Nano Technology

Posted by : Unknown Wednesday, April 24, 2013

NANOTECHNOLOGY

1.INTRODUCTION :

In a world of information, digital technologies have made copying fast, cheap ,and perfect , quite , independent of cost or complexity of the content. what if the same were to happen in the world of matter? The production cost of a ton of tetra byte RAM chips would be about the same as the production cost of steel. Design costs matter, production costs would not matter.

At the last turn of the century, the average person would have had a hard time trying to understand how cars and airplanes worked, and computers and nuclear bombs exist only in theory. By the next turn of the century, we may have submicroscopic, self-replicating robots; machine people; the end of disease; even immortality.

Hard to imagine? Not for the new breed of scientist who says that the 21st century could see all these science fiction dreams come true the is because of molecular nanotechnology, a hybrid of chemistry and engineering that would let us manufacture anything with atomic precision. In fact, scientists claim that even within the next 50 years, this new technology will change the world in ways we can barely begin to imagine today.

Just as computers break down data into its most basic form 1’s and 0’s— nanotechnology deals with matter in its most elemental form: atoms and molecules.

With a computer, once data is broken down and organized into combinations of 1s and 0s, it can be easily reproduced and distributed. With matter, the basic building blocks are atoms and the combinations of atoms that make up molecules. Nanotechnology lets you manipulate those atoms and molecules, making it possible to manufacture, replicate, and distribute any substance known to humans as easily and cheaply as you can replicate data on a computer.

2.HOW NANO TECHNOLOGY WILL CHANGE THE WORLD:

(a). First Bricks Then The Building :

Before nanotechnology can become anything other than a very impressive computer simulation, nanotechnologists are inventing an assembler, a few-atoms-large nanomachine that can custom-build matter.

Engineers at Cornell and Stanford, as well as at Zyvex (the self- described "first molecular nanotechnology development company") are working to create such assemblers right now.

The first products will most likely be superstrong nanoscale building materials, such as the Bucky tubes . Bucky tubes are chicken-wire-shapedtubes made from geodesic dome-shaped carbon molecules . These tubes are essentially nanometer-sized graphite fibers, and their strength is 100 to 150 times that of steel at less than one-fourth the weight. With Bucky tubes we can build super roller coasters that drop you from 14,000 feet or we could take tram rides through the Himalayas.

The key to manufacturing with assemblers on a large scale is self-replication. One nano-sized robot making wood one nano-sized piece at a time would be painfully slow. But if these assemblers could replicate themselves, we could have trillions of assemblers all manufacturing in unison. Then there would be no limit to the kinds of things we could create. "Not only our manufacturing process will be transformed, but our concept of labor. Consumer goods will become plentiful, inexpensive, smart, and durable".

(b).The Ways That Molecular Nanotechnology could Change our lives:

(b.1)Manufacturing and Industry:

Nanotechnology will render the traditional manufacturing process Obsolete. For example, we'd no longer have a steel mill Outfitted with enormous, expensive machinery, running on fossi fuels and employing hundreds of human workers; instead we'd have a nanofactory with trillions of nanobots synthesizing steel, molecule by molecule.

Bill Spence believes that all industry would disappear except software engineering and design. We'd simply design, engineer, and do a molecular model of any product we wanted, and then software could tell a nanobot how to make it.

(b.2).Use of Natural Resources:

Rather than clear-cutting forests to make paper, we'd have assemblers synthesizing paper. Rather than using oil for energy, we'd have molecule-sized solar cells mixed into road pavement a few hundred Famine would be obliterated, as food could be synthesized easily and cheaply with a microwave-sized nanobox that pulls the raw materials (mostly carbon) from the air or the soil. And by using nanobots as cleaning machines that break down pollutants, we would be able to counteract the damage we've done to the earthsince the industrial revolution.

(b.3).Medicine:

Nanotechnology could also mean the end of disease as we know it. If you caught a cold or contracted AIDS, you'd just drink a teaspoon of liquid that contained an army of molecule-sized nanobots programmed to enter your body's cells and fight viruses. If a genetic disease ran in yourfamily, you'd ingest nanobots that would burrow into your DNA and repair the defective . Even traditional plastic surgery would be eliminated, as medical nanobots could change your eye color, alter the shape of your nose, or even give you a complete sex change without surgery.

