age started when CO2 levels were much higher than they are now. Also, this idea of dust (most is probably due to agriculture) reflecting sunlight is in most basic astronomy books. The main point is that we can't be sure what's going to happen, but's it's probably a good idea to try and keep things the way they were.
As for the using of equipment. I have met quite a few scientests and engineers who have no idea what they're doing (for the love of God, don't take flash pictures in a dark room!), but I'd like to think that even the most inept scientest could measure the temperature of a black piece of metal.
You forgot some key things:
You get to work ALL the time!
No family for you, in fact, people will be trying to turn your family against you with allegations of everything from infidelity to drug use. If you're not a problem to society, your son/wife/cousin will be soon.
Take out loans!
That's right, it costs money to run, and sometimes, you just don't have the pork to back it up, so sell your house, take out huge loans and tell your kids they can't go to college.
Forget your ideals!
Forget whatever you may believe, it's time to tow the party line. You don't want to be on the wrong side of the issue. If you're playing a Republican, you'd better not reach out to minorities, the Democrats will call it fake anyway. If you're playing a Democrat, you'd better not try and act responsable, the Republicans will just make something up if you don't give them something to work with.
By the way, my dad was a politician, and above are the reasons he got out. It's not all fun and games, there's a lot of reality they could expose with a game like this.
the ENTIRE computer industry is having a hell of a time getting this technology working, and Sony is already marketing it?
Intel has said it will be able to start making 65 nanometer transistors commercially IN 2005, and most people in industry think they're nuts.
Personally, I think they should skip down to around 5 or 10 and just go with diffuse E-beam lithography.
This whole Cell chip thing is all hype, they're going to do what they usually do and downgrade the specs at the last minute very, very quietly.
This is actually what we've been looking for.
A way to self-assemble nanotubes into ropes which can be used macroscopically. Whether or not it's strong enough to use in a space elevator remains to be seen, but we can actually talk about trying that now!
The nanotubes which were used here are electronics grade tubes, that means that most likely they were single or double walled (single walled being the strongest possible), and had a very low defect density. This is obviously important to the mechanical strength.
I work in a nanotechnology lab, and part of my job is to grow nanotubes. They naturally come in ropes which are around 1 to 10 nanometers in diameter and a few microns to a centimeter in length. The tubes are held together in solution due to van der Waals forces (basically friction) which are absurdly high for nanotubes. We've been separating tubes from eachother in solution from years, but efforts to re-align them have focused on the air-water interface. All they have done is found a solution which will solvate more tubes, to the point that the tubes have no room to run "against the grain" and so become aligned. This is done all the time with polymers. In retrospect it seems obvious and easy (it wasn't).
I remember a week ago Smalley was being bashed here about his conflicting views with Drexler on the future of nanotechnology and molecular assemblers (versus self-assembly). If you'll notice, Smalley is on this paper. This is why he has a Nobel prize, and why he disagrees with Drexler, self-assembled nanotechnology is already here, and it's only going to get better.
Upon reflection, my "deathist" attitude, as you put it, does seem pretty depressing. I think it comes from a combination of things.
I started off in science in the fusion industry and the history there is pretty oppressive. That, in addition to the slow day to day progress is probably what causes it. It's hard to think of asssemblers when today I have to re-wire some basic electronics. It seems like everyone is talking about assemblers but the people who are working on nanotechnology.
This whole discussion has made me go back and look at what got me into nanotechnology. It was actually Drexler's book. Most of what Drexler says about nanoelectronics would lead people to believe that what I'm doing is impossible, and that was only ten years ago.
Maybe I just needed to be reminded why I started doing this again (thanks), but I think I agree with you now. Who knows what will happen even 10 years from now, let alone 70 to 100.
I still disagree with the methods Drexler proposes, but that's a different issue.
The main reason I downplay the assembler idea is that I don't want nanotechnology to become the next space program. That is, I don't want to have big expectations put on us so quickly, that when we can't deliver, we're tossed aside.
The reasons you're excited about the future are the same reasons I went into physics. I love science fiction, and I'd love to see all the cool things people think are possible. There is so much that nanotechnology can offer that is NOT assemblers, I want to see that stuff too.
I have to say, I was very dissapointed when I started doing nanotech research and realized that no one was working on assemblers. After a little while it made sense. Drexler compares us to the atomic scientests of the 30's, where I would compare us to the solid state scientests of the 40's. We're still looking for our transistor, and even after we find it, it's going to take a while to turn it into something usefull.
After reading your website, I see your points about directing research in usefull directions. The problem from an experimentalists point of view is that the most exciting and most profitable results often are a surprise (the laser, and the scanning probe microscope are good examples). What makes this exciting is the possibility of getting something absolutely unexpected and amazing.
