Nanotechnology and the future of knives and more

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Hello everyone. I am sure some of you know of the new field called Molecular Nanotechnology or molecular manufacturing. A good overview can be found at http://www.molecularassembler.com

I would like to get a discussion going here with anyone who is interested in this and how it will bring new developments in knife making and knife use, and other areas of life.

The basic premise is that all matter is made of atoms and clumps of atoms called molecules, and living things like bacteria and cells, DNA and proteins are made up of atoms and are molecular machines. Thus we can also make manmade programmable molecular machines.

From this we can get the idea that we can make molecular assembler and replicator devices that would allow humans to build solid materials and machines with control over the atoms and molecules.

This means everything from personal home factories that can make more of themselves to machines that can clean the arteries of plaque and destroy all harmful diseases, pathogens, viruses, and cancers, to full blown regenerating cell tissues and enhancing the human body form.

Regarding knives and cutting tools, it will mean we get the "holy grail" of knives: rustproof, super strong, super hard, self-repairing, self-maintaining knives that can expand and telescope from tiny to massive, and which can cut through nearly anything, without hype and deception, for better or for worse.

I would also like everyone's ideas on how nanotech will effect everyday life, the economy of the world, and human social interactions. Please, share your thoughts and dreams on this.

One question I have: What happens when everyone on the Earth has his or her own personal nano replicator able to download the blue prints to make solid objects, within the physical limits of matter, energy, and information (ie, all machines ofcourse have to obey the laws of thermodynamics and information)? Do we get a society where people are more laid back and respectful because noone has the constant pressures of having to work to survive, or, do we get a society of anarchistic free for all, or totalitarian fascism, or a mix of them all?

[Pinetreebbs]

Copy rights and patents are going to be even more critical.

Viruses will materialize.

As always, some people will seek power over others.

Oh, disease will be eliminated and proctology will become a felony. :D

[SolidState]

I don't think you have to worry about that happening before we kill ourselves off as a species. I would say that I am an expert in this field, as I have a PhD in nanochemistry and a few patents in the field you're talking about. Not only are we too dumb as a species, but we're also not spending any REAL money on solving these problems.

To put it in perspective, we are close to self-sharpening knives. That will be cool. We can also achieve atomic sharpness in a couple ways with non-rusting materials. That's neat. Nanoreplicators aren't going to happen, unless you consider ALD, CVD and PVD assembly lines to be nanoreplicators, in which case we have them already. If you knew what an atom beam for gallium alone requires, you would see the joke in this. Also, the variability of required elements for something like that to occur is not something people will be able to keep in a home. It just isn't. It is fun to think about that, but without controlled, spacially-defined conversion of nuclear-bomb-level energy into matter, what you're talking about is going to stay science fiction.

People in science do all kinds of buzz building to gain funding. While the funding often results in really cool inventions, many of the press releases are not written by the scientists and do not reflect much of the reality of the field. Often the blind describe the science to the blind causing all kinds of misconceptions.

[O,just,O]

We currently cruize the ocean of space on good ol mothership earth. The chimpanzees were given spanners & are set free in the engine rooms, the baboons roam the decks & now you want to put humans at the helm ?
O.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

I appreciate your take on this but I would like to point something out. What about the advances we see such as in areas such as Dip Pen nano lithography, DNA nanomachines, protein engineering, and the rest? Wouldn't those be a way to bootstrap us into synthetic molecular assemblers?

Let's say we cannot build a "universal, general purpose" replicator that can make anything from food to clothes, but rather, a limited one that can only work with one or a few types of atoms, such as stiff hydrocarbons, so it can assemble nearly unlimited quantities of atomic-precision, shatter-proof diamond composite and graphene/fullerene materials? Like a "Graphene Only Replicator". That would not have the same impact as a general purpose machine but it would definitely have alot of technological and economic and cultural impact, agreed?

Wow. Imagine shatterproof diamondoid versions of all the current Spyderco models. An Endura with a blade made of such stuff, for example.

[kbuzbee]

My God, man! Drilling holes in his head isn't the answer! - McCoy

[KardinalSyn]

I too am a fan I Generator Rex.

[monsterdog]

Anyone interested in this subject should read Engines of Creation by K. Eric Drexler.

You can read both the old version and new version online.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Thank you. Those are both excellent books on nanotechnology.

I would also suggest Unbounding the Future which Drexler co-authored, and, "Nano Future" by Dr. Josh Hall.

[tonydahose]

You guys are on higher playing field than me, I run into burning buildings and break stuff for fun. I will buy one of those new fangled enduras when they come out though.