3.WHAT NEW OBJECTS WILL APPEAR BECAUSE OF NANOTECHNOLOGY? :

Perhaps the big story -- with mature nanotechnology, any object can morph into any other imaginable object... truly a concept requiring personal exposure to fully understand the significance and possibilities, but to get a grip on the idea, consider this:

The age of digital matter -- multi-purpose, programmable machines, change the software, and something completely different happens.

A simple can opener or a complex asphalt paver are both, single purpose machines. Ask them to clean your floor or build a radio tower and they "stare" back blankly. A computer is different, it is a multi purpose machine --one machine that can do unlimited tasks by changing software... but only in the world of bits and information.

Fractal Robots are programmable machines that can do unlimited tasks in the physical world, the world of matter. Load the right software and the same "machines" can take out the garbage, paint your car, or construct an office building and later, wash that building's windows. In large groups, these devices exhibit what may be termed as macro (hold in your hand) sized "nanobots ", possessing AND performing many of the desirable features of mature nanomachines (as described in Drexler's, Engines of Creation, Unbounding the Future, Nanosystems, etc.).This is the beginning of "Digital Matter".

These Robots look like "Rubic's Cubes" that can "slide" over each other on command, changing and moving in any overall shape desired for a particular task. These cubes communicate with each other and share power through simple internal induction coils, have batteries, a small computer and various kinds of internal magnetic and electric inductive motors (dependingon size) used to move over other cubes (details here). When sufficiently miniaturized (below

0.1mm) and fabricated using photolithography methods, cubes can also be programmed to assemble other cubes of smaller or larger size. This “self-assembly" is an important feature that will drop cost dramatically.

The point is – if you have enough of the cubes of small enough dimension, they can slide over each other, or "morph" into any object with just about any function, one can imagine and program for such behavior. Cubes of sufficiently miniaturized size could be programmed to behave like the "T-2" Terminator Robot in the Arnold Schwartznegger movie, or a lawn chair... Just about any animate or inanimate object.

Fractal Shape Shifting Robots have been in prototype for the last two years and this form of "digital matter" to hit the commercial seen very soon. In the near future, if you gaze out your window and see something vaguely resembling an amoeba constructing an office building, you'll know what "IT" is.

This is not to say individual purpose objects will not be desirable... Back to cotton -- although Cubes could mimic the exact appearance of a fuzzy down comforter (a blanket), if made out of cubes, it would be heavy and not have the same thermal properties. Although through a heroic engineering effort, such a "blanket" could be made to insulate and pipe gasses like acomforter and even "levitate" slightly to mimic the weight and mass, why bother when the real thing can be manufactured atom by atom, on site, at about a meter a second (depending on thermal considerations).

Also, "single purpose" components of larger machines will be built to take advantage of fantastic structural properties of

diamondoid-Buckytube composites for such things as thin, super strong aircraft parts. Today, using the theoretical properties of such materials, we can design an efficient, quiet, super safe personal vertical takeoff airocar. This vehicle of science fiction is probably science future.

4.WHICH INDUSTRIES SHOULD DISAPPEAR BECAUSE OF NANOTECHNOLOGY?:

Everything -- but software, everything will run on software, and general engineering, as it relates to this new power over matter... and the entertainment industry. Unfortunately, there will still be insurance salesmen and lawyers, although not in my solar orbiting city state. If as Drexler suggest, we can pave streets with self assembling solar cells, I would tend to avoid energy stocks. Mature nanites could mine any material from the earth, landfills or asteroids at very low cost and in great abundance.

The mineral business is about to change. Traditional manufacturing will not be able to compete with assembler technology and what happens to all those jobs and the financial markets is a big, big issue that needs to be addressed now.

We will have a lot of obsolete mental baggage and

Programming to throw out of our heads... Traditional pursuits of money will need to be reevaluated when a personal assembler can manufacture a fleet of Porch, that run circles around todays models.

As Drexler so intuitively points out, the best thing to do, is to get the whole world's society educated and understanding what will and can happen with this technology. This will help people make the transition and keep mental, and financial meltdowns to a minimum.

5. WHICH NEW INDUSTRIES SHOULD APPEAR BECAUSE OF NANOTECHNOLOGY?:

Future generations are laughing as they read these words…

Laughing at the utter inadequacy and closed imagination of this writing... So consider this a comically inadequate list. However, if they are laughing, I am satisfied and at peace, as this means we made it through the transition (although I fear it shall not be the last).

