From: Chris Phoenix <cphoenix@...>
Subject: Re: [CRNtalk] Nanotech, Cutlery, Armor.
To: CRNtalk@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, December 17, 2009, 10:54 AM

Erin... I'm not aware of any work on using electrical fields this way. A lot of science fiction uses common-sounding science terms, like "electrical field," but if you look closely there's no substance. 

Also, monomolecular wires aren't strong enough to cut stuff at human scale. Even if they're strong for their diameter (being monomolecular doesn't necessarily make them stronger) they are not strong compared with an ordinary 100-micron metal wire. When you try to cut something with a wire, you're trying to break the object along a long distance of the wire, thus requiring a lot of force to do the simultaneous damage. The thinness of the wire only helps a little. So a monomolecular wire might be great for slicing bacteria, but will not work for slicing people.

By asking questions drawn from science fiction, you are asking people to do a lot of work for you. First, sorting through the questions to figure out which concepts need to be argued with. Then, doing the math to see what works and what doesn't, and why it doesn't. Then, explaining it in terms a non-scientist can understand.

If you stick to explanations from scientists, you can put them in language that makes sense to non-scientists. That is a good thing. But if you do the same thing with science fiction, then you are spreading misinformation. Seeing that you're an effective communicator, I worry that others will take your science fiction ideas as accurate, without being able to separate them from your science ideas. So I hope you will separate them, and not talk about science fiction ideas as though they are real. The vast majority of them are not. And, they're not in subtle ways. To explain everything that's wrong with the variable sword would take me several hours. I'd much rather you simply didn't present it as an example at all.

Chris

On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 6:52 AM, Erin Casson <solidstatefusion@...> wrote:

 

Here is another possibility. In Larry Niven's science fiction books there is an ancient alien race that made what he calls a "Variable Sword". This is a broomhandle shaped grip that has a spool of ultrafine strong wire or fiber within it. When activated, the wire expands/telescopes outward, and has a ball at the end. An electrical field generated from a battery within surrounds the wire, making a light-saber like device, without needing esoteric physics to explain it. The resulting monomolecular wire can cut through nearly anything except for a similiar structure.   Could molecular nanotech make such a thing possible?   One of my concerns is for our troops out there in the field. Kevlar and other materials are good, but, they have their limits, especially when it comes to protection from the improvised explosive devices, IED's, favored by terrorists. There is an armor called Dragon Skin, which is composed of layers of silicon carbide ceramic connected together, but, what are some methods that early and more advanced nanotech can be used to protect the soldiers and others?   Perhaps some type of aerogel combined with layers of nanofibers that absorb the explosive shock and dissipate the intense heat of the IED?

--
Chris Phoenix
cphoenix@...
650-776-5195

Executive Coach
Director of Research, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, http://CRNano.org

From: Chris Phoenix <cphoenix@...>
Subject: Re: [CRNtalk] Knives and Nanotechnology
To: CRNtalk@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, December 16, 2009, 4:23 PM

To me, this seems like a strange question. It seems obvious that nanotech will be able to improve knives quite a lot. Beyond that, you have to get into questions of product design.

A throwing knife has to be heavy.

A cutlery knife has to be easy to clean.

For some jobs, no knife can beat a deli meat slicer.

For weapons, knives may become obsolete (though they haven't yet, despite guns) and may have to contend with presently-unknown new types of armor.

Specify the question better; divide it into at least four sub-problems that can be answered with numbers, such as hydrophobicity of surfaces, wear rate of the cutting edge, materials to be cut... 

"How can I make a better knife with nanotech" is like "How can I make a better stuffed animal with nanotech." But "How can nanotech contribute to food safety by making surfaces - including knife blades and edges - that are easy to clean" is an interesting question.

Chris

On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 7:00 AM, Erin Casson <solidstatefusion@...> wrote:

 

I would like you all to give your views on how nanotechnology can be used to improve cutlery and knives. Obviously one place would be diamondoid blades that can cut better than steel, are harder and also tough, ie, not brittle.How about a fullerene knife blade?