[uncleduncle]

I'm more intrigued by the idea of nano-batteries and quantum computing. I was watching a series where Michio Kaku was explaining the potential reality of a lightsaber which would be amazing in a pocket knife scale. But the simple idea of the nano-batteries is amazing on it's own for the shear power they could provide.

Kaku also brought up the idea of atomic replicators and how many great societies fell because of lack of resources, where a replicator would be able to solve this issue in a sense.

I'm sure if we could manifest any physical object we desire, we still can't achieve the emotional satisfaction of life without continuing to be a productive species.

[enduraguy]

It is indeed a fascinating subject and I'll argue that if you actually keep up with science related news, there is in fact, "real money" being spent on developing these sciences. Anyone interested in the real potential of sciences like these should read some of Ray Kurzweils' material.

Too many people look at developing scientific fields such as these from a "where we are now" type of mindset. Which is ignorant to say the least.

[The Deacon]

I don't think you have to worry about that happening before we kill ourselves off as a species. I would say that I am an expert in this field, as I have a PhD in nanochemistry and a few patents in the field you're talking about. Not only are we too dumb as a species, but we're also not spending any REAL money on solving these problems.

To put it in perspective, we are close to self-sharpening knives. That will be cool. We can also achieve atomic sharpness in a couple ways with non-rusting materials. That's neat. Nanoreplicators aren't going to happen, unless you consider ALD, CVD and PVD assembly lines to be nanoreplicators, in which case we have them already. If you knew what an atom beam for gallium alone requires, you would see the joke in this. Also, the variability of required elements for something like that to occur is not something people will be able to keep in a home. It just isn't. It is fun to think about that, but without controlled, spacially-defined conversion of nuclear-bomb-level energy into matter, what you're talking about is going to stay science fiction.

People in science do all kinds of buzz building to gain funding. While the funding often results in really cool inventions, many of the press releases are not written by the scientists and do not reflect much of the reality of the field. Often the blind describe the science to the blind causing all kinds of misconceptions.

You may be right, it's a subject I know little about and have very little interest in. Still, as someone born of that era, I have to wonder how the scientists responsible for the development of ENIAC, or those who used it to help build the atom bomb, would have responded if someone had suggested that less than 3/4 of a century later the average citizen would own computers, some small enough to fit in a jacket pocket, capable of doing far more, far faster, than that thirty ton monster.

[kbuzbee]

You may be right, it's a subject I know little about and have very little interest in. Still, as someone born of that era, I have to wonder how the scientists responsible for the development of ENIAC, or those who used it to help build the atom bomb, would have responded if someone had suggested that less than 3/4 of a century later the average citizen would own computers, some small enough to fit in a jacket pocket, capable of doing far more, far faster, than that thirty ton monster.

I still remember hearing Ken Olsen (founder of Digital Equipment Corp) explain how IBM was completely out of their minds developing the PC because no sane person would want a computer in their home.

Wonder what he'd say about a quad core phone?

Ken

Ken

[SolidState]

I bet Deacon is enjoying how curmudgeonly I can be.

It's fun to imagine things, and that's all these guys are doing. They're taking some current science and extrapolating with imagination without taking any science into account. It's something I wouldn't mind doing with some of my science friends in Washington now that weed is legal there. I'd be happy to get inebriated and play imagineer all day long while I'm on vacation, but while I'm actually working in nanotechnology, the standards are a bit more stringent. In my professional world, what they're doing is unethical and generally used to dupe rubes out of money. It's somewhat insulting to people who pay attention to quantum chemistry for a living based in inventing things involving quantum chemistry and experimental quantum physics. It would be like telling Tony that you know more about what's possible in a burning building than him because you read a fantasy book about magic fire.

I make quantum switches - the kinds that used countable numbers of atoms and tunneling to revolutionize how we drive pixels. I also make anisotropic planar and fractally patterned metamaterials in my research in a Phase II NSF Center for Chemical Innovation. I have a PhD in thin-film chemistry and printed electronics under the world's expert in inorganic lithographic chemistry. I'm not pulling it out of my *** when I say that I know what I'm talking about in atomic printing. Currently, the state of the art practitioners in the field can reliably deposit 2-dimensionally with a very select number of materials, and 3-dimensionally with an even more select group of materials. The state of the art are 8 nm lines. That may seem small, because it is, but we're talking 20 atoms wide by 20 atoms high, and that requires a lot of pre-planning and organization of environment as well as material choice. Some of the prerequisites for the material to be controllably printable are that it must have a selective reaction that can be controlled by some sort of directed radiation. Not many things have that, not to mention the ability to terminate the radiation without secondary radiation causing further exposure. Otherwise, your material deposition parameters are controlled by chemical and physical forces such as solvent surface tension and wettability in the case of dip-pen lithography which is on the order of hundreds of thousands if not millions of atoms.