Mega engineering for space habitation and transport in the Solar System will have a serious future. People will be surprised at how fast space develops, because right now, a very bright core of nano-space enthusiasts have engineering plans, awaiting thearrival of the molecular assembler. People like Forrest Bishop have wonderful plans for space transport and development, capable of being implemented in surprisingly short time frames. This is artificial life, programmed to "grow" faster than natural systems. I think Mars will be teraformed in less time than it takes to build a nuclear power plant in the later half of the good old, backward 20th century.

An explosion in the arts and service industries are to be expected when no fields need to be plowed for our daily bread, similar to the explosion when agriculture became mechanized and efficient and the sons and daughters of farmers migrated to cities. This explosion will be exponentially greater. Leisure time, much more leisure time, more diversions... · What professions should disappear because of nano-technology ?

Ditch digger, tugboat captain – most professions where humans are now used as "smart brawn", or as "the best available computer", including jet fighter pilot, truck driver, surgeon, pyramid builder, steel worker, gold miner... not that there will not be people doing these jobs, just for fun. Charming libation venders have a good future, until the A.I. We are just on the verge for finding out how frequent and varied novel situations can be.

6.NEW ENTERTAINMENT / EXPERIENCES WHICH WILL BE POSSIBLE WITH NANOTECHNOLOGY?:

Perhaps the definition of life and entertainment will become blurred, but as I have previously noted, you can have a LOT of fun

with Utility Fog and a super internet. In the near term, how about designing a "roller coaster" that self assembles (traditional construction costs are not a consideration) and made of supermaterials 80-100 times as strong and much lighter than steel. That first drop can be made from 14,000 feet! The ride can last until you need the skin replaced on your face. How about a tram ride through the Himalayas?

Amateur underwater archeologist could map and recover ancient treasures from the Mediterranean in personal subs bristling with sensors. Dinosaur hunters could send down microscopic probes into the Earth searching for new fossil fields, then release nanomachines to meticulously unearth finds. Zero G sports are yet to be defined. These are simple examples written by a mind stuck in this contemporary world view. The possibilities are as numerous as moves in 3-D chess.

The Foresight Institute suggest we now have the question of not if the technology can be developed, but when. I agree. The this is a function of the general concept awareness in society. The media is picking up Drexler's ideas ever more quickly now. Presently, two American companies are know to be engineering several "magical" assembler dependent products right now, in anticipation of the arrival of the assembler. Who knows how many black government projects may have hundreds of millions in funding around the world. The militaraZ understands Drexler's ideas and what a weapons boon nanotechnology will be.

Keep in mind ,nanotechnology is not the ultimate,nor the end of technology… is nexpico technology (trillionth of a meter)? If so, this technology would deal with "matter" on a scale 1000 times smaller and emanate from deep inside the quantum realm... What does this mean? Power and understanding over space-time to engineer super luminal flight (faster than light)? Perhaps. If so, this would probably represent only the tip of this quantum weirdness iceberg. Pico Technology may be developed with enhanced intelligence made available through nanotechnology.

7.PROBLEMS WITH CURRENT NANOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH IDEAS ENERGY REQUIREMENTS:

One of the big problems not fully appreciated with current ideas in nano technology research is the energy requirements for synthesizing bulk materials and big molecules. If you wanted to build concrete for example atom by atom, then one has to seriously ask whether it is best done using ingredients used for the manufacture of concrete which is found in reasonable abundance or do we start with atoms. If we start with atoms, then every chemical bond in concrete must be synthesised bond, by bond, using chemical steps that would at best use several times that bond energy to achieve the desired effect. The result is a an energy requirement to synthesise concrete that is way beyond the energy required to make concrete from existing ingredients. For this reason, bulk materials will never be synthesised using nano technology methods. Nanotechnology contributions would be limited to making simple precursors if that is energetically feasible and low cost enzymes that speed up various chemical reactions.

(A).Cross Bonding:

In trying to synthesise very large molecules, like DNA, the problems with cross bonding and reactive intermediates bonding unfavourably with other molecules poses a huge risk to making perfect molecules. The work of enzymes overcome most of these difficulties. However, enzymes have to be developed that co- exist with other enzymes and other chemicals. In nature, this is achieved through millions of years of evolution where the right chemicals have been found to do the right job through natural selection pressures. Beyond that, compartmentalisation is used where chemicals cannot co-exist through their design. The compartmentalisation also requires various molecules to transport materials through membranes separating the compartments. All these operations require a huge diversity of chemicals that have to be researched and perfected so that they can co-exist with the previous set of chemicals.