--
Chris Phoenix
cphoenix@...
650-776-5195

Executive Coach
Director of Research, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, http://CRNano.org

From: Chris Phoenix <cphoenix@...>
Subject: Re: [CRNtalk] Answering a Skeptic
To: CRNtalk@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, December 15, 2009, 4:38 PM

I like your writing. You've boiled down the various ideas into really simple straightforward phrasing.

A couple of suggestions: Some might argue that stars are not make out of atoms - they are plasma, which is atom soup with pieces knocked off.

Your sentence about carrots and steaks might be read to imply that a single nanofactory could make those as well as diamondoid. Bio-stuff is actually going to be quite hard to make. At least if it has to contain actual viable cells (a carrot top will keep growing if you put it in a dish of water). Food will probably be made with artificial and simple micro-structures to give it approximately the correct texture, and a small subset of the thousands of bio-molecules to give it approximately the correct taste and nutrient value. I don't even know if it will be made with an atom-by-atom nanofactory, or with a series of "lab on a chip" bulk-chemical plants that feed into a microtech food-shaper. Gaah. The good news is that nanomedicine should help us understand what molecules we need to supply - but I suspect it'd be a while before one could be fully healthy on a diet of pure nano-food.

Chris

On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 8:30 PM, Erin Casson <solidstatefusion@...> wrote:

 