Another way of looking at it, is that we're not yet to the point in the technology tree that we can look at assemblers as a possibility. We still have to get through basic nanotech, and probably a good deal of genetics, to get there. Right now, no one knows how long it could take. It could be 10 years, but it could also be 200 (look how long fusion is taking).
I don't have any problem with anything you say, except to imply that I'm old. After reading your website, I'm actually six months younger than you are!
You've got it backwords.
In the nanotech field, Drexler is seen as someone who is good with the media and the government, and occasionally says the right thing. Smalley is one of our gods.
The rest of the world might see it differently, but that Nobel counts a hell of a lot to us.
By the way, you do misunderstand chemisty. Chemical reactions are definitely, definitely NOT do to "random mechanical interactions." I think a score of physical chemists have just keeled over in shock!
Sure, I agree. I think it's absolutely possible. The problem is that we're still working out the basics, and we can't ASSUME that it will just all come together. The experimental side of this will always lag the theoretical side, but we can't let the theory go too far without some sort of verification. We've already had it happen where a theory (molecular computing) went too far too fast, and led many people astray, only to be shown to not exist experimentally in the way the theorists predicted (see last October's Science for a summary). Again, that doesn't mean it can't be done, it just means you have to pay attention to the physical reality, and not get too excited by predictions.
What we have here are two different worlds colliding. Drexler is coming at this from the point of view of a theoretical physicist, while Smalley is an experimental chemist.
Drexler has found certain theoretical processes which would lead to molecular assemblers. The key problem comes from his assumption of complete control over the atoms. Despite his assurances to the contrary, you still have one big fat sticky finger which you've attached your strained structure to. He simply sees that it is possible (of course, if you read his books, there is a glaring lack of chemical calculations).
Experimentally (I'm a bit biased here, I'm an experimentalist) this is a bunch of crap. No one is anywhere close to doing anything like this. First we need to show experimentally that his idea of creating stressed structures and twisting them apart will work, and no one can touch that right now. How do you create the strained structures? In addition, this would have to be done in vacuum to keep interactions with the environment at a minimum. It would also have to be done at cryogenic temperatures to keep the atoms from vibrating out of place (remember we're relying on two unstable structures). This leads to an expensive and difficult proposal.
There are a few groups (I know of Wilson Ho's group at UCI - great pictures by the way) which are working on joining one atom with another. It's done under extreme conditions inside a scanning tunnelling microscope, and it's VERY hard. They don't do any twisting, they do the sensible thing and use applied voltages to excite and bind atoms.
Quite frankly, Feynman and Drexler have been major impediments to experimental nanotechnology for a long time now. There are plenty of interesting, self-assembled structures out there that can do some amazing things which are not related to the assembler idea. There are plenty of good research groups which are dismissed funding in favor of groups which are flailing around in the dark.
The first thing you learn about nanotechnology is that any intuition about the macroscopic world doesn't carry over. Trying to fit our notions of the rest of the world into the nano-scale world is foolish and wrong. Those strait lines between atoms in a molecule are not always strait.
Before we try to use nanotechnology to shape the future we need to understand it. Drexler gives the impression that we already do, and that it's time now to move foward, but no one knows how yet; we just don't understand.
I think it would be wrong of us to say that molecular assembles are impossible. Personally, I think it is possible, and that's why I do this. But to say that they are "close" or to give ANY prediction of when we will see them is just silly. After saying that, let me say something silly and say that although I hope to see nanotechnology come of age in my life, I don't expect to.
That's a big deal which is still unresolved in physics.
There is the classic debate between Bohr and Einstein in which Einstein argues that quamtum mechanics doesn't obey local causaulity, and Bohr responds by saying that reality doesn't exist on that scale anyway.
The issue has basically stayed there philosophically while experimentally we've moved foward as if there was a physical quantum world, which disobeys all sorts of other things and by and large ignored the philosophical consequences.
For example, if you ever take electromagnetism, ask your professor how much electrical energy is stored in an electron.
Those are the kind of questions that keep us physicists awake at night.
Oddly enough, you forgot to mention Japanese liscensing fees. It just so happens that it is to Japanese companies that one must pay DVD liscensing to, not American nor European.
It's nice that you've kept up with science so well that you're able to write off all of these projects.
In science, we like our results to be reproducable. In the past ten years there have been elements and atomic transistors "discovered", only to have a similar lab show that the results were not right. We need to have two differently set up experiments to verify things. Personally, I think particle physics is going in the wrong direction, but at least I can understand why they want an experiment running.
By the way, this is why we're agreeing to fund the European/Japanese fusion reactor (we already have two large fusion reactors in the US).
I really have to take offense at your last statement. Much of the software produced by these projects is open source. Too often programmers forget that their roots are in physics, where we still write our own drivers, create our own interfaces, and use programming to simulate the universe.
You're arguing apples and oranges.