In a nutshell, most of these books have the realism of the Jetsons with regard to the state of the art in nanotechnology. It's no different than the space craze books of the sixties, seventies and eighties. They rely on people being more imaginative than informed, and that's fine as long as people know it's fiction. If you want to see where things are or will be within the next twenty years, look at DARPA and NSF grant proposals that get funding. Einstein was a patent clerk, and he had to deal with total and utter BS like 80% of these books all day. It was his job to sort through the crap and judge the merits of these ideas. Some people argue that his most genius choice was to work in that office. Ask yourself how many patents these sensationalists have on the technology that they purport to understand and believe that they can design or have designed. Then ask yourself why they haven't filed for these patents if they're so sure these things are possible and are going to be such a strong part of our future.

As an aside, Dip-pen nanolithography isn't even true nano in my book. Thermal inkjet and sonoplotting are both better than dip-pen and both of those effectively suck when compared to what Inpria is doing with Hafnium-based e-beam lithographic resists. Don't even get me started on STM and how ridiculous people who claim it can be used to make nanomachines are. As previously stated, I work with the best lithographers in the world, the company that is on the roadmap for semiconductor manufacture - i.e. they're next in line to overcome current organic photoresists. We also work with things like dip-pen research on sustainable in low-resolution display manufacture. Dip-pen and its brethren are not going to get us to where you think they will. The physics of dip pen do not allow it.

I'm not trying to be condescending, but I would love if people actually looked at the state of the art as a resource instead of the fiction as their primary resource. Read papers in Science, JACS, Nature, Advanced Materials, Nano, and patents, not sci-fi books if you want to seem informed to those who actually practice. There is a difference in proving something and playing in a space that cannot be disproven. The prior is science while the latter is either fiction or religion depending on semantic arguments.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Thank you, SolidState. I would like your take on this question: Starting with what we have now, the current state of the art in nano and micro technology, AND, the advancing fields of genetic engineering and protein design and biotechnology, what is a good pathway, from how you see things, to get from where we currently are, to full scale atomic-molecular replicators and nano assemblers, able to work with atomic precision diamond and to do the sorts of things people such as Eric Drexler, Ralph Merkle, Ray Kurzweil, and others discuss?

Like if the government said "We are going to have a Manhattan Project for Nano Robotic Assemblers and are willing to spend billions of dollars specifically for this goal", what would be the most efficient and direct way to reach that goal?

[phillipsted]

Very interesting information, SolidState! Thanks for sharing - I learned something new today! :)

TedP

[SolidState]

What I don't think is happening is a size scale understanding. A carbon-carbon bond is about 0.15 nanometers. A cell is generally >1000 nm. Atoms are generally < 0.5nm across. Our current minimal resolution using electron beams and EUV is 8 nm on only a single material.

Diamond can be grown in very few settings - primarily via Chemical Vapor Deposition. The fundamentally false idea that you and these authors are pretending is true is that atoms will go where you want them to if you put them there. The best guy at doing this in the solid is a guy named David Johnson, and even he ends up using vacuum chambers that are bigger than a person to do a very select set of materials this way in thicknesses on the order of 50 nm. He can only control unidirectional growth (down to 1 nm or so), and he must use thermodynamics to generate a final product - i.e. it's controlled by where the atoms want to be, not exactly where he put them.

At the atomic scale, atoms move to thermodynamically stable places - be the thermodynamics physically or chemically driven. Atomic printing only works when you initially place atoms where they want to go in the symmetric orientation that they find suitable in the environmental conditions present. Diamond only grows in certain pressure and temperature ranges, and unless you mimic those, the atoms will not arrange in tetrahedral coordinations leaving you with diamond-like carbon.

Your question is the nano-equivalent of asking a NASA scientist when the space shuttles will have transporters.

[SolidState]

If you're interested in the growth of diamond, you should look into the best work I've seen on the subject. It's by Yu Fei Meng and Russel Hemley at Carnegie in Washington DC. You'll see where the state of that art is, and you may also come away with some better understanding of what it takes to make diamond.

[JD Spydo]

The 2 sectors of "nanotechnology" that I am most intrigued with and looking forward to are the nanotech lubrication products and the strong advances that they have made in the science of ceramics.

My nephew has a "Phd" in physics and he has told me that "nanotechnology" is truly going to open a "Pandora's Box" into many scientific endeavors. I do believe that in our lifetime they will develop a lubrication that will eliminate all friction and there will be no wear & tear to contend with.

Now as far as knifemaking and what nanotech can do in the areas of metallurgy I can't comment on but you can be rest assured it will be an area that they will be exploring.