Good points, Chris. Yes, the original discussion had to do with a "General Purpose Nano Factory". I assume based on various designs that a more limited assembly system, say able to only assemble stiff hydrocarbons, or sapphire structures, would be easier to design and build.   Nano Factories and Society By Erin Casson     All matter is made from atoms (molecules are clumps of atoms), from the cells of our bodies to the gasses of the stars and the steel crystals of our structural beams. Ever since man began his journey, people have manipulated atoms in  large thundering herds, smashing stones together to form cutting tools, melting metals and carving wood. We advanced to new materials like polymers and ceramics and high tech alloys, but the core principles are still the same. The new technology, molecular nano technology, will change all of that.   The nano factory is a system (there can be many forms of it) that essentially takes in atoms and rearranges them with atomic precision (atom by atom molecule by molecule, all molecules in known positions) under human control to form a desired material or product. Because all materials are made from atoms, any chemically-stable structure, ultimately, can be made, from steaks and carrots to diamonds and cars, and everything in between.   This technology is already here in embryonic form, and is advancing rapidly. Week by week, month by month, and year by year, we can look at various science news websites and periodicals and see the technology of molecular manufacturing fast approaching. The question is, can we harness the benefits while lessening the downsides and dangers?   A nanofactory would be powered by solar electric or chemical energy, and would work in some ways like a printer, but a three dimensional printer able to print out solid objects. The computer blueprint will have the positions of the molecules programmed into it, and the molecular assembly devices within will rearrange the atoms such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, boron, iron, silicon, and aluminum, into the desired product.   Because one nanofactory can be programmed to make another nanofactory, identical to itself, this technology is SELF REPLICATING. Why are potatoes so cheap and cars so expensive? Potatoes are more complex and intricate than cars, they have thousands of different genes. But potatoes reproduce, replicate, when provided with the right enviroment and energy, cars do not. If cars could replicate or the car factories could replicate, cars too would be dirt cheap.       --- On Sat, 12/12/09, Chris Phoenix <cphoenix@...> wrote: From: Chris Phoenix <cphoenix@...> Subject: Re: [CRNtalk] Answering a Skeptic To: CRNtalk@yahoogroups.com Date: Saturday, December 12, 2009, 10:34 PM These are good questions. First, the proposals do require supplying the needed chemical elements - no atom smashing. Plastic and food and plants have mostly the same elements, but you couldn't turn rocks into food. Second, the feedstock supply might be prepared by traditional, reasonably efficient chemical processes, and only need nanotech for the final purification steps, which would not require much power. Third, the mechanochemical synthetic operations can be reasonably efficient (on the order of combustion energy) even for robot arm systems with careful design, and somewhat more efficient for mill-style systems. Fourth, it is true that we can't afford nearly one CPU cycle per atom. But with modular design, computations can be re-used a lot. Bottom line: These are good questions and reasonable concerns - and they have been thought of and (at least conceptually) solved - and the solutions are pretty simple to outline, and need to be studied in detail, but don't appear brittle to me. A lot of info on them can be found scattered through my Primitive Nanofactory paper. Chris On Dec 12, 2009 8:27 AM, "solidstatefusion" <solidstatefusion@...> wrote:   How would you all answer this skeptic on nanotechnology?> "Thanks for your article. I haven't read too much on the subject, but one of the obstacles I see to making this a practical reality is the energy it would take to make things. I would imagine that is why solar is one of the prefered choices. That said, you would need an enormous amount of stored solar energy to make even a small object. Here are some of the reasons I see for this. When we manufacture something, let's say a watch to keep things small, you first need the correct amounts of raw materials...various metals, glass, perhaps plastics or silicon if it has a computer chip in it. In a tradtional factory, you simply fashion the raw materials into the parts you need (often made in several other factories dealing with different raw materials) and then assemble them according to the design spec for that watch. With nano tech, you will still need the same raw materials in molecular rather than atomic form. The reason is that the raw materials just would likely not be as abundant in nature in a pure state as you would need. Every metal has to be refined to make it as pure as possible before it can be used. This means you now need the energy to decompose molecules into their respective atoms and separate them into their own storage containers. The molecular decomposition is probably were chemical eneregy comes in. The problem now is that you introduce danger during what I'll call the "un-manufacturing" process due to the unstable nature of many elements and the use of the chemicals needed to achieve this. Once you have your elements separated, you now need to supply the energy to run the machine that will inject the correct amounts of each to fashion the molecules and compounds containing mixtures of molecules (basically getting back to your original raw materials), and assemble them correctly. I think that the computer processing required for this would be far greater than we currently have available as well. I could just imagine Google's entire server farm of several thousand networked computers being needed to make that one watch over a period of several hours or even several days. It can take a full day to render a 2-hour video from the raw source on my Mac Pro running a 2.93 GHz quad-core processor and 8 GB of RAM. Now let's take a step backward and consider what it would take if you could use "anything" to make something with nano tech. We'll put in my old running shoes and get out a steaming cup of hot chocolate. You have just dramatically increased the energy, size of machine, and time/processing as well as danger involved. Now you are no longer talking about breaking apart molecules into atoms and reforming them, but now you have to change non-edible plastics and rubbers into edible water and chocolate. You are going subatomic now and removing or adding electrons. Forget about unstable elements...now we have a potential nuclear explosion on our hands. It would take tremendous energy to break away an electron from the atom. Then you have the stray electron floating around causing a release of nuclear energy. Keep in mind that for every electron you strip away from an atom, you need to take away a proton in most cases to maintain a stable atom. If that weren't impossible enough, try taking loose electrons and protons (which shouldn't exist on their own) and cramming them into an atom to form a heavier element. You are looking at a recipe for atom smashing, aka a nuclear reactor, no matter how you look at it. I don't believe that nano tech in the form of 3D printers will be able to give Captain Pickard his cup of hot chocolate on the USS Enterprise, but it may be most practical in the form of nano machines in the medical field, for example, to eliminate a virus from the body or repair a damaged blood vessel, dissolve a blood clot, repair damaged cartilage in a knee, etc. Of course there are many dangers to this as well. Many disseases could be cured, but new ones could be created either unintentionally or intentionally for terrorist means. For many medical conditions, nano tech will never be able to do better than what the human body can already do through adult stem cell treatments. Just imagine getting an injection of nano machines meant to dissolve a blood clot, but instead you react differently to it and end up with anemia or worse like internally bleeding to death. "

--
Chris Phoenix
cphoenix@...
650-776-5195

Executive Coach
Director of Research, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, http://CRNano.org

From: Chris Phoenix <cphoenix@...>
Subject: Re: [CRNtalk] Answering a Skeptic
To: CRNtalk@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, December 12, 2009, 10:34 PM

These are good questions. First, the proposals do require supplying the needed chemical elements - no atom smashing. Plastic and food and plants have mostly the same elements, but you couldn't turn rocks into food.