Physics does not care what we define as output, or information.
If you have one output, and one "energy sink" which would store the energy (as the parent says the real catch is to do that without changing it at all), you essentially have two outputs. In essense, the question is, what do you do with your outputs, put it to use, or let it go?
As you point out, the engineering of such logic devices might be a bit difficult.
I disagree.
There are pressures to perform in any job, and simply saying that screwing up will cost you money is no reason to charge as much as is charged. If I screw up in my job, the building I work in may end up with a large smoking hole in the side, yet I don't get paid a third of the money they claim a wedding photographer gets.
I actually have been wowed flipping through the pages of a wedding album from some newlywed friends of mine, and the pictures were taken by what I would call a "cheap" wedding photographer. This was someone who does it as a hobby, and charges commensurately.
You're right when you say it's like being a drummer. You should and can only do it if you would do it for free. If you feel the need to make boatloads of money off of it, I don't want you taking pictures at my wedding.
Wow, a well written comment on nanotechnology on Slashdot? I am amazed.
I thank you sir. My collegues thank you.
There is entirely too much BS in this field.
The problem is that that is all "micro" not "nano".
The awfull truth of the matter is that there is NO nanotechnology in use or realistically close to use right now outside of catalysts and better paints.
It is very popular now (especially in Japan... where this all started) to claim anything cool is nanotechnology. These wire meshes we're talking about here are many orders of magnitude smaller than your millermeter screen. It would be like saying we don't need skyscrapers, we already have two story houses.
Now the Nanoletters article which is referenced is also a good deal of hype... ok, all hype.
None of us (I'm in this field too) know what is going to happen or where it's going to be useful. If we already knew, we wouldn't be doing research, we'd be in production.
There is already a "standard" way to move nanowires from a substrate to glass or plastic.
This may be difficult for some of you to believe, but the standard technique is to use scotch tape. It's quite amazing, but you can pick up an array of wires on scotch tape (a similar array to that in the article). Then you simpliy place the tape wherever you want your wires and dissolve it away.
Of course you're still left with the same problem as on the substrate which is that no one understands how or why these arrays do whatever they may do (which is generally NOT reproducible). Everyone has been shouting molecular electronics for so long that they havn't stopped to actually check that it IS molecular electronics. A timely article in Science last month basicaly served as a retraction for the last 5 years of research in this field.
It's fine for them to report that they found a new way to move nanowires onto glass or plastic, but the days of saying these types of networks are only a few years away from market are over.
My dad was a politician, and I'm a scientest.
The main problem is the lack of a common view between both types of people. Scientests tend to be able to plan for the future much better than politicians. We don't care as much about what happens next year, or next election cycle, as we do 50 years from now.
The problem is, really planning ahead will not get you re-elected, and in the political world it takes more than one term to really learn how the game works.
Most geeks who find their way into government will end up being advisors and sitting on commitees where long term thinking is appreciated, and the pressure to perform this minute is reduced.
The whole fallacy with your argument is in thinking that politics is about problem solving. It's not. Politics is about getting re-elected, first and foremost. Geeks in general (I didn't say all of us) lack the abilities and desire to perform that type of job.
Actually, the problem I always find with him is that literary people don't recognise him as a science fiction author.
It's the same thing that happened to Douglas Adams after he died. You go looking for his book in the "Science Fiction" section and find it in the "Literature" section. As anyone who knows anything at a book store or library about this, and their response is that he is too good a writer to be in the science fiction section.
"Go gold" refers to the production of a master CD of the program from which all other versions are copied. The master CD is usually gold foil (instead of the normal aluminum).
They claim that carbon nanotube fibres don't exist because they don't. The best example is from the group in Texas, where they have strengthened a polymer with nanotubes. Very, very cool, but not quite what we're looking for yet. The inter-molecular forces between the nanotubes in a bundle like that are not as great as the inter-atomic forces within the nanotube.
My job right now is to grow nanotubes, and if I'm really good I can get some that are millimeters long. We have a long way to go yet. On the other hand there are a LOT of really crazy things we can do with nanotubes that I assure you no one has thought of before. We're pretty far from Diamond Age yet, and the implications of what's being worked on now are unclear. Remember, no one has yet made a commercial device with a nanotube. The theory on why they act the way they do is a decade old, and probably wrong. We have to figure out what we have before we know what's possible.
Thus you have shown why the space program is failing.
There are many, many smart, capable people out there who would be willing and able to make this happen. Think of all the physics departments out there, and the legions of graduate students and post docs who would work on this. Not all of us are government contractors, or so full of ourselves that we think if we can't do it no one can.
Now, I agree it would cost more money than they're probably willing to spend, but to say it's laughable is just wrong. That's the kind of attitude which has turned NASA from the best of American science into the depressing place it is today.
We don't let people come here and work?
That's absurd.