(B).Time Restrictions:

To perfect such systems require an unreasonable amount of effort on behalf of a nano technologist to search out all combinations. It requires considerable effort even now to research just one chemical in all its glorious working detail let alone combinations of chemicals in a system.

(C).Wholesale Mistakes:

Nano-technologists hope to side-step many of the issues by using something the equivalent of a robot arm to perform molecular level assembly. Certainly for mass manufacturing, this is a wholesale mistake as can be proved when energy considerations are taken into account.

(D).Reality:

The idea of molecular assembly is taken from DNA synthesis where a small unit called ribosome attaches to a strand of DNA, moving along it 3 base pairs at a time to read the genetic code. The genetic code is a bit like binary code but binary codes have only two levels which are 0 and 1. The genetic code however consist of 4 different kinds of bases formed into complementary pairs, and since each of these base pairs can have 4 different values and when 3 sets of base pairs are read, there are 4^3 different levels or 64 levels that 3 base pairs can code. There are around 20 amino acids that are coded for by base pairs leaving some of the remaining 44 codes not to be used or to doubly code up existing amino acids. The amino acids are strung together to make a polypeptide chain and this polypeptide chain is the precursor for each of the different chemicals that is found in our body. The polypetides are processed into various proteins which could be anything from a nutrient to an enzyme.

In all of these operations, the ribosome is the key component that translates millions of years of evolution coded into the DNA as information into actual chemicals that make up living organisms. It is too tempting and too far a leap to think that all that DNA technology could be replicated in the lab with simple robot arms to make nano- technology machines.

(E).Energy Consumption:

For one thing a robot arm that picks up a precursor and attaches them precisely to a growing molecule is particularly energy inefficient. You have to pick up the precursor from one place and place it an another which requires HUGE amounts of energy in relation to the actual work accomplished.

(F).Biological Systems & Energy Conservation

In biological system, the currency for energy is the energy carried by ATP (Adenosine Tri-Phosphate). Every time an action is required usually a molecule of ATP is involved and energy is absorbed from ATP which is then recycled. Its common for biochemists to cite reactions in terms of the number of ATP molecules consumed per reaction. So some chemicals require 1 ATP to accomplish its reactions while others including very large molecules require hundreds to thousands of ATP molecules to accomplish all its tasks. To move a ribosome 3 base pairs while its attached to a DNA

requires huge numbers of ATP molecules to be consumed. But a lot of it is recovered when the final protein it makes is broken down as it gets recycled which means that overall, the process of reading DNA and making macro molecules is fairly energy efficient.

Compare that scenario where a robot arm with dimensions approaching a fraction of a micron is used to synthesise molecules. Every time the arm swings around to pick a chemical and place it at the right place to synthesise an exotic chemical, it spends billions of ATP energy equivalents in doing mechanical work. As the robot arm requires computers and sensors to make them work, we are now counting into trillions of ATP energy equivalents make one chemical bond in the newly synthesised product. There is no getting away from this reality of the total energy cost in making a new materials from scratch. Nano technology using this type of universal assembler is clearly nonsense and doomed to failure in all but a handful of cases where small quantities of exotic chemicals are involved.

(G).Energy For Computers & Robot Arms:

It does not matter how small a scale we go, if we use robot arms that have to be swung around, the energy to drive it and the energy to make its feedback system in the form of computers work would be a tremendous waste compared to making the product by bulk techniques.

Many of these research proposals have their roots from work done with STEM (Scanning Tunnelling Electron Microscope) probes. They have been used to image single atoms and also to move atoms about but all in all, the realities of molecular assembly using STEMs are being escaped here. To put a few atoms in place has cost trillions upon trillions of ATP equivalent and there is no way to make savings on that energy expenditure except apparently through miniaturisation.

(H).Nature's Robot Arm:

By making the robot arm smaller more energy efficiency can be achieved but still you need a computer to sense and control the operation of the robot arm which means you still end up spending billions in ATP energy quivalent to make the system work. The only reason why DNA works is because the ribosome sits on the DNA and moves along three base pairs of the DNA strand to read information. The energy required to transfer information from DNA to final

product is still high but the product is burned to recycle the energy which means that in total no more than a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand ATP equivalent is used up per product molecule (i.e. energy used from start to finish including pre- cursors, membrane transport etc.). That is why replication and protein synthesis in nature works. Spending and recovering energy is the reality of a biological assembly system that reads information stored in a molecule, converts the information briefly to products before recycling them to recover the energy spent.

(I).Energy Of Chemical Synthesis:

A man made robot arm does not recycle lost energy. So where is the justification by nanotechnologists in their claims for making food from a handful of elements at some time in the future? There is no justification for such a claim! Its far easier and better done using biological organisms!!

What of making concrete and other structures with universal assembler? This again is nonsense and it is far easier done with bulk chemicals and bulk processes where minerals and starting materials are extracted efficiently from the ground in their native state and processed to yield the desired products using conventional chemical processing steps. The development of enzymes that speed up reactions is extremely useful which is best once again synthesised from chemicals that are available from the lab shelves rather than synthesised in limited quantities by a nano-assembler. Commercial realities dictate that its wiser to aim for a chemical that can be synthesised readily in the lab rather than an ultra expensive exotic chemical that can only be built in small quantities with a universal assembler.

(J).Lack Of Self Repair:

Another subject not fully appreciated about the biological system is the self repair systems built in at all levels from repairing damaged DNA code to destroying molecules to re-manufacture them for re-use. Small machines need self repair at all levels to cope with the high breakage rates found at the smaller scales. Nanotechnologists cannot even begin to address the question right now because they don't have any nano technology machines ready for this work to be carried out!

9.WHEN WILL NANOTECHNOLOGY WILL ARRIVE:

“Arrive ” is broadly defined as the first “universal Assembler” that has the ability to build with atoms anything one’s software defines. A universal assembler may look like a micro oven, connected to a raw atomic feed stock, like carbon black, o2, sulfur power.

Now most of the people understand that it will take A long, disciplined effort, and it will not be an accidental discovery. Even so, they seem to believe that shortly after getting the first nanotech manipulators, well get many of the nanotech miracles. But probably the first thing we are likely to get with nanotech will be cute publicity demo’s may not even be visible to the naked eye.

It took over a decade after serious nanotechnolgy research got underway, to create the first nanotech robotic arm. Then we jumped over about another decade while they create thee first self replicating nanofactory.

10.POTENTIAL SIDE EFFECTS:

What will happen to the global order when assemblers and automated engineering eliminate the need for most international trade? How will society change when individuals can live indefinitely? What will we do when replicating assemblers can make almost anything without human labor? What will we do when AI systems can think faster than humans?

(A).The Right Tools in the Wrong Hands:

As with computers, nanotechnology and programmable assemblers could become ordinary household objects. It's not too likely that the average person will get hold of and launch a nuclear weapon, but imagine a deranged white separatist launching an army of nanobots programmed to kill anyone with brown eyes or curly hair. And even if nanotechnology remains in the hands of governments, think what a Stalin or a Saddam Hussein could do. Vast armies of tiny, specialized killing machines that could be built and dispatched in a day; nano-sized surveillance devices or probes that could be implanted in the brains of people without their knowledge. The potential misuses of nanotechnology are vast.

(B).Attack of the Killer Nanobots?:

And what about the old sci-fi fear that robots will evolve greater intelligence than humans, become sentient, and take over the world? Certainly nanomachines might replicate and spread faster than we could control them. Drexler posits that a little thinking ahead could address this problem. For example, self-replicating assemblers could be programmed to compare their instruction sets an destroy any copies with the slightest deviation. That way, mutant nanobots could be contained before they did any damage.

One point most fail to realize when first considering the effects of nanotechnology on population (the demise and reversal ofaging), is the same nanotechnology will open up outer space with all its unimaginable quantities of material, energy and elbowroom, with truly inexpensive access, great safety (massively redundant systems) made possible by the new economics of self replicating machinery. "The Solar System could accommodate the population of the Earth a billion times over, (living) in style." Also to be considered is the fact once nanotechnology arrives, this is not the end of discovery and technology. It is a futile endeavor... to consider how population is affected by this technology viewed with a perspective of arrival, then a flat curve, through to infinity.

9.POTENTIAL SIDE EFFECTS:

(A).The Right Tools in the Wrong Hands:

(B).Attack of the Killer Nanobots?:

10.CONCLUSION:

Humanity will be faced with a powerful, accelerated social revolutions as a result of nanotechnology. In the near future, a team of scientists will succeed in constructing the first nao-sized robot capable Of self replication. Consumer goods will become plentiful, inexpensive, smart, and durable. Medicine will take a quantum leap forward. Space travel and colonization will become safe and affordable. For these and other reasons global life styles will change radically and human behavior drastically impacted.