Second, the feedstock supply might be prepared by traditional, reasonably efficient chemical processes, and only need nanotech for the final purification steps, which would not require much power.

Third, the mechanochemical synthetic operations can be reasonably efficient (on the order of combustion energy) even for robot arm systems with careful design, and somewhat more efficient for mill-style systems.

Fourth, it is true that we can't afford nearly one CPU cycle per atom. But with modular design, computations can be re-used a lot.

Bottom line: These are good questions and reasonable concerns - and they have been thought of and (at least conceptually) solved - and the solutions are pretty simple to outline, and need to be studied in detail, but don't appear brittle to me. A lot of info on them can be found scattered through my Primitive Nanofactory paper.

Chris

On Dec 12, 2009 8:27 AM, "solidstatefusion" <solidstatefusion@...> wrote:

 

How would you all answer this skeptic on nanotechnology?>

"Thanks for your article. I haven't read too much on the subject, but one of the obstacles I see to making this a practical reality is the energy it would take to make things. I would imagine that is why solar is one of the prefered choices. That said, you would need an enormous amount of stored solar energy to make even a small object. Here are some of the reasons I see for this.

When we manufacture something, let's say a watch to keep things small, you first need the correct amounts of raw materials...various metals, glass, perhaps plastics or silicon if it has a computer chip in it. In a tradtional factory, you simply fashion the raw materials into the parts you need (often made in several other factories dealing with different raw materials) and then assemble them according to the design spec for that watch.

With nano tech, you will still need the same raw materials in molecular rather than atomic form. The reason is that the raw materials just would likely not be as abundant in nature in a pure state as you would need. Every metal has to be refined to make it as pure as possible before it can be used. This means you now need the energy to decompose molecules into their respective atoms and separate them into their own storage containers. The molecular decomposition is probably were chemical eneregy comes in. The problem now is that you introduce danger during what I'll call the "un-manufacturing" process due to the unstable nature of many elements and the use of the chemicals needed to achieve this.

Once you have your elements separated, you now need to supply the energy to run the machine that will inject the correct amounts of each to fashion the molecules and compounds containing mixtures of molecules (basically getting back to your original raw materials), and assemble them correctly.

I think that the computer processing required for this would be far greater than we currently have available as well. I could just imagine Google's entire server farm of several thousand networked computers being needed to make that one watch over a period of several hours or even several days. It can take a full day to render a 2-hour video from the raw source on my Mac Pro running a 2.93 GHz quad-core processor and 8 GB of RAM.

Now let's take a step backward and consider what it would take if you could use "anything" to make something with nano tech. We'll put in my old running shoes and get out a steaming cup of hot chocolate. You have just dramatically increased the energy, size of machine, and time/processing as well as danger involved. Now you are no longer talking about breaking apart molecules into atoms and reforming them, but now you have to change non-edible plastics and rubbers into edible water and chocolate. You are going subatomic now and removing or adding electrons. Forget about unstable elements...now we have a potential nuclear explosion on our hands. It would take tremendous energy to break away an electron from the atom. Then you have the stray electron floating around causing a release of nuclear energy. Keep in mind that for every electron you strip away from an atom, you need to take away a proton in most cases to maintain a stable atom. If that weren't impossible enough, try taking loose electrons and protons (which shouldn't exist on their own) and cramming them into an atom to form a heavier element. You are looking at a recipe for atom smashing, aka a nuclear reactor, no matter how you look at it.

I don't believe that nano tech in the form of 3D printers will be able to give Captain Pickard his cup of hot chocolate on the USS Enterprise, but it may be most practical in the form of nano machines in the medical field, for example, to eliminate a virus from the body or repair a damaged blood vessel, dissolve a blood clot, repair damaged cartilage in a knee, etc. Of course there are many dangers to this as well. Many disseases could be cured, but new ones could be created either unintentionally or intentionally for terrorist means. For many medical conditions, nano tech will never be able to do better than what the human body can already do through adult stem cell treatments. Just imagine getting an injection of nano machines meant to dissolve a blood clot, but instead you react differently to it and end up with anemia or worse like internally bleeding to death